First I'm very greatful that the lights stayed on, no matter how it was done at the rollover. I'm Greatful for ALL the lone voices that cried out a warning ! Thank you ! To me, events since 97 concerning Y2K, the President, the government, the Fed, Big Business and the media; have been a great lesson in searching the internet. 1) I have learned that it's a information tool and that if the government can ever censor it, America will become a nation of slaves. So protect it at all costs. 2) That the President has put into effect enough Executive Orders (by the stroke of a pen) and SECERT Classified PDD's to become the 1st American King. If I'm wrong on these thoughts then HE WILL REMOVE ALL OF THEM now that y2k rollover has passed. That is if he is an American that took the Oath of Office to UPHOLD the Constitution of the United States. 3) That with the newly-created International Public Information (IPI) system, PDD-68 (info copied to my page) IPI manipulated the news in order to safeguard their own interests and to avert a panic on the Banks and Markets. 4) That even living in South Florida, there are always things needed to be done to protect your faimly. (ps - common sence will tell you a 3 day storm is hogwash) 5) I've seen alot of name calling, flames etc. I would hope that people would look back to their great grand parents and see how they were prepared for anything so their faimly could survive. Americans are Americans, everyone is entitle to their own opinions, and to prepare for them selves as they see fit. There is no free lunch, the government wants to control the people. The Constitution says otherwise. They can't control people who are prepared. If the rollover was bad, with this being a election year. How Many would Keep Their Jobs? The IT people did their work and got paid for it, that was their job. The government did there management (they did bet the farm on it too) so far they've treated the people in the US like mushrooms. Some people prepare for what was called threat others saw no threat. I hope there is no need for info that could endanger anyone if they don't recieve it. Again my perceptions are that the government held the public out to dry without most being prepared. While they Elite were safely in their bunkers, hoarding water, food, fuel and being protected by armed guards hoping the lights would stay on; and the Smile be Happy crowd were in their own little world saying the Uncle Bill will take care of me. Boy are they lucky the computer people had enough sence to save them. 6) Over, I don't know, don't think so, but I sure hope so! Hope they find ways to fix the problems besides turning back clocks, windowing date patches, etc. Glad I'm on a Mac to bad the governments not lol 7) I saw alot of talk about realistic and/or unrealistic fears about TEOTWAWKI. The Pesident of this country was ready to declared marital law in all 50 States and give the controlling powers of government under the Constitution, to a paranoid group of nonelected people. THERE WAS A BIG PROBLEM AND IT'S STILL THERE ! Why because of patches and work arounds. 8) I'll wait and see, and hope for the best. 9) TROLL - yep on PRO BASS CHAT - TROLL ID 10) I Don't normally post on this board , just read it. There seems to be alot of children here posting Flames. So hose are my thoughts on y2k so far. Seeing that this was long , I will post a thought for all next. Thank you for your time & best of luck to all.

this was forwarded to me and i thought it appropriate to post it here as it seems a few here, while operating under the guise of wanting what is right for america, really want to push their morals and behavior down the throats of others who only wish to remain free while having the same opportunities to choose their own path without others trying to save them from what is none of their business.

by Russell Madden

The desire to act in accordance with our visions of what constitutes the good is deeply rooted in human nature and society. Despite all the inconsistencies evidenced by particular individuals in failing to live up to their ide- als, the average person does his best to struggle to fulfill the standards and values he has adopted.

When discussing issues of "the good" and acting to obtain that good, we are, in essence, dealing with ethical or moral matters. For anyone who desires to live, ethics are not an option. Each of us operates according to some ethical system. Those ethics may be consciously chosen after long research and evaluation. They may be implicitly adopted from our parents or social network. They may be consistent, a mishmash of contradictory notions, rational, irrational, or (for many people) a blending of the two.

Regardless of the particular morality they look to for guidance in daily life, people will (more or less) work towards whatever goals and by whatever means their ethics suggests to them. In general, this creates no problem in terms of retaining our freedoms. If an individual's morali- ty is faulty, if the values selected or the means used to obtain those values are, in reality, destructive, only he and those who voluntarily associate with him will suffer the negative consequences of his erroneous actions.

The danger comes when a desire to do good crosses the line from the personal to the political. While there are any number of reasons to explain the erosion of our liberty, the behavior of would-be moralists who seek to impose their vision of the good upon the rest of us must rank highly on any such list.

Enlisting the aid of the state to ensure that others behave in an ethical fashion is, itself, unethical. Even if we grant that the particular actions sought are objectively positive, there is no justification for one person or group of persons to petition the coercive institutions of the government to force benighted malefactors to act in their own self-interest.

If my neighbor observed that I was a spend-thrift and squandered my money on frivolities and had no savings to live on when I retire, he would be doing me a harm if he asked the government to withhold part of my income and to establish a social security program to ensure I had at least a modest amount of money available for my old age.

If my neighbor discerned that I endangered my health by drinking too much beer, smoking too many cigarettes, and consuming too many recreational drugs, he would be doing a bad thing should he get the state to tax or prohibit such products in order to inhibit or prevent me from using them. A drug enforcement agency or a bureau which regulated the alcohol and cigarettes I desired would be unjustified, even if my health drastically improved.

If my neighbor noticed that I watched too many movies filled with violence, gratuitous sex, and foul language, he would be injuring me if he sought to found a federal commis- sion charged with the responsibility of increasing the amount of uplifting and serious entertainment and education- al programming available to me.

If my neighbor caught me remodeling my basement without installing a larger window for easier egress in case of fire, he would be doing violence to me if he called on the city to institute a mandatory building code even if those guidelines might save my life.

If my neighbor realized that I rode my motorcycle without a helmet or drove my car without wearing a seat belt, he would be wrong to have the national government blackmail my state government demanding that I correct my behavior even if I thus increased my odds of surviving a crash.

If my neighbor visited my store and realized I employed no one who was handicapped, from an ethnic minority, or obese, and I refused to sell my goods to individuals of various races, he would be unethical in having a federal office of affirmative action insist I hire certain numbers of workers from particular groups and provide service to anyone who ventures through my doors.

If my neighbor recognized that my locally based busi- ness teetered on the brink of financial ruin, he would be doing me no favor should he get our city council to forbid any mega-stores from locating nearby, even if doing so would ensure that customers continued to frequent my establish- ment.

The label "do-gooders" carries a negative connotation for many, not because it is bad to do good but because those called do-gooders are usually perceived as intrusive busy- bodies more concerned with running other peoples' lives than attending to their own. A do-gooder is frequently seen as patronizing, condescending, and annoyingly self-righteous.

Under ordinary circumstances, we can simply tell such aggravating persons to mind their own business and leave us alone. If they persist in their ministrations to save us from ourselves, we can walk away and leave them lecturing to the air.

Unfortunately, the do-gooders long ago trampled down the invisible boundaries separating one citizen from anoth- er. Property rights -- individual rights -- have been bat- tered into unrecognizable, ineffectual blobs as the do- gooders shifted from private exhortation to public incarcer- ation of anyone rash enough to oppose their state-backed edicts and directives.

A defender of the do-gooders might complain that if the purpose of ethics is to accomplish the good, then how can anyone object if the do-gooder activists truly and objec- tively seek and obtain values for us which we should and would, if better informed, endeavor to reach by ourselves?

Such an objection would be answered by the observation that the ends never justify the means. A "good" reached by unethical means is, in fact, not a good, at all. To attempt to separate an "end" from a "means" and judge them by dif- ferent standards results in a moral morass. It is to create the political mess which passes for statesmanship in the modern world. It leads inexorably to the worst abuses imag- inable of human life and freedom.

There is no hard and fast distinction between a "means" and an "end." Every end potentially becomes the means to another end, and that goal a means to yet further objec- tives. Stated another way, every cause leads to an effect, and every effect becomes the cause to still other effects. For any individual, this process never ceases to operate as long as he is alive.

If, by definition, an ethical system provides guide- lines showing individuals how they should conduct their lives, then those persons must be able to make choices among alternatives. They must have the ability to pick a course of action for good or ill. For them to be morally responsi- ble people, it is not sufficient that they merely perform the correct behavior. To do what they should do, it is necessary that they make their selections freely. Other- wise, anything they do has -- in terms of their own perspec- tive -- no moral status.

Calling upon the government to force people to act in a certain fashion -- to "protect them from themselves" -- is not to aid them but to harm them. Such coercion subverts the very basis of morality -- free will choices among alter- natives -- by denying individuals the right to act according to the independent judgment of their own minds. It destroys a person's "sphere of autonomy," as the philosopher Tibor Machan might say, and subordinates it to the wishes and dictates of another.

No matter what ethics a person adopts, if that ethics cannot meet the conditions outlined above, then it is dis- qualified from any consideration as a valid moral system.

The proper purpose of a government cannot then be to impose an ethical standard on its citizens. Any such propo- sal results in a self-contradiction and must therefore be rejected. A legitimate government can only provide the basic conditions -- the fundamental foundation -- necessary and sufficient to allow each individual to practice whatever morality he desires. Venturing beyond that fence restrict- ing its powers, the state trespasses on forbidden ground. Its natural role can only be to safeguard our rights, not to violate them. In doing the former, it acts not as a "neces- sary evil" (evil is never necessary) but as a positive good.

As Thomas Jefferson stated two centuries ago, a good government "...shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned."

That insight is no less true today than when this nation was founded. The do-gooders seeking to help us would do well to remember that injunction and truly do good for us all by first and foremost defending our freedom to do wrong.

-- AWDRAGON (awdragon@yahoo.com), January 20, 2000

Answers

I am completely for your right to make your own choices for yourself. Now, when your choices result in costs or penalties, I insist that you alone pay for them, instead of penalizing me, as is happening now.

In other words, stop making me pay for what you get, ok?

-- (formerly@nowhere.zzz), January 20, 2000.

Awdragon, your ramblings remind me of Shakespeare's line "full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing".

Diatribes like this contribute nothing whatsoever to the solution of problems in this country.

Plus, what the hell does right and wrong have to do with the Y2K computer problem?

-- Dave Polich (wavedave@earthlink.net), January 20, 2000.

"You can't have any pudding until you eat your meat"

"How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?"

-- Johnny (jljtm@bellsouth.net), January 20, 2000.

So hose are my thoughts on y2k so far????

Hose on dude!

But please, some bullet points next time ok?

-- Gordon (g_gecko_69@hotmail.com), January 20, 2000.

Hey Dragon I liked it... what they going to do if God cancels the eclipse tonight??? Is what I wonder!!!

-- salene (salene814@hotmail.com), January 20, 2000.

AwDragon, I think I'll dump your post to a printer tomorrow and mull it over more when I can.

Having said that, what jumps out is the conflict between self-reliance, self-motivation and self-governance versus asking and expecting the government to do more and more and more. No buracracy (sp?) sunsets itself -- the only way they shrink is starvation. So, they keep taking more and more and getting "us" more and more hooked. And the price keeps climbing, in tribute and otherwise.

-- Redeye in Ohio (cannot@work.com), January 21, 2000.

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
I think I prefer the original. More concise. ;)

-- Servant (public_service@yahoo.com), January 21, 2000.