[geeks] Socialized medicine [was Re: nVidia 8800GT for Apple Mac Pro]

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Phil Stracchino <alaric at metrocast.net>
>Date: 2008/05/27 Tue AM 06:33:52 EDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] Socialized medicine [was Re: nVidia 8800GT for Apple Mac 
Pro]

>Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>> On May 26, 2008, at 06:22 , Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
>>> Most of the early settlers in the English part of the "new world"
>>> went there to evade religous persecution.
>> 
>> Actually, only a few came here because of that.
>> 
>> That's an old American myth.
>> 
>> Most of the early settlements were purely economic colonies run as 
>> standard business arrangements.
>> 
>> People just tend to focus on the pilgrims for some odd reason.
>
>The "moral descendents" of the Pilgrims like to focus on the Pilgrims 
>and to remind everyone that the Pilgrim Fathers came to America fleeing 
>from religious persecution in Europe.  However, as has oft been 
>remarked, it's perhaps closer to the truth to say that they fled what 
>they perceived as religious persecution in Europe, seeking the freedom 
>to persecute others in their own way.

Wow, what a neat, snippy way to dismiss what was a major, life-changing 
decisions by the early settlers. I think that most knew that once they left 
the harbor in europe, they'd never see their relatives, let alone europe 
again... And survival on the open seas was less than certain, and the 
situation they arrived in was, to say the least, uncertain.

Ditto for the folks that went from the eastern states to the western 
territories, and the later move to Alaska (gold rush)...

It is sometimes hard to remember that a move of a few thousand miles was not a 
trivial decision, and that there was almost no ability to change their mind 
once they left.

I'm also reminded of the mythical "Joad family" and their real-life 
counterparts that abandoned everything they knew to escape the dust bowl in 
the mid-west, and the irish that escaped the potato famine in Ireland... All 
those decisions were not simply "let's give it a try and see if it can work 
out" kinds of decisions. They went all-in, to borrow a phrase from the current 
alpha-male craze, "texas hol'em poker"...

Lionel