[Summit] Crime

[Emlyn Addison]

> As for RI, it is horrible what has happened here under single party rule.
>  Massachusetts is a liberal state, but one that is more balanced in how it
> deals with businesses, and it is booming, absolutely booming.  I wish the
> national republican party would interpret the cautionary tale of Rhode
> Island as meaning that they need to come back towards the center a bit to
> be sure they remain a viable alternative to the democrats.
>

That's really the crux. Politics, if you'll forgive the irony, is a lot
like business: monopoly inevitably leads to stagnation, apathy, cronyism
and ultimately a deterioration of deliverables.

But you rightly point out that being a viable alternative to the Democrats
(or any party, for that matter) means moderating one's perspectives,
picking one's battles and recognizing that social attitudes, above all,
must be in time with the world or one is doomed to become irrelevant, if
not reviled.

In that, it seems sadly insufficient to characterize the Republican
moral-social-religious complex as merely "irrelevant" for there are few
pillars more central to democracy than social justice. For that reason it's
not at all difficult to understand why so many willingly and regularly
trade in a vote for a little fiscal conservatism for a vote of conscience.
I know I do.

Emlyn
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