Something's desparately wrong with the world

I was going to write that something's desperately wrong with the world when only one man is protesting in favor of free trade and capitalism at the WTO meeting this coming week in Hong Kong, while 10,000 will be rioting against it. However, on second thought, Australian accountant Simon Patkin is correct in one of his protest signs, which reads, "rationality not rioting". That is to say, the best way, the most rational way, to change minds is through peaceful intellectual activism, e.g., blogging or other forms of written or verbal persuasion, as opposed to the mindlessly violent street protests of the anti-globalization nihilist movement - that rag-tag conglomeration of nitwits, who refuse to face the facts of socialism's destructive history. Their violence is proof of their impotence.

One the other hand, the main defender's of capitalism in today's world, the conservatives, have a philosophy that is inadequate to uphold and defend free markets. The proof is: so many of the world's countries - including the relatively free ones - continue to implement massive socialist policies. And, while many "mainstream" conservatives say they are against socialism, they are frequently afraid to publically object to its most prominent manifestations, e.g., social security, public education, and publicly-financed welfare and medical care. Also, no doubt that in some cases, conservatives are not truly confident about the superiority of capitalism over socialism. The proof of this is that conservatives can frequently be seen championing socialist policies, e.g., witness Mr. Bush's Medicare reform bill, which was the largest increase in public socialist expenditures since Lyndon Johnson's disastrous Great Society programs of the 1960's.