I don't understand...the posters who rail the loudest against government are the same ones who defend it. What gives? Would that defense change if some one else were at the helm?

It is so confusing...

LOL. Indeed.

What is art to some is not always art to others:

[MSNBC-Reuters, 6-14-05]

In June, community leaders in a largely gay neighborhood in Toronto unveiled a 13-foot-high statue of Alexander Wood, one of their historical heroes, who according to legend had been pressured out of town in the early 1800s over a sex scandal. As the story goes, magistrate Wood, investigating a heterosexual rape in which the victim claimed to have scratched her attacker's genitals, rounded up numerous suspects and zealously examined each for such a scratch. Hence, the statue features a 5-foot-tall image of Wood, seated, "inspecting" a standing man with his trousers down.

I don't understand (there's a Superman quote that will be tossed back at me for sure). I don't see the railers doing any defending. I notice they rely on gubmint. The expect things from Gubmint. They own gubmint. But I don't see any defenses of gubmint nor do I see enough understanding of the machinery of gubmint to make any assessment. All I see is their empty beer cans hitting the TV screen.

You have to see which actions are defended .. which are "railed against."

Or are you suggesting that one has the simple choice of being for or against governmental (in)actions, as a (w)hole?

Military spending is (arguably unfortunately) a necessity.
Funding to study studies on the mating habits of Darter Snails, and the impact of a new overpass, on them; is not a necessity. (Supe, tell us about the 'Squirrel overpass')

I think this is the big point right there. Public funding of specific art can also be a slippery slope, because regardless of what the art is, there is going to be some frickin moron somewhere who will be offended and sue.

There will be cries of favoritism from artists who feel that their "art" should get public funding.
Gloria Steinman will be pissed off that Women artists aren't getting enough funding
There will be art funded that most people probably don't care to see (Robert Mapplethorpe with a bull whip in his rectum immediately comes to mind).
Al Sharpton will be pissed off that black artists aren't getting enough funding
Jim Baker will will be pissed off that Christian artists aren't getting enough funding
Rosie Odonnell will be pissed off that fat lesbian artists aren't getting enough funding
Louis Farrakhan will be pissed off that Jewish artists are getting too much funding

Realisticly, the state can't fund all of it, so it shouldn't fund any of it.

Tom