The Yin and The Yang...

Not actually being a student of Chinese philosophy, but more in the camp of "enough information to make me dangerous", I'd like to espouse some thoughts on yin and yang.

To wit: every good idea has its bad side and every bad idea has its good side. From the politically charged atmosphere of left and right some examples:

Welfare: a good idea to help out people in short term need. Welfare allows people to become dependant when they don't really care to work to help themselves out of a bad situation.

Iraq War: a bad idea to stablilize and control the oil reserves in Iraq. The Iraq war has brought home to many Americans what the rest of the world thinks about America. Despite assertions from some anti-Bush groups, Bush did not make the rest of the world hate us - he just fed the fire. But Americans only want hear how much the rest of the world loves us, refusing to admit the bad things that we have done in the name of capitalism. We are now forced to see that the world is not in love with Americans and capitalism.

These are of course simplified examples of very complex situations, but it gives the general idea. The whole "balance" idea seems to work even when we humans try to throw stuff out of balance. Problem is, we may not always like what happens to bring things back into balance.