Liberal free for all coming to an end

[smc]

Originally Posted by tslust

I get my insurance through my job, thank you very much.

Well, aren't you the lucky one. Not everyone has such good fortune. But of course, this is America -- the one highly developed nation in the world where "social solidarity" is not just nearly non-existent, but where its opposite is taught to you from your first days in school. So, while we are all foolishly chasing the false "American dream" we've been taught about, and believing that the only righteous thing is to "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps," the rest of the developed world is surpassing the United States in every single category of social good, from literacy rates to birth rates to public transportation to educational achievement in math and science to ... the list is too endless for this site.

That crap we Americans were taught in school about individualism and making your own way and so on -- that serves a political and, more important, an economic purpose for those with the financial means -- in this country these days, typically acquired through economic activity that serves absolutely no productive purpose -- so that they never have to worry about paying for healthcare or relying on public transit or going to a decent public school or ... well, again, the list is too endless for this site.

When I was in Paris once, I came upon a group of about 30 people protesting outside a neighborhood daycare center early one morning. The government was discussing cutting back the funding for the creche. I spoke with nearly everyone there, and I could find only 5 people who had kids in the daycare center. All the rest were there because they realized that everyone in France benefited from public-funded daycare, and that their neighbors -- and hence their neighborhood -- was enriched by the fact that the daycare center made it possible for some people to work where they might not otherwise be able to keep a job. When the saw the possibility of that benefit disappearing for a few, they realized that it would hurt them all.