Liberal free for all coming to an end

[TracyCoxx]

Originally Posted by smc

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.

Exactly. Theoretically this country is supposed to grant individual liberties. It's an experiment in government so at least there's one place on Earth you can go if individual liberty is what you seek. It's not for everyone so don't feel bad if it's not for you. If people are in a country that goes against their nature they hopefully can immigrate to another country. That's why immigrants come here. There are many other countries where you can work to support your fellow citizens or mooch off the work of others. btw... lower taxes on businesses and they will hire more people. Then more people get health insurance.

Originally Posted by smc

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.

Thank America's religious fundamentalists for some of that. As for the high birth rates, no thank you. Who needs over population?

Originally Posted by smc

That crap we Americans were taught in school about individualism and making your own way and so on -- that serves

... to make our people self sufficient and masters of their own destinies.

Originally Posted by smc

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.

Good example. Once you make people feel they're entitled to something you can't get rid of it. It becomes yet another expense that the government pays and burdens the population with through taxes, whether they have kids or not. The end result? A bloated out of control welfare state.