Quote:There is a distinct singular American culture - rugged individualism and self-reliance - which made America great.
Of course, the subtext of this statement is *selfishness* also made America great.
This is what you are really saying: If some people's ability to compete without a little help means they fall behind, then tough luck. This is your proposition. You said SELF reliance.
I don't agree with that. Hard work is good. But self-reliance isn't enough. Not for everyone.
The nation is vastly different than it was before the industrial revolution. Most of us live in cities or suburbs, not farms. We are a highly urban and suburban society. Education is a key to our futures in a way it wasn't in our nation's agrarian era, when a man might get by just fine on what he could do with this hands and public education was not universial.
My point: Some of the frontier values that served us well during the Civil War are not necessarily as relevant today. Just as it would be ridiculous for us to take up owning slaves -- as many of our Founding Fathers did -- it is ridculous to assume all our other 18th century values, such as self-reliance, should enter the 21st century unchanged.
Don't read into this post a denial of the value of hard work. Hard work is good. But selfishness is not. And you seem to be endorsing selfishness.
America is what we make of it. No one has a monopoly on what it means to be an American. If you believe rugged individualism is the zen of being an American, fine. But you don't own America's meaning. No one does.
Quote:The vast majority of the rich in this country ... earned it. They are the country's achievers, producers, and job creators.
This implies all the poor deserve to be poor. We'll never agree on this.
And we don't agree on much else, either.
Bill Gates is at least a million times wealthier than I am. But he didn't work a million times harder than I have.
He worked hard -- and then he hit the economic equvalent of the lottery.
That's the story with most rich people. They worked hard -- AND they got very, very lucky.
Quote:did not inherit their wealth;
Of course, the GOP wants to change this. I find that inexplicable. For all their prattle about hard work, what they really are trying to do is ensure people can get rich *without* working for it.
Quote:No nation has ever taxed itself into prosperity.
Rhetoric -- and quickly dismissed by the facts. Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy in 1993. The greatest economic expansion since World War II followed.
Quote:Evidence refutes liberalism.
Not your "evidence."
Quote:There is no such thing as a New Democrat.
Wrong. Al Gore and Bill Clinton are clearly far different from traditional Democrats. The most obvious example was their support of NAFTA. Traditional Democrats could not stomach that treaty. Clinton pushed it through.
Quote:The Earth's eco-system is not fragile.
Neither am I. What's your point?
Quote:Character matters; leadership decends from character.
Character is overrated.
Our frat boy president is wrong on his war, he's wrong on his tax cuts for the wealthy, he's wrong on his deficit spending, he's wrong on Social Security.
Yet people are supposed to set all that aside because he found religion ten years ago and crawled out of the bottle?
That's ridiculous.
Quote:The most beautiful thing about a tree is what you do with it after you cut it down.
That's gross.
Quote:Ronald Reagan was the greatest president of the twentieth century.
This, too, is gross.
(And, obviously, wrong. Pull out some pocket change and study your dimes).
Quote:The 1980s was not a decade of greed but a decade of prosperity; it was the longest period of peacetime growth in American history.
You left out "... until Bill Clinton."
Quote:Abstinence prevents sexually transmitted disease and pregnancy - every time it's tried.
Bush the 41st should have tried it.
Quote:Condoms only work during the school year.
More than one can say for Bush the 43rd.
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