Cheney's tax - WTF
Out of context: Reply #46
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- TheBlueOne0
If I may add some light to this discussion. Last week I was at a train stop in the NYC suburbs and a black man in dusty work clothes walked up to me and asked if I could help him use the ticket vending machine. I helped him out and we struck up a conversation on the train. He was from Kenya, living in Brooklyn, working here as a construction worker. ANd he said something to me that stuck with me, he said, "America is a great country. I come here, I can work no problem, I make enough to feed myself, to give me a roof over my head, and I send the extra money back to my family in Kenya to support my father, my brothers, and all their wives. There is no where else in the world I could go to do such a thing. Nowhere." And he was absoutely right as I thought about it. And I'm very into criticizing "Amerika" as much as the next guy out here in the so called "lefty wilderness", and there are serious things that need criticizing and correcting, but this guy WAS right about that. Over dinner last night my wife and I were with another couple, both doctors from India, and I related the above story to them. And they were like - "You know, I have relatives in London, Berlin and Paris - they're second, third generation and they are being forced out of jobs strictly because they are Indian or Paki and with the new EU they are opening space for the these Polish and Czech workers coming in...that would never happen here in the US. There is racism here,no doubt, but it isn't like that here, at least not here in NY.."
And the more thought about it, the more I realized that America,despite all the crap that IS wrong with this country, still is pretty damn great - in terms of opportunity and individual freedom.
I disagree with PonyBOy only in the sense that he, like most "lassaiz-fare corporate conservatives" assign no value to such things that good governments provide - infrastructure, legal & enforcement systems, public eductaion systems, general welfare and the common good. Things that actually provide the environment and were one CAN operate a successful business, where one can start a small business and have the environment to scale up as oportunity allows. Where one can not only generate wealth, but keep it. It only takes a quick look at failed nations to not see thriving business and "free markets" but oligarchies and medieval poverty structures. These "corporate conservatives" are also excellent at maximizing the profits and socializing the risks, and somehow make that seem NORMAL, when in fact such behavior in an individual is psychopathic. Good societies and good governments create the space in which "free markets" operate. Free markets do not create good government. Never have, never will. Especially since there is no such thing as Free Markets, such as there is no such thing as Free Individuals. Without the protective sphere of government, both free indiviuals (in terms of protection of Rights) and free markets (in terms of being open to fair competition) simply fall to and concentrate those that have the most coercive power, whether that is power or wealth, and most likely both.
A wise tax policy creates that. The US system needs tweaking for sure, but that's a minor issue. It will get tweaked. More dangerous is continuing to foster this insane concept that government in and of itself is a bad thing and that such a thing as illusionary as a "free market" exists outside the power of a strong and fair liberal government ( that's liberal in the 18th century meaning and not the Rush Limbaugh meaning).
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but its "laisser faire"
:PDrno - No, I think it's "Laissez-faire"...at least in American english..so we're both wrong...TheBlueOne
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