Re: Nanny, May I ?

Ngo Dinh Diem wrote:
On Jul 5, 9:52 am, Briarroot <Briarr...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Ngo Dinh Diem wrote:
<roars with laughter!> Your ridiculous pretensions of being an
intellectual are once more laid bare as sheer fantasy.
What pretentions? I any case what I do/ do not do for a living in no
way impacts what I or anyone else has to say for that matter. If X is
a 'street sweeper' I firmly believe that whatever X has to say is just
as valid as what Y has to say who might have a higher status job (from
your point of view of course). An opinion from one is just as good as
one from the next person, whatever they do.

Who said anything about your employment, if any? I was talking about
your intelligence, if any! <chuckle>

You're like a little kid who can't figure out what the grown-ups are
talking about, but who insists on joining the conversation anyway, then
gets annoyed when told his contributions are meaningless.


This seems awfully presumptuous considering we have never even met.


We meet right here in this forum where the ideas you express and the manner in which you express them make it seem as if you *have* no intelligence whatsoever. You haven't even got enough sense to comprehend why you're being criticized!


For all you know I could be a 60 year old one legged transsexual Maori
process worker or an expat Burkina Faso citizen setting up a new life.


Once again, you idiot, what you do for a living if anything, where you live or where you came from are completely irrelevant. I never mentioned any of those things because they have no bearing on my opinion of you. You constantly leap to just these kinds of baseless conclusions.


The fact you feel the need to unnecessarily denigrate anyone and
everyone who disagrees with you ad nauseam really evidences more than
enough about who you are though.


But I don't "denigrate anyone and everyone" who disagrees with me. However, I *am* scornful of those such as you who:

a) can't follow a logical train of thought to save your life; and
b) can't figure out just what is under discussion and why; and
c) insists on including oddball tangential references having nothing whatever to do with the subject at hand; and
d) can't even keep track of what you are yourself talking about between posts on two different day; and
e) regardless of how many times you've been shown up as a charlatan, keep coming back for more as if nothing had ever happened!



By the way I love your little snide
remarks about the place, it makes reading your fevered ravings even
more fun to read!


Happy to oblige.



To love liberty is not to embrace anarchy and Tim Daneliuk made no such
inference. Those like you, who despise liberty and wish to promote
state control, are forever suggesting that chaos is the inevitable
outcomes of too much freedom. Such a ridiculous fallacy has no place in
any debate between intelligent individuals.
Utter rot, I despise liberty?

I did not say that you were, but clearly, you *do* advocate state
control of nearly every aspect of life - food, shelter, clothing, health
care, etc. It should be obvious, even the slowest schoolboys, that the
more state power grows the more individual liberty shrinks.


Yet more of your fabriacted claptrap. I have never said the state
should be in control of "nearly every aspect of life", you have come
up with that yourself. Who was it that once said "often we confuse our
fears with our fantasies";)


Liar! You did say that and have done so many times previously. You may be too stupid to understand the implications of your own words, but that's your fault, not mine. Here's a quote from your post of yesterday:

Peter wrote:
I think that in order
for there to be a true democracy, everyone needs an equal footing to
being with - this is why the underprivileged need and have a right to
help in order for them to help themselves (teach a man to fish) and
society as a whole benefits.


*Obviously* achieving an "equal footing" for everyone requires state intervention. Even those of modest educational accomplishments can understand this. This is, in fact, why you have so often railed against free-market Capitalism, because it does not produce "equal footing" for all. I am well aware that you don't know what you're talking about, which is why I so often point to that fact and laugh; what I'm trying to do is get you to look at yourself honestly and admit your errors. Faint hope, that!


This coming from you, the archetypical
neo-colonialist who is more than happy to condone the mass murder of
others in some faraway country? Hah! What of their liberty hmm? Or
don't they deserve it because they are coloured and speak funny?
<laughter> Your delusions are of your own creation.

It is well understood that
all of civilizations require some compromise; that is, a measured
curtailment of the absolute freedom of the individual is necessary so
that large numbers may live side-by-side in harmony with one another.
Every society is so structured and everyone - except it would seem, you
- recognize that this is so. In fact, even the youngest of school
children are quickly taught the necessity of good order and made to
understand this fundamental point; but then again, rank imbecility *is*
your stock-in-trade, isn't it? Why don't you regale us once more with
your er... 'understanding' of Free Speech? <hoots of derision>
Well, why don't you? <smirk>

Tobacco
and alcohol cannot be sold to children because such an act is
(rightly) considered to be socially harmful, you cannot choose, inter
alia, which side of the road to drive on, what you can build on "your"
residential land, what you will (or will not) pay your employees, who
you can serve in "your" shop if someone comes in with legal tender.
All of which is irrelevant - and always has been. "Liberty" does [not] mean a
license to commit murder, either. So what else is new?
Of course it doesn't - that's my point. By reason of the social
contract limits are inherently placed on what we can and cannot do.
If that *was* your point, you failed miserably to make it. What you
*actually* did was to object to Tim Daneliuk's condemnation of
"collectivization" revealing a comical misunderstanding. Here's what he
said:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
All collectivist systems are the same: They elevate the
group interest above that of the individual. It makes
no difference whether they are socialist, communist,
progressive/liberal, or facist - they are essentially
the exact same thing accomplished by different means.
What you see here is the result of decades of Westerners
(who should know better), demanding that government
do "what's good for society".
to which you replied:

Peter Piper wrote:
What amazes me is that people such as yourself still cling to the will-
o-the-wisp of complete "liberty" when none has ever existed in the
first place. You forget that all manner of behaviour is controlled /
administered somehow by the government and always has been.
which quite clearly equates Tim's objection to "elevating the group
interest above that of the individual" with some sort of anarchic state
which you have chosen to call "complete liberty." That's not what Tim
was getting at and you're too stupid to realize it.

Here's a clue for you: if group interest always trumps individual
liberty than the state then government no longer has a reason to exist
*except* to force the individual to acquiesce to group control. In
other words, scratch a socialist, you'll find a fascist!

When we Americans created our government, we also undertook to protect
our liberty. In order to create a nation, we volunteered to surrender a
small set of specifically designated individual rights to the power of
that government - but *only* those rights so designated. Our problem is
that over the last 225 years and especially in the last 80, our
government has slowly chipped away at our rights and added to its power.
Presently, we find ourselves bedeviled by a busybody government which
not only wants to seize our accumulated wealth, but claims that our very
bodies no longer belong to us!


By "we Americans" I assume you mean the rich white (allegedly
Christian) men? If so then yes, they did seek to protect their liberty
- but certainly not that of females, Native Americans and, of course,
African Americans on whose backs your country was built.


Once again, you dodge the point and offer up another anti-American, anti-Capitalist screed which bears scant relationship to historical fact and relies instead on Politically Correct revisionism.

Speak to the point! Individual liberty in America comes from the people, *not* the government, and when that government seeks to reverse that relationship, the people have every right to object.


If, when you
talk of seizure of wealth I assume you mean tax? Without this there
would be no civil infrastructure needed for everyday life.


There are many means by which governments can raise operating funds, but a tax on income is a *limitless* tax; the more we earn, the more we pay. Personal income tax was once viewed as unconstitutional (and with good reason, IMO) for that very reason. Our labor is our property. Surely all good Communist like yourself can see the sense in that statement!


Your short- sightedness never ceases to amuse!


You haven't got the wit to assess anyone else's short-sightedness.


Reasonableness as an objective standard comes into play, just as our
(thankfully NOT entrenched) NZBORA implies
What you can't seem to grasp is that *someone* has to make the decision
about what is "reasonable" and what is not. Each American has
traditionally made that decision for himself, and *not* relied on the
benevolence of rulers to maintain his well-being. That tradition is in
danger.


Trouble is, one person's version of what is "reasonable" may radically
differ to that of another. Would you permit a white supermacist to
"reasonably" lynch blacks as he sees fit? Or to keep slaves? Or for a
husband to beat his wife and kids? This is why a democratically
elected, representative and accountable body makes such decisions.
Otherwise nuts like you would (and have in the past) run roughshod
over human rights and commit all manner of ghastly crimes. Some
decisions must be made by the state.


<laughter> You simply can't keep even the simplest ideas straight, can you? We are speaking of who decides *how* our children are to be educated and what values they well be taught to cherish. We are speaking of who decides *what* we may eat, drink or smoke. You are utterly, *laughably* incapable of logical argument, bedeviled as you are with visions of white supremacists, etc.



(this way you don't get a
whole lot of hand picked cronies striking down legislation the
President finds unfavourable).
<howls of laughter> Yet another display of abject ignorance! (Your
pretense of being an intellectual gets weaker with each new post you make.)

Here's a clue: the ways and means by which the US Supreme Court may
"strike down" legislation, are strictly limited by Constitutional
bounds; and in case it's escaped your attention (<-understatement of the
day), the Supreme Court recently ruled *against* the Bush administration
and declared that detainees at Guantanamo are entitled to the same rules
of Habeas Corpus as US citizens would be.

You're batting .000 so far!


Well? Why don't you admit your ignorance?


Often the misconceived notion of "liberty" is peddled by those who
want to take advantage of some other (more often than not less
powerful) individual or individuals, citing "freedom of action" as an
excuse for utterly unconscionable conduct. As soon as the tables are
turned they kick up a fuss, which is rather ironic to say the least.
<chuckles> Aha! Here we come to the thrust of your sermon: you think
that Liberty, like Capitalism, is merely a disguise which enables the
industrious and the talented to "keep down" the lazy and the inept, or
as you put it, "to take advantage of some other types." It's the same
old story: the failed rationale of Communism. It never was valid and no
matter how you dress it up, it will *never* possess any validity!
Why you bang on about my being a Communist I have no idea,
Gee, could it be because you routinely post quotations lifted directly
from Communist literature? Could it be because you always choose state
control over the freedom of the individual? Could it be because in the
very post to which I'm responding, you again assert Communist ideals?
Pick one!

then again
I would not expect more from someone who rarely ventures outside the
simplistic black and white world of absolutes.
Yes, you *are* on record as misunderstanding what you read here, this
thread being just the latest example!

I think that in order
for there to be a true democracy, everyone needs an equal footing to
being with
LOL! That is Communist rhetoric to the letter! What were you just saying?


Not exactly, this is a democratic ideal. An equal footing at the
start, let me state again for you as you seem to be a little slow on
the uptake, start of life does not ipso facto equate to some sort of
progressive equality whereby everyone is paid the same etc etc. Once
again you are trying to pass off tired propaganda sound-bites as valid
argument - not really working too well!


It is *not* a "democratic ideal." It is socialist nonsense. You are incapable of arguing this proposition because you don't understand the first thing about it, how it has been historically defined and how it was originally derived. You are simply too ignorant to warrant *having* an opinion in the first place. I repeat: The American system guarantees equal treatment under the law - nothing more. Everyone has a right to try, but everyone does *not* have a right to succeed.


The fact is that there is no such thing as human equality and no
government or social policy can alter that reality. All historical
attempts to do so have ended in utter failure and have revealed that
true folly of socialist government is that it requires a fascist to run
it! We designed our government to ensure equality under the law -
nothing more.

- this is why the underprivileged need and have a right to
help in order for them to help themselves (teach a man to fish) and
society as a whole benefits.
The term "underprivileged" is a misnomer and is so commonly mis-used
that it has ceased to have any real meaning. These so called
underprivileged have the same opportunities as every other citizen, as
well as the same rights and responsibilities.

"Liberty" has always been and will always be constrained, it is just a
matter of extent and reasonableness.
You misunderstand. (<-understatement of the month!) In America, we
*created* a government and endowed it with a specific set of powers so
that it could protect our liberties. We are supposed to "constrain" our
government, not the other way 'round. We created it to serve our needs,
and if it should cease to do that, then we feel we have a legitimate
reason to change it.
I think those who struck in the 1920's and 30's might disagree
somewhat with your notion that your government somehow "protected"
their "liberties' by cracking down on every form of protest with
nightsticks and brutality (all recounted in clear terms by Zinn in a
People's History), pity your government doesn't care about the
liberties of others too!
Howard Zinn? <hoots of derision> Didn't you just pretend you *weren't*
a Communist? You soak up Zinn and *dare* to suggest that my world view
is colored by absolutes??? Sheesh! You're either retarded or dishonest
- or both!

And "cracking down" on labor organizers? In case it's escaped your
attention (<-understatement of the day, part 2), the Labor movement in
the US *succeeded* in organizing; in fact they were so successful that
their efforts resulted in a hidden tax on all American consumers
amounting to over 1 trillion dollars since 1950. Thankfully, the power
of organized labor is receding. Again, we see you favoring the
collective over the individual - but you're "not" a Communist, you're a
"market socialist." And I'm a petunia!

I wouldn't really call being paid 6 bucks an hour much of a success -
would you?!


If you're speaking of the federal minimum wage, you're off by a buck and a quarter - but that's beside the point. As usual, you can't read a simple logical statement and make a counter argument, because you _just_don't_get_it_. I might as well be talking to a trained chimpanzee!


Schools don't deserve money?
State funded schooling means state controlled curriculum. What happens
when such a system begins to inculcate a set of values in its students
which their parents find abhorrent? Who do children belong to, their
parents or the state? These fundamental questions were answered long
ago - in the US Constitution - and we maintain that we never gave the
state the authority to raise our children for us.
Answer! Answer!


And the viable and sensible alternative to state education is? State
Schooling provides a standardised and objectively acceptable level of
education for every schoolchild which then allows their academic
qualifications to be universally recognised.


Irrelevant. Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Lincoln; among all these great men of world history, there was not one who attended a state school with a standardized curriculum. Do we recognize their academic achievement? You bet your ass we do!


What would you have? Some
kind of private system where various ethnic and religious factions can
indoctrinate kids for 6 hours of everyday? For some children State
schooling would be a relief, providing an insight into the real world
outside of whatever warped version of events they are subjected to at
home. So what if some evangelical kook is offended by his kid being
taught evolution? Tough biscuits! For minimum quality standards to be
maintained as well as a safe and secure place of learning, a strong
public schooling system is a necessity.


With one breath, you profess to be for "the people" and with the next you reveal your secret hatred of their culture and beliefs. This has always been the way Communism flourished, by stamping out individualism in favor of "standardized" worker bees who can't question state authority because they've been taught nothing else.


This is not to mention the
administrative headache and eye-popping cost it would take to oversee
goodness knows how many private institutions that would sprout up all
over the place (and you would surely be the first to complain about
that as well).


What "eye-popping" cost, you idiot? Private schools are privately funded. That's the whole idea? Get it? And just in case you were unaware of it (<-understatement for today), there are *thousands* of private schools already in the USA - and they're flourishing. It is almost universally recognized in America, that private schools offer a much *better* education than do public schools. So popular has this notion become, that many Americans are clamoring for state funds so they can get their kids out of public schools and into these private schools!


Neither for the health system?
*What* health system? In America, each citizen is supposed to provide
himself with his own health care, as he sees fit and can afford, just as
he provide himself with the fundamentals of life such as food, shelter
and clothing. We have traditionally *rejected* the nanny-state
mentality which proposes that we are not responsible for ourselves, that
we are like children and must be provided for by the state.
A strong public health system is a pre-requisite for any civilised
society.
Bull***! We've had a civilized society for 225 years *without* a
public health system.

Yeah, and look how the bottom strata of society over there are faring,
not too well!


You're ignorance is awesome, matched only by your monumental lack of self-awareness! In case its escaped your attention (<-understatement of the day, part 2), *millions* of Mexican immigrants have sacrificed everything to get into America and experience life at the bottom of the American "economic strata." Why? Because our poor are *rich* compared with nearly everywhere else in the world!


To have such a thing is not "nannyish" at all, just sensible.
Once again, you're phony intellectualism crashes and burns. "Sensible"
is no more a legal definition that "nannyish." What we are speaking of
here is that individual Americans have the right to order their own
lives without interference from their government - because we set it up
like that. Again, you've entirely missed this point and blessed us with
yet another of you idiotic, meandering screeds about socialism versus
capitalism and Good versus Evil.

Everyone has the right to healthcare whatever their earnings,
That's *not* a right! Learn your definitions!


So we haven't heard of article 25 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights? Who are you to define what is and is not a right??!!!


Sure, I've heard of it. So what? UN resolutions are not law and will never become law until such time as an international government, with an army, navy and air force, has the power to *make* them law. I'm an American citizen and my Constitution says nothing about health care, and I *like* it that way.

And didn't you *just* say: "I have never said the state should be in control of "nearly every aspect of life?" Yep, you surely did!

But Article 25 says, in part: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."

Ok, so who decides what is an "adequate standard of living?" What *is* ensuring adequate food, shelter, clothing and medical care if it is *not* state control?

<laughter> Hell, you can't even keep your ideas straight in the *same* post, let alone two days in a row!


the same
standard of care ought to be given to the pauper and the prince. Any
other stance goes against the hippocratic oath and the role of the
medical profession in general.
<yawn> You're wandering away from the point. Not every doctor is
equally skilled, nor every hospital equally equipped and the rich will
always be able to buy better care than the poor, just as they buy better
quality food shelter and clothing. These are rights, they are
privileges, and wealth always generates more privileges than poverty.
If you want to consider rights, then consider that the poor have the
same opportunities as everyone else to acquire wealth. Our system
guarantees equality of opportunity, not equality of results!

Right so some poor sod stuck in a ghetto in St Louis has the same
opportunities as a silver spooner belonging to one of the oligarchical
clans in the US? Please! If Dubya had not been born the son of Bush
Snr he would have OD'd on crack a long time ago, drunk himself to
death or rather been shot up in some Vietnamese paddyfield as opposed
to serving his country through good hard rest and recreation at some
Texan airbase! To assert that Tyreese down the road languishing in
some crime infested neighbourhood without adequate study space and
resources has the same opportunities as the son of a Wall St broker
goes beyond madness. Mind you, to expect more from yourself is asking
a little much.


I'm not responsible for *your* delusions. Opportunity comes to those who reach for it. A very successful man once pointed out that success is often measured by how high a man can bounce after he hits bottom.

It is obvious that you are too young to understand much of what is only learned through experience. The sum of your understanding of the real world has been spoon fed to you by your teachers and you have absorbed *their* prejudices and emotional baggage. Let me clue you in a bit.

*I* grew up in a public housing project. *My* family had an income level *far* below the federal poverty line. *But* we also had our principles and our pride. We never blamed the government for our predicament. We never blamed society. We never blamed anyone for anything because we did not feel that we were victims. In 1970, when I was applying for college scholarships, I noted on my family's 1969 tax return that our gross income was less than $3,600. That's poor, even in that era. We *never* begrudged the rich their wealth nor the middle class their lifestyle. We *worked* to better ourselves. I went to college, and after my father died, my mother went to night school. We worked and we learned and we persevered. Today, my mother is a retired librarian, owns her own condo, drives around town in a little red sport scar and has enough money to provide for herself despite her advanced years. She did all that on her own. She started with nothing and achieved middle class status _on_her_own_ without ever once demanding help from her neighbors or the government. Lesson? Work hard, be thrifty, practice self-reliance, and most of all, persevere! My own story is quite similar, except that I was able to retire at age 45 thanks to a lifetime of frugality and a few lucky breaks on the stock market. We both came from "the ghetto" and we both left it far behind. If we can do that, so can anyone. You see, the whole idea is that *individuals* must try, no government program can accomplish this. Government handouts only perpetuate poverty by punishing success and rewarding failure.

What I'm trying to tell you is: *yes* some poor sod stuck in a ghetto in St Louis *does* have the same opportunities as a silver spooner. If he fails to take advantage of the opportunities presented to him, he has no one but himself to blame.


I take it
next time you get sick and your health insurance won't fork out you
will only be too willing to mortgage your house to pay for whatever
treatment you will require without so much as a whimper of protest?
The next time I get sick I will provide for myself without bothering my
neighbors, just as I do when I'm hungry, thirsty or feel the need to get
in out of the rain. I am not a child and my neighbors are not my guardians.
As for no public funding for schools that would only further concretise
class divisions which would result in more inequality, when those
children break into your house you would undoubtedly be the first to
bemoan the droves of uneducated youth causing havoc on the streets!!
Such abject stupidity deserves no further comment than this: there are
no classes in America - and we *like* it that way!
No classes! I take it you were busy chattering away to yourself under
your rock when Katrina hit? Did you not see the masses of poor blacks
and hispanics belonging to the underclass who could not afford to flee
like the whites?
Yes I did, and as you will discover, should you ever open your eyes,
that there are similar pockets of poverty in every large city in the
world. However, the poor in New Orleans are among the wealthiest 'poor'
in the world. A recent Heritage Foundation study discovered some
significant statistics about being poor in America. An *average*
American family that meets the federal definition of income below the
poverty line owns a car, (and 31% of poor households own *two* cars!),
an air conditioner, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer,
a microwave oven, 2 color TVs and has a cable or satellite TV
subscription, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo system. One-third of
these 'poor' households have both cell and land-line telephones The
Foundation also reported that poor families *are* able to obtain medical
care, though not as much as wealthier families. Most families below the
federal poverty line live in homes in good repair which are not
overcrowded. They are not hungry, and generally have sufficient funds
to meet their family's essential needs. In other words, they aren't
wealthy, but they aren't suffering.

This study also discovered that if work in each family were raised to
2,000 hours per year, which is the equivalent of one
adult working 40 hours per week, that nearly 75 percent of poor children
would be lifted out of official poverty. If poor mothers married the
fathers of their children, nearly three quarters of the nation's
impoverished youth would immediately be lifted out of poverty. A
quarter of legal immigrants and fifty to sixty percent of illegals are
high-school dropouts. By contrast, only nine percent of non-immigrant
Americans lack a high school degree. As long as the present steady flow
of poverty-prone illegal immigrants continues, efforts to reduce the
total number of poor in the U.S. will be far exceedingly difficult.
Their conclusions were that any realistic program aimed at reducing
poverty must increase employment and foster marriage among native born
Americans and end illegal immigration, *not* increase federal handouts


The Heritage Foundation you say? The same rightwing thinktank whose
mission statement is to "formulate and promote conservative public
values based on principles of free enterprise, limited government,
individual freedom, traditional American values (LOL) and a strong
national defense"? Hmmmmm doesn't seem like the most impartial of
organisations now does it? Apparently it was a supporter of Reagan's
fanatical anti-Communist zealotry which labelled the former USSR as
the "evil empire" (presumably with the all-powerful island of Grenada
at its head!). Given the nature of the "Heritage Foundation" those
conclusions are awfully suspect to say the least and should be given
very short shrift.


TRANSLATION: Peter can't abide facts when they demonstrate that he doesn't know the first thing about the subject under discussion.


Your quote of only nine percent of non-immigrant Americans is puzzling
given that the United States is an immigrant republic.


You're confused (<-third understatement of the day!). Out of a population of 303 million, fewer than 10% of us were were born elsewhere.


Putting aside that rather embarrassing faux pas on your part,


You obviously don't understand that phrase any more than you understood what the Heritage Foundation discovered, which is that poor people in America are relatively *rich* when compared to those of nearly any other country.


of course new
immigrants are going to be further down the scale in some respects
after settling in any new country. It is not as if the early settlers
to your country, or mine, or Australia or any other place lived in the
lap of luxury after alighting from their boats. The suggestion from
that study of marriage and xenophobia as a cure-all is laughable, a
ten year old could come up with some better answers which sheds not a
little light on the quality of that report. One would have thought
that dignity and education would be a start?


A ten-year old just (you) just summed up that report incorrectly, based upon nothing more than his evident prejudices and peculiar world view. They merely gathered statistics and noted that far more *married* couples were above the poverty line than single parent families. It shouldn't require any great leap of faith to understand that two incomes add up to more than one, and it is *not* xenophobia to point out that many immigrants arrive here without much education. The Heritage Foundation did not assign *values* in the study, they merely made note of what was and what was not.


That was a truly horiffic sight which really did
deconstruct the myth of "The American Dream" in one foul swoop if
there ever was one. In every country there are classes, sure titles
may have gone but they are there nonetheless, those plutocrats and
oligarchs whose progeny invariably join the ranks of the nudge-nudge
wink-wink, you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours cabal who like
to pretend they got where they are through merit. I am sure in your
town there is the not-so-nice neighbourhood sans white picket fences?
Populated by those who have nothing, and never will if people like
yourself have your way.
Once again, you trip over your vast ignorance while displaying a
distorted view of America infused with your own hatred and envy.

I do not hate your country, nor do I envy it. I have never said so. We
have exatly the same nepotistic "old boys' club" skullduggery here and
it's disgusting.


Riiiight! All that anti-American jive you spew is just a reflexive bit of regurgitation brought on by your unquestioning allegiance to international socialism and the brotherhood of man. Oh, wait. I forgot, you hate ethnic values, religious fervor and non-state approved education too, don't you. You hate it when free people decide for themselves how to live their lives without asking for the benevolent approval of Big Brother. As they say in modern parlance, my bad! <hoots of derision>


Conclusions based on no more data than images you may have once seen on
television are equally worthy of ridicule.

One could say the same about the bulk of the humbug you trolley out on
here! You never have anything original to say that's for sure, for the
most part your rabmlings are easily enough found in Time magazine and
Fox "news".


You haven't the wit to understand what you're actually arguing about. You keep tossing around leftist memes as if you understood them when you don't have the slightest clue how those values were derived, why they have always failed when put into practice, and why they are popularly opposed.

And for the record, I don't read Time magazine, it's editors are far too liberal for my tastes. And as for Fox News, if it weren't for people like you complaining about them, I'd never have heard of them. I've seen this sort of accusation before. I'm guessing it's how people like you get their ideas, or from the titles of books which you discovered on websites but haven't actually read. Your mistake is that you think your opponents are doing the same thing. Those who can't think for themselves seem unable to comprehend that not everyone is so afflicted. However, your masquerade is laid bare whenever you try to explain yourself in your own words, for you continually fall flat on your face!


What you fail to realize is that the "poor people" in New Orleans are
not all the same "poor people" who were living there 30 years ago. You
see, upward mobility (aka:The American Dream) still works as advertised
and is still the standard that the entire world aspires to match.


Despite leftist rhetoric like yours, which wails endlessly about alleged
economic inequality in the USA, a recent study by the U.S. Treasury
Department found upward economic mobility to be the norm rather than the
exception. After tracking the changes in
income levels on 96,700 income-tax returns from 1996-2005 for
individuals over the age of 25, the study found that 58 percent of
Americans who were in the poorest income group in 1996 had, by 2005,
advanced to a higher income group. Almost 25 percent had moved into a
middle or upper-middle income group, and more than five percent had
actually made the leap to the highest
income group. The study also shows that almost 50 percent of those in
the second-lowest income group advanced at least to a middle-income
group, while only 17 percent dropped to a lower group. In other words,
since 1996, more than half of Americans in the lowest income levels have
experienced upward economic mobility. In fact, the group that
experienced the *greatest* growth in income was the lowest fifth, whose
income grew by 90 percent! By contrast, those in the highest fifth had
their incomes grow by only ten percent.

A study by the US Treasury now! Gee I reckon that's about as objective
as they come, I mean your government has never lied in the past has
it? You should know that studies can be fabricated and manipulated and
data falsified to reflect whatever agenda those who commissioned them
have to advance. Undoubtedly there are studies aplenty that refute the
poppy*** above.


TRANSLATION: All studies which don't support Peter's world view must be tainted by biased sources and are not "objective."

<peals of laughter>


All this is generally well-understood by economists, though you won't
find the mainstream media talking about it - it doesn't suit there
'crisis' agenda.

Another report, by Pew Charitable Trusts, studied income mobility
between generations and looked at racial factors. This study, which
tracked 2,367 people since 1968, including 730 African-Americans, showed
that while two thirds of Americans are upwardly mobile, many
African-Americans actually dropped from middle class to poor. This drop
closely coincides
with the federal War on Poverty. In other words, the government's
'solution' for poor black Americans only exacerbated their problems!.
Again, this sort of thing is well understood by economists, and those
with no political ax to grind. The free market allows all Americans to
pursue and achieve the American dream, and it is government programs
that have proven to be the greatest barriers to equal opportunity!
Again, we are guaranteed the freedom to act to improve our lot, we are
not guaranteed of success - and that is how it should be.

If only the market were free. Discrimination against ethnic minorities
there is still rife as in other countries (including mine), it is no
wonder African Americans struggle when confronted with hurdles their
white peers do not have to cope with from day one. Your theory falls
away ab initio, unless of course the "we" you refer to are white,
dabble in Christianity, preferably middle class and male. The lengths
you go to try and validate your self-decepting are impressive to say
the least.


For all you know, *I* am an African-American. Your picture of life in America is a false one, promoted by race-baiting demagogues and popular charlatans. Not *all* black Americans feel they are victims and in my opinion, those that do are deceiving themselves.


As Russel said : "Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to
the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The
fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the
unfortunate."


But you're not a Communist either, right? <guffaw>

"Socialism in general, has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it." - Thomas Sowell

"Socialist thinking: In the eternal utopia of the liberal mind, no one should really win or lose. No one should
have more than anyone else. Everything should be equally distributed. In fact, equality of opportunity means nothing, while equality of result means everything. Anyone who gets ahead must be penalized. No matter how hard you work, no matter how much you prosper, no matter how diligently you plan, you will never get beyond a certain point. To allow you to do so would be unfair." - Doug Patton



--
"Any attempt to replace a personal conscience by a collective conscience does
violence to the individual and is the first step toward totalitarianism." - Herman Hesse
.

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