Letters to the Editor
-
RE
WelltraveledProudAmerican,
True , those liberals that you describe are very annoying; however the mere fact that you felt compelled to provide an extensive description of your background - education travel , European born wife ect.. makes you an outlier. In other word you , sir , by no means speak for your, as do elitist liberals.
Also the best place to live in the world is a highly subjective mater. I know plenty of people, all over the world , who are perfectly happy where they live.
-
tom payne
"A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions." (Proverbs 18:2).
"If a wise man goes to court with a fool, the fool rages and scoffs, and there is no peace." (Proverbs 29:9).
-
all woof, woof and no bite
look how cute: barny can quote the bible. Wow!!! I guess ole barny really told us. Come on barny, give us some more woof, woof. good dog...
woof woof
-
re: Proud well-travelled american
Dear Proud Well-Travelled American
Firstly, thanks for helping out in WWII, which as we all know began in December 1941 with the attack on Pearl Harbor.
As a Brit living in Canada, I'm not sure I can agree with your assessment of the 'best' places in the world to live - How are you measuring? - wealth, happiness, availability of Oreos?.
A couple of issues spring to mind: The US lacks decent welfare provision, and it has major problems with it's education system (which is presently being hijacked by the loony religious right and the corporations). These problems notwithstanding, the US has produced more Nobel Laureates than anywhere elseon Earth, and still has the finest universities in the world. None of that is thanks to the reactionary wing of US politics, with its bizarre faith in supply-side economics and the mythical trickle-down effect.
The current incumbent and his neoconservative managers are shedding, one-by-one, the virtues that attracted so many people to America's shores in the first place. It might not be such a great place to live in a few years, the way things are going...
-
Dear Proud (and Well-Traveled) Kettle
That conservatives are ignorant of the world is proved by the failure in Afghanistan, by the disaster in Iraq, and by the sad truth that in five short years the entire known world outside of No. 10 Downing Street has come to hate the U.S. I'm simply trying to understand WHY this is so; and I am continually struck by the fact that so many Bush-Cheney apologists share the characteristic of never having been elsewhere in the world. If you have a better explanation for the foreign poilcy fiasco set forth by Mr. Blumenthal (other than "it's all Bill Clinton's fault, because he had sex! with a woman!!"), then please enlighten us.
-- If you really have actually traveled on your own, then bravo, sir (though you'll have to excuse me if I observe that I don't know anyone who goes to Sudan as a private citizen); but in any event, your personal example hardly negates my more general observations.
-- Similarly, that some New Yorkers struck you as provincial also doesn't begin to negate my observations; though I will add that your apparent assumption that there are no right-wing New Yorkers displays your own (ahem) lack of familiarity with that great city.
-
Pot Calling Kettle
Despite being so well-traveled, the only places you've seen that are "not worse" than the U.S. are Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand? Everyplace else in the world is worse, really? Uhh, who's the snob?
Thank you, though, for proving my point about conservatives, and how your (ahem) ill-informed view of the rest of the world has led to the Bush-Cheney foreign policy fiasco.
-
it's not snobbery if it's well-informed
WeikuBoy, my view of the rest of the world is not ill-informed. It's from living there. Just as I would not presume to call someone a snob who knows wine well and calls one type good and another less good, my view of the rest of the world is actually quite well-informed and hence not snobbery.
And that is not to say the U.S. is perfect, a point I made in my paraphrase of Churchill. (By the way, lots of private citizens travel to Sudan, including journalists and people who work for NGO's, as I do.)
Examples: Both France and Germany have built welfare states that cannot be sustained by their present negative population growth, hence their need to import a lot of cheap labor, generally from Turkey and North Africa, a resentful, poorly treated Muslim minority that will soon become a majority but which for the most part refuses to assimilate into the local culture. Soon a good portion of Europe is going to resemble some sort of Disneyland: the buildings will look German or French or Italian, but they'll be mostly devoid of natives and ruled by sharia law. The recent riots in France are but a small taste of what awaits these countries if they don't change. Scandanavia is only a few decades behind this trend. Eastern Europe shows a lot of promise, especially because they know what they have been liberated from and appreciate who was the driving force behind that liberation.
Much of Africa is rent by corruption and tribalism. A continent so rich in human and natural resources should not be so poor. South Africa had been a bright spot, especially under the truly enlightened guidance of Mandela, but now crime is rampant and the entire country is in danger of tipping into vengeful Mugabe-ism. (Zimbabwe is a famine disaster that is 100% man-made.)
Much of Asia is choked by pollution, corruption and crony capitalism. (India is a potential bright spot in this equation, although it'll take a few decades to fully shine. That country has begun to emerge from its former status as a basket case only after it discarded Leftist statism and socialism.)
The education system in Britain is so poor that many Brits who are able have to look for work elsewhere. (C.S. Lewis first described its decline in the book "The Abolition of Man," written in the mid-1950s.)For the most part, British higher education is mere trade school-ism. Ireland is another bright spot, again because it has rejected Leftist statism.