Today, Jim Ryan gleaned this insight:
> Now we're carrying it a bit too far. That is completely absurd.
> Competition and free enterprise and doing things for profit is exactly why
> this country is the best place it the world to live.
Nonesense. Much of Europe has nearly as high or higher a standard of
living as the U.S. and generally have shorter working weeks and more
vacation. MOST other major countries have better-educated citizens than
the U.S. Few countries have a crime rate that is as high or is increasing
as rapidly as that of the U.S. (with Russia being a notable exception).
Canada is as good and/or better than the U.S. in all of those categories
as well.
The reason this country is still the best place to live, if it indeed is,
is because for two centuries the people of the United States had the
strongest work ethic of any nation on Earth. People did what needed to be
done very often because it was the right thing to do, NOT because there
was profit in it. We had a two century head start.
That's happening less and less these days, and the social problems of this
country continue to increase. Violent crime is way up, test scores are
way down. Drug use is rampant amongst teenagers, and sexually transmitted
diseases are killing more people than ever before. Disease in general is
worse than it has been in quite some time. Teacher's salaries go down and
movie stars and baseball players live like kings, suggesting that the only
thing of value to people in this country is one's own entertainment.
It's perverse.
If this country IS still the best place to live, it won't be much longer
if people don't grow up and stop doing things only because there's
monetary profit to be had. We're losing ground fast.
--
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Derek D. Martin | Unix/Linux Geek
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