[lit-ideas] Re: U.S. superlatives (was Victor Hanson in Iraq)

  • From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 10:40:47 -0800

Just which superlative are you challenging?  All my superlatives are
accurate.  

Certain of your statistics require explanations.  Because we aren't a police
state we allow millions to cross our borders illegally and take advantage of
our health care, rob us, get locked up, die young, all of those things which
affect statistics.  But notice why we have this problem: Enormous numbers of
people want to come here.  Illegal immigration has reached scandalous
proportions.  That wasn't one of my superlatives but it could have been: the
most desirable nation to immigrate to.  That should tell you something about
the real America.  

No, we don't have a socialistic health system so if you make up a list about
which nations have the most guaranteed, socialized anything we will not do
well, but there is a downside to that as France and other nations are
learning.  

As to education, the Leftists have been the major influence in that arena
for years.  When the analysts are considering who is going to get what
support from whom, the Teachers associations are out there supporting a
Leftist agenda. It is scandalous.  Many parents are pulling their kids out
of these schools and opting for home schooling. 

Why do you think school bonds are voted down so often?  It isn't because
parents are cheap or because they don't want their kids educated.  It is
because the education they are being offered is deficient and they don't
want to pay for something that isn't working. Who are you going to blame for
all the experimental non-traditional (non-conservative) teaching experiments
that have been graduating kids who can't read or write?  

However, not to worry.  The Leftists can't educate our kids but we are so
rich that the brilliant kids from other countries want to come here and make
up for our shortfall.  Being rich and successful covers a multitude of
Leftist sins.

All the Leftist condemnations, abuse, criticism, skepticism, scorn, and
misinformation can't alter the fact that the US is all of my superlatives:
the best nation in the world, just as our founding fathers hoped it would
be.  

The Leftists want to abandon the wishes of our founding fathers and turn the
US into something more like Europe, more like France -- nay they want to go
further and have it give up its sovereignty and take instruction from the
UN. We shouldn't decide what is best for our nation; we should let the UN do
it.  However, Leftists must know how tough a sell that would be.  The
European elite wanted a super-sovereign EU and it was rejected soundly.
People don't want to utterly give up their freedom, even in Leftist-leaning
Europe.  I'll grant that the people from some other nations prefer a benign
paternalistic cradle-to-the-grave care, but it is interesting to see that
the people who voted for leaders who promised this to them aren't willing to
increase their taxes to pay for it.  

Listen primarily to Leftist slogans, to the anti-American jargon and you may
well be surprised that there is someone remaining out there who thinks
America isn't at all as the Leftists describe it.  There are still Americans
who fully realize and appreciate what we have here in this nation.  Perhaps
the number that appreciate America is decreasing due to Leftist educational
methods, but perhaps not.

Lawrence


-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Ursula Stange
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2006 7:38 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] U.S. superlatives (was Victor Hanson in Iraq)

Lawrence Helm wrote:

> Ah me, how wicked it is to be the preeminent Liberal Democracy in the 
> world.  How thoroughly rotten to have the finest, freest, most 
> democratic and successful culture in the world.  How degrading to have 
> the richest most successful economy.  How depraved to have the most 
> powerful military.  Surely all the nay-saying defeatist Leftist are 
> right to condemn a nation so brilliantly successful....
>
>
What a list of adjectives...preeminent, finest, freest, most democratic, 
richest, brilliantly successful....
I remember that America.  I learned about it in my fourth grade history 
class.   The real America isn't like that.  The real America is just so 
much wasted potential.   Surely you've noticed a few inconsistencies 
between the words and the reality.  Surely you know that the U.S. 
consistently falls near or at the bottom of lists of industrialized 
nations in terms of education, health care, life expectancy.   But, here 
is one example where the U.S. outdoes everyone in the world...


 From Reuters...
A U.S. Justice Department report released on November 30 showed that a 
record 7 million people -- or one in every 32 American adults -- were 
behind bars, on probation or on parole at the end of last year. Of the 
total, 2.2 million were in prison or jail.

According to the International Center for Prison Studies at King's 
College in London, more people are behind bars in the United States than 
in any other country. China ranks second with 1.5 million prisoners, 
followed by Russia with 870,000.
       
The U.S. incarceration rate of 737 per 100,000 people in the highest, 
followed by 611 in Russia and 547 for St. Kitts and Nevis. In contrast, 
the incarceration rates in many Western industrial nations range around 
100 per 100,000 people.

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/us-imprisons-more-people-than-any-other
/20061209111509990004



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