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358 comments on DrumBeat: May 25, 2007

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phreephallin on May 25, 2007 - 3:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Americans have long been sold on the Horatio Alger myth, "As long as you work hard, anyone can rise up from poverty and become rich and successful." This makes it easy to not worry about the less fortunate. If they would just work harder, they could be rich too!

Socialism in this country is associated with the "losers" of the cold war. Since the US prevailed in the cold war, it is obvious to many Americans that unbridled capitalism is the best economic system around and we have the largest economy in the world to prove it!

The fact that we spend 15% of our GDP on health care, have the most overweight people in the world, use (or waste) the most natural resources per capita, and carry a huge amount of debt is something we'd rather not think about.

USA!USA!USA!USA!USA!USA!

... for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative. -- Kurt Vonnegut

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rohar1 on May 25, 2007 - 11:59pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Two of my favorite Vonnegut quotes:

"And I tell you, we are here on earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different."

I have never found anyone that can come up with an argument to that, certainly not me.

And:
"Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We're dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go do something."
[Gets up and dances a jig.]

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., interview in Inc. Technology January 1996, Vol.17, No. 17

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358 comments on DrumBeat: May 25, 2007

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