this blog is not for political nonsense. i will not be spoutinig political nonsense such as this:
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When people say their self interest is not linked to society they are wrong. Your own self interest and the interests of society are one in the same, if not always, than often.
It is fine for a person to think he is responsible for himself. But he is part of society, and the well being of society has a direct impact on his own well being. He might say that the state of other people in the country doesn't affect him but that is bullshit. He benefits from a healthy and productive society on a whole. Everyone is linked. Sure, you're supposed to be responsible for yourself and you're supposed to be productive in life, but if the world is crumbling around you there's no point.
So, I know for MY OWN happiness and MY OWN safety I want the society to be healthy. I want people to be able to see a doctor if they need to, I want children to be able to go to good schools, and I want them to have food on their plates. It is not our responsibility to provide everything for everyone, but it would be possible to provide these basic things for people without economic hardship. (In fact, there is so much waste in our current health care system that, basic universal health care could be provided for essentially what the government currently spends.)
When you say things are bad in Europe and social programs are not working here you are creating a causal relationship that doesn't exist and comparing countries that are very different in many ways. You're saying "they have a lot of unemployment in Germany because of their social programs" (correlation is not causation). And "if we were to have their social programs we would have a lot of unemployed people too." (Again, the causal link does not exist.)
The US is a different place, with more money, more space, more industry, more powerful federal government, more potential productive output than Europe. The programs that we should have are an entirely different thing from what they have in Europe. And yes, people have the right to do what they want to do, UNTIL what they are doing infringes on the rights of others. People shouldn't be allowed to destroy the environment at will, and ruin the world for generations to come. Without environmental regulation there is no way to ensure future generations will have air to breath and soil to farm.
Also, republicans like to bitch about taxes, but I'd like to see what else could have been done with the $85 billion spent on the first year of the Iraq war. And god, think of what could have been done with what we're going to be spending over there for the next 10 years. (And maybe I should point out here that under Clinton we were running a budget surplus, and under Bush we are running up a MASSIVE budget deficit, with no end in sight. I don't really see how that counts as sound economic policy.)
Finally, as someone who realizes that the world is shrinking, that one person, or one country can no longer pretend to be independent from everyone else, it is infuriating to have a president who cares NOTHING about international institutions. That's all well and good while we happen to be in power, but to think that the US will be in charge of the world forever is naive and short-sighted. The balance of power in the world will eventually shift, maybe sooner than we realize. The US will not always be the only Super-Power. When that happens, we will be kicking ourselves for not creating the international institutions that can help to even out the balance of power and ensure the world is run in a fair way. Right now the US cares nothing about being fair, only about being in control, and that's going to come back and bite us in the ass.
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... that is not the type of thing I will be doing.
