Steve Lapper,
Thank you for your thoughtful, objective response.
I am sorry I wasn't dazzled like some others by your original piece. Your reply was even less impressive, but, apparently, you don't have vey high expectations of me anyways. BTW, for what it is worth, I had you for a much younger man.
As much as some of your industry prose may impress folks here, statmenst like "We supported a unchecked free-market and are now paying the price for our moral laziness." and "but given the depths of the abyss which the laissez-faire practices of the past few decades have left us" might give a few besides Dick Daley and Craig Sweet reason to pause. I don't know what country you've been living in, but if you believe that the U.S. government has been hands-off business and the economy, well, I guess I just better crawl into my cave of rants, sophistries, and conspiracy theories. I mean, WOW, is the world flat or not!!!!
Really, some stuff I read on this site and I think, nah, the writer is just being caustic or provocative- David Schmidt does this from time to time. Other times I am reminded of the old NAACP ad which ends with the refrain "the mind is such a terrible thing to waste".
Like you, I have no interest in a tit for tat. On this thread as with many others, I think the subject has been thoroughly exhausted. And though the positions have been staked, we are no closer to concensus than before we started.
Two more things before I go get my instruction from Rush and then off to the driving range. Unlike you, my concern is considerably broader than my two children. In fact, if I die tomorrow, I would go to the grave feeling confident that their future will be very personally satisfying. They were both raised and equipped to shape their own destinies and to have genuine compassion and respect for their fellowman.
As I've discussed privately with a few GCAers via E-Mail and IM, my concern is for the left side of the Bell Curve, actually, probably a good distance to the right of center. In a slow growth, anti-business, government dominatted economy, what are the job prospects for people with lower productive skills and initiative? What happens when there is a "paradigm shift" and seven out of ten American students now aspire to a government job as opposed to starting their own business?
Lastly, I take no personal responsibility with the current state of affairs. I've always lived within my means. I have always paid the taxes I owed and probably much more (because I have never made tax minimization an objective), on time. I have always voted, picking the candidate who I believed was best in terms of the long term interests of the country. I suspect that my contributions to charity in money and time would place me in the top 5% to 10% of Americans for my income and wealth. And, as I've demonstrated on this site to the dismay of some, I've spoken clearly and forcefully on issues that matter, often at some personal expense in terms of friendships, and social and business opportunities. On this last point, I have ususally done so without being personally abusive or profane.
Craig Sweet,
While I do have considerable compassion for the poor single mother trying to make do with $20,000 or less, I may have asked why did she have a child she was unable to support? You may be of the opinon that people can't help but to copulate without second thoughts to consequences, but when I was young, the pregnant teenager was relatively unusual.
Regarding Walmart, I suspect that the people who work there are happy to have a job. Judging by its reported sales and the long lines I personally witnessed late yesterday afternoon at one of their stores (yes, I do listen to Rush AND I shop at Walmart), a lot of people must like the company.
BTW, the same is true of those "exploited" foreign workers who are the beneficiaries of Dick Daley's "economic terrorism". Many of them receive wages that are multiples of the prevailing averages in the local markets and finally have jobs and money to feed their families. They are happy to have a job even though it pays considerable less than if it was done in Detroit by a UAW member. It is curious that you socialist and redistributionist types are so generous with other people's money unless it goes across American borders. Are human beings in third world countries less human and deserving than the so-called "American worker" aka union member?