If you guys try one approach we'll try another and compare notes in, let say 50 years
I'm fine with that. I've always thought that's the great thing about states rights. Each is a little experiment. But unfortunately a political party controlled by elitists and beggars, and which basically owns the media, may very well win control of all three branches of our federal government next month ... and they don't want to wait. They want to socialize us, now. They want to redistribute the wealth, now. They want to nationalize health care, now. They want to make amends for perceived injustices against them, now. They want to open our borders, now. They want to make us all think alike, now. I guess they are impatient because the wife of their candidate hasn't been proud of our country since her childhood.
You are looking at the situation through US-glasses
Of course. I wasn't so much trying to suggest you have those problems, as hint that you don't have the problems we have ... problems which make the notion of instituting a Poldermodel-type system here a little unrealistic at this time. So when the democrats (and more liberal republicans) point to the Netherlands as an example of socialism that works, or as having a socialized health care system that works, they aren't pointing to a system we can duplicate ... not without a major restructuring of attitudes in this country and the elimination of almost all our lawyers.
These concerns you voice are however not unique to the US, similar concerns have been voiced in the Netherlands over the past years ... snip ... I believe these are pretty much Universal concerns for citizens of modern societies and I feel they should be taken seriously, but much more important they should not be taken too seriously.
I don't think our situation is at all the same as yours.
You stated that poldermodel has been around since the 16th century. So in effect, you aren't undergoing a change to something completely different in principle from what you were founded upon. What's happening in America is that democrats are busy reinterpreting our Constitution from the Judicial Bench (like little dictators) in ways that completely change the way our system and society works ... the way people associate with one another and the responsibilities they have ... in ways that are at odds with the principles that had guided our government and society successfully over several hundred years.
You say your society is comfortable with the division of wealth. That used to be the case in the US because our common culture had a strong belief that through hard work one could become wealthy. But no longer. Now there is a belief by Obama and democrat leaders that the system is inherently unfair and that it's one's right to take from the wealthy and give to whoever they want (especially, constituents). They call us unpatriotic when we object to that notion or point out that the top 5% of the income earners already pay most of the taxes in this country.
Your cultural roots are intact. Your common language is intact. You even have an "official" language. That's not the situation in the United States. We are being balkanized. We have to print ballots for elections in dozens of languages. Democrats have fought the notion of an "official" language" tooth and nail. America used to be a melting pot. People would come over and within a generation their children mastered english and the parents mastered english from them. Immigrants strove to become AMERICANS. American strove to remain Americans. Even if it meant losing some of the culture and the language from their country of origin. My grandparents, for example, wouldn't even let my parents speak the native tongue in the home because they wanted to learn english themselves and they knew learning english was going to be important to success.
That's often not the case any more. Oh, it's still important to real success but now *multiculturalism* is the watch word. Many an illegal immigrant has been in America for decades and still cannot speak or write english with any mastery. Many, can't speak it at all. Then they wave Mexico's national flag at their celebrations (and demonstrations). They have no allegiance to this country. Yet they want the benefits (including the vote) ... which the democrats are more than happy to give them.
And hispanics aren't alone. After a promising period led by "I have a dream" Martin Luther King, black leaders and the black community were hijacked by a complete different philosophy ... one that taught and practiced victimization. The black community went so far at one point as to invent a nonsensical language (ebonics) and insist we teach it in the schools rather than force their children to master english. And the Church that Obama went to for 20 years preaches separatism, not the ideals of King.
For hundreds of years, America had a culture ... certain guiding principles which most people believed. Principles that were taught in the schools. Principles that embodied the very reasons people came to this country in the first place. What has happened in recent decades, however, is a concerted effort by the left (democrats) to dismantle and discredit those principles, as well as certain institutions that played a key role in America's success. They've done it not only through government action but via the control they have over schools, the media, and amazingly enough, churches. I don't believe that's the situation in the Netherlands, so I don't think it is fair for you to dismiss my concerns so readily.
One of the worst character flaws of the Dutch is that they basically b*tch and moan about everything, there exhibit no pride of their country and if they do they're generally extreme right-wing nutters.
I'm not talking about simply complaining. We all do that. And I'm not talking just about not exhibiting pride. I'm talking about about hatred at the deepest level for the country you were born in and what that country signifies. Views expressed not just by some fringe element either ... but by the mainstream leaders of the modern democrat party. And by the people they have chosen to associate with for decades. To see this, one need look no farther than Barack Obama, heir apparent to the democrat party.
He spent 20 years willingly attending (by his own account) a church every week to listen to a minister (Reverend Wright) who we know voiced attack after attack against America, it's principles and its institutions. A reverend who literally said the words "G D America" recently. And Obama didn't distance himself from Wright and this church until we made it an issue.
Obama spent a decade working closely with a man (Bill Ayers) whose was literally a terrorist ... who helped found an organization that declared war on the US and planned to carry out attacks that would have killed hundreds of innocent people. A man who at one point even said "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, Kill your parents." A man who still considers himself a communist and speaks against capitalism ... one of the most important foundations of this country and, in fact, the western world. And Obama didn't distance himself from Ayers until it became inconvenient to being elected.
Obama accepts support from organizations like CODEPINK. It's leaders literally idolize anti-American dictators like Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, and have expressed the hope that we lose the war in Iraq to those "freedom fighters" (their description) who opposed us using terror tactics against the Iraqi people. A CODEPINK leader sits on the board of directors of another organization whose co-founder founded ELF, the No 1 domestic terrorism threat in the US (according to the FBI). CODEPINK brags about disrupting the political activities of republicans with ways that are not in keeping with civil discourse (they were the ones who had to be dragged away from interrupting Palin's acceptance speech). And here is a video clip (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ2UcpMpI9A ) that shows CODEPINK members speaking about the way Obama treats them ... when the public eye isn't on him. He is very friendly, if you ask me.
I do not want schools instilling "Love for the Fatherland" in their students.
I'm not suggesting that. I'm talking about FAIRLY teaching US history, not biasing it as the liberal written textbooks and democrat leaning teachers now do. I'm talking about FAIRLY representing the institutions and principles on which this nation was originally founded and which have guided it successfully.
But speaking of propagandizing children, these video clips may give you pause as to Obama's and democrat educator's methods:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdPSqL9_mfM
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/10/utterly_chilling_video_of_obam.html
I want them to present and teach the facts about Dutch history, both the good and the bad and allow their students to make up their own minds about whether they love it or hate it.
That's fine. So do I. But that's often not the way it's done in the US because democrats control the schools and which textbooks are used in teaching US history. From kindergarden to college. We don't teach our children to rationally make up their minds any more by doing real research to find facts. By using logic. We teach them to be "politically correct" ... meaning whatever democrats (and the democrat media) believe.
Look, we have history books in our schools which spend a half a page on George Washington but devote multiple pages to Marilyn Monroe. The lack of knowledge of American children about anything older than a few decades is shocking. And on average they know just as little about free enterprise, and the responsibilities needed to maintain freedom and liberty.
The Clinton administration violated law after law and corrupted the very way we elect those who are supposed to serve us. Rule of law meant nothing to the Clintons. Yet democrats and the mainstream media, at least until Hillary challenged Obama, idolized them to no end ... could see nothing wrong in what they'd done. And that is what was and is taught in the schools ... that the impeachment of Clinton was just about a sexual act that thanks to Clinton our children don't even view as a sexual act.
And that's my concern on this thread. That Obama doesn't really care about the rule of law either. That he's fundamentally no different from Clinton in that regard and that democrats are just as willing now, as before, to ignore illegalities by their side. Nothing in fact has changed.
I understand this is a concern for you, but I would be mighty surprised if it were as bad as that.
Perhaps you should check out the ideology behind the 100+ million dollar education project that Ayers created and that he jointly ran with Obama ... the Chicago Annenburg Challenge? This is the experience that shaped Obama's views about education.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212856075765367.html
Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools
... snip ...
In works like "City Kids, City Teachers" and "Teaching the Personal and the Political," Mr. Ayers wrote that teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression.
... snip ...
Mr. Ayers is the founder of the "small schools" movement (heavily funded by CAC), in which individual schools built around specific political themes push students to "confront issues of inequity, war, and violence." He believes teacher education programs should serve as "sites of resistance" to an oppressive system. (His teacher-training programs were also CAC funded.) The point, says Mr. Ayers in his "Teaching Toward Freedom," is to "teach against oppression," against America's history of evil and racism, thereby forcing social transformation.
Keep in mind that while Obama has temporarily distanced himself from Ayers, he did that only after he decided to run for President. He realized that an association with Ayers might be a problem for him. And Obama has not distanced himself from CAC. In fact, early in the campaign he held it up as a shining example of his experience in education and of his management abilities (even though a study done later showed that CAC achieved no noticeable improvement in student performance).
To prove that this distancing is disceptive, Obama chose as his education advisor a woman (Gloria Ladson-Billings) who was president of the American Education Research Association (AERA), the nation's largest organization of education professors and researchers. During her tenure she proposed a "reparations" approach to education that Ayers endorsed. In fact, she and Ayers have coauthored multiple books together ("City Kids, City Schools" and "To Teach") and Ayers is now the Vice President-elect of AERA.
Don't think Ayers has changed in the last decade, either. He still boasts about working to bring down American capitalism and imperialism. And he does it from a tenured position as a Professor of Education at a major university that has ties to Obama and his wife. One of Ayers recurring themes is that the American public school system is a reflection of "capitalist hegemony". He says the mission of teachers should be to challenge that and turn classrooms into laboratories of revolutionary change. No, Ayers hasn't changed.
He made a speech at Hugo Chavez's side in Venezuela in 2006 that ended with him saying “Viva Presidente Chavez! Viva La Revolucion Bolivariana! Hasta La Victoria Siempre!” In the speech, he told the audience that education “is the motor-force of revolution,” and that Venezuela shows the path of how “to overcome the failings of capitalist education.” Here's the school system Ayers and other Obama supporters, like CODEPINK, idolize:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7000079.stm "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has threatened the country's private schools with closure unless they adopt the government's socialist ideology."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297134,00.html "President Hugo Chavez threatened on Monday to take over any private schools refusing to submit to the oversight of his socialist government, a move some Venezuelans fear will impose leftist ideology in the classroom. All Venezuelan schools, both public and private, must submit to state inspectors enforcing the new educational system. Those that refuse will be closed and nationalized, Chavez said. A new curriculum will be phased in during this school year, and new textbooks are being developed to help educate "the new citizen," added Chavez's brother and education minister Adan Chavez in their televised ceremony on the first day of classes."
Why am I worried? Because Ayers is now near the top of America's education system with a man he clearly was friendly with for many years, and who worked with him on education, at the doorstep of the Whitehouse. Ayers' influence formed the roots of Obama's notions about education. That's why I'm concerned that Ayers' ideology is what Obama really means when he talks about bringing "change" to education. So yes, I think things are going to get a lot worse if Obama wins the Whitehouse and makes Ayers' basic philosophy our national education policy.
The candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America is anti-american? You know that makes no sense.
I didn't say that. What I said is that Obama for decades had willingly associated himself with people who openly espoused anti-American sentiments. And he still associates with people like that. And in Obama's campaign, he openly attacks the principles and institutions that have made America great. He openly attacks capitalism, the free market and "ownership". He champions class and race warfare ... and advocates massive redistribution of wealth based on some vague notion of "fairness". He pushes dependency on a nanny state, not the personal responsibility and self reliance that made this country great.
You appear to believe to live in a world where approximately half your country(wo)men are out to get you.
Well, for starters, they want to forceably take money from me that they didn't earn and certainly don't deserve. And they appear to want to put my life at risk because few of them even think the threat from islamofanatics is real. They want to return to the way we dealt with terrorists during the Clinton years ... when time and again US citizens were attacked and which culminated in 9/11.
They also appear to want to corrupt our election process. That began during the Clinton years when we witnessed democrats infuse their campaigns with millions and millions of dollars in illegal contributions from foreign sources that were openly hostile to the US. And in exchange they gave the Chinese access to restricted technology and it would appear access to secrets. Now we see Obama and his supporters again don't care if tens of millions of dollars are coming from foreign sources. And organizations like ACORN, which is closely tied to Obama, are corrupting the election process via voter registration fraud. Secrets mean nothing to the democrats. Just ask the NY Times. One of the reasons democrats invite illegal immigration is that some of the illegal immigrants vote (check out what happened in California in past elections) and they plan to make all of them legal with the reasonable expectation they will register democrats.
No, I don't think I'm being paranoid at all.
Lighten up, it is very good that you are concerned about these issues, a democracy cannot function without critical citizens.
A democracy cannot function without an informed citizenry. Unfortunately, that's not what we have in the US thanks to the control democrats have over the mainstream media and schools. I could talk all day about facts that the mainstream media and schools chose not to tell Americans and the lies that they promote.
A democracy also can't function if no debate actually takes place. If we simply talk past each other. You will note on this thread (and it's not atypical) that the Obama supporters have not debated the facts and sources I offered. They haven't offered countering facts and sources at all. For the most part, they have simply ignored me ... or attacked me with silly adhominems. Yet this is supposed to be a skeptics forum where facts and sources are debated. Sorry, no Poldermodel possible here.
The world is a generally lukewarm bath, sometimes a bit chilly sometimes just a little bit too warm. But generally agreeable and it will neither burn you nor freeze your *ss off, unless you get hit by some bad luck of course....
That's an interesting belief for someone in a country that has been overrun repeatedly through history and left in ruins each time. You suggest there is no evil but I would say the Nazi regime that did it once was indeed evil. And I would call the Soviet regime, which would have done it again had we not countered their every move, evil too. And so was Saddam. And so are the current leaders in Iran. One problem with liberals is that even in hindsight they do not seem to grasp the obvious.
Second point: Iraq... Are you f*cking kidding me? If anything has emboldened Islamofascists it's the Iraqwar. Thanks a lot!!
Prior to our invasion of Iraq, al-Qaeda terrorists met in Baghdad and kicked off a terrorist chemical bomb plot that had it been successful would have killed tens of thousands of innocent Jordanians and everyone in the US embassy. Now I don't know where the Dutch embassy is in Amman but it might have killed everyone in it, too. Islamofascists were emboldened long before we set foot in Iraq. And reason that plot may have failed is the intelligence we gathered after we invaded and the disruption we caused to al-Qaeda's network in the country after invasion. Their leader was literally kept on the run and at one point we even captured his computer. There is no doubt at this point that Saddam's regime was tied to terrorism and that Iraq was viewed as a possible safe haven by terrorists.
Fourth point: Did we ask for your protection? No. Did we actually send troops to help with your cockamamie b*llshit? Yes.
Ah ... a case where Poldermodel worked beautifully. Gallup polled Europeans in March 2003 and found that 51 percent of the Dutch supported the war. Evidently you didn't.
But I'm curious. Regardless of whether you think invading Iraq was a good thing or not, once we did it, the issue became whether to cut and run or not. Whether to fix what we supposedly broke or not. Whether to win or not. Obama has favored a precipitous exit since the beginning, regardless of what happens in Iraq after we leave. He even said recently that even knowing how the surge would dramatically improve things in Iraq, he'd still have advocated a pullout back in January 2007, when our leaving would definitely have led to a victory by forces quite hostile to the US and the western world. And note that his running mate at the time disagreed with him ... said that pulling out in the way Obama advocated would be a very bad idea (hasn't his tune changed?
).
Don't you think it is incumbent on leaders to deal with the situation at hand, rather than live entirely in the past casting blame for political gain? Obama seems reluctant to admit the fact that Bush was right in his handling of the war
in 2007 and that Obama was wrong. That McCain was right in how to win the war. That Obama and the other democrat leaders were wrong in saying the war was unwinnable and lost. In fact, almost the entire democrat leadership was totally wrong about the war in 2007 and early 2008. The war isn't an issue any longer simply because Obama is finally starting to say he'll do pretty much the same thing that Bush has been doing and that McCain says he will do if elected. He's flip-flopped for political gain ... again. He says that because we are winning the Iraq war. And that's a good thing. It bodes well for the Middle East and the World.
I reiterate my point about Dutch assistence during the American Revolution, since it has pretty much the same relevance...
Now maybe I'm wrong but my recollection is that before our revolution, the Dutch republic was upset at London for replacing it as the dominant trade and financial capital of the world. So when war came, they were eager to recognize America's sovereignty and refused to let their soldiers be hired by the British for use against us like the Hessians were hired (thank you). Plus they declared a form of armed neutrality so that their ships might continue trade with America. But it isn't clear how much trade actually took place and there certainly weren't many (if any) Dutch Republic citizens fighting on our soil on our side.
Furthermore, the Dutch didn't so much come to our aid as have the war come to them. The British declared war on them. And they did so not so much because of Dutch help to us, but because they were viewed as French allies and the British feared an alliance between the Dutch and Russians. The proof that Dutch involvement wasn't so much about America as about their own emnity is that the Dutch republic was still fighting with England after we'd won. And it wasn't just you at war against England but France and Spain too.
To be perfectly honest, the Dutch provided little in the way of real aid to the American cause. Nor did they cause significant portions of Britain's forces to be unavailable in fighting our conflict. That's because the Dutch were quickly and soundly defeated by the British. Contrast that with our support of you through the Second World War and the Cold War, where vast resources were sent to your soil and many Americans lost their lives in the attempt to free your soil. And then there was the Marshall Plan where the US gave large amounts of material aid to help get you back on your feet (although there are reports that you and the French used the aid to try and reconquer Indonesia
).
You obviously have no clue about the current diplomatic relations between the EU and Iran.
Diplomatic relations between the EU and Iran? Is that really a good thing? I guess time will tell. Hope it doesn't turn out to be another Chamberlain.
Oh noes, appeasement killed the Jews!!!
I'm sorry that is an argument I cannot take seriously.
Since you didn't answer, I'll ask my question again.
Why do you think appeasement will work any better with Iran than it did with Hitler, Stalin, and any other dictator of the last century?
During Dutch elections there is a tradition that the different parties stick their plans into this advanced socio-economic model maintained by the (staunchly independent) Central Planning Bureau (I'll forgive you for the fact that evoked images of a concrete "Palace for the People" ).
The CPB will then give a projection of the costs an estimate of whether the proposed plan is fiscally neutral and what the consequences would be for economic growth, purchasing power and whatnot.
I love models like that. Especially if they factor in uncertainty in the various parameters and equations. In fact, I did a fair amount of process simulation and system simulation work over the years. But few in this country seem to want to rely on such models. Maybe its the fear of not wanting anything in writing.
Quote:
According to that source I cited earlier, the PPP of the Netherlands was $32,000 in 2007 (it suddenly jumped to $38,000 in 2008 after rises at a constant rate the previous 7 years).
Easy to explain, after a couple of years of restraint, collective bargaining landed significant pay-raises for this year.
I didn't say it wasn't climbing in the years before 2007. In fact, the source indicates that from 2003 to 2007 it climbed from 27K to 32K, a rise of nearly 19%. You sure your explanation is right?
BTW have you seen the insanely happy Scandinavians? I bet they took the survey during the summer
Or they like to ski and roll around in the snow after hot-tubbing.
I'd say: start taxing fat and sugar like you do alcohol and tobacco.
Now you've gone too far! No one messes with my fat or sugar. Did I mention we are a really a well armed society?
More than 10 million of those people aren't even citizens of the US. Are the Dutch willing to insure people who aren't citizens (and you don't have even a fraction of problem we do)?
They won't be turned away from care facilities, this is calculated into the price.
They aren't turned away from our care facilities either. But that misses the point I was making. The democrats claim there are 46 million uninsured (some, like Michael Moore, even say 50 million) in order to make the health care problem seem really huge. But these illegals are not only uninsured, they aren't citizens.
I would say it is unfair to count these people, they choose this risk because they believe they can afford to take it.
Then we agree. Democrats are dishonest when they claim there are 46 million uninsured and blame that on mean spirited republicans. 17 million of those 46 million in the US can clearly afford health care at it's current cost. They just choose not to buy it but buy something else instead that isn't essential to life. Like going to parties every week or taking an extra vacation or playing the lottery. Studies have shown this to be the case.
The problem lies with the people that have to choose between food and healthinsurance. That is a choice that IMO should never come up.
It actually doesn't since for the most part there are plenty of public assistance programs to help these people. They can get treated if they need it. Like I said, lack of coverage is not lack of treatment availability.
And I have a question. Since you think these people have a right to free healthcare at someone else's expense, do they also have a right to have children, that they obviously also can't afford, who will have to be raised at someone else's expense too? Where do their rights end and mine begin? Obviously, not outside my wallet. It seems to me, they are taking away my right to have children because now I can't afford to have that extra child I wanted because now I have to support their children instead (since they don't have the financial means to do so). And the housing crisis has revealed we are now also expected by democrats to pay for their housing. As the democrats are now saying, they have a "right" to live in a home (I suppose one like Obama's
). I guess I'll have to forego that add-on I was planning and pay for that instead. Like I said, where do their rights end and mine begin? Just some food for thought.
