You Decide

That video was just great!

On the commentary portion, I'm not so sure I agree with that. Separating people by income falls apart, IMHO. Many of the radical liberals (e.g., George Soros) are very wealthy, and attack the very country and system (capitalism) that made them wealthy.

I also feel that the author makes a big leap going from wealthy benefactors to welfare recipients. I don't think you can classify people this way, and as much as I don't like the welfare system, there are many people who are not there by choice. I think we need to continue the work started by Newt Gingrich and the Republicans in the 1990s to continue welfare reform, to eventually prevent the safety net from being the permanent paycheck in people's lives. I think when improvement occurred, this stopped being a front-page issue, but there's still more work to do.

I totally agree with the EFFECT that the welfare system has, which is why we need to continue reforming it -- boldly.

The quote by Dafydd is right on the mark, and that is one of the reasons we see so much hypocrisy come out of the liberals. The YouTube video touches on one example, of Gerry Stubbs being OK to have sex with a 17-year-old page (and serving an additional 5 terms after that), but Mark Foley who had creepy conversations, but no proven sex, with a page who was between 18 and 21, resigns immediately.

However, it is my belief that liberals live in a world with 3 days BY CHOICE. They are so caught up in their childish emotional state that they refuse to broaden their views. To look beyond those three days would expose the hypocrisy in THEIR OWN VIEWS, and it takes courage to do that. And because they live in a circle of friends and acquaintance with the same narrow views, it takes even more courage to risk breaking an immature friendship that cannot withstand differences in opinion.

Look at what happens when someone from the fringe-left Hollywood espouses conservative views. Only an actor, director, producer, or executive of great intestinal fortitude would do that, because such people know in advance that the liberals will not associate with people who think differently from them.

The ironic part of this is that these very same liberals are the ones who go to work humming John Lennon tunes about living as one, all in peace. I guess in their weird, drug-induced vision, that "oneness" is what is in their own child-like mind. Their "oneness" does not make room for those who feel differently from them.

There are other things that makes one "liberal" or "conservative", but IMHO these concepts describe it better than income bracket.

Separating people by income today in the US does fall apart because of access to education in the US by those who desire it and who intend to rise above their current socioeconomic status.

Rich socialists all over the globe believe socialism is fine for everyone else but them. They've already made their millions/billions via capitalism ......so can isolate themselves, living a life of luxury ..... feeding the masses propaganda while laughing about pulling off such a ruse.

Socialists' goal in life is to keep themselves rich while having a rigid governmentally engineered model for everyone else to work to support one another .... "from each according to their means to each according to their needs."   

In the US if someone believes themselves to be limited, they create that limitation (talked about in my first post) in every aspect of their lives, and for the most part pass that same mindset on to their children. It certainly does not come from our economic system or governmental systems. We are blessed to be born in a nation where anyone who has the perseverance and intent can change their lives for the better, but it's left up to the individual to make those choices .... and that's called freedom.

However, this article about the controlled economic system in Europe spawning Paris riots spells a different story caused by European socialism ...... which Democrats are determined to follow lock-step behind because they have no original ideas of their own.

_______________________

"The Future for The Unheavenly City
By James K. Glassman
Tech Central Station Daily
" PARIS -- Of the riots here, there is both less and more than meets the eye.   

Less, literally, because if you've been in this city for a few days, you wonder what the commotion is about. The restaurants, museums, and shops are full. There's not even much of a police presence. The action is far away in suburbs with bucolic names like Clichy-sous-Bois, where young Muslims, many of them third-generation Frenchmen whose parents emigrated from North Africa, are torching cars. This is hardly a riot as we knew such things in, say, the United States in the 1960s. Casualties and damage have been minor.   

But there's more here, too. For one thing, the disturbances are going on and on, now entering their third week. The demoralized French government can't seem to get a grip.   

It's easy to put any interpretation you want on dramatic events. Sometimes, as the late Harvard social scientist Edward C. Banfield put it, people riot "for fun and profit." But clearly at the heart of these riots is a rotten European economic and social model. It seeks to insulate people from the rigors and anxieties of the marketplace through generous pensions, unemployment and health benefits, mandatory vacations, limits on the length of the work week, and protections against low wages and layoffs.   

Whatever the noble intentions of the social model, its results -- especially in Germany, Belgium and France, where it's been taken to absurd extremes -- have been disastrous. Businesses simply don't want to hire new workers, and the consequences are complacency, enervation and despair. The Euro Zone economies have grown in the past year at 1 percent, compared with nearly 4 percent for the United States. The unemployment rate in France is 9.8 percent, nearly twice that of the United States. That's been the norm for a decade.   

In Brussels last week, I moderated a discussion on the "knowledge-based economy" -- a buzz-phrase that emerged from a European Union conference in Lisbon in 2000 at which Europe decided to become "the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion, and respect for the environment by 2010."   

Unfortunately, no top-down directive can make that happen.   

Good jobs are slipping away from Europe. Today, 400,000 E.U. science graduates live in the United States. European companies increased R&D spending by just 2 percent last year, compared with 7 percent in Asia and the United States.   

In the ultimate knowledge-based, non-polluting industry - pharmaceuticals -- research has flowed decisively to the United States. One of the panelists, Pat Cox, the former president of the European Parliament, pointed out that as recently as 1980, eight of the ten top-selling drugs were developed in Europe; now, eight of ten are American.   

Why? In addition to the lack of job flexibility engendered by the social model, there are special problems in the drug sector, Cox pointed out, including price controls and a crazy E.U. rule that prevents companies from communicating directly with consumers.   

What does all this have to do with burning cars? Plenty.   

Raymond Torres, head of employment policy at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, says that "when few jobs are being created, it makes those with weaker credentials more prone to being shut out entirely."   

The paternalist social model is a failure -- especially for the young people who should be providing the main resource for dynamism in an aging continent. Instead, the system is creating a permanent underclass far worse than America's own.   

In his 1970 book, "The Unheavenly City," Banfield developed the thesis that, while successful contributors to society look to the future, the underclass is "present-oriented." Burning cars make a bright present but a dim future.   

Future orientation comes through an economic system that convinces people that by investing (in themselves, if not in businesses), they will reap large benefits down the road. In much of Europe, that is not happening.".......   

....... "My guess is that Europe, as well, will be saved from the destruction its current social model threatens. "We know what we need to do," said Cox last week. Yes, the solution is clear. Do what Cox's Ireland has done -- adopt economic liberalism with a European face. Time, however, is running out. "

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=111605D

Someone who riots feels they have nothing to lose, because there is no consequence to their actions. They are trapped in their state of being and their state of mind, and ultimately trapped by the programs designed by people who acted sympathetic to the plight of the poor.

Such people always gain the votes of those who receive the benefit, but those people are being deceived en masse by mortgaging their future on the cheap.