The US Government Obviously Hates You If. . .

[velvetpage]

This is a very good entry written by a friend of mine. Check it out.


http://www.livejournal.com/users/doc_mystery/16741.html?view=88933#t88933

Comments

[paka.livejournal.com]

Um. I may have a slanted view of the American Dream, but I always figured it was about starting out from a much-despised minority and being accepted as a good and vital member of the community - heck, by getting money and making them accept you, usually. This is probably just a lot of immigrant ancestry showing through.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

And yet, in America today, how many people start out as despised minorities and remain such all their lives, in spite of working their butts off?

I've known at least one person who was extremely proud of her parents and herself for achieving the American Dream and pulling themselves out of poverty to the point where her mom bought her a Lexus for her birthday. The other side to the coin was the feeling that since her family had done it, why couldn't everyone else? She said she'd never have any sympathy for someone on welfare for that reason. And she was appalled when I told her that my mat leave was paid for by the government through unemployment insurance.

I don't dispise the American Dream. It's a good dream and a good goal. I do intensely dispise this other side of it, and the idealization of entrepreneurship and capitalism that it engenders.

[paka.livejournal.com]

Heh. Seems to me there are two ways of dealing with a legacy of suffering; either you go 1) man, that sucked, I don't want anyone else to have to put up with that again, or you go 2) ehhhh, I was able to get past that, why can't everyone else? A lot of people here are of the latter opinion. There are a lot more people arguing for the latter when they're people who haven't actually had to work quite as hard as they think.

I guess this ties right back in, to inertia in social views both here and in Canada. Canadians are used to the idea that you pay the government buckets of income and in return the government does stuff for you. Americans are used to the idea that the government doesn't seem to do that much for you (whether it does or doesn't) and consequently tend to be easy pickings for any politician claiming to reduce taxes.

As for immigrant mentality, now that I think about it; the idea that you're gonna force these people who aren't Jewish/Italian/Chinese to accept you into their United States is kind of an older melting pot idea, and now that you pointed it out, I can see how it's pretty arrogant. Maybe the way more recent immigrants work is a different deal entirely.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

More recent immigrants are starting to ask that society change to accommodate them, while the older generations of immigrants usually made an attempt to blend culturally with their new country. I find the first more presumptuous and arrogant than the second.

[siobhan63.livejournal.com]

There was an interesting article in the Globe yesterday:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20050902.STORMPSYCHOLOGY02/TPStory

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

I read that interesting article, too.

If interested in a compilation of similar articles from the more liberal media, you may want to check out and perhaps bookmark the following link:

www.commondreams.org

::B::

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

That article was a longer version of my own comment. It's good to know people agree with me. :)