One thing I really, really, do not get is how many Americans who have lives of leisure compared to others in in the world are so unhappy with their state of affairs. I got thinking about this over mother’s day weekend after reading lines such as these:
“Yesterday their dreams were shattered. . . . Today we are going to bury them with thousands of dreams. That is one of the poorest schools in the neighborhood. Those girls don’t even have 15 cents to buy bread.”
The man was talking about young girls ages 11 to 18 who were attending a public high school in Kabul, Afghanistan. About eighty persons died when several bomb blasts outside their school went off killing mostly these young girls seeking to gain an education.
“One by one they brought the girls up the steep hill, shrouded bodies covered in a ceremonial prayer cloth, the pallbearers staring into the distance. Shouted prayers for the dead broke the silence. The bodies kept coming and the gravediggers stayed busy, straining in the hot sun. The ceaseless rhythm was grim proof of the preceding day’s news: Saturday afternoon’s triple bombing at a local school had been an absolute massacre, targeting girls. There was barely room atop the steeply pitched hill for all the new graves.”
That is a look at what is happening in one small part of our planet. But it is not the only place where horror is a daily event.
Tibet is an old story of how the Chinese treated the Tibetans. Now we see that “the Chinese government has reportedly detained . . . some eight hundred thousand to two million Uyghurs and other Muslims, including ethnic Kazakhs and Uzbeks, have been detained since April 2017, . . . Most people in the camps have never been charged with crimes and have no legal avenues to challenge their detentions. . . . Often, their only crime is being Muslim, . . . Hundreds of camps are located in Xinjiang. . . . Detainees are forced to pledge loyalty to the CCP and renounce Islam, they say, as well as sing praises for communism and learn Mandarin. . . . Others said they were tortured and subjected to sleep deprivation during interrogations. Women have shared stories of sexual abuse, including rape. Some released detainees contemplated suicide or witnessed others kill themselves.”
In Myanmar the military is solidifying its hold over the country after a recent coup by killing poets and arresting and holding hostage family members of people who are opposing it. In Africa bands of thugs kidnap school kids and in the Middle East (Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq) the killing of folks goes on unabated. Many folk in the world are undergoing immense suffering at the present time while Americans free from all the horrors and tragedies gripping these other folk sit around a whine.
We have millions of people on Medicare getting medical care provided by the government who are against the government interfering in their lives. The same goes for people on Social Security who scream when they see the government giving money to other people. If we could look deeply into all these Americans receiving government subsidies and the government’s protection from the horrors others in the world experience all we would find would be a clump of hatred.
Rather than being content with what they have they begrudge others from having one-tenth of the same things. Some have spent almost all their lives working for the government. Many are still on the government’s payroll as judges, police and fire folk who are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year off the government pointing to their displeasure that the government is helping people living in poverty in other parts of the nation.
If you ever held or now hold a government job or received pay from the government or any benefit sit yourself down in front of a mirror and ask: “why am I entitled to government money and others not?” I hope you have a good answer.
wa-lahi! Bill. The European explorers of Native American lands, brought with them disease, and, European trade goods. Trade with the Europeans destroyed the natural political hierarchies in native societies. No longer did traditional sachems, and, chiefs, guide their societies. The most politically powerful natives became those who had ready access to European goods. A privileged, and, potent comprador class evolved from the pool of half-caste interpreters left behind by the early explorers, particularly, the French traders, who often married into the tribes. Capitalism destroyed native American cultures as surely as disease.
There are scientific estimates (by epidemiologists, biostatistics, infectious disease experts) that 90% of Native Americans deaths were due to exposure to microbes carried by Europeans to which Natives had no immune to.
Also, the story of history since writing was invented, about 5,000 years ago, that a less civilized society invariably succumbed to the more advance society.
In many instances, several cultures lived in harmony and in synergy they grew together. Example: Math from the Arabs. Jade from China. Beans, coffee, bananas, especially potatoes from South America, Central America. The medicine fighting Malaria, Quinine.
The Potato saved the Irish for three centuries after Cromwellian efforts and his successive follows (some not all) attempted extirpation of the Celts from Ireland. Of course, the Blight hit the potato dependent Irish resulting in 15% of pop dying and another 15% dying crossing the Atlantic (20% death rates) …..and those immigrants landing in North America in some areas experienced an additional 20% dying from disease and hunger here in the U.S. and Canada, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia.
Remember, too, as you mentioned the intermarriages. Many decades were peaceful and Native Americans from disparate tribes married “The Pale Faces.”
Someday, the song by Chicago (remember the whole world is watching, circa 1968) foresaw a world where we a’ll were at peace . . .Someone said someday we’ll be all TAN and in harmony with all Abrahamian Religions and with Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, Comanche, Apache, Lakota, Aleuets: etc.
We AMericans can do better to form a more perfect union. My latest book, pamphlet, about 30,000 words and 30 pages of pictures is entitled To Harvard from B.C., and subtitles are intriguing.
“Given them by private sector workers—“? I guess you do not regard their efforts as work. The social worker and the public defender with overbearing work loads; public housing advocates jockeying for a safe place for a family to stay; the personal care attendent cleaning and changing the sheets of the Alzheimers patient. Have you forgotten these laborers? “Given by the private sector…” indeed.
You guessed wrong . . . .i never said that I “do not regard their(public servants) efforts at work” . . .typical of liberals, you have set up a straw man . . .you have falsified my writing by falsely “guessing” by falsely presuming that I “do not regard their efforts as work.”
Throughout my writings on this blog and elsewhere I have touted the service of good public servants. I wrote a two volume history on persons serving this country at war: Shots Heard Round the World: Americans Answer the Call to Arms>”
In my book to be published soon . . .sent to a publisher today . . . I praise teachers, medics, police, firemen and others, Presidents of Universities, Deans of Medical Schools, Deans of Public Health, expressly
In this recent book, titled “To Harvard, from B.C. a resoundingly applaud good public servants. The subtitle of that book is this “A righteously riotous cogent multi-faceted science-based rebuttal of “Harvard’s email” of April 2021I: at the bottom of the front page are these words: :Epidemics, Inequalities, Entanglements, Disputations, Contentions, Agreements, Refutations.” In this book I expressly applaud police officers and teachers in my family and name physicians I admire
Moreover, I have worked in public housing, I have worked with patients from public housing at D.C. General Hospital and at medical facilities in the Boston area, and I have repeatedly praised medical and public health service workers and nurses and social servants in numerous writings . . .I have worked alongside social workers and nurses helping elderly in nursing homes . . . I have worked not only with Alzheimer Patients, I was granted a fellowship in Community Psychiatry and worked at the D.C. general on wards in the summer of 1969, and also rotated through psychiatric units at Georgetown, the D.C. Veterans Hospital, and at Baltimore’s U.S. Public Health Services Psychiatric Ward . . .et alia
I have worked at Old Soldier’s Home in Chelsea, at Detoxes in Fields Corner, at Halfway Houses in South Boston, at Community Centers in the South End and in Washington D.C., and I have worked at Northern Virginia Doctors hospitals, and at V.A. long term care facilities in Washington D.C.
Now, how about an apology . . .try this: “My guess was wrong, and no rational person could have drawn the conclusions, I Hutch have drawn.; I withdraw the explicit and implicit aspersions, mud-slinging I threw at you”
I just wrote attacking the ingratitude of public servants who think they’re in government to rule, not serve. I criticized government workers who forget that every job they’s have in public, every cent they got in payment, every cent they get in benefits, come from the private sector workers . . . .And your response, failing to acknowledge that fact, indicates ingratitude and denial to me
Please Re-read what I actually said, not what you erroneously think or wish you thought I said.
Couldn’t you say the pay was earned? Why “given”? What have these generous souls received for such largesse? You are taking a dump on public employees and do not even know it.
Believe it or not the taxpayers are of major concern for most public workers.
What a colossal misconstruction of what I have written . . .you turn a simple fact into “a dump on public officials”
Let’s get this straight . . .every cent you have as a public employee got from the private sector
Secondly, there is no longer slavery in America . . .slavery is equal to involuntary servitude . .
Everyone in government, federal, state, county, city, local is a PUBLIC SERVANT . . .a servant of the public, a servant of we the people, a servant not a ruler, and every public servant should get down on his knees nightly and morningly to thank private citizens who formed this Republic and and today those private sector persons who provide every cent, nickel and dime that Government Treasury need or wants and every public employee feeds off of . . .the private sectors, the private citizens’ cash . . .
That simple fact, those simple facts cannot be construed as a dump on public employees, on public servants, except in could be construed by a government worshipping socialistic agnostic antagonist or Marxist who kneels to Big GoooBer Big Government
Government aint in charge. We the People are in Charge . . .some of you are Public Servants, Volunteers, and many, many more volunteers inthe Private Sector make this country great and have in the past formed this county to inspire to greatness, to aim for a more perfect union of States, and of People, Americans
How many “private sector dollars” only exist by public patronage? Everything from Walmart employees signing up for food stamps along with their job application to Defense contractors to university subsidies and research contracts, line-item tax expenditures supplied by lobbyists etc. etc.?
Every person receiving FED money, State money, e.g. Food Stamps is getting that via private sector’s tax dollars.
Private Sector Tax Dollars are given to the U.S. Treasury, the FEDs then distribute . . .the FEDs are mere disbursers . . .the FEDs give the private sector’s tax dollars to Corporations in Defense Industy, to protect AMerican, they also give TAX Cash to Colleges, Hospital, Charities, Social Service Agencies . . .to Private Nursing Homes, sometimes, too . . . .
To cut it short; Our Constitution explicitly defines that our TAX Dollars can be spent for National Defends, Public Safety, Public Health, Education, et cetera.
Please do not attempt to evade or downplay the facts (1) this good old USA was formed by volunteers, private guys, local lawyers, farmers, tradesmen, some local pols, hunters, ranchers, homebuilders, . . .private guys wrote our Declaration and Constitution . . .our duly elected Reps amend Constitution by Constitutionally established processes. WE the people A.O.K.’ed this Declaration tens of thousands of volunteers fought for, and representatives of States, WE teh People, assented to the Constitution.
The Government of the USA was not created, made, formed or given to us by Some Other Government. WE the people revolted against a too big, too oppressive, over taxing Big Goober Gov, The Empire.
2. OUr Forefathers in our Constitution permitted The FEDs, our Government, Our Public Servants, to TAX we the private sector. And we all know that every taxpayer (virtually every) willingly gives his tax money to our Government. WE the people acquisesce to be TAXED by our representatives in Congress and state/local to TAX us. We assent. We applaud good Public Servants’ Service, we denounce bad Public Servants who abuse their power, or who misuse, intentionally or negligently, their powers and offices.
Up the Republic of the USA and up the Republic of Ireland, too. Republican forms of government work best. That government which governs least and unleashes the private sector to be free, is the government which governs best.
Matt
Been thinking about you in the last
few days .
Did you ever watch the Doc OBEDIANCE when you
took your Psych 101 survey course in college?
You would have made a great test subject.
In other news…..
https://bangordailynews.com/2021/05/12/mainefocus/former-cop-accused-twice-of-intimidation-now-works-at-maines-controversial-intelligence-center/
Cop accused twice of intimidation now works at Maine’s controversial intelligence center
I agree as Mother Teresa said, “the only poor in America are those poor in Spirit.”
We the people our Founding Fathers established this Government, with limited powers, and looked forward to a new nation wherein private citizens unshackled from Big Intrusive Government, Imperialistic, over taxing, oppressive governments . . .the British were benign in those days compared to tyrrannies in China and Nazi Germany
But was our Founding Fathers’ vision . . .a limited government, and free citizens not beholding to Government
And here’s the rub: Liberals, Democratis, Leftists thank Government for social security checks and jobs and benefits.
I do not thank Government . . . .I thank the private sector workers who provide Government employees with all their salaries and benefits and who provide government itself to do what we the people elected them to do . . .serve us, not serve themselves, or their cronies …….
So, we have opposite views. I know free people established this Government and free people built just about everything in it…..
Conservatives think Government has become too obtuse, intrusive, right suppressing, over taxing . . .
We think every Nation’s responsibility is FIRST to its own citizens
America First does not mean isolationism
Since our inception, teh Founding Fathers set up processes to go to war, to raise armies, to raise taxes and to act limitedly.
So , we see our profound disagreements lay in our attitudes and convictions . . .you consider the Government as the Fountain of Good . . . .we Conservatives see the Free People are the Fountain of Good . . .
We disagree. You tout government; we tout free people. You want to put everyone on welfare, or at least increase it; we want to give people the opportunity to work in the private sector, to go to schools of their own choosing, to, basically allow a free people, unschackled from America’s Today Government grown too big . . .and allow a more free people invent cures for cancer, better cars, better fuels, better machinery, better medicines, better literature, better educations, free from Government IMposed Political Correctness and Identity Politics and with incessant war waging, greed, bloated governments
We want less government, and we want like Reagan and Trump, a stronger military to deter, not engage in worldwide wars. Israel, Western and Eastern Europe, AFrica and Asia, South America are stronger under Reagan-Trump POLICIES . . .Israel, our faithful ally, is fully supported by Conservatives
Finally, liberal public employees forget every cent you have was given to you by private sector workers, and nearly every benefit private sector workers get from the government are programs the private sector workers paid for, contributed to, voluntarily agreed to, and outside the government established far better charities than any government. . . .
I hope you have glanced at the extensive histories I’ve written about the greatness of America’s and the World’s Private Sector Organizations . . . .Churches . . .YMCA’s .,, , ,Private Schools, Private hospitals, . . . .
Proabably at the word limit: Read my ten books . . .read Sowell, Bushanan, Buckley, Leo Terrell, Dershowitz, Pope Leo XIII’s encyclicals, conservative economists, political scientists . . . .He that governs least, governs best . . .avoid excessive foreign entanglements . . . .Free the People from Big Government’s Tentacles . . .Biden and Carter and other tax and spenders crush the human spirit
Who gave your parents the home in the Housing Project? The private sector or the government.
There would be no private sector without the public sector. Who educated the workers in the private sector – the public school teachers.
Again your blatant misconceptions about Public Housing . . .they were built with money from private sector taxpayers . . .and if government goes in debt, runs excess deficits, it knows it will be the workers in the prvate sector who gave government taxpayers money to build that housing project
That public housing I lived in was built by private contractors, by private sector carpenters, masons, laborers, electricians, iron workers, etc . . .every material used in building those private sectors housing projects were transported to construction sites by private sector truckers
Every thing inside those public housing units were manufactures and sold and installed by private sector persons; Who do you think built those refrigerators, stoves, furniture, bed, chairs . . .who provided food to you . . .the private sector grocer . . .who provided clothes and food . . .the private sector retailer
And as a typical liberal,, typical socialisst, typical Marxist , in fact, you thank the Government for all the housing and goods you enjoyed and all the salaries and benefit you have enjoyed over a life time
You should get down on your knees and say a few prayers of gratitude not to Govenment, but to the private sector workers who fund the government and give you every cent you have made in public service . . .
Who educated your father . . .public teachers paid for by private sector taxpayers dollars . . .did your father attend private sector colleges, private sector law schools, private Catholic Colleges and Catholic graduate schools
You ask who would have provided housing . . .Catholic Charities, Chrisitan Charities, Jewish Charities have been doing so for millennia
Who would have given medical treatment . . .the same religious charities have been given for millennia
Who cared for the abandoned orphans, neonates, infants, and who cared for single mothers and unwed mothers’ pregnant . . .study the history of St. Margaret’s Church in Boston, why it was right up the street off Sawyer Avenue, between Pleasant Street and Uphams Corner
You do remember, don’t you, that private volunteers fought at Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, and persevered for six years, from ;75-81 to gain their freedom . . .and these private sector militia, rebels, warriors won a war and these Founding Fathers set up a government under which we live and should bless all those from the private sector, farmers, silversmiths, sailors, formed this goverment and who works in government, public servants whose duty is to serve all Americans . . .20 million work in public offices and public fields . . 160 million Americans work in the private sector
Today’s armed forces are all volunteers as were the armies and navies under General Washington
we the people established this government
Too many government workers think they are entitled, ,entitled to rule and oversee the hoi polloi
Have you ever read Milton Friedman
Don’t you understand that is that private sector volunteers who won our first war and who set up this government . .
You have it perversely backwards . . .the government did not exist until private sector volunteers established it . . .out in territories, without government, Pilgrims and Pioneers formed their own communities first with town halls and little white churches and with docs and preachers and teachers, all in the private sector at first . . .and thes private sector pioneers established local govenments, state governments and finally after our succesful revolution, we established the United States
Your views are backwards . . . societies have existed for mlllennia before “governments” were establlished voluntarily to serve . . .
There are private sector teachers, going back to Socrates and back further to Prophets before governments existed . . .remember the catholic missionary schools, the schools at Athens, the free prophets . . .the rabbis, priests, ministers, the Methodists Salvation Army
I think i’m writing to high school sophmores
Who pays for the public school teachers salaries?
The private sector taxpayers pay all public servants salaries and benefits
Governments exist today in the West, Europe, Canada, the USA, as they were formed by a free people . . .Even in England with a King and Queen, have a duly elected Parliament answerable, via voting and funding, to the private sector citizen . . .
Take a course in elemental economics and elemental government . . .
You confuse me. Don’t you think public employees pay taxes? You write like your education was not provided by the public sector. Didn’t both of your parents work in the public sector and only the public sector? Were they free people? You want a strong military with no taxes? The private sector has set up no programs to help people. The government has. During the pandemic the private sector didn’t reach out to alleviate the harm suffered, the governor did. Even churches put their hands in the government’s pocket grabbing billions.
We are free because of our governments who enforce and interpret the laws.
We will no longer be free if people like Trump and his followers undermine our government institutions with absurd remarks and actions.
Again, you are mistaken . . . .public employees do not in fact pay taxes, do not increase governments cash
The public employee gets one thousand dollars a week from the government, the government got that cash from the private sector . . .that public employee gives back two hundred dollars to the government . . .his net contribution to the government’s cash is Zero . . . .
Public employees are using private sector tax payers money . . .
Try to get your head around this . . . .it is the private sector, individuals, laborers, retailers, corporations, that give the government all its money
Public Servants take money from the the Government which gets all its money from the Private Sector . . .the public employee merely gives back a part of the cash he got from the private sector taxpayer
The Government does not create cash . . .the private sector worker creates all wealth and gives a part of it to Government . . .the private sector built our government in the 1780s and created a government with limitied power and all public officials are either elected by the private sector, or appointed via policies/programs established via Constituional Laws and congressional or state laws . . .
It is public employees who supposed to be beholden to the private sector, not vice versa . . .the government is our servant . . .the government is not our Church . . .the government is not the Fountain of our Freedom, nor of our rights . . .they come from God and from the Constitution we the people wrote to ensure we private citizens have inalienable rights and freedom
You have the cart before the horse
You refuse to recognize that without public expenditures, there is no private wealth. It is a two-way street. You harken to the typical myopic reationary cry of “Its your money.” You don’t admit to any social responsibility. You do not understand that there is no Western Capitalistic Democracy without a public sector.
False again on every statement. Before any governments, societies flourished throughout human history. As said, Pilgrims and Pioneers in more recent centuries set up communities, prosperous, health, without governments. Free associations underpinned native america tribes and explorers who criss-crossed the America’s setting up loosely associated organizations that generated local weath.
Moreover, no one can write less thoughtful as “there is no private wealth” without public expenditures. LIke Matt, you too have it backwards. Every road funded by a public entity in modern America was paid for with private sector’s tax dollars.
Economic, political-science 101 . . .Governments Treasury are funded by the taxing of private sector workers . . .
It is not a two way street . . .it is one way . . .momey comes not for bureaucats . . .it comes from the private sector . .
Moreover, all governments, state, local and FEDs, in the U.S. were set up by private citizens, not just funding, but by establishing
It is OUR private sector citizens’ money that fuels all govenments with cash.
And then, you leap illogically, loosely associating, social service with government alone . . .Most social service in the World is done by private charities and has been so forever . . .Moreover all social security provided by Governments is because the Governments have gotten all their money from private sector taxpayer…
You do not understand that Western Capitalistic Democracy (Government) was established by free people private sector people like the Patriots of 1776, and that without private sector cash, Western Governments would fall . . .Capitalism is primarily, in fact solely, the work of the private sector . . .Western Civilization since 4,000 B.C. has primarly been the work of private individuals; governments formed to promote ARTS, SCIENCES, MEDICINE, POOR HOUSES, PUBLIC SCHOOLS, get all their cash from private sector taxes or from private persons charitable contributions, private active patrons, churches, synagogues, Knights of Columbus, Salvation Army
Good Government Employees get down on their knees every night and morning and thank private sector workers for their tax dollars and charitable contributions that keep government employees’ employed.
Typical of Socialists and LIberals is they think Government is the Fountain of Wealth in America . . .Republican forms of Government establish limited governments with limited powers which have every nickel they have get from private sector taxpayers, or private sector charitable organizations or private sector benefactors
Like others, you have the cart before the horse, and think Government is the source of Free Society’s Wealth. Governments are established and funded by private sector persons.
Elemental 1010