France still burningFollow

Your husband is a Commie. I bet he owns a Che Guevara T-Shirt and has a goatee. Leave him for a real man.

Edited, Tue Nov 8 12:04:12 2005 by fhrugby

I have to agree with Gbaji on this one.

America is of course the first and only country to do this throughout the history of the world ...

Poor people usually aren't pissed about the things they don't have, most especially those receiving some sort of government support.

They're pissed about the things other people DO have.

I've read about this being proven in studies but I'm not about to research links, so scoff if you like, but...

The average person, would rather be the only person with $10 in a room full of people who have $5 each instead of being one of ten people who have $500 in a room where some people have $1000 or more. It's all about status and standing.

YSU:

Exquisite Bullshi[/i]t!!!


Everyone knows that the real reason for the riots in France is the cancellation of the 24hr Jerry Lewis channel, as announced in President Chirac's nationally televised speech 13 days ago.

*cough* I didn't mention economics (except negatively). In fact, I said it had *nothing* to do with a gap between rich and poor. That was the argument I was debunking.

What *I* said was that it was about rights and freedoms. Things like whether they could worship they way they wanted and live their lives the way they feel they should. It's about people feeling persecuted for being "different".


My whole point was that it's not all about economics. You can provide all the government assistance you want, but if you still treat your immigrants like outsiders mooching off the government dime, then they'll hate and resent you for everything you do for or against them. That's the lesson that France is learning...

Then what the hell was that little tidbit about this happening in the US if we follow euro lefty values.

Bless you.

Hehe. Um... Because I do believe that socialism is incompatible with liberty. And I happen to believe that's a good chunk of what's causing the problems in France right now. It's a textbook case of the flaws of socialism.

You start with the promise of "free benefits" to citizens. All is good. But then the costs to maintain those start to rise. Immigration becomes a problem because people will want to come to your country to enjoy those benefits. Over time, more of the population will become stratified as each "group" believes that the others is taking more then their fair share. Unemployement rises, increasing the need for those benefits, but making no one particularly happy. This begins a process of social warfare, not so much between classes, but between any group that can claim more "right" to goods and benefits then another. They begin to use lobbying for legal changes that give their group more advantage then others. Over time, an underclass will develop, made up of those groups scapegoated into being at fault for whatever the problem of the day is. That underclass will be subject to arbitrary legistlation from the majority to make it's life as hard as possible as punishment. This will eventually result in rioting and violence by that underclass.


That pretty much it?

Look. There are a host of problems with socialism. One of them is the simple fact that you've now made the government at fault if there's not enough "whatever" to go around. You've also made the government the legal process, not only by which benefits are provided but also through which complaints must travel. This works great as long as the people as a whole trust the system and believe that it is fair. But when people decide that it's not fair (right or wrong), the result is civil unrest aimed at the government itself. Because they see the government as the instrument of oppression against them. It's not exactly the ideal that some would like to paint it as.

but.. there kinda really is enough to go around.