Because I’m not the one claiming that things are terrible here and faunching at the bit to change this country to become like other ones.
I always thought liberals were naive, but I had no idea till I got to this place. Vladamir Putin and probably China would run roughshod over a very large part of the world if not for the fact that the U.S.’ might is holding them in check, and that doesn’t even take into account what tin-horn dictators in the Middle-East and Latin America would be capable of. You obviously have no idea (and this is certainly no surprise) of the threats being held in check by U.S. power and treaties, and would willingly gut the country’s military to fund even more social give-away programs which would serve only to make the country more dependent upon the government – a government that can longer even protect them from foreign aggression.
And what’s up with this list:
*Bests-------------------------------------------------Worsts
Gross domestic product------------------------------Poverty
Productivity---------------------------------------------Economic inequality
Business start-ups------------------------------------Carbon-dioxide emissions
Long-term unemployment---------------------------Life expectancy
Expenditure on education---------------------------Infant mortality
University graduates----------------------------------Homicide
R&D expenditure---------------------------------------Health-care coverage
High-tech exports--------------------------------------HIV infection
Movies exported---------------------------------------Teen pregnancy
Breadth of stock ownership--------------------------Personal savings
Volunteerism--------------------------------------------Voter participation
Charitable giving---------------------------------------Obesity *
I’m sure you’ll excuse me for not taking the U.N.'s word for this – or for anything, for that matter. I’d be hard-pressed to name a more gutless and ineffective organization. And unless you can post some pretty convincing evidence that the OECD and “other groups and experts” know what they’re talking about and have taken into account everything that needs to be accounted for, I’m afraid that this list of yours, compiled apparently from studies done by foreign groups who are likely quite biased, I’m afraid I can’t view this list with any more credibility than the one posted by Quiddity Glomfuster a couple of years or so ago that claimed, among other things, that liberals are naturally more independent, self-reliant, stronger, happier, better athletes, more well-adjusted, etc., from birth than are conservatives. That study got deservedly lambasted, and I’d wager that it wouldn’t take too much effor to rebuke virtually every point made above, though serveral of them are the direct result either of our tradional freedoms (personal savings, obesity, voter participation, etc.) or they are the result of liberal influence since the counter-culture revolution (homicide, HIV infection, teen pregnancy, etc.)
And what’s with this us being among the worst in teen pregnancy? Every time I mention it as a consequence of liberal influence the last forty years, people come out of the woodwork screaming that it was worse in the fifties.
