Mr. Ash doesn't know the United States very well, does he? The only people left to die in the gutter I see are the people who absolutely refuse to be helped from it. When someone wants to die, no government can do anything for him. You have seen similar cases in the Inuit villages of your North, I think.
Perhaps he should think about the Parisians left to bake in their apartments a few years ago.
"There must be no American-style, social Darwinian capitalist jungle here, with the poor and weak left to die in the gutter"
I thought this a wonderful piece of satire - and then I realized he is serious.
LOL! He's not talking about the REAL America. He's talking about the imaginary one inside his head, that he turns to whenever he wants to feel superior.
Posted at 2007-01-26 17:11:09 [PermaLink]"...Eleven of the 27 heads of government ... including the German chancellor Angela Merkel, were subjects of communist dictatorships less than 20 years ago. They know what freedom is because they know what unfreedom is..."
They know what freedom is, specifically because of the United States of America - who never capitulated to the communist empire, and won their freedom for them by achieving victory in the Cold War.
"the poor and weak left to die in the gutter"
Spot on, Mr. Ash. I see them all the time living in subsidized housing, shopping with food stamps, obtaining medical care with Medicaid. It's a brutal Darwinian jungle out there.
There is greater income inequality in the U.S. than in Europe, but purchasing power parity for the poorest people in the U.S. is comparable to Scandinavia and better than the UK. That means that the poorest people in the U.S. are about as well off as they are in Finland and Sweden and better off than they are in Britain. [External Link]
![[External Link]](http://www.tcsdaily.com/images/Library/None/082806.bmp){kind=link}