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I'll tell you a story. My dad was born in Transylvania. His family fled to Hungary after the Romanians (who got Transylvania after WWI) started performing genocide on the Hungarians in Transylvania (traditionally Hungarian). He then fought, at age 17, in the Hungarian Uprising in '56 where they kicked the filthy Soviets out of Budapest for 10 days until the Soviets realized the US was not going to come help Hungary (as had been promised by the US on Radio Free Europe). After being captured, tortured, and escaping, my dad crossed the border by throwing rocks ahead of him to blow up mines in a mine field. He came to Canada speaking no English whatsoever and receiving $5, a bar of soap, and a hand towel. Went and worked in the gold mines until saving enough and coming to the US where he went to San Francisco State for a couple years before managing to transfer to Cornell (an Ivy League). Never got a dime from the government for education. Worked 40-60 hour weeks and went to school full-time.
After graduation (age 27-30. I forget.) he worked for a few food service companies (hotel management major) before starting his own company. I didn't see him all that much during my childhood because he worked so much. He made out pretty #### well and has retired with my mom to a 130 acre ranch in the Sierras. This from a poor Eastern European immigrant who grew up with no electricity and spoke no English.
Don't tell me the poor can't better their station in life here, or in Western Europe generally (though America tends to be friendlier to entrepreneurs). America has many flaws and I bet I can speak more cogently on them than you can. But don't tell me that capitalism doesn't allow for the poor to become rich. It happens all the time and the opportunity provided by capitalism is the one great shining virtue of the Western world.
Show me a country in any system in which this isn't true, my man. The leaders are always better off.
Let me guess: You've not done much traveling. Most of the so-called poor in America are much better off than most of the world's population. That holds true for Western Europe/Australasia/Japan/Canada too.
I've been to a lot of places and while some of America's inner cities are an absolute disgrace, people have things like "electricity" and "running water" there. Those are huge luxuries in many places in the world and not surprisingly the places where they are the biggest luxuries tend to be the places where capitalism is the weakest and some sort of autocratic government is the strongest. America pollutes more as a whole due to the # of automobiles here but there are -no places- in America that compare to the worst places in the rest of the world. None.
--matt
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