Subject:
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Re: One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 3 Jul 2002 19:17:51 GMT
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Viewed:
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4306 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal writes:
> I define "greatest" by how a country treats its citizens. The people of the US
> of A are the freest people in the world, and *that* is what makes us the
> greatest. The fact that we are the greatest economic, military, and cultural
> presence on earth is only a testament to that fact, not reasons for it.
The usual madness, John?
We are amongst the most incarcerated people of any nation, and this is by
percentage, not just numbers. Why do you suppose that is?
One reason, and there are many others, is that we'd rather treat our drug
addicts through incarceration rather than giving them the medical and
psychological care they need. Another reason would be that we incarcerate
people for a number of pretended crimes that have nothing to do with the
traditional common law crimes of rape, murder, and theft -- and their
variants. Should prostitution and gambling really be crimes in some areas?
O the list of arguments goes on...but why bother? You'll just come back at
me with 200 iterations of "Show me a better country?" If you are actually
capable of reason, I would merely point out that several European nations
have very high standards of living that either compete with our own in the
states or actually manage to best our standard of living here. And while
they are at it, they also manage to deal with the drug issue at least a
little bit more effectively in my view.
The first step in improving everything about our country is to not be smug
about who or what we are today. There is A LOT of room for improvement as I
see it. The U.S. is still a great idea on paper, less great by far in
actual practice.
-- Hop-Frog
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