As a property owner in a (by no small majority) poor area, I think you might want to explore some gratitude for anything that improves the neighborhood and your property values, government funded and initialized, or not.

As for the rest of it Jeremy, I luvs ya but hey, I do believe you’re only in your twenties with limited life experience, you’ve been in NYC only a couple years (hardly an authority on anything Bushwick or NYC related) and finally.. you’re from Florida.

The way I see it, you can’t help what you are. You’re probably from a family of Bush supporters, most likely a member of the Log Cabin (gay) Republicans, purposefully obnoxious, and so I’ll stop wasting my breath and drop the argument.

You win. xoxoxo

American reputation is going down the toilet because of the hideous things our government does. Note that it is not for the things our government does NOT do. The US is not anywhere near third world conditions, and I find it uproarious that anyone would say such a thing. Even if it were true, I fail to see how a European-style safety net is the magic wand to reverse this alleged trend, especially because as I indicated above, state safety nets are inferior to voluntary ones.

As for the “top 2%”: they funded things like the Visiting Nurse Service of NY, libraries and museums across the country, Habitat for Humanity, etc., and still give billions to charity today. So I can only guess that your gripe beyond that is that they don’t simply have the poorest bit of society living like the middle class? Neither does the state — here or in Europe or anywhere. And you’ll have a hard time convincing anyone that they should.

“Dare I say that entitled greedy rich people share more of the blame for our current circumstances?” — Dare to say anything you want, but rich people in their capacity as rich are not to blame — rich people in their capacity as RULERS are to blame. The vehicle they use to rule is the one you want to have more power. Bizarre.

“Additionally I feel the pain of those who bitch about rent stabilized apartments. Before I had one, I was insanely jealous as well. Now I have one. Hooray for me.” — Why should I be jealous of people who live in stabilized apartments, most of which are shitholes? Why should I be jealous of people who are so deluded as to think scoring a stabilized apartment is an “investment”? I pity them. However, I do congratulate people I know who score stabilized apartments they intend to live in for a few years. So, no, my opposition to rent regulation is mostly from the point of view of efficiency, and only a little from that of justice.

“I don’t agree that areas should be totally divided by economic status.” — Again, you express a personal preference with no objective value. People eat the food they can afford. People wear the clothing they can afford. And people live where they can afford. There is absolutely no reason to advocate enforced geographic “economic diversity” except to satisfy your hunger to engineer society. People are not your pawns.

“Just try and find your fucking souls and be a little more magnanimous eh?” — You’re such a good person, Armstrong. You wish the state would just tell everyone what to do so we don’t have to wring our hands dealing with all these decisions and choices!

Yes, I am “hardhearted,” as you say, but that does not change the fact that voluntary initiatives (the market) provide for people far better than coercive initiatives (the state). My attitude toward the stupid and lazy does not change the fabric of reality. I personally think charity is a disincentive and in most cases should not be extended. Fortunately for the dumb and crippled and lazy, the market doesn’t give a shit what I think, and people continue to spend their money on making themselves feel good through charity.

And actually, laziness has nothing to do with measuring standard of living — just as monetary wealth does not. I am INCREDIBLY lazy — I only do as much work as it takes to not get fired. I have zero work ethic. I value leisure time far more than many material goods. Would I like both? Yes. Am I willing to work for it? No. And that’s okay. Now, since I’m also not stupid, I have funneled whatever little money I make into wealth-generating and -sustaining assets, which just make my laziness that much easier and more comfortable. But even those with minimal intelligence can work hourly their whole lives in a small town and retire modestly in a home they own. Life is a breeze!

The point is we live in such an advanced time, even hampered as we are by onerous regulation, that we can be fat lazy slobs who hardly work at all and still make an okay living! It only gets better as technology improves.

The only truly cruel thing, if you do indeed care for the poor, is to demand more socialism, so that overall people have less choice and less wealth.

More than anything, my comments are in contest with some of the attitudes expressed here and in other posts. Everyone can of course have their opinions. God knows I have mine.

Sorry, but the worst thing about the US is what it does to other countries; ergo, I’ll never move to Iraq, for example (I’ll skip to another country if I hear so much as a whisper of a military draft). I’m not sure what the second-worst thing about the US is; I haven’t thought about it. As our immigration rates attest, America meets the needs of its people, most by private mechanisms and some the government. To express whether less needs should be met by private institutions and more by the government is really to express a preference, as would be considerations of whether a poor person or a rich person should get another dollar.

It’s the fact that I’ve kept up with current events that I have the opinions that I have. If only I’d paid more attention in college, I might be enlightened enough to know which news stories to read and which to avoid for optimum depression. Do you suspect all dissenting opinions to be born of willful ignorance?