Tuesday, June 08, 2021

via Bill: Only in America

Supposedly a Canadian Top Ten list of American stupidity, but if this is Canadian, it was composed by a Canadian conservative. More likely composed by a conservative American, as seen by how #8 refers to "our tax code." Anyway, here's the list (slightly edited):

WELCOME TO AMERICA

This is Canada's Top Ten List of America's Stupidity...Canada's version of David Letterman's "Top 10":

10. Only in America... Could politicians talk about the greed of the rich at a $35,000.00-a-plate campaign fundraising event.

9. Only in America... Could people claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans when they had a black President, a black Attorney General, and roughly 20% of the federal workforce is black while only 14% of the population is black. 40+% of all federal entitlements go to black Americans, 3X the rate that go to whites, 5X the rate that go to Hispanics!

8. Only in America... Could they have had the two people most responsible for our tax code, Timothy Geithner (the former head of the Treasury Department) and Charles Rangel (who once ran the Ways and Means Committee), BOTH turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher taxes.

7. Only in America... Can they have terrorists kill people in the name of Allah and have the media primarily react by fretting that Muslims might be harmed by the backlash.

6. Only in America... Would they make people who want to legally become American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege, while they discuss letting anyone who sneaks into the country illegally just 'magically' become American citizens.

5. Only in America... Could the people who believe in balancing the budget and sticking by the country's Constitution be thought of as "extremists."

4. Only in America... Could you need to present a driver's license to cash a check or buy alcohol, but not to vote.

3. Only in America... Could people demand the government investigate whether oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gas went up when the return on equity invested in a major U.S. Oil company (Marathon Oil) is less than half of a company making tennis shoes (Nike).

2. Only in America... Could the government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, still spend a trillion dollars more than it has per year—for total spending of $7 Million PER MINUTE, and complain that it doesn't have nearly enough money.

1. Only in America... Could the rich people—who pay 86% of all income taxes—be accused of not paying their "fair share" by people who don't pay any income taxes at all.

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years, there would be a shortage of sand."

~ Milton Friedman

What makes me think this isn't Canadian is that it's too rightist to be properly Canadian. Most Canadians would probably disagree with the list. The list does have the correct self-righteous tone to be Canadian, but as I mentioned above, there's the problem of "our tax code" (my emphasis). No, I'm pretty sure the list was composed by a conservative American.



4 comments:

Daniel said...

I'll always be a blessing heart lefty ideologically, but that list had some pretty good points. Love the Friedman quote. Absolutely on point.

Daniel said...

Typo, I meant to say bleeding heart...

Kevin Kim said...

I suspect you're more of a liberal than a leftist.

Trump made points that had been made by Democrats in the 90s (border security, etc.). He gets called a bigot for saying the same things as those Democrats simply because of the "R" behind his name. Trump himself has been—and to my mind still is—a New York liberal Democrat. How else to explain his preference for America First over the globalism espoused by Republicans after Reagan? Trump's economic policies are in line with those of 90s era pro-union liberal Democrats. Don't listen to the race hustlers. There's probably evidence Trump is a sexist, but he's not a racist.

Daniel said...

All good points. I believe he remained a registered democract until shortly before he announced his run in 2015. And totally agree on the need to separate his policies from his personal character. As a fellow guy, I'm not one to judge, in any case!