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From: Frank Krygowski <frkrygow@sbcglobal.net>
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: bike light optics
Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2024 13:45:24 -0400
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On 4/7/2024 10:39 AM, AMuzi wrote:
> On 4/6/2024 4:41 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
>> ... I think the U.S. would have succeeded very well even with
>> a markedly different constitution or political system.
>>
>> Also, your article offers no comparisons with the other nations I 
>> mentioned. Again, it's consistently shown that many European nations 
>> have a far more contented population than the U.S., plus lower crime 
>> rates, less violence, more economic security, etc. Much of those are 
>> attributed to a different attitude toward taxation, wealth and social 
>> care.
>>
>> It's obvious that you don't prefer their tax, income, wealth and 
>> benefit rules. But let me ask again: Since you're complaining about 
>> the American set of rules, is there a country whose rules you prefer? 
>> What do you like about it and why?
>>
> 
> Andrew Carnegie is an excellent example, a man (legal immigrant I might 
> add) who gave much more to this nation than he took from it.  Popular 
> myth, such as the utterly ahistorical presentism of the current 
> educational propaganda in our schools, reduces USA's greatest era to a 
> dark time of 'robber barons', a claim  which spins a blanket of lies 
> from a few errant threads.
> 
> Anyone moderately well read in the period will know that excesses were 
> real but more exception than rule.
> 
> Another excellent example is John D Rockefeller, who not only saved the 
> whales (literally, albeit inadvertently) but dropped the going rate for 
> kerosene from over $1 to 17 cents in a few short years. You're big on 
> costs and benefits generally, so I know you'd appreciate the much better 
> lives of 75 million citizens against Mr Rockefeller's earned wealth.  If 
> success is a sin, how do you judge George Westinhouse, Thomas Edison or 
> the perpetually litigious Wrights, all of whom have decidedly 
> distasteful aspects thrown in with their gifts to our country.
> 
> And criticizing the Homestead Act? Really?  We have a great comparison 
> to The Russian Empire where slavery was abolished just before our own 
> and shared a huge expanse of sparsely settled fertile land with a 
> similar desire to develop it. We succeeded swimmingly while Russia never 
> has. 

It should be obvious that I'm not claiming Russia has a better political 
system than ours.

The fact remains: Once Americans got past the Appalachians, they were 
looking at an immense continent's worth of resources, with essentially 
nobody to stop them from taking whatever they wanted. Practically 
speaking, it was owned by nobody - or at least, nobody who could 
effectively object.

And as I said, within decades - i.e. once the Civil War was settled - 
America had not only the manpower but the technology to begin scooping 
up all those resources. (Much to the detriment of Native Americans, of 
course.) I don't think any other nation had that perfect set of 
advantages. For example, Australia's deserts didn't work nearly so well.

We also had a big advantage in that unlike Europe, we suffered far less 
devastation from wars. So to attribute American success 1865 to 1914 to 
only the (amended!) constitution is ignoring a lot. In fact, those 
benefits I listed extended to at least 1945 and somewhat beyond. We 
didn't win World War II because our soldiers were braver than the 
enemy's. We won largely because we were able to employ far more 
resources than theirs.

And our current status is not nearly as glorious as many super-patriotic 
Americans pretend. There are many, many ways in which the U.S. lags 
behind many other nations. Yes, I know many immigrants choose to come 
here - but those tend to be from places like Guatemala. I'll admit, 
we're much better than Guatemala.

-- 
- Frank Krygowski