Quote from traderdragon2:
I have a problem with people questioning my morality simply because I live in a country that you think is exploiting the world and thus benefiting my standard of living.
Kinda begs the question though, why is it some people here are trying to convince us that the europeans have a higher standard of living then? I guess all this US exploitation either isnt working worth a damn, or all these other countries are doing the very same thing, if not better. 
Lets just assume that the US govt is in fact exploiting people of the world, does that make me immoral just because I live here, even though I havent exploited anyone?
Where germans living in Nazi germany who hid jews in their basement immoral because they lived in germany?
Sorry, I havent exploited anyone, and like the founders, believe I should get to keep what I earn, property rights and all.
I just smell that typical anti-US at all costs attitude in these threads.
I just wonder why people bother to live here if it bothers them so much. You are quite free to leave and denounce your US citizenship. Shop around for another country if you think its so bad here.
I just dont buy into all this anti-us rhetoric, and im quite sick of it. People need to look in the mirror. Name some other countries that doesnt protect their own interests. Hypocrisy everywhere. Everyone keeps pointing the finger at the US for being so greedy and evil and they are doing the exact same thing. Or they point to the USA and use some idiotic conspiracy theory to show how evil they are. I guess if you repeat the same garbage enough, people will believe it.
Also, the flip side to these poor poor illegal immigrants who we are exploiting is, the US worker put out of a job by artificially low wages driven down by illegals who dont pay any taxes. You keep hearing they take jobs no one wants, but thats a load of horse crap. This market is rigged because of the illegals. No one wants those jobs because the pay is too low directly caused by illegals undercutting them.
Let the free market work and those meat factory worker wages would increase until someone hit the bid. That cant happen now because you got illegals under cutting american workers.
Just as a background point, you're chatting with a guy who majored in Philosophy in college -- and then got the MBA. So, I really do understand the perceptions that color both sides of the track. And of course, it's not black or white.
Now to your arguments:
1. It's a free country and people question each other's morality all the time. In fact, it's really one of the key debates of our time right now as to what our moral compass is. For example, the Iraq war was sold as "WMD's," "bringing democracy to the middle east", "removing a tyrant from power", etc... And in the event, it turned out that the politicians had cooked the data to engage in a war of choice to benefit their cronies and support a fringe ideology (neoconservatism). It's hard to have much credibility after that fiasco.
2. I didn't participate in the "higher standard of living argument." But I lived in London for a few years back in the early '90s and at that time I would have said definitely not. However, I do think I had better health care in the UK at that time than I did in the US.
3. Unless you are employing illegal immigrants at full wage I don't think your analogy to people hiding Jews in Nazi Germany is correct.
4. With respect to the argument that just living here doesn't create complicity I'd just point out -- using your own type of analogy -- that the Nuremberg trials decided that "I was just following orders" was no defense. Basically, an un/undereducated populace tends not to appreciate the finer points of what their government is doing to keep their refrigerators full and TV's on. If they did, they would vote the crooks out right away, be demonstrating in the streets, etc... If you don't question authority it will take over your life.
5. Much of the anti US rhetoric is deserved since we try to hold other countries to a higher moral standard than we hold ourselves to. The US is a very inconsistent country when it comes to what it espouses vs what it does -- take nuclear weapons policy if you need an example. Now having said that, if you look at the amount of money that gets shoveled out the door for aid we do do a lot of good in the world. So, like I said it's not all black and white. My experience prior to the Bush II administration was that the US and its citizens were considered to be "decent people." It's only since "cowboy diplomacy" came to town that things have gone "really" wrong from a perceptual point of view.
6. The argument that people who don't like the bad things should leave is ridiculous. The object is to improve the way our government and our country operates over and over again and not push the dirt under the rug. Yes, it's a drag to clean house but it really is a much nicer place to live after it's done.
7. You're making my point for me about illegals -- we actually agree on the solution to this one which is a guest worker program that is rigorously monitored. My point in an earlier post is that this will lower the standard of living all around in the US as our labor costs are currently being subsidized by illegal/sweat labor. Not all of the so-called productivity miracle of the last decade is related to technology.
Anyway, I've enjoyed the conversations but think I'm going to leave it at that for the day.
Enjoy the nice weather and the afternoon.
-Sam
