[IMC-NYC-Print] america to me

[sam baldwin]

Hi I was reading some articles and have always wanted to ask the following question.    There are many countries and many different types of governments in there countries.   I have traveled the world and never seen a country I like better.    If there was one I like better or if I did not like the one I was in I would probally move.   That is what most people do when they are totally unhappy.    My question is why does some people want to totally change a countries way of life rather than accept the norms of the country they live in?   Would the changes you suggest make America a place that I did not like and others like me would not like?   Would this be fair to us?
An Article about me:
What is America to me? I was born in Southern West Virginia to a very poor family. We had little to eat and even fewer cloths to wear. I remember the soles on my shoes would flop as I walked and I developed a way to walk so as to not make so much noise. In the 9th grade I attended the prom with my girl friend, it was a dance with a live band. I had to borrow a tie from my grandfather, he was the only one who had a tie. Of course the tie did not
match anything I was wearing. I borrowed a suit jacket to wear, it had holes in the sleeves at the elbow. I held my arms in such a way as to hide the holes in the sleeves. I was not the best dressed but oh what fun I had. After high school, collage for me was only a dream, so I joined the US Marines. The Marines turned a poor mountain hick into a man, with discipline and honor that I would need the rest of my life. After my tour in the Marines, the Marines paid for my collage education. The once poor hick from no where vill, who made terrible grades in school was off to the University. The discipline I learned in the Marines helped me finish and earn my BS degree and later an MS degree. Then I worked for a large energy company for 18 years, started making coffee for everyone, and finished as the boss over all engineering for the company.

Now I look around me, at an America under attack from religious zealots. The America that gave me everything, opportunity for me and my children. America gave me and the world a view of space. America gave me and the world computers and the Internet. America allows me and the world to get on the Internet and view pictures from space and soon America will send a space ship to Mars and look at the life that we now know exists on Mars. America has given me and the world more inventions for the good of mankind that any other country, electricity, internal combustion engines, flight, communications technology, agriculture products, new drugs and medical technologies to treat many diseases like cancer and AIDS, the list goes on and on. America has helped every country on the earth in times of need. When there are floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, any natural disaster what country is the first to help, America. In the past 100 years America has help other countries respond to natural disasters over 5,000 time, and in the same period of time not a single country and not a single person from any other country has offered to help America respond to natural disasters.

Religion is and can be a wonderful part of a persons life. However, religion can and has been the source of the most pain and suffering ever known to mankind. In all the history of the earth, when a religion controls the
people of a country, the people suffer and so do others who interact with them. If the intent of the Moslem religion is to make Islam and the Koran as
the document that rules the earth, they must fail. Diversity of race, of ideas and of religions is a good thing on earth and in nature. Only through
diversity will man survive and reach the goals that God intends for man.

When I was a child, I could have sit down and cried about myself. I could have blamed everyone else for my poverty. I could have sit around and looked
at others with envy, wishing I could take what they have. The determination and drive that helped me to survive, is alive and well in America and that will that lives in each American will defeat any and all religious zealots
that attempt to make us go backward into another Dark Ages.

Your friend

Sam Baldwin

Tennessee, USA

The following is a note I send to my friends around the world concerning my
trip to east Europe in Febuary 2002.   My trip took me to Berlin, Germany;
Warsaw, Poland; Kiev, Ukraine; Mariupol, Ukraine and Volgograd, Russia.

I attended the Ballet (strange for me) in Kiev one evening and during the
performance I noticed that the orchestra was perfection and I loved the
music however, the dancers were young and made many mistakes. The contrast
was staggering. But the contrast was not as staggering as the contrast
between America and East Europe. Poverty and hunger and disillusion are
everywhere. Crime and corruption are the standards of society. The older
people want communism to return, the young desire to be Americans. While
thinking of these contrasts of cultures I begin to think, what makes America
such a wonderful place to live. Is it our freedoms? No most likely not, the
people of East Europe have far more freedoms they we do in America. In East
Europe there are little or no police and little or no laws being enforced,
when compared to East Europe, America is a highly regulated society with
many laws and regulations restricting most anything we do. Is it our form of
government? Each and every country of East Europe is a democracy and there
are free elections of government officials therefore, no that is not the
difference. My mind keep running through the histories of each of our
nations and there development. Then I went back to the apartment in Kiev and
was sitting on the toilet (sorry sometimes the truth hurts) and noticed the
tiles on the bathroom walls. My 16 year old son could have done a better job
placing the tiles. The apartment was new however, the construction quality
was terrible. I began to look around and everywhere I looked the same thing
held true. Everything of there society is designed to "just get by". The
quality of design and workmanship that we Americans expect is just not
evident in East Europe of today. What sets the standards for quality and
workmanship in America.? Companies like Boeing, Intel, GM, Microsoft, HP,
and many others, so many one cannot name, are the driving force behind the
American quest for quality. Compare the airplanes constructed in East Europe
to those of Boeing. Compare the cars and trucks of GM to those of East
Europe. Computer processors, software, communications (try and call home
from East Europe), drugs, the list goes on and on. Before I get bogged down
in this discussion I want to focus on just the police of America. We
Americans seems to always take the police for granted. Just like the many
companies of America, the police officers of America have been and continue
to be on a quest for quality. There devotion to duty and loyalty to the
American people, explain by example the quality standards of America. I
would not trade any policeman in America for any policeman in East Europe.

Before I left on my trip I purchased the new Microsoft Windows XP software
for my computer, it cost me $99.98 at Wal-Mart. I could buy the same
software in East Europe for $2.00 on the streets of any city. CD's, videos,
software all pirated sale for pennies on the dollar in East Europe. American
business, that liberals love to hate for not helping the poor, are giving
millions of dollars to the poor of East Europe each and every day.    The
very companies that liberials love to hate are helping the poor of East
Europe, even if the liberials do not give them credit and even if the
companies do not like it, smile.

Taxes in east Europe are very high.   Here in America we pay many taxes.   I
currently pay about 42% of my total income in total taxes.     If I lived in
the Ukraine I would pay 62% of my total income in taxes.    A curious thing
happens in east Europe, no one pays taxes, smile.   The tax rate is so high
that the society has become a cash only society to avoid the high taxes.
There is a point reached in taxes when an opposite effect happens.
Increasing tax rates reach a point were people begin to find ways to avoid
taxes.    The end result is a society were the government income goes down
and the government cannot function properly.      For me somewhere around a
50% total tax rate is my breaking point, were I become a common criminal.

Is there hope for the future of the poor in East Europe? Yes I do think so.
But that future means taking away freedoms and setting standards of quality
and lowering taxes.

Your friend

sam
PS. IS free speech a two way street of does it only mean free to leftists?
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