The "Privilege" of being American

Tim G should shut the fuck up. Privilege? Suck my dick. The government should feel privileged to receive anything from me. Instead those parasites in Washington think I owe them anything. They think they have the right to steal from me and I won't care.

I feel privileged to have patriots protecting me in the military. Those worthless pieces of trash we call politicians can blow me considering they forcefully take the money I earn to piss away on garbage that curries them favor.

What a curly hair fuck face.

That was probably the best ANT rant I've read to date

I didn't read the article, but it is a privilege to be an American. I didn't really get that until recently after visiting some very impoverished areas in Asia. I did a study abroad in Mexico in college and thought I had a decent idea of what a third world country was like, but damn, some of the places in Vietnam and Cambodia were on another level of poverty. You can name any number of problems -- our government is corrupt, our educational system is subpar for a developed country, etc., etc. -- but the fact is, you have a better chance of a happy and productive life if you are born in the US than almost anywhere else in the world. That's something be grateful for.

Hey Turbo Tim, what about the 50% of americans who pay 0 income tax?

Besides the crumbling infrastructure, I don't see much else that could be considered a privilege. The privilege of 15+ trillion debt? That one day, we'll get stuck with... the privilege of renouncing your citizenship only if you pay a 30% global asset tax. What about the estate tax? That's legit for sure.

And if the very politicians that voted on all these new taxes / tax increases had just acted responsibly in the first place, there would be no need for them. ANT is right, they're parasites, and the toxic mindset that most Americans have about government revenue..."if they cut taxes for manufacturing, where are they gonna make up that revenue?!?" ...is just as bad. There's nothing 'old fashioned' about the principles that founded the best country there ever was, the fact that people even say that really worries me. It's amazing that as soon as the gov't started undermining those principles and our liberties, the USA started falling apart. The system is a sham, and the founding fathers would be ashamed.

Yes, there are big problems. I hate our government, no question. I constantly bitch about how social security and medicare are going to sink the country and how we shouldn't be wasting money on bullshit wars. Every country has problems though, and most of them are far worse than what we deal with. If you were to look at the data, I bet 80%+ of the world is on a hand to mouth basis of daily existence. At least in the US you have the opportunity to get educated and participate in a relatively fair capitalist system in which hardworking and intelligent people can advance and accumulate wealth. Good luck trying to do that in some communist police state or a war torn African "nation" or whatever.

Obviously this guy hasn't visited Canada.

I don't think it really matters how much Geithner thinks the rich should pay in taxes because Congress ultimately decides the tax rates. We should take Geithner's comment as mere posturing for his boss's reelection by parroting the views of politically relevant billionaires Buffett, Gates, Cuban et al. Not to mention it's just a WSJ op-ed written by an embittered technocrat whose term came to a premature end because he didn't say what his boss wanted to hear.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/09/mark-cuban-get-rich-and-th…

The US is the only country in the world that forces you to file for taxes no matter where you live simply for the privilege of being a citizen. Timmy isn't reinventing the wheel here, Americans have been paying for this privilege for a long time.

Goodbread has got it right.

Most Americans aren't even sympathetic to this either.

Why does a certain side of the tax policy debate always seem like petulant children.

Gnome,

Ron Paul does not support completely unregulated free markets. He supports accountability and demands the utmost integrity from the private sector. He looks at the gov't as a referee, not a gamechanger. What you're advocating is a quasi socialist agenda which is proven to not work. He's pointing to holding wall street mega banks accountable for their actions instead of just saying "if you pay us 500 MM, we'll just call it even, eh?"... along with the fed and monopoly money scheme of printing.

I have worked for a governmental entity and a governmental contractor before. Have you? You say they have done good things by building those structures, but I would say they do much more harm than good. 75% of the employees are incompetent, complacent or lazy b/c they know, it doesn't matter what happens, the gov't's got their back. Same goes for contractors, once they land the contract, they don't give a damn after that. Expenses run out of control, take too long to finish menial tasks, etc. Then they bill the gov't for the difference, and they pay! gladly! lol @ them creating wealth. If anything, they create market inefficiencies

The rich got rich because of this country being free and stable. You can thank the founding fathers, a strong military and blessed geographic location. The infrastructure that everyone benefits from was built by people seeking a wage. This idea that the rich somehow owe more because they got rich from the existence of the poor is a fairy tale and tissue paper thin morality for government enduced theft.

Gnome, I'd respect you more if you supported the poor simply stealing from the rich. Instead you pretend to wrap your crime with the cloak of legitimacy by having a proxy commit theft for you (uncle sam). Plain fact is you're just to weak to committ the crime yourself.