>- Which countries in the world have you visited in the last 15 years?

Canada, Mexico, England, Belgium, Germany, and Nigeria.

>- From which countries do you follow the news on a daily or weekly basis?

America (obviously) and England.

>- How many languages do you speak?

English, and a little bit of German.

>- In how many countries did you sell your products

Most of the companies I've worked for have had offices around the world. But, as I'm not a salescritter, the question does not apply.

>- In how many countries did you have to do research on a governmental level in order to adjust your product to their market?

>Lets compare your numbers with mine and see how histerical this is...

I will add one question to the list: how many countries have you studied the history of? To which I will answer: The US, Canada, Mexico, England, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, Australia, the Balkans, most of medieval Europe, Israel, Japan...I will admit to being a little weak on Africa and South America.

>Give me the message, as I don't recall tracy ever was able to prove me wrong on the correlation of gun control and gun related deaths. There IS a correlation whether you like it or not. No-one is every going to convince me that the right to carry the gun is making thing safer in the US. Now tell that mr. cheney.....

I will look up the thread.

>>>>The Netherlands may have what you consider to be the furthest right government it has had in a while, but my point is that you push this "left-is-right" theory as if it applies to the whole of Europe. It doesn't.
>
>>>Prove that.
>
>>No, the ball is in your court.
>
>You make a statment that is pretty harsh, you'd better prove it.

I'm not the one making harsh statements here.

>See the other message with the links. Further what I said (you can read it back again) is that there is no SIGNIFICANT left in america. And yes left and right are relative terms. And for the record: I'M AN EUROPEAN. so when I say that there is no )significant) left in the US, you could have known that it is relative from the world I live in. But of course you blindly ignorantly attack the statement as a static definition that applies in your world. Appart from that read the links, even the americans themselves doubt there is any left wing left.

And here is where your train jumps track. You have never once tried to frame this in "relative terms" - only in absolute terms. I think we both agree that Europe leans more to the left than the US does. However, you did not say "there is no significant left in the US as compared to the left in Europe". You stated that what passes for liberalism here would be "far right" in Europe. Far right? Not a chance. Go check your own links. More to the right than in the US? I'd buy that.

Furthermore, if we are going to assume anything, you should have assumed that this thread was a discussion of Jewish liberalism as evidenced in the US - since it was based on a US-published article. Are European Jews in the mainstream politically - in Europe, that is? Perhaps if you had made a comment in that regards, you would have contributed something useful to the discussion.

>For example, where is the human right movement in the US? Such as did happen in the past for equal rights of blacks. Equal rights for both sexes?
How about human rights in guantama bay?

You've got to be kidding me. Or perhaps you haven't noticed the continuing debate over Guantanamo that's raging here?

>How about signing the kyoto agreement,
How about we don't agree with it?

>about recognizing the international court in The Hague?
Same again.

>Where is progressive america? The ones who are laudly calling for change? What is the political development in 50 years? Compare that to the rest of the world.

Compared to the rest of the world? Lessee...most of Europe was smashed by its own governments in two wars. Most of Eastern Europe was under Russian domination. Most of Africa was trying to get on its feet after decades of colonial rule. Compared to the rest of the world, we haven't had to rebuild our system of government.

>This is not to say that I per definition disagree with the american system. I think we do pay a lot of taxes and I do recognize that lowering taxes could increase economy, but this often is a short term solution. It's effect disappears very quickly as the society adjusts. If lower paid people pay less taxes, it means that their wages will (relatively) decline as well as corporate companies will only pay what is absolute neccesary to get labor force. The rich OTOH will benefit as they simply will hold more on the bottom line of the bill. In short, the poor stay poor, the rich will get richer any way you put it.

That's a discussion we've already had. If you want to do it again, start another thread. I fail to see how it applies to this one.

>And with the amount of taxes that are raised, they have to use it for an endless war in the middle-east. What about free and good education for everyone? How about improving infrastructure. What about rebuilding new orleans?

We have free education through high school. Quality obviously varies from district to district. Infrastructure? You should see the amount of road reconstruction going on just in Houston. Rebuilding NO? It's happening. Want to know what else my tax dollars go for? I believe the federal and most state budget proposals are on-line.


>I don't think our system is perfect, but the american is far from it either.

Not once have I said ours is.

>YOU CAN'T DO ANY COMPARISON WITHOUT GENERALISATIONS.

Yes, you can. Give it a try some time.

>>I daresay that if I started making harsh statements regarding your country, you'd get pretty excited too.
>
>Well give it a try, lets see what you can find out. I'll give you my comment on each issue.

Generally, I reserve my harsh statements for rush hour.

My rebuttal to your left-is-right will be coming shortly.