On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 23:31:43 +0000 (UTC), G Farris wrote:

He said (I
paraphrase) "France is basically an agricultural society, so French understand
that it can't rain every day, and that a good year is likely to be followed by
a poorer year, hence their conservatism - Americans slaughtered the Indians
and that explains everything you need to know about them".

well, even here many people say that the French are somewhat self centered.
AFAIK not really many are happy speaking a foreign language, they also try
to find French words for new technology terms (that we speak in english in
our language).

Many French really believe that blacks are not admitted to US hospitals, and

yep, there are stupid people everywhere.

if you check in with ten bullets in the chest, but don't have cash to pay
they throw you back out in the alley to bleed. At the same time, they will
tell you their health care is "free"

there is no such thing like a free lunch. many people see it as "free" if
it is a service brought to you by the state (who finances all these things
through taxes).

- they don't seem to worry about the fact
that a flat-rate 21% comes off every paycheck

this depends and varies from state to state. this is a rather complex and
IMHO hard to explain. But I'll try if someone is interested (and if I have
the chance to be not lost in translation *doh*)

- even the poorest - to pay for

NACK

we have a thing that is called 'negative tax'

it and it's still running up colossal deficits.

yes, it is. and we lose social services and have to co-pay more and more.
and less services are paid by social security (varies from state to state
and from security agency to security agency; we in Austria have close to
30).

#m
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