<story><title>David Simon: &apos;There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show&apos;</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/david-simon-capitalism-marx-two-americas-wire</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>majika</author><text>This is a remarkably sensible speech.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;The idea that the market will solve such things as environmental concerns, as our racial divides, as our class distinctions, our problems with educating and incorporating one generation of workers into the economy after the other when that economy is changing; the idea that the market is going to heed all of the human concerns and still maximise profit is juvenile. It&amp;#x27;s a juvenile notion and it&amp;#x27;s still being argued in my country passionately and we&amp;#x27;re going down the tubes. And it terrifies me because I&amp;#x27;m astonished at how comfortable we are in absolving ourselves of what is basically a moral choice. Are we all in this together or are we all not?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I see a lot of libertarian and anti-government sentiments expressed on HN. People like to construct arguments like &amp;quot;more government vs. less&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;higher taxes vs. lower&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;less regulation vs. more&amp;quot;, but those debates are missing the forest for the trees. The question - and only question - should be what David Simon asks: are we all in this together or are we not?&lt;p&gt;To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It&amp;#x27;s demonstrated by what societies are flourishing - with high economic and social equality, healthy democratic government, protected personal liberties, well-cared-for populaces, and resilient economies - and what societies aren&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Nordic_model&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>avar</author><text>The libertarian and anti-government sentiments aren&amp;#x27;t saying that we shouldn&amp;#x27;t be all in this together, but that we shouldn&amp;#x27;t be &lt;i&gt;forced&lt;/i&gt; to be all in this together. That difference is what the entire argument is about.&lt;p&gt;Few people are saying saying &amp;quot;let&amp;#x27;s not do this&amp;quot; for some value of &amp;quot;this&amp;quot;, they&amp;#x27;re saying &amp;quot;let&amp;#x27;s not &lt;i&gt;force everyone&lt;/i&gt; to do this&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s a very profound difference, it&amp;#x27;s why having the government make anything its business anywhere in the world is always controversial.</text></comment>
<story><title>David Simon: &apos;There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show&apos;</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/david-simon-capitalism-marx-two-americas-wire</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>majika</author><text>This is a remarkably sensible speech.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;The idea that the market will solve such things as environmental concerns, as our racial divides, as our class distinctions, our problems with educating and incorporating one generation of workers into the economy after the other when that economy is changing; the idea that the market is going to heed all of the human concerns and still maximise profit is juvenile. It&amp;#x27;s a juvenile notion and it&amp;#x27;s still being argued in my country passionately and we&amp;#x27;re going down the tubes. And it terrifies me because I&amp;#x27;m astonished at how comfortable we are in absolving ourselves of what is basically a moral choice. Are we all in this together or are we all not?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I see a lot of libertarian and anti-government sentiments expressed on HN. People like to construct arguments like &amp;quot;more government vs. less&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;higher taxes vs. lower&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;less regulation vs. more&amp;quot;, but those debates are missing the forest for the trees. The question - and only question - should be what David Simon asks: are we all in this together or are we not?&lt;p&gt;To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It&amp;#x27;s demonstrated by what societies are flourishing - with high economic and social equality, healthy democratic government, protected personal liberties, well-cared-for populaces, and resilient economies - and what societies aren&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Nordic_model&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mchusma</author><text>I think it was a good speech, but because it was so emotional, and not rational. In fact, he was dismissive of any arguments as anything other than his own. To call all other forms of thought juvenile, and simply say &amp;quot;we are either together or not&amp;quot; sounds like the content of a great political speech, not a well articulated debate.</text></comment>