I used to be able to do that. Maybe my patience and equanimity will return now that that place isn't sapping my will to live. I know one thing, next time I need an injectable, I'll request bags from our only competitor. Yea, "free" market?

It's a little, no a LOT frustrating because, with the very notable exception of my fiancee, the last two years have been one unbroken crap storm. I finally stopped telling myself the clouds have to break sooner or later even as I kept saying it to others because it was just too depressing; every time I seemed to be back on my feet, everything paid for, bills taken care of for the foreseeable, bank account rising instead of falling, I'd get submarined by something. The past year (ironically given your example) it's been this freaking lemon of a car; it's been out of the shop for 8 whole days this time, yet after I stopped for gas on the way home from work today I had an idiot light come on for my engine. And I've got to sell this piece of crap in less than two months, because I no longer have a job and still owe nearly $4000 on it. And so it goes....

The fact remains there's only so much water on the planet so it can't rain forever. Still, I distinctly remember my uncle saying he feels like the whole family is under active assault by the devil. That was a little over a year ago. Fortunately for all of us, that's not the top of the food chain.

The thing I've always found annoying about Rand and her followers is that she seems to urge, almost command, not just individuality in itself, but the particular form she prefers. Everyone should be free in exactly the way she says they should, and that makes me VERY nervous, because it's the kind of thing Stalin and Mao used to say.

The thing is, I think ensuring necessities are universally acceptable is itself an undeniable benefit to society. It's reminiscent in some ways of the debate over the infamous "Selfish Gene", but, as I said elsewhere, dead workers tend to produce very little, and a starving soldier is a poor defense, which is why we (theoretically) don't allow our soldiers to starve (though as much as some (not you) think all liberals hate America and its military, I don't think service families, particularly with deployed breadwinners, get nearly as much government help as they need. ) Whether it's moral or gives us a warm and fuzzy feeling is really irrelevant to national policy, and I recognize that; love still can't be coerced, and if it's mandatory it's not charity, it's just a tax. We tax to provide government services from which all or most benefit directly or indirectly; if we don't maintain some basic minimal standards the cops won't protect us from looters: They'll JOIN them. That's the primary reason corruption is so rife in underprivileged countries; wave a ham under the nose of a man whose family's starving and he'll often forget his duty very quickly. So there's a passive and active benefit to society individually and collectively. We can debate whether or not something falls into the category of an essential need of this sort that it's in everyones best interest to make accessible, but if/when we establish that something IS an essential need, to my mind we've conceded that interest exists. When someone's always had such access without the need of government aid, however, it can be a lot harder to see. It's not a malicious thing, no (at least not usually) it's a perception thing. I can't relate to Warren Buffets problems either, but my inability to do so isn't going to cost him his life and isn't what's dulling Americas competitive edge (if we even still have one; biggest thing we have going right now is we have so many consumers of high dollar goods other economies can't afford to lose us, but since we're buying from them on credit, that can't continue indefinitely. )

As to comparing per capita charitable donations around the world, I suspect it would be rather like our discussion of the HDI: How do you measure, what do you measure, and how do you normalize it? I don't doubt Americans donate more than say, the Burmese, however you measure it, but not because we're so noble or they're so heartless: We have the money. Even comparing us to Europe is difficult because, outside of foreign aid, a great many things that depend on charitable aid here are financed by taxes there, so even if the income levels are comparable, the need isn't necessarily, and (except for people seeking tax shelters) people don't donate money just for the hell of it: They donate money with the intent to make a positive difference.

As to proof, well, again thinking of the HDI discussion, somehow something manifestly true can be difficult to prove. Prove the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I worry the proof really will be in the pudding and that, for America, it may be very sour. The only thing I know for sure is that since the Democrats Big Tent exploded in Chicago in '68 we've been increasingly returning to the Harding model, and our political, strategic and economic status has been just as increasingly eroding. Maybe liberalism isn't the answer (though it seems to work fine in Western Europe) but what we've been doing all my life isn't working any better than it did in my grandparents' day.

Lest there be confusion about where I stand I'll just reiterate: Obama is no FDR or he wouldn't have spent his First Hundred Days on trickle down programs so unpopular even many Congressional Republicans opposed them. While I'm sure partisanship played it's usual role, I think it says something when the President wants to give banks $700 billion dollars and the GOP bucks him. That's a much bigger lending boost than cutting the prime rate a point, but it was still a horrible idea simply because we gave a kings ransom to people who'd demonstrated they lack both the competence and the integrity to manage money.