I feel a bit left out that I missed all of your deleted comments. I saw that one #273 and that is enough for me. I take it that you are from Ireland based on some of the other responses to your deleted posts.
Many of the votes in the blue states are from large urban areas. That is where the largest concentration of welfare recipients will be found in this country. It is simply not so of the "red" states outside of their own urban areas.
Curious that an Irishman would complain about welfare since the economy of Ireland was for years completely propped up by the other socialist nations of the European Union. If you are indeed in Ireland, then you are more of a welfare client than you are likely aware of or willing to consider acknowledging.
Europeans invented the welfare state, and the Irish until recently have been among the greatest purveyors of terrorism that the world has ever seen. The Islamic throwbacks have certainly taken terrorism to new heights, but we all should also keep in mind the antics of a largely revered faction of Ireland's political circumstances. I am ashamed sometimes to be of that heritage when I consider the terrorists tactics utilized by my distant relatives. I am glad that my remote cousins do not know how lowly I consider some of their countrymen to be.
There is no way to tell for certain about your residence, but your associate Lifted Spirits seems to want to deflect from the possibility that you are indeed of Irish extraction. That appears to be some method of attributing to you a bit of legitimacy.
"Europeans invented the welfare state, and the Irish until recently have been among the greatest purveyors of terrorism that the world has ever seen. The Islamic throwbacks have certainly taken terrorism to new heights, but we all should also keep in mind the antics of a largely revered faction of Ireland's political circumstances. I am ashamed sometimes to be of that heritage when I consider the terrorists tactics utilized by my distant relatives. I am glad that my remote cousins do not know how lowly I consider some of their countrymen to be.
"There is no way to tell for certain about your residence, but your associate Lifted Spirits seems to want to deflect from the possibility that you are indeed of Irish extraction. That appears to be some method of attributing to you a bit of legitimacy."
You're addressing that to both of us, but it's obviously aimed at tsr_god. I can't speak for him, but I suspect he was somewhat tongue in cheek. I imagine what was meant was in terms of state aid, rather then welfare recipients. However, I know that some red states are among the biggest money producers in the USA, so regardless it has little or no basis in fact.
But the part I'm interested in addressing is your view of Europe and the Irish in particular. First of all, Europe does not consist of socialist states. I know this view arose initially from the hyperbole of political rhetoric and has since, it seems, from reading forum discussions, have taken on the characteristics of a myth. Working for an American company, I know and meet a large number of Americans abroad and they all laugh uproariously at this conception of Europe. All European states have capitalist economies.
Back in the 50's and 60's, Sweden had very high taxes and had a large number of social programs, so it too was often seen as socialist minded - but it was also richer than the USA, proportionately, which caused no end of consternation among Americans. So we all grew up hearing about how high the suicide rates were in Sweden (another myth), almost as if we were to think Swedes were very unhappy.
There's some truth to what you say about Ireland. The first major step to pull Ireland from poverty came from the initiative to provide massive tax breaks to foreign multi-nationals for exported goods, so a lot of American companies came here which apparently did wonders for the economy (I say 'apparently', because the Irish all thought they were suddenly getting good jobs with decent wages, not realizing that they were effectively getting loans). That was probably the biggest influence over ensuing decades that propped up this country.
However, it is also true that over recent years, an immense amount of aid has arrived into the country from the EC, as grants for various things, like building better roads. No argument there. But this country is hardly socialist minded, believe me. It has the highest prices in Europe (something the Tourist board likes to hide or simply deny) and the highest wages of most Western European countries. When I buy a garbage bag for my rubbish to be collected (many people have 'wheely bins', but some still use 'bin bags'), I have to pay 5.80 Euro for one bag, to get it collected by the private company who have a monopoly on garbage collection. Growing up in the USA, I don't remember anyone in my family having to dish out extra cash to get their rubbish collected - presumably you don't view the USA as socialist because the state collects rubbish, paid for by taxes.
As for your comments about the IRA - yes, truthfully, they have been the nastiest, most brutal creatures over the last couple of decades. Believe me, you don't hear the half of it over there. But worse were the extremist spin off groups, who tend to get more publicity. However, this state of affairs has largely been over the last 20 years, give or take. But through most of the history of the North, and of the Republic when you go back far enough, that was not the case. Dare I say that you don't seem to have a very broad knowledge of the history of this country and it's neighbor to the East. Your summation was far, far too simplistic. I'd be happy to discuss this, but it would be very far off topic here.
I'll just add something here about Islamic terrorism, about which I'm sure we can be in complete agreement. The terrible irony there is that back in the 80's, the "fundamental Islamicists" were opposed to violence, intending instead to garner power through democratic means and then maintain it through undemocratic means. But not through violence. The extreme of the extreme, who started coming up with rationalizations for violence, were very fringe and were also very, very unpopular among the Arab populations. Those groups, through assassination, basically took over the fundamentalist Islamic movement, but even then were in danger of heading straight into extinction and as they broadened their "acceptable" targets for violence, became even more unpopular.
When Gorbachov could see the writing on the wall for the USSR and recognized that he could not remain in Afghanistan, he virtually begged Washington to help set up a moderate government in Afghanistan, for the good of BOTH major powers. But the neocons would have none of it and exactly what Gorbachove foresaw in Afghanistan and what all of us now know about is exactly what happened. Also, completely inadvertantly, the neocons gave a much needed boost to the now violent extreme Islamics. Furthermore, much as the neocons developed the concept of the "Evil Empire" (and subsequently, the "Axis of Evil"), the Islamics not long after found a new common enemy, the "Great Satan", which helped them prevent their own self-destruction through the violence they were aiming at one another. And just as the neocons created and fed the myth that they had felled the Evil Empire, the Islamics (not the Mujahadin) also created and fed the myth that THEY had brought down the Evil Empire (as Russia was to them also), even though they actually had hardly done any of the fighting.
Again, having done this twice today, I apologize for drifting so far afield from the topic.