Kosta: One that doesn't put greed ahead of the nation. At this moment, we have 13 million illegal aliens in this country because American businesses are willing to hire them as cheap labor, and the government (servants of the people!) look the other way. How patriotic is that?
It is not patriotic because it both breaks and fails to enforce existing law. However, that is a breakdown of a good system, not a normal application of a bad system. So, unless you are genuinely against a free market economy with as little government intervention as is practical (and I hope you're not :), then your real complaint is against certain individuals who are breaking the applicable rules. I would join in that complaint.
Thanks FK. Capitalism like anything else can be used for the good or for the evil. My complaint was that some unethical businesses, out of greed, try to maximize their profits by hiring illegal aliens (after all, it's much, much cheaper to hire illegal aliens), and breaking the law as well as creating more illgeal mirgant influx.
In addition to this, this greedy and unethical and illegal exercies of free econopmy further puts our national health at security in peril because US Public Helath Service cannot track those who have communicable diseases and our Homeland Security cannot track those who slip into the country as terrorist operatives.
The local and state and federal governments are further aiding unethical and greedy businesses which illegally hire illegal aliens, by not enforcing existing laws on the books that call for stiff penalties for those who hire illegal aliens.
Some here have tried to justify the practice by saying that a bowl of fruitloops, or something like that, would cost $5 instead of $1.25 if the businesses that hire illegals hired Americans! So, for $3.75 we are willing to create a potential terrorist network of thousands of cells inside the US, essenitally selling out freedom for that price, while our men and women are dying in Iraq trying to keep them out?
All that because of greedy capitalists and corrupt government officials who do not apply the law, some bargain-hunters notwithstanding. With about 13 million illegals, how many potential al-Qaida terrorists couls have slipped in? Why, 1% would be an army of 130K! Sobering.
American capitalism has been good for America, but it did not have such a rosey history. It had to be tamed by child labor laws, because greed and profit motives sometimes do not find cruelty, or even unpatriotic practices objectionable. Capitalism does not police itself; the only thing free market economy regulates is the market, and even that si not fail-proof. The ethical conduct and practice of capitalism cannot be above the law and has to be subjected to social norms and principles.
American labor movement was a formidable force in the first half of last century precisely because capitalism wasn't always the nice veriaty we have today. Powerful unions (some of them corrupt just as much as the establishment) competed with capitalism until it became obvious that the only way to rid oursleves of unions and the associated communist element in them was to improve the conditions in workplaces, and provide better security ofr the workers. That's exactly what socialism did! Most Americans don't even realize how myuch we have borrowed from socialist practices—including political correctness.
These social changes did not come from within the capitalist mentality, but were forced on capitalism from without. Today, we have a milder, kinder, nice and better capitalism than 30, 50, 60, 90 years ago. It's like apples and oranges. Yet, we still lag behind Europe when it comes to job security, vacation time, and benefits.
There is nothing inherently moral about capitalism to raise it to biblical reverence. Like any other economic system, it is the system of our age. It may become obsolete just like all others beofre it, when the age changes and the world evolves into something completely new.
But in the discussion and knee-jer reactions that followed, some of them quite childish, my point was lost or forgotten: namely that greed (profit motive) created the demand for illegal aliens, and thereofr eit is greed and corrupt government that is responsible for the 13 million illegals in this country.
Rather than build walls that never kept anyone from entering or escaping, the solution is to cut the demand by discouraging greedy and unethical businesses from hiring illegals with stiff fines as prescribed by the law, and firing the corurpt government officials who do not enforce such laws at the present time.