Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…
Tourists flock to New York from the
UK for shopping trips, seeing the US as a cut-price retail mall of their
dreams with some spectacular buildings thrown in for good measure.
However, the reality for those of us who moved here permanently is
rather different with many services costing considerably more than they
do in the UK.
After
arriving in 2013, and settling down in Maine, we soon found out that
having no credit history in the US can make things a tad on the pricy
side.
After comparing prices between the United States and the UK, The Daily Telegraph's David Millward brings it down to this:
Perhaps the crudest rule of thumb is buying goods is often cheaper than the UK, but paying for services is far more expensive.
… Of course goods are not subject to 20 per cent VAT and though sales
tax exists in the majority of states, it is far more modest.
The
real delight, of course is motoring. We bought a Ford Escape – the US
equivalent of what is sold as a Kuga in the UK. It was about 25 per cent
cheaper, saving us thousands of dollars.
Petrol is, of course, cheap as chips – especially now. It costs around £15 to fill up the tank.
… The good news for anyone living and working here is that income tax
is lower, but we are paying twice as much in local taxes as we were in
London.
Then there is the frightening cost of health care.
We pay around £800 a month for a decent policy – and even then we are
expected to chip in a substantial amount on top for any treatment we
receive.
As I discovered, these bills are not cheap. A brief stay in hospital cost a few thousand dollars even after insurance.
HUANG: So … what motivated you to run against John McCain?
WARD: Well, lots of things. You know, I think that thirty years in
Washington is way too long for anybody. I’m a supporter of term limits
and, I have pledged myself that I wouldn’t stay more than two terms.
Twelve years is a long time in Washington, DC. It’s a enough time to get
some things accomplished, get some things started and then be ready to
pass the torch on to the next generation of people who are studying and
learning right now, who will have the abilities and the stamina and the
energy necessary to continue our path, you know, our country on the
right path.
I am a proponent of small government and low taxes and low
regulations, much less regulations, a strong military, personal
responsibility and the Constitution. And what I’ve seen from John
McCain, especially over the last several years is that he’s a
big-government, big-spending Republican who doesn’t listen to his
constituents, who has lost … the ability to remember who he works
for.
At CPAC, Ted Cruz held a rousing speech (that might be your No Pasarán correspondant whooping at, among — many — other times, 39:33 and 39:45) before being joined by Sean Hannity for a question-and-answer session.
About a minute after the Texas senator says (at 31:27) "I'll actually say a sentence that I suspect has never before been said at CPAC", your correspondent can be seen (in a tieless white shirt) in the third row towards the left of the screen (as well as at 3:03, 3:50, and 40:25).
Immediately afterwards, when Cruz answers the Fox News reporter's question about the dire economic conditions facing the American people — "stagnation … misery … drowning in student loans with no hope of a good job" — your correspondent is the one adding Jimmy Carter's "malaise" to the list, immediately repeated by Ted Cruz (and earning a thumbs up from Sean Hannity) who proceeds to bring up the "accomplishments" of America's 39th president.
In June 2004, a No Pasarán blogger happened to be in Washington when Ronald Reagan passed away. A few days later, Joe N. headed down to the mall, joining the crowds for the funerary ceremony. The crowds were silent. Then Nancy Reagan
came walking by.
Joe remembers seeing a young man in a baseball cap who let out a shout.
Remember! We love you!
The former Nancy Davis stopped, turned her head, and raised her hand to her chest. She placed her hand over her heart. Then, she turned back and walked on…
based on the two years we spent working for him in the U.S. Senate. It
is clear from these conversations that while few doubt the sincerity of
his conservative political convictions, many are struggling to make
sense of the way he has been characterized by the media and a few of his
Republican colleagues as “dishonest,” or “unlikable.” Many of you are
trying to understand who this man is and how can you like him or trust
him enough to support him for President of the United States.
The truth is – you are right to question. This is the
political choice of our lifetimes – and we all feel how critical this
choice of president will be for the future of America. From concerns
about national security to economic growth, from healthcare costs to
education opportunity, from mounting debt to a broken immigration
system, from religious liberty to questions of life and marriage – all
with the 9th Supreme Court seat sitting empty… we feel a sense of duty
to get this choice right and at this particular moment. We know we owe
that to our children. So how can we hand the reins to that so-called
“jerk,” Ted Cruz?
Well, we happen to know him quite well. And we know that the
vast majority of these characterizations are completely false; that
Senator Cruz is an honest and decent man; that the negative portrayals
of him are purposeful and a direct consequence of his willingness to
fight for the American people against the massive power of the ruling
class that our founding fathers predicted would occur; and that it would
be an incredible disservice for you not to take a serious look at him
as the only nominee who will lead this country away from its current
path and toward the American promise of freedom, security and prosperity
our children deserve.
This comes at the end of a column in which the New York Times'
economist has castigated the right for "Republican hostility toward the
poor and unfortunate" (Re-posted).
Every time I read a column by Paul Krugman in which he laments the racism he constantly finds among conservative groups (A War on the Poor,
New York Times, November 1), I wonder if he has ever heard about Tim
Scott. Given that for awhile, the legislator from South Carolina was
the only member of the United States Senate who is African-American, one
would think that his name might be — almost — as renowned as Barack
Obama's.
The explanation for Scott's relative
obscurity is that he is a Republican — one who is backed by Tea Partiers
(endorsed by Tea Party favorite Jim DeMint, Scott's Senate predecessor)
and one from a Southern state to boot. And were Scott better known, it would be far more difficult for people like Krugman to bewail the racism of Republicans and Tea Partiers, not to mention Southerners.
You
would think that this black pauper's rise from rags to the halls of the
U.S. Senate is a living memorial to Martin Luther King's dream. But
because leftists (conveniently and self-servingly) define themselves as
the valiant fighters against the racism they (conveniently and
self-servingly) constantly find throughout the ranks of the Republican
Party, it comes as no surprise that South Carolina's conservative
Senator did not even receive an invitation to participate in the 50th
anniversary commemorations of MLK's Lincoln Memorial speech.
Should Krugman
need more evidence of his own prejudices, one could also mention Nikki
Haley and Bobby Jindal, Republican governors (both of Indian heritage)
backed by the Tea Party whose skin is about as dark as, if not darker
than, that of Barack Obama. Yes, they too were elected in states from
the former Confederacy.
As for blacks who are
favorites of the Tea Party, either nationally or locally, they include
Herman Cain, Allen West, Darryl Glenn, and Mia Love as well as Thomas Sowell (the
Stanford economist who deserves the Nobel Prize in Economics at least as
much as Krugman), Walter Williams, Larry Elder, and Stacey Dash. But all these African-Americans must be ignored, because for the Left, the only good "Negro" is the martyred "Negro"
— the one who constantly thinks he and his like are victims and
therefore votes for the victimization party (i.e., the Democrats).
Currently, one favorite of the Tea Party crowd for presidential
candidate in 2016 is Dr Benjamin Carson, a neurosurgeon who is offering a
free-market alternative to Obamacare that would keep prices down and
Washington's brand-new army of bureaucrats out of the health care
system. His skin, too, is darker than Obama's.
But all these inconvenient facts must be ignored or belittled by media people like Krugman in order to push the narrative that America is an intolerant hell hole of prejudice populated by hordes of despicable racists.
Note: The initial text of this post held that Tim Scott was the only
black member of the United States Senate; that was true at the time of
the writing of the post, over several weeks, but 12 days before this
post was posted, Cory Booker had become New Jersey's junior senator.
At CPAC, on Wednesday, a member of Columbia's Chamber of Representatives made an appeal to Norteamericanos for assistance in persuading the American public to turn against the U.S. government's decision to spend $450 million towards Bogota's "peace process" with the FARC guerillas.
According to María Fernanda Cabal, it seems like Álvaro Uribe's choice to succeed him as president of Colombia has let him down (to say the least), throwing away his hard-won military victory over the FARC guerilla movement. (Shades of the USA's Democrats with regards to Vietnam 40 years ago and to Iraq four years ago…)
"Santos, it's not peace that's near, it's the surrender to FARC and the tyranny of Venezuela."
the Washington Post's Joshua Partlow quotes Uribe, now a senator, as tweeting.
With help from the Castro brothers and their Havana Process (Maria Fernanda Cabal added at Maryland's Gayelord Hotel), Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos (who served his predecessor Uribe as his defense minister) has decided to fuel America's millions towards FARC leaders, effectively reviving the formerly defeated terrorist group doubling as a cocaine cartel.
Leftists are drama queens. Leftists constantly erupting in hysterics — male (girly men?) or female — rule the roost.
Racism!
Patriarchy! Sexism! Rape on campus!
Global warming! Christianity's bigotry! The reactionary average American! Republicans'
hate speech and hate thought! US history, a litany of racism and
oppression! All the founding fathers, hypocritical sonzabitches! All our
ancestors, imperialist mongrels! Oppression of women, and gays, and
transgenders!
(The only person, the only people, who
come out positive in this (self-serving) world view are — surprise,
surprise — the drama queens themselves! Also known as the wise men, and
the wise women, arriving as knights in shining armor on their white
steeds to fight for the victims and the martyrs of the world.)
Whenever there is drama — whenever there is a crisis (or the semblance of a crisis) — the left's drama queens win.
There
must be constant drama — crises, if you prefer — or the movement loses
momentum and/or comes to a standstill and/or dies out.
We have been in the midst of the triumph of the drama
queens and the Chicken Littles and the other arrested-development adolescents since the 1960s, with the movement reaching its zenith with the 2008
election.
Ain't that true? Can't the biggest drama queen of all [Barack Obama] be found in the White House?
When
the Republicans won the 2014 elections, they didn't realize that this
was actually manna in heaven to the top drama queen of them all.
—
I will defend the poor innocent martyred immigrants against the
monstrous Republicans, against the ignominious inhabitants of Middle
America! — I will defeat the aggressive and clueless warlike policies of the
despicable Republicans, regarding the relations with (say) Russia or
Cuba, provide a reset, and open an era of peace and prosperity and
friendship with those poor, misunderstood nations! — I will fight for the American people tenaciously, by attacking the
nation's, indeed the world's, main enemy, its only enemy (no, not Isis,
not Al Qaeda, not the Russians, not the Chinese, not the Iranians, not
any foreign dictator), and that as relentlessly and as often as I can —
the contemptible members of America's Republican Party and the clueless
average American citizen.
Anything that will provide food for drama, for a crisis, may, and will, be used.
In no sense whatsoever is there the slightest value in unity.
Creating chaos is their raison d'être.
War,
and crises, with the opposition must be used all the time, and no event
may occur without it being used for political advantage.
All
these battles in Congress makes Obama happy. He has created his crises,
one after the other. He appears as the knight in shining armor come to
save the American people.
With the Homeland Security shutdown, you have to wonder if nothing would make Obama happier if there was a terrorist attack on some place in America.
He could blame it, would blame it, on the Republicans.
And the media would gobble it up.
Why? Because
journalists are drama queens too (they have to be, that is how the
"newsmakers" survive). That is why so many of them are Democrats, while
that is why so many leftists go into the news business in the first
place (I want to fight for the little man).
(And why do
the drama queens, in- or outside the media, hate conservatives?
Republicans? Fox News? Where does their sense of anger, and revulsion,
at Dubya, and Reagan, and Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck originate? The
main reason is because the latter are, they were, happy people with a
smile on their face, who take pleasure — indeed, pride — in their
country, and who are not constantly outraged at everything around them.)
Does Obama deserve to be impeached? Want to impeach Obama?
You
know what? Nothing would make Barack Obama happier than to be
impeached. Then there would be another drama, another one at which he
would be the center, and one which could be milked to increase the
fortunes of the Drama Queen Party the Democrat Party.
The numerous pitfalls of Obamacare? The Iranian deal leading to a greater chance of terrorism and war? The drama queens are fine with that, they don't even mind being blamed for having made "mistakes," it all leads to more crises down the road and a greater need for intervention, ever more intervention from politicians and bureaucrats and members of the Intervention Party the Democrat Party, aka knights in shining armor.
Indeed, one of the victories of the drama queens was when even the party of the historically calm and pensive, the party of the grown-ups (or of the alleged grown-ups), turned to the Candidate of Melodramatics and Excitement, which has been, and which is, allowing the Democrats to milk the dramatics for the entire 2016 election season.
PS: Do I doubt that Obama is patriotic and loves America?
What
is the American Dream? The dream to be rich, i.e., the dream to be
powerful, i.e., the dream to be independent — independent of politicians
— the dream to be content and feel secure.
This is the American Dream as far back as the 1770s.
This is the America that statists like Obama want(ed) to "fundamentally transform."
There
is nothing Obama resents more than the America where its citizens are
independent of the politicians, the élites, and their ever-growing
armies of bureaucrats (there to "help them").
The
founders' vision was the dream to be rid of Drama Queens — certainly,
the dream that we should be rid, that we could be rid, of those drama
queens who are in positions of power to rule, or who wish to rule, over
us. (For our own good, natch.)
Since then, for the past two centuries, drama queens at home and abroad have
done all in their power (Norway's 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, f'r'instance)
to make America a Drama Queen-run nation…
Related: Bernie Marcus's dependable, mature golf player acting responsibly to prevent the ice hockey players from going berserk (Republicans are playing golf while the Democrats are playing ice hockey)
• The Divine Right of Democrats: Kevin Williamson on the liberation of the Donkey party by the practical elimination of the Republican party (America is "suffering
from a kind of infection in the form of the Republican party, which
inhibits the normal and healthy — meaning Democrat-dominated — political
life of the United States")
Jim Grimsley penned an editorial last week in the Los Angeles Times that accused white people—all white people—of being racist.
Unfortunately for the gay columnist and playwright, one Benny Huang plans to examine the issue of racism in a dispassionate manner and, indeed, to take the argument to its logical conclusions.
Grimsley, who is white and grew up in Georgia at the tail-end of the
Jim Crow era, railed against the cluelessness of white America on the
issue of race. Even white people who consider themselves enlightened on
racial issues, he argues, are often unaware of the racism that lurks
within their own hearts. “…I have found that black people are all too
aware that progress on racial issues has hardly moved forward at all,
while white people are nearly as blind to their racism as ever,” he
wrote.
I wish Grimsley had been clearer on one point—that is, whether white
racism is cultural or genetic. Within the space of the same sentence he
seems to blame both nature and nurture for white racism. Grimsely
writes: “…[T]hese are symptoms of the insanity of white culture and our
refusal to understand that racism is part of our makeup — each and every
one of us, north, south, east and west — from cradle to grave.”
… The idea that white people are irredeemably racist is central to the
social justice movement. All white people are racist, even good white
liberals.
… Enter Tim Wise, another white southerner. He may be America’s best
known “anti-racist activist” and he’s pretty extreme in his beliefs.
Wise has made a career out of countering anti-black racism, most of
which is entirely fictional, with anti-white racism. Even Wise admits to
harboring certain racist tendencies though he blames it on growing up
in a “white supremacist” culture. He nonetheless believes, despite his
efforts to be the best friend black people have ever had, that he has
internalized certain racist attitudes. And no, he isn’t talking about
racist attitudes towards whites though that would at least be true.
According to Tim Wise, icon of “anti-racism,” even Tim Wise can’t claim to have washed away the stain of racism. Without exception, all white people must be racist.
… It should be noted here that this attitude [Tribalism] has existed in all time
and in all places. The only societies in history that have even tried to
resist the tribalist urge are modern Western societies—this is, white
societies of the post-World War II era. If you regard tribalism as
negative–and in most cases I do—then Europe and North America are
actually paragons of virtue. Colorblindness is an idea that modern
Westerners have strived for even if they have not perfectly achieved it.
Within those societies, it’s the white majority that has been the most
willing to suppress their instincts. Other races seem less enthused
about colorblindness. They have demanded and received preference which they will cling to from now until eternity.
… The idea that we’re born racist, something I think at least some
social justice warriors would agree with as long as we’re discussing
only white people, has certain ramifications. If we accept it (and I
do), we must accept that racism will always exist. The war against
racism can never be won but we can lose our freedom fighting it.
I’ve noticed that liberals often use human nature as an excuse for
behaviors that would otherwise be rejected. If we have an urge, what’s
the use of trying to suppress it? Consider homosexuality, for example, a
behavior regarded as aberrant by nearly every society prior to the late
Twentieth Century. Putting aside moral and religious arguments for a
moment, homosexuality comes with certain health risks, particularly the
male variety—rectal cancer, AIDS, gonorrhea, etc.
(In a previous column, Benny Huang talked of
doctors who, while gallantly joining in the battles on smoking and fast food, live in fear that their careers will be summarily
ended if they advise against anal sodomy—which turns out to be far from bad medical
advice, no matter how you slice it.)
But don’t tell that to liberals. “Gays” are just “born that way” they
argue with very little evidence. No “gay” gene has ever been found and
studies indicate that children exposed to sexual abuse tend to become
homosexuals. Liberals reject this notion because they believe that
homosexuality is not a choice. Homosexuals therefore have no obligation
to suppress their urges. Be your true to yourself, they say. Telling
anyone that homosexuality is shameful is a form of abuse because it
forces that person into the proverbial closet.
It’s a mystery to me how homosexuality differs from racism if they are
both inborn traits. According to dogma, “gays” couldn’t stop being “gay”
any more than a leopard could change his spots. But isn’t the same true
of racists? If racists are born, not made, then even heavy guilt
tactics won’t cure them. What’s the point of trying to make racists
change? All of this “racist shaming” seems both pointless and
destructive to its subjects.
As a certified “homophobe” I am often asked if “gays” choose to be
“gay.” I always answer the same: yes, because people choose who they
sleep with. That doesn’t satisfy the homofascists who always respond,
“If being gay were a choice, who would choose it?”
… The social penalty for homosexuality is non-existent. The same cannot
be said about the social penalty for racism. You can lose your job for
the slightest episode of racism, real or perceived, which is really
hypocritical in that everyone is at least a little racist.
A simple question demands to be answered: do people choose to be
racist? If say you say no, then what’s the point of shaming them?
They’re beyond reformation. If you say yes, that necessitates a
follow-up question—if racism is a choice, who would choose it knowing
that it would mean living life as a pariah? Certainly no one I know
would knowingly accept the social penalty that comes with harboring
forbidden thoughts. It must therefore be an inborn characteristic.
glee over their rivals’
self-immolation, and fear that what arises from the destruction will be
worse.
What it hasn’t inspired is much in the way of self-examination, or a recognition of the way that Obama-era trends in liberal politics have helped feed the Trump phenomenon.
… Trumpism is also a creature of the late Obama era, irrupting after eight
years when a charismatic liberal president has dominated the cultural
landscape and set the agenda for national debates. President Obama
didn’t give us Trump in any kind of Machiavellian or deliberate fashion.
But it isn’t an accident that this is the way the Obama era ends — with
a reality TV demagogue leading a populist, nationalist revolt.
First,
the reality TV element in Trump’s campaign is a kind of
fun-house-mirror version of the celebrity-saturated Obama effort in
2008. Presidential politics has long had an escalating celebrity
component, a cultish side that’s grown ever-more-conspicuous with time.
But the first Obama campaign raised the bar. The quasi-religious imagery
and rhetoric, the Great Man iconography and pillared sets, the Oprah
endorsement and Will.i.am music video and the Hollywood stars pledging
allegiance — it was presidential politics as one part Aaron
Sorkin-scripted liturgy, one part prestige movie’s Oscar campaign.
… If Obama proved that you can run a presidential campaign as an
aspirational cult of personality, in which a Sarah Silverman endorsement
counts for as much as a governor or congressman’s support, Trump is
proving that you don’t need Silverman to shout “the Aristocrats!” and have people eat it up.
He’s also proving, in his bullying, overpromising style, that voters are increasingly habituated to the idea of an ever more imperial presidency
— which is also a trend that Obama’s choices have accelerated. Having
once campaigned against his predecessor’s power grabs, the current
president has expanded executive authority along almost every dimension:
launching wars without congressional approval, claiming the power to
assassinate American citizens, and using every available end-around to
make domestic policy without any support from Congress.
… that [right-wing] Caesarist, crucially, is rallying a constituency that once swung
between the parties, but that the Obama White House has spent the last
eight years slowly writing off. Trump’s strongest supporters aren’t
archconservatives; they’re white working-class voters, especially in the
Rust Belt and coal country, who traditionally leaned Democratic and still favor a strong welfare state.
These
voters had been drifting away from the Democratic Party since the
1970s, but Obama has made moves that effectively slam the door on them:
His energy policies, his immigration gambits, his gun control push, his
shift to offense on same-sex marriage and abortion. It was possible to
be a culturally conservative skeptic of mass immigration in the
Democratic Party of Bill Clinton. Not so anymore.
… liberalism
still needs to reckon with the consequences. As in Europe, when the
left gives up on nationalism and lets part of its old working class base
float away, the result is a hard-pressed constituency unmoored from
either party, and nursing well-grounded feelings of betrayal.
Hence Marine Le Pen and the nationalist parties of Europe. And hence, now, Donald Trump.
He
is the Republican Party’s monster, yes. But what he represents is also
part of the Obama legacy — a nemesis for liberal follies as well as
conservative corruptions, and a threat to both traditions for many years
to come.
Guillaume Santacruz, an aspiring French entrepreneur, brushed the rain
from his black sweater and skinny jeans and headed down to a cavernous
basement inside Campus London, a seven-story hive run by Google in the city’s East End.
A
year earlier, Mr. Santacruz, who has two degrees in finance, was living
in Paris near the Place de la Madeleine, working in a boutique finance
firm. He had taken that job after his attempt to start a business in
Marseille foundered under a pile of government regulations and a
seemingly endless parade of taxes. The episode left him wary of starting
any new projects in France. Yet he still hungered to be his own boss.
He decided that he would try again. Just not in his own country.
“A lot of people are like, ‘Why would you ever leave France?’ ” Mr.
Santacruz said. “I’ll tell you. France has a lot of problems. There’s a
feeling of gloom that seems to be growing deeper. The economy is not
going well, and if you want to get ahead or run your own business, the
environment is not good.”
… From
80 to 90 percent of all start-ups fail, “but that’s O.K.,” said Eze
Vidra, the head of Google for Entrepreneurs Europe and of Campus London,
a free work space in the city’s booming technology hub. In Britain and
the United States, “it’s not considered bad if you have failed,” Mr.
Vidra said. “You learn from failure in order to maximize success.”
That
is the kind of thinking that drew Mr. Santacruz to London. “Things are
different in France,” he said. “There is a fear of failure. If you fail,
it’s like the ultimate shame. In London, there’s this can-do attitude,
and a sense that anything’s possible. If you make an error, you can get
up again.”
Mr.
Santacruz had a hard time explaining to his parents his decision to
leave France. “They think I’m crazy, maybe sick, taking all those
risks,” he said. “But I don’t want to wait until I’m 60 to live my
life.”
France
has been losing talented citizens to other countries for decades, but
the current exodus of entrepreneurs and young people is happening at a
moment when France can ill afford it.
… Some wealthy businesspeople have also been packing their bags. While
entrepreneurs fret about the difficulties of getting a business off the
ground, those who have succeeded in doing so say that society
stigmatizes financial success. The election of President François Hollande, a member of the Socialist Party who once declared, “I don’t like the rich,” did little to contradict that impression.
… Today,
around 1.6 million of France’s 63 million citizens live outside the
country. That is not a huge share, but it is up 60 percent from 2000,
according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Thousands are heading to
Hong Kong, Mexico City, New York, Shanghai and other cities. About
50,000 French nationals live in Silicon Valley alone.
But
for the most part, they have fled across the English Channel, just a
two-hour Eurostar ride from Paris. Around 350,000 French nationals are
now rooted in Britain, about the same population as Nice, France’s
fifth-largest city. So many French citizens are in London that locals
have taken to calling it “Paris on the Thames.” …
Taxes, Frustration, More Taxes
… “Making
it” is almost never easy, but Mr. Santacruz found the French
bureaucracy to be an unbridgeable moat around his ambitions. Having
received his master’s in finance at the University of Nottingham
in England, he returned to France to work with a friend’s father to
open dental clinics in Marseille. “But the French administration turned
it into a herculean effort,” he said.
A
one-month wait for a license turned into three months, then six. They
tried simplifying the corporate structure but were stymied by regulatory
hurdles. Hiring was delayed, partly because of social taxes that
companies pay on salaries. In France, the share of nonwage costs for
employers to fund unemployment benefits, education, health care and
pensions is more than 33 percent. In Britain, it is around 20 percent.
“Every week, more tax letters would come,” Mr. Santacruz recalled.
… Diane Segalen, an executive recruiter for many of France’s biggest companies who recently moved most of her practice, Segalen & Associés,
to London from Paris, says the competitiveness gap is easy to see just
by reading the newspapers. “In Britain, you read about all the deals
going on here,” Ms. Segalen said. “In the French papers, you read about
taxes, more taxes, economic problems and the state’s involvement in
everything.”
… Mr.
Hollande’s government is now trying to re-brand itself as
business-friendly, especially for start-ups. … These
changes were welcomed by business, but the more than 20 French
expatriates I interviewed said their country was marked by a deeper
antipathy toward the wealthy than could be addressed with a few new
policies.
“Generally, if you are self-made man and earn money, you are looked at with suspicion,” said Erick Rinner, a French executive at Milestone Capital Partners, a British-French private equity firm, who has lived in London for 20 years.
Mr.
Hollande’s election, and especially his proposal — since ruled
unconstitutional — to impose a 75 percent tax on the portion of income
above one million euros (about $1.4 million) a year, have only
reinforced that perception.
“It
is a French cultural characteristic that goes back to almost the
revolution and Robespierre, where there’s a deep-rooted feeling that you
don’t show that you make money,” Ms. Segalen, the recruiter, said.
“There is this sense that ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’ means that
what’s yours should be mine. It’s more like, if someone has something I
can’t have, I’d rather deprive this person from having it than trying to
work hard to get it myself. That’s a very French state of mind. But
it’s a race to the bottom.”
Sharing Space, Waiting Tables
“In London, every day is a fight,” [said Emilie Bellet, 30, who in less than a year raised a half-million pounds to finance her venture, SeedRecruit, which finds talent for other start-ups]. “But then you get rewarded. I don’t think this would have been possible in France.”
… Back
in France, Mr. Santacruz’s parents were still trying to grasp their
son’s decision. Having spent her career at the state telecom company,
his mother, like many others in her generation, assumed that her
children’s main aspiration would also be lifelong job security. …
France? Maybe for Retirement
… Guillaume
Santacruz was grateful for the benefits that his country gave him. But
he wanted something else — to innovate. By September, his project was
not where he wanted it to be. Yet he maintained that he was better off
pursuing it outside France.
… Even
if [the company that Mr. Santacruz was trying to build (Zipcube)] fell apart, he told me one chilly weekend at his Kensington
flat, where paint was peeling off the walls, “I would not change my mind
and head back to France; I see only cons to doing that, no pros.” He
was skeptical that the government’s recent offensive to spur France’s
entrepreneurial environment would quickly bear fruit.
Several
of his French friends in London felt the same way. “I asked them, if
things don’t work out, will they go back? Not one of them would,” Mr.
Santacruz said. “Maybe for retirement. But not for work — we’d rather go
to the United States or Asia before returning.” France seemed to have
lost another citizen in the prime of his productive working years.
… And while the bar to succeed was high, “I’m confident I’m going to make it,” he declared.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. Just weeks after Washington State
implemented a new nondiscrimination law that protects “gender identity” a
man walked into a women’s locker room at a public pool in Seattle, a
possibility that liberals had pooh-poohed when passing the bill.
Other women were shocked because the man evidenced no outwardly
feminine characteristics. This was not a dude carrying a purse and
wearing a miniskirt; this was a dude who looked like a dude. He calmly
began to undress in front of the women who quickly reported him to
staff. When he was asked to leave he reportedly said, “The law has
changed and I have a right to be here.” He later returned at a time when
several young girls were changing for swim practice.
The police were not called and the unidentified man was therefore not
arrested. No surprise there; what would they have charged him with? The
law, which opponents claim enables voyeurism, would have been on his
side. All he would have had to say is that he feels himself a woman in
his heart of hearts. If he had been arrested he would have been able to sue the police for wrongful detention.
Such is the insanity of these transgender “rights” laws which
completely abandon the idea that maleness and femaleness are objective
realities. Those are just social constructs, they argue, and they can be
altered with surgery, hormone therapy, or even just a personal decision
to be “true” to one’s self. In order to muddy the waters they speak of
gender rather than sex, two words that were once synonymous but have
recently diverged. Even transgender activists acknowledge sex as being
determined by biology though they afford it little importance. It’s
gender that concerns them because gender is entirely self-determined.
Nor is gender binary—an “either/or” decision between male and female.
Facebook, a company always on the forefront of deviancy, allows its
US-based users 51 options for defining gender including “androgynous”
and “genderqueer.”
… In short, the transgender movement’s Big Idea is that no one can tell
anyone else what his/her/zir gender is because it’s a personal choice.
Though completely bonkers, I can see how this idea would appeal to the
Left because it rejects the concept of objective reality and fetishizes
self-determination.
I’ve often wondered just how far the Left will extend this principle. There must be a bridge too far but where is it?
… Now I don’t really believe that the Left intends these laws to
facilitate voyeurism or sexual assault even though that’s been the
effect. What they want is for men who genuinely feel they are women to
be treated as women. (And women who feel like men, of course.) They
essentially want everyone to engage in a mass delusion because it makes
delusional people feel better. They’re still wrong about this. Even if
we could filter out the pedophiles and peeping toms from the truly
gender dysphoric I’d still be against it because I’d rather not lie to
myself. But as a matter of fact we can’t filter them out. If
each person has full autonomy to decide whether he is male, female, or
something else, then each person’s stated gender identity is sacrosanct
and non-debatable.
Guys like Christopher Hambrook can of course be
arrested and jailed after they assault women but they can’t be
preemptively barred from women’s shelters as a precautionary measure.
Which is utter madness, plain and simple.
I can only conclude that in
their minds, protecting the delicate feelings of the mentally ill is
more important than protecting women and children from pervs.
But what can we do about it?
asks Benny Huang as ze ponders the solution to whether we can choose race (can Rachel Dolezal be black if she wants to be?), whether we can “identify” as disabled (“transabled”), and whether we can determine our own age (at least one gender dysphoric man from Toronto — “Stephonknee” (an adopted name) Wolschtt — has decided that he is in fact female and six years old).
a deep sense of empathy for what must be a very difficult situation
for transgender people, at the beginning and end of the day, it is
nothing short of negligent to instate policies that elevate the
emotional comfort of a relative few over the physical safety of a large
group of vulnerable people. …
What About Women’s and Children’s Rights?
… There’s no way to make everyone happy in the situation of
transgender locker room use. So the priority ought to be finding a way
to keep everyone safe. I’d much rather risk hurting a smaller number of
people’s feelings by asking transgender people to use a single-occupancy
restroom that still offers safety than risk jeopardizing the safety of
thousands of women and kids with a policy that gives would-be predators a
free pass.
Is it ironic to no one that being “progressive” actually sets women’s
lib back about a century? What of my right to do my darndest to insist
that the first time my daughter sees the adult male form it will be
because she’s chosen it, not because it’s forced upon her? What of our emotional
and physical rights? Unless and until you’ve lined a bathroom door with
a towel for protection, you can’t tell me the risk isn’t there.
and his name is The Donald. The Right’s queen of wit has fallen head over heels for Donald Trump,
the candidate who forced the GOP to talk about the issue of illegal
immigration.
My feelings about Coulter are mixed. I enjoy her columns and always
buy her books when they come out, even if I don’t always agree with
everything she says. She, like Trump, revels in shocking liberals, which
goes a long way toward explaining the attraction. Admittedly, it’s not
difficult to shock liberals, who take offense at things like colorblind
hiring, the American flag, and virtue. I admire Coulter’s sass but I
frequently question her judgement when it comes to picking political
candidates. Over the years she’s endorsed Ron Paul, Chris Christie, and
Mitt Romney; all duds in my book.
But never before has she been so enthusiastic about a candidate as
she has been about Donald Trump because he speaks to the issue that she
cares the most about—illegal immigration. It’s an issue that many
Americans, particularly many conservative Republicans, care about. Until
recently we have had no audience in Washington for our concerns.
Neither party seems willing to crack down on rampant lawlessness and one
party clearly encourages it by portraying the lawbreakers as victims.
They told us that no one should have to “live in the shadows;” as if
illegal immigrants weren’t boasting of their lawbreaking on television
and being invited to the White House. Where are these “shadows” liberals
are always talking about? They certainly can’t be found in our two
hundred plus “sanctuary cities” where federal law is null and void.
… Unfortunately, Ann Coulter has become a single issue pundit, focusing
her attention for the better part of two years on illegal immigration.
Her excellent book “Adios, America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country
Into a Third World Hellhole” is filled with startling facts about the
Mexification (and Somalification, Hmongification) of America …
… As someone who’s read “Adios, America” and most of her columns, I
think I can summarize her views on illegal immigration, which I mostly
agree with. According to Coulter, no other issue matters because if
Democrats bring in poor immigrants by the boatload they will sweep to
power and shape policy on everything including guns, crime, taxes, and
the culture wars. As the saying goes, if immigrants and their children
were destined to vote Republican even Harry Reid would join the
Minutemen to defend our border.
What motivates the Democrats is not
compassion for the downtrodden but naked self-interest. Coulter
explained her position in an interview with the Daily Signal’s Genevieve
Wood:
“It’s the only issue because once we have only Americans voting
again we can win those other issues. If we keep dumping—and oh
my gosh, if amnesty goes through well then it’s over overnight. As soon
as they become voters, that’s 30 million voters for the Democrats.”
… Coulter appears not to know this, as she told Charles Cooke of National
Review: “He has certainly been consistent on caring about illegal
immigration.” Donald Trump has not been consistent on the issue
of illegal immigration. He’s a flip-flopper, a fact that should
surprise no one because Trump is the ultimate political chameleon. He’ll
say whatever he has to say to secure power. In that regard he’s not
unlike Barack Obama…with fewer scruples.
… My theory is that Trump was considering a run for the White House but
hadn’t yet decided which party would better serve him or which views he
should pretend to hold. He doesn’t instinctively know these things
because Trump has no core principles. Instead he has interests, and right now he believes that those interests are best served by focusing on this issue.
To Trump’s credit, and I don’t give him much, he has his finger on
the pulse of America. He reasoned, not incorrectly, that people are sick
of Obama and that he could ride the tidal wave of disgust all the way
to the presidency. He zeroed in on this issue not because he gives a
hoot (he doesn’t) but because he thinks that it will ultimately pay
dividends, which it may. It’s just business; and Donald Trump is the
consummate businessman; except for all the bankruptcies, of course.
What Ann Coulter doesn’t see is that Donald Trump fits the profile of
the amnesty shill to a tee. Before he was a thorn in the side of the
pro-amnesty GOP establishment he was part of that establishment; or at
least he was fully qualified to be a member. He was a wealthy, secular,
country club Republican who bragged of hiring illegal aliens
for cripes sake! As many conservatives have argued, they can’t get the
corporatist Republicans to enforce the law because they see illegal
aliens as a source of cheap labor. Don’t forget that The Donald was one
of those corporatist Republicans just two short years ago; and before
that he was a Democrat who partied with the Clintons, praised Barack
Obama, and donated to Planned Parenthood.
But surely Donald Trump will fulfill his campaign promise, right? If
it suits him he will. He will of course be thinking of a second term and
it might be difficult to get reelected if he angers the people who
supported him the first time around, though the same could be said of a
candidate like Ted Cruz, who is supposedly only jumping on Trump’s
bandwagon. I would argue that Trump has jumped on Cruz’s bandwagon, a
man who fought to defeat the Schumer-Rubio amnesty bill.
As we have been saying for the past years or so, the election of Barack Obama will never Lessen
the European (and American!) élites' (self-serving) perception that America is nothing but a hell-hole of racist nightmares. (Why would it? They have too much invested in it, Europeans and American leftists alike.)
From Le Monde's Plantu from one of the final days of December 2015, with the typical stereotypes of the obese white American, the complicit judge under the star-spangled banner giving him a wink, and black victims all children:
• Plantu: The American policeman who had shot a 12-year-old child will not be indicted
• Winking judge: Alright! … we'll let you go this time, but we will be keeping an eye on you!
The Daily Telegraph's
Stephen Clarke can usually be counted upon to get up in arms about denizens rising to the defense of the French language.
A French philosopher, whose philosophy clearly
isn’t strong enough to make him philosophical, has been complaining
about the amount of English used in France. Michel Serres told a newspaper
that he had seen “more English written on the walls of Toulouse than
there was German during the Occupation”. He means advertising, not
graffiti (which is pretty illegible anyway).
Now, leaving aside the fact
that the “English” adverts in question are very often bilingual puns
invented by French companies rather than Anglo invaders, it is pretty
thoughtless (to say the very least) to compare advertising posters that
we are free to ignore completely with Nazi proclamations informing
people that they will be shot if they are found out of doors after
curfew or sent to death camps if they belong to certain ethnic groups.
Perhaps Monsieur Serres is just practising the philosophy of the absurd.
The absurdly absurd.
The above-named “philosopher” (sorry, I can’t believe he “loves
ideas”) also suggests that French people boycott any shops that have
English names or use English slogans. Why just English, though? Why not
boycott every pizzeria that doesn’t change its name to “Italian-style
restaurant selling hot, circular covered breads”? And why not encourage
foreigners to do the same whenever they see a French brand in their mall
or high street? Michel Serres would translate as “Michael Greenhouses”,
and a jibe springs to mind about throwing stones.
Surely if you are a true philosopher and believe in individual
freedom, you should let people buy what they want – as, in fact, they
currently do? Anyone who doesn’t like the English name of a shop or café
in France simply doesn’t go there. No need to call for a boycott. The
French are free. You see, Monsieur Greenhouse, it’s not really like a
Nazi occupation at all.
… People everywhere are inventing new phrases and new words every day. Language is a DIY affair, not a government policy.
… despite what certain “philosophers” think, the ideal solution to
language issues is not to have things banned, it is to see them shared
and explained. Why make people poorer when you can enrich them? As
Albert Camus said, “the evil in the world usually arises from
ignorance.”
