First, I agree that this thread was not created in the correct category. It should have been placed in Articles, or World Politics or something like that. And maybe the title could be a little more detailed as well. Having said that, I knew what it had to do with the moment I read the title because I understood the reference (it's just too much of a play on "Land of the free, home of the brave" - but I can certainly understand why non-US folk may not catch that). But to give the OP a hard time for this - it's a minor mistake, one which I've seen repeated many times on many forums, this one included, without single comment. Seems to me that comment came about because someone was offended by what he saw.
Of course, I think the OP should have admitted his mistake as well
Also, if we were to keep this forum to ONLY things that pertain to expat life, it would probably be fairly small and not have much of a "social glue" to keep things going.
As far as just putting the video and the guy who produced it off to "paranoia" and other derisive words - well, you can not believe in something someone says, but to jump on other's thoughts like this and attempt to smash them into the ground with such words is a good reason why the politics in the US, among the people themselves at least, has become so polarized.
I thought Caliexpat's "rant" was spot on, and was pretty much what this guy was saying in a very brief video, in that the video was talking about one aspect of the issue - specifically welfare and the government wanting to expand and perpetuate such programs.
We all have disagreements between ourselves, even those who believe more or less the same sort of thing.
But why can't this guy say what he wants to say, and make a buck off it as well, if what he says appeals to people? Why is it a bad thing to make a profit off of intellectual property? If enough people like it, more power to the guy.
Hell, even Benjamin Franklin made money off of his political commentary way back when. (I'm NOT comparing the guy in the video to Benjamin Franklin himself - don't even go there!).
I don't see anyone at gunpoint coming to take money out of our pockets for having watched the video and forcing us to pay for his other books and videos available, nor forcing us to pay for his lectures, whether we attend them (or want them) or not. That would truly be a problem.
He's not "the problem" - he should be an example of someone who is taking advantage of the free speech entitled by the constitution of the US, at least within the US (and if you believe in God and what the signers of the US Declaration of Independence had to say, it is actually granted by an even higher power, supposing that everyone on Earth should have this ability), and whether or not you agree with him, he's merely expressing his opinion (which I happen to agree with in large part).
I don't see him lobbying the government, for example, to force people to agree with him. I don't see him going to the UN and lobbying governments through that body to start adapting his ideas and force them on the rest of the world.
Instead of calling him a lunatic, idiot, paranoid, if you have something to say, dispute his numbers with your own or put your own thoughts as to why he's interpreting the numbers wrong, or something along those lines. Don't we have enough "sound bytes" in this freaking world already?
Deriding him and what he has to say without any facts or reasoning behind it is no better than what a few of you are accusing him of.
