Bill Moyers addresses NCMR 2008

"(Bill Moyers) is not a believer anymore"

Who are you to say what constitutes belief or lack thereof? By what criteria do you judge him?

You dare to equate Henry Kissinger with the likes of FDR and Abraham Lincoln? You, sir, have a special place reserved for you in Hell.

"Bill Moyers was EXPOSED by FOX news!"

An expose by Fox News? Now that's what I call credible!

"do you really have any clue to just how liberal he is?"

Do you REALLY have any clue just how fascistic Fox News is? As Rupert Murdoch consolidates a greater & greater number of media around the world, diversity of opinion grows proportionally less.

But keep sticking up for a LESS diverse range of opinion. If you don't, your world may just become too complicated for you to understand.

Credible is to FOX NEWS as
WMDs are to Iraq

@ jkiene: Individual freedom plays a major role in my definition of a high standard of living. I'm all for property ownership as well. However, Im not sure if "owning" is the appropriate term to describe the average American's relation to the house he or she lives in. Technically speaking, most peoples houses are owned by their bank. So we are talking about the illusion or prospect of true ownership at best.

Now even this bubble has burst for many during the mortgage crisis because the system was simply not sustainable in the long run (much like many other aspects of the US economy). How much property does the average evicted family own now? Also you forgot to take the different building standards into consideration: What you call a typical American house might not even pass as a woodshed over here.

Apart from that, I find average property size to be a really bad indicator for the comparison of living standards in Europe and the USA. Given the respective density of population thats like comparing apples and oranges.

You may not have thought about it, but if for example every family in my city lived in a house with 1500 square feet of space, there wouldnt be any room left for roads, parks, schools, stores, restaurants or anything else. So that wouldnt really benefit anyones standard of living at all, would it?

Americans on average also drive bigger cars, eat bigger meals and have bigger asses than Europeans. Would you derive a higher standard of living from these facts as well? You may have the space to support such irresponsible behaviour in the States and that would be fine if you found a way not to pollute the entire world and use up all its resources in the process.

But if you tried to transfer this lifestyle to Europe, you would make a complete fool out of yourself, trying to squeeze your Hummer into the average parking space or your super-sized McButt into a public restroom.