St. Louis

System's benefits lost in Anti-Columbus rally

In response to: "Protesters hold Anti-Columbus rally."
Some things I know, some I continue to learn. I know life under communism and capitalism. I know working for and with the poor in the slums of Calcutta and flooded fields of Bangladesh. I know dining with heads of state. I know growing up with the effects of imperialism in Ireland. I know living and working in capitalist America. I know both dispossessed and elite of every country where I have spent time. I know friends and those who were not friends across many, many, races and cultures. I know working in law enforcement and I know detention without trial. I know being honored by the church of my faith and I know being acknowledged positively by those proscribed by my religion.
"We think this system is oppressive"
Free words, by free people. Free to speak and associate, protected by law and its officers, defended by a non-conscripted armed force on a university campus where education is not the privilege of a few, but a right for the many.
And now I know that this- this "system"- is the best thing I have ever known.
-John Ormonde

Upon reading the feature on the anti-Columbus day radicals, I felt compelled to respond to some of the criticism one extremist laid on these United States of America. Anti-Columbus should mean just what it sounds like; Anti-Columbus. At what point does the conversation switch from anti-Columbus to a slam on capitalism? Capitalism makes for a high standard of living, through competition to dominate a particular market. There is no finer country on the planet than the United States. The individual claims to Òstand up and cheerÓ every time America gets shunned on an international level. Why does he live here, then? He could easily go to a third-world country, and live in a mud hut for the rest of his life. Why? Because there simply is no better place to be.
-Jeremy Bixby