On Tue, 25 Apr 2006 11:11:13 -0700, JR wrote:

wrote:

I mean this as a serious question - why didn't you remain in Italy and
become an Italian citizen, or, why don't you return and become one? IOW,
why wouldn't you rather be an Italian citizen as opposed to your current
(US?) citizenship?

Honestly, I'd have thought you both educated *and* smart enough to be
above falling back not just on "love it or leave it," but implying
something like "if there is *even one thing* about the U.S. that you
don't believe is the absolute best in the world, then leave it."

Well, see, there you are...I've have no idea how educated *or* smart you
are, but I allowed that you wouldn't immediately read something into the
question that wasn't there, even with a flat-out statement that it was a
serious question. Heck, I didn't presume that you were a US citizen. I
simply asked why you didn't obtain Italian citizenship.

For one thing, I am not--at least for the moment, thank God--poor. For
another, there's more to life (and even to being an American) than
health care. Fly fishing in Italy, for example, though nice enough,
can't hold a candle......

And, seemingly unintentionally, you've answered my question: because
there's more to life than healthcare (and actually, it'd be your cost of
it, not its quality), and given a choice as to where to live, Italy
wouldn't be (and, in fact, wasn't) that choice.

Life is about choices, and if Walmart were forced to pay union wages and
provide healthcare benefits such as, for example, GM was/is, it might be
in the same financial condition as GM, and a loaf of bread or tube socks
at Walmart would be 42.99USD (and the loaf of bread would only be 8
slices and have electrical problems, and the socks would only get 13 MPG
highway). The public, and not limited to the US public, has decided it
likes 69 cent large white loaves and tube socks, and thus, in the US,
that choice means, among other things, no healthcare for every employee.
It really isn't a matter of fair or unfair, simply the population
choosing where it wishes to allocate its capital.

You can attempt to "cafeteria plan" as to why this country or that is
better than another, but when the total picture is considered, the US is
still a pretty good place to call home.

TC,
R
....and I'm never surprised at the number of people who talk about how
much better it is somewhere else...where they don't choose to live...