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for the citizens of America, it also generates the resources that enable this country to be the greatest defender of the earth, benefiting all mankind. Lest anyone forget, America maintains its own prosperity at the same time that it provides security for much of the world. France, Germany, Italy, England, Japan, and many other countries have the luxury of maintaining much smaller armed forces because they can depend on us to defend them.
It is fascinating that American leftists hold so many myths about America. They cling to the mistaken belief that our standard of living is falling, pollution is increasing, and life is progressively harder for all but the rich. The truth is, real income of the average American household has risen more than 22 percent since 1980. Jobs are plentiful, and it still is possible to start at the bottom and rise to the top. If you examine the Forbes list of the wealthiest 400 in America, you find that more than half of those on the 2006 list were not on the 1989 list, and the vast majority on the list in any year earned their way by creating value, not inheriting it like so many of the wealthy in other countries. And more than half of American households own a piece of the action - stock in America’s system of freemarket capitalism.
White we must continue to work to improve our environment, innovations and new technologies have made much environmental progress possible. Our air is cleaner today than anytime since the industrial revolution. Since 1970, there has been an 84 percent reduction in acid-rain-producing sulphur dioxide emissions, and nitrous oxide has been reduced by a third. Rivers that were considered almost dead 40 years ago are now supporting recreation and safe drinking water. There are more forests in America today than when the English settled Jamestown 400 years ago.
America isn’t perfect, and we still have problems to solve, but given the evidence that free-market capitalism is doing so much better than European socialism, who would want to take that plunge?
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