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Tuesday, July 12, 2011

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  • unseenguy
    06-21 03:08 PM
    That is a nightmare !!! unless you are bill gates, Tata, Ambani etc etc ..if u have a relative in US in the same location then maybe you can manage but still it is problematic ..on top of it, how do you earn money in say India to pay mortgage in US ??
    if my GC (or say residency in any country) is denied, I would not want any immovable property in that place ....break - ins, mntc problems, maintenance etc ..I know there are some agencies which will take care of the property for you but their fees are high. I would rather have my money in liquid form and take it with me (or have the ability to take it with me).
    as someone else said ..maybe an option would be to stay back and sell the house (at a loss I guess) ..and risk going out of status (but re-entry would be problematic).
    I had a question though ..if GC is denied and EAD is valid for 2 years ..can you stay till EAD expiration date ? (I know u have option of MTR ..but say that is denied too ) ..in other words, how long can you stay after GC is denied

    Usually they will give you 3-4 weeks to leave.





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  • mariner5555
    04-14 02:23 PM
    Hi

    I am moving to Atlanta (Meritta) soon. I got new job there.

    I need some advise regarding housing situation in regards to buying home. Currently I dont own home. I went to buy home last spring at my current location ( south carolina) but luckily I didnt buy it as some one advised me not to proceed unless I plan to stay for atleast five years. So that was good for me.

    Any way what are the good developing suburbun areas where we have good schools and property prices are reasonable in atlanta area?

    What is the trend of house price in atlanta area?

    Also regarding renting apratments, my son is in high school and I will be working in the Meritta area. I was looking for highshools and I found that Walton highschool, Pope Highschool and Roswell Highschools may be good choices nearby.

    Let me know your experiences in regards to any of those schools and nearby renatl apartments at low cost. I currently rent twobed room apartment and similar mightbe sufficient for me.

    Also please give links where I can see more info regarding atlanta housing, shcools transport etc.

    thanks
    I am on other side ..but Marietta is a good place. you will get better answers from google. my advice would be ..rent (at a location where you would get good schools ..since school is imp in atlanta) for sometime and then look for deals.
    do you have a GC ? my advice only ..if on EAD or H1 ..keep renting till you get a good deal ..btw ..what is yr platform ...field ..just curious





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  • chintu25
    08-06 09:28 AM
    COULD NOT RESIST THIS IS A FUNNY ONE FROM INDIA

    There are hindi words used ......

    Laloo Prasad sent his Bio Data - to apply for a post in Microsoft Corporation, USA.
    A few days later he got this reply:

    Dear Mr. Laloo Prasad,
    You do not meet our requirements. Please do not send any further correspondence. No phone call shall be entertained.
    Thanks
    Bill Gates.

    Laloo Prasad jumped with joy on receiving this reply.
    He arranged a press conference :
    "Bhaiyon aur Behno, aap ko jaan kar khushi hogee ki hum ko Amereeca mein naukri mil gayee hai."
    Everyone was delighted.
    Laloo prasad continued...... "Ab hum aap sab ko apnaa appointment Letter padkar sunaongaa ? par letter angreeze main hai - isliyen saath-saath Hindi main translate bhee karoonga.

    Dear Mr. Laloo Prasad ----- Pyare Laloo prasad bhaiyya
    You do not meet ----- aap to miltay hee naheen ho
    our requirement ----- humko to zaroorat hai
    Please do not send any furthur correspondance ----- ab Letter vetter bhejne ka kaouno zaroorat nahee.
    No phone call ----- phoonwa ka bhee zaroorat nahee hai
    shall be entertained ----- bahut khaatir kee jayegi.
    Thanks ----- aapkaa bahut bahut dhanyavad.
    Bill Gates. ---- Tohar Bilva.





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  • like_watching_paint_dry
    07-16 10:10 AM
    Don't yell at me. I agree with most of you guys. I am also a masters degree holder from a US university and waiting for my GC and I think the body shops created most of the bad reputations for the h1-bs. Even though some of you say it is a small percentage, I disagree. If we also push for some h1-b reform, may be we can get what we want. Usually a bill develop as a package.

    Some one asked for the name of a body shop. I could provide that if you think there will be some action against them.

    If you go to anti-H1-b sites, They are displaying things like, Advertisements listing H1-b available for a number of US cities. These are ads taken from body shops. The anti-h1-b sites use this as a propaganda. I think it hurts all of us. :D

    If you hold an advanced degree from a good school in the US, then you are usually one of the most sought after professionals in this country. If you think you are not among the best and the brightest and you deserved to end up in a hole like the one you are talking about, the least you still do is keep your self respect and abide by the laws.

    You can definitely help by initiating action against the offending body-shop guy. DOL/CIS have stepped up enforcement and are going after such violators. It is not legal to "bench" an employee and not pay the offered wages or pay below the prevailing wage specified in the Labor Condition Application form filed by your employer. I'm not sure but I've probably read that asking the employee to pay the immigration processing costs is not legal either.

    DOL/CIS has forms for reporting these kind of violators. If you do not do this, that same body shop will do the exact same thing to the next person tomorrow. And that next guy could be your younger brother or sister.

    You can use these forms and file a complaint:

    http://www.dol.gov/esa/forms/whd/WH-4.pdf

    http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/osc/htm/charge.htm



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  • DSJ
    05-16 08:26 AM
    Cool down.....

    I am not saying Infy and others are doing it right. If US asking more explanation that is fine with me, they should have used their brain before approving cases, not after. My point is consulting is not new to H1, even so called big company also do that via "permanent job".

    No this is not correct. If consultancy companies are not there we could find a permanent job. I do not think if H1b is banned for consulting H1b numbers will be reduced so much. H1b rotation will be reduced. But still TCS, Infosys will survive as they have lot of other options like L1 and B1.But US persons will make more money in consulting as there is no restriction for them. So impact is minimal for US companies and also H1B persons. impact will be severe for bodyshoppers. Also current H1b people will not be impacted as most of them will file I 485 as Skil bill be passed. But H1b abuse will be minimised.





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  • h1techSlave
    04-07 03:19 PM
    In early 2000 when the stock market was going crazy, every pundit worth his salt was proclaiming at the top of their voice to buy stock. And then the whole thing collapsed.

    In the same time period, not many experts recommend buying a house. I remember in 2002 a community near my work was selling town homes for around 200,000 and there were no buyers. Today (after correction) those same houses are still selling at around 450,000.

    I 100% agree with you that this is a good time to buy. I know many people are saying that the market would crash another 20%. But the fact is that you can negotiate 10-15% from the advertised price. And there are enough homes in the bank-repo and short sale categories where the prices are 20-30% below the price mentioned in zillow.

    Having owned a town home for the last 2.5 years, I can very confidently say that the yard work and house cleaning etc. etc. are not such a big deal. Actually we mow our lawn with a manual push mower (may not be practical if you have more than 10 cents to mow) and clean the snow using a $10 snow shovel. Who said a little exercise is bad for you? I have also helped my single family friends in their yard work and never thought working outside is such a bad thing.

    But there is a risk. And house is big ticket item, you have move cautiously.

    I firmly believe in the Contrarian Theory. When speculators run, its time to get in and BUY. I owned two homes and I am in the process to getting a third one. I would be a good candidate for those TV shows on HGTv/TLC. I buy a home build equity(through appreciation) and flip. This will get me closer to my DREAM home. I cannot see myself in a home for more than 5 years.

    The inventory glut in (SF Bay Area) is not desirable, they talk about east contra-costa and south Santa Clara but there are not much available in core bay-area. The inventory is basically non-desirable.

    Simple math, just estimate the number of immigrants that will be ready to buy a home in SF Bay. Just look at the inventory in desirable neighborhoods. They dont match.
    Stretching (financially) yourself is always uncomfortable but it can reap you huge dividends. If you are not comfortable, then I would say keep aside monthly payments that would cover 6 months and your home should be sold incase you need to get out of it.

    No other investment in US(for individuals) is as leveraged as homes/real-estate. You invest 5% and reap the benefits(or losses) of the rest.



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  • eb3India
    04-06 08:39 PM
    you need to touch the bottom of barrel to go on another direction, this will be the bottom of the barrel I suppose

    these protectionist will realize as many H1B dependent companies virtual outsource all there jobs

    well in all seriousness I don't think this bill will be passed in senate,





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  • xyzgc
    01-10 11:04 PM
    First of all, thanks for converting my argument about Europeans and native peoples into Muslims and non-Muslims. Shows us where our respective prejudices and biases lie. I am very happy when my comments on any situation are turned into a broad 'us vs them' thing. It just shows us that our primitive and primal instincts from the time when we split from the apes are still alive and kicking in some people. Its pretty fascinating for me.

    Secondly there is a difference between military strikes (retaliatory or otherwise), and acts of massacres. Pretty much the same as there is a difference between military confrontation and ethnic cleansing. If you condone and defend the latter, then you are pretty much defending ethnic cleansing. Striking Hamas targets are military strikes. Holing up a hundred members of an extended family into a house, and then destroying the house is an act of massacre. When we defend acts like the latter one, we defend ethnic cleansing.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/massacre-of-a-family-seeking-sanctuary-1297577.html

    The world feels Israeli attacks is disproportionate. The recent Gaza attacks and the Lebanese attacks are deemed disproportionate. But that's the only answer to rockets being launched into Israel and the bombing of commercial establishments in Tel Aviv.

    India does not attack Pakistan's terrorist camps at all.
    Its another example of grossly disproportionate response!!:mad:.
    Islamic fanatics come and violate my motherland at will makes my blood boil in useless rage. I'm even more appalled when Indians themselves remain insensitive of this fact and want to preach peace.

    India is not Israel and Israel is not India. Israel not only attacks the terrorists but also exports weapons to India. Such a tiny nation, one of the most advanced nations in South-West Asia and takes the bull by its horns!. India imports weapons from Israel, has growing defence budget of tens of billion dollars and does nothing to stop terrorism. Its absurd!



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  • Imigrait
    03-24 01:55 AM
    ok...this is something..

    apparently they called my employer also and has asked them to provide all details.

    All I-9s
    All performance appraisals
    my works schedule
    my vacation requests this year
    current salary
    supervisor details


    :)

    Are you sure they asked about performance appraisals? That's personal information . In fact, how are they going to justify why they need this information?





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  • nixstor
    08-10 10:45 PM
    Yewwwww. Stupid morons get to run the show on CNN who consider guest worker program for Illegal Aliens and H1B the same.

    I dont understand why USCIS has to release data to a random attorney guy.
    Why the hell doesnt he know how many H1B's are being issued every year? Is this attorney guy sleeping or what? 65K and they are gone on May26th 2006Huh?



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  • Munna Bhai
    07-09 05:06 AM
    We won`t get any letter from that comapany as my husband din`t exit in good terms.(Ofcourse if they won`t pay him for months).
    I do believe in our case the reasons are more to do with the officer dealing the case than with actual technical issues.
    In the NOID they said the reason mainly was( he changed from company A to B to C but when he reentered he entered on B instead of C .at that time was not very knowledgeable about all this stuff)he reentry was not legal and was willful misrepresentaton of facts.
    Then our lawyer in our reply sent that as long as both visas are still valid it is legal.Then now they state ok his reentry is not wrong only the paystubs part is wrong and stating he never worked for that company chose to deny.

    Your case is doable, get hold of some good attorney and tell them all the fact and as long as employer-employee relationship exist, you are on valid H1b. Hence since your Husband was without paystub but his I-94 was valid,it should not create much problem.

    But do get intouch with old company.





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  • Marphad
    12-25 12:20 AM
    What a tiresome thread!!!

    Several years ago, people actually made an effort to make IV an organization representing all skilled workers, from all parts of the world. Now, immigration matters are totally irrelevant on the forums. Heck, forget about being an exclusively India focused forum, as this thread demonstrates, it is a venue to vent on matters even more narrowly focused - My religion, my sect, my opinion, my petty prejudices. If this is not irrelevant enough, we have enough threads on red dot-green dots to justify a whole separate category of forums :rolleyes:
    Anyway, it does a pretty good job of turning off people. I guarantee you this thread alone has contributed significantly in influencing many planning on attending the March rally to change their mind. It sure did mine.

    Pineapple is mostly right. The thread went little too far.



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  • Macaca
    12-30 07:15 PM
    Binayak Sen: India's war on a man of peace
    A life term for Binayak Sen under a law used by the British against Gandhi has shocked my country (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/dec/28/binayak-sen-india-british-gandhi) By Kalpana Sharma | The Guardian

    More than 150 years ago, the British introduced a law in India designed to check rebellious natives. In 2010 this law has been used by an independent India to check activists who question government policy.

    Section 124A of the Indian penal code was introduced in 1870 by the British to deal with sedition. It was later used to convict Mahatma Gandhi. In his statement during the hearing on 23 March 1922, Gandhi said, "The section under which Mr Banker [a colleague in non-violence] and I are charged is one under which mere promotion of disaffection is a crime. I have studied some of the cases tried under it, and I know that some of the most loved of India's patriots have been convicted under it. I consider it a privilege, therefore, to be charged under that section � I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected toward a government which in its totality has done more harm to India than any previous system."

    The man convicted under this section in 2010 is, like Gandhi, a man of peace. Dr Binayak Sen, celebrated human rights activist and medical doctor, has worked for more than three decades as a doctor in the tribal-dominated areas of the state of Chhattisgarh in central India, working for people denied many of the basic services that the state should provide, such as health and education.

    As a civil rights activist, Sen has been an outspoken critic of the state government and its repressive actions against the armed rebellion launched by the banned Communist party of India (Maoist). The state has introduced special laws to suppress support for the Maoists, raising a militia to fight them. Independent observers concur with Sen on the extent of human rights violations, but in May 2007 he was arrested on charges of working with a banned organisation, based on visiting a well-known Maoist ideologue, Narayan Sanyal, in jail.

    Denied bail for two years, Sen was finally allowed out on bail last year. On December 24, a case that on all counts was weak and based on hearsay and circumstantial evidence, concluded. Sen was found guilty of sedition and other charges, and sentenced to life imprisonment. The judgment has provoked widespread condemnation from Indian civil society.

    Why this case has shocked people's sensibilities has as much to do with the man himself as the state in which he has chosen to work. Sen worked among the poorest and most deprived people in India, the Adivasis. The Maoists have also established their base in the tribal belt stretching through the heart of India. Their concerns are similar; their strategies diametrically opposite.

    But for the Chhattisgarh government, the Maoists are evil and deserve no sympathy or understanding. Because they use violence, the response of the state must be equally violent.

    Sen and many others who question India's development policy, which has exacerbated the gap between the poorest and the rich, argue that groups like the Maoists succeed because the state fails to serve the needs of the poor. In an atmosphere where everything is reduced to "You are either for us, or against us", there is no place for people like Sen who are fighting for social justice without violence. Arundhati Roy, who has dared to speak publicly about freedom for Kashmir and has spent time with the Maoists to present their worldview, also narrowly escaped sedition charges earlier this year.

    The judgment against Sen also reveals the extent to which paranoia and political bias in a state can affect the justice system. In Chhattisgarh today you would need to be a brave individual to question the state. Even judges in lower courts will not. Sen's supporters are determined to file an appeal and take it to the highest court. But whatever the outcome, the very fact of such a ruling has shocked many. India's judiciary has not remained untouched by the scandals currently being unearthed of corruption in very high places. Yet, by and large, faith in the excruciatingly slow judicial system remains fairly high. Today people ask: if even high-profile people like Sen can be denied justice, what hope is there for some unknown citizen being picked and charged of being a Maoist sympathiser or a terrorist?





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  • 485Mbe4001
    07-14 03:16 AM
    Why are you so worried about this initiative. Do you think an official at USCIS will read a letter and change the process in one day. If you think so then i wish you had written a letter during the letter campaign, we needed someone with your 'positive' attitude. I have sent letters to everybodies uncle and this is my 8th year waiting in EB3 and 12th year in US. Give us a chance to express our thoughts and wallow in our black hole.

    We as EB3 feel that we got a raw deal due to a change in the intrepretation of a law. There is nothing wrong in sending a letter to express our opinion.

    You can send a letter to thank USCIS for helping EB2 and the fact that you have an MS and that makes you great etc...(isnt this what every other post says, disregarding the fact that EB3's have people from top US universities too, there top universities around the world. I guess that you guys or the USCIS thinks that 5yrs consultancy at desi bodyshop with manufactured resume = 2yrs MS at Yale). Nothing against you, let us post a simple letter and get on with our miserable lives.

    Nobody cares what qualifications u have. EB1, EB2 and EB3 is what matters at the end of the day.

    This letter is utter nonsense. Admins, Moderators...pls stop this nuisance as this will cause internal fighting and end up in nobody receiving any benefits in the near future. If USCIS responds +vely to that letter, then do u think EB2s will keep quiet??? This will cause chaos and thus nobody will get anything out of it. Why is this thread still alive. Pani, the starter of this thread shud be banned for initiating this effort. Shud anything -ve happen to EB2s as an outcome of this, I'm gonna hunt that fellow and sue him for ruining my life.



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  • xyzgc
    01-03 06:20 PM
    Smash terror hideouts says Abdul Kalam.
    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Smash_terror_hideouts_Kalam_/articleshow/3931768.cms





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  • chanduv23
    03-24 04:32 PM
    I think it is mainly for graduate students who are researchers or professors right?

    I know my brother went this route and the graduate students/post doctorate students don't get paid much. I thought that was changing though.

    it can be for Physicians, professors, reseaerch, teaching etc..



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  • kaisersose
    04-15 10:31 AM
    When I was a kid I lived in a very small house (flat) with my parents. Now I look back & realize that was the happiest time of my life. We didnt have much money. My parents gave me lot of time & love. For a kid what matters the most is the love he recives from his parents.

    Agreed, but then you have no way of knowing if you would have been less happier growing up in a bigger home. For all you know, you may have been more happier.

    I think personally we shouldn't make a statement "Our kids will have better lives in a house".

    That is the general line of thinking everyone has including all the people who are posting on this forum. If more money does not equate to a better life, then why are all these people taking the trouble to desert their home land and live in a foreign country? If more money => better lifestyle, then it follows a home can provide a relatively better environment to a child than an apartment.

    If all Americans live in rented apartments, drive only used Japanese cars (resale value), furnished their homes with scant used furniture and were focussed on investing their money than spending it, then the American economy will go down to the level of a third world country in less than 10 years.

    This does not mean everyone has to run out and buy a home. The point as I said earlier is to see a home as a home and not as an investment.





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  • GCBatman
    01-07 09:01 AM
    Hey Refugee_New, why the hell you gave me red ("what other site - refugee!").
    Go ahead & post it on the some news websites THAT ARE NOT RELATED WITH EB ISSUES. THIS FORM IS ONLY FOR EMPLOYMENT BASED IMMIGRATION RELATED ISSUES PERIOD & END OF DISCUSSION.
    As I already said it is very sad to hear innocent kids got killed. Opening a thread here & giving your baseless comments will not going to help the ppl suffering over there so why not you go over there and help them out by fighting with Israeli forces instead of whining here.

    It is very sad but please post it on the relevant site.





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  • Rayyan
    01-08 11:35 AM
    <<<<<





    sab
    01-08 01:50 PM
    Both these incidents make you shudder in disbelief and disgust for those who believe in wars and bloodshed.





    Macaca
    12-30 06:57 PM
    A Bridge to a Love for Democracy (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/us/30iht-letter30.html) By RICHARD BERNSTEIN | New York Times

    I write this, my last �Letter from America,� looking out my window at my snowy Brooklyn neighborhood. It�s midmorning Wednesday, three days after our Christmas weekend blizzard, and my street has yet to receive the benefit of a snowplow.

    Cars, as the prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow once put it, are impounded by the drifts. The city is still partly paralyzed, pleasantly, in a way. There�s nothing like a heavy snowfall to give one a bit of a respite, to turn the ordinary, like walking to the corner store, into a little adventure. And there�s the countrylike stillness of this city block filled with snow, absent the usual traffic.

    It seems a good moment, in other words, to pause and reflect. My thoughts turn to a very unsnowy moment in 1972 in a village called Lowu, which was the last village in the Crown Colony of Hong Kong just before the border with China. I was a graduate student in Chinese history and a stringer for The Washington Post going to the territory of Chairman Mao for the first time in my life.

    There was a short trestle bridge at Lowu. I�ve often wondered if it�s still there. The Union Jack flew at one side, the red flag of the People�s Republic of China at the other. The border town on the other side was a little fishing and farming village called Shenzhen, now a modern city of skyscrapers and shopping malls, an emblem of China�s amazing economic development.

    I was favorably disposed toward China as I strode across the bridge, ready to experience the radical egalitarianism of the Maoist revolution, which was generally viewed with favor among American graduate students specializing in China. I was a member of a group, moreover, that partook of a certain leftist orthodoxy. We had learned the �Internationale� so we could sing it for our revolutionary hosts. We were supposed to return to America and report the truth about China, which was, essentially, that it was the future and it worked.

    But it took only about 24 hours on that first journey to China for me utterly to change my mind and, indeed, to become a lifelong anti-Communist and devotee of liberal democracy, to find great wisdom in Winston Churchill�s dictum about its being the worst of all systems except for all the others.

    The noxious cult of personality around Mao was the first thing that effected my political transformation. But deeper than that was the pervasive odor of orthodoxy, the uniformity of it all, the mandatory pious declarations, which, if they were believed, were ridiculous, and, if they were forced, illustrated the terror of it all.

    Many of my American fellow travelers felt very differently about this. In my intense discomfort, I found myself in a sort of Menshevik minority, criticized by the majority for what I remember one person calling my �Darkness at Noon� mentality.

    Still, that discomfort, and the unwillingness of most of the others to experience it, has informed my work as a journalist ever since. I have to admit it: When I went to China as a correspondent for Time magazine seven years after that first trip, my impulse was not so much to look with fresh and impartial eyes on a country that had just opened up to a degree of foreign inspection as it was to expose what I felt many Americans were missing in those rhapsodic days. Namely, that the country under Mao and after belonged to the 20th-century totalitarian mainstream � that it was a poverty-stricken police state and not a viable alternative to Western ways.

    There was a degree of bias in this view, and it led me into some mistakes. On China, in particular, I was perhaps focused too single-mindedly on its totalitarian elements so that I underplayed other elements, notably the speed of change in China, and perhaps even the unsuitableness of many Western democratic ways for a country so essentially backward.

    And perhaps, too, I extrapolated a bit too much from the China experience when it came to other places and other times. When I covered academic life in the United States, for example, I tended to see vicious Maoist Red Guards in the phenomenon of what came to be called political correctness, and, while I don�t think this was entirely wrong, it was an exaggeration.

    And yet, it seems appropriate in this final column to say, as well, that my nearly 40 years in the journalism game haven�t shaken me from the essential belief that formed during that first, memorable visit to China.

    Ever since, despite all our infuriating faults, our wastefulness, our occasional self-satisfied sluggishness, our proneness to demagogy and other forms of anti-intellectualism, our crumbling infrastructure, the Fox News channel, the cult of Sarah Palin, the narcissistic self-indulgence of our urban elites, the detention center in Guant�namo Bay and our crisis-creating greed and shortsightedness � despite all that � I continue to believe that, not to put too fine a point on it, we�re better than they are.

    This doesn�t mean that I think we�re perfect, or that our impulse toward a kind of benevolent imperialism has always had benevolent results. But I have stuck for 40 years to a belief that, yes, our ways are superior � and by our ways I mean such things often taken for granted as a free press, strong civil institutions, an independent judiciary and, perhaps above all, the belief that the powers of the state need to be restrained, and that the institutions of government exist to serve the individual, not the other way around.

    The essential difference with China, even the much-changed China of today, and most of the other non-Western political cultures, is the absence of this sense of restraint, and the primacy of the collective over the individual.

    That�s the idea that I was actually groping toward when I crossed the bridge at Lowu. It�s the idea that I want to end with here on this snowy day in New York in my final sentence on this page. Goodbye.



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