In some sense, most aspects of socialism resemble forced charity, and the giver does not even get to directly decide where his money goes.
Isn't part of living in a community and with other people helping each other and maintaining society as a whole? This is why we don't complain when taxes go towards the police, fire brigades or prisons... because they're helping all of us. But it seems as soon as some aspect of socialism doesn't effect an individual, they're completely against it.
To me, calling socialism "forced charity" is just an excuse to justify being selfish and ignore people who really need help and it sickens me.
I agree with the first part of what you said. This is the purpose behind government and community. I also think that for the same reason firefighters benefit everyone, even those whose houses don't catch fire, social welfare programs and education also indirectly benefit society as a whole. This is a reasonable justification for their existence. After all, the government is there to serve the common good. Arguing that these should exist because it's not morally right or fair for some people to suffer paints social programs as charity, which I believe should not be in the domain of government. Take, as an example, the government spending millions of dollars on a construction project in a faraway state that will probably not benefit you in any way, but creates jobs and is pretty much free money to people over there. In some sense, this can be considered a form of charity, but the country as a whole seems to have decided that this type of spending is totally unjustified, and I agree. It is completely acceptable for people to vote in their own self-interest. That is the whole principle behind democracy: that out of all those conflicting self-interests will come something that acts in favor of the common good. To say that someone who votes this way is immoral because you think they ignore those in need is totally unfair. Many of these people may, and do, give to charity voluntarily, and feel good about it, while being forced to do so is offensive.
Is this really a discussion anymore? Well from the pro more socialism side anyway, the other side is actually bringing up points and making arguments. No one seems to want to deal with questions like can a country of the size of the states maintain similar socialism to smaller countries, why do you see no countries as large as the states have such systems. No one’s really stating what they want to see brought in. Everyone is saying, “Help people who need help†which is so general a statement it’s meaningless. Also few would disagree with it the debate is in more the how to help and to what extent. Does anyone want to actually address anything or we all going to continue this I’m more moral then the average person circle jerk?
I don't think it's fair to use 'no countries as large as the US have similar systems' as justification for the US not having one, because of the large number of other differences between the countries. Even if China or Russia had a perfectly good, working system as some people here seem to think is appropriate, the situations of the countries are so different that it is unreasonable to assume that their success would imply the possibility of the same in America. Conversely, there are many good reasons they don't have such programs that have nothing to do with their similarities to the US. I could say that it's more reasonable to compare countries with similar economic development, etc, but that would be almost as hard to back up with anything other than intuition and guesswork. Instead, it makes more sense to simply consider America on its own, and which aspects of socialism might or might not be appropriate.
It is completely acceptable for people to vote in their own self-interest. That is the whole principle behind democracy: that out of all those conflicting self-interests will come something that acts in favor of the common good. To say that someone who votes this way is immoral because you think they ignore those in need is totally unfair. Many of these people may, and do, give to charity voluntarily, and feel good about it, while being forced to do so is offensive.
I think this hit the nail on the head. One of the reasons you can't have socialism is because we are culturally against it. You have to remember that America was founded when we got feed up with our government taking our money and doing whatever the fuck they wanted with it. We're taught from a very young age to take care of ourselves because no one else will.
However, Americans have proven time and again that they are some of the most generous people in the world when there's a disaster.
I don't think it's fair to use 'no countries as large as the US have similar systems' as justification for the US not having one, because of the large number of other differences between the countries. Even if China or Russia had a perfectly good, working system as some people here seem to think is appropriate, the situations of the countries are so different that it is unreasonable to assume that their success would imply the possibility of the same in America. Conversely, there are many good reasons they don't have such programs that have nothing to do with their similarities to the US. I could say that it's more reasonable to compare countries with similar economic development, etc, but that would be almost as hard to back up with anything other than intuition and guesswork. Instead, it makes more sense to simply consider America on its own, and which aspects of socialism might or might not be appropriate.
I've touched on the cultural differences that would thwart socialism here, but I do still think that there are very real scale problems. The further a government gets from it's people, the worse they are generally going to serve them. Are the government's of France, England, Spain, and Germany the same? No, they're all tailored to serve their people.
Sure the Netherlands may be awesome, but that country in tiny. The USA is 20 times as big. Pennsylvania and New Jersey combines have more people than the Netherlands. Scales matters. It's hard to keep 305 million people happy.
Americas interest is in a very large part the global market. Large war between major countries is bad for business. So Americas interests are, at least in some part, humanities interest in that regard.
What? America's interest = Humanity's interest? I'd love to hear some elaboration on this point.
You have to remember that America was founded when we got feed up with our government taking our money and doing whatever the fuck they wanted with it.
However, Americans have proven time and again that they are some of the most generous people in the world when there's a disaster.
Did you learn all your history from Schoolhouse Rock? I'm still waiting for you to enlighten us as to how the First Amendment allows for a national ballot initiative on Iraq.
Now this thing about "Americans are the most generous" is just like all the other "Americans are the best at this" or "Americans are the best at that" arguments. They're just things nationalists say without knowing any actual facts. Look up how much the U.S. actually gives per capita as compared to other countries.
Did you learn all your history fromSchoolhouse Rock? I'm still waiting for you to enlighten us as to how the First Amendment allows for a national ballot initiative on Iraq.
Now this thing about "Americans are the most generous" is just like all the other "Americans are the best at this" or "Americans are the best at that" arguments. They're just things nationalists say without knowing any actual facts. Look up how much the U.S. actually gives per capita as compared to other countries.
It's in the constitution, basically if we bitch loud enough they'll listen to us.
And how much do other countries give to us when we suffer natural disasters?
I don't quite see the relevance. We're looking at an example of "rich" countries giving to "poor" countries, and my point was that the contributions of the U.S. were, taking into account "richness" relative to other countries, not that great.
And how much do other countries give to us when we suffer natural disasters?
I don't quite see the relevance. We're looking at an example of "rich" countries giving to "poor" countries, and my point was that the contributions of the U.S. were, taking into account "richness" relative to other countries, not that great.
But compare the contributions of the actual people and we're in the top 10 of donators.
Did you learn all your history from Schoolhouse Rock? I'm still waiting for you to enlighten us as to how the First Amendment allows for a national ballot initiative on Iraq.
Now this thing about "Americans are the most generous" is just like all the other "Americans are the best at this" or "Americans are the best at that" arguments. They're just things nationalists say without knowing any actual facts. Look up how much the U.S. actually gives per capita as compared to other countries.
It's in the constitution, basically if we bitch loud enough they'll listen to us.
Wrong. We have the right to complain. There is nothing in the First Amendment that says they have to listen. The only thing that might make them listen is fear that we might vote them out, but that doesn't have anything to do with the First Amendment.
As for American's being generous, remember that tsunami in 2004? American citizens gave $1.87 billion.
Americas interest is in a very large part the global market. Large war between major countries is bad for business. So Americas interests are, at least in some part, humanities interest in that regard.
What? America's interest = Humanity's interest? I'd love to hear some elaboration on this point.
America’s economy is heavily dependent on many countries through the world. It is not in America’s best interest to see China collapse or Britain get bombed. So it will likely act in such ways to prevent major war from breaking out between economically important countries. This syndrome is not unique to America alone. It is not in Britain’s best interest to see America fail; it is not in Chinas best interest to see Japan fail. The global market by nature makes the world more stable, at least for the major players. The major players are the ones that can start big wars and maintain them. It’s in Humanities best interest to avoid these wars. America is particularly important because its military power on top of its economic power lets it exert large influence on smaller countries. So it can act in such ways as to prevent small collapses that may lead to larger collapses that may threaten its own interests. As long as America acts in such a way as to prevent threats to its self, militarily and economically, it should also be acting in Humanities best interest on a macro level. That being said, America made a big mistake with the war on terror but nothing is perfect. I would rather have a country like America be in the position of military power then China or Russia.
America still gave way freaking more money than any other country.
You are such a stupid sack of self-righteous shit.
Scales matters.
You can NOT only use the scale of total money given and say your generous, you need to use the percentage of GDP since that takes into account every thing that is important and relevant to the comparison. You make is sound like Americans are some sort of fucking saints. If you want to talk about saints during the 2004 tsunami talk about Australians. Using the same Wikipedia page you yourself linked we can CLEARLY see that Australia gave a whole quarter of a perCENT of their GDP whilst America claimed to be the most generous with their quarter perMILLE of their GDP. Hell, the Netherlands gave 3 times the permille GDP that the US gave, and we have the stereotype of being greedy!
[stupid answer to the stupid question]To all Americans asking for an example of socialism on USA scale. You're borrowing money from China.[/stupid answer to the stupid question]
Now, did I say everything had to be written in stone on the highest level? No, I did not make a single statement about how you idiots could implement a solution. I however seem to be forced to give some suggestions seeing as thinking for yourselves seems, very stereotypically, hard. Here's my suggestion that will address EVERYTHING. Not every damn thing needs to be decided on a national level (you have state governments, those are also governments!), on a national level you can decide upon minimums. For example, on a national level the decision can be made that every state needs to spend a minimum of x% of their budget on education. The states can then for themselves decide whether or not they want to spend more than x% or not. Of course there are also issues that would be stupid to let states decide for themselves. Same-sex marriage for example. Either disallow it on a national level, or allow it. I don't understand the stupidity of letting a topic like that be decided upon by the states. Then again, I also don't understand why there's this entire stupid circus to decide which person (singular) gets to sit in the White House. Especially since the trend seems to be that these elections are very close and thus pretty much half the country is pissed off because the other half+1 thought it was better to put a monkey on the chair.
For example, on a national level the decision can be made that every state needs to spend a minimum of x% of their budget on education. The states can then for themselves decide whether or not they want to spend more than x% or not.
I don't know that Federal mandates are the answer here. After all, how do you enforce the mandate? Isn't this typically done by saying "Do as we say, or you don't get your Federal funding"?
Wouldn't it be better if, at the Federal level, we took an incentive approach to everything, rather than a punitive one? For education, saying something like "We will award $1 billion to the three states demonstrating the most improvement in their education systems this year." Then, states would compete for the prize, and we would all win. Wouldn't that competition be better than socialist mandates?
America still gave way freaking more money than any other country.
You are such a stupid sack of self-righteous shit
Fuck you and Joe. I gave what I could in 2004 and I worked as a fucking cashier in a grocery store.
Scales matters.
You can NOT only use the scale of total money given and say your generous, you need to use the percentage of GDP since that takes into account every thing that is important and relevant to the comparison. You make is sound like Americans are some sort of fucking saints. If you want to talk about saints during the 2004 tsunami talk about Australians. Using the same Wikipedia page you yourself linked we can CLEARLY see that Australia gave a whole quarter of a perCENT of their GDP whilst America claimed to be the most generous with their quarter perMILLE of their GDP. Hell, the Netherlands gave 3 times the permille GDP that the US gave, and we have the stereotype of being greedy!
Fuck you for quoting me out of context!
And I said socialism might work at the state level like two pages ago.
Fuck you and Joe. I gave what I could in 2004 and I worked as a fucking cashier in a grocery store.
That's great, awesome even, but why do you take the fall for the rest of the US population? You being generous does not mean Americans are generous.
Fuck you for quoting me out of context!
And I said socialism might work at the state level like two pages ago.
Yes, I know it's slightly out of context, but it's very relevant. Sure, it's hard to please 305 million people, but it's also unfair to say 305 million people are more generous than 16 million people only based on the fact that they donated 8 times more money. And I must have missed the second part, or at least, I did not recall it in my fury.
@xyzzy (nothing happens), I merely gave an example, and idea. One written in a rage. The point was to get those people that are complaining about "How would socialism work on a US scale? " thinking themselves about the solution. Everything is hard on a large scale, the solution to that has always been to solve it in many small steps. Your idea is also a possibility, the downside is that other subjects will be neglected. Of course, you could put up multiple incentives (half a billion for the 3 best education improvements and half a billion for the 3 best health care improvements or whatever), but that would mean states would start specializing that year in one of those things, thinking they now have a bigger chance, and still neglecting the other subjects. Note how I also mentioned how nothing has to be written in stone at the highest level. States of course could talk with the national government about spending a bit less than the minimum x% on subject y, so that they can spend that money on z, which has as potential positive results a, b and c, which will help y later on. Or whatever. The entire point is that America should start spending their money in a smarter way. Also, this thread is about socialism, of course socialist mandates are suggested.
Of course, you could put up multiple incentives (half a billion for the 3 best education improvements and half a billion for the 3 best health care improvements or whatever), but that would mean states would start specializing that year in one of those things, thinking they now have a bigger chance, and still neglecting the other subjects.
Yes, I meant to imply that there would be multiple incentives, one for every conceivable category (education, health care, transportation, security, employment, etc). Basically, take *all* of the Federal monies that are normally portioned out to the States, and divide the dollars up into graduated award amounts (with the lion's share going to the big three winners of each category, but even last place still gets something). Make it so that it would be in the best interest of any State to attempt to improve in any area, rather than attempting to force it, and make it so that the win is based on *a measurable system improvement*. States that 'neglected' to improve would do so to their own detriment. Voters would favor candidates that could bring in the higher dollar amounts. Winning systems would be adopted by other States.
The focus of the government would then be pro-competition: "How can we convince everyone to improve?" With socialism, it's "What should we force everyone to do, and how?"
I think socialism can be applied to Americans when the reasons for particular mandates are sensible and obvious, but in a lot of categories there's no clear place to draw your line. For example, what would make sense as a minimum amount for an education budget? Is a certain amount just as fair for one State as another? For nationalized health care, there is a lot of disagreement as to what should be covered and at what amounts, and how much the individual should pay (is it fair for healthy individuals to subsidize individuals participating in riskier behaviors like smoking and drug use?)
Americans really value and respect competition. While there is a sense that "rich" people had a head start, fundamentally we know that wealth represents value, so we know that rich people are rich due to the value that they (or some ancestor) brought into the system and were rewarded for. People hate the thought of having their individual value diluted automatically throughout the whole system, as under the socialist mentality. They want to be rewarded for their individual efforts. So, we should have a system that works with those natural tendencies, resulting in benefits for the whole society. Hence, competition.
I've got to ask, since I know nothing about it. What are the reasons the general public are against Nationalized health care? Are they convinced it is a better system or is there some other reason? Because, it doesn't make sense to me because the US Health care system isn't that highly rated.
So you really think that giving money to, say, hurricane victims should be mandated and controlled by the government because you feel it's the morally right thing to do? Trying to use the government to impose your own morality on others is the same thing most liberals protest against when it comes to abortion, gay rights, etc. Why isn't it better to give citizens individual choice here as well?
Much of the anti-nationalized health care sentiment is left over from Clinton's unsuccessful attempt to make it happen in the 90's. And although I disagree, I know that a lot of people don't see this type of government spending as justified, either on principle, or because they don't trust the government to run a healthcare program properly.
or because they don't trust the government to run a healthcare program properly.
That, and maybe because we've seen how other systems just aren't as efficient with the long lines, decreases in the overall quality of care for likely the same reason, and discouraging of innovation because of no additional incentive (read: lots of cash monies) to produce better care and better technologies. At the ideological level, people are against national health care because they're not willing to allow government to control that aspect of their lives--at least that's what I believe as a person against it. National health care would also take a lot of money.
You being generous does not mean Americans are generous.
Perhaps it is more important to state that enough Americans are generous. Sure, Australia gave more as a percentage of GDP, but what the hell do tsunami victims care about the percentage of a country's GDP that they get. A hundred dollars is still more than fifty dollars, and will buy more food and supplies, regardless of the percentage that the money represents, and that should be all that matters.
Some of the links above are dated. That does not mean they are irrelevant. They were merely high on the Google search. To see more overwhelming problems with the VA, merely Google "VA problems."
Benefits have been cut and politicized - which I think is evil. I listened last week to one veteran complain he must drive an hour to get to a VA-approved hospital or physician instead of merely billing his personal physician through the VA. He told me he can't believe how the government appears to be trying to manipulate his benefits package so that he cannot access it.
Understand that I am not against nationalized health care, in large part because people arguing for it over the last two years in this forum have convinced me it is ethically necessary. However, no one here has been able to successfully argue that the government is capable of arbitrating a national system of health care that would be successful.
However, no one here has been able to successfully argue that the government is capable of arbitrating a national system of health care that would be successful.
Is the problem with the VA proof that Americans don't "support the trooos"? It's pretty easy to put a silly magnetic sticker on your car but it's a lot different to actually pay money for the healthcare needs of some twenty year old kid who left her legs in Iraq.
Also, fixing the VA would focus attention on all those maimed veterans. That wouldn't sell the war very well. Those guys aren't very telegenic. Americans, especially their politicians, would much rather forget them. Oh, they might go to Walter Reed every now and then for a photo op to put on a show calculated to prove how much they care, but when push comes to shove, they'd much rather bail out some Wall Street fat cat than care for a maimed kid.
Maybe that's why VA is a bad example of how socialized medicine would work in the US.
I wonder why, since everyone is so scared of socialized medicine in the US, they seem to be okay with the government owning the mortgage on their homes. That's what "the bailout" would do, right? Wouldn't it give over people's mortgages to the government? Why is that okay?
[B]ecause they don't trust the government to run a healthcare program properly.
A solution to this would be to educate and inform people so that they will stop voting for bloody monkeys.
Perhaps it is more important to state that enough Americans are generous. Sure, Australia gave more as a percentage of GDP, but what the hell do tsunami victims care about the percentage of a country's GDP that they get. A hundred dollars is still more than fifty dollars, and will buy more food and supplies, regardless of the percentage that the money represents, and that should be all that matters.
Another egotistical nationalistic idiot who only looks at the base numbers. Imagine this, what if Americans had been as generous as Australians? That would've meant that the US send 18 BILLION dollars (from the public) instead of a measly 1.8. And we're talking about generosity, good will, NOT about the actual amount of money that was send, but how large a part of ones income Americans had given compared to other countries. Americans were not generous compared to other countries. On the contrary. You bloody government first said to put up what, 25 million dollars? Raised it a bit, then again a bit, and at one point said they would donate 350 million dollars, and claimed to be the most generous because that was the largest sum donated by a government. Americans are as generous as needed to look good to the uneducated people in the world.
I wonder what the opponents of socialized medicine would say if the US would privatize the police force or the fire departments.
There's been a big move on the last twenty years or so to privatize everything and deregulate everything. There are actually privately run prisons here. Of course, prisons have been the big growth industry for many years. Also, the rich have had private cops for many years.
The idea was that everything can be done better by private industry. One of the areas which conservatives have been saying should be "privatized" is public television. As it stands right now, PBS offers shows like Masterpiece Theatre (I know they call it just Masterpiece now, but I'll always know it as Masterpiece Theatre), Nova, Nature, American Experience, The NewsHour, Washington Week, Frontline, Bill Moyers Journal, Charlie Rose, Mystery, and so on. Conservatives like George Will say that the need for such programming could be filled by cable channels like The Discovery Channel. Here's what The Discovery Channel had on last week (besides the constant breaks for commercials): 200 Pound Tumor, A Haunting, Building Juliana's Face, Manar's Story: Born with Two Heads, Conjoined Twins, Nazi Medical Atocities, and so on.
Yeah, I can see how that's better than PBS.
That's just an example. There are many areas in which government simply provides better service than private industry. Private industry and free market competition are not the cure-alls Americans have been led to believe. All you have to do now is read the newspaper to see that this is so.
Comments
I also think that for the same reason firefighters benefit everyone, even those whose houses don't catch fire, social welfare programs and education also indirectly benefit society as a whole. This is a reasonable justification for their existence. After all, the government is there to serve the common good.
Arguing that these should exist because it's not morally right or fair for some people to suffer paints social programs as charity, which I believe should not be in the domain of government.
Take, as an example, the government spending millions of dollars on a construction project in a faraway state that will probably not benefit you in any way, but creates jobs and is pretty much free money to people over there. In some sense, this can be considered a form of charity, but the country as a whole seems to have decided that this type of spending is totally unjustified, and I agree.
It is completely acceptable for people to vote in their own self-interest. That is the whole principle behind democracy: that out of all those conflicting self-interests will come something that acts in favor of the common good. To say that someone who votes this way is immoral because you think they ignore those in need is totally unfair. Many of these people may, and do, give to charity voluntarily, and feel good about it, while being forced to do so is offensive.
I could say that it's more reasonable to compare countries with similar economic development, etc, but that would be almost as hard to back up with anything other than intuition and guesswork. Instead, it makes more sense to simply consider America on its own, and which aspects of socialism might or might not be appropriate.
However, Americans have proven time and again that they are some of the most generous people in the world when there's a disaster. I've touched on the cultural differences that would thwart socialism here, but I do still think that there are very real scale problems. The further a government gets from it's people, the worse they are generally going to serve them. Are the government's of France, England, Spain, and Germany the same? No, they're all tailored to serve their people.
Sure the Netherlands may be awesome, but that country in tiny. The USA is 20 times as big. Pennsylvania and New Jersey combines have more people than the Netherlands. Scales matters. It's hard to keep 305 million people happy.
Now this thing about "Americans are the most generous" is just like all the other "Americans are the best at this" or "Americans are the best at that" arguments. They're just things nationalists say without knowing any actual facts. Look up how much the U.S. actually gives per capita as compared to other countries.
As for American's being generous, remember that tsunami in 2004? American citizens gave $1.87 billion.
And if you look at what I said, "...some of the most..." My point being we're not selfish assholes like people seem to want to believe.
Yeah.
America still gave way freaking more money than any other country.
[stupid answer to the stupid question]To all Americans asking for an example of socialism on USA scale. You're borrowing money from China.[/stupid answer to the stupid question]
Now, did I say everything had to be written in stone on the highest level? No, I did not make a single statement about how you idiots could implement a solution. I however seem to be forced to give some suggestions seeing as thinking for yourselves seems, very stereotypically, hard. Here's my suggestion that will address EVERYTHING. Not every damn thing needs to be decided on a national level (you have state governments, those are also governments!), on a national level you can decide upon minimums. For example, on a national level the decision can be made that every state needs to spend a minimum of x% of their budget on education. The states can then for themselves decide whether or not they want to spend more than x% or not. Of course there are also issues that would be stupid to let states decide for themselves. Same-sex marriage for example. Either disallow it on a national level, or allow it. I don't understand the stupidity of letting a topic like that be decided upon by the states. Then again, I also don't understand why there's this entire stupid circus to decide which person (singular) gets to sit in the White House. Especially since the trend seems to be that these elections are very close and thus pretty much half the country is pissed off because the other half+1 thought it was better to put a monkey on the chair.
Wouldn't it be better if, at the Federal level, we took an incentive approach to everything, rather than a punitive one? For education, saying something like "We will award $1 billion to the three states demonstrating the most improvement in their education systems this year." Then, states would compete for the prize, and we would all win. Wouldn't that competition be better than socialist mandates?
And I said socialism might work at the state level like two pages ago.
@xyzzy (nothing happens), I merely gave an example, and idea. One written in a rage. The point was to get those people that are complaining about "How would socialism work on a US scale?
The focus of the government would then be pro-competition: "How can we convince everyone to improve?" With socialism, it's "What should we force everyone to do, and how?"
I think socialism can be applied to Americans when the reasons for particular mandates are sensible and obvious, but in a lot of categories there's no clear place to draw your line. For example, what would make sense as a minimum amount for an education budget? Is a certain amount just as fair for one State as another? For nationalized health care, there is a lot of disagreement as to what should be covered and at what amounts, and how much the individual should pay (is it fair for healthy individuals to subsidize individuals participating in riskier behaviors like smoking and drug use?)
Americans really value and respect competition. While there is a sense that "rich" people had a head start, fundamentally we know that wealth represents value, so we know that rich people are rich due to the value that they (or some ancestor) brought into the system and were rewarded for. People hate the thought of having their individual value diluted automatically throughout the whole system, as under the socialist mentality. They want to be rewarded for their individual efforts. So, we should have a system that works with those natural tendencies, resulting in benefits for the whole society. Hence, competition.
Trying to use the government to impose your own morality on others is the same thing most liberals protest against when it comes to abortion, gay rights, etc. Why isn't it better to give citizens individual choice here as well?
Much of the anti-nationalized health care sentiment is left over from Clinton's unsuccessful attempt to make it happen in the 90's. And although I disagree, I know that a lot of people don't see this type of government spending as justified, either on principle, or because they don't trust the government to run a healthcare program properly.
Some of the links above are dated. That does not mean they are irrelevant. They were merely high on the Google search. To see more overwhelming problems with the VA, merely Google "VA problems."
Benefits have been cut and politicized - which I think is evil. I listened last week to one veteran complain he must drive an hour to get to a VA-approved hospital or physician instead of merely billing his personal physician through the VA. He told me he can't believe how the government appears to be trying to manipulate his benefits package so that he cannot access it.
Understand that I am not against nationalized health care, in large part because people arguing for it over the last two years in this forum have convinced me it is ethically necessary. However, no one here has been able to successfully argue that the government is capable of arbitrating a national system of health care that would be successful.
Also, fixing the VA would focus attention on all those maimed veterans. That wouldn't sell the war very well. Those guys aren't very telegenic. Americans, especially their politicians, would much rather forget them. Oh, they might go to Walter Reed every now and then for a photo op to put on a show calculated to prove how much they care, but when push comes to shove, they'd much rather bail out some Wall Street fat cat than care for a maimed kid.
Maybe that's why VA is a bad example of how socialized medicine would work in the US.
I wonder why, since everyone is so scared of socialized medicine in the US, they seem to be okay with the government owning the mortgage on their homes. That's what "the bailout" would do, right? Wouldn't it give over people's mortgages to the government? Why is that okay?
The idea was that everything can be done better by private industry. One of the areas which conservatives have been saying should be "privatized" is public television. As it stands right now, PBS offers shows like Masterpiece Theatre (I know they call it just Masterpiece now, but I'll always know it as Masterpiece Theatre), Nova, Nature, American Experience, The NewsHour, Washington Week, Frontline, Bill Moyers Journal, Charlie Rose, Mystery, and so on. Conservatives like George Will say that the need for such programming could be filled by cable channels like The Discovery Channel. Here's what The Discovery Channel had on last week (besides the constant breaks for commercials): 200 Pound Tumor, A Haunting, Building Juliana's Face, Manar's Story: Born with Two Heads, Conjoined Twins, Nazi Medical Atocities, and so on.
Yeah, I can see how that's better than PBS.
That's just an example. There are many areas in which government simply provides better service than private industry. Private industry and free market competition are not the cure-alls Americans have been led to believe. All you have to do now is read the newspaper to see that this is so.