The second someone uses a term like 'sheep' or 'sheeple' they have pretty much negated any argument they might have had.
Who here lived through the Cold War, fought Socialism/lived under it's terrible yoke?
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The second someone uses a term like 'sheep' or 'sheeple' they have pretty much negated any argument they might have had.
If I ruled the world.......every day would be the first day of spring..........every heart would have a new song to sing.........
i ask myself that very question everytime i mail out my husbands alimony payments...
Hmm bitfi3nd, schools didn't make your approved list. I suppose only those who can afford to pay for private schooling should be educated?
Private delivery of packages and "important" mail works quite well as proven by UPS, FedEx, etc, who are limited by law from expanding to regular mail delivery. Why should the government be involved in that and not other "natural monopoly" type businesses, such as utilities?
Speaking of natural monopolies, I don't see water and sewer on your list either. Should I start digging my own latrine?
Apparently from your quote about wolves you don't like democracy much either...
Private delivery of packages and "important" mail works quite well as proven by UPS, FedEx, etc, who are limited by law from expanding to regular mail delivery. Why should the government be involved in that and not other "natural monopoly" type businesses, such as utilities?
Speaking of natural monopolies, I don't see water and sewer on your list either. Should I start digging my own latrine?
Apparently from your quote about wolves you don't like democracy much either...
If I ruled the world.......every day would be the first day of spring..........every heart would have a new song to sing.........
If I ruled the world, we'd all be Canadians!
if i ruled the world there'd be no politicians.. as they'd be hung from the nearest high landmark for being lying, cheating, self serving lobbyist whores
Please tell me where, in modern times, socialist policies have failed? I think the majority of the Western world has successfully implemented a healthy balance of socialism and capitalism. 'Socialised' healthcare and education are integral to a functioning modern society, and unless you're one of those laissez-faire freaks, I would expect you to agree.
But wouldn't that make you a politician?
if i felt it did then i'd have to hang myself after i got the last one... so be it
No, I don't like democracy. it's mob rule. A Constitutionally limited Republic is markedly superior. Keeps the wolves from voting their neighbors for dinner. Literally.
Schools should not be a Federal matter. Nor should water, sewers, etc. be. (And they aren't, in the US)
The (historically speaking) recent federalization of our school system's curriculum has left us with very expensive schools that put us about 28th or so down on the list, while we spend more money per student than every country in the world except Sweden. Our country is a union of independent States that all agree to abide by the basic rules outlined in our founding documents, and uphold our Bill of Rights. Most of our states are larger than many European countries.
I believe a government that has the most power (of course restrained by our State and Federal Constitutions) at the county level will be much more in tune with the peoples wants and needs, not to mention quicker to correct mistakes, accessible to the people it affects, etc.
Socialized schooling is failing here, while private and home-schooled kids are ripping up the charts in spelling bees, test scores, etc. If a tax-voucher system was allowed to go through, as has been suggested here so many times, I'll be willing to bet not a single .gov run school would survive the grinder of the free market.
Privately run institutions HAVE to be efficient, and turn out a decent product, or they fail. Not so with .gov institutions. The tax voucher system would allow all families, of all incomes to send their children to the best schools their kids could get into.
Socialized medicine, well, that's a nightmare. Many of our friends from the fair North make the trek here to pay for their "non-critical" surgeries because our system allows you to get the level of care you want, when you want it. Including Canuck .gov officials, etc. I see this first hand very regularly.
In other words, you get what you pay for.
My structure was awkward, but if you read that sentence again, I go on to say "at the barest minimum". But yes, I am a libertarian. Since 1988.
Socialized schools do exceptionally well in virtually every other western nation. Canada continues to scores very ,very high internationally and for a lot less investment. Finland scores the highest in the world and they are even more socialized than Canada. The problem isn't with socialized education, it is with the American version of it.
As for socialize medicine, as a Canadian, I can tell you it is with the greatest amusement that we watch the far right in the US tell us how bad our health care is. The overwhelming majority of our population treasures our health care as one of our greatest social programs. Our health care system, in spite of costing a fraction of the cost of the US, gives us a longer life expectancy, greater general health, and longer and more positive outcomes for cancer patients. (google for recent rankings)
While no system is perfect, tell the 40,000,000 Americans who can't afford health care about how bad the rest of the Western nations have it.
Go for it.Got to leave this one alone or I'll get myself in trouble
If you are rational in your arguments, and are demonstrably correct, how could you get yourself in trouble? You might even change minds. If you are irrational and demonstrably wrong, well......you still won't be in trouble. You'll just look stupid. Looking stupid is a necessary part of the process of coming to the right conclusions.
Both the right and the left hate me. I believe in TRUE freedom. The freedom to fail. The freedom to fall flat on your face and embarrass yourself. The freedom to ramble incoherently and smack a little red book. The freedom to escape from a dirt-poor background to the head of a mighty multi-national. As long as you aren't directly, physically impinging on somebody else's person, rights, or property...knock yourself out.
This is still a free country (by law, anyhow) no matter what our current misguided/evil politicians want to do to it. Use your voice while you still can.
As an aside, the national media ran a campaign a year or so ago for Canadians to vote on who we feel is the greatest single Canadian in history. The winner was Tommy Douglas, the father of socialized medicine in Canada.
That's funny. My wife is a Canadian official and I'm going to stay as vague as possible on that so there is no backlash towards her from my internet political discussion. One high ranker opted to come here for her (successful, thank Jeebus) breast cancer treatment. Another just got his knee replaced. Another got his skin cancer treated....all in the US. Why didn't they stay there and enjoy your wonderfully superior system?
Why?
As for the general longevity stats, you have both a very small population and a much more homogenized racial makeup, and there are marked differences in racial life expectancy. For plain old white folks in the US like most of Canada is made up of, the crime rate, life expectancy, and everything else you can think of is very much in line with the best results we see in all other developed nations.
Anecdotal evidence is dismissed for a good reason. It's meaningless. I'm glad you know people that you can use to back your argument. It would probably be more effective if the data did.
We do have a smaller population. Are you aware of any statistics that show smaller populations somehow inherently healthier?
You assumption about the homogenized makeup is quite funny. It is apparent you know very little about Canada. I won't touch the rest of the post because I can smell the racist justifications about to come into play.
I think I'll bail and leave you with your comforting illusions.
Oh, I see. I'm racist because there are documented, factual differences between the life expectancy of different racial groups that any doctor of any nation would be happy to talk to you about. (If you can get an appointment.) And my personal experiences in the matter deserve no reply, because they are anecdotal. You'd think you would have no trouble explaining that kind of thing away, anecdotal or not. I guess it's harder for you to deal with than I thought.
And I'm a Native American, smart guy/gal. A Minority. AN INDIAN. You would call me a Native or Aboriginal up there. And I'm laughing my ... off at your assertion that I know very little of Canada. You have no idea.
I travel back and forth at leisure between both VERY frequently, courtesy of the Jay treaty.A smaller statistical sample does give you an advantage. If we took the bordering states of the US to a number matching your current pop. of approx. 32 million, I'll bet 100 Canadian
that our numbers will match very closely with yours.Oh yeah,"bail" away. That is a very convenient way to exit an argument you are losing. Bye! Get out a bag of milk and try some warm with honey before bed tonight. It might help you sleep better, eh?
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I'm a little confused here. Now it's ok with you if local governments provide what you call "socialized" services?
A very quick google of "federal school funding" brought me to this page, which says that the federal government provides about 8.3% of school funds. Another 8.9% comes from "private sources, primarily for private schools", and the rest comes from state and local government. I don't consider 8.3% a very high percentage of school funds, so why are you so against it?
Archived: 10 Fact About K-12 Education Funding
Another quick search brought me to this page on water funding. While it doesn't give any statistics, it certainly implies that the federal government plays a role in funding clean water. I'm sure state and local funding is much more significant, but the federal funding does exist.
EPA > Water > Funding and Grants
While I don't disagree that local government is preferable to "big brother" in many instances, I do see a need for federal control over things like clean air & water and food. Obviously localities setting their own air standards, for instance, would be useless, since neighboring areas would also be affected. I'm not the biggest fan of either the EPA or the FDA but I am sure we would be a lot worse off without them.
I'm also surprised that anyone would think corporate America should be allowed to run rampant, without regulation, given the fiasco the financial industry has recently handed us. Not to mention earlier fiascos throughout American history. The Great Depression was NOT an isolated instance, we had had smaller depressions roughly every 20 years up until then, mostly due to banks being allowed to speculate and no protections for their customers when they went bust. Whatever you think of Roosevelt's social programs, his bank regulations broke that depression cycle permanently, until banks were again allowed to speculate with their customer's and shareholder's money.
I do agree with the Libertarians on personal freedoms, but their views on economic issues are impractical. Pure capitalism doesn't work on a large scale.
A very quick google of "federal school funding" brought me to this page, which says that the federal government provides about 8.3% of school funds. Another 8.9% comes from "private sources, primarily for private schools", and the rest comes from state and local government. I don't consider 8.3% a very high percentage of school funds, so why are you so against it?
Archived: 10 Fact About K-12 Education Funding
Another quick search brought me to this page on water funding. While it doesn't give any statistics, it certainly implies that the federal government plays a role in funding clean water. I'm sure state and local funding is much more significant, but the federal funding does exist.
EPA > Water > Funding and Grants
While I don't disagree that local government is preferable to "big brother" in many instances, I do see a need for federal control over things like clean air & water and food. Obviously localities setting their own air standards, for instance, would be useless, since neighboring areas would also be affected. I'm not the biggest fan of either the EPA or the FDA but I am sure we would be a lot worse off without them.
I'm also surprised that anyone would think corporate America should be allowed to run rampant, without regulation, given the fiasco the financial industry has recently handed us. Not to mention earlier fiascos throughout American history. The Great Depression was NOT an isolated instance, we had had smaller depressions roughly every 20 years up until then, mostly due to banks being allowed to speculate and no protections for their customers when they went bust. Whatever you think of Roosevelt's social programs, his bank regulations broke that depression cycle permanently, until banks were again allowed to speculate with their customer's and shareholder's money.
I do agree with the Libertarians on personal freedoms, but their views on economic issues are impractical. Pure capitalism doesn't work on a large scale.
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