I rarely watch TV anymore except for cooking shows, history and science documentaries, old movies and football.

so writes camille paglia, my favorite feminist writer. add fox news and thats me. gtg puppy wants to walk.

a more extensive quote from camille paglia, radical lesbian feminist

I rarely watch TV anymore except for cooking shows, history and science documentaries, old movies and football. Hence I was blissfully free from the retching overkill that followed the deaths of Michael Jackson and Ted Kennedy -- I never saw a single minute of any of it. It was on talk radio, which I have resumed monitoring around the clock because of the healthcare fiasco, that I heard the passionate voices of callers coming directly from the town hall meetings. Hence I was alerted to the depth and intensity of national sentiment long before others who were simply watching staged, manipulated TV shows. 

Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers (one reason for the hypocritical absence of tort reform in the healthcare bills). Weirdly, given their worship of highly individualistic, secularized self-actualization, such professionals are as a whole amazingly credulous these days about big-government solutions to every social problem. They see no danger in expanding government authority and intrusive, wasteful bureaucracy. This is, I submit, a stunning turn away from the anti-authority and anti-establishment principles of authentic 1960s leftism. 

How has "liberty" become the inspirational code word of conservatives rather than liberals? (A prominent example is radio host Mark Levin's book "Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto," which was No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly three months without receiving major reviews, including in the Times.) I always thought that the Democratic Party is the freedom party -- but I must be living in the nostalgic past. Remember Bob Dylan's 1964 song "Chimes of Freedom," made famous by the Byrds? And here's Richie Havens electrifying the audience at Woodstock with "Freedom! Freedom!" Even Linda Ronstadt, in the 1967 song "A Different Drum," with the Stone Ponys, provided a soaring motto for that decade: "All I'm saying is I'm not ready/ For any person, place or thing/ To try and pull the reins in on me." 

But affluent middle-class Democrats now seem to be complacently servile toward authority and automatically believe everything party leaders tell them. Why? Is it because the new professional class is a glossy product of generically institutionalized learning? Independent thought and logical analysis of argument are no longer taught. Elite education in the U.S. has become a frenetic assembly line of competitive college application to schools where ideological brainwashing is so pandemic that it's invisible. The top schools, from the Ivy League on down, promote "critical thinking," which sounds good but is in fact just a style of rote regurgitation of hackneyed approved terms ("racism, sexism, homophobia") when confronted with any social issue. The Democratic brain has been marinating so long in those clichés that it's positively pickled.

end quote

i don't know that i can write a more accurate critique than her and she is or was an obama supporter.

i like  mark levin's term Statists for these people. 

also i like a quote i heard recently "nobody hates capitalism more than the capitalists"  i believe that refers to the fear of big corporations for the market that will eventually raise a competitor that will dethrone them.  as the great satchell paige, the black pitcher, one said "don't look back someone may be gaining on you"  well big corps do look back and seek protection from the govt to keep rivals down.  the bigger the govt the more successfull they will be.  its the smaller businesses that value freedom and the ability to compete, not the big ones.

Tamagochi--

I guess you haven't watched Sicko from Michael Moore.

sbalbom's intuition was dead on. He claimed that "I think you are reading myths from leftist propaganda." You confessed to your sins. Disgusting, obese millionaire Marxists like Michael Moore are precisely what's wrong with this country. Michael Moore is the perfect example of the loud, obnoxious, slobbering, vulgar "ugly American" Europeans claim to hate. Moore even admits he doesn't read much and watches six hours of television a day.

If we don't define social justice in terms of outcomes, then we talk nonsense. In addition, if we don't quantify what we're talking about, then our arguments are feelings and bullshit. Wishing something doesn't make it true. Wants are not rights. A single person is never representative of a population. This is basic mental hygiene, yo!

If you're in America and get sick, you're far more likely to survive. The Concord Working Group reports that "Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the U.K. and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher." I've already provided some evidence already about the availability of technology and made waiting time comparisons.

The main problem with American health care isn't that people can't get it-- even those priced out of the insurance market have access to charities and clinics. Rather, we've disabled the price mechanism through several illogical policies that are increasing costs without limit. Medicare will be bankrupt by 2017; Marxists like Michael Moore believe they can fix this by spending trillions of dollars more! Look, access to a government queue is not the same thing as access to health care services. The socialists will bankrupt what was once a great Republic because of their self-serving faith in their own good intentions, which leads to a refusal to *think*.

Oh well, at least it was for the Common Good^tm, right! When we're all equally poor, we'll have Social Justice^tm! *and* Equality of Opportunity^tm! Our Human Rights^tm will be protected! Geez, can anyone on the left think without the bumper stickers!

Posted By JHBowden on 09 Sep 2009 09:42 AM

Tamagochi--

I guess you haven't watched Sicko from Michael Moore.

sbalbom's intuition was dead on. He claimed that "I think you are reading myths from leftist propaganda." You confessed to your sins. Disgusting, obese millionaire Marxists like Michael Moore are precisely what's wrong with this country. Michael Moore is the perfect example of the loud, obnoxious, slobbering, vulgar "ugly American" Europeans claim to hate. Moore even admits he doesn't read much and watches six hours of television a day.
 

Well if he's spreading lies them prove him wrong on the facts that he mentions. I don't care what he does in his free time. You're just sticking unjustified labels on people now.

 

And just to be clear I am fully aware that he is a controversial figure. My own opinions were formed after traveling in USA and speaking to common people, reading books with both pro and anti capitalist ideas. I have been in investing business for 8 years now and I know how the market works. And I have successfully predicted current economic crisis using that information.

 

^^ Will get to that.

JHB & Pup. e. Look at this... so... funny...

http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/220760

surprise surprise but it's the same case here also An average middle class salary man makes about 20K USD per year (after taxes) but prices are in general 2-3 times cheaper for most services so the purchasing power is equivalent to someone who makes 40-50K in US. And that's only after twenty years of capitalism. People in UK and Ireland have it much better by making 3-5 times more than us but they have 3 times more expenses. All in all quality of life has improved dramatically in our country under capitalism. But all I'm saying - let's not stop here. Let's search for ways to create wealth in a more sustainable way - one which would not rely on excessive consumerism and abuse of resources. Capitalism is good but it's not the best.

I studied at two universities in France when I was in college and spent 9 months in Europe. The wealth difference was amazing. My American girlfriend hated it because it was like then the poorest areas in the US, the ghetos. And that was Paris.

I have visited 10 countries in Europe including, Germany Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Estonia all of them are economic backwaters to the US even though, those civilizations have been around for 100s of years longer. Any comparison on a material, technological or standard of living level is shear folly. Now as our federal stupidness increases that is bound to change.

The reason why the US is wealthy and not Russia or any other mineral rich country is because we have:
1. Equal justice under the law
2. Contracts private contracts are respected
3. Barriers of free of regulation and technocrats
4. Property rights are respected.

Those four aspects of civilization allow growth and prosparity to be had by all. Socialism and Marxism heads nothing to that. It sounds like you are listening to "the third way" movement which will only lead to stagnation. The same direction the US may be choosing.

Greed corrupts We need a better foundation for social economics than that.

I hope I explain this well but the free market economy isn't greed. It is service. Companies and individuals get paid for the value they provide. Coca-cola makes billions of dollars a year because they provide a good feeling, a quality product that is consistant and fun. Google, the local nail company, hair dressers, teachers all provide services. The ones who provide the best services do better. When businesses start to abuse their customers and other will supplant them, as Google is supplanting Microsoft and Apple is supplanting the PC. 10 years from now some other company will supplant Google. All the while the customer gets better, more efficient service that uses less resources.

Ever wonder why communist and Marxist countries have the worst pollution problems. many times worse then western countries?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html

As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes
BEIJING, Aug. 25 — No country in history has emerged as a major industrial power without creating a legacy of environmental damage that can take decades and big dollops of public wealth to undo......

There is far less of an intensive for sustainable development because when you are politically tied in to the government you have no fear of being supplanted. Ever wonder why rich people are Marxist? They know they will get tied in to the government when people like you and me wont. Their biggest fear is being supplanted by the next person. Not Marxism.

If you want sustainable development, wealthier and safer people, you give them freedom.

Let's stop and think about it for a moment. The fact is that most of the world today has embraced capitalism. Africa is running capitalism, China is running capitalism, my country is too. So why all the goodies still come from US as you have said? Why Africa is not advancing medical science? Can't you see a bit of contradiction here?

If you consider China a "capitalist" country I think we are using bad terminology. At best they are starting to allow companies to buy and sell goods and services and maybe can be concitered 1/4th. They are certainly far more regulated then any country in Europe. Don't forget you can't take money out of the country with out political approval. Also Africa is advancing dramatically as they have started to put in place respect for property and contracts. There are areas that private investment is going in but not as much as it should be. Africa is rich in resources and land as soon as they allow for private investment you will see an explosion in growth and prosperity.

http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/sectors/eg/index.html

The central challenge facing African economies is to reduce poverty through higher levels of economic growth. Long-term, broad-based economic growth is essential for Africa to increase incomes and reach its potential to become a significant trade and investment partner in the world economy. Although Africa has historically had the slowest growth of any region, its performance is improving substantially, lending hope for the future. African economies have continued to sustain the growth momentum of the 1990s, recording an overall real GDP growth rate of 5.8 percent in 2007. More than 30 sub-Saharan African countries recorded higher economic growth rates in 2007 than 2006. But these growth rates must be sustained and accelerated in order to have a significant impact on poverty and increase living standards

If you really want to help Africa, Europe and the US should eliminate subsidies for farmers to artificially keep food prices up while placing tariffs blocking poor African farmers from having access and starting an agricultural revolution which will lead to industrialization and prosperity. What a crime our politicians propagate. Exposing our poor to higher food prices and keeping Africans from our market. What a crime. All of that... Anti-capitalist

-Tam

And just to be clear I am fully aware that he is a controversial figure. My own opinions were formed after traveling in USA and speaking to common people, reading books with both pro and anti capitalist ideas. I have been in investing business for 8 years now and I know how the market works. And I have successfully predicted current economic crisis using that information.

My roommate is a centrist obama democrat. He believes in a powerful state because he doesn't trust people to have freedom. He is very bright and thinks most people are stupid and should have people like him to rule them. I think it is very scary how so many people to want economic freedom for the fellow man and women.

Also when you quote Michael Moore It doesn't reflect well on the quoter. If your goal is to convince people reading; I wouldn't quote people who are inflammatory and derisive.

And your English is amazing for being your 3rd.

Posted By sbalbom on 09 Sep 2009 11:45 PM
The reason why the US is wealthy and not Russia or any other mineral rich country is because we have:
1. Equal justice under the law
2. Contracts private contracts are respected
3. Barriers of free of regulation and technocrats
4. Property rights are respected.

Those four aspects of civilization allow growth and prosparity to be had by all. Socialism and Marxism heads nothing to that. It sounds like you are listening to "the third way" movement which will only lead to stagnation. The same direction the US may be choosing.

You said you lived in France for some time - how did they violate any of those rules? EU indeed seems to have more regulation than US but you're not completely void of them either. Some areas like finances, guns, drugs always need a strict oversight. Besides during the last 10 years EU have eased a lot of useless regulations (they even had instructions on the form of "proper" cucumbers ).

 

I can't verify it myself but from other people's accounts who have emigrated from my country to US some 10-15 years ago, there was indeed a much bigger difference in quality of life between Western Europe and US. Nowadays I go to London, New York, Tokyo - it's essentially the same thing everywhere. And quite a few people moved back to the old continent because they get better pay here.

Posted By sbalbom on 09 Sep 2009 11:45 PM
I hope I explain this well but the free market economy isn't greed. It is service. Companies and individuals get paid for the value they provide. Coca-cola makes billions of dollars a year because they provide a good feeling, a quality product that is consistant and fun. Google, the local nail company, hair dressers, teachers all provide services. The ones who provide the best services do better. When businesses start to abuse their customers and other will supplant them, as Google is supplanting Microsoft and Apple is supplanting the PC. 10 years from now some other company will supplant Google. All the while the customer gets better, more efficient service that uses less resources.

And free market is not necessary capitalism. There can be other systems that allow free distribution of goods and services in a more effective way. Money, manufacturing, service industry has existed for thousands of years - long before capitalism appeared. It just happens that currently it's the best widely known solution for advancing wealth. But wealth itself is not created by the system - it's created by the people.

Posted By sbalbom on 09 Sep 2009 11:45 PM
There is far less of an intensive for sustainable development because when you are politically tied in to the government you have no fear of being supplanted. Ever wonder why rich people are Marxist? They know they will get tied in to the government when people like you and me wont. Their biggest fear is being supplanted by the next person. Not Marxism.

C'mon - Marxism is dead already as a theory that was proven to be wrong. Only a few countries like Northern Korea still live by it. We are speaking of different things here - for Marx was also a philosopher and started a new and very important trend of thought in human history. And the idea was that government must provide for people regardless of their status in society. That in some cases it needs to act a protector and a referee for those who cannot protect themselves from the abuse. It extends a very long humanistic line of thought from the times of antics. And it somewhat conflicts with another idea that every man stands on his own - if you're weak, you die. In modern society both of those principles are applied in various combinations - the most successful known cases are in Scandinavia and USA respectfully.

 

I have noticed that American officials spread propaganda that all Marxist ideas are, you know, taking from the rich and giving to the poor They point their fingers at Soviet Union and Cuba for their crimes against humanity and economic underdevelopment. But it's not how most of the world sees it. What happened in those countries is way way far from the original ideas on socialism. It was pure totalitarianism and mind control. Soviet Union had been in fact way less "social" place than US had ever been.

 

Posted By sbalbom on 09 Sep 2009 11:45 PM
If you consider China a "capitalist" country I think we are using bad terminology. At best they are starting to allow companies to buy and sell goods and services and maybe can be concitered 1/4th. They are certainly far more regulated then any country in Europe. Don't forget you can't take money out of the country with out political approval. Also Africa is advancing dramatically as they have started to put in place respect for property and contracts. There are areas that private investment is going in but not as much as it should be. Africa is rich in resources and land as soon as they allow for private investment you will see an explosion in growth and prosperity.

Oh but China is a capitalist country They allowed private property - nowadays people can buy stocks, apartments etc. Only their political system is that of totalitarianism.

 

My point was that today's version of capitalism is rigged in a favor of USA. For example USD status as a world reserve currency ensures that America always wins regardless of what happens. As it was in that funny story I have posted. That is unfair to other countries. If they play that game whatever wealth they create US will always get some of it and will always stay ahead. Essentially that means that by the time Africa will land on the moon US will reach another solar system. That's the story behind the facts you have given and behind your ever growing national debt.

Posted By sbalbom on 09 Sep 2009 11:45 PM
My roommate is a centrist obama democrat. He believes in a powerful state because he doesn't trust people to have freedom. He is very bright and thinks most people are stupid and should have people like him to rule them.

And that's essentially what Stalin, Hitler and most other dictators in history thought too. BTW there was always something fishy about Obama's politics for me so I probably wouldn't have voted for him. But frankly I did not like neither of the candidates.

Posted By sbalbom on 09 Sep 2009 11:45 PM
Also when you quote Michael Moore It doesn't reflect well on the quoter. If your goal is to convince people reading; I wouldn't quote people who are inflammatory and derisive.

That's probably some difference between Te and Ti way of processing  For me it makes no difference who said the words - it can be the Queen of England or the bum from the street - I would listen to them with equal attention and would make my own decisions. And I expect the same from others but apparently it is not necessary so because some rely more on authority of the speaker than the subject itself. I don't necessary support Moore's conclusions but he makes some pretty good observations. A fact is a fact regardless of who have said it. I know bullshit when I see one - some 80% of financial articles I read fall into that category.

 

I know bullshit when I see one

Tamagochi, I doubt you have this skill set. For example, there's a scene in Sicko where Marxist Moore suggests that no one pays for health care in British hospitals because of NHS. While America is a free country and people can say whatever they want, I have total contempt for people who use their freedom to lie in such an open, blatant manner. In the UK, it is still legal to spend money on your own body, and what's amazing is that people do so, even with the British government driving up the price through its own intrusion and staggering incompetence.

Moore's films rival those of Goebbels and will be studied for years as propaganda devices. The trick is to lie without saying anything propositionally false. For example, in Fahrenheit 911, to make it sound like Bush is for the wealthy, Moore showed a clip of Bush making fun of himself at a Catholic charity, making it look like Bush was slavishly doing the bidding of the rich. In Bowling for Columbine, Moore made it look like the National Rifle Associated was founded by scared whites in the KKK, when it was actually founded by Union officers in NYC. Of course, Moore doesn't say this; he just shows a stupid cartoon, making it look like the creators of South Park cooperated with him, just another layer of deceit upon deceit. I can multiply dozens of these examples.

You know bullshit when you see it? Please. Don't delude yourself.

I don't want to defend Moore's films (they're pretty stupid).

But, despite its flaws, the NHS is pretty fucking amazing.  I have a number of long-term health problems, and the free services I've received, including big bags of drugs, screening for various illnesses, regular GP consultations etc... have been excellent.  I'm a penniless student, but thanks to the NHS, this needn't affect my health: I have the same opportunities as healthy penniless students, because the services I require to normalise my health are available for free.

 

You said you lived in France for some time - how did they violate any of those rules? EU indeed seems to have more regulation than US but you're not completely void of them either. Some areas like finances, guns, drugs always need a strict oversight. Besides during the last 10 years EU have eased a lot of useless regulations (they even had instructions on the form of "proper" cucumbers ).

Employment law, taxation for for social services especially. There similar problems that Germany faces.

I can't verify it myself but from other people's accounts who have emigrated from my country to US some 10-15 years ago, there was indeed a much bigger difference in quality of life between Western Europe and US. Nowadays I go to London, New York, Tokyo - it's essentially the same thing everywhere. And quite a few people moved back to the old continent because they get better pay here.

Sure. America, for the most part is a Meritocracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy). Where we don't care what you are, who you are or where your from but what value you bring and how you can help business serve clients better. If you won't compete you go home. It is the fairest system. In America we don't care about birth. Also, your friends may have had problems due to immigration law. Unfortunately, there is so much demand for people to come to America that we have very restrictive and unfair laws protecting domestic workers. Many of which I don't agree with.   In America there is unlimited upside.  Anyone can become wealthy or have a great living.  In Amercia it is easy to be middle class and have a great life.  There is so much opportunity here.


It still is not the same. The level of material wealth of an average working class person and even poor person in this country is astounding. Our poor have digital cable, cell phones and plasma TVs. How do I know? I was president of a charity group last year and tough finance to battered women in the shelter. I work with the poorest of our community in Dallas. www.familyplace.org. That's what capitalists do. They serve.

One thing I can't stand about socialism is that they take over the works of charities and are not open to the pressures of competition. IE I work with our charity to compete in a market place of capital against other charities. We serve the least capable of our community who consequently 60-80% of them are illegal immigrants. Our charity must show results. The market of other charities force a discipline against fraud, abuse and for productivity... IE results. Redistribution of wealth isok up to a point, giving donor money to the victims. But does not solve the problem. Our charity must compete to provide better service to the less fortunate or others will get the donation dollars.

In America you want to solve all of our problems of the poor you make every contribution to the food bank, schooling, education, health, training and support dollar for dollar tax deductible. There will be a gold rush of capital going into the system with the brightest minds attacking the problems of the poor and misguided.

BUT that will NEVER happen. Socialists and bureaucrats want power for themselves to rule others. They have a Utopian vision that must be enforced with the violent power of the state. They would never let charities have that kind of freedom and place in our society. The church used to be the center of Western Civilization for amellenia . Science has killed the church and Atheists and Socialist have replaced it with the state. The center of social life should be charity and helping others. And the State stands in the way. That is one reason why Obama floated the idea of removing tax deductions for charitable donations. What a crime.

And free market is not necessary capitalism. There can be other systems that allow free distribution of goods and services in a more effective way. Money, manufacturing, service industry has existed for thousands of years - long before capitalism appeared. It just happens that currently it's the best widely known solution for advancing wealth.

There is not a better way to distribute goods and services because information is diffuse. Please see my epistemic arrogance post. One man, one group or one committee can not know the needs and whims of customers. Not one man/woman can master a single discipline of any subject. This is laughable. What other system works better then free market capitalism (or near) ? Socialism? Feudalism? Totalitarianism? Fascism?

But wealth itself is not created by the system - it's created by the people.

Agreed and the more liberty you give to people the more wealth and distribution you will have.

I have noticed that American officials spread propaganda that all Marxist ideas are, you know, taking from the rich and giving to the poor They point their fingers at Soviet Union and Cuba for their crimes against humanity and economic underdevelopment. But it's not how most of the world sees it. What happened in those countries is way way far from the original ideas on socialism.

It may be the inevitable result. But then again every country that has ever existed has collapsed, so who knows. China has said to be the only continuous civilization but I don't consider it to be. Han included. They have had constant invasions etc.

Oh but China is a capitalist country They allowed private property - nowadays people can buy stocks, apartments etc. Only their political system is that of totalitarianism.

When the political system is totalitarian don't you think there is interference? Of course crony capitalism rules they day. Kind of like no bid contracts under Bush and bailouts under Obama. You draw to close of a black and white picture of china. China is one of the most heavily regulated countries in the world. That's why 4 of 5 of theirIPOs happened in the US last year. Also 40-60% of the country is SOEs or State own Enterprises and all of the public companies you can buy on the exchanges are 51% held at least by the State. They are isolated from shareholder pressure. They are massive controls on capital and movement of their citizens. If your only qualification for capitalism is private property then this is a semantic argument.

My point was that today's version of capitalism is rigged in a favor of USA. For example USD status as a world reserve currency ensures that America always wins regardless of what happens. As it was in that funny story I have posted. That is unfair to other countries. If they play that game whatever wealth they create US will always get some of it and will always stay ahead. Essentially that means that by the time Africa will land on the moon US will reach another solar system. That's the story behind the facts you have given and behind your ever growing national debt.

Lol so people advocate socialism because they can't compete with the US. Even though it is more efficient and morally superior to allow your citizens to have economic and social liberty. Ok I'll have to think about this for a while. Interesting point.

How is it rigged? It is rigged because we don't have draconian self defeating employment laws? Or we don't have kangaroo courts? or we don't tax at 55%? Business is able to thrive so we attract capital and the best talent in the world? The greatest scientific minds come to study and work here? Guilty as charged. Unfortunately our socialists and republicans are changing that.

I do agree with you about the FED and how we have more free markets. I do not like when our government gets into bad deals or tries to overthrow and you will find agreement with me there. Our socialists do not understand that when we go into debt we suck capital away from countries like yours. When our socialist and central planners in their infinite wisdom decide to raise interest rates it forces other countries to do so also. They have to compete for capital too. But let this be a lesson for you. Give your people freedom, open up markets and you will realize foreign investment and prosperity too.

I don't necessary support Moore's conclusions but he makes some pretty good observations.

Michael more creates anti liberty propaganda. You and others who have a bias towards economic liberty eat it up. He shows the little guy being screwed by the system. What you don't think our large and powerful Federal Government doesn't screw the little guy everyday? Show me a little guy being screwed by the system and I will show you a little guy being screwed by Big State.

What is bad is if someone is screwed by a corporation they have less resources to compete in court. The Federal Government has infinite resources. You can't fight the law or the state. Also companies are open to shareholder pressure and public option and the courts. They will lose customers. If there wasn't Federal Regulators there would be 3rd party regulators and they would also penalize them. Just likeMorningStar for mutalfunds or housing inspectors for real-estate. Federal career bureaucrats can not be fired for doing their jobs. They are in union contracts and are isolated from productive pressure. When do you ever hear of federal workers being laid off? Or fired? That's the whole point for working for the government, is to have a stable job forever. A federal worker is insulated.

Also our country is far bigger then yours. We have well over 300 million people here in the 3rd largest land mass in the world. My city/metro area has twice the population as your country. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_%E2%80%93_Fort_Worth_Metroplex) When you want nationalized medicine to me that is like a city wanting national medicine. There are so much logistical differences between instituting a national health care plan four our country then yours. Bureaucrats will report to officials in Washington DC, nearly 2,000km away. Once again socialists having arrogance in their knowledge and refusing to believe that information is disperse. If there was going to be a push for local socialized medicine I think there would be people open for that. At least that way each community would be able to compete and innovate to find better solutions for their customers.
.
Notice you never hear about our Federal officials trying to find local solutions that fit each community best. You never will. It is about power.

JHBowden we are not arguing about Moore's films here. And you're too emotional on that topic - Goebbels cannot be compared to Moore: the first one promoted ethnic discord and holocaust, the other just provides a contrarian perspective on certain popular subjects. You're making him into some sort of Anti-Christ

If we break down his films - he presents the facts, the sequence and some of his opinion (the message). The facts can be easily verified (and I used some of them in my original post). The sequence is trickier because the director can arrange facts in a certain way that could lead in a wrong direction: like you have noticed with British health-care and he also did not break down into the costs of government run insurance (technically he did not lie, he just did not provide all the information). The opinion - well it's just one man's opinion but Moore manages to keep most of it for himself to his credit. So yeah, when watching his movies I do remain highly skeptical on a lot of things (the whole Bush and Osama family relationship, expedition to Cuba in Sicko etc.). And he also acknowledges that his films are indeed somewhat biased.

But let's be fair - I did not feed you Moore's opinion in my posts, I've just reused some of verifiable facts.

Tamagochi, you remarked that "Well if he's spreading lies them prove him wrong on the facts that he mentions."

Yes, we were talking about Moore's Marxist agitprop to begin with. Yes, I'm definitely biased against liars like Michael Moore. If socialism is so great, why the deceit?

I've already provided data on waiting times and mortality rates for specific illnesses-- rates of survival are much higher in the United States than Europe, and waiting times are much, much shorter in the United States. These two sets of data explain each other-- if elderly people are waiting in queues for surgery, they're more likely to die. Again, this can be empirically quantified much more precisely than "Stephen Hawking likes NHS" or whatever propaganda AP or Reuters is pushing today.

Don't get me wrong -- the European systems are popular with most of their own citizens, since they're democratic in the worst way. They divert massive resources which should go to the elderly and the sick -- a small minority -- and make them available them to the young and healthy majority. This is why intellectuals have a responsibility to speak out against demagogues trying to get the mob to stampede on a government takeover who are not being honest about the consequences.

^^ Its funny, Obama's rating are flushing down the toilet with the elderly because they know that there will be allot more demand and strain on the system. You can't add coverage without expanding supply.

No one is talking about increasing the supply of medicine, doctors, nurses and technology. No one is talking about how to incentive capital to invent new cures. We are doing the same bankrupt ideas of robing one subset of society and giving to another for votes.

You're entitled to your own opinion and I'm not in business to persuade you. So let's just leave that I respectfully disagree with your views on socialism.
  

A few more comments: most of the charity organizations throughout Europe are privately run just like in US. They get funding from voluntary tax deductions. If Obama tries to socialize it then I'm also against such overhaul.
 

Essentially what we were arguing on were just different forms of capitalism: liberal capitalism in US, social capitalism in Scandinavia, mixed throughout the rest of Europe, totalitarian capitalism in China etc. The main principle stays the same but only the role of government changes in these cases. However there have been some interesting ideas in history that tried to advance forward the underlying principle. For example one of them is allowing to print private money. Another one was carried out as a highly successful economic experiment in Austria's city of Worgl during the Great Depression (read here and here) which introduced a concept of depreciating money. The idea was that in order to encourage growth a special kind of local currency was issued that lost 1% of it's value every passing month. Thus people had the incentive to spend it as quickly as possible. The result was a spectacular growth in currency turnover rate and overall economic revival despite the hard times. Unfortunately the central bank killed the initiative just after a year of operating despite the great results.