Or you can say that for a first world country, USA, is the only one who doesn't have a public health care system.

I used to be cust. service staff. I still have my old nametag somewhere!

Deli sandwiches...other expensive prepackaged stuff...yep, all on the food stamp cards. Gotta love it.

Sigh. Those experiences don't reflect everyone on welfare or food stamps. Not to mention, it shows your opinion that money should equal quality of living.

A Canadian could maybe confirm or deny this but I remember hearing that private practices are illegal in Canada.



That is not an entirely accurate statement but we do have the best health care system. There is no certainly no perfect system but socialized ones certainly seem to perform at much lower levels than ours.

With regards to luxuries, it does and it could be said that it does when considering one's ability to provide for themself.

No.. but in the case of food stamps, it could come close. Most grocery store tags show the unit price, which is basically a measure of price per unit of mass/volume. Food stamps could take it one step further and only let you buy food with a high nutrition/price ratio, which packaged sandwiches definitely don't have.

For the first time since I've been eligible, I don't think that I'm going to vote. I'm not sold on either candidate & while Obama is an interesting candidate, his stances on various issues are disturbing to me. I suppose if someone put a gun to my head & forced me to vote, I would choose Obama over McCain.

I know that it's a popular illogical point of view these days that people that don't vote don't have the right to complain, but that doesn't really make sense. I think that in a race with two candidates that I dislike, not voting is a statement in itself.

Or you could go with Carlin logic and reason that since you didn't vote, you have all the more reason to complain, since the people who voted caused the problem and thus have no right to complain.

No. While there aren't any private hospitals, there are many private practices. Where did you hear that?

A statement that ends up causing us problems. Vote for the lesser of two evils, I say. If you don't, the worst of the two evils makes office.

I don't know if WIC programs differ, but I used to work in a health department and one of my main tasks was to sign over WIC checks. Only food that was considered nutritious could be bought (nothing like prepackaged sandwiches, chips, or just junk in general)...mainly things such as fresh veggies, fruits, milk, baby formula, etc. Nearly all the women that were in the WIC program in this town used these checks at the farmers' market (another place I worked). Personally, I like the WIC program as long as this "nutritious foods only" rule is still in place.

Yes, because I am socialist and think that Wookie is wrong about everything he ever does.

Blue = “socialized medicine”
Red = U.S.

Life Expectancy
Japan 82.02 years
Sweden 80.63 years
Switzerland 80.62 years
France 80.59 years
Canada 80.34 years
United States 78.2 years
Source: The CIA World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2102.html


Infant Mortality (the number of deaths of infants one year old or younger per 1000 live births)
Japan 3.2
Sweden 2.75
Switzerland 4.1
France 3.36
Canada 4.8
United States 6.3
Source: United Nations World Population Prospects; 2006 Revision http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2006/WPP2006_Highlights_rev.pdf, The CIA World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html


Per Capita Spending for Health Care
Japan $2,358
Sweden $2,918
Switzerland $4,177
France $3,374
Canada $3,326
United States $6,401
Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Health Data 2007 http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,3343,en_2649_37407_2085200_1_1_1_37407,00.html

Number of People Lacking Health Coverage
Japan 0
Sweden 0
Switzerland 0
France 0
Canada 0
United States 46,600,000
Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities http://www.cbpp.org/8-29-06health.htm


I spent way too much time on this.

Wow, great find

Please elaborate on "best". If you mean best on terms of the US leading in research, development and innovation on medicine and treatment, then that would be believable. And if best on having the facilities and equipment to treat people, then sure. But if it is on terms of how many people have access to health care or are able to continue treatment, then the US falls far from the best. It certainly isn't the least expensive for the average person.

I don't really care. The president is supposed to look out for the best interest of the American people, not try to be a pretty boy who makes other countries like us.

other countries liking us is in the best interest of the american people.

Not if its just for the sake of having a president who gives good speeches.

Yes, the quality of actual service in the US is ridiculously good.


Right, which our system sucks at.

There are still plenty of restrictions, and while I don't know about nutritious food only, the stuff that's on their checks is for milk, eggs, juice, cereal and baby formula.

I'm A-okay with that, the part that infuriates me is that they almost always have more than four kids. They keep breeding, regardless of the fact that they cannot afford to raise the ones that they already have. If you don't have enough money to take care of two children, you probably shouldn't have six.



Kirby, I have two parents that work full time at good jobs and I'd consider myself in the upper half of the middle class. I've only had lobster once in my life. Before the economy started to tank, my 3 person family had crab legs maybe once every 9 months to a year, because we cannot afford to have luxury food more than that. I do not feel that during a recession people on foodstamps/EBT should be buying lobster every month.

If you wait for an honest politician you will never have a voice in your government. Just vote for whoever you most agree with, even if it's some third party candidate who has no chance. The Natural Law Party needs love too.

I'm not going to disagree with every aspect of 'socialist' policy, as it's rather foolish. I agree that there should be a degree of equalization of opportunity, such that upward (and hell, downward) mobility is possible. That way you'd always get, or at least try to get, the best fit for the tasks needed. A skilled neurosurgeon may be born in Compton, and the most worthless fry chef may be found in Martha's Vinyard. Taxation is needed in general, and in fact I'd be for a 100% inheritance tax. However, there should be some degree of reward for doing better in life, and some degree of penalization for doing worse. I don't want that neurosurgeon and fry chef having the same lifestyle to any degree. There should be some degree of incentive for going to school longer, suffering more hours, and sacrificing part of your life for a career. You shouldn't be penalized for doing better. The key is balance; my post was stating a lack of balance: those who are getting something for nothing.



Nice strawman, buddy. Reread the end of my post.



Taxation is needed; your second part is very generalized. You seem to be going many places at once without support.



First off, you're talking about "rights", which isn't exactly a part of "socialism" as it stands as an economic policy. You seem to be confusing your terms.

Second, your post seems to wander here and there without really addressing my rant. What is wrong with the argument that if you provide someone with every needed service in life (food, shelter, healthcare, childcare), you take away incentive to produce? You vaguely address that "it isn't handled right", but then I second later I see you giving the clarion call to "rights", without any mention of what goes into those rights.

Look, I'll state this very simply: People should be entitled to the sweat of their brow. This saying "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is the highest order of bull**** because it does not encourage productivity. People don't want to work so someone else can have an easier life.

Finally, I don't agree with healthcare as a right. Why should it be a right? What is wrong with earning it? Healthcare costs money, time, and effort. Where do you get the audacity to stand up and call the hard work of others a right? I don't have a right to eat, I don't have a right to shelter, and I shouldn't. That's stupidity. Why should I have this right? When did I earn these rights that you so easily hand out, as if nothing goes into it? People should be able to earn the necessities of life; if they can't there is a problem. Making them 'rights' not only does not fix the problem, it adds others on.

What does my opinion of "quality of living" have to do with anything? My family lived in an income bracket qualifying as sub-poverty, and our quality of life was just fine. We weren't living off of welfare, though we did use food stamps at times. We did not go buy expensive pre-packaged food. We rarely drank milk due to the cost. And you think you have the right to tell me what my opinions are?

I also worked in a supermarket for over three years. My experience was, in the vast majority, consistent with what I posted above. In 3+ years working in a supermarket, I saw a lot of people. As such, my my experience indicates that my opinion reflects the behavior for a lot of people on welfare or food stamps.

My mother's fiancee works with people who monitor how many hours they work, to be sure they don't work too much and render themselves unable to receive free money from the government. Must be nice...extra time off, extra money...maybe I made a bad choice when I decided to actually work for a living and pay taxes to enable lazy people to get free money.

So, kirby- what is it? Arrogance, or just a poor habit of making baseless assumptions? You think you have the knowledge to tell me what I think? Consider yourself sorely mistaken.

As for the "free money" thing (I won't really deny that,) but I will definitely argue the "extra money" part. Most of these people are in debt and the majority of that "extra money" goes to pay these debts...which just get larger as they cannot work the extra hours needed to pay these debts off fully...blah, blah, blah, and etc. It's a horrible cycle, and why I'm not arguing with the fact that they should just bite the bullet, go out there and work those full time jobs and pay off those debts that they created. While these people definitely dug themselves into a pretty large hole, they most often cannot get themselves out of it without having some impossible debt for the rest of their lives. So I really wouldn't say this is the way to go all "yay! free money." Most of the time that money is going right back into corporations and such. But yeah...I really can't defend these people too much - I've known too many of them.

If welfare is paying more than work these days, we're in a sadder state of affairs than I thought..

Well the problem out here is finding the hours. Even if you were able to work full time, you probably wouldn't get the hours you wanted unless you were doing something specialized. Since minimum wage recently went up, places such as gas stations, restaurants, and so on cut all their employees hours. But yeah...generally I think welfare pays more out here, which is depressing.

And as my friend explained once about the WIC check thing...her mom just kept having more kids as you no longer get any checks after the child is 5. So once the kid was close to turning 5, pop another one out! I can't even call that flawed logic...it's so much worse than that. >_<

I always figure socialists and those with love for the idea of national healthcare have little experience with government. Yes our current system kinda sucks. But to expect healthcare to get more efficient and cheaper after being nationalized is just silly. Nothing the government ever does is anything other than bloated and wasteful and inefficient.

I tend to favor the blue dog democrats, moderates, and have liked McCain for years. He's moderate and not afraid to tell his own party that they're acting like idiots. I also feel he is one of the politicians that give me the least amount of bull****. He's probably one of the few politicians I don't want to immediately stick in a guillotine. For me this isn't a matter of voting for the lesser of two evils, like 2004 was. I actually like one of the candidates.

As for Obama....even if I agreed with him on issues, I couldn't vote for him. He's the typical slick politician, puts Clinton's silver tongue to shame, has one of the worst abilities to judge someone's character I've ever seen, his arrogance is starting to piss me off, but worst of all he is starting to play the race card. Obama is not some god sent to us from heaven like he is being portrayed. Chinks in his armor are being exposed and it will become more and more obvious as the election goes on just how much of a tool he is, just like most politicians.

As for being socialist, contrary to everyone else who doesn't like Obama, I don't believe he is a socialist. I think going from liberal to socialist requires a larger leap in governmental control than what Obama is proposing. Taxing the piss out of the rich and nationalizing healthcare are steps in that direction, but I don't feel it's enough to label him a socialist.

8 Years ago, I liked McCain. Today, I do not. He's simply not the same. He's less of a moderate today then he was then. I don't understand Republicans today. I believe in the Republican ideal, but Republicans in office are not following it. They're suppose to decrease the government, which includes decrease spending. Going into war to increase spending doesn't make sense, but it's exactly what they did.

In recent years, I've been looking closely at the complex American economy and realizing that it has been made so complex intentionally so that it is easier to conduct unethical economic practices (not in the government necessarily, but in the stock market and between private companies). I've been thinking of how to make it simpler and more efficient. The best defined (but never achieved) system is Communism. However, it is still too complex and is Dependant on too many people being honest. It also doesn't deal very effectively with banks and interest rates (which is another serious economic issue).

I thought longer and harder and it hit me. The Amish are on the right track. Wait, wait, hold your laughter. They have no internal currency exchange and look at their crime rates! It's not religion that keeps their crime down, it's motivation for the crimes that are absent. They have the three fundamental ingredients for a successful economy (Land, Labor, and Capital). The only thing they are missing to push them further and allow themselves to grow beyond what we perceive their humble economic state to be, is that do not embrace Technology.

I'm serious. Really think about this and follow it out logically. What if the Amish embraced Technology and used it to reduce their Labor needs. Think of how many of them could focus more time on Research and Development of new technologies, all within a system that provides for itself AND has means for outside trade to acquire what they do not have but need. Of course, NEED is the key word here. For the economy to work, you have to be happy with an economy car over a Hummer. You have to be happy with a 4 bedroom house over a 22 bedroom house. This does require a mindset change, but one that could be achieved in only a few generations. A mindset where material wealth is no longer the driving force. A mindset where personal growth is more satisfying then owning a private jet.

We now return to your regularly scheduled political thread.

I can agree with the stories about people abusing the programs at grocery stores.

My first job was at a grocery store - and I would say it seemed like the majority of the cases were people abusing the programs.

That is why I'm not for this redistribute the wealth/give handouts to the bottom percentage. While some validly need it, others become too attached to the concept and will never improve their position - and instead whine and cry that the government is neglecting them.

I worked damn hard to get where I'm at - and I can't stand people crying when life gets hard for them.

Do you believe that he can run the nation without ever using a computer personally? Do you think he will even be able to keep up fast pace environment today without ever needing to understand what technology can bring to the table?

But then, I lied. Since he just learned how to use e-mail like three weeks ago.

Wow, indeed a great find!

Of course. A president doesn't have to personally do anything besides make the ultimate decisions. He delegates jobs to those under him(such as research and speech writing) and provides direction for the administration as whole. And using computer literacy as a litmus test for presidential competency is absurd.

First, you're assuming he doesn't understand what technology does bring to the table. Secondly, you're assuming he should spend his time surfing the web and using Microsoft Word when he has staff members specifically dedicated to sifting through irrelevant things such as your "he's too old to be in office!" argument. That argument didn't work with Reagan or Cheney as VP, even with his heart condition, so what makes you think it's going to sound any less vacuous now?

About the stats by Warlord: I'm assuming he put "socialized medicine" because of the misconception that countries like Canada have socialized medicine when what they have is nationalized health insurance. Two totally different animals, one of which blows and the other of which is really good. Hell, I'm on nationalized health insurance right now and I'm in the US. Veteran benefits ftw.

Except the fact that he is demanding everything given to him on paper no matter how minute the matter is.

Except you are thinking of the 2000 version of McCain, who is very different from with the 2008 McCain that will be on the ballot.

This is an interesting narrative that the media has been pushing: that Obama is too arrogant or presumptuous. How so?


Just because McCain said it, doesn't make it true. In fact, I would argue that a campaign using the term "race card" is playing the race card itself. Its meant to inflame racial resentment.

The Amish also have institutionalised abuse, rape, incest, inbreeding, child slavery, discrimination and intolerance. It may not be religious fanaticism that is 'keeping down' crime, but the fear of shunning from the community. And in a society so close-knit, introverted and xenophobic, the threat of excommunication is pretty serious (especially as the Amish deliberately suppress education so its followers cannot exist in the outside world).
It is a fantastic experiment of mass psychological manipulation, the homogenisation of thought driven by religious fundamentalism. The Amish simply cannot embrace technology as that would distrubt the hierarchy of power. This is a society where every aspect of life is controlled and scrutinised under the paranoid guise of religious fear.

Of course the Amish are not 'dangerous' (they revere heroes of pacisim, of near mythological stupidity), and the followers of this cult probably enjoy their way of life. But to implement the Amish way of life on a nationwide scale would be nothing more than a fundamentalist totalitarian regime.

I understand what you're trying to say, the mindset of society needs to change to meet a changing world. But we need to look forwards, not backwards to some utopian (and entirely fictional) past.

Religious conservatism is not changing your mind, it is losing your mind.

<3 mort

You sound like a proponent of the Third Way. Were you a Clinton fan?

A lot of European socialist countries have since the 60s began to adopt third way policies. Which is of course why they are hardly socialists anymore.

Also a quick point that people often confuse: Welfare is not socialistic by any means. Welfare States are certainly capitalist, their purpose is to "patch up" capitalism and help the people negatively affected by capitalism.

Socialists are generally opposed to Welfare States, but of course for different reasons than libertarian capitalists.

I would also not call Socialism extreme. It's quite a broad ideology that would indeed replace capitalism, but there would still be quite a lot of talk as to where to move on from there.

And back to my original point, Obama is certainly not a socialist, he may be a little bit more to the left than many Democratic senators but his policies are still for the most part: more of the same.



From: http://www.politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2008

While I do disagree with some of his positions(ie immigration, not drilling in ANWR), he's still closer to my political views than most politicians.

O-Force one, Taking a european tour to meet with leaders because he's "going to be working with them for the next ten years"(paraphrasing), he has already formed a transition team into the white house, putting campaign signs right next to the Wailing Wall, already replaced the presidential seal, already putting his status as a senator into the past tense, already having plans to change the Lincoln bedroom, calling working class pennsylvania voters who don't vote for him bitter people who cling to guns, religion, antipathy or bigotry. With the exception of the last one, I could brush each individual event aside as nothing that important. But it keeps happening over and over.

Notice I do not use his “I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions" statement. In this case, I agree with him. He is a symbol of the opportunity in America.

McCain has stayed away from race, even Obama has admitted that. Then Obama said that people will try to point out that he doesn't look like the other presidents on the dollar bills to try to discourage them from voting for Obama. He's preemptively playing the race card!


Also, take note that grid is based off of UK politics. If you were to make a grid involving all the various political ideologies on that double axis, everything would be bunched a little closer together and shift down and to the left a bit.

Most of that stuff isn't arrogant, that's having a winning frame of mind. If you start saying "if I win" instead of "when I win" you're already halfway to losing.



Do you know the date on that remark? It's probably a response to McCain's "change you can photoshop" ad.

Also, I don't get the thing about changing the presidential seal. It's just a symbol for his campaign. That's like complaining about the Toronto Maple Leafs co-opting the Canadian Flag.