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| Lyrak |
 Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 8:36 pm |
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Joined: 29 Jul 2007
Posts: 1139
Location: Some Ohio Cornfield
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Michael wrote: Isn't it an ideological problem, though? A conflict between personal freedom and solidarity? If I'm not mistaken, the US system is based on the former more than the latter. Ergo, as long as US citizens cling to their personal freedom, the system will not improve.
They're sure willing to give up a lot to "protect us from terrorists"...... I think they're obsessed with freedom i the wrong direction, and ignoring it in the one we really need more in....
Big Brother is watching you. 
Eh, the whole thing annoys me really. It's a balancing act, and people are too stubborn to figure out how to balance it.
Yes, we are based more on personal freedom, but still with limits otherwise this would be an anarchy, not a democracy (though technically it's a republic anyway but whatever lol). Because to me, the kind of balances we need are not so much on individual freedoms but on... well... lord I don't even know what I'm trying to say there. Like, on the social programs: that's not really taking freedom. It's talking some money, yes, but if we actually kicked our government folks into shape and found some way to get them to spend things like they're supposed to (whoever had this idea that congress should set its own salary should be shot... it used to be a volunteer position, and probably should have stayed that way)........ I dunno. Blegh. The whole thing is horrendously annoying, really. |
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| Wildbluesun |
| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:42 pm |
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Joined: 12 Dec 2006
Posts: 4266
Location: London, Land of Tea and Top Hats
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| Something I find strange about the USA is that it wants everyone to have health insurance...but has no national health service. WTF. If you're going to force everyone to take out insurance you may as well create an NHS, it's the same thing really. |
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| Lyrak |
| Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:38 am |
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Joined: 29 Jul 2007
Posts: 1139
Location: Some Ohio Cornfield
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Wildbluesun wrote: Something I find strange about the USA is that it wants everyone to have health insurance...but has no national health service. WTF. If you're going to force everyone to take out insurance you may as well create an NHS, it's the same thing really.
I know!!!
Of course, on the one hand, some countries with a NHS say it sucks.
But as I understand Canada's does pretty good....
WHY HELLO MR TOPIC, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? XDDD
/random |
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| rinku |
| Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 1:13 pm |
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Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Posts: 128
Location: Paterson, NJ
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Michael wrote: Isn't it an ideological problem, though? A conflict between personal freedom and solidarity? If I'm not mistaken, the US system is based on the former more than the latter. Ergo, as long as US citizens cling to their personal freedom, the system will not improve.
Actually I think it's because of the lack of freedom that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. A lot of the rules and regulations government passes (which cause people to be less free) favor the wealthy. As an example, the capital gains tax is much lower in the US than the income tax, and the highest tier of the rich do not earn an income but make money through investments only. Now that's not exactly a lack of freedom in the sense of no freedom of speech or no right to privacy. But it's still a violation of freedom to charge people with less money a higher percentage of their money than people with more money.
As another example, there are a lot of laws in the US designed to outlaw alternative medicine. You can't advertise an herb as being good for a certain disease or condition for example, or be thrown in prison. This keeps the medical system artificially expensive because cheaper and more effective treatments aren't used in favor of much more expensive treatments, which in turn makes the rich richer. But it's a violation of freedom that causes this effect: the violation of telling people that they can't say say herb cures a disease unless the FDA allows them to say that. It's a violation of free speech to do that. Now in some cases that may be a good thing, it prevents people from making false claims, but the standard they set for proof is so high that it costs hundreds of millions to prove that something works, which is far out of the range of the people who promote alternative medicine but not far out of the range of drug companies. So government through reducing personal freedom makes the rich richer there.
I think I could give more examples, but I think that's enough to indicate what I mean. I think that in many ways even people in China have more personal freedom than people in the US. There are more laws here than in the rest of the world combined, and more lawyers here than in the rest of the world combined, and the main use of so many laws and that degree of detail about what people can and cannot do is to restrict personal freedom. |
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