Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Let's talk politics for a sec...

Yes. Even the ones who say "We're #1!" aren't necessarily putting anyone else down. The implication is there, but I'm not sure it's actually meant that way, if that makes sense. (Sometimes, yes, but not every time you hear it.)

As for McCain, I was surprised to see him take such a clear lead. He's split with the party on some major issues, and he didn't really get too far in his '04 bid. I'd have expected more competition from Romney or someone. I'm curious about how and why it turned out the way it did, but I wonder if anyone really knows.

As has been said, that's illegal. There can be issues with overcrowding, but even then hospitals are often reluctant to give up patients.

Around here, we actually have the opposite problem. We have two major competing hospitals. Each runs its own ambulance service, and an ambulance from one hospital will not take you to the other. Emergency services is required to give you the option. So every time there's a call for an ambulance, you get two at the door.

Funny you should say that. Edwards is the candidate Terry was referring to, the lawyer who made much of his money suing doctors. It is, as Terry said, a practice which has really gotten out of hand in this country, and which has led to impossibly high malpractice insurance rates. There are a lot of doctors (particularly in higher risk specialties such as obstetrics) who can no longer afford to practice medicine because they can't squeeze enough out of the patients' insurance companies (who often pay at or even below cost) to pay the premiums for their own insurance.

A friend of mine was telling me a while back about a beloved local doctor who was getting ready for retirement. He still wanted to practice, but wanted to cut down on his workload. He was considering going to half days, but then realized that the money he'd make wouldn't be enough to cover his malpractice premiums, let alone any of his other expenses.

It's insane. (And, while the health care system was badly broken during the 90s, Hillary Clinton's attempts at reform played a big role in making things much worse...)

Well, quickly:

The chart I linked above has summaries of the candidates' stands on major issues, including health care.

The candidates' websites also have their stated positions on the issue. In alphabetical order:

Clinton

McCain

Obama

It's not in depth analysis (with pros and cons) by a media pundit, if that's what you meant. But if you're interested in what they're saying about the issue, it's a good start.

Medical insurance is not a right. However...

Health care is.

Food, clothing, shelter, education, health care... These are basic human needs, and everyone on the planet should have a right to them. It's a tragedy and an injustice that many don't. But in a modern, developed country, it's a source of shame that we as a society can't live up to that responsibility to our fellow citizens.

It doesn't have to be about insurance. But, however you organize it, a large part of making that care available comes down to paying the bills. Doctors need to be compensated for their services, so they can pay their own bills. Equipment needs to be paid for. Medications (production, distribution, R&D, etc) need to be paid for. The money has to come from somewhere. And it's going to be beyond the means of a lot of patients.

Of course, there's a lot more that needs to be fixed about the system.

But first, we need to fix the system that makes the system. As it is, the insurance companies are a powerful lobby. They pay congress to write the laws to benefit them. It's outrageous what they've gotten away with. The health care system isn't going to be fixed until lobbying is outlawed, until the lawmakers are writing laws to benefit the people instead of the highest bidder.

I'll weigh in myself on some of these political issues.

While I don't support Obama in the least, politically, I don't have a problem with his not wearing of a flag pin. It's everyone's right to choose how to display or not display his or her patriotism. And yes, people in this country have always been patriotic far more than other countries as long as I've lived here, and I've lived here since I was two. It always surprises me when people in other countries DON'T think their country is the best, so that's the perspective from the other side of things. Why live there when you don't think it's the best, I always wonder (excepting those who live in tyrannical nations and can't get out).

When it comes to displays of patriotism, it's the suppression of the right to wear lapel pins that usually generates the biggest arguments. News anchors and other people in the media were sometimes forced to not wear them, supposedly in a show of impartiality, following the devastation of September 11. This dismays lots of people who remember the days of World War II when newsmen wore Allied uniforms and had no trouble speaking of "We" when reporting on the battlefield. First and foremost, those people are Americans (in American media, of course), owing their ability to accurately report the news without fear of sanction by the government to their country's freedom. In this day and age, that's no longer the case where so many in the media don't think of themselves as Americans anymore, often unable to even utter the word, "terrorist," when talking of those who deliberately set out to kill innocents.

As to why lapel pins are news, I believe that news has become sensationalized. With many more than three outlets in the broadcast news (not just ABC, CBS, and NBC anymore), there is the natural competition that comes out of that. And with the advent of 24-hour a day news, what is there to report on to fill all those hours? So instead of reporting on what's important, the news goes out of the way to tell us sob stories of Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton, and other useless fluff. Newspapers are forced to do the same with the rise of the Internet. I rarely go to news sites anymore since you find out more about what's going on in the world from alternative sources.

On the issue of health care, Wendy knows I'm diametrically the opposite of her when it comes to political opinions. I couldn't stand to live in a place where health care is "free." Those who have seen me write of these types of things know that I do not believe that anything is free, especially health care. I noticed the judicious use of the words, "at the point of use." What's the difference between the bill being sent to an insurance company or a bill being sent to the government? To me, none. Any co-pay is trivial compared to the actual cost of services. And if you don't have money nor insurance, you still don't pay anything at the point of use and can't be turned away.

Everybody pays the price, whether it's a bill to the doctor or huge taxes paid to the government. Anyone wonder why the average Swedish citizen pays 2/3 of their income in taxes, income and VAT, and even then, many small townspeople have to drive to major cities to even get to a hospital? The town I visit in southern Sweden on an annual basis (my wife is Swedish) has had its hospital threaten to shut down repeatedly for many years because it can't afford to stay in business. It's common knowledge that when the person who consumes the services doesn't have to foot the bill directly, there is no incentive on either side to minimize costs. That's why single-payer, i.e. socialized medicine, is so costly even when compared to individual insurance-based systems. Many people use services unnecessarily, making it more expensive for those who really need the help. Waiting lists are months or years long. Shielding the consumers from the cost is not the way to make health care affordable and widely available.

I ditto all of Terry's comments. He's right on about the cost of medical malpractice insurance. There are whole counties where there are no OB/GYN's because nobody can afford the malpractice insurance. How many can afford $150,000-250,000 a year in malpractice premiums? That's as much as some people make in five to ten years before taxes. And the only way for doctors to make up the costs is to pass it along to their patients in the form of higher bills. The trial lawyers have cost the economy billions in the health care industry where the smallest scratch earns someone millions. And of course, it's not the hospitals or doctors that really pay. it's the people who get the care in the form of higher bills. Without that, insurance might actually become affordable for everyone. Not all trial lawyers are to blame because many cases justify large award payouts. It's the huge numbers of frivolous lawsuits and abnormally large payouts for just about everything (smoking lawsuits come to mind).

Another thing that's ALWAYS in the way is government. Health care in the US is a trillion dollar business. It's been reported that government regulations, mostly paperwork, cost the medical profession upwards of $200 billion. That's a lot of money that can go towards the care of patients. And people want to trust government with socialized medicine? The same people who have $800 toilet seats and $1,200 stool caps that cost 3 cents to make? Anyone who believes costs will go down with government in charge is sorely mistaken.

Unfortunately the same politicians in this country who advocate single payer health care systems are also in the pockets of the big trial lawyers, John Edwards being the biggest of the trial lawyers who's also a politician. He's famous for his crying in court over the victims he represents, tugging at the heartstrings of the juries and winning millions of dollars for his clients and also playing fast and loose with the facts in order to win. He's one of the biggest problems, not a solution. Those same politicians oppose strongly the proposal of medical savings accounts (MSA). If people like that get their way in health care in this country with single-payer AND unrestricted lawsuits, our health care system will become worse than any third world system, and more costly to boot. There's a reason why Hillary Clinton's health care plans were thrown out in 1994 and why Democrats lost 52 House seats and control of both houses of Congress back then. We saw the byzantine system of bureaucracies she proposed and laughingly rejected it. Doctors had to apply to the government for approval to specialize?!?!? That's just one of the many absurdities, plus other inanities like making fee-for-service illegal, i.e. you can't pay a doctor out of your own pocket but must go through the government.

Back to MSA's, since a large portion of medical costs are unnecessary expenditures for those who aren't that sick, the idea of a medical savings account is that people have a pool of money at their disposal as part of an insurance plan that covers their basic medical expenses. With that annual pool, people can keep whatever they don't use. If they go over, it's still covered but they won't get any money back at the end of the year. So not only do people have an incentive to not go to the doctor for every sniffle but they become very cost conscious and may actually shop around for a different doctor who may not charge as much. Hey, it's competition. Medical facilities not only have to get better in order to compete but they have to charge less for their services. Can anyone actually tell us what their medical services cost today? I certainly can't and I've got the insurance statements that itemize the costs that I've completely ignored because I couldn't care less what the cost is since insurance covers it. If MSA's came into effect, I can guarantee people will know exactly what their costs are. And that can't be a bad thing. it's when people don't know or don't care that costs explode and people complain about why no one can afford insurance.

Those who say that people might not go when they really are sick are those who believe in the cradle-to-grave nanny state where people should have no control over their own lives. Is there no such thing as personal responsibility anymore? People can't be trusted to know when they're really sick? Can people not be trusted to go to their annual or biannual checkups?

The other piece of medical care is catastrophic care. That's something that's out of the control of patients. Any insurance plan that bundles an MSA would also include a catastrophic component. Catastrophic is not the problem in American health care so it's not the driving force behind high cost of medicine. It's my belief that MSA's plus restrictions on frivolous lawsuits can not only make the health care system better but also more affordable for all. Pilot programs for MSA's in various cities around the country have proven fairly successful.

For those who have no income or can't afford insurance, government has so many existing programs that no one can possibly list them all. The law also says that no one can be turned down for medical needs regardless of ability to pay. That's one of the reasons the state of California is near bankruptcy and why many in the public have turned against illegal immigration. All of those illegal immigrants use free medical services because the law grants them that right. It's the rest of the people who do have insurance that are forced to pay for them.

Paul, you've made some excellent points. I didn't think we'd ever agree on anything political.

On your question about McCain versus Romney, a lot of people remember the run Romney made against Ted Kennedy for Senate way back when. Romney was actually quite competitive and had a very good chance of unseating Kennedy when in the final debate he did an about face and started sounding like Kennedy, Jr.

Whenever you have Kennedy Jr. running against Kennedy Sr., who would you rather have? The people of Massachusetts then overwhelmingly re-elected Ted Kennedy.

Republicans have a long memory of these things. Many don't trust Romney as far as they could throw him.

While I'm not a big fan of John McCain, if there's one thing you can be sure of him is that he's consistent and will tell you what he believes. He is not thought of fondly by the supply siders nor the anti- illegal immigration forces, but he is what he says he is. He's got a long record to show for it, too.

As someone who lives in Oregon, he spared me from making a very hard choice of who to support. The GOP race will be long decided before there is ever a vote here.

It's been very interesting to read everyone's posts.

Being me, however, I think I should refrain, from now at least, from commenting on things in the United States. Let me say something about how the media has portrayed politicians and important public persons here in Sweden, and how that has influenced voters and our country in general.

This is Per Albin Hansson:



He was Prime Minister in Sweden from 1932 up to 1946, when he died. He was a highly successful Prime Minister, who during his long political career (which had started as early as 1901) not only fought to give all Swedes the same right to vote, but who also presided over Sweden's rise from a poor agricultural society to a well-to-do industrialized nation with a remarkable degree of general welfare. He also encouraged and fortified his nation, both the mood of the people and the country's military strength, during the Second World War.

But would you believe that this guy had two families? That he was - I'm not kidding you - actually married to two different women? At the same time? Okay, he had married one in a civil ceremony and the other one in church. And back then, there were still some vestiges left of a centuries-old pre-Christian marriage form, so maybe he had that kind of marriage with one of his wives, and a church-sanctioned marriage with the other.

Was bigamy allowed in Sweden in the first half of the twentieth century? Oh no no no!!! It wasn't. I don't think that it has ever been allowed here for as long as we have had written documents to describe our history, which would be going down to about 600 AD.

But, you know, Per Albin Hansson. Everybody's Per Albin. Our nation's strength and pride. Would the media of his time inform the general public of the Prime Minister's unusual marriage arrangements? No! That would have scandalized him, wouldn't it? It would just cause a lot of anger and upheaval. And Sweden as a country might have been weakened, and it may have looked bad in the eyes of other countries. Better leave the Prime Minister and his wives alone, no?

My point is that back then, the media were soooo polite. Another little scandal that they didn't write about, but which has been acknowledged afterwards, is that the person who was King of Sweden while Per Albin was our Prime Minister, Gustaf V, was gay.



Gustaf V was a moderately good King, and probably an even better Crown Prince. In 1905, when Norway refused to be united with Sweden any longer, there was a good chance that Sweden might declare war on Norway. Gustaf, then Crown Prince, showed a lot of diplomatic skill when he helped avert that war between two Scandinavian nations.

My point is that these two men could so easily have been undone if the media had published sordid details about their private lives. Thanks to the fact that the media kept mum, Sweden could have this Prime Minister and this King, and was probably strenghtened because of it.

Ann

Not to sound too wordy (oops, too late), I should point out that our system of employer-paid health insurance came out of the days when people tended to work for the same company all their lives. It was not uncommon just a few decades ago when someone would celebrate their 40'th anniversary at a company.

Today that's almost unheard of. Unfortunately our insurance system has not kept up with those changes. You may hear of a lot of proposals to make health insurance portable. That means that when someone leaves a company, if they like a policy with one company, they can take that policy with them when they go to their next employer. COBRA is a short term law that allows people to continue on with a company's insurance policies when they leave, but that lasts only for a short time. Portability would essentially be a permanent COBRA.

But that's only part of the solution since that policy would no longer enjoy the group discounts that employers get on their insurance premiums. A long term solution to that would be to allow group discounts that are not company-related. Anyone should be able to gather a group together, whether it be families in a community or just someone who advertises for strangers to join their group. If insurance were portable and could still enjoy group discounts, then that would go a long way towards cheaper, affordable insurance.

That would still need to be coupled with the other reforms I mentioned above.

According to this Wikipedia entry, the United states is the only industrialized nation that does not provide universal health care to its citizens.

I must protest against what Roger said that Swedes pay two thirds of their income in tax. That is simply not true of the average citizen at all. It is true, nevertheless, that the taxes we pay are defintely among the highest in the world.

Our taxes go to paying for free health care, free schooling (including free college tuition), infrastructure maintenance and various forms of welfare and contributions to people who are in need of assistance. Also, accepting rather huge numbers of refugees also costs a bit of money. Since 2003, Sweden has accepted at least 100,000 refugees from Iraq and granted most of them citizenship. I think the United States may have accepted about a thousand Iraqi refugees during the same time.

My best friend's sister met and married an American in the late 1970s, and she has been living in the United States ever since. When I compare what I think I can see of the two sisters' economic status, I can't see much of a difference. Both sisters regularly travel across the Atlantic to visit one another. However, it seems to me that the sister who lives in Sweden (and who is divorced, by the way) travels abroad more. Apart from regularly going to America to visit her sister, she usually travels abroad at least a couple of times each year. Mostly she visits countries in Europe, like Germany, Holland, Croatia, France and the Czech Republic. Two years ago she took both of her children to Ecuador for a month. She pays for all of this with the money she earns from working as a teacher. She lives in her own house, which she bought when she divorced her husband. She doesn't have to worry about her children's college tuition, because, as I said, that is free here.

Ann

As a congressman in Illinois, O. opposed the war, although it must be added that it is not the states who make these decisions. While in the federal Congress, Obama's voting record with respect to Iraq has been similar to Clinton's.

For example:
May 24, 2007 - he voted against a US$120-billion funding package for the Iraq war that contained no troop-withdrawal deadline. Obama was one of only 10 Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, who were opposed. ( Both parties supported the bill.)

As well O. has said in a press interview that he would not leave Iraq if the conditions were "not right". But that could mean a lot of things. In other interviews he's said he would aim to have the troops in a year and a half "if conditions were right".

Remember, too, that late last fall he said that he would unilaterally invade Pakistan if he received Intelligence that Osama were there.

It's been interesting thread to thread through. Some observations on Paul's questions in his opening post.

Patriotism -An anecdote, some years old now:
I've met a lot of Americans while travelling . The most patriotic person I ever met was a middle-aged Republican, and he was genuinely upset, worrying around the issue of how a Republican president could so betray the underlying principles of both the constitutiion and personal integrity. He never said 'my country is the best' or some variation of that, but it was clear to me that he loved his country deeply.

btw, for the most enthusiastic patriotism ever, anywhere, check soccer fans.

Was it Samuel Johnson who said that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"?

And a word on symbols:
Napoleon on the creation of the Legion of Honour:
"Men are led by toys".

Is there a link between income level and the degree of overt expression of patriotism? Or does it vary with region? or...?

rambling early morning thoughts....

c.

I can very well imagine what Kathy said about German paperwork. It's sometimes bad enough for Germans. It must be even worse for people with foreign nationality.

When I visited New York I was taken aback by all the flags I saw there. Of course I knew that it's a lot easier to be proud of the USA than to be proud of Germany. But I had never before seen so many flags. Apart from official buildings I can't think of a place where the German flag would be hauled up. I didn't even know that my school had a German flag before 9/11. The days after this tragedy the flag was at half-mast to indicate our sympathy.

I doubt that any German border agent would have said anything like the American Kathy named. Until recently few people would have dared say "I'm proud to be German", either because it just wasn't true or because they were afraid that anyone would think they were Nazis.

I mean, its quite obvious that the German patriotism is almost non-existing when the Goverment starts a promotion: "You are Germany"

Anyway, Hatman was talking about politics, wasn't he? Election campaigns in Germany are a bit different, I guess. After all we can't elect certain people, apart from the representative of our district. But that man or woman is hardly going to be a famous politician. We don't elect our chancellor or presidentm we're just voting for the party that should represent us in the parliament.

Of course each of the two largest parties names a person who is supposed to be chancellor. And of course this may influence our dicision, if we're not already sure which party to chose.

The candidate for being the chancellor of the next four years may be very popular, but in the end it's important how popular the whole party is. Maybe other memebers did something to seriously weaken people's trust in the party and then the party including their candidate won't stand a chance.

Since there are almost constantly elections in some part of Germany it's rather easy for members of the parties to make unpopular decisions and I don't guess it would do much good to underline how great a certain candidate is, because there are so many others who can easily mess with their reputation.

Of course the media watches every step of the famous German politicians. They are curious which kind of life they lead, if they sleep with woman other than their wifes and so on. But there are just no celebrities like Obama. I guess it's due to German history that people around here are very careful to proclaim a certain man or woman as a national savior.

Wow, this thread really has grown in such a short time.

Patriotism: My family really is an example of what patriotism means to different people. Now, just so you know, I spent my 8 years 10 months in the Army Reserves, getting out of the service in the beginning years of Iraq. My unit was on alert at the time, and I spent an extra 10 months in because of the stop-loss. My brother is also in the Army Reserves, spending a year in Iraq, and he just re-upped for another 6 years. My sister-in-law was also in the Reserves, in the same unit as my brother, before a medical discharge.

I voted for the first time in the last presidential election. I was one of the people who said "anyone but Bush," not agreeing with the Iraq issue, and proudly voted for Kerry. My mother did the same. My brother and sister-in-law called my mother out on her vote, saying that voting against Bush was voting against the troops, if not calling her unpatriotic then coming very close to it. My mother now refuses to talk politics with them.

Patriotism is probably more rampant in the US because all through school, we're taught that we've fought for our independence. We were built on ideas and ideals of freedom, and that we should be proud of our country and what it stands for. One of the first things that kids are taught in schools, and the first thing every day, is "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America." It's stronger after 9/11, because for the first time since Pearl Harbor, we were actually successfully attacked on our home ground by outside forces. Something like that is enough to rouse the spirit of anyone.

I can't put too much stock into what any candidate says about Iraq. We would need a really strong plan to get the troops out, which I really don't see happening. Thanks to taking down their governmental infrastructure, pulling out will drastically weaken what's in place now. And heck, we're still in Korea, Afghanistan, and Bosnia. What makes them think we're leaving Iraq any time soon?

It's not quite as easy as all that. I suggest checking out this story of a family trying to get insurance for their daughter.

Yes, but I don't think the law says you don't have to pay for it at all (nor should it; I believe doctors, etc, have the right to be paid for their services). So at some point, a patient without insurance is going to have to pay for it. Do you have any idea how overwhelming a $25,000 bill for surgery is? At $100 a month - and even that small amount is beyond the ability of some families to pay - it would take almost 21 years to pay off. Then throw in all the other bills that go along with a major surgery - home health during the recovery, bills from all the various doctors that attended you - and perhaps you can see why medical bills lead so many people into bankruptcy. A person shouldn't have to choose between surgery that will save their life and knowing that their long-term future is going to be hell paying for said surgery.

Also, all insurance is not created equal. Some employers offer fantastic coverage. Some employers offer crap coverage. Some employers don't offer coverage at all. If you're unlucky enough to work for a company with bad coverage, you might end up in the above situation anyway even with your insurance by the time you pay 20% for this, 20% for that. 20% of $25,000 is still $5,000 - not an amount to sneeze at. And of course if your employer doesn't offer it at all, you're right back where you started.

So, yes, I think national health coverage is at least worth discussing. At the very least we need something that isn't tied to our employers. What you do for a living shouldn't have anything to do with your quality of medical care.

Also - and talk about going out on an unpatriotic limb - I'm actually jealous of Ann's stories of Sweden. If a teacher (a profession that gets paid not-so-great in the US, at least not down here), as a single person, makes enough money to own her home, travel, raise her children and have health care and college tuition thrown into the bargain, then there is something to be said for that system, despite the high taxes. Because I just don't see a lot of people living that quality of life here.

I didn't know either, but I know that at least in my part of Germany half-mast was ordered by the higher ups, otherwise nobody would be have been hanging up any flags (which might have been due to the fact that my part of Germany was quite often ordered to hang up flags for fifty years, whether anyone wanted to or not, and it was carefully noted who put out flags and who didn't).

The most flags up were actually during the last football WM in Germany (no, not the version with the egg). It also sparked some debate about patriotism and pride in ones country.

Otherwise, many elections over here are actually won by the faces the party puts up. Yes, the party can reflect badly and break a candidate, but it works the other way around, too. More and more the candidates are put in the foreground and less and the actual party programmes. Not that there is much difference in the programmes, many of them read very much alike and few of them actually tell you how they want to achieve their goals and where the money for those goals comes from.

I usually don't vote for the party that will repesent me and my wishes (because there aren't any), but for the party I think will do the least harm. I also vote to make sure that the ones I don't want get anywhere near decision making.

The US has two primary parties, usually one ore the other has the majority. Germany has two major parties and two to three smaller ones. It is very usual that two or more parties have to cooperate (making compromises your voters voted you not to make, but who is counting after an election) to get a majority. And that's the national level on a local level there is always a big row when one the right wing parties jumps the fifth percent hurdle (you need at least five percent of all votes to get seats).

This thread is really growing, and it's really interesting. I love that. Can you imagine what it would have looked like on just about any other message board on the internet?

Anyway, wish I had something more thoughtful to add, but I did want to take a sec to talk about the size of the US.

The size of the continental US is roughly the size of the entire "continent" of Europe. It's divided into 48 states, just as Europe is (according to a quick glance at Wiki) divided into 48 countries. Some bigger than others in both cases, of course.

I think that affects us. We've got all this geography to learn about our own country before we can really look beyond our borders to the rest of the world. Similarly, we have a lot to explore within our own borders before we look to traveling abroad. And when you talk about traveling abroad in Europe, you're talking about a trip that, to us, is the equivalent of going from state to state (in terms of distance traveled, effort to get there, etc).

It gives us a lot of variety. Different climates, different cultures, different communities. Especially when you factor in the diverse sources of our population.

But it also makes us more insular. We've only got two neighbors. And Canadian culture isn't so different from our own. There are quite a few of us who never actually manage to set foot in another country. Even the ones who do don't necessarily do it very much. You have to go pretty far. It's expensive and tiring. And, like I said, there's so much to see here. And the news stations cover local, state, and national events... doesn't leave so much room for global news.

Those people chanting that we're the best? A lot of them don't even have a solid concept of what a foreign country is. They know those other countries are there, but, in a way, they don't seem... real. They're more like vague concepts. And exotic vacation destinations. Average Joe on the street here couldn't even tell you where Iraq is, let alone Afghanistan.

It kind of changes what patriotism is, too. I think it can often be more about being proud of your own country than having an actual basis for comparison to any other.

You misquoted me. I said the average Swede pays 2/3 of their income in taxes in combined income AND VAT. The VAT alone is 25%. Sorry if the wording was confusing. That is an insane amount of tax to pay for "FREE" services. Like I said, there's no such thing as free. Swedes pay an enormous amount to get these free services. K-12 schools here are "free" as well, paid through huge taxes, bond issues (eventually paid by taxes), and other large taxes tacked onto our property taxes. When I lived in San Diego, the education taxes paid on my property taxes were actually higher than the property taxes by themselves. Anytime someone offers you something for free, hold onto your wallet with both hands.

Taxes make up 50% of the GDP of Sweden. Payroll taxes as of 2006 averaged 40% plus an additional 25% VAT, the highest in Europe.

Note, I'm not even including the 32% paid by employers as part of the employee compensation that employees don't see on their income tax returns. Don't be fooled that the company pays it. Since it's based on an employee's gross wages, it's part of the employee's tax. The only difference is that the employer handles all the paperwork and signs over the check.

In the US, the equivalent is the employer paid portion of Social Security and Medicare which adds up to an additional 7.65% on top of the 7.65% paid directly by the employee.

I've always said that income tax withholding should be outlawed and every taxpayer should be forced to write a monthly check to the government for their taxes. I think if that were to ever happen, you'd have a tax revolution in every industrialized nation in the world as people finally realized just how much they're paying. Just like Las Vegas makes you use chips rather than money, withholding is a way to abstract how much money you're actually dealing with, making it seem unreal somehow. Since you never actually see the money, somehow it doesn't feel like you're paying all that much.

Sweden is a lovely place to visit, which I go to every year including this July, but I wouldn't want to live there.

I should say, before anybody jumps on me for that last statement, that I love Sweden. The people are the nicest in the world and the climate is lovely. My wife and I even built a little one-room house with loft for the kids on my mother-in-law's property as a place for us to stay.

While I sympathize with this person, there are equivalent horror stories you can easily find with victims of socialized medicine. I should point out that several of those options are GOVERNMENT options. And people want government to run health care?

Here's one article:
Really sicko

The telling quote I saw from this article is this: "Those are both stories from within my immediate circle of friends, and together with the stories publicly reported they indicate that no matter how great socialized medicine may sound, the best that it achieves is dishing up very poor care for all, as opposed to good care for all, or even most."

There are tons more that I found just on a single page of a google search.

No health care system is perfect. Ours is far from perfect but many things can be done to fix it.

The 46 million uninsured is a figure thrown out a lot by those advocating socialized medicine. It's a very misleading figure. How many of them are 20-30 year olds who simply choose not to have health insurance and don't want it? Nobody's ever been able to answer that question. Rather that monolithic figure is always thrown out there as some tell-all statistic implying that 46 million CAN'T get health insurance. It also tells nothing about those who can't get care with or without insurance.

I'm ditto-ing Paul on this one. Let's face it, the US is a huge country.

I grew up overseas and only moved here for the university, and the in-your-face patriotism really startled me at first. True, the Brits and the French will criticise their governments--but, on the other hand, their governments have existed for a LONG time. The US is much younger, its "independence" much newer and generally, it's just young. Canada is a somewhat different case since it was a protectorate of the British Empire and therefore grew up under its wing.

In part, I think US citizens are so patriotic because they KNOW they have a huge role in the world. When you can go anywhere overseas and see your president on the news nightly, you might fall victim to a superiority complex.

Also, I think it might be fair to say that many US citizens feel attacked in debates on politics, especially when they are in groups of "foreigners". I know I do as one of the only North Americans in my program. I often find myself the hapless victim of random conversations wherein people throw national policy at me as if I invented it. I notice they take a different tone with people from other countries, but with me they just assume that I am propriatorially responsible for any and all actions by the government. This makes me a whole lot more defensive than I ever was before!

Wow, compared to many other political discussions this has been a heavenly thread to read and obviously to discuss as well. There are so many things I am thinking about after I read all your posts but for a lack of background information on American politics I'll stick to one topic for now.

For the record: I don't agree with John McCain's motivations at all (and the only thing about him that I'm grateful about is his 'victory' over Huckabee) but not only is his estimate more realistic, it's also more likely to become true. The '100 years in Iraq' may have been a throwaway comment but it always takes time to cool down a boiling pot.
Obama on the other hand was talking about pulling troops out by 2009 and he wants the UN Security Councel to take over in Iraq but where do you think those peacekeeping troops would come from? Take Germany as a significant example because it's one of Europe's largest countries with 80m people - and only about 80k military members in total (cp. 1.5m in the US). Judging by those numbers it would be impossible to have any kind of military presence strong enough to keep control of the region. It looks like George Bush has condemned America to an unforseeable period of time to this situation and even now that the Iraq topic is not the most important one anymore to American citizens (think economy, health care instead) it won't stop knocking at your doors for a long time; the daily expenses of 720 million dollars will guarantee that.

This thread started with a topic of patriotism and symbols thereof. Maybe this whole discussion about flag pins had its effect, now Obama is wearing a wristband given to him by the mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq. I don't believe that an item like this will portray more (or less) patriotism than any flag but a personal item with an emotional story to gossip about will always be more successful (to lure voters), don't you think so?

Not that this is on topic at all, but the existing forms of British and French governments aren't that old:

The Brits have had a constitutional monarchy since the Glorious Revolution in 1688, less than one hundred years before the US Revolution.

The French revolution was in 1789, after ours, and that wasn't the end of it - they still had to go through Napoleon and Napoleon III, among other things. The constitution they are using currently dates to 1958 - 171 years after the US Constitution.

Hopefully, American voters are more sophisticated than that. But, on the other hand, as every kid knows, it good to have a prop for "Show and Tell"

As I said above, Napoleon, who had a few drops of charisma in his blood, was on the money with his "Men are led by toys" comment.

Your comment about the UN makes a lot of sense. Here, in Canada we committed to the UN decision to invade Afghanistan. That decision was turned over to NATO for implementation and the Canadians have found themselves doing a disproportionate share of the "heavy lifting" so to speak. Public opinion here now wants that to change, right now! if possible. But how to do so respsonsibly has been hugely contentious. At any rate, handing over to the UN, as you point out, doesn't seem to really alter the basic issue.

Lisa, very nice to see a ref to the English and French revolutions.

A different thought: Maybe the reason why Canadians seem less overtly patriotic is the historical division between French and English Canada. We've kind of evolved into a grandmotherly stance: "We just would rather not talk about it. It might frighten the children." Seriously.

Unless of course, we're talking hockey and then everything changes. I believe our border guys say to incomers, "Don't be upset about the delay, you are about to enter the land of the best hockey in the universe!"

c.

Oh, definitely Then they apologise for keeping you waiting and wave you on politely - Canadians are so polite

(and, in case anyone's wondering, that's NOT a slight on any other nationality; it's a national stereotype and a standing joke that Canadians are the politest people on Earth. If you stand on a Canadian's foot, s/he will apologise to you!)


Wendy