>My simple reply about the definition of the effects of Socialism on a once great country can be found in the following video:
>Detroit in ruins!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw Z < - -This pretty much sums up what happens when the federal and state governments and Unions take over control of a city.
I watched the first three minutes and when they called democrats leftish I hung up. Carbish. Under leftish rule it became one of the wealthiest cities. As why it fell, well, I don't need political biased promotion films for that. How on earth can you take such thing serious? Don't you have any political unbiased media left? This is exactly what is wrong with your country. every matter, I mean EVERY matter is taken into a political LEFT, RIGHT argument. Don't forget that the US economy under GWB has taken a big hit. The car manufacturing as been plagued with one disaster after another. On top of that Lack of vision, lack of responsible management, ignorance and greed. We all know that european and asian cars were far superiour to the ones made in the US, but they though they were invincible. THis has nothing to do with left and right. It was irresponsible management. Too inflexible.
Undoubtly many things have gone wrong in detroit under democratic rule. But do you really believe for one minute it would have been better under republican rule? The democrats alsways had the name of spending, but the republicans actuall did (chase the facts over 50 years)
>>Reading your lengthy reply, I again must urge you to say that you don't understand the term SOCIALISM. There is not much socialism to be found here.
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>>From wikipedia: Socialism refers to various theories of economic organization advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a method of compensation based on the amount of labor expended.
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>My simple reply to the definition of SOCIALISM is this:
>"The taking of someone else's money by the force of law for someone else to spend on what they want."
Do really realise what you're saying here? do you ??
Please rethink this again...
You simply say, I'm ignoring the official internation definition, and create my own and will use this definition everywhere where my definition will be totally oposed to the official definition..
Thats like me saying you're a NAZI because I changed the definition of the word NAZI to mean everyone who is oposing OBAMA and his policy.
Really get back and rethink what you've said here. To apply your definition on my country and call its governmental rule socialism is like me saying that the US is ruled by a dictator of a bananarepublic like many in south america.
>>1. Up here, like in denmark, we have, just like in the US as capatislistic, democratic and highly compatitive market. Our government does not own a lot of business (anymore). Markets like the energy, healthcare, mail and phone have been been made private over the last 3 decades. This process has been called: liberalisation (Hence I say so often that the word liberal mean something different in our world). So I was born in a democratic, capatilistic environment. Certainly not Socialistic. If you say that to anyone else living in eastern european countries, you not so far of the spot (though that was communism)
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>> 2. The US citizens have been brainwashed by the right wing to have anything that is not as right as them to be labeled socialism. Hell, you don't even know what it really means. We have one politician up here ('Geert Wilders') who is trying to redefine the word left in very much the same way as the republicans did. I'm fully aware of how this process works.
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>>3. If the system obama is proposing works, you'll pay a HELL LOT OF LESS TAXES to healthcare, more to the level like we do. Let me remind you that the US americans pay by far the most for their healthcare and only gets average overall quality out of it. Worse, its affecting your economy as well. Tenth of Millions are exluded from healthcare, because they cannot afford, are excluded or are just ignorant. How good is someone who is ill but culd be cured for its country? A governments role also is to keep its citizens healthy because that is beneficial to its economy in the long run.
>How can you actually believe this? The above statement is incredibly naive. We WILL pay more in taxes already for five years before any benefit is given.
That is because your current system DOES NOT WORK. Most money is flowing into pockets where it does not belong. If you don't believe this, then give me an answer of WHY the US spends BY FAR the most amout of monay per citizen on heathcare, WHILE not even everyone is covered, and overal quality is substandard compared with other western countries.
Please do know what you're talking about. Look at how other countries in the world have implemented Healthcare and where it DOES work much and much better than in the US. Better quality for a lot less. Ask anyone not living in the US, whether he/she wants to trade their healthcare system in for the on in the US. You'll have a hard time finding one.
>>4. In some aspects, you're already a third world country. Health care is one of such aspects. And what about New Orleans? What wealthy country does leave a devistated city alone and does virtually nothing to rebuild it ?
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>This is an example of our government at work. It seems to me that the state and federal governments purposely moved those people out of the devastated areas for their own benefit. I really don't know the purposes behind how New Orleans was handled, but it doesn't seem like it was a good plan.
>>5. Your government does not have to run the healthcare industry. Nor does it in our country (anymore). The government does not get much involved managing healthcare isurances. What it DOES DO is regulating the market by defining rules like that every insurance company has to accept every patient, no matter what medical condition. They have to offer packages (coverage level) for a fixed price. Certain procedures are always covered, some are optional (depending on the package). Every citizen is obligated to have an insurance.
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>>The trend you can see now is that insurance companies now are far more concentrating in prevention and keeping their customers healthy. If they don't do that, they will face larger medical costs down the road. The system also tries to keep the costs to the pharmacy down as cheaper (but as good) medicine are covered but more expensive ones you need to pay yourself.
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>I would have to agree that prevention and good nutrition would be things which would lower healthcare costs in the long-run. I cannot say that all health insurance companies have their clients best interests at heart. There is far too much lobbying by insurance companies to get a good deal with the government. I wonder who gets the good deal? It probably won't be employees and patients.
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>Where we went wrong was in our government creating what are called HMO's. The sole purpose of an HMO is to make money, not to really benefit the patient, or employee. We had what were called PPO's, which allowed employees to choose who their healthcare provider would be. The key here is that the government was involved in creating HMO's.
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>Obama hasn't got a clue what is in the healthcare bill being put out by the Senate from day to day because it changes, and then there are the secret meetings to alter everything behind the scenes, so that what was discussed in the house and the senate is not what is actually being voted on. This is called a slight of hand, or lying to the American people. The Congress is no longer working "for the people" and the people's voice has been squelched. Actually, maybe Obama does have a clue as to what is in the healthcare bills, and that is why those things are kept secret? Hmmm,... makes me wnoder a lot. I do not, obviously, trust my government to make good decisions for me. I would rather make my own decisions, thank you.
Obama is doing whatever he can to keep to his promise, to give every american accessible healthcare. Politics is a minefield. Its dirty and before you know it, you lose a leg. His postion simply is... anything better than the current mess. If you can't get there from day one, we have to take baby steps. If he had absolute power to implement this without needing the 60 votes, it would have looked a lot different. But hey, that is also democracy. Every vote has the same weight irregardless whether the voter has any understanding of what has been proposed and its implications.
As for ignoring the voice of the american people... The public most often don't know what they want. They don't have the knowledge and by nature are resistant to change. Thats the reason why you have a representative democracy as oposed to a direct one, or else the US would have been marginalised in global economic, political and military affairs. Believe me, its no different in our country. We also have an unpopular administration right now. But this has more to do with the financial crisis as with anything else. People see things getting worse and they'll blame the government for it, regardless of what they do.
Walter,
