>>>>>http://www.gallup.com/poll/147881/Americans-Divided-Taxing-Rich-Redistribute-Wealth.aspx.
>>>>>
>>>>>I'll admit it's not 100%, but 71% qualifies as an overwhelming majority.
>>>>>
>>>>>;)
>>>>
>>>>Since when do americans understand the word socialism? :)
>>>
>>>I am an American and understand socialism better than you will ever know.
>>
>>And far far better than anyone wants to know too... :o) I've seen many variations of socialism first-hand -- the worst was East Germany of course when I was there, but there are many countries (back in the 80s and still today) with varying degrees of socialism. There is a balance that must be achieved when you go down that route.... the mindset of the people even changes after years of it -- so many "oh no you can't do that here."
>>
>>There are some success stories that could be loosely defined as socialist like Sweden and Norway. The first thing I noticed when I spent time in modern socialist countries was the increase in so many "mandatory" things... it's really more (IMHO) programs that aim to provide aid and services to financially unstable citizens. The primary difference between those programs in those countries and here is that it has always failed here. I'm still for having Norway set up and run our healthcare. :o) Now that ought to start an argument :o)

This is exactly what I meant with the redefinition of the word socialist. No european would call countries like Sweden and Norway socialist countries. They have social democracies, but have barely any resemblence to what we have known as socialist countries, like the one you lived in.

>There are, as you said, different shades of socialism. They may have a temporary success (even for a number of years) but in the end they all will lead to a total socialism where the government will mandate everything.

Eh, there I think you are wrong. The past few decades, the governments just got out of formely state owned companies. This is a trend all over europe. The energy, phone, mail markets all have been privitised. Up here in holland even healthcare has been privatised for a large part. To be honest, I can't even think of any market that is owned by the state. Only barebone things like police and military.

>Walter said (paraphrasing) that "shouldn't poor people have the same health care as rich". So they bring up Obama care. Then they will say, shouldn't poor people eat as well as rich. And they will create a "fair" :) food distribution. And shouldn't poor people live in the same nice houses as rich. And they will nationalize private property. They will not stop on healthcare.

Wrong, the trend is actually the opposite, however there are a lot of regulations that force commercial companies to deliver products that meet a certain minimum criteria. I believe in capitalism, but not to the extent that we leave the unhealthy and the unluck behind.
And any way your cut it, you already have social healthcare (medicare and mediaid), but that system is getting so expensive and is performing so poor that an overhoal is absolutely neccesary. Obama had only the choice to live with the current status qou or change.


>Take Spain for example. I have been following a blog of a Spanish nurse (she is in her 40s so she has been in the system for good deal of time). She says that the healthcare system in Spain is going down the drain. And the unemployment in Spain (I believe) is over 20% and things are not getting any better. Of course the socialists on UT will say that this is all Bush's fault :).

Well, I'm a liberal (on the right wing here in holland), and I wonder who you're pointing to if you're saying socialist. I know you've lived under socialism (or actually communism) but I don't think you have any clue of what the political climate is in the large part of europe.
and I do think that you don't know anything about the about absense influence of your definition of socialism here. I do think that your allergy of the word socialism is blinding you from the reality what 'social' actually means up here.

And yes, things do not go well in Spain, as is the case with Portugal, Greece and Ireland. Those economies combined are as large as the one of California. Can you tell me how well the economie in california is doing? Other countries like the scandinavian countries, germany, netherlands and france are doing quite ok here.

Anyways, the situation of the southern european countries have absolutely nothing to do with 'socialism', but have all to do with the growing pains of forming a united europe with the euro. And if all things in europe are going all that badly, why has the euro risen from approx $0.85 to more than $1.40 within its short existance? And why does iceland want to join the euro?