April 02, 2004

• we're socialist? *blinks eyes*
• we're socialist? Well, all those farming subsidies sure look like socialism (of sorts) to me.
• actually i think we could stand to be a bit more socialist.
• I think it'd help if every country was a little more socialist. But then, by American standards, I'm practically a Communist, I expect.
• Socialism Defined - Ok, so maybe I'm using socialist loosly, but isn't medicare and "social" security rather socialist in nature? Not to mention all the new talk about providing universal health care?
• nope, this is us. which is why we don't have universal health care, and probably never will.
• Well, there is "socialism" in the Marxist sense, which is what your link, Esotic gives, and then there is "socialism" in the British/Swedish/whatever Welfare State sense. This could also be called "social democracy" - the idea that a part of a democratic society is also an effort to ameliorate social inequality. Even if all can vote - if half the country cannot read the ballots, or are so poor they could be bribed at the polls with food - this is not democracy. The US is less socially democrat than Canada, and Western Europe, but it is a matter of degree. State schools, after all, are a form of social welfare. Welfare does exist - even if you are kicked off a 5 year life-use maximum. (Perhaps I am particularly bitter about this, because if I had been born in the US now, I would have been homeless at age 8, instead of in a good home and a good school with a mother who loved me, and worked but still made so little she needed partial welfare. Where I live now, in New Haven CT, there are children sleeping in parks because their mother was fired (by my university, yay), but could not get any relief. This rule will hurt children most of all - and make them less likely to be independent as adults.)There is also government regulation within the market place, something which would not be under a strictly laizzez faire capitalist system. Perhaps the biggest difference is cultural. The US has one of the largest government sectors per capita of the entire developed world, and yet here "beaurocracy" is a priori bad. Nor is it part of the culture that health care should be available to all on an equal basis - many people, though aware that %15 of the population do not have health insurance, believe that their system has higher quality health care. Which it does, if you have different criteria for measuring quality - the cultural difference is that, among many Americans, access is not considered an essential part of quality health care, whereas in is in other countries. So I basically see the US as having very extensive government interference, though often in invisible (to urban eyes) forms like farm subsidies, but there is less cultural support for social democracy as an a priori good.
• For some more word fun, let's throw in some more words. Like Imperialism, Republic, and Democracy. As an aside, I've always been offended by the excessive penalization of American citizens, especially as felony convictions often result in the citizen not being allowed to vote. Couple that with the horribly skewed number of minorities in prison and things seem to be quite amiss in the land of milk and honey. "Mob Rules" is a frightening prospect, but so is a republican notion of "power by the elite". Can we ever expect full disclosure and educated masses thus resulting in logical and compassionate social action?
• Esotic, I've always imagined the removal of voting rights to be a less-than-optimal form of punishment (convict says Oh no! Now I can't vote? Where's the justice?) so I don't really understand why the federal government would bother removing the right. Unless, of course, with the growing number of convicted prisoners in the US, they are concerned that lawbreakers will become the majority and will vote in someone really evil, like, uh, Hitler or something.
• LEGALIZE IT!
• If people are free, they should never be banned from voting, in my opinion. I also think that people in jail on short sentences - basically, sentences which end within the next term of parliament - should be allowed to vote, really.
• jb: At its best, US healthcare is the best in the world. Defenders of the US devil-take-the-hindmost healthcare system love to point to people dying in Canada or the UK because they're on a waiting list or the state funded healthcare system simply doesn't provide particular (usually esoteric and expensive) treatments. Heck, the people in countries like Canada who would like to see their system become more American cite them even more enthusiastically. Those are legitimate weaknesses of state funded/managed health systems. They are very bad at providing ponies for everyone because, at some point, someone has to make the hard choice that spending a million bucks on saving one person isn't as good a use of taxpayers' dollars as spending $50,000 on saving 20 people. What those people miss (or simply don't care about) is that systems in places like Canada and New Zealand do an excellent job of taking care of most of the health needs of the population in general. They do it at a lower per-capita cost that the US system does. And in New Zealand, anyway, if you're rich, you can always go to the US and get those expensive treatments you need. Poor and not-so-poor Americans can't get the basic healthcare many New Zealanders take for granted though.
• Very good points, rodgerd. Actually, someone did use that exact argument about people dying in public systems in a class I was in the other day. While sympathtic (the person was drawing on his own near death experience), I could not help but be skeptical/unconvinced. Firstly, that if there were people dying (rather than simply waiting) for lack of basic surgeries, it would be screamed across headlines, at least in Canada. Secondly, that, though he was saved by his good job and access to an excellent teaching hospital, I had heard of another self-employed man who needed a heart transplant but would not even be listed until he had raised at least $100,000 (sorry for the vagueness - this was on a news program some time ago). Also, I've been waiting to see this vaunted private=better care thing. I am covered, as all students are, by my university plan. No better than Ontario health care so far - and potentially a good sight worse. A friend of mine had to go around the plan here to have an infected foot taken care of - he was starting to get blood poisoning, but they would not get him the minor surgery earlier.
• The "Silent" Ninth Amendment Gives Americans Rights They Don't Know They Have
• Y'know, between this and the German homeschooling thread, I think I have enough material for my final paper in rhetoric. Thanks, Monkeyfilter!