I told myself I wouldn't post this, especially in response to a wordpress blog, but I feel I should.

The main difference between all countries is what the population feels entitled to. Should a country feel safe at all costs, or should they be free? What is free? Should I have the ability to buy whatever I want, regardless of how harmful the food is? Should I have the ability to buy my own health care, on my own terms, with regard to whether or not I want it? Should the government be promising me security as I grow old, or when I get permanently maimed?

Some view freedom as the availability to do as they want on their terms. Other view freedom to have the ability to do what they want without worrying about the things they feel they need. You want to eat organically, that's great! But you can only afford conventional. Regardless of the rising cost of food, its pretty well known that conventional in almost all cases (except for us who have discounts to natural/organic food stores that also gives you free healthcare if you stay full time with the company for five years :awesomex2:) cheaper. So then it depends on whether you are cost sensitive or quality sensitive.

Which is best? Is it really an increase in the standard of living to have the only option be organic food? Look at the paranoia in Japan over mad cow disease - I bet many people there would love to eat beef, but really can't, because of price. And then there's the ulterior motives to restricting imports of conventional food. But that's an entirely different conversation.

If people are happy living in a socialist country so be it. I don't really care. I really hope the US doesn't turn socialist, truly. Calling a country cruddy is not only an emotional response to a different opinion, but a highly subjective and uneducated view. It would be the same as auto-vetoing London due to the protests. I feel like there's more going on there than I understand, and conversations I've had with a couple of locals and some research have led me to believe there is. I still don't want to live there, though. (Visit? Yes. When I have a lot of money.) I know its hard to live in the states, but I do not want to leave. I do think that reform should happy in some places, and I would be happy to see it. But I also think that other countries go too far. Its a long drawn out process in America, and that is part of the appeal to me, quite truthfully, because I think it cements change and also irons out the details behind it. That is also another conversation I think.

I don't think I can even follow that up

Personally I'd rather just live in a country where the only requirement you need to fulfil to get free healthcare is being born there.

I guess I just don't understand this whole 'freedom' thing, where 'freedom' really means being ground under the heel of a social-political-economic system that makes your life hell if something over which you have no control happens to you.

Poland here, Taxes in EU are around 70% of what you earn, out of which:
*15% is used to upkeep the hardly breathing social system
*19-35% is an income tax (depends on how much you earn, people earning less than 400$ a month get the lowest 19% rate)
*23% is the VAT Tax
*+excise and other weird taxes.

Despite such huge funds going into the Goverment we can hardly see any development, Poland only have 4 highways, or rather "partly-made-highways", the railways are in horrible condition, and the general condition of roads is...

All of this is caused by socialism and so called "welfare state", Poland has 35 million inhabitants out of which 800 000 are officials, and possibly around 1 million more who are working as a support in the private sector. You cant even imagine how developed the bureaucracy is, in order to chop down a tree in your own damn yard you need to visit like 3 offices, and wait at least three months for a "possible but not really likely approval", if you decide to chop down the tree without the approval of the officials you will end up paying a fee of 250.000$.

You Americans are eager to vote for socialists because you never ever had to deal with them, they re going to destroy and devour your country, and if they get to control your state for longer than 10 years, it is likely America will drop from being the 1st military power to the 10th military power, just because it wont be able to upkeep its army, because the funds for army will be going to be spent on the ever growing number of officials.

+ If you decide to create a goverment controlled pension system you will be how we say in our lands in deep anus, why? Let me give an example how it works in Poland, you pay 300+ $ monthly for 50 years, and end up getting 400$ a month once u reach your retirement age.

Its quite easy to calculate that during this period u would accumulate roughly 180.000 $, and if you would put that into an investment with a 5% return value you would obtain 750$ monthly JUST FROM THE percentage! And it would be much much more if u started putting your money into an investment earlier before accumulating this "magic" 180.000$

Luckily people in Europe are starting to notice the system is broken, and socialism destroys our wealth, thank god the liberal parties are slowly taking over the parliaments in EU, France already has around 15%, Norway 20%, Poland only 4%, but its growing rapidly as last year it was only 1%. If only the election polls wouldnt be falsified on TV, Europe would already be liberal..

Hopefully as the time pass we can get rid of the communists and form a more friendly enviroment, perhaps i wont live to see it, but i will be happy if my children reach it.

I like you.
Here in America, the liberals are the socialists and the conservatives are the capitalists I'm really glad that you shared your opinion. A lot of people assume things in Europe are better somehow, even though they know nothing about it...

Comparing "socialist" New Zealand to America.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/blogs/voyages-in-america/5620393/Our-socialist-streak-why-Key-was-right

I liked "America: The Grim Truth". It was, of course, as Vrael said, made purely to scare Americans - I particularly like the bit about how efficient German or Japanese factories are compared to American ones, because it shows a basic, common misunderstanding about the economy. The United States, as a country, is significantly ahead of other countries in high-tech sectors. A smaller portion of its workers are in factories, because a larger are designing the products, which is a more useful, higher-paying skill. There's a reason that Intel, Microsoft, Apple, Motorola, AMD, etc are all American corporations - apart from the laanguage factor, those companies develop their products primarily in the United States, with a smaller portion of their workforce being based in Europe, Russia, India, etc. On the other hand, it's cheaper to manufacture in Asia, and to a lesser extent, Europe; so there are many companies specializing in the manufacturing of components, such as Quanta Computers or Samsung Electronics. But those companies can't compete with American engineers when it comes to designing higher-tech products. They can have some success in certain fields, like developing ARM-based chips (Samsung, Qualcomm), but otherwise... not much luck there.

And when it comes to living standards? The United States may not come out ahead, but this is largely because of the huge resources allocated to the military, which allows the USA to attain a technological lead that will take other countries (like China) decades to overcome, no matter what else happens. Maybe this technological lead is unnecessary, and the money would be better used making citizens happy - or maybe, twenty years down the line, as China's development approaches that of Europe and their military budget is double that of the United States, we'll be glad that we invested the resources into defense research while we had them. I don't know enough to judge whether the MIC getting the funding it wants is good or bad. New Zealanders and Europeans may brag about their living standards, but those standards are only possible because the United States does what it does. If the US disappeared right now, replaced by several Mexicos, I don't know what would happen, but I suspect that several countries would quickly increase their military budget at the cost of social welfare programs. Hehe. Certainly, if I were a Russian dictator and there was no US, I'd see if I could break up NATO and re-annex, say, Poland, Latvia, Ukraine... All of Europe I can, basically, then deal with China before they become too rich. Yes... And, you know, if the US hadn't done it 1940-1989, this would all already have happened.

Dammit, makes me want to play Civ.

Oh, and to make a juvenile comparison, Europe + NZ + Japan are all the idiots who play video games in a group project while the United States does all the work for a nice grade. Abusing the system. Not paying for their own defense, knowing that the United States will do it for them.

A government's role must be completely dynamic.

There is no static role for the government to fill. It's a waste of time to try to find one. Take healthcare for example. The reason healthcare wasn't an issue 200 years ago was because medicine was too primitive to cure most ailments. But now that it can, there poses a specific problem. Whether it be support, control, exploration, or defense, it fills whatever role we need it to.

@Sac
I agree for a need their is demand and that is the whole basis for our government and consumerism lifestyles.

Can you please rewrite this? I do not understand it at all.

Allow me.

Drug use can lead to dangerous behavior which harms others.