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[Keldorn]

Bush cuts hurricane funding.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=bus ... arch&meta=


1000's die...

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=kat ... arch&meta=

 

[Keldorn]

Are Blackwater & Halliburton opposing mass civilian deaths ? No, they are getting payed via military-industrial complex infrastructure to ADD to those civilian deaths. They logically want an infinite, neverending war, so as to not cut their contracts short. After all, profits before people.


http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=mid ... iraq&meta=


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_USA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halliburton

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

1) The US under Republican rule is incarceration nation, a Fascist state which you support. The war on drugs is a puritanical enslavement rationalization via religion and the prison state. The US is the world's leading jailer due mainly to harsh sentences and banishment of supposed immoral behaviour (according to Falwellian biblical doctrine), they are mass incarcerating those who oppose Republican morality edicts and Christo-Fascist code.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01793.html

http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/majority.htm

http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/texas/texaspr.html

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,51 ... 45,00.html

http://www.alternet.org/rights/34773/

http://12degreesoffreedom.blogspot.com/ ... te-in.html

http://corporatism.tripod.com/charts.htm

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm

http://www.hr95.org/

http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/LIB ... sicfax.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs


http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... stry&meta=

First, let me start off with saying I could care less if they legalize drugs. In fact, I think they should because I don't care much for government telling me what I can and can't do with my body or property.

Now, on to why you're wrong. See, Bush is in charge of the FEDERAL government. The vast majority of people who are in prison are in STATE prisons. By the term "STATE", I mean as in "Texas", "California", and so forth. Many of these STATES have these things called Three Strikes Laws. California, our most populous state, has the toughest Three Strikes Law around. Meaning if you get caught committing a felony three times, you go to prison forever. Most states require the third strike to be a violent offense. In California, it can be any felony including just having too much pot on you.

When you take an adult engaging in non-violent consentual adult behaviour (or 15 & 17 year olds having sex) and jail them, you impoverish them, their family (stress, legal costs) and their dependants (you wreck their lives).

Very rarely does the sex thing actually lead to prison time, and the age of consent varies from state to state.

2) Health care expenditures are more about bang for the buck, just because one spends more per captita as a % of GDP (US) doesn't mean the citizens benefit more (as in Scandinavia). In the US, the bottom 1/3rd can't afford it, in Scandinavia, no one is left out.

No, everyone in America can get health care. Not everyone has insurance. There's a difference. If you go to an emergency room, they have to treat you whether you can pay or not. As for getting health insurance, it's pretty damned easy to get. Most lower income jobs offer it, including fast food and retail chain corporation jobs. One of the perks to corporations is that they do offer health plans to their workers if you choose to get them.

IOW, the US spends way more, but a major percentage of it's pop. doesn't get it or can't afford it !!!!!! Medical expenditures are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US. Maybe right-wing retards can't see that socialized medicine in the US would increase it's life expectancy and reduce it's horrific infant mortality rate.

That's because most of our Federal health care expenses are for the elderly, and unlike European socialized medicine, we don't tend to ration treatments for those old timers. Look up cancer rate survivor statistics for the elderly in the United States versus European countries. Just for shits and giggles, try looking somewhere other than a left wing blog, too.

As for infant death, I think I covered that one. We pay the poor more to have more babies as part of our social spending programs. The poor tend to be less educated and a hell of a lot less responsible than the rest of society. Even though they have access to free clinics and the like, they don't tend to make use of them so they wind up with dead babies.

Good to see seniors and families become impoverished, hungry and homeless... because the private medical industry CEO is LAUGHING all the way to the (underregulated bank). Profits before people, if you can't pay, then suffer and die. That is an uncivilized nation (Under Republican rule).

Actually, under Republican rule, senior citizens no longer have to pay for their prescriptions. Look up "Medicare part D". That was one of Bush's deals.

a) Each Norwegian has $80,000 in a private oil fund derived account, and gets to have the welfare state and socialized medicine, so they can afford a higher cost of living. You keep demonizing Norway for it's oil, and you hate the fact it benefits their entire population. But the other 3 non-oil-based Scandinavian economies have often ranked higher than Norway in many socio-economic factors and areas of performance, so it shows it's not because of oil. VS. the US, NORWAY & SCANDINAVIA WINS.

No one is demonizing Norway for having oil, the point was that when you have a country with a lot of oil and a small population, you can do more with it. Get rid of that oil, and where would Norway be if it had all those policies in place? Third world, that's where.

b) Denmark can afford higher taxes because of it's welfare state benefits.

STUPIDEST STATEMENT OF THE YEAR 2008 CANDIDATE!

United States: Chronically homeless people (those with repeated episodes or who have been homeless for long periods) 847,000-3,470,000

United States Homeless Statistics

3.5 million people (1.35 million of which are children) will experience homelessness in a given year.

3.5 million? Another left wing blog source? Must be, because there's no way in hell the numbers are anywhere close to that. HUD reports the number around 770,000. Even then, it's hard to get an accurate count of the homeless population because you can't exactly mail them, phone them, or go door to door asking people if they're homeless. So, they tend to estimate HIGH so they can get more funding.

Remember when I was talking about how the lefties were bitching about the price of houses before the bubble burst? Here's a fun quote from 2005 saying just that:

[/quote]"The driver in homelessness is the affordable housing crisis," Roman said. "If we don't do something to address the crisis in affordable housing we are not going to solve homelessness."[/quote]

That's right, before the "mortgage crisis", houses were expensive. It was a seller's market, just like I said. So, you had people complaining about that. Now that the market has switched to a buyer's market, they're bitching about lost equity and mortgage crunches. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. That's pretty much all the left accomplishes. They weren't happy when housing prices were high. Now they're not happy that housing prices are low.

Chronically homeless stats are lower, don't just use them or all you do is cherrypick pro-Republican Pro-Corporate data.

HUD didn't. The chronically homeless are 25% of the 770,000 number.

5) The US fails in education rankings, again, because it's too private and publicly underfunded thanks to Republican corporatists.

Actually, we spend more per student than most Western nations do, and still end up failing to educate students. That's because it's a government program, and government programs tend to fail at everything they do.

6) Under Bush, US ranks low in press freedom too.... George is such a reader of the right-wing rags.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01148.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1029-07.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2354077.stm

It tends to be the left wing side of things that clamps down on freedom of the press. The Soviet Union, China, and Venezuela come to mind.

Bush cuts hurricane funding.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=bus ... arch&meta=


1000's die...

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=kat ... arch&meta=

Bush cut funding to Louisiana because Louisiana had a tendency not to spend the money on the levies. The government wrote them open ended checks, and New Orleans and Louisiana spent the money on other things. Louisiana has one of the most corrupt governments of any state in the nation.. AND THEY'RE DEMOCRATS!

The same thing would probably happen if they were Republicans, but any time a party dominates a state for decades, corruption happens.

 

[denizsi]

The Soviet Union, China, and Venezuela come to mind.

Undoubtedly the pinnacles and the only examples of the Left. LOL.

 

[Keldorn]

"First, let me start off with saying I could care less if they legalize drugs. In fact, I think they should because I don't care much for government telling me what I can and can't do with my body or property."

-So you could (or couldn't) care more ? Well any indifference just helps the FOR-profit "let's mass incarcerate drug users because the prison industry and Pat Robertson say so."


"Now, on to why you're wrong. See, Bush is in charge of the FEDERAL government. The vast majority of people who are in prison are in STATE prisons. By the term "STATE", I mean as in "Texas", "California", and so forth. Many of these STATES have these things called Three Strikes Laws. California, our most populous state, has the toughest Three Strikes Law around. Meaning if you get caught committing a felony three times, you go to prison forever. Most states require the third strike to be a violent offense. In California, it can be any felony including just having too much pot on you."

-No, the harsh hyper-incarceration attitude doesn't reduce crime, it instead creates a cycle of brutality, hostility and criminalization.


"Very rarely does the sex thing actually lead to prison time, and the age of consent varies from state to state."

- Again, you pursue state relativism and rationalization. The Feds often have jurisdiction where the state says no, (Colorado drug laws for example).


"No, everyone in America can get health care. Not everyone has insurance. There's a difference. If you go to an emergency room, they have to treat you whether you can pay or not. As for getting health insurance, it's pretty damned easy to get. Most lower income jobs offer it, including fast food and retail chain corporation jobs. One of the perks to corporations is that they do offer health plans to their workers if you choose to get them."

-Stop parrotting capitalist/corporatist dogma.


"That's because most of our Federal health care expenses are for the elderly, and unlike European socialized medicine, we don't tend to ration treatments for those old timers. Look up cancer rate survivor statistics for the elderly in the United States versus European countries. Just for shits and giggles, try looking somewhere other than a left wing blog, too."

-Oh, so any site which proves that too much capitalism, corporatism and militarism can induce dire socio-economic conditions, is to be blindly tossed aside. again, right-wing dogma.

http://www.canadiandemocraticmovement.c ... le416.html

http://www.nupge.ca/news_2006/n01ma06b.htm


So the tens of millions without coverage get divine intervention treatment ?



"As for infant death, I think I covered that one. We pay the poor more to have more babies as part of our social spending programs. The poor tend to be less educated and a hell of a lot less responsible than the rest of society. Even though they have access to free clinics and the like, they don't tend to make use of them so they wind up with dead babies."

-Socialized medicine in the US would likely reduce infant mortality rates, but you want a profit before people system.



"Actually, under Republican rule, senior citizens no longer have to pay for their prescriptions. Look up "Medicare part D". That was one of Bush's deals."

-Peanuts. Poverty rates have soared under Bush, as have personal bankruptcies due to medical expenditures and shady lending practices causing a flood of foreclosures. Less Americans have medical coverage now than ever before.

http://www.webmd.com/medicare/news/2008 ... ealth-care


"No one is demonizing Norway for having oil, the point was that when you have a country with a lot of oil and a small population, you can do more with it. Get rid of that oil, and where would Norway be if it had all those policies in place? Third world, that's where."

-No, if they had much less oil or no oil, they'd be like Sweden, Denmark or Finland, and in MANY ways better off.


"

b) Denmark can afford higher taxes because of it's welfare state benefits.

STUPIDEST STATEMENT OF THE YEAR 2008 CANDIDATE!"


-No.

1) They were a struggling, somewhat impoverished nation.
2) They voted center-left for decades.
3) They payed MUCH higher taxes.
4) They all got a firm social safety net and the welfare state, WHILE not going too far left to harm economic dynamism.
5) Danes looked at the results and thought "I'll keep paying for this scenario, as it's stable, secure and keeps my quality of life very high".


"3.5 million? Another left wing blog source? Must be, because there's no way in hell the numbers are anywhere close to that. HUD reports the number around 770,000. Even then, it's hard to get an accurate count of the homeless population because you can't exactly mail them, phone them, or go door to door asking people if they're homeless. So, they tend to estimate HIGH so they can get more funding."

-The US has the highest child poverty rate in the western developed world, and they have a major housing crisis, so it's really not too hard to identify a severe homeless problem as well. 400,000 homeless veterans alone.


"Remember when I was talking about how the lefties were bitching about the price of houses before the bubble burst? Here's a fun quote from 2005 saying just that:

[/quote]"The driver in homelessness is the affordable housing crisis," Roman said. "If we don't do something to address the crisis in affordable housing we are not going to solve homelessness."[/quote]

"That's right, before the "mortgage crisis", houses were expensive. It was a seller's market, just like I said. So, you had people complaining about that. Now that the market has switched to a buyer's market, they're bitching about lost equity and mortgage crunches. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. That's pretty much all the left accomplishes. They weren't happy when housing prices were high. Now they're not happy that housing prices are low."

-Actually, as proven in Scandinavia, the left produces a very well off, non-poor, peaceful, prosperous and free society. The left in the US (Kucinich, Obama, Edwards, JFK) really don't get a fair chance to fix the damage caused by right-wing infrastructure and Republican domination. Lol, you keep blaming those who aren't in control ! The lenders and mortgage companies made RECORD PROFITS under Bushian corporatism, a system of lax rules and lax regulations they helped design ! You can try to blame the evil left, but the truth is, you are blaming the VICTIM of the system, not the designer and upholder.


"HUD didn't. The chronically homeless are 25% of the 770,000 number."

-There are as many as 3,000,000+ homeless people in the US in any given year.


"Actually, we spend more per student than most Western nations do, and still end up failing to educate students. That's because it's a government program, and government programs tend to fail at everything they do."

-That's only because it's delivered by predominantly REPUBLICAN governments, you moron !!! if it was the Scandinavia center-left running the US federal gov't show, you would NOT be suffering under governmental incompetence, ultra-right-wing ideology, corruption and stupidity.


"It tends to be the left wing side of things that clamps down on freedom of the press. The Soviet Union, China, and Venezuela come to mind."

-So you attack the militaristic, extremist & authoritarian Communist scarecrow while ignoring the center-left examples in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland - 4 free, peaceful, prosperous nations with the highest press freedom rankings and lowest levels of gov't corruption ? You are a typical von Mises idiot who really is incapable of comprehending a balanced, mixed economy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_economy

-2008 Social Democracy is now the precise middle ground between pure capitalism and pure socialism... a scientific, grey, pragmatic mixture more concerned with evaluating the social and economic statistics rather than adhering to the dogmatic, theoretical playbook found at the far left or far right extremes.



"Bush cut funding to Louisiana because Louisiana had a tendency not to spend the money on the levies. The government wrote them open ended checks, and New Orleans and Louisiana spent the money on other things. Louisiana has one of the most corrupt governments of any state in the nation.. AND THEY'RE DEMOCRATS!"


-Again, the Democrats are to the political right of the Scandinavian social democrats, and again, you try to blame the left for things the right wing does. Why does the Netherlands not have such trouble with funding emergency flooding infrastructure ? Because they have been consistently farther LEFT of the Republican dominated USA.
Bush and the Republicult CUT funding for no other reason than to fuel funds into the military-industrial complex.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_welfare

http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm


"The same thing would probably happen if they were Republicans, but any time a party dominates a state for decades, corruption happens.[/quote]"

Here is why the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway are better off than the USA :

1) They have proportional representation

2) They have 5-10 parties to choose from

3) The voters tend to vote center-left, center, or center-right


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_ ... etherlands

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_po ... in_Denmark

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_po ... in_Finland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_po ... _in_Sweden

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_po ... _in_Norway


You see, if you could just drop your blind, rabid, polarizing anti-communist pro-capitalist frenzy, and see the 3rd way rational alternative..... BETWEEN the 2 insane extremes........

 

[Keldorn]

The Soviet Union, China, and Venezuela come to mind.

Undoubtedly the pinnacles and the only examples of the Left. LOL.

Yeah, let's totally dismiss and ignore the 2008, moderate, center-left Scandinavian approach, and bash the 2nd and 3rd world Communist scarecrows of yesteryear / yestercentury instead. YIPPEEEEEE ! VON MISES MANIA !!!!!!!!!


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/ma ... ancampbell

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/article ... 35778.html

 

[Keldorn]

The US is a predominantly capitalist/corporatist, militaristic mixed economy. Abandoning the center (which has already been shut out after a 75% rate of Republican election dominance), and charging to the farthest right-wing capitalist fringe, will only make the negative effects of the right-wing system worse. Only by moving to the center or center-left position will the US address the disastrous effects of Bushian greed, war, persecution and mass incarceration.


L5\L4\L3\L2\L1\ C /R1/R2/R3/R4/R5

Under 8 years of R3 to R4 Bush-Antics, moving to R5 will only help the corporate elite MORE. Moving to L1/ C \ R1, as Scandinavia has, will help everyone who is not in the top 10% of society, without destroying the megarich status of the megarich.

 

[aron searle]

Keldorn broke my scroll wheel.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Okay Keldorn, seriously, you don't need to quote the whole lot and add in every link you found in google but didn't bother to actually read. We're all well aware of the LEFTY websites out there that will happily criticise the US by making up their own figures.

1) The US under Republican rule is incarceration nation, a Fascist state which you support. The war on drugs is a puritanical enslavement rationalization via religion and the prison state. The US is the world's leading jailer due mainly to harsh sentences and banishment of supposed immoral behaviour (according to Falwellian biblical doctrine), they are mass incarcerating those who oppose Republican morality edicts and Christo-Fascist code.

Everyone say it with me now: Rhetorical crap. Let's see "Fascist state" (last I checked, Americans actually voted for their President and according to the last election, the majority voted for Bush. Whether they regret that now or not is a separate issue and one that'll come into play in the upcoming elections), then we had "puritanical enslavement rationalization", questioning what is or isn't immoral behaviour (while Sweden's clamping down on prostitutes) and the baseless accusation that those being incarcerated are because they broke some Republican "Christo-Fascist" moral code, as opposed to, you know breaking the law. This coming from Europe, the continent that gave us plant rights. Give me a break.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110301793.html

Yes because the Government shouldn't be allowed to make it's case to the court system.

I know you like seeing Pat Robertson and the Prison executive smile. To blindly accept the US incarceration paradigm, via your circular defense, shows Fascism.

Can I do a Keldorn? Yeah, I think I get to do a Keldorn.

http://www.publiceye.org/eyes/whatfasc.html

http://remember.org/hist.root.what.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

• Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State

Wow. That sounds like Sweden. What a bunch of Fascists!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism_and_ideology

http://www.couplescompany.com/Features/ ... cture3.htm

http://people.howstuffworks.com/fascism.htm

http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/2008/02/23 ... s-fascism/

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=Fascism

When you take an adult engaging in non-violent consentual adult behaviour (or 15 & 17 year olds having sex) and jail them, you impoverish them, their family (stress, legal costs) and their dependants (you wreck their lives).

Well I guess they should of thought of that before they broke the law then, huh? Or are you proposing we allow people to eat each other now, you know, because they're both consenting adults? I know it upsets your LEFTY values but sometimes, what people want to do is just out-right wrong. It hurts them, it hurts the people around them and it's generally Not A Good Thing™ for anyone involved. We make that kind of stuff illegal to get the message out there that it's not okay. The only difference is in the US, they're putting some force behind it.

Now if jailing people really fucked them over and put them into poverty ("impoverish them"), then how come the United States is still significantly better in the poverty stakes than a lot of other countries which have significantly lower incarceration rates?

2) Health care expenditures are more about bang for the buck, just because one spends more per captita as a % of GDP (US) doesn't mean the citizens benefit more (as in Scandinavia). In the US, the bottom 1/3rd can't afford it, in Scandinavia, no one is left out. IOW, the US spends way more, but a major percentage of it's pop. doesn't get it or can't afford it !!!!!! Medical expenditures are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US. Maybe right-wing retards can't see that socialized medicine in the US would increase it's life expectancy and reduce it's horrific infant mortality rate.

The US spends most on health care, but covers LEAST.

Good to see seniors and families become impoverished, hungry and homeless... because the private medical industry CEO is LAUGHING all the way to the (underregulated bank). Profits before people, if you can't pay, then suffer and die. That is an uncivilized nation (Under Republican rule).

Which must be why up to 20% of Swede's are going out of their way to get around their own healthcare system:

• Another example given by Bergström relates to the fact that Swedes must often wait a long time to see a doctor, while some patients are simply denied treatment in the public health care system:
  
  “More and more Swedes are choosing to adapt to the system by using personal contacts with physicians to get a better quality of healthcare. Others sign up for private health insurance even though they are already paying into the system through taxes. Some choose to travel abroad to get the care they need.
  
  In their survey, the authors of Plan B found that almost 19 percent of Swedes confessed to having gained access to healthcare, either for themselves or a relative, by using personal contacts rather than going through regular administrative channels.
  
  At the same time, 15 percent of those surveyed said that they had spent time taking care of a person close to them for an illness that should have been dealt with by the public healthcare sector.

I think you'll find Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia's health prosperity has more to do with natural, healthier lifestyles and from having less cultural diversity than the United States. The only downside is nobody cares so much about Scandinavia, where-as everyone enjoys attacking the United States. So of course there's more google results.

b) Denmark can afford higher taxes because of it's welfare state benefits. They willingly vote in left-wing parties in ORDER to do that.

That might be in Denmark but in Sweden, they don't actually pay taxes:

• We may in fact be witnessing a major transformation as increasing numbers of Swedes choose to bypass the social system.
  
  "In Sweden we have created systems that can often become rather difficult to live with. One example of this is paying for having work done on your house on the black market. Purchasing a house is the most important investment that most Swedes make in their lifetimes and it is vital to make some repairs from time to time. But Sweden’s high taxes make it difficult to purchase services legally."
  
  The release of Plan B last October was accompanied by an opinion piece in Dagens Nyheter, in which the authors explained that 95 percent of Swedes had confessed to having, in one way or another, tampered with social welfare systems for their own benefit.
  
  During the writing of Plan B, a survey of more than a thousand Swedes showed that a majority had chosen to repair their houses themselves rather than pay professionals to do the job. Over 17 percent admitted to having hired handicraft on the black market, while over 10 percent admitted to themselves having worked on the black market.

Who's corrupt now? As you should see, high taxes are UNSUSTAINABLE. They discourage people to lawfully abide by the rules until eventually, the entire system comes crashing down.

• “Another aspect of the social change we have seen in Sweden over time is that, in a globalized world, many individuals can choose what we refer to as ‘exit behaviour’. That is, if you face problems with one system, you simply leave it for another.
  
  "An example of this is that many Swedes with high incomes end up living abroad to escape the taxes. We see this behaviour both amongst famous athletes and ordinary businessmen and professionals.”

Once again, you tax the rich, the rich leave, you lose their tax income, your entire system falls apart. Show me Sweden with high taxes in 20 or 40 years. I can tell you now, it won't exist.

• Bergström concludes by remarking that a functioning society must be based on people following the rules and paying their taxes. At the same time, we must understand that there is a reason why Swedes over time have become less loyal to the Swedish model. Some public systems are simply too difficult and costly for individuals to always follow.

Over-time, the system is becoming less and less Scandinavian and more and more similar to the US.

But wait, there's more Sweden should look to US for welfare solutions:

• There are many who choose to view Sweden as an ideal country lacking any societal ills. But this view doesn’t reflect reality. The generous welfare system, the high taxes on work, and difficulties for those entering the labour market and start businesses have trapped many Swedish families in dependency on various government programmes. Social poverty appears among children growing up in families where none of the parents are working, and where there are few positive role models to be found who have succeeded through hard work and education.

Scandinavia: The Nation of Welfare Dependents. Why think for yourself when the Government will baby-sit you?

They have the lowest child poverty rate (vs. US who is highest) in the western developed world, and make the US look 2nd world if you consider crime, incarceration, poverty, and infant mortality. Again, the less per capita GDP spending on healthcare than the US is GOOD because it means they WIN (all persons are covered, no bankrutcies due to private health care costs, and a lower infant mortality rate)

By "all persons covered" you must not be including all the people who are trying to work around the system or who aren't even treated at all.

c ) Sweden beats US in per person health care based on per capita spending (100% of citizens get treated, and NO one is forced into bankruptcy).

There's that "100% of citizens get treated" thing again which once again, is not a reflection on reality.

Swedes keep voting for higher taxes than the US, this means they are satisfied with the welfare state benefits and quality of life, you twit.

Which must be why they're going out of their way to avoid paying those taxes, right?

5) The US fails in education rankings, again, because it's too private and publicly underfunded thanks to Republican corporatists.

... and yet it leads the world with regard to the number of Foreign Students choosing to get their education there. Funny one that, huh? Maybe their bad Engrish is lowering the US results.

Why is Finland best ? It's not Oil, it's socialized education.

Seems more like a cultural thing to me. And if "socialised education" worked so well, why did Finland go out of its way to de-socialise it in the 90's when everything crashed?

• As the State has been forced to give providers more responsibility, it has also had to give them more power. The old extensive monitoring by State authorities has been reduced considerably, and bureaucratic procedures have been dismantled.

I think you're also forgetting that the vast majority of the United States education system is also provided by the Government.

6) Under Bush, US ranks low in press freedom too.... George is such a reader of the right-wing rags.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01148.html

Oh please, in the same report Denmark dropped from number #1 to #19th because of the whole Mohammed thing.

7) American CEOs keep gouging the general public.

Ahhh... yes. Capitalism is evil and must be stopped! This would never happen if these evil corporations were owned by the loving, generous, caring state.

8) Right-Wing Wacko : "A few more years of that and there won't be any people left in Scandinavia apart from pensioners and early retirees sucking Government revenue dry."

Blindly rampaging capitalists have been saying that about europe and scandinavia for decades. The empirical evidence shows that capitalist extremists don't comprehend a balanced semi-socialist MIXED economy.

Which is why Sweden dropped their taxes from the high 90% in the early 90's, right? High taxes must work! Seems more like Sweden and others in that area are playing fiddlesticks before finally settling on a more US-style system.

9) You must look beyond the mere superficial employement numbers. Many US workers are wage slaves, the working poor.

Which must be why:

• During the 1980s, Swedish income taxes ran as high as 90 percent. As a result, Swedish households accumulated almost no savings. This made them even more dependent on social programs when the economy soured in the early 1990s. Swedes revolted at the ballot box, electing a neo-liberal coalition led by Carl Bildt, who lowered taxes. And without those changes, many economists point out, Sweden's economic rebirth in the late 1990s would have been impossible.

What was that about Swedes wanting high taxes?

AVERAGE LIFE EXPECTANCY :

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=0&v=30&l=en

Again, Scandinavia wins by FAR !!!!!!!!!

By 2 years and where's Denmark? BELOW THE US. Scandinavia wins!!!!oneonone when you ignore the inconvenient Scandinavian countries that bring that standard down. Where's Finland? A meagre .66 above the US! You want to know what the average of Norway, Finland Sweden and Denmark is? 79.23. That puts it 25th and below Greeece, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore. Sure, it still beats the US but not "by far". Not when you compare it to some of the other countries on the list.

Stupid In Debt Right-Wingers...

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=0&v=94&l=en

Fun Fact™: In that graph, US external debt is a whopping 10,040 Billion external debt to $13,794 Billion GDP.
Sweden: 598.2 Billion external debt to $336 Billion GDP
Denmark: 405 Billion external debt $198 Billion GDP
Finland: 251.9 Billion external debt $193 Billion GDP

Wanna know what happens when we do that as an external debt to GDP ratio? Something like this:
Denmark: 200%
Sweden: 178%
Finland: 130%
United States: 73%

The Scandinavian average? 170%. More than double the US. So who's in debt now? Looks like the Scandinavian system is funded on high taxes but that's not enough, so we've gotta add high external debt while we're at it too!

It gets better though:

• the Timbro Institute in Sweden came up with a ranking of all countries of the E.U. vis-à-vis the 50 states of the American union [i.e., the United States]. And it is very interesting that all the Scandinavian countries come at the bottom of the league. In fact, Denmark is poorer than Kentucky.

I'm pretty sure that report is here. Never forget that you're comparing the United States, a country the size of Europe with fifty states, a population of over 300 Million and a wide range of cultural diversity against a small area of Europe, total population 24 Million with very little cultural diversity.

I look forward to your reply which I guess will consist of my entire post being quoted while you number of more things and throw in even more links you googled which don't prove anything or like the ones you've provided so far, prove that Scandinavia isn't really all that better off. Certainly not for the external debt or drastically high taxes they pay.

EDIT: Fixed messed up link.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

"First, let me start off with saying I could care less if they legalize drugs. In fact, I think they should because I don't care much for government telling me what I can and can't do with my body or property."

-So you could (or couldn't) care more ? Well any indifference just helps the FOR-profit "let's mass incarcerate drug users because the prison industry and Pat Robertson say so."

Since when have we ever made a profit on prisoners? Prisons and putting people in them actually COSTS money, not the other way around.

-No, the harsh hyper-incarceration attitude doesn't reduce crime, it instead creates a cycle of brutality, hostility and criminalization.

This is another prime example of how you might have a point if there weren't stacks of information about how the crime rates in the United States have dropped.

- Again, you pursue state relativism and rationalization. The Feds often have jurisdiction where the state says no, (Colorado drug laws for example).

Having sex with someone doesn't fall to the Federal government unless you're crossing state borders. You really have no clue about Federal versus state jurisdictions, do you?

"No, everyone in America can get health care. Not everyone has insurance. There's a difference. If you go to an emergency room, they have to treat you whether you can pay or not. As for getting health insurance, it's pretty damned easy to get. Most lower income jobs offer it, including fast food and retail chain corporation jobs. One of the perks to corporations is that they do offer health plans to their workers if you choose to get them."

-Stop parrotting capitalist/corporatist dogma.

No parroting to it. It's a fact. Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and so on all offer health benefits. All of those jobs would be considered at the lower end of the income spectrum. And yes, by law, if you go in to an emergency room, they have to treat you regardless of if you can pay or not.

-Oh, so any site which proves that too much capitalism, corporatism and militarism can induce dire socio-economic conditions, is to be blindly tossed aside. again, right-wing dogma.

Left wing blogs tend to prove things by making things up, such as that one site you posted about how over 50% of our government spending is on the military when it's actually less than half that. So yeah, I generally ignore anything they have to say.

So the tens of millions without coverage get divine intervention treatment ?

47 million uninsured happens when people don't take the plans their employer offers because they don't want to spend the extra money on it. They're basically gambling on not getting hit by a bus while they're younger and healthy for that extra cash up front. I did the same thing until I was 25.

-Socialized medicine in the US would likely reduce infant mortality rates, but you want a profit before people system.

Actually, it's unlikely, since it has more to do with the responsibility of the parents than it does anything else. Those people already get free health care for children, they just choose not to go. Many children don't get vaccinated until they're ready to start school and that's only because schools mandate vaccinations. Responsible parents have those vaccinations taken care of in the first few years of life.

Furthermore, the United States also reports all born infants as alive if they exhibit any signs of life. In most European countries, there are length limits, weight limits and so forth as to whether or not they are an infant death. If a premature baby is born in America that weighs 450 grams, and then dies, that's an infant death. In Germany, it's not an infant death. In Switzerland, the baby must be 30cm long to be counted as a live infant. Premature babies are the second leading cause of infant death in the United States, and most European countries don't even count those as infant deaths.

So, next time you want to spew about life expectancy in European countries versus the United States, remember that the United States counts more things as infant deaths than the so-called better socialized medicine countries.

-Peanuts. Poverty rates have soared under Bush, as have personal bankruptcies due to medical expenditures and shady lending practices causing a flood of foreclosures. Less Americans have medical coverage now than ever before.

http://www.webmd.com/medicare/news/2008 ... ealth-care

The crisis ahead is because Medicare is on a fast track for going bankrupt.

-No, if they had much less oil or no oil, they'd be like Sweden, Denmark or Finland, and in MANY ways better off.

Finland doesn't produce oil, but they certainly refine the oil and then export it. Neste Oil comes to mind. They also produce tankers and engines for tankers, which makes them reliant on their oil producing neighbors.

"

b) Denmark can afford higher taxes because of it's welfare state benefits.

STUPIDEST STATEMENT OF THE YEAR 2008 CANDIDATE!"

-No.

Yeah, see, welfare comes from tax dollars, not the other way around. That's why it's a stupid statement.

2) They voted center-left for decades.

Then they voted center-right in the 1990s and things improved.

-The US has the highest child poverty rate in the western developed world, and they have a major housing crisis, so it's really not too hard to identify a severe homeless problem as well. 400,000 homeless veterans alone.

Again, wrong. There's 770k homeless per year. Over half of them are not veterans. HUD estimates 770k, and since their funding is based on the amount of homeless people, that number is probably higher than reality. The amount of homeless in the United States sure as hell isn't 3.5 million.

-Actually, as proven in Scandinavia, the left produces a very well off, non-poor, peaceful, prosperous and free society. The left in the US (Kucinich, Obama, Edwards, JFK) really don't get a fair chance to fix the damage caused by right-wing infrastructure and Republican domination. Lol, you keep blaming those who aren't in control !

The left has been in control of congress since 2006. Oddly enough, the housing bubble burst after they took control of the congress. The congress controls spending, regulation, and law making. So yeah, they are in control.

The lenders and mortgage companies made RECORD PROFITS under Bushian corporatism, a system of lax rules and lax regulations they helped design ! You can try to blame the evil left, but the truth is, you are blaming the VICTIM of the system, not the designer and upholder.

Tell that to Bank of America.

-That's only because it's delivered by predominantly REPUBLICAN governments, you moron !!! if it was the Scandinavia center-left running the US federal gov't show, you would NOT be suffering under governmental incompetence, ultra-right-wing ideology, corruption and stupidity.

Wrong. The Republicans have only controlled congress for 12 years out of the last 50 years.

-Again, the Democrats are to the political right of the Scandinavian social democrats, and again, you try to blame the left for things the right wing does. Why does the Netherlands not have such trouble with funding emergency flooding infrastructure ? Because they have been consistently farther LEFT of the Republican dominated USA.
Bush and the Republicult CUT funding for no other reason than to fuel funds into the military-industrial complex.

It's up to the state to allocate the money for those projects. The federal government gives them money for those projects, the state chose to spend the money elsewhere. You give them money for levies and they build bike paths, I'd have cut their funding too. I'm not going to keep giving them money if they don't spend it on what they're supposed to spend it on.

http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm

Again, this is a crap site that can't even come close to truth. Their margain of error on military spending alone is over 200% from reality.

 

[denizsi]

The left has been in control of congress since 2006.

Since 2006? That's, like, FOREVER!

 

[Claw]

I wonder if I'd be better off scratching my balls with my left or my right hand.

 

[Keldorn]

"Okay Keldorn, seriously, you don't need to quote the whole lot and add in every link you found in google but didn't bother to actually read. We're all well aware of the LEFTY websites out there that will happily criticise the US by making up their own figures."

-I will post general linkage so that readers can scan a variety of sites, and not cherrypick pro-capitalist/corporate/Republican sources and precipitate right-wing bias. Nearly every site out there is far to the left of Von Mises, as is 95% of the world AND the US. That's because you are ultra-right. Meanwhile, the sources I show are center-left, center and center-right. But since they are all to the left of Von Mises, you cry "LEFT" and bash Communist scarecrows. If you read ALL the links I've posted in this thread, NONE are Communist, and ALL are moderate. Yours however, are exclusively Neo-Con (US federal gov't) and pure Capitalist (Von Mises). Sometimes, you cherrypick certain anecdotes from certain isolated sources to 'disprove' the Semi-Socialist Scandinavian model, but the big-picture statistics and socio-economic indicators prove you wrong time and time again.



"Everyone say it with me now: Rhetorical crap. Let's see "Fascist state" (last I checked, Americans actually voted for their President and according to the last election, the majority voted for Bush. Whether they regret that now or not is a separate issue and one that'll come into play in the upcoming elections), then we had "puritanical enslavement rationalization", questioning what is or isn't immoral behaviour (while Sweden's clamping down on prostitutes) and the baseless accusation that those being incarcerated are because they broke some Republican "Christo-Fascist" moral code, as opposed to, you know breaking the law. This coming from Europe, the continent that gave us plant rights. Give me a break."

-What actual percentage of ALL Americans voted for Bush ? A small MINORITY !!! What percentage of ALL Americans support him now ? AN EVEN SMALLER PUNY RIGHT-WING MINORITY !!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta ... tion,_2004

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/ ... ion_stolen

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=die ... ties&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=bush+approval&meta=



-You zero in on Sweden, which has shown the least tolerant form of Social Democracy re: social policy. You ignore Finland, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands - which are all more tolerant than the sometimes bad apple exception you solely focus on. Again, the Fascist USA incarcerates a greater percentage of it's own population that any country on earth, including Russia & China !! That means the US is NOT the most free !!!!! This is mainly due to Republican puritanical morality laws which criminalize consentual behaviour in AUTHORITARIAN fashion. In more left-leaning Netherlands, the prudes don't enslave (and torture) those who violate repressive Christo-Fascist norms. Europe and Scandinavia are MORE free than the USA.



" I know it upsets your LEFTY values but sometimes, what people want to do is just out-right wrong. It hurts them, it hurts the people around them and it's generally Not A Good Thing™ for anyone involved. We make that kind of stuff illegal to get the message out there that it's not okay. The only difference is in the US, they're putting some force behind it."

-Too much force. It's the heavy-handed, overly harsh clampdown which CRIMINALIZES people and dooms them to the crime realm classification. This is why the US is now looking at repealing the 3 strike laws.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=rep ... arch&meta=

With 1000's of California homicides every year, the draconian laws do not reduce crime. LA was in the news again this year for an explosion of gang related homicide. The hyper-iincarceration machine is like a black hole.

The states who have the death penalty have by far the highest homicide rates.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/execut4.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/092200-01.htm

http://janda.org/c10/statisticsnews/NoDeathPenalty.htm

http://www.mindspring.com/~phporter/econ.html


http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=dea ... cide&meta=



Fascists like to persecute, incarcerate and torture.


http://www.google.ca/search?q=us+drug+war&hl=en

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... stry&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+torture&meta=



Killing begets killing. But the real problem here is the fascist Republican doctrine which wants the age of consent at 18 and cannabis and other drugs harshly criminalized. Too bad Sweden often follows the US style Fascism WRT social policy, which imprisons those who use the 'wrong' (actually, safer) drugs. As I've said before, Sweden does social-democracy WORST, because like Republicans, they are far more Authoritarian/Totalitarian WRT social policy.


http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+fascism&meta=

-The USA is the world's leading jailer, torturer, innocent civilian killer and corporate enabler. The US, under Republican dominance, is a Neo-FASCIST state.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=sec ... sons&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... arch&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... hile&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... aths&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... +war&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?q=us+centra ... tion&hl=en

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... ddam&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... tism&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... rial&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=bush+fascism&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=bus ... ghts&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=cor ... fare&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=cor ... bush&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=bus ... ding&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+torture&meta=


http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=pre ... tler&meta=


-The evidence is infinite, the US under Bush is a Neo-Fascist state. Just like Hitler, Bush merges corporatism with gov't, exponentially increases the military budget, and kills 100's of 1000's of innocent civilians in a Christo-Fascist fundamentalist campaign. But he's merely carrying on the Republican tradition.



"Now if jailing people really fucked them over and put them into poverty ("impoverish them"), then how come the United States is still significantly better in the poverty stakes than a lot of other countries which have significantly lower incarceration rates?"


-Because you are not looking at the Scandinavian and Northern European models I advocate. You are smearing, obfuscating and scarecrow burning. The circular nature of US poverty, crime and incarceration is something (R) right-wingers merely blindly facilitate and sustain, because it serves the mode of the corporate elite. If Kucinich or Obama were to run the show, and emulate the N.European / Scandinavian model, the US incarceration rate and poverty rate would likely drop. In the models I advocate, poverty and incarceration are a small fraction of what they are in the US. When you fund the poor via the welfare state, you help lift them out of poverty and reduce their likelihood of committing crimes. When you have more tolerant laws, you criminalize people less often for non-violent, consentual behaviour. The Scandinavian / N.European model shows this. In the western developed world, there is a relationship between LOW incarceration rates and LOW poverty rates, and that is something that right-wing Republicans can not and WILL not ever fix, they will only facilitate it for the benefit of the military/prison/corporate elite !!!!!!!!!!!!!!



“More and more Swedes are choosing to adapt to the system by using personal contacts with physicians to get a better quality of healthcare. Others sign up for private health insurance even though they are already paying into the system through taxes. Some choose to travel abroad to get the care they need.

In their survey, the authors of Plan B found that almost 19 percent of Swedes confessed to having gained access to healthcare, either for themselves or a relative, by using personal contacts rather than going through regular administrative channels.

At the same time, 15 percent of those surveyed said that they had spent time taking care of a person close to them for an illness that should have been dealt with by the public healthcare sector.[/list]
I think you'll find Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia's health prosperity has more to do with natural, healthier lifestyles and from having less cultural diversity than the United States. The only downside is nobody cares so much about Scandinavia, where-as everyone enjoys attacking the United States. So of course there's more google results."

-Again, you ignore the overwhelming evidence that in Sweden AND THE OTHER COUNTRIES YOU IGNORE, you are automatically covered and do not have to risk bankruptcy to pay for health care. You have a sole focus on Sweden, and some of it's imperfections, while conveniently IGNORING the OTHER 75% of Scandinavia not to mention Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_car ... ted_States

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/ ... eandhealth

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0505/p02s01-uspo.html

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

http://www.thepresidentialcandidates.us ... kings.html


Nordic countries swept the top rankings of the best places to be a mother, while countries in sub-Saharan Africa dominated the bottom tier. Sweden tops the list.


http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.as ... ueID=31049

http://www.savethechildren.org/newsroom ... other.html

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7010893562

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/05/06/survey.html


So, the evidence shows, that the most profit-based capitalist health care system, the US, is the WORST. Now, if you have lots of money, it may be the best, BUT MOST AMERICANS DO NOT HAVE LOTS OF MONEY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percent_ ... 0_per_year


STUPID right-wing TWITS. Capitalism is for the top 1/5th of society !!! It neglects and exploits the bottom 2/3rds for the benefit of the top 1/3rd !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just love it when right-wing twits start hurling "nanny state" 'rebuttals'.

http://www.progressive-economics.ca/200 ... andinavia/

http://blogs.helsinki.fi/nord-wel/event ... e-welfare/

If the Nordic region finds that people are exploiting the system, then they TWEAK it, not discard it for dumb Republican policies.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... id=googlep

http://www.vexen.co.uk/countries/scandinavia.html


United Nations: Nordic Countries Best Place to Live in the World
The Nordic countries have the best standard of living in the world, as per the Human Development Report published by the United Nations

Best Standard of Living in the World

The Nordic countries are overall the best countries to live in the world, according to the Human Development Report which is published annually by the United Nations. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland figure among the top countries on the UN index because of their high levels of education, democracy, income and public health.

The Human Development Report (HDR) is an annual independent study commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme and published into more than a dozen languages. The HDR measures the wealth of nations by the standard of living of their population and considers several indexes related to life expectancy, education, economy and environment.

Economists, philosophers and political leaders have long emphasised human wellbeing as the sole purpose of economic development. A successful community is not that which has one wealthy member and nine living in poverty, but that one where all members of the community have succeeded in achieving a high standard of living. The HDR measures whether the national income of a nation is creating an environment for its people to enjoy a life with good health services, political freedoms, security against crime, greater access to education and a satisfying leisure time.


Norway tops the index for third consecutive year

The Nordic countries have always performed very well in the United Nations' HDR, all figuring within the top 15 countries on the index. Among the Scandinavians, Norway has become the best performing Nordic country in the report after ranking number one in 2001, 2002 and 2003, heading the Development index for the third consecutive year.

In Norway, 99 percent of the population can read and write, there are 413 doctors per 100,000 citizens, the average life expectancy is 78.4 years, and the Norwegians are even wealthier than ever before. The famous Nordic social welfare state remains efficient and provides the Norwegians with a first class health, education and benefits system, which is financed through their taxes.

Norway has also topped the lists for being among the most generous countries in the world in terms of foreign aid donations on a per capita basis, and for their green environmentally friendly policies.

However the Norwegian society is the most developed in the world, the average Norwegian is still known to complain nonetheless. The current discussion topics in Norway range among the waiting lists for medical care, the shortage of nursing homes and the cuts in police and school budgets.


Quality of Life, Income, Education and Life Expectancy

If we would only focus on per capita income statistics, we would perhaps be surprised to hear that the inhabitants of the small central European nation of Luxembourg are the wealthiest in the world, with an average salary of $53,780. The average salary in Norway is $45,000 but the Nordic countries are above all known for being an egalitarian society; of the seventeen richest countries in the world, Sweden ranks first as having the fewest people living in poverty and the fewest illiterate people, while other rich countries such us the United States have the the most, showing that stark inequality persists even in middle or high-income countries.

Education is one of the pillars of the Nordic society. Illiteracy is practically non existent from Iceland to Finland, and the free national education systems breed some of the most skilled workforce in the world. Moreover, when it comes to equality between women and men, all the five Nordic countries top the index and score again the highest; Iceland takes the lead in terms of emancipation, followed by Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland on the fifth position.

You may now be convinced that people in the Nordic countries live well, but they also live long. The HDR averages life expectancy on the Nordic countries between the 77.7 years of Finland and the 78.9 of Norway. Japan has the longest life expectancy with the average Japanese living up to of 81.3 years.


The rich are richer and the poor are poorer

If the average Norwegian lives 78 years, a child born in Sierra Leone will probaly die before reaching the age of 35. Sierra Leone's average life expectancy is 38.3 years, this is half that in Norway. If all Norwegians are literate and enjoy free education payed by the State, at the other extreme, only 36% of adults in Sierra Leone can read. The average salary in Norway is $45,000, but the average per capita income in Sierra Leone is only $470.

In fact, if the best places to live in the world are found in Europe and north America, the 25 countries at the bottom of the HDR index are all in Africa. Overall child life expectation, adult literacy rate and many other advances have been made in the last 30 years, yet we still see unacceptable levels of deprivation in people's lives across the world: illiteracy, pollution and poor sanitation, poverty and hunger...

Millions of people from the Scandinavian countries have emigrated out of their homelands during the last centuries to escape poverty and war. Today, the Nordic nations are prosperous and stable countries which have made impressive gains in the developing world and have demonstrated the possibility of eradicating poverty. When it comes to building a prosperous society, the Nordic countries should be taken a role model for the developing and developed nations of the world.

http://www.scandinavica.com/culture/soc ... report.htm


Meanwhile, lets see the right-wingers EPIC FAIL.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e18350.htm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23632324/

http://www.thetruthaboutgeorge.com/economy/

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032708S.shtml

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=bus ... lass&meta=

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/31/sot ... nder-bush/

http://americanresearchgroup.com/economy/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/books/21gewen.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts04092008.html

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/76_Pe ... _from_Bush

http://www.google.ca/search?q=bush+appr ... ting&hl=en

Only after 8 years of pro-corporate Neo-Con rule, would the economy be in tatters and tens of millions Americans suffering, making the BAD economy, the #1 issue.

In more left-leaning Europe, with less rampant capitalism, such an economic collapse didn't happen. In FACT, the Euro is kicking the CRAP out of the American Neo-Con corporate dollar !!!! LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





The high tax, LOW foreign held debt, LOW poverty, LOW incarceration, UNIVERSAL health care, foreign policy pacifism, tolerance, social justice, non-religious, NON-FASCIST model is what the ENTIRE WORLD is moving towards, INCLUDING THE US. Americans are sick (literally) of dreaming of a welfare state safety net. They are sick of the military/corporate (FASCIST) elite running the show, as the Republicans like.

The ultra-left-wing Communist model LOSES. The ultra-right-wing corporate-capitalist model LOSES. The center wins.

EURO-SCANDINAVIAN CENTRISM WINS !!!!! SCANDINAVIAN SEMI-SOCIALISM WINS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Keldorn]

"Since when have we ever made a profit on prisoners? Prisons and putting people in them actually COSTS money, not the other way around."

-How idiotic of you, with "we" ! The prison industry executive is an elitist FASCIST. The US DEA drug war gets BILLIONS in taxpayer funds. These are societally removed elements of military-corporate FASCIST infrastructure : the police state.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... tate&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... stry&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+drug+war&meta=


It's in the interest of the Fascist Republican infrastructure to have the USA be the world's leading jailer !

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... rate&meta=

Republican FASCISM.


And as for crime rates, the US still has 2-5 times the homicide rate of Canada, Europe and Scandinavia. By mass incarcerating non-violent drug users, you do not bring the homicide rate down, you simply criminalize behaviour. No doubt, violent offenders should be incarcerated, but going to the extreme with the death penalty and mass incarceration of non-violent, consentual behaviour is entirely unneccesary, and just leads to a climate of Fascism. If the US drops it's homicide rate to Canadian, European and Scandinavian rates, then we can start talking about seriously impactful and effective long-term crime prevention. But with the explosion of homicides this year in Chicago and LA, the Fascist approach is really not working.

For those who like to keep track of these things, the U.S. homicide rate involving guns is eight times that of Canada's.

Canada's rate is 0.5 homicides involving guns per 100,000 population, versus 3.8 per 100,000 in the States. Gun-control advocates estimate anywhere from 500,000 to a million handguns are in Canada. There are probably close to 76 million in the United States.

So, by letting gun manufacturers rake in record profits, the US will NEVER reduce it's gun related homicide rates to Canadian/European/Scandinavian levels. Less gun control = more gun deaths. You can cram 10 000 000 people into jail, but if the corporate gun paradigm keeps being laissez-faire in it's "make the killing machines for cash" approach, then the US will NEVER be as peaceful as the more left-leaning Canadian, European and Scandinavian societies.

The US morality laws, including the age of consent, and it's drug laws, are harsh and draconian.



"No parroting to it. It's a fact. Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and so on all offer health benefits. All of those jobs would be considered at the lower end of the income spectrum. And yes, by law, if you go in to an emergency room, they have to treat you regardless of if you can pay or not."

http://www.nupge.ca/news_2006/n01ma06b.htm

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=med ... s+us&meta=


The US health care is ranked lower than the more left-leaning SUPERIOR countries in Europe & Scandinavia.

http://www.unitedhealthfoundation.com/s ... tions.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCr ... SN07651650

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/co ... 042070.htm


The SOCIALIZED French health care system is the best... those who oppose it or bash it are ignorant, right-wing, corporate greed-mongers.


"Left wing blogs tend to prove things by making things up, such as that one site you posted about how over 50% of our government spending is on the military when it's actually less than half that. So yeah, I generally ignore anything they have to say."

-Yeah, all the sites which knock Republican insanity are left-wing blogs, that's quite a delusion you have there.


"The crisis ahead is because Medicare is on a fast track for going bankrupt."

-Stop attacking Republican scarecrows, look to France, and Scandinavia - properly funded (through HIGH taxes, especially on the RICH) SOCIALIZED medicine is clearly superior.


"Finland doesn't produce oil, but they certainly refine the oil and then export it. Neste Oil comes to mind. They also produce tankers and engines for tankers, which makes them reliant on their oil producing neighbors."

-So, if a highly ranked economy, a free, prosperous, semi-socialist nation touches oil then their superior socio-economic statistics are instantly invalidated ? You hypocritical right-wingers are insane. Scandinavia has great fuel economy for their cars, and has progressive environmental policies. The simple truth is, you dumb right-wingers want to dismiss any and all evidence of a semi-socialist euro-state being better off than a more capitalist American one. PURE envy, and denial of empirical reality.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=fin ... rank&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=env ... ries&meta=



"Yeah, see, welfare comes from tax dollars, not the other way around. That's why it's a stupid statement."

Dumb right-wingers. In center-left social democracy, with high-taxation, you pay first and have to wait for benefits to come. When they come (superior health care, superior education, low poverty, low crime, low incarceration, less working hours per week, better retirement packages, better old age security, better welfare rates and beteer unemployment insurance etc.), you have LESS OUT OF POCKET EXPENSES IF YOU ARE IN THE BOTTOM 1/3RD OF SOCIETY (as contrasted with the millions of brutally exploited Americans in the bottom 1/3rd of income earners). STUPID right-wingers. Social democracy gives the bottom 1/3rd of society things they simply couldn't afford in a pure capitalist system. And yes, the megarich are progressively taxed to help FUND this more egalitarian, benevolent, humanitarian system.


"The amount of homeless in the United States sure as hell isn't 3.5 million."

-Blind, dismissive, Right-Wing Republican LIE. Close your eyes to the negative truths of Capitalism, in the hope they will disappear.


"The left has been in control of congress since 2006. Oddly enough, the housing bubble burst after they took control of the congress. The congress controls spending, regulation, and law making. So yeah, they are in control."

-Republicans have won 2/3rds of all US elections, and the US democrats are RIGHT-WING BY EURO-SCANDINAVIAN STANDARDS. The vast majority of American presidents have NOT been Democrats, and even if they WERE, they'd be too far right according to balanced Euro-Scandinavian standards. You can't blame the negative effects of 8 years of Republican rule on Scandinavian social-democracy, BECAUSE IT HAS NEVER ATTAINED FEDERAL GOVERNANCE IN THE USA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2008

In the above link, Kucinich is center-left Scandinavia, and the Democrats and Republicans are more like rampaging right-wingers.


"Wrong. The Republicans have only controlled congress for 12 years out of the last 50 years."

-In the US, the President holds near-omnipotent power, as in veto. Again, 2/3rds - 3/4 of American presidents have NOT been Democrats. But the (D) doesn't always represent the center-left Scandinavian model anyways !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's more right-wing, because the US is a FAR more right-wing paradigm. The president of the USA, is like a dictator. Even a (D) controlled congress is effectively shackled by presidential veto power.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=pre ... veto&meta=

-In a more democratic, transparent, NON-AUTHORITARIAN Euro-Scandinavian system of proportional representation, with 5-10 parties, the Fascist, dictatorial manifestations of the USA are avoided.



"It's up to the state to allocate the money for those projects. The federal government gives them money for those projects, the state chose to spend the money elsewhere. You give them money for levies and they build bike paths, I'd have cut their funding too. I'm not going to keep giving them money if they don't spend it on what they're supposed to spend it on."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02261.html

http://www.factcheck.org/article344.html

http://www.democrats.org/a/2005/09/bush_claims_the.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archiv ... 007023.php

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/US_Se ... trina.html


The Republicultian USA taxes the middle class at TWICE the rate of billionaires, and then PUMPS the revenue into the military-industrial-prison-pharmaceutical complex.

That's called "robbing from the non-rich to give to the megarich, corporatist/fascist elite."

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0906-31.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00097.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_welfare

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... fare&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... rugs&meta=


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... penditures


http://www.dailycardinal.com/article/2378

http://www.metafilter.com/23517/DEA-fai ... get-review


Under (R) rule, and a not-left-enough (D) option, the USA has morphed into a Neo-Fascist state : the military-industrial-prison-pharmaceutical MONSTER.

It's really quite empirical, and entirely irrefutable (unless you are a blind, repressive right-wing WACKO).

 

[Keldorn]

I wonder if I'd be better off scratching my balls with my left or my right hand.

According to Scandinavian centrism, an alternating, moderate amount of both.

 

[Redeye]

3.5 million homeless is only a little over 1%.

Like around 1.16161616%

Plenty of boxcars.

The Romantic Life Of The Hobo.


Or, more realistically... this.

 

[Azael]

You know, I find it funny to see all the talk about the love and support the social democrats have here in Scandinavia, seeing how they're voted out of office in every Scandinavian country except for Norway where they won the last election (after being out for office a couple of years). Personally, I'm fucking tired of the most corrupt party in Sweden and their almost Animal Farm-esque attitude of diverging equality. While the regular people have a hard time finding good apartments to rent in the city, the higher ups in the Party and affiliates in the unions/other allies somehow manage to land nice contracts on nice rent-controlled apartments right in the posh areas. At the same time they fight with tooth and nail against actions that might actually make the housing market better (drop rent control, etc.). Fucking hypocrites, thinking they own the country. Some of the noblesse has actually had the gall in the past to compare losing an election to a coup d'état.

With that rant off my mind. Carry on the pointless e-penis battle.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

-I will post general linkage so that readers can scan a variety of sites, and not cherrypick pro-capitalist/corporate/Republican sources and precipitate right-wing bias.

So, instead, you cherry pick left wing sites? Or google things that you know are going to bring up left wing sites like the phrase, "secret cia prison"?

Nearly every site out there is far to the left of Von Mises, as is 95% of the world AND the US.

And they like to make stuff up.

-What actual percentage of ALL Americans voted for Bush ? A small MINORITY !!!

That's because a lot of Americans don't vote at all.

What percentage of ALL Americans support him now ? AN EVEN SMALLER PUNY RIGHT-WING MINORITY !!!!!

Nope, wrong. Bush has done more than enough to piss off the right wing with adding to government spending, not securing the borders post 9/11, the ethanol thing(which is causing global food shortages), and so on.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

OH, yeah. Here's a more fun link:

Democrat offers crack cocaine to buy votes

Democrats oppose the idea of voters having to have ID to vote. The argument is that it will disenfranchise the poor if they have to get an ID. Meanwhile, those same poor people have to have an ID to get welfare and other social entitlements!

So don't give me this bullshit about how Republicans steal elections. The vast majority of election fraud convictions come from the Democratic side of things, and any attempts to cut down on election fraud via things like Voter ID Acts are fought tooth and nail by the Democratic side.

-Too much force. It's the heavy-handed, overly harsh clampdown which CRIMINALIZES people and dooms them to the crime realm classification. This is why the US is now looking at repealing the 3 strike laws.

Actually, certain states are looking to reform three strikes laws. California really needs to reform theirs since the third strike can be any felony. In most states, it needs to be a violent crime to be considered the third strike.

The states who have the death penalty have by far the highest homicide rates.

Is your brain so faulty that you're suggesting that criminals think, "Hey, since there's no death penalty in this state, I won't kill anyone today!"? I'd say it's more a matter of the states thinking, "Since we have so many murders, we should clamp down more." The death penalty doesn't lead to more killings, it's the other way around. Even then, the death penalty is rarely ever enforced, so there's very little reason in having one. The majority of people on death row tend to die of old age because we rarely ever put anyone to death.

Fascists like to persecute, incarcerate and torture.

And, of course, the majority of fascists are left wing. Hilter, Mao Se Tung, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Min, Stalin, and so on, all politically left.

Killing begets killing. But the real problem here is the fascist Republican doctrine which wants the age of consent at 18 and cannabis and other drugs harshly criminalized. Too bad Sweden often follows the US style Fascism WRT social policy, which imprisons those who use the 'wrong' (actually, safer) drugs. As I've said before, Sweden does social-democracy WORST, because like Republicans, they are far more Authoritarian/Totalitarian WRT social policy.

I'm still on the legalize all drugs bandwagon. If we're going to make any plant illegal, I'd suggest poison ivy.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+fascism&meta=

Oh yeah, there's a center of the road thing to search for.

-The USA is the world's leading jailer, torturer, innocent civilian killer and corporate enabler. The US, under Republican dominance, is a Neo-FASCIST state.

If the United States were a fascist state, this server would have been taken by the government a long time ago just because of the stupid shit you post on here. See, in ACTUAL fascism, you're not allowed to talk about fascism or else you'd disappear.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+pinochet+chile&meta=

Yup, we supported a dictator to keep Communists out of Chile. Now, given the track record of Latin American Communist Regimes, it's kind of hard to make a case that the people in Chile would be better off under the Communists than Pinochet. The evil dictator who backs you is generally better than the evil dictator who hates you.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+iraq+civilian+deaths&meta=

One of the numbers you'll pull up in there is a number some professor at some school paid a few people in iraq to go door to door and ask them if they knew any people who had been killed. Then they multiplied the number of "Yes, I do"s by the total number of households in Iraq. Just because you use math somewhere doesn't make it a statistic.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+funded+saddam&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... tism&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... rial&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=bush+fascism&meta=

Yup, more proof of your balanced links. Let's drudge up some unbiased results by googling for "Bush fascism". Yup, we won't find any bias in that!

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=prescott+bush+hitler&meta=

Here's a fun link, google up "Kennedy Hilter".

-The evidence is infinite, the US under Bush is a Neo-Fascist state. Just like Hitler, Bush merges corporatism with gov't, exponentially increases the military budget, and kills 100's of 1000's of innocent civilians in a Christo-Fascist fundamentalist campaign. But he's merely carrying on the Republican tradition.

More like "the evidence is bullshit" and "Keldork doesn't know what fascim is".

If Kucinich or Obama were to run the show, and emulate the N.European / Scandinavian model, the US incarceration rate and poverty rate would likely drop. In the models I advocate, poverty and incarceration are a small fraction of what they are in the US.

No, more like companies would pick up and move, leading to higher unemployment and crime. The United States corporate tax rate is 40%, the second highest in the industrial world. You raise that, you're going to see more factories close down and move to Mexico, India or China. You can google up "corporate welfare" all you want, but the United States still has a much, much higher corporate tax than any of the countries you advocate.

Most of the people in prison wouldn't get a job regardless of how much rich people were taxed.

When you fund the poor via the welfare state, you help lift them out of poverty and reduce their likelihood of committing crimes.

No, you just make them dependent. If you're poor in America, it's because of something you've done or something you're not doing. Plain and simple. I work in a middle income job, and I've seen people come and go from the same position I'm in because they wouldn't show up for work, stole things from customers, and so forth.

I've also seen poor people drop $25 on the lottery at one pop. I've even seen poor people put back food in favor of buying lottery tickets. You take that $25 a week and put that in an IRA, that's $1300 at the end of the year. Each year it grows 15% to 25%. By the time you're 59, you can retire off that and live pretty well. I started at 35 with an IRA. At $4000 per year at 15% growth, I'm set to retire at 59 with $3,000,000. Do they do that? Nope.

Most everyone in America starts off poor, whether you stay there or not is up to you. I went from working paycheck to paycheck, worrying about paying bills each month, to having a $45k a year job. I'm in line for a promotion as well. I invest my money so I can make more money. I don't have a college degree, either. So, don't give me this, "The poor get poorer" bullshit. That's what it is. Bullshit.

You can sit around complaining about being poor or you can do something about it. It's not that hard to go up to the bank teller and ask them about a mutual fund or an IRA. It's not hard to show up to work every day.

When you have more tolerant laws, you criminalize people less often for non-violent, consentual behaviour. The Scandinavian / N.European model shows this. In the western developed world, there is a relationship between LOW incarceration rates and LOW poverty rates,

It's also not hard to not commit a felony.

 

[kingcomrade]

Guise actually Amerika is a neoCONfascist state. Because of the Jews. Actually in the last election nobody voted for Bush, that's how he won enough states to win the election, by using his corporate CIA neocon ninja agents to rig the elections. In reality we should be in Bill Clinton's fourth term right now but Bush's Big Pharmaceutical Buddies who control the media have us living in a 1984 style world where everything we know is a lie manufactured by the military-industrial complex. It's clear that Bush did 9/11, it just chills me that there are people out there who don't believe that. They are like sheep, being led by their master off a cliff.

 

[aron searle]

I'm set to retire at 59 with $3,000,000.

You're my bestest friend EVAR.

When you fund the poor via the welfare state, you help lift them out of poverty and reduce their likelihood of committing crimes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7288430.stm

 

[DarkUnderlord]

-I will post general linkage so that readers can scan a variety of sites, and not cherrypick pro-capitalist/corporate/Republican sources and precipitate right-wing bias. Nearly every site out there is far to the left of Von Mises, as is 95% of the world AND the US.

Oh look, it's a LEFTY making up statistics again. Who would've thought?

Meanwhile, the sources I show are center-left, center and center-right. But since they are all to the left of Von Mises, you cry "LEFT" and bash Communist scarecrows. If you read ALL the links I've posted in this thread, NONE are Communist, and ALL are moderate. Yours however, are exclusively Neo-Con (US federal gov't) and pure Capitalist (Von Mises). Sometimes, you cherrypick certain anecdotes from certain isolated sources to 'disprove' the Semi-Socialist Scandinavian model, but the big-picture statistics and socio-economic indicators prove you wrong time and time again.

It's time for another Fun Fact™. If you average out the Scandinavian results, Australia performs better than the Scandinavian model. And last I checked, Australia doesn't use the Scandinavian model. It has a majority publicly funded health system which everyone whinges about, much like the US. Taxes are also much like the US. We are riding high on a commodity boom though. Then of course there's Japan. It doesn't have anywhere near the exorbitantly high taxes of Scandinavia and they too, perform better than Scandinavia. Funny one that.

-What actual percentage of ALL Americans voted for Bush ? A small MINORITY !!! What percentage of ALL Americans support him now ? AN EVEN SMALLER PUNY RIGHT-WING MINORITY !!!!!

And what percentage of ALL Swedes voted for their current ruling parties? 48.24%! At least Bush actually managed a real majority over 50%. Seems there was even a scandal over there too. And I thought they weren't corrupt in Sweden because, you know, the glory of Scandinavia and all.

The Labour Party in Norway meanwhile was offering drug addicts bribes to vote for them. And hey look, nobody actually got a majority over there either. Their ruling Coalition is between Labour, Socialist and Centre parties for an incredible... 45.1. Still less than Bush.

Then there's Denmark. Their ruling group of the Liberal, Conservative and People's parties hold an impressive majority of... wait for it... 50.5% Still less than Bush's 50.7% majority.

Wow, those Scandinavians have a much better system. With all their allegations of fraud and vote buying and parties without majorities forming Government, they actually sound worse than the US.

-You zero in on Sweden, which has shown the least tolerant form of Social Democracy re: social policy. You ignore Finland, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands - which are all more tolerant than the sometimes bad apple exception you solely focus on. Again, the Fascist USA incarcerates a greater percentage of it's own population that any country on earth, including Russia & China !! That means the US is NOT the most free !!!!! This is mainly due to Republican puritanical morality laws which criminalize consentual behaviour in AUTHORITARIAN fashion. In more left-leaning Netherlands, the prudes don't enslave (and torture) those who violate repressive Christo-Fascist norms. Europe and Scandinavia are MORE free than the USA.

Oh okay, so we're ignoring Norway because of their oil. We're now ignoring Sweden because they're "the least tolerant form of Social Democracy" (must be why they're topping all those economically competitive results). So who's LEFT? Finland?

• Finland is also the most expensive country in Europe, the most violent society in the EU and has the least dense motorway network (is this good or bad though?). It is a small country of only 5 million people which are largely ethnically homogenous. With this small size and simple make-up, Finland faces fewer problems than other developed countries, so its success is partially an accident. It is also fortunate to be home to one highly successful company, Nokia, on which it largely depends.

"The most violent society in the EU", that's quite a claim to fame there. Oh look, there success is "partially an accident". Looks like we should ignore them too. Let's re-cap on who we're ignoring then:

• Norway: Oil
  
  Sweden: "the least tolerant form of Social Democracy"
  
  Finland: Nokia, ethnically homogenous population, success is partially an accident, most violent society in the EU, most expensive country in Europe.
  
  Denmark: Performs about the same as, and sometimes worse than, the US in many statistics (Life Expectancy, Literacy, Death rate).

Welp, that's over half of Scandinavia gone. So what were you saying about Scandinavian supremacy again? Accidents, oil and performances on par with the US. Wow, that's real impressive.

-Too much force. It's the heavy-handed, overly harsh clampdown which CRIMINALIZES people and dooms them to the crime realm classification. This is why the US is now looking at repealing the 3 strike laws.

Good. It means the US ain't so bad after all. They're willing to try new things and if it doesn't work, adapt. Seems like the US system is working just fine.

Fascists like to persecute, incarcerate and torture.

While LEFTIES like to kiss and make-up.

But the real problem here is the fascist Republican doctrine which wants the age of consent at 18 and cannabis and other drugs harshly criminalized. Too bad Sweden often follows the US style Fascism WRT social policy, which imprisons those who use the 'wrong' (actually, safer) drugs. As I've said before, Sweden does social-democracy WORST, because like Republicans, they are far more Authoritarian/Totalitarian WRT social policy.

Selectively ignore the inconvenient truth of countries in Scandinavia that don't back-up our claims, even though we happily used them earlier when they had statistics they we wanted to use. Right. Got ya.

-The USA is the world's leading jailer, torturer, innocent civilian killer and corporate enabler. The US, under Republican dominance, is a Neo-FASCIST state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist

• Fascism is a government, faction or political philosophy that raises nationalism, and frequently race, above the individual and is characterized by a centralized autocratic state governed by a dictatorial head, stringent organization of the economy and society, and aggressive repression of opposition.

Funny how they're in the middle of Democratic elections in the US right now, innit? I don't see snipers taking potshots at Hillary or Obama yet (even despite what Hillary has claimed about certain overseas trips as the First Lady). When do they start doing that? Do you reckon they'll start tomorrow because I really don't want to wait that long. I'm hoping the brown shirts will be marching through the streets any day now.

Really, you need to understand what fascism is, then you'd understand that the US isn't it. Opposing things through the court system, publicly "fighting" (in a verbal sense) is not the fascist way. Death squads are.

Here's another Fun Fact™ though:

• Mussolini and the fascists managed to be simultaneously revolutionary and traditionalist,[11][12] because this was vastly different to anything else in the political climate of the time it is sometimes described as "The Third Way".

Who's here proposing some kind of "Third Way" again? Oh that's right, it's you.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=prescott+bush+hitler&meta=

-The evidence is infinite, the US under Bush is a Neo-Fascist state. Just like Hitler, Bush merges corporatism with gov't, exponentially increases the military budget, and kills 100's of 1000's of innocent civilians in a Christo-Fascist fundamentalist campaign.

At this point it might be prudent to remind everybody that 9/11 happened first. The War in Afghanistan and Iraq occured as a response to people like Osama calling for a Jihad against the West. We have this thing in the West called "self-defense". It means if you declare an intent to try and kill us, we kind of, well, we don't take that too well.

"Now if jailing people really fucked them over and put them into poverty ("impoverish them"), then how come the United States is still significantly better in the poverty stakes than a lot of other countries which have significantly lower incarceration rates?"

-Because you are not looking at the Scandinavian and Northern European models I advocate.

You mean Norway which we're ignoring because of their oil, Sweden we're ignoring because they're bad Socialists, Finland who are apparently pretty violent and who's success is more an accident and Denmark which has statistics which are just as shitty as the US? Sorry, but what was left of your "model"? The model seems to be more "whoops" than any deliberate planning.

-Again, you ignore the overwhelming evidence that in Sweden AND THE OTHER COUNTRIES YOU IGNORE, you are automatically covered and do not have to risk bankruptcy to pay for health care. You have a sole focus on Sweden, and some of it's imperfections, while conveniently IGNORING the OTHER 75% of Scandinavia not to mention Europe.

Oh, we get to include all of Europe now? Ok, well the infant mortality figures are ones you especially like with the US "so high" at 6.3, so let's look at:

• Ukraine: 12.8
  Greece: 6.7
  Poland: 6.7

Oh I'm sorry, should I only be selectively including the countries that have better statistics? Like:

• United Kingdom: 4.8
  France: 4.2

Hmmm... I don't think the UK or France have adopted the Scandinavian welfare model. Will you be rabbiting on about how wonderful the UK is now?

Nordic countries swept the top rankings of the best places to be a mother, while countries in sub-Saharan Africa dominated the bottom tier. Sweden tops the list.

Yes but Sweden is "the least tolerant form of Social Democracy". You're not really advocating we copy their model now, are you? Or are you just picking and choosing whatever results suit your case while ignoring the overall picture?

So, the evidence shows, that the most profit-based capitalist health care system, the US, is the WORST. Now, if you have lots of money, it may be the best, BUT MOST AMERICANS DO NOT HAVE LOTS OF MONEY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percent_ ... 0_per_year

"19% of Americans earn over $100,000 US per annum."

"Median household income in Sweden at the end of the 1990s was the equivalent of $26,800 compared with a median of $39,400 for US households"

So Scandinavian countries have lower median household income, have a higher cost of living and pay exorbitant taxes while the US has almost double the median income, pay lower taxes and have a lower cost of living.

Oh I'm sorry, I forgot we should ignore Sweden because they're a bad example.

STUPID right-wing TWITS. Capitalism is for the top 1/5th of society !!! It neglects and exploits the bottom 2/3rds for the benefit of the top 1/3rd !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just love it when right-wing twits start hurling "nanny state" 'rebuttals'.

http://www.progressive-economics.ca/200 ... andinavia/

http://blogs.helsinki.fi/nord-wel/event ... e-welfare/

If the Nordic region finds that people are exploiting the system, then they TWEAK it, not discard it for dumb Republican policies.

Oh okay, so you have an imperfect model which doesn't actually work because they need to TWEAK it constantly and quite dramatically by dropping taxes 40% to bring them more into line with the US. You come back to me when they've actually figured the model out then. And here's a tip: It needs to be a model that lasts at least a few decades. You know, like the US model has.

If we would only focus on per capita income statistics, we would perhaps be surprised to hear that the inhabitants of the small central European nation of Luxembourg are the wealthiest in the world, with an average salary of $53,780. The average salary in Norway is $45,000 but the Nordic countries are above all known for being an egalitarian society; of the seventeen richest countries in the world, Sweden ranks first as having the fewest people living in poverty and the fewest illiterate people, while other rich countries such us the United States have the the most, showing that stark inequality persists even in middle or high-income countries.

Oh look, there's Sweden again. I thought we were ignoring them? You know because they have "the least tolerant form of Social Democracy". And yet here they are winning!

You may now be convinced that people in the Nordic countries live well, but they also live long. The HDR averages life expectancy on the Nordic countries between the 77.7 years of Finland and the 78.9 of Norway. Japan has the longest life expectancy with the average Japanese living up to of 81.3 years.

77.7 of Finland + 78.9 of Norway / 2 = 78.3 average.

United States life expectancy? 78.

I'm sorry, I thought Scandinavia was supposed to be clearly superior, not "just scraping through".

In fact, if the best places to live in the world are found in Europe and north America

There's the US again, right up the top as one of the "best palces to live in the world".

Meanwhile, lets see the right-wingers EPIC FAIL.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e18350.htm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23632324/

http://www.thetruthaboutgeorge.com/economy/

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032708S.shtml

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=bus ... lass&meta=

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/31/sot ... nder-bush/

http://americanresearchgroup.com/economy/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/books/21gewen.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts04092008.html

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/76_Pe ... _from_Bush

http://www.google.ca/search?q=bush+appr ... ting&hl=en

Now if George W really was the fascist you keep saying he is (and comparing him to Hitler), wouldn't he be rounding those people up and you know, having them shot or something?

Only after 8 years of pro-corporate Neo-Con rule, would the economy be in tatters and tens of millions Americans suffering, making the BAD economy, the #1 issue.

In more left-leaning Europe, with less rampant capitalism, such an economic collapse didn't happen. In FACT, the Euro is kicking the CRAP out of the American Neo-Con corporate dollar !!!! LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, which must be why some Scandinavian countries don't even use the Euro. While some use the Euro and aren't a part of the EU. I'm sorry, but what "model" are we copying here? For a model to be a model, it actually has to have something consistent. Not vast disparity between all of the countries. That's not a real model.

The high tax, LOW foreign held debt

Actually we established that on comparison with the US, the Scandinavian countries had quite high foreign held debt. More than double the US, in fact.

UNIVERSAL health care

Is this the same "UNIVERSAL health care" that had 20% of Swedes bypassing their own system so that they could actually get access to healthcare, the same system that wasn't treating "100%" of the people and that had people being left behind? That sounds just like the US system right there.

foreign policy pacifism

Well, let's face it. It's not like Scandinavians are looked to as the "leaders of the free world" are they? When things like Kosovo occur, the world doesn't jump up in arms and ask "Why isn't Scandinavia do something about it?". They will however, ask that of the US. Which is why the US pays most of the United Nation's budget. I don't see Scandinavia doing that. Hey maybe the US should be more pacifist though, it'd at least save them a few tens of Billions from propping up the UN which they could spend on healthcare.

 

[kingcomrade]

-The evidence is infinite, the US under Bush is a Neo-Fascist state. Just like Hitler, Bush merges corporatism with gov't, exponentially increases the military budget, and kills 100's of 1000's of innocent civilians in a Christo-Fascist fundamentalist campaign.

Haha, holy shit. Did Keldorn ever answer my question about how old he is?

 

[Kaiserin]

I would actually argue that fascism doesn't inherently involve death squads or public oppression. I suggest you read some work by Sir Oswald Mosley if you're under the impression that fascism = "a dictatorship where everything stinks." Nazism on the other hand....

 

[kingcomrade]

But America is not just fascist, it's Christo-Fascist. I don't even know what that's supposed to mean, must be a European thing.

 

[dagorkan]

I would actually argue that fascism doesn't inherently involve death squads or public oppression. I suggest you read some work by Sir Oswald Mosley if you're under the impression that fascism = "a dictatorship where everything stinks." Nazism on the other hand....

Fascism simply means an 'organic' representation of society in government, where organic and society have their own definition which most people wouldn't agree with. What did Oswald Mosley write that's so good? Instead I'd advise to read Carl Schmitt, who ignorant leftists have hijacked his name to pretend he was the father of neoconservatism (after they said that was Kojeve)

He was a lawyer and theorized a lot about the Third Reich being more of a real democracy than the Weimar republic... though it was more in the twenties before the NSDAP became powerful and he wasn't a fascist, more of an old-school right-winger.

Kind of an anti-parliamentarian, anti-party, anti-liberal definition of democracy and more of a use of power in the general interest. He said liberalism was anti-democratic since it simply gave power to factions which leads to the country being driven by politics.

Worthwhile reading.