When you state something publicly it has more of an effect than a private note to someone. If the opposite was true, Bozell would have emailed West and Williams about their behavior instead of publicly calling them "pigs." As far as alienating myself, if I need to be liked I'll go to a bar and buy drinks for the house.Thats the kind of friends you make by agreeing with things you don't agree with.

Politics is showbiz for ugly people

I knew He was a Leftist, which is why I voted against Him.  I knew this and so did others.  His "packaging" suggested otherwise.   

Sorry, sweetie, he said that He would reduce taxes for 95% of Americans.  That is running on the Right.  Many people voted for Him thinking they were getting Clinton ca. 1995-2001.  What they forgot was that Clinton was restrained by G_______, and later Hastert.    

I know that you are deeply aching for this country to be a bunch of Statists/Socialists like you, but it isn't the case.  If so that whole agenda would have been passed by 1 July.  It hasn't been.  not only hasn't it been passed, but these ideas have been countered by a mass movement which has (so far) culminated in a march on Washington, which, regardless of numbers, is impressive considering that those participating in the march are the absolute worse revolutionaries on earth. 

Why is this? 

"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)

 Since you are going to be this guys Superman, show me the data which supports your claim that the Soviet Union and East Germany failed solely because they were socialist countries.  Go read Frederick Taylor's Berlin Wall.  It goes into great detail as to how East Germany was going broke when the Wall came down.

There is yet another piece of evidence.  The Berlin Wall itself.  If everything was so great in East Germany, if everyone loved being totally babied by the government, with their jobs, their housing, and MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL (how humanity has surviied 6000 yeards without this I have no idea), "free" health care - why was Operation Rose initiated in August 1961? 

For the Soviet Union, check out The Black Book of Communism.  Geoffrey Hosking (sp?) argues for the awakening of Russian national consciousness as the reason the Soviet Union fell in Rulers and Victims: The Russians in the Soviet Union, but he makes plenty of compelling economic arguments as well.  You may also want to check out The President, The Pope, and the Prime Minister.  The Struggle For Europe by William Hitchcock will also make some compelling arguments for both the downfall of the Soviet Union and East Germany. 

Happy reading. 

The reunited Germany is a "capitalist" country with a socialist healthcare system.  I guess they are only going to be half failures this time.  Germany is already showing signs of slippage.  The Economist has indicated that they are the world's fourth largest economy.  I always have heard them mentioned as second- or third- largest before.  In addition, the health care system in Germany is slightly different: if you make less than 48, 000 euros a year, the German government will coddle and baby you with "free" health care.  (How free it can be with their tax rates around 55-60% I have no idea.)  If you make more than 48,000 euros a year: too bad.  Get your own. 

In any case, I have no interest in emulating Germany because they are Going Nowhere.   

By the way, Foreign Policy in July/August 2007 had a discussion of Europe in their "Think Again" segment, where they shoot down popular fallacies.  In response to a sentiment you doubtless agree with, "Europe Provides The World's Best Health Care" (Unsane's note: Health care is an open compound.  I refuse to type it as a closed compound even if everyone else around me does.  Including Foreign Policy), the author, a Mr. Clive Crook, says:

"Not really.  A popular fallacy in the United States is that, when it comes to health care, Europe offers a single universal coverage alternative to the predominantly private U.S. system.  In fact, Europe has as many different health care systems as it does countries. 

"True, the United States's system is an outlier because of its reliance on private insurance.  But Europe's systems offer no single, plainly superior substitute.  Rather, theyrepresent a bewildering array of very different, ever changing, and frequently unpopular models.  Britain combines a single-payer, universal access National Health Service with an extensive and rapidly growing private-insurance system, which sprang up because of discontent over standards in the state sector.  The share of private spending runs higher in France, Germany, and Italy, and approaches 40 percent in the Netherlands.  Competition, control, and cost-sharing vary widely as well: single-payer, multipayer, centralized, decentralized, and everything in between.  This endless variety proves the difficulty of getting health care right.  The issue is a political battleground almost everywhere. 

"If you have insurance, the U.S. system provides you with world-class health care at a high price.  (Unsane's note: I don't have insurance and have no problems accessing health care when I need it.)  Does any European country offer a system that is both feasible and plainly preferable to for the insured majority?  The answer is no.  By common consent, the French system is among the best: expensive (though cheaper than the U.S. option); universally accessible, with plenty of patient and doctor autonomy, good results on standard measures, and it's popular to boot.  What's not to like?  Well, ask a French doctor or two when they return from their protest march.  They're paid a third of what American doctors make.  The French system with American salaries would be unaffordable."

"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)

 This is boring.  You are all over the place and you're filled with rhetoric.  I am not going to continue to rebuff all of your strawman arguments.  The projecting here is unreal.  You are the one who is all over the place, vomiting constantly in your bid to justify your Statism/Socialism.  Instead of constantly accusing me of what you routinely have been doing here, you may want to confront my counterarguments squarely. 

Why can't you simply answer the questions?  Why do you have to interject arguments no one else is making in order to support your position?  I did answer your questions.  The problem is that you don't like the answers as they are NOT what you want to hear, so you are throwing a temper tantrum. 

Here I will help you out.  By arguing with your heart, not your brain.  This doesn't work with me. No, it doesn't make any sense for someone to go to work 40 hours a week and still have to rent an apartment or live with relatives.  Um, yes it does.  My sisters have had to resort to that in their younger days because they were LOSERS.  When they decided to stop beign losers, this ended.  Amazing, isn't it?  I would suggest your problem is less with the amount of money people make and more with the fact that you want a no-fault existence; a world where such silly concepts as "responsibility" and "freewill" are things of the past.  If someone is workign 40 hours a week and still living with relatives, i would suggest they either learn how to manage their money or nget a better job.  You need to learn to stop blaming other people for their problems.    No it doesn't make sense for people to have to pay inflated prices because of insurance.  So, since you are the self-appointed expert on the economy, why don't you tell me what the insurance companies are supposed to be charging.  Who determines the prices for...well, anything?  YOU?  A bunch of Socialists like you?  You need to learn a lot more about the price mechanism.  May I suggest Basic Economics by Dr. Thomas Sowell? No, it's not what "they" are willing to pay its what the insurance companies are willing to pay for their own selfish reasons.   I love selfishness.  Selfishness is what makes capitalism and the economy great.  Selfishness, like what you decry constantly, is the reason this country, and not countries that baby people like you want, is basically doing ALL of the medical advancement in the world. Eighty-five percent of ALL the world's medical discoveries happen right here in the United States.  ALL because of the evil selfishness you so decry.

I'd submit that it is YOU who is truly beign selfish by constantly demanding the government steal from me and millions of others to pay for something you can manage to get all by yourself. 

You notice the governments roll in protecting property and commerce but you can't see how helping out poor people is doing exactly that.  When the government "helps the poor", it consists of paying them to stay poor.  If I want to help the poor, I give to charity.  Sorry, but it only makes sense for the government to help out the lesser of us in times of need.  No, it only makes sense for you to get off your ass and help the poor YOUR OWN DAMN SELF.  Since you weep so painfully many tears of guilt for "the poor", I'd suggest you need to get off of your ass and start a charity of your own, or go volunteer. Stop demanding the government be turned into the United Way because you are too lazy for charity.  Also, studies show that families are better off when owning a home compared to renting.  So what?  I'd be better off if I owned a home, but I'm not running around with my hands out begging people to help me.  I am helping myself and will. Your job is to stay the hell out of the way and watch me make it happen. 

Tell you what: you show me where it specifically states in the Constitution that the government needs to provide homes to people. 

How have I encouraged or mandated that you live like me?  You told me to go out and buy insurance if I wanted healthcare so bad, as you do.  So tell me how I have told you to live your life.  I'll wait.  Let's see: your caterwauling for a Socialist Nanny State.  In your last paragraph, you indicate that it's the government's job to coddle and baby poor people.  Hence, you are demanding that I fork over more tax money to the government for YOUR guilt, when giving to charity, voluntarily, works infinitely better.  YOU are demanding that the government provide health care to everybody and you do not care about the national debt.  Just those two proposals of yours alone directly involves me and is a command from YOU to ME about how to live MY life and spend MY hard-earned money. 

Your hyperbole is getting out of control.  I could care less about what you have and I would never pick up a gun to get it.  Oh, but you do.  Where does the government get its money, from the Revenue Fairy?  No, they get it from taxpayers, of which I am one.  And I do  not pay it out of the kindness of my heart, I do it because of the law and the penalty of law. 

So, therefore, you want the government to tax people further so that people you weep countless tears of guilt for can be babied, and thusly, the government will use its police power to confiscate that money from me and millions of others.  All because of YOUR guilt. 

You call the tax structure stealing.  Well, if you don't like it why don't you change it.  Why don't you come up with a better solution for getting the dirty work done here in the US.  Do you have any ideas?  Thank you for asking.

1) I'd amend the 16th Amendment so that it sets a rate of income tax of 17% across the board, regardless of income.  The rate can only be raised and lowered with 75% approval of the House and Senate.  No loopholes, no deductions.  Just 17% across the board on everybody.  Do the same for corporations. 

2) To fix health care:

a) Tort reform.

b) Health insurance should be sold like auto insurance.  Allow health insurance companies to comepete across state lines.  Allow insurance companies to sell insurance companies to individuals. 

c) For those with pre-existing conditions, sell them health insurance in a "high risk pool" as with auto insurance when sold to high risk drivers. 

d) MSAs for all.  Employers allowed and encouraged to chip into said MSAs like 401 (k)s.  This way people can pay for sniffles, paper cuts, and broken arms directly to doctors, thus reducing costs by gutting middlemen. 

3) Fully privatize Social Security over the next 30 years or so.

4) Privatize Medicare/Medicaid.

5) Dispense with several federal government departments.  I would make the Department of Education virtually unrecognizable from what it is today.  (I'd get into educationreform but this will crash the server.)

That's for STARTERS. 

If you're not a part of the Right Wing you sure do represent them well.  You apparently can't be troubled to read your own posts.  I asked if you knew what party I belong to.  Now you bring up a comment about ideology.  Ideologically, I make no bones about being a Rightist.  Now, answer the question: what party do I belong to?  I will answer it for you: NONE. 

Now, let's see if you stop tossing around "strawman" and "post hoc" as your cheap excuses to avoid confronting arguments. 

"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)

You asked for my opinion! Even though you think I am nothing! You like me, you really like me. ^_^ LOL. Don't worry -- I don't think you like me. I have the feeling you would toss a million pies in my face if you could.

As for prepositions (can't tell if you are kidding or not, but I'm always here to help)...ending a sentence in a preposition is generally frowned on, but it's not the crime that elementary school teachers make us think it is. In fact, there are times where it is not only allowed but also works best for the sentence. I'd give you some examples, but that would be boring. For the most part, avoid it if you can.