The number of people are not relevant, all numbers are relative in %. In short, the reason why I am happy with our system in Norway is that we have socialized health-care and also other socialized stuff in addition to have the best living standard in the world. Everybody gets health-care with minimum queues. We have the biggest houses, most luxury products and so on. According to UN Norway have been the best place to live the last 5 years. I agree with the UN, I travel all over the world in my job and can see what conditions normal middle class people are living in and its always best in Norway. And we have so many socialized things in the norwegian society. The amount of poor people is very very small. The criminal rate is amongst the smallest in the world because of the small powerty. So why would I like to change this system into a privatized system? Honestly, I cannot have a better place to live.
Numbers do matter, its easier to feed 10 people then it is to feed 100 which is the same thing with health care. Its less costly to cover 5,000,000 then it is to cover 300,000,000. I understand its about % but with so much more people you need a much larger infrastructure / bureaucracy to support that.
I think that I explain what I mean bad or you misunderstand me. Its not cheaper to feed 10 that to feed 100 when the income is 10 times lower also. Actually relatively seen its easier to feed 100 than 10 because the infrastructure system is constant.
Norwegian defense industry spending is nowhere near the % spending of the American government. This is why at least of few of us support Ron Paul, and bringing the Guns and Butter spending back into a more sane alignment, not where defense and the war machine consume a larger chunk of our spending than infrastructure or education. As a nation, our situation domestically and internationally is not comparable to Norway. I wish it was.
Even with the recent rise in defense spending its still low based on the overall GDP when compared to the overall Defense spending for the last 30 years.
Norway isn't a superpower of the world. Norway isn't out there spending money on other countries like we do. Norway's military (if there is such a thing) is not the UN's main fighting force like ours is. It makes me laugh that these foreigners want us to adopt socialist healthcare. We're too busy spending our money on all of them.
Thank you for spending money on me Now, seriously, this discussion is about the system of socialized health care anywhere. Its not about USA or Norway. Its about the principles of socialized health care anywhere, thats why I compare countries. If you like we could compare Italy vs Cuba. Or India vs Kenya instead.
Because of the money we spend to keep a first class military were able to provide protection and help to other countries.
It is immoral to take from one and give to another. It's not Christian, it's socialist. And I don't care what the argument is, the government taxing us for "compassion" is crap. Compassion starts in our hearts and manifests itself in charity. You can't tax people to make them care. That is immoral and unjust. This is where I differ from the popular arguments. I don't think sick people should be left without care. I do think we all have a moral obligation to help our fellow man. But I do not think that abdicating our moral responsibility to government is the correct way to go about it.
I merely quoted one post of yours. Not your entire post history and profile on this forum. So in my view, as reflected by what you said in that post I quoted, that makes my post dead on when taking into account that I was also talking about the average conservative talking point on this issue (the money) and how your post played right into it.
it's a society dude. you have certain rights and obligations. if you don't like living in a society you could always move in the middle of the jungle by yourself and not have to share anything with anybody else
In a street fight people call each other "son of a B*tch", "mother fu*ker",... and I think you use the word socialism, socialized, socialist much in the same way, as swear word without really knowing what it means.
Ron Paul is the only one with a realistic set of ideas on this issue. If Hillary is elected, she will do NOTHING.
I want free will. I want to be able to give whatever I have to help someone, without a limit, and I want to be able to buy the best possible care I can, not limited by the state with caps on medical workers wages, or regulation of drugs, natural or synthetic, and procedures. It's not that I don't care, it's that I think it is immoral to enforce caring by coercion. And government enforcement of taxation is coercion, because they can jail your ass if you don't pay. Not at all friend. Give me a little more credit than that. But if you want to talk about socialism, let's talk about it. For me, socialism is a system where there is a glass ceiling. You are progressively taxed the more you earn, hindering your ability to be upwardly mobile, and your taxes are spent based upon the whims of the majority, which may or may not reflect your opinion. Meanwhile, socialism is notorious for being inefficient. Your taxes don't go directly to the needy the way it would from your pocket, but through the government middle man, who has created entire bureaucracies to collect and allocate the money they take from you. Bureaucracies that make more than a median income and enjoy better pensions and benefits than the people they are serving. Like we're some kind of idiots and can't reach into our wallet and hand the cash to someone on our own. In essence, you have to pay, whether you agree or not. And I don't call that free will. And I certainly don't call it freedom. I have a right and an obligation to help my fellow man, but that lives in my heart, not in some law book some where, with flexible budget allocations every fiscal year. When you impose this ideal that everyone should have equal coverage, you're screwing the people who need and can pay for/raise more resources for additional necessary care, and creating a dependent class who rely on the working class to survive, which directly or indirectly is a form of serfdom.
I think the main part of your post was "For me, socialism is". In reality your definition of socialism has nothing to do with socialism and it only describes the incompetence in the bureaucracy and the usual BS that government in USA feeds people that socialists are the people who want to stop you from getting rich and tax you. May I suggest that you actually read about socialism before using it as swear word in political discussions.
Can you provide me with a link to the definition of socialism (as you understand it)? If we're going to carry on this discussion, I'm happy to do it on your terms, but I'd like to be sure we're arguing the same thing. As a friend, I find this sort of insulting. You're implying that I don't know what I am talking about, without providing any clear definitions or positions yourself. If you want to have an intelligent conversation with me (I promise to do my best to keep up), then let's not accuse me of smear tactics, let's talk brass tacks.