h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oh and one last thing -- there are prestigious groups of all kinds that can swamp you with "facts'. If you want to believe the Harvard study that is your perogative. But if you search hard enough you can find studies that will dispute those "facts." It just depends on what answers you want to believe.

There are some people who believe we are undergoing global warming. There are some people who believe that we are undergoing global cooling. There are people out there that believe God is a good and loving God. There are people outthere who believe He is all about himself,i.e., Love me or perish in internity. There are people who believe there is no hell, and others who say the hell there ain't. There are some people outthere who say there is no God or that God is Dead. There are thousands upon thousands of "documents" that will prove them right. Do you believe their studies?

There was a wonderful fellow a while back who taught children to not accept things as they are told but to question authority. If I remember correctly his last words were. "I'm drinking what????

I am not particularly offended by anything you have said. I am merely having an argument about the American way of looking after the unhealthy, and how Americans think they should pay for their health care. I don't believe what you say about Americans going bankrupt because they have been irresponsible. Sure, it happens, but private insurance companies will do everything they possibly can to wriggle out of stumping up cash. This *doesn't* happen in a socialised system, period.

I don't believe we can fix your country's problems: I do however believe that we are allowed a perspective on them, and it is plain to see that our own socialised healthcare system, for all its faults (and there are a lot of those) wipes the floor with your privatised system. I happen to get private healthcare *automatically* with my job. At some point in the future I am going to need an operation I have been putting off, but I will almost certainly use our public healthcare providers because there is no real justification for going private.

And as for this statement: "There are some people who believe we are undergoing global warming. There are some people who believe that we are undergoing global cooling. There are people out there that believe God is a good and loving God...." The first two statements are mutually exclusive - neither can be right. And they are *potentially falsifiable* unlike the last one. There is always a role for *evidence* in shaping opinions. Perhaps you'd care to provide me with some evidence as to why, in the UK, we should adopt the American model for providing healthcare? Until then I'll believe the Harvard study.

This may read like I'm giving you a hard time for the sake of it, but I'm not. Americans have been hoodwinked into thinking that their country has an almost perfect society, when they really ought to wake up and watch a few more Michael Moore films. Still, what can one expect of the country that claims to have invented cats' eyes (A3320939) and the jet engine and to have cracked the Enigma code?

Hmmm I have been following the discussion in this thread with interest, and I have to say that I am surprised by post nr 100.
I have percieved it as a discussion about different ways of solving healthcare, as an example, for people in different countries, we´ve had examples from Britain, Denmark, Sweden and the U.S. Private health insurances versus a tax based socialised system.
I do not consider arguments to have been american "bashing"
Maybe we are experiencing a culture crash? I do not know the USA or americans well enough, but in many discussions on the internet, here and elsewhere, many americans seems to be very sensitive for any critisism to anything american, be it war on terrorism or healthcare systems or for not signing the Kyoto protocol.., to an extent where some people get personally insulted. I don´t get it. Where I live, in Sweden, we love to critcise our government, schoolsystem, healthcaresystem etc. I think we nurture a view that we have to vigilant towards the people we elect to have power, and "without crticism no evolution/development" We are probably convinced that there has to be a better way to things, but we haven´t found it yet...

Is it a difference in how we percieve our selves and our societies that makes some of us here on this side of the pond eager to discuss, compare and criticize phenomenas at home and elsewhere? Or is it just that we live in small countries and because of that we are more interested and curious about the world around us?

I am sad and sorry that MoFoLo took arguments against an american healthcare system personally.


Izzybelle

Well, at least it's not a discussion about sodding guns. If it were, I would have been called various obscenities and threatened with death by now.

I think you're right about us having a more outward-looking perspective. It's interesting to note that Michael Moore's latest film on this very subject, 'Sicko', doesn't appear to be doing anywhere near as well at the box office as some of his previous ones. Why? Because it condemns a choice that *all* Americans feel that they have made together, to have a private healthcare system. Not just a few who are hellbent on shooting their classmates, or the activities of a right-wing religious fundamentalist in a position of supreme power.

The only identifiable target this time around is the collective will of the American people. They are *all* complicit in this decision.

"Because it condemns a choice that *all* Americans feel that they have made together, to have a private healthcare system."

*All* is a strong word, be careful using absolutes. I happen to believe in public health care and would welcome the choice. I was never given the choice. I can either find a job that offers health insurance as a benefit or I can purchase it myself at exhorbitant rates. Or I can go bankrupt in the event of a major illness and accept charity care thereafter. I ~never~ had an opportunity to select public health care.

Unfortunately, democratic representation means that you don't get to vote on individual issues. You only get to vote on the package that the party sells you. And there doesn't appear to be a popular groundswell of opinion on this subject to get them to change their minds.

Like Witty, I would like to be given a choice between public and private health care too. And to paraphrase what felonious said, we are not allowed to vote on individual issues that affect us--only on candidates, who then vote "for us". (And usually not in our best interests, but in the interest of the group with the most money.)

That being said, I did not take any of the posts about health care, etc. as an attack on my way of life. I must say that I admire MoFolo's passion for his country!

I don't. The stock-in-trade response of many Americans to alternative viewpoints is to stigmatise them. So, publically-funded healthcare becomes 'socialised' healthcare. Yet one *can* believe in public healthcare without having to be a socialist. Or feeling that the American way of life is under threat.

I read an article in the NY Times yesterday describing how two drugs, both highly effective radioimmunotherapies for dealing with lymphatic cancer, are *not* being prescribed by US doctors because they *don't* get as much in the way of financial kickbacks as when they prescribe conventional chemotherapies. I also read a story about a man who having choppped off two of his fingers, could only afford to get one sewn back on. Do I think that, if they were starting from nothing and offered two models of healthcare, Americans would choose the existing model? Do I hell.

it is reported that beyonce knowles gave a benefit concert in her home town houston because 'millions of americans are starving'

lots of others suffer from malnutrition, i might add

what is it that make people think the US of A are so great - let alone so much greater than other parts of the world?

you know, it's not like we don't have freedom and prosperity in scandinavia for example

and why is it admirable to have a passion for a country? hey, it's only a patch of land inhabited by a group of people

i grew up in a very patriotic community, but i have have since learned that patriotism like religion usually gives you more war than peace - and for no valid reason whatsoever

*steps down from soap box while quoting pandora: "sending love around the world, hoping peace will follow *

Well Pierce, you hit the nail there, "why is it admirable to have a passion for a country?" In US of A this seems to be very important. I agree, with you Pierce, when did patriotism bring anything good to the world?
The only groups in Sweden claiming to be patriots are the neo-nazis, most of them very young and and very confused.

Do think it might be a lack of knowledge about other places in the world that make americans believe it is the only place on earth where there is freedom and prosperity. What ever it is all very confusing to me.


Izzybelle

The majority of Americans (native Americans and descendants of slaves excepted) ~are~ Americans because their ancestors made a conscious choice to abandon their homelands and start over in the New World because in some way they were disatisfied with their lives. America was the promised land where everyone has the freedom to make their own way in its society. Is it surprising Americans would defend the choices their forebearers made?

Not that their isn't plenty of room for improvement.

I know, religion, miss growth, poverty etc made a lot of people emigrate from Europe, for example.
No it is not at all surprising. But that was then. In a lot of cases generations ago. For others maybe very recent.

Isn´t it a pity, if defending, quite revolutionary, choices made by relatives 200, 150 or even just 50 years ago results in some kind of unwillingness of improving society today?

I'd say it is human nature. Why else do all cultures hold on to obsolete customs that serve no other purpose but to identify that culture?

I am very much in favor of socialized medicine. My husband's final illness cost nearly $700,000. $300,000 of that was in the last 4 months of his life. Insurance paid 80%. You do the math.

There is an awful lot to admire about the US. It has been remarked that the British exported their revolution to the US. The penetration of the democratic ideal into almost every aspect of American life is remarkable. And when you become a citizen of the US, you don't do so as a white, black or yellow person, or as a believer in a certain religion. You sign up to a set of shared values as a nation.

I'm also pretty sure that people become US citizens despite the healthcare system, not because of it.

i agree there is a lot to admire. take the constitution, for example. the founding fathers were wise indeed. but quite a lot has happened after they wrote that. the danish constitution, for example (grundloven, 1848). the german constitution (grundgesetz, 1949).

i admire my 85 year old uncle in texas. he was an officer in the navy during WW2 but has now been a unitarian pacificst for decades and is ashamed that his president ("the man has not one single diplomatic bone in his entire body") has led his country into "a new vietnam war"

but i repeat myself and will once more leave this soap box to somebody else. feel free

Sorry to have been absent from my own journal for a while. I've had dead-lines combined with summer colds accompanied by headaches - and the wellfare of my mother to take care of. Several visits to the hospital, pressuring her GP doctor to get her scheduled for a gerontopsychiatric investigation (if investigation is the proper term).

A couple of days ago I talked to two USians about tax and everything else at our local bar/bodega. The woman living i Washinton DC confirmed Felonious informations seen from her point of view.

What we Scandinavians are used to/consider normal is fairness - contributing and paying proportionally according to ability - and recieving ditto according to need.

If you ask libertarians, our system is socialistic. If you ask socialists, our system is capitalistic. Both are right.

Still, in my opinion we are more capitalistic/libertarian than socialistic. Because. If you are a single parent - employed or unemployed - in a rented flat, you pay proportionally more of your income in taxes than the (usually) privately employed, highly paid (usually male) who - because of the high payment (and/or financial inheritance) can buy his house, gain on the increasement of value of the land and property, deduct all kinds of expenditure etc.

We all pay the same amount of VAT (25%) on all goods and the same amount of extra VAT on luxury goods like sugar, tobacco, cars, petrol, electricity, water, heating of all kinds. (The extra VAT goes into developing alternative sources for energy for instance).

Still, the person who earns/has a high amount of capital can deduct much more from his/her income than those who don't own anything.

All in all though, I find our system fairer than most, because our taxes work like insurances - except they are for all. Everybody pay an amount. Some have one child who goes to school, some have five children. They pay a percentage of tax according to their income regardsless of the amount of children. All the children get the same possibillity of education - for free. Some families have handicapped children, or very sick relatives. Some families never have the need for using those fascilities given by the state. Some families have to use them frequently. Every handicapped, old or ill individual get the same treatment no matter what the family has paid or not paid in taxes = what I call 'collective insurance'.

An example: My mother gets the lowest pension, tax financed. Only during the last twenty to thirty years we have gone libertarian and have had the possibillity to insure ourselves on top of the 'peoples pension' - especially the ones with fortunes and the employed people.

As a result, of this privatising, the state/county financed goods are scaled down. For the good of the ones who have a lot of money and can secure themselves, and for the bad of people who don't start with a lot of money or are not able to make a lot - they have to make do with lesser and lesser rights - although they have paid taxes all their life believing in equalisation. Paying for the now young libertarians' education, for their decent and payable rents while in education, money to live for during education, roads on which they can drive their fasdt cars. And these young libertarians having recieved, think that the money now are better placed in their pockets. Surely they will condescend to being humanitarian and give a little to the unfortunate - when they have gotten their next big car, their next bigger house, have put their kids though the next private school (partly tax subsidised - but that is their right!) and their parents though the next private hospital (partly taxsubsidesed)... then - if they don't die first...they might give an inkling to charity. But which kind of treatment can be a secure offer for fragile people for two or ten years when it depends on an unknown and inconsistent charity?

It seems - like in cultures we despise normally
- that we now in the Western World - again - regard families with sick or handicapped members to be the families' own faults - or even the punishment of one God or another. Not the responsibillity of the society to take care of the (in our understanding) fragile (or like the nazis meant) the useless/harmfull individuals.

I think we should look to the old tribal values, or family values - and adopt this kind of caring and protective outlook in a greater society.

Again, like Felonious said. 'To each according to their needs, from each according to their abilities'. In a family or tribe we (try to) do that with our babies, our toddlers, our sick and mentally ill, our adults, our strong and resourcefull and our old people.

Do you realise that a great amount of the people in USian prisons are mentally handicapped and could be useful, contributing citizens with another approach? That at least a third of the prisoners (besides the mentally handicapped) are ADD and will never become better at their own or at their families' life in prison? Of course you know that a Paris Hilton is treated differently than a coloured girl with no parents and no money.

Have I been long enough on the soap box Pierce?

*elbow in ribs*
This soap box ain't big enough for the both of us!

I read an interesting article in Scientific American which shows that when it comes to objective measures of modernity, the US is *way* behind the Nordic countries and the UK is somewhere in between.

This comparison is interesting:

"Among Western countries there are distinct
differences, with Protestant Europe occupying
the most modern position above
Catholic Europe and the English-speaking
countries. This positioning reflects extremely
low levels of religious involvement together
with high levels of well-being and the tolerance
and trust characteristic of the European
Protestant heritage. Catholic societies, as Inglehart
and Baker suggest, may have a lower
position on the scale because of the heritage
of the Roman Catholic Church, the prototype
of a hierarchical, centrally controlled institution.
The lower position of the English-speaking
countries is a function of, among
other influences, their higher religious commitment,
particularly in the U.S.

Economic condition and religious-cultural
heritage are the basic forces accounting for the
position of societies on the chart, but within
any society, homogeneity wields substantial
power. In the U.S., for example, the basic values
of Catholics resemble those of Protestants,
rather than those of Catholics in predominantly
Catholic countries, whereas in Nigeria the
values of Christians are far closer to those of
Muslims than to those of Western Christians."

If anyone wants a copy of this article, then you can email me and I'll be happy to provide it.

That is interesting.

"...with Protestant Europe occupying
the most modern position above
Catholic Europe and the English-speaking
countries."

I'm not sure what it means here by the English-speaking countries. Is England not included when they say 'Protestant Europe'?

"...the tolerance
and trust characteristic of the European
Protestant heritage." - My bullshit detector is starting to move a little bit at this point. Some of the most fundamentalist intolerant Christians have been Protestant (not all, naturally), along with some of the firmest believers in the literal truth of the Bible. I don't think that would be a driving force for modernism, "tolerance and trust" aside.

"...because of the heritage
of the Roman Catholic Church, the prototype
of a hierarchical, centrally controlled institution." I don't think it's the monolith it appears - there are a lot more strands in Catholicism than a lot of people seem to think. As the next paragraph would seem to back up when it says:

"In the U.S., for example, the basic values
of Catholics resemble those of Protestants,
rather than those of Catholics in predominantly
Catholic countries, whereas in Nigeria the
values of Christians are far closer to those of
Muslims than to those of Western Christians."

Google Inglehart and Baker and then you can read the original paper for yourself.