I think the rhetoric of "selfish leftists" is my favorite. "Nooo, my money i've earned for myself, don't give it away to the poors who have done nothing for me", "noooo have pity for the billionaires in distress, what will they become if you tax them", "moo, we should look after ourselves individually and not give a shit about each other, stop selfishly asking us to put some ressources in common".

I am in awe.

people think they know republicans, that we're all greedy heartless jerks who don't care about anything but getting rich.

couldn't be more wrong, many republicans are compassionate people who want to see this country thrive and not destroy itself by trying to give free stuff to everyone,

Extremely compassionate people, courageously ready to sacrifice whoever they deem unworthy because not economically productive enough, in order to ensure that the most obscenely rich fringe of the population can continue to benefit from the meaningless amount of wealth that serves as "necessary motivation" for their roles of saviors of the country. And who can't accept any form of redistribution that negates the little moral glory of capricious, arbitrary, selective and occasional "charity", and the nice feeling of dominance and superiority it provides.

Extremely compassionate to all sorts of minorities (social, sexual, ethnic), extremely compassionate in their eagerness to deshumanise criminals (in a punishment-oriented justice) or foreigners (geopolitics is so easy in two colours), in their magnificent sense of human curiosity towards people who try to live on alternate principles (savages, degenerates, the only valid model for life is nuclear heterosexual family, christian god worshipping, and competitive economy), and in their oh so responsible care for the ecosystem (what are the treehugger saying? does it make money? it doesn't make money, it could be making more money, now shut up).

Yup. Heartbreaking.

I think the problem is, the most vocal of you aren't the compassionate people who want to see this country thrive. The vocal ones, the ones in power really DO seem like they're in it for the money, power, and prestige.

I'd argue it's the same as the Democrats for the most part too. I don't think most people want to just give everything away, it's just a matter of giving people a boost when they need it most.

In fact, I think most people are really in the middle, Common sense people who don't want to give away handouts, but understand needing to offer a helping hand to get people on their feet when it's needed. I don't really think there are TRUE Democrats or Republicans, but people who believe in policies that range all over the spectrum.

But, the problem, like all things, are the vocals and the extremes. I highly doubt that everyone on welfare is like that example that people use of the Welfare abusers, although I know they exist. It's easy to paint and parade the extremists around because they're easily the vocal and easiest to point out.

Me...I'm more for Common Sense. That smart, honest choices either will work greatly, or at least give us a good idea of how to adjust without having to use a sledgehammer to change things constantly. I don't think either side is 100% right...but if you mix the right ideas, we can really get somewhere.

Well put. This sums up what was so wrong about the 2,000 page healthcare bill that noone bothered to read before voting on. How about the simple smart choices that we could have made to improve on our system incrementally?

Both sides agreed that something needed to be done, but rather than work together to make some common sense changes we got competing ideologies, of which the side in power crammed down the throats of the American people.

Ugh, yeah, that was a disaster. While my honest belief is that government should hold only enough power over corporations to be able to stop them when they do something stupid (Like, the Bank issue), I think insurance is the one place that we need to stop seeing for-profit companies who take our money and try to avoid paying out as much as possible. It just strikes me as a conflict of interest. I don't know the perfect system, but what we got feels like it's worse then what we started with.

Just to comment on you two gentlemens' posts directly above (because this is my favorite topic of discussion)...

I will never advocate for "universal healthcare" or "socialized medicine" because it's the wrong answer in most countries and certainly so for the US. With that said, if you HAVE to do it, you need to do it all the way. We did it the worst way possible by keeping the private insurance companies at the head of the table. Obamacare was pushed through by a trade group (i.e. lobbyists) of insurance industry executives because they knew it would bring them millions more customers and tons of government (taxpayer) dollars. Now we have guaranteed huge year-over-year cost increases and decreasing levels of care because rationing will be the only way to even attempt to keep costs in check. On top of that, both providers and insurers can offer up poor service because they're going to get the money now regardless whether you're happy or not.

Twighlight - to your point about government protection, government plays an important role in society but protecting you against things like the fiscal crisis isn't one of them. Keep in mind that the government created the fiscal crisis by a defacto mandate that Fannie and Freddie buy all mortgages on the secondary market. Fannie and Freddie then bundled these mortgages and sold them to Wall Street. Wall Street tiered them and packaged them (and did their part to hide some of the inherit risk) and marketed them as investments. These are the ubiquitous mortage backed securities we heard so much about in 2009.

Unfortunately for America, because of our government's insistance on home ownership for every single person (whether they could afford it or not) it turns out many of those MBSs were toxic because too many of those bundled mortgages were from people who couldn't afford them to begin with. Granted, when you play the blame game, everyone playing is usually guilty. Government created loose money fused with terrible policy; banks got greedy and saw mortgages as free money; individuals were careless and didn't use their common sense.

I would also note to an earlier poster who mentioned that government protects us from monopolies: that is false. Government creates and, at times, forces them upon us. If you really want to avoid monopolies then advocate for free markets. FDRs presidency is a great example of what happens if you let government intervene: the biggest get bigger and richer while the little guy gets thrown in jail for trying to be competitive.

I have to admit I don't really understand what is regarded as wrong about universal healthcare in the sense that every citizen is entitled to standard health treatment. The amount is surely debatable and strongly depends on the efficiency of the system and the overall wealth of the nation but health is after food the most important point in anyone's life it's so essential. If you can't get health treatment, you failed. It's not really optional and choices that waive health care are truly stupid choices. I guess nobody wants to let fellow citizens starve, so you also do not want to let them be without health care. And there we are at universal health care. Now how to implement it and how much treatment is affordable is another story.

[Tangent] I only just learned that the term "socialized medicine" is used pejoratively in the US because the sound reminds people of socialism. I L'dOL. [/Tangent]

Seriously, it's a good thing.

Please enlighten me on the topic of our "media structure", and how this relates to the personal opinions of a person you know through three forum posts, oh great being of immense wisdom.

How come you guys never vote anyone out0side the Republican/Democrats? There's plenty of fish outside that tank.

It's all in the voting system. There you vote for persons, not for partys. The winner takes it all. So there is not much sense to vote for anything but the two biggest perceived options. It would be much different in a proportional system where a new movement could slowly work itself up the ranks. Like everything it has its advantages (you can directly decide on politics on a personal level) and it's disadvantages (limited choice, minor fractions supressed).

Which are "most countries", may I ask? Really, I'd love to know what you, an American, think is wrong with the healthcare system of say UK, France or Germany. I'd really love to hear the speech you'd deliver in order to convince people that the universal healthcare system they are enjoying is "wrong". As someone who has moved from a country with a universal healthcare system to one without I can tell you that to me the sole idea of criticizing universal healthcare is pure madness.
Because of this.

Irrelevant. All of it. We will be slaves, no matter the name of our illusory masters. Obama, Romney, call them any name you want, it doesn't change the truth.

Your point being? I still believe that a single vote has more power than an entire government. If the Americans would wake up from the American Dream and face the American Reality...