Board index › Topical Discussion › Politics, Philosophy, and Religion

What is a bigger threat to Western civilization?

Page 4 of 6 [ 82 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6  Next

Previous topic | Next topic

What poses a bigger threat to us?
Our own global elite 88%  88%  [ 22 ]
Radical Islam 12%  12%  [ 3 ]
Total votes : 25

blauSamstag
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 Apr 2011
Age: 49
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,026

10 Dec 2011, 11:22 am

Tequila wrote:
blauSamstag wrote:
I just happen to think that universal health care is too.


You rather misguidedly seem to think the UK system is a panacea. It isn't. In fact, the French system (which is more expensive than the UK one) - which is a public healthcare system using private companies and gives much more choice - delivers much better service in many cases and probably doesn't suffer from the never-ending lifestyle hectoring that our one does. The UK system is inflexible, bureaucratic and often autocratic in nature.


When did i say anything about the UK system being worth copying? The NHS is a terrible system, and at any rate the United States of America was founded on the concept that we can do things better than the british.

The canadian system, on the other hand, is loved by every canadian i have ever spoken to.



ruveyn
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Age: 88
Gender: Male
Posts: 31,502
Location: New Jersey

10 Dec 2011, 11:24 am

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
I think the trouble with socialized medicine is if it doesn't have a mock-capitalistic structure within. From what I've heard, from some of the doctors and nurses in the UK when interviewed, was to that effect. Understandably a rural hospital won't have all the all-star players that a famous university hospital likely would hence the hospitals would be given the minimum of what they need plus performance bonus for growth. Overall though something is needed in the works to spur best practices and best performance, otherwise - yes - you run into the old Soviet problem.


Yup. And that is the least of the problems of Socialism, built in mediocrity.

The real problem occurs at the top when the State, Government or Establishment thinks it knows better than the people who have to suffer from their stupidity.

ruveyn



Tequila
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 25 Feb 2006
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 28,897
Location: Lancashire, UK

10 Dec 2011, 11:28 am

blauSamstag wrote:
When did i say anything about the UK system being worth copying? The NHS is a terrible system, and at any rate the United States of America was founded on the concept that we can do things better than the british.


I'm not sure that the United States was founded on an anti-British ticket, mainly that they wanted the age-old English liberties that had been denied them by their rulers. Good for them.



ruveyn
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Age: 88
Gender: Male
Posts: 31,502
Location: New Jersey

10 Dec 2011, 11:32 am

Tequila wrote:
blauSamstag wrote:
When did i say anything about the UK system being worth copying? The NHS is a terrible system, and at any rate the United States of America was founded on the concept that we can do things better than the british.


I'm not sure that the United States was founded on an anti-British ticket, mainly that they wanted the age-old English liberties that had been denied them by their rulers. Good for them.


There was a time when Britain, especially Scotland (Hume, Smith and later Maxwell) was an intellectual and economic dynamo, the envy of the then flourishing industrial world. It was under British rule that Hong Kong came as close to real honest to goodness capitalism as any state or domain has come. Unfortunately, those days have passed for Britain, just as they appear to be passing for the United States.

ruveyn



Tequila
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 25 Feb 2006
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 28,897
Location: Lancashire, UK

10 Dec 2011, 11:36 am

ruveyn wrote:
It was under British rule that Hong Kong came as close to real honest to goodness capitalism as any state or domain has come.


Largely thanks to people like Sir John James Cowperthwaite.



ruveyn
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Age: 88
Gender: Male
Posts: 31,502
Location: New Jersey

10 Dec 2011, 11:46 am

Tequila wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
It was under British rule that Hong Kong came as close to real honest to goodness capitalism as any state or domain has come.


Largely thanks to people like Sir John James Cowperthwaite.


Thank you. That is a very valuable reference.

ruveyn



blauSamstag
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 Apr 2011
Age: 49
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,026

10 Dec 2011, 11:48 am

Tequila wrote:
blauSamstag wrote:
When did i say anything about the UK system being worth copying? The NHS is a terrible system, and at any rate the United States of America was founded on the concept that we can do things better than the british.


I'm not sure that the United States was founded on an anti-British ticket, mainly that they wanted the age-old English liberties that had been denied them by their rulers. Good for them.


*shrug* the forgotten aspect of the boston tea party was the fact that Americans didn't want your moldy old tea because they were importing their own better, fresher tea without the blessing of the crown.



ruveyn
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Age: 88
Gender: Male
Posts: 31,502
Location: New Jersey

10 Dec 2011, 11:54 am

blauSamstag wrote:

*shrug* the forgotten aspect of the boston tea party was the fact that Americans didn't want your moldy old tea because they were importing their own better, fresher tea without the blessing of the crown.


The issue was not mold, but tax. The colonials did not particularly like Parliament imposing taxes without the locals who pay the taxes having a say about it. The Brits back home thought it was selfish of the colonials not to want to repay the Mother Country for services rendered during the French Indian War.

ruveyn



blauSamstag
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 Apr 2011
Age: 49
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,026

10 Dec 2011, 12:02 pm

ruveyn wrote:
blauSamstag wrote:

*shrug* the forgotten aspect of the boston tea party was the fact that Americans didn't want your moldy old tea because they were importing their own better, fresher tea without the blessing of the crown.


The issue was not mold, but tax. The colonials did not particularly like Parliament imposing taxes without the locals who pay the taxes having a say about it. The Brits back home thought it was selfish of the colonials not to want to repay the Mother Country for services rendered during the French Indian War.

ruveyn


Yeah, but the east india company had it's ass in a sling in part because americans had no interest in buying tea from it in the first place.

Not that americans were not drinking tea. Lipton learned the tea trade in america. We were all over it. We were importing it ourselves, illegally.

The east india company was warehousing a 7 year supply of tea in london at a cost that was bankrupting the company. The crown heavily subsidized that shipment both to help out the EIC and to collect the taxes on it.

The way the laws worked, the taxes had to be paid out of colony coffers when the boat is unloaded, and then it's up to the colony to recoup the taxes at point of sale. But this tea was sub-par at best, and high quality teas were widely available in the colonies, so it was essentially garbage that would never be sold to anybody.

That's why the colonists made certain that the tea would never be brought onto the dock.



techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,506
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

10 Dec 2011, 12:06 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Yup. And that is the least of the problems of Socialism, built in mediocrity.

The real problem occurs at the top when the State, Government or Establishment thinks it knows better than the people who have to suffer from their stupidity.

ruveyn

Ahh, vulnerability to peons. Yep.


_________________
The loneliest part of life: it's not just that no one is on your cloud, few can even see your cloud.


GreySun369
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 2 Aug 2010
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 824

10 Dec 2011, 1:13 pm

The biggest threat to Western Civilization is the Westerners themselves. Period.



Inuyasha
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Jan 2009
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,745

10 Dec 2011, 2:12 pm

blauSamstag wrote:
Tequila wrote:
blauSamstag wrote:
I just happen to think that universal health care is too.


You rather misguidedly seem to think the UK system is a panacea. It isn't. In fact, the French system (which is more expensive than the UK one) - which is a public healthcare system using private companies and gives much more choice - delivers much better service in many cases and probably doesn't suffer from the never-ending lifestyle hectoring that our one does. The UK system is inflexible, bureaucratic and often autocratic in nature.


When did i say anything about the UK system being worth copying? The NHS is a terrible system, and at any rate the United States of America was founded on the concept that we can do things better than the british.

The canadian system, on the other hand, is loved by every canadian i have ever spoken to.


The canadian system isn't as good as you are advertising and it is going bankrupt.

Of course Obama and democrats modeled Obamacare off of the healthcare nightmare in the UK because they are left-wing ideologues that hate capitalism and think government should run everything.



Abgal64
Velociraptor
Velociraptor

User avatar

Joined: 16 Aug 2011
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Posts: 408

10 Dec 2011, 2:33 pm

Socialized medicine can work far better than the American system is capable of, as can be seen in Germany, Cuba and the Indian state of Kerala.

And socialized medicine is compatible with private medical practices in theory, and in practice.


_________________
Learn the patterns of the past; consider what is not now; help what is not the past; plan for the future.
-Myself


Oodain
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 30 Jan 2011
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,022
Location: in my own little tamarillo jungle,

10 Dec 2011, 4:14 pm

Abgal64 wrote:
Socialized medicine can work far better than the American system is capable of, as can be seen in Germany, Cuba and the Indian state of Kerala.

And socialized medicine is compatible with private medical practices in theory, and in practice.


try telling some americans that though and they will be screaming commie left and right
all of it due to lack of varied experience


_________________
//through chaos comes complexity//

the scent of the tamarillo is pungent and powerfull,
woe be to the nose who nears it.


Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 48,537
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

11 Dec 2011, 5:31 am

I voted for our own global elite killing democracy. Already, 1% of them owns more than the 99% of us. Things can only go down hill from there.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer



ruveyn
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Age: 88
Gender: Male
Posts: 31,502
Location: New Jersey

11 Dec 2011, 4:00 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
I voted for our own global elite killing democracy. Already, 1% of them owns more than the 99% of us. Things can only go down hill from there.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


That is an exaggeration. 40 percent of the financial assets of the U.S. are owned by one percent of its citizens. If you want ownership equalized be prepared for the total destruction of the economy. No functional industrial economy can have equal ownership AND control in all of its people. It simply cannot work.

Do you want industry and technology? Then be prepared for some inequality.

ruveyn