azxcvbnm321 :
Europe doesn't understand that America is a conservative nation. A plurality describe themselves as "conservatives", we don't want the socialist big government policies of Europe, this nation was created to be different from the constitutional monarchies of Europe from inception. The more government does, the more people are taxed, and the bigger government gets, the more power whoever controls the government has over the ordinary citizen. The solution is not to give government power, not to allow government to do things, like void contracts or take over private companies by decree. Unfortunately this has been a losing battle, government has been able to slowly get more and more power and more ability to "do" stuff. Today, the government can just about do anything it wants and that is markedly different from its birth.
The constitutional monarchies have been all but abandoned by nearly every European country, and most operate with a representative democracy like us, but the difference lies in the control the government exercises, as you say, but it does not correlate to the control over the citizens.
Take France, for instance; we see strikes every month, from nearly every major industry, and whats more; the government is powerless to stop it, even though they control more of the social services than our government has control over. We, however, are very afraid of our government; people were afraid to speak out against Bush, there were instances when protesters were corralled into buildings by police to allow Bush to pass through unscathed, we allowed an amendment which denies us our right to privacy (the Patriot Act) and for what? Security? Freedom? "A nation that trades freedom for security is neither free nor secure"
azxcvbnm321 :
Obama is not doing anything for the masses because it's not his money, it's taxpayer money. That's something that Americans understand but Europeans seem oblivious. In America, the notion that what someone earns is his to keep. There has to be a good reason to tax and take it away. Government doesn't produce anything. It only takes what productive people produce and redistributes that or spends that, the more government spends, the greater the burden on the people to produce. We don't want a large burden, we just want basic government services like roads, education, national defense, a barebones safety net that's already been achieved, nothing more. But today we're being forced to take all these additional government programs that WE will have to pay for. Sometimes what you get is not a good value. It's not worth the price. Same for government. Don't care if it's intended to help the poor, is what is being bought worth the cost? Is it a good value? That question doesn't get asked enough which is why we have all this waste.
This is an issue mostly of the common good; to properly address this, we must consider both the positive and negative costs (not just monetary) involved with each course of action. You agree that basic needs (police, fire, education, transportation) are necessary, but isn't health care a necessity to? Wouldn't we be better as a society if we were all healthy, and didn't have to worry about how to pay the hospital bills if we get sick?
An interesting point about this is we actually pay more now than if health care were government run (unfortunately this won't probably won't happen for years) due to the overhead taken by the HMOs. It would cost us now, but in the long run, it would pay off.
azxcvbnm321 :
Finally, America consumes around 20% of the world's resources but produces 25% of the world's output in global GDP. America is very efficient, it takes a relatively low amount of resources and produces a whole lot from it. It's the countries like Nigeria that are very inefficient, they consume a lot more in resources than they produce. And so what if we consume a lot of resources? It's paid for and it benefits the sellers to have us in the market to buy. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to get as much money for their oil or copper or whatever it is. If anything, the world should try and be more efficient with resources like we are.
Unfortunately, if the world consumed resources like we do, the planet would run out of resources very quickly. In terms of effiency, there are many countries more efficient than us, such as the UK (GDP per capita (in US dollars): $36000 vs. energy used per capita (in watts): 5218.2 Watts/ US: GDP per capita (in US dollars): $47000 vs. energy used per capita (in watts): 10381.2 Watts), and there are countries even more efficient than the UK.
azxcvbnm321 :
Obama is a good public speaker, but there are serious questions as to his leadership abilities and his decision making. All you see is the image, well we don't care about image, we want substance. All of the big proposals like health care, the stimulus, and cap and trade, he's left the drafting of the legislation to Congress instead of writing it himself. That means each bill is stuffed with pork and corruption, giveaways to each Congressperson's home town or state. He should be deciding what exactly is in each bill instead of letting Congress decide everything and just being a spokesperson which is he doing right now. We had hoped he would be a leader, but a leader makes decisions, drafts proposals, not only cheerlead.
^This is because our government is designed that way; its not Obama's fault; he has no say in what the laws include, he just gets to say a final "yes" or "no". The legislative branch revises the bill adding whatever it wants before voting, then it goes to the other group of legislation, where it gets revised even more. Our system is designed this way so power can't be abused, but with a two-party system, its very easy to abuse it, since one party will nearly always have a majority.
One unfortunate problem is that everyone has a price; even Hillary Clinton, one of the leaders in one of the first attempts at a health care reform, was boughten by the Insurance companies for silence.
You know where obama gets his jfk appeal? his main speechwriter behind the scenes went to jfk's speechwriter and plugged him for input. that is a fact. Obamas speech style is nothing more than a plagiarized JFK style.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram