| madskillz said: @ Stickball - very interesting points. Thanks for them. I am big on universal health care due to personal experiences without it. My sis lived 2 years in France and even though she wasn't a citizen, she was able to get health care. Matter of fact, years later, she visited France on a trip and had the equivalent of $35 in her health care fund. Not sure if she used or withdrew it. As far as the rest, Social Security still exists - and the military is a socialist organization, right? The way you and Kasz have broken it down really makes sense, but I think a lot of folks are just piggybacking off of what other folks say. Research goes such a long way. |
I can understand being big on universal healthcare. However, there's a difference between the idea of universal healthcare under a socialist system (everyone pays equal to the govt. via taxes for the same kind of government healthcare) and a privatized system. Both seek the same thing, but have totally different ways of solving the problem. The same can be said between America's Social Security system, and 401k's, public and private schools, and USPS vs. FedEx and UPS.
As for the military, the American military system is a hybrid of both a social defense network, and a privatized one. On one end, we have a national defense force controlled entirely by the government, but at the same time, most supplies are acquired through contracts with private companies (such as Boeing, Lockheed, and Colt). Also, America maintains state-wide defense forces as opposed to federal forces (National Guard by State) and you also have the militia which is almost outside of the government, and we finally have privatized military forces such as Blackwater. So in America's case, it's not entirely socialist, for now, at least.
To understand how truely private the American military insitution has been, one only needs to look at 3 examples: The Toledo War (where Ohio and Michigan took up arms against eachother. Ever wonder why the Mich-OSU football game is so heated? It's because we nearly killed eachother in the early 1800's), the Civil War (both sides had local forces engaged in the conflict, and not just national systems), and Katrina (federal relief efforts via the National Guard & armed forces were screwed up due to conflicts between state and federal levels).
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
