Heh! And they didn’t count on George W. Bush being elected (well..) president. In those days, his kind emptied spittoons and de-loused wigs (and Whigs).

One thinks as well of a quote from Jack Donaghy: “Everybody knows the Founding Fathers didn’t intend the poor to live past thirty.”

“Liberals” say that government is “us”, not “them,” and where it is actually acting more like “them” (oppressing us, wasting our money, etc.), we say let’s make our government better–as democracy provides means for us to do.

I am also aware how awful government-run programs can be, especially in this country. I think that blacks in particular have been done a great disservice by their own governmental representatives (ie, Democrats).

I see “the projects” in this country, and then I see “the projects” in Austria. Government apartments in Vienna are usually in top shape and sought after. One qualifies based on income, number of children and the like. You’d never be able to tell a private apt. complex from a government one save for the “Built by the City of Vienna” – if anything, the city building will be in better shape. The City of Vienna has been run by “liberals” since the end of World War II. Even wealthy neighborhoods feature government complexes, as they were constructed throughout the city.

Now, looking at government housing on “The Wire”, one understands the average American’s position on government programs. Government-run hospitals (Catholic hospitals get their money from the public healthcare fund, too in Austria) are top-notch in Austria as well. There is an expectation that government is there to serve you. That it can be overdone and be exploited is without question. That small-business-rules are too strict also is.

What irks me is the conservative argumentation that exploitation is not just necessary but virtuous. We, the brave Americans, pay more for our prescription drugs so others may pay less. Why this applies to drugs made in Germany and France is usually not mentioned, then again who here can find those Commie countries on a map ?

It’d seem that it’s not the mere governmental nature that poisons efforts but rather the culture. Public schools didn’t use to be pits of ignorance and violence in the US. Government of the people by and for business certainly isn’t wont to improve the lot of the people. The system is too rigged and people too indoctrinated for any change.

Capitalism can be a great force for equality – corporations didn’t start targeting women, blacks, gays out of the goodness of their hearts, after all. The problem is, say, shady dealings without any actual capital, aka the American financial system (R.I.P.)
Private initiative always needs room. This does not have to mean, however, that you have to find yourself without health insurance, or arguing about “pre-existing conditions” (probably a uniquely American term) with a new insurance.

It’s only a free market until somebody gets hurt, then the corporation discovers the lyrics of the Internationale (and orders a private jet to sing it in) and sucks on Auntie Sam’s teat, burps, rolls up, dreams corporate dreams of golden parachutes and Bermuda’s sandy off-shores, wakes up and sticks it to customers and employees.

We could compare advertising from 1900 with that of today and I think it would be manifest which era was producing more phony cures.

And while you can produce stories of lives not saved due to delayed action, there are many more lives saved by not allowing any concoction to be mainstreamed. Just the number of drugs the FDA has approved and later had to rescind gives us a limited view of all those lives saved.

Whose consensus and by which standards?

Government handouts should be restricted to bombs on Iraq or whoever the enemy du jour is.

One of the main reasons this country is such a ripoff for regular people is that there is no concept of rights when it comes to mere sustenance. Right to health care ? Commies ! Right to financial support for the needy ? Why there goes another welfare queen in her Cadillac, licking fried chicken grease off her negro fingers.

Everything’s a battlefield, starting at school lunch break. It’s a country without pity, unless it can be engaged in via fashionable benefits or with the warm fuzzy feeling one gets from giving directly to a poor man. I’d like to trade in the web of deceit for the safety net, please.

There are a lot of snakeoil salesmen now. The FDA can’t seem to stop people like Kevin Trudeau (but does stop aspirin manufactures from saving people from heart attacks). That’s not a record of success, in my book.

The Postal Service has a legal monopoly on letter delivery, so I don’t think there are any private mail carriers for them to compete with. If you mean private parcel delivery services, such as FedEx, then I think the consensus is that such companies more than match the Postal Service in coordination and efficiency, despite the fact that the Postal Service is exempt from a wide variety of government regulations and uses the profits from its letter carrier business to set prices for its parcel service below cost.