kr@cker wrote:
Hooray for socialized medicine!!! Rectal exams for everyone!!!! This still doesn't explain how it's ok for people to receive something for nothing off the blood, sweat, and tears of the people that work their asses off, or what about the countless failures of socialized medicine like cancer patients dying while waiting in queue for treatments and sometimes being just plain denied treatment b/c it's too expensive, while teenage girls are getting breast implants to improve their self esteem.
This is not "receiving something for nothing"; how hard you work is not directly linked to how much money you make. When I was in high school I lucked out with a job that payed $100 for 9 hours of work a week. I had friends who worked much harder than me and either made marginally more or not even as much every week. Just because someone's making more money than someone else doesn't mean that the former is working themselves to the bones while the latter is lolly-gagging around. I'm sure there are cases where this is true, but in the big picture, I don't buy it. Have you ever heard of the social contract? It's the idea that you agree with what your government deems are mutual expectations as far as the people and the administration are concerned. If you do not agree with this implicit relationship, you can try to change it or leave. As far as boob jobs taking precidence over terminal illness? I'm not sure where you came up with that one, but give me a situation where it really happened and we'll talk about it.
kr@cker wrote:
As well as the fact that many of these countries have the highest unemployment rates in the industrialized world, generally in the double digits, while last I heard ours was only 4.2% ( for perspective i beleive that Bill's average was somewhere around 5.4%), how often do amazing breakthroughs in...well just about anything come from one of these countries. I keep hearing arguments like how the average life expectancy of a chinese male is so much higher than ours, without putting any perspective on the issue like how the average chinese male doesn't go out and bungee jump or race atv's in their spare time (I still have an impression of that tree branch in my thigh).
Unemployment rates are marginally higher in many European countries, but most are in the single digits, a percent or two higher than that of the US. Poland is one notable exception, but remember that this nation got fucked really hard by Soviet rule. I'm no expert on European economics but I'm willing to bet there are explanations that have nothing to do with their social welfare system. Or how about we look at the gap between rich and poor in the US as compared to much of Europe?
kr@cker wrote:
And yes minimum wage is less than $6.00 an hour, but guess what, YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SUPPORT A FAMILY OFF MINIMUM WAGE!!! It's designed to ensure that people just entering the workplace for the first time (i.e. high school students) don't get dry raped on payday. If you are over 20 (some people are fortunate enough to be in circumstances allowing them to concentrate on school rather than a job) and you are still on minimum wage you should be sterilized and not allowed to breed. The standard of living for american citizens living below the poverty line is still higher than most of europe's middle class.
Actually I'm pretty sure the reason minimum wage was created was to stop the exploitation of labor-intensive workers in the early 20th century. However, it's probably not fair to say it still serves the same purpose, but to an extent it still does. If you're under... what is it, 14? You don't get paid minimum wage. Or is it 16? I don't remember. I'm not sure where you're pulling that out about Europe's middle class having a LOWER standard of living than our SUB-POVERTY population?? Talk to some people who live below the poverty line and I'm sure they'll tell you how much happier they are than a European middle class citizen.
kr@cker wrote:
And no that wasn't an act of charity on my part, he required money, I required a service. Charity is when I stop to help someone change a tire. Charity is abused and wasted on people who are victims of their own poor judgement, rather than people who actually need it like the children of fallen soldiers.
Correct it isn't charity. I worded my thoughts poorly. Maybe there just isn't a word for what I want to call it... it was very good of you to allow him to perform a service for you and pay him when you could have probably done it yourself or gotten someone under sallary to do it.