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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: fresc who wrote (514)	2/15/2005 6:18:33 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 42652

The point is America is run by special interest groups No more so, and probably less so than many other developed democratic countries. tobacco, pharma, NRA and the list goes on and on Including groups like environmentalists, unions, moveon.org ect. Its not just business or conservative groups that are special interests. Canada also has many special interests as does Europe, Japan, ect. Many special interest due indeed worry about what they consider to be good for "the common citizen", but obviously they have different opinions about what is good for the country as a whole and its citizens. If anything America is regressing rather than progressing when it comes to freedoms and the average person. While freedom is good for the average person IMO, freedom does not equal "what is good for the average person", much less what is good in your opinion. If for example socialized medicine was good for the average person (a highly debatable proposition but one that many people accept) it still would amount to a reduction in freedom. Or to give another example the NRA is on your list of apparently evil special interests. While I consider the right to keep and bear arms a good thing for the average citizen of the US, your probably disagree. Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that you are right and the legal right to own guns is a bad thing that doesn't stop the removal of that right from being a reduction in freedom. Turning to the question about whether or not America is regressing in terms of freedom - It might be. In certain ways it is. Government only grows it never gets any smaller. More and more gets regulated each year. Some of the worst of the socialist inspired laws and regulations are gone, perhaps permanently gone, but other regulations pop up. The US is one of the most free countries in the world but a reasonable argument can be made that it is slowly becoming less free. Tim