The United States; ravaged by years of socialism, is now left broken and bankrupt

[Frodo13.]

It is the fault of socialism because the United States has been very much in the grip (like ourselves) of the Republicratic Party which believes in a big government, and with big government comes a big bill.

O dear Undertaker. Up until this comment I thought you a very clever person who knows his stuff! Go read Reagan's inaugural address and then tell everyone how the Republican party believes in big government :/

[-:Undertaker:-]

Oh, how exciting, an adequate response. But it's not the truth. Bear in mind I'm probably not in the right state of mind at 5:50 to debate politics with someone who's so invovled, so excuse me if my words can be deemed misconstruing, however should I make such mistakes, next time I have at least 2 hours sleep I will fix them.

What parts 'arent the truth'?

This is where problems begin to arise, you say it doesn't work however it is the only tangible, fair and remotely adequate health service that can be provided for the masses. Imagine the pain people go through, living in a western society, everyone is so concerned in their little bubbles and yet the man on the sidewalk can't afford to replace his knee because he fell over, that sort of stuff doesn't just reduce your short-term abilities, it's essentially a real disaster for a long-term well being.

Wrong, Singapore only spends around 3% of its GDP on healthcare and has a private healthcare system with little government interference and has good quality care. The United Kingdom prior to the NHS also had a good healthcare system (for the time) which even doctors were unwilling to break up (thus the government had to 'stuff their mouths with gold' - at the expense of the taxpayer to get the doctors to go along with it. Before the NHS, the poor were treated freely anyway and it is the same with the United States. Ron Paul, a Doctor himself, remembers that private hospitals used to treat the poor free/for a lowered charge as an act of charity - because they had money to spare along with nothing to gain by putting poorer people through the system (government bribes).

This is what the American Tax Payer pays for, or atleast SHOULD be paying for. Regardless if that man in question spends his whole entire life drinking out until his liver explodes into a putrid cesspool, we should ALL acknowlege the fact he deserves to live the way he wants, just as you deserve to be able to ignore him and his pain as you walk past him down the street.

He should be allowed to live how he wants I agree, just as he chose himself to spend his earnings on drink as opposed to healthcare. This 'let people do what they want but we'll pick up the tab' attitude only leads to him not placing a value upon his own healthcare.

Interesting, you agree with me on lobbying, why not examine exactly what you agree with; do you agree with the whole statement, if so how can you possibily pin the blame on a leftist government without acknowleging that I believe that a right wing government would have the same problem if not worse. I guess I should tell you now, before you begin discussing economics with me that I believe it's simply.. how do I put it.. non-existent. I believe that these problems arise from a higher order. Let's not be silly here, we all know that politicans are simply there to give you the illusion of free will.

I don't claim that a right-wing government would be corruption free, if it was corrupt then I simply wouldn't vote for it come next election. Besides, corruption is largely a result of consensus politics (which we have a left wing consensus in this country between the three main parties) which leads to corruption because there is no opposition. If we had a real opposition, it would hold the government of the day to account on corruption.. but this does not happen because we have no opposition.

The same can be said for the invasion of Iraq where the opposition failed to do its job, and look at the mess.

This is where it gets interesting. Should a government not be able to provide such basic standards of living for all, how can anyone be expected to abide within the rules and laws of a democratic country? I don't believe for one second that rights are in written in cement, I don't have to look any further than how the Japanese Americans were treated in 1942 to understand that rights are simply a privilege. When the Japanese community needed their rights more than ever, it was simply swept from under them and the only right there were left with was 'right this way to the concentration camp'. The bits I highlighted in bold are what we consider to be our rights. At the VERY least, the government should be only working on preserving those things, not cutting them down to little bits as you would so have it.

Well hang on, you're talking about two issues here. You have a right to your liberty but not a right to take from others/harm others. In terms of the Japanese in the United States - I totally agree. But here you are confusing entitlement programmes with liberties. In terms of entitlements from the government, in a free market society we would be able to chop away at social security bit by bit and hopefully eventually turn it into a minimal safety net as its intended to be, rather than 'government looks after you'.

One way to do this without throwing people out on the streets who have come to expect from the government would be an opt-out that Ron Paul floated in the United States - you pay 10% of your wages to the government (for defence and the basics) but you do not ask for anything in return from the government; no healthcare, no state education and so forth. I think that is a very fair deal.

In terms of the amount of money on things it cannot do, what do you suggest it does? Cuts off public services as if nothing ever happened? That's simply unimaginable in my opinion, but you tell me what the conversative party would do about the debt?

Cut back and privatise where possible, yes. The first non-needed things would go first; foreign aid, EU contributions, contributions to the NHS, government quangos, Brussels regulations, Whitehall regulations and the legions of regulation officers enforcing these things. One example of how bloated the public sector has become is that since Labour got into office in 1997, 800,000 extra people have been placed on the public payroll - and for what? have services improved? no, they haven't.

As I stated above, the opt-out idea would be a major step in reducing the state in a 'soft' way as opposed to a complete government shut down over the term of one parliament.

But, you seem to believe that the government is not 'fighting against anything' and yet you agree with my point on lobbying. It might just be me but that's a little bit of a double standard. How can we possibly differentiate the business world from the politics world after all these things have happened, the federal reserve etc etc. You pretty much said it yourself.

Fighting what sorry? rather confused on your point here.

FROM BOTH PARTIES!

Do you remember in 2008, the whole world was agreeing with each other that Bush was responsible for the debt we will face in 4 years. Am I the only person left that remembers that? I will find you the broadcast I watched and it says exactly that explicitly. This is why I find it odd that now, people are beginning to shift the blame to the other government and fail to acknowlege that this is our fault as much as it is these useless and unworthy politicians.

I've made this point, that the Republicans are just as bad as the Democrats and the same with Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. As for the people, the people are not at fault and I fail to see how they are.

Let's be sincere here, in my opinion you're simply masking your survival of the fittest ideologies behind the gaze of a business and economic mask. It all appears to be a weak bluff.

Some examples would be nice, again this is too vague.

O dear Undertaker. Up until this comment I thought you a very clever person who knows his stuff! Go read Reagan's inaugural address and then tell everyone how the Republican party believes in big government :/

Reagan was as Mrs. Thatcher was, a one-off. Neither did all that much to reduce the size of the state, Thatcher for example kept state education growing with disasterous comprehensives and continued the NHS - Reagan on the other hand failed to close the federal departments of Education and so forth - all in all, the changes they made have been more or less reversed.