Ouch, in a move to keep this a peaceful and polite discussion, I'm not even going to touch that liberal media thing.

In any case.

jawq, I think you'd be unpleasantly surprised if you read the foreign media. I happened to be on an international flight around the time of some of last summer's healthcare controversy. I won't even mention the specific issues, as I don't wish to debate it, since it isn't relevant to my point. In any case, several European newspapers were offered on my flights and in the airports I passed through, and I read several of them in my lengthy layovers, in the languages I can read (French, Italian, and English, in this case - sorry, I could not read the German and Dutch papers, so their opinions will have to remain a mystery to me!). The Europeans were astonished at what was going on here, and the astonishment didn't seem to change very much, no matter what the political leaning of the newspaper.

Tea parties have members from different political backgrounds but I would say that they mostly self-identify as Republicans. You will find very, very, very few Democrats in a tea party. However, in my opinion, it is wrong to say that all Republicans are tea partiers. I have met some lifelong Republicans who are unhappy with the tea party ideas and tactics.

In general, I would say that the US conservative movement is very different from the one in Europe. Our political spectrum is arranged differently from that of many countries in Europe. Americans need to be careful about assumptions that they may make about the beliefs of conservative parties in Europe, and vice versa, because these things really don't translate, and it has nothing to do with language.

For example, I think that almost no member of the British Conservative party would suggest doing away with Britain's healthcare system and replace it with a private insurance-based system. My British relatives are overwhelmingly Conservatives (capital C, supporters of the Conservative party) and they all support the British healthcare system and they like Obama.

To jawq, I think you are having many of the same feelings that I had during the Bush era. It's easy to have a feeling that the world is coming to and end and that things are being shoved down your throat, when you strongly disagree with the president. I had the exact same feeling under Bush, that things I didn't believe in were being forced. Fortunately, I think that you'll find that your daily life won't change very much either way, as I also found. Since your profile says that you are retired from the Navy, I am assuming that you are able to use the excellent medical system that is available to retired members of the military. I have had several co-workers who are retired from the military (a common situation here in the DC area) and I have often felt that that system works similarly to a European socialized health system. I hope that someday, every US citizen will have access to the same sort of healthcare system that our veterans enjoy.

Best wishes for good health for all of us in the new year, regardless of our political beliefs.

Well, as an outsider to US politics I must say that your political debates are looking more and more like a religious war, where propaganda and revealing dirt are more important than arguments. I hope you can overcome this phase and leave the politics to the politicians and ballots again, so that the net's discussions can be about other senseless things again.

formiĉjo:

Rogir:Well, as an outsider to US politics I must say that your political debates are looking more and more like a religious war, where propaganda and revealing dirt are more important than arguments. I hope you can overcome this phase and leave the politics to the politicians and ballots again, so that the net's discussions can be about other senseless things again.

As a Christian, I have no idea why any other Christian would be against universal health care.

I'm with both Rogir and Formiĉjo there (although for me, as a human, i have no idea why any other human would be against universal health care). Political parties in the US seem to have strong followings, and there's a lot of calling each other socialist when anyone who knew what socialism was would laugh (and socialism isn't communism ). Here, however, in Australia, I think everyone knows that both parties (Labor and the Coalition for us) are bollocks and that's not gonna change (I'd prefer having a 3rd party, 2 parties seems to cause a lot of problems, especially when the leading one decides to make a stupid law like internet censorship. We need more diversity in the parliament to stem such foolishness, IMHO. Or Labor needs to enter a coalition with another party who don't entirely agree with main Labor policies).

Oh well, this is interesting although it is irrelevant to Esperanto. I just want to say one more thing and I'll shut up. I am not a Republican and I am certainly not a Democrat. I always vote as an Independent -- meaning that I vote for whomever I consider the best candidate. Party loyalty is distasteful to me because it indicates that a person abdicates his/her responsibility to think for himself/herself.

2010 is going to be an interesting year. Whatever I personally think is a bit irrelevant because I am just one of around 52% of the population that is solidly opposed to ObamaCare. That makes me one of plus/minus 160 million people that oppose it. The U. S. has what is considered to be one of the best health care systems in the world. No one is being endangered by our current system. I haven't heard of anyone dying because of neglect around here. There are certainly changes that should be made but, as with global warming, this is more about politics than about science. Certainly the liberal claim that there are 40 milllion people without healthcare in this country is propaganda.

I repeat, 2010 is going to be an interesting year because no one knows what is going to happen in the next 10 months or so. If ObamaCare gets voted in, then the next step is legal challenges because it is unconstitutional. The political composition of Washington is certainly going to be different after the elections in November because too many Americans are starting to see the ugliness of the Liberal Democrats. And there is a movement afoot to strengthen the individual states' role in things. Check out this site: www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/about. I have no idea what is eventually going to happen but I would be willing to bet that the current liberal administration is going to seriously harm the Democratic Party for decades to come.

Now, back to Esperanto, shall we?

I still don't understand what's going on - Universal health care should be beneficial as, to my understanding, it means the govt. will subsidise the costs of medical treatment in certain cases. My understanding is that in the US at the moment, costs are pretty much all on the person being treated. Therefore I get the impression that this "ObamaCare" must be some form of a corruption of Universal health care and not fair dinkum in some way?

But yes, way off topic (But a very interesting conversation, we English speakers I guess tend to forget about how diverse our countries are, so very enlightening, for me atleast!)

First, there is no such thing as "ObamaCare", as Obama is not presenting any kind of healthcare program. The healthcare bill is being put together by Congress, not by the White House.

Next, we may have the best healthcare system in the world, but ONLY for those who can afford it. If you can't afford it, it doesn't matter how good it is. Currently, 40 million American citizens don't have access to our "greatest system in the world". Fat lot of good it does them.

If someone hasn't heard of anyone dying because they were unable to get health care due to lack of money or insurance, they apparently are either 1) not paying attention to the news, or 2) only paying selective attention. *I* have heard many, many such stories, and have for years.

ceigered: Or are liberalist Americans different to liberals elsewhere?

Yes. In the states liberal means something different. Since the (more-or-less hard) left is effectively dead here, liberalism has become the epithet used by reactionaries to refer to any ideology that is not radically conservative by any other standard. In other words, the political spectrum here has skewed so far to the right, that liberal has come to mean radical left. This has led to the paradoxical situation where in the dictionary of American political discourse liberal, socialist and communist are essentially synonyms.

Turning to the ACLU, many people in the US seem to think its purpose is attacking Christianity. I don't understand why, since 5 seconds on google illustrates this is not true:

http://www.aclufightsforchristians.com/

But then, much of what people in my country believe makes no sense to me.

Sorry to revive this rather delicate, off-topic discussion. My goal is not to instigate but to hopefully clarify for people less familiar with American politics. Anyone who disagrees, please do not consider this an attack on your world view, instead remember that I am a loony socialist fascist and can't help myself.

formiĉjo:I won't vote for anyone..

That reminds me of a quote from one of my favourite TV series The West Wing: "Decisions are made by those who turn up."

I believe that it is the duty of every good citizen in a democracy to vote. If we don't vote, we fail to exert an influence that could do some good.

I definitely believe that among the many corrupt politicians, there are many who truly vote to support their core principles. You can find them in both main US parties. Perhaps I even disagree strongly with those politicians, because their principles are opposite to my own, and I think they're wrong! But I have to give them at least a certain degree of respect, that they are voting for what they really believe.

I definitely agree that the true left wing is pretty much dead in mainstream US politics. It surprises me when I read in the newspaper that "moderate" Democrats are against this or that. Let's call a spade a spade; they aren't moderate Democrats, they are right-wing Democrats! Just as a Republican who tends to have views closer to the Democratic side of the spectrum is not a "moderate" Republican in my mind, but a left-wing or liberal Republican (left-wing and liberal in comparison to other Republicans, perhaps not left wing in the grand scheme of things)

US politics have moved far, far to the right in the past few decades. I have never had much respect for Richard Nixon, though I've had a few chuckles at his crazy ramblings that he had the bad sense to record for posterity. But when I read about the health care reform plan that he suggested during his presidency, and which Ted Kennedy rejected at the time for being "too conservative" - why, Nixon's health care plan went MUCH further than any plans being offered today, even by Democrats! I would be overjoyed if today's Congress were to take Nixon's healthcare plan and put it into effect. The same plan would be called radically left-wing today.

A real liberal like me doesn't find too much support in modern politics, unfortunately. I just vote for the candidates that I think might have some chance of putting my beliefs into action. It is a shame that certain members of Congress are just saying "no" rather than presenting their own concrete plans for improvement. It has become obvious that it's obstructionism for its own sake, rather than an honest desire to come up with a better plan. The backstabbing and political wrangling are local news for us here in Washington, and it stresses me out and makes me feel sad about the future of the country.

Perhaps someone who lives in the USA should write a book entitled something like The case for bipartisanism (if they haven't done so already), spelling out its advantages. For example, if I understand correctly, the American system limits the power given to the executive, so that even a party in power is not usually able to do as it pleases all the time, and so deal-making is constantly needed. Such negotiations are where people relatively in the middle are liable to be useful.