Unfortunately, the climate of debate in this country has been muddled by the McCarthy’s and Beck’s of the world, resulting in people who view things like Socialist philosophy as THE END OF FREEDOM, OH NOES!!! Socialist philosophy has been a part of our gov’t for many years, and our freedoms have not gone away. In fact, I would argue that we are much more “free” as a society now (with civil rights, women’s rights, much more free speech, etc.) than we were at the beginning of the 20th Century, before all this Socialist philosophy started doing horrible things like improving people’s working conditions, helping the poor and unemployed, and all that other garbage that doesn’t sit well with the Social Darwinist, “Protestant Work-Ethic” types.

I mean, really…the people who rail against Socialism are the same people who use terms like “intellectual,” “college-educated,” and “progressive” as a pejorative. They try to paint Liberalism as un-patriotic and evil, while ignoring the fact that this government was built upon the Progressive, Liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.

Pish-posh.

According to The Nation, “During the New Deal, the Roosevelt administration spent about $250 billion (in today’s dollars) on public-works projects, building about 8,000 parks, 40,000 public buildings, 72,000 schools and 80,000 bridges. The entire cost of all the New Deal programs (in today’s dollars) was about $500 billion.”

Schools, libraries, park buildings, roads, etc. Socialism. The Interstate system is also a product of socialism. You cannot claim that medicaid is socialism but that something that, simply because it results in a bridge or a road, is not.

Since socialism refers to public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, both Eisenhower’s Interstate system and Roosevelt’s New Deal are socialist – and that was one of the charges brought to bear against FDR when he proposed the New Deal – which included both social welfare and infrastructure spending.

Tea Partiers generally stand for one thing and one thing only; fiscal responsability. Most Tea Partiers, myself included, don’t support Palin. Our reasons may be different, I’ve discounted her because she walked away from her governorship among other things.

The propaganda about the US being founded as a “Godly nation” has been going on for a long time.

When I was in the UK, I talked to several people about NHS and private insurance experiences. Many of them had complaints about NHS, but still said they could get treatment for problems that many of us can’t over here, even if we have insurance. I also got the impression that private insurance schemes like BUPA don’t seem to find as many ways to deny coverage to existing clients like many HMOs do. We went because my better half’s mother was in hospice care in a nursing home; her caregivers and the facility were beyond excellent. Her nurses were flabbergasted at some of the things that happen over here under the “pre-existing conditions” and “not covered by your policy” ruse. There’s always good and bad in any system, but I think I’d prefer their bads to ours.

My buddy (US citizen) was there as a tourist a couple of years ago and fell and fractured his ankle. He was seen in short order, set and given meds, and scheduled to check back in before he left to go home. No charge. And he wasn’t treated like a bum. I can’t say the same of some of my experiences.

Geniuses rarely submit to the status quo – we were exceptionally lucky in the number of geniuses present at the formation of our country (Franklin, Madison, Paine, Jefferson…)