More symptoms of insanity on the American right

[fpb]

In yesterday's American Thinker, a man with the Italian name of Bonelli wrote the following, extremely offensive statement:

The United States is different from most other countries in many ways. One unique aspect of our country is that our elected officials, officers of the court, and the military, all pledge their allegiance to the Constitution and not to an office, individual or party. This assures continuity of the ideals set forth by the founders.

As an Italian citizen, I have personally sworn to defend the Constitution of my country when I served in the Italian army. The presumption involved in this ignorant display of insular arrogance is an insult to every constitutional government in the world.

Comments

Re: The cultural exception argument

[sanscouronne.livejournal.com]

While I do not deny the veracity of this story, or the backdrop from which it has emerged, I must point out that for every anecdote about someone struggling to pay for medical care, there is one about a Canadian/European dying waiting for a kidney transplant or something akin to that. Both of these cases reveal actual problems in these countries' respective healthcare industries, but I would not say that any of them are illustrative of the majority experience.

Again, this is not to say that there needs to be major change in U.S. healthcare, but the situation is a bit more nuanced, and the perspectives along the political spectrum tend to be more concentrated in the middle, and not like the one of the man quoted above. Also, in your linked post you aptly described the general difference between Americans and Europeans (other Western states) concerning the tenuous relationship between citizen and state. I have lived in heavily Republican and Democrat states, and can probably count on one hand the number of loonies on both sides.

In short, I assure you, the U.S. is hardly approaching a state of radical conservative dystopia, in which the masses are dying in the street due to a bunch of men who spit on maps of Europe. Major problems? Yes. Is the obvious solution national healthcare a la France, or the U.K., etc? No, and it isn't strictly due to some inherent dislike of Europe, and it isn't madness to think otherwise. As your linked post pointed out, there are some major cultural differences here.

I apologize that this was rather verbose.

Re: The cultural exception argument

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

Very well said.

Re: The cultural exception argument

[fpb.livejournal.com]

As I said elsewhere, we live longer, are healthier, and, last but not least, pay less for it. (Health spending as a percentage of GDP is about 8-8.5% in western Europe, and 13% in the USA.) This is not a matter of anecdotes; the superiority of our variety of systems is measurable.

Re: The cultural exception argument

[sanscouronne.livejournal.com]

I do not disagree with these statistics. I am merely pointing out that it is not absurd to oppose a copy-and-paste reproduction of a European healthcare system in the United States. The United States and the countries of Europe are very different from one another. We have different demographic structures, and a far larger population than any individual European country. For example, Americans have a larger proportion of people suffering from obesity, which undoubtedly drives down our average life expectancy. Can this be uniquely attributed to our inferior ability to ensure healthcare? I would argue no. *

Re: The cultural exception argument

[fpb.livejournal.com]

As a matter of fact, we are experiencing a grave problem over here, though I am not sure how it compares. In Britain especially, obesity has become a curse. The NHS has been badgering the government, private business, and the public, about it, and I have a feeling that the problem is being at least faced, if not necessarily dealt with, largely thanks to its repeated alarm. (I am not wholly happy about it either; it has an element of "be afraid, be very afraid" that displeases me. But the problem is real; one just has to walk the streets to realize it; and I think the NHS is doing its duty trying to awaken the public to it.)