Ive only been reading; dont have time to post at the moment. But I completely agree with PC.

Regarding the military, it is a vital and necessary part of our country. I served in the Army Reserve as an officer. I was fortunately never deployed where I had to go away from my family and risk my life personally, but I am proud that I trained a platoon full of men and women who did--they served in Iraq both before I arrived, and in Iraq and Afghanistan after I left. It is still a voluntary military though--people choose to join, unlike many countries that to this day have a draft.

Anyone who doesn't believe our military is necessary I think should re-read their American history. This country would not have existed or survived without it, and there are constant threats from people who want us dead or under their rule or subject to their religion.

The objection I have to military spending is when orders are placed to spend billions developing planes that the Air Force says they don't need.

Saying that health care is like the military is just ridiculous. Maybe it's like the Center for Disease Control--a centralized resource to combat a potentially disastrous threat to the entire nation. But individual health care? No.

Health care is not compulsory the way you describe it. That would be like saying food is a compulsory market, and when I'm hungry I tend to go to my neighborhood grocery store.

It is *not* cheaper for the government to provide health care. They've proven time and again that when they fix prices, and decide what supply and demand should be, that they *by definition* make the market less efficient. The market is already horrible due to the all-you-can-eat buffet style of health insurance, which dupes people into spiraling health premiums by masking the true cost of what they are using. Making it *universal* would just make it that much, much worse. Ultimately we would end up rationing services and simply telling people they can't have certain expensive procedures, even if that expensive procedure has a better outcome for the patient. The poor and middle class would be the ones to suffer--the rich would simply pay for private health care services outside the "universal" system.

Now you want education to all be publicly funded too? What, free college for everyone? This is getting comical. How the hell would we pay for all that, when we're already up to our necks in debt? We're going to send all of our blue collar workers to college, taking away 4 years of their productivity? Or maybe you're thinking we wouldn't need blue collar workers anymore? Maybe we should just hand over 100% of our paychecks to good 'ol Uncle Sam and he'll take care of our every need?

I honestly can't make any sense of the rest of your points. I agree that government's function is to serve it's people, though certainly we disagree about the scope of services they should provide. Your version sounds a lot more like a strong, big, controlling government, and mine is a lot more weak and subservient. I just can't figure out how that supports any of your arguments.

And I don't understand what you're trying to say about a public private hybrid, or how people are making "too much money". There are a lot of unemployed, underemployed, and working poor people who would disagree with you on that last point.

Watch some frontline and tell me the government is big and powerful. It's no bigger than it was in the 90s and I bet you weren't bitching then. The difference is the 2 wars and precipitates recession we inherited from the past administration. The recession started in December 2007, guesss when we finally found out about it - December 2008. Do you know why it took the federal reserve 1 year to announce we were in a recession as a direct result of short term "boom" policies by Bush? It's not because it takes a year to analyze data, it has more to do with not fucking your party's chances over before the election.

Today the government is weak, corruptible even. And that's why it's failing, my friend... You don't want to make it cheaper to buy government officials you want to make it more difficult. What you're suggesting would just result in more of the same issues we face today with our Congress's transparency and accountability. Not to mention how much easier it would make it for corporations to infiltrate their respective regulatory agencies (ex-monsanto CEO head of the FDA... Nope no conflicts of interest here...)

Wake up proxy, if any part of you is a patriot you'd rather see this nation great again if you haven't a patriotic bone in your body then this discussion is over. Such a person will be the folley of our nation.

And yes devising a new healthcare institution modeled on the successful European ones would be cheaper. We pay the most per capita for the 36th best healthcare. As opposed to England who pays the 28th most per capita and has the 16th best service (according to the world health organization). So this is not debateable - it is fact that universal healthcare akin to what Vermont will have would be dramatically cheaper. In fact it's my understanding Vermont was only allowed to reject obama's plan and employ universal healthcare because they proved it would be cheaper. Funny thing about that Obamacare bill, if you can demonstrate a cheaper way to help just as many people or more than you as a state are welcome to employ it instead. Ironically no conservative states have taken advantage of this, so far only progressive states.

Also I didnt compare the military and subsequent security of or nation to healthcare, a more apt comparison would be the police forces across the nation but frankly the point was that like safety and security - the health of our nation is too a public good which we all benefit from.

Did you just argue that we need to make the government bigger and more powerful so that they are less corruptable?

Face+palm... No wonder we are going to hell in a hand basket...

I am, of course, a patriot. And you, of course are horribly misguided and wrong. Big powerful government, of course, is the reason this corruption is possible, and it multiplies the impact of the corruption. I want to take away their power, it was never theirs, they stole it.

I did want smaller government in the 90s. I am not, like you seem to be, just a shill for a political party. I actually think and form my own opinions. You seem completely blind.

was talking to a friend whom i assume is the standard republican voter from the south. i asked him about ron paul.

"not electable"

so he was interested in romney most of all, since he considered him "most electable". i found this annoying. he didnt agree the most with romneys views, but it seemed he was more interested in nominating someone who could beat obama than in nominating someone whose views he agreed with.

i hate this.

Why vote for someone who can't win? Just like in last election I voted for the lesser of two evils. I'll probably be in the same predicament next November too. This, of course, will lead me to vote for whoever represents the Republican party. I know this is a bad way to vote, but there isn't any other viable options. In the absence of a good candidate I will vote for the person that I think will do a less-bad job.

what im upset at is he probably got his idea of who is and who is not electable from the media. amazing how much power the media can have at helping direct the populace into who is and who is not a viable candidate.

Exactly Monte! This is the current state of things in the USA. The establishment tells everyone who is/isn't electable and everyone takes it on faith.

How do they decide who is electable and who isn't? They never explain. It's time to stop eating up this pre-chewed information. It's time to chew our own food; and let's see who is electable for ourselves.

This poll from GALLUP shows that Ron Paul actually polls pretty closely to Obama in a match up. Let's make this happen.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/149114/Obama-Close-Race-Against-Romney-Perry-Bachmann-Paul.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=All%20Gallup%20Headlines%20-%20Politics