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Originally Posted by Raev
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So first off, I don't think there is much evidence that this is true. If you check https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results the USA comes in at 74. That's behind some of the European countries (Denmark: 92, Iceland: 79, Germany: 79) but ahead of many others (Austria: 72, France: 69, Spain: 60). The reality is that people of all shapes, colors, religions, and nationalities like money and power . . . and politicians more than most.
But even if we grant your assumption, we live in the United States. How is the expansion of government likely to fix our elite/politician problems? |
I'm not claiming our government needs to be expanded to fix this issue, but that corruption needs to be fixed through campaign finance reform and cultural awareness of the issue. Bernie is the only candidate dedicated to this. And that corruption permeates most of our systems including our healthcare. And again, it's not sufficient to look just at the corruption, but also the extent to which it is fucking us over. And here in the USA, it's fucking us over very hard. People in Austria and France still have good access to healthcare, higher education, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Raev
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I nearly stopped reading when you quoted Japan as a Social/Democratic success story. Japan is embroiled in a 25 year depression exacerbated by failed Keynesian policies and corporatism that are currently screwing us here in the USA, and just suffered the worst nuclear disaster since . . . that other socialist country, Russia. I'm sure the citizens of Fukushima are thrilled by your assertion that their strong government protects them from capitalist waste.
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You're judging them based on a single aspect, economic depression, which is merely the observation that their economy is not growing. It ignores the fact that your average Japanese person is doing very well, lives in a very wealthy society, and has minuscule unemployment. I'm not sure how having a nuclear plant hit by an immense natural disaster is the fault of socialism. Oh, maybe it's that their system is smart enough to still use nuclear power instead of bending over to the petroleum and coal industries? Economic growth isn't the end-all be-all metric for success of a society. That's something humanity is going to learn real soon.