But Izdaari, it seems self-defeating to reject something useful the government may handle (poorly or not) while accepting all the deletorious programs the same government handles. You trust them with the biggest most expensive world-killer military in the world, but not to run hospitals?
Consitutionally, the government is supposed to handle military matters. They are not supposed to run hospitals. My feeling (just a gut feeling) is that the government can do well what it was originally given the power to do. The more things it takes on, the more it either stretches itself to the point of original responsibilities suffering, or it must grow and get more powerful than it was intended to be. And the more power a government has over its people, the more the people need to fear their government. We were set up so the government should fear us (not that we would randomly overthrow it for the hek of it).
One of the big fears of this proposed health care reform is this:
The number of people insured will go up (a good thing in and of itself), but the number of doctors who can see patients will not (which counters the good done by insuring more people), resulting in the government rationing healthcare (a bad thing), potentiall to the point of (as a kind-of worst case scenario):
Sorry Mrs. Johnson, but you're 80, and someone who is 35 gets to go in front of you for that [insert medical procedure here]. You've had a long life, they still have productive years to pay taxes, so their life is worth more.
Not that the government would
say someone's life was worth more, but it would be the message sent to someone who was denied treatment because the spot was needed by someone else still paying taxes into the system at a higher rate.
It amazes me that so many Americans (not necessarily you, Izdaari) will proudly and loudly insist the US is the best country in the world and out the other side of their mouths admit to being regularly wronged and intimidated by their own government.
Well, this reminds me of a quote by... oh, I want to say Churchill, but I don't know for sure. "Nobody said democracy is the best form of government. Indeed, it is the worst form of government, except for all the other types that have been tried."
Kinda the same attitude with Americans and their government, I suppose. IT's the worst... except for everyone else's...
Which is a way of saying "we may have a lot of good qualities, and even more than anywhere else we can think of, but there's a lot we need to fix too."