This should send a very clear message to those on the left that think we should have socialized medicine, it won't, but it should. Once they get an idea in their heads the can't or won't ever drop it, no matter how many times it's proven wrong.

With medical technology advancements... Why would an individual allow the government to dictate what is right for their health care? Each person must have the right to choose for themselves! Our health care needs are not a cookie-cutter type treatment solution! We all are different and need to feel compfortable with our health care givers and treatments...

I haven't commented on Wizbang in ages, but this is just offensive.

There is a world of difference between the wrongs of a Canadian-style health care system and the monstrosity that was the Soviet Union.

The Cyrillic-style letters and the Soviet flag (instead of, say, a photo of Marx) clearly point to them specifically, and not just socialism in general -- so don't tell me that isn't the analogy you're making.

It is wrong when people demean the victims of the Holocaust by casually throwing around the term "Nazi" and I think it's also wrong for you to exaggerate the flaws of government-controlled healthcare (and I agree it is deeply, fundamentally flawed) by comparing it to the regime that killed and oppressed several times as many innocent people as Hitler victimized.

Oh, get over yourself.

Wow bullwinkle you were right once again!...

Very intelligent response, Will.

Who needs a nuanced understanding of the world when you can just play with Photoshop and reduce it to: Canadian Healthcare = Stalinism?

Joe,

The drama queen hyperbole in your comment merited nothing more from me, especially on a Friday afternoon.

You are the one eliminating all nuance from the discussion, reducing the symbolism to utter meaninglessness.

Joe, you really should look up the definition of socialism.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=socialism

so·cial·ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ssh-lzm)
n.
1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved. Can it possibly be made any clearer that that?

Joe, that's kind of a reach. What else would you recommend as the most obvious failure of socialism?

Myself and other CRs were being asked to go to Canada, to help out the conservatives there in the election. But the election ended up not happening.

I hope that more people will oppose socialism and liberalism in Canada, but the same needs to be true of other countries - like the U.K.

We need Lady Thatcher back. (We, meaning those of us here in the U.S., not just those in the U.K.)

Especially in times of crisis, such as this, nations need conservative leadership.

www.conservative.ca

www.conservatives.com

Joe is just your typical Liberal ... Angry and frustrated!...

Nah, Joe is a good guy.

Terrible how reality doesn't conform to right wing nationalist sentiment isn't it.

Ask anyone who knows anything in any other nation if they wish to have a system like the US, and it will be 99% "Hell no, we're not idiots"

That's why we have no problem with illegal immigration and so few requests for legal immigration. Also why so many countries like China, Cuba, North Korea and many other wonderful places that people like realitycheck are wanting to move to have such long waiting lists to get in. I'm sure realitycheck has applied all over the globe to get out the hell hole we call America. I'll pay half the air fare for a one way ticket and a contract that gives me the legal right to execute you at the border if you ever try to return. Interested?

RE: realitycheck's post (July 9, 2005 03:51 AM)

Ask anyone who knows anything in any other nation if they wish to have a system like the US, and it will be 99% "Hell no, we're not idiots"

You're kidding, right? Not that bullwinkle didn't provide a nice perspective, but even narrowing scope to health care exclusively, I find your position laughable. The U.S. provides the best health care on the planet to anyone, even illegal immigrants, who makes it through the doors. Granted, there might be a small wait to get that taxpayer-subsidized care, but they get it nonetheless. And for those with varying levels of resources? They can design a health plan to fit their budget and not have to wait for months or years to get access. Further, there is not a situation that the U.S. medical industry cannot address in spades. Is our system perfect? No way (which will always be the case when demand exceeds supply), but the U.S. provides the best comprehensive care on the planet with the support infrastructure to maintain it and develope most of the new technologies that keeps medicine advancing. One other significant difference is that the associated costs of care are hidden in taxes in other countries dependent upon socilaized medicine. By and large that is not the case here though some subsidies are contained in special taxing districts and Federal support programs. We may not like the pricetag but at least we have some idea what it is.

No, I think I'll stick with the overpriced, delapidated, jalopy I have now and work on trimming duplicity, boosting efficiency, and stimulating technology. Who knows. For the right price, I might even let hitchhikers tag along... at a premium.

Yeah, that realitycheck comment almost has to be a poorly-done impression of a clueless "Amerika sux" leftist. NOBODY wants to come to America or adopt our systems.

I don't have a problem with the graphic. The Marxist/Communist sickle represents extreme socialism, and what Canada's tried to implement and enforce is extreme socialism. With, perhaps, pretty overtones but still the same policies in practice, shared with the grim past that was Lenin Communism and Karl Marx Marxism.

Perhaps it's a tad too accurate a statement -- visuals can accomplish that, create a focal point for issues that otherwise can remain more distant and therefore more easily avoided as to consequences and realities involved -- about a tried and found wanting way method of government: forcing people to abandon options and disabling personal resources as to individual responsibilities.

I've yet to encounter a Marxist, particularly, who could accept that their philosophy was one of failure.

Just for the record, what I'm saying is that Canadian socialist healthcare *is* bad.

But the Soviet Union was really, really, really bad.

And I think it's an exaggeration to equate them.

"-S-" -- when I think of extreme socialism, I think of Stalin's intentional mass starvation of Ukranians, Pol Pot's attempts to kill anyone literate or the Viet Cong sticking glass rods inside the urethrae of American POWs and then shattering them, as a means of torture ... not a government-provided / government-monopolized medical system.

When you put Canadian healthcare on par with the USSR, you risk alienating the political middle, like when anti-war folks make their downright idiotic "Bush = Hitler" analogies.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=4073

Oh yeah? I'd rank Canadian health care with that of any other third world country's. I'm nto alone in that assesment. I was in and out of MD Anderson cancer hospital in Houston several times between '86 and '99 and there were quite afew people from Canaduh, typically on the brink of death that needed treaments for their hospital acquired infections first. These were generally people of means, I hate to think how the poor people up there survive. If socialized medicine is compassion at it's best in a country with so much access to ice floes in your opinion then you are one cruel S.O.B.

Nah, Joe, that's just your own perspective. I dare say, there are many millions of others on Earth who have perspectives other than what you fearfully project they do.

Just read the thread...seems that your fears about the imagery are somewhat isolated from this random sampling of humanity here.

Hitler is in a deplorable subset of class all by himself. As was Napolean a third worse and Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are sandwiched in at second worst place. Lenin, Marx, Stalin, Pol Pot, all those uglies, they're all jammed in at fourth with a million other very corrupt and evil persons.

But, the thing with Hitler is overused and overassumed in overuse by liberals, to state the obvious. Such that, to those who recognize the truly evil nature of that person while here on Earth, none of the liberal, moonbattery pejorative chants using Hitler-esque whatevers is mostly ignored without any seriousness about whoever uses that reference. Meaning, if and when someone understands just to what depravity Hitler sunk, in his behaviors at least, for starters, then the moonbattery references to try to equate Hitler with current happenings makes for a lessening in credibility to those who use that sort of specious reference.

The graphic here does.not.make.reference.to.Hitler....so give it a rest. Ohterwise, if you fear perception of Hitler in that graphic, you're revealing more about yourself than about anyone you fear may possibly "see" whatever.

The graphic in illustration of this thread theme seems quite straightforward. Others have identified here as to why, this thread, and there's a concise explanation provided as to what socialism is -- which is what I think is concerning some most of all, seeing socialism so succinctly defined for what it is.

It's not a flowery, pretty, let's-all-wear-one-another's-clothes-and-eat-breakfast-together philosophy/political ideology. Perhaps being forced to confront the visual clarity of those elements is just too confrontational for those who prefer to think socialism is Happy Meals All Around. Seems like that's the issue here, that the issue is too straightforward for someone's comfort.

-S-, on July 9th:
"if and when someone understands just to what depravity Hitler sunk, in his behaviors at least, for starters, then the moonbattery references to try to equate Hitler with current happenings makes for a lessening in credibility to those who use that sort of specious reference."

-S-, on July 5th, in the "Schwarzenegger For President?" thread:
"And, for all the nazi liberals, they can still search out their next fuhrer -- call him Bubba, or her Bubbess, it's still the same emotional and spiritual failing, and they're still as intolerant of everyone else as nazis ever were, so I don't see much difference there."

-S-, on May 17th, combining both theories in 1 post:
"I agree that the words, "Nazi" and/or "Hitler-(anything)" are inappropriate (such a mild word for such an intense reaction) as reliable pejoratives/descriptions -- that by using them commonly and even flippantly reduces the evil contained in both -- but on the other hand, it is bringing about the identification of the actual process of fascism, and that is by those who behave so, all in dedication to extreme socialism, as are many among today's Left."

-S-, on January 26th,
"Every time I hear/read that "Nazi" tag by routinely liberals, it's the same thing...they are more like actual Nazis and are doing the very same thing that Nazis did"

Hypocritical much, -S-? Or just trying to see how low your own credibility can go?

Steven:

Great job!

I guess the realitycheck bounced. He hasn't replied to my generous offer for half of the air fare to leave the country he hates so much. I'm curious as to whether the realitycheck came back marked insufficient funds or account closed. Maybe it was a forgery?

RE: bullwinkle's post (July 10, 2005 05:14 PM)

I guess the realitycheck bounced... I'm curious as to whether the realitycheck came back marked insufficient funds or account closed. Maybe it was a forgery?

Failing to reconcile, I guess the account became too unbalanced. Sad... yet another moral bankruptcy. Your kind offer of an infusion of cash probably wasn't appealing because, well, the tonic would've been a prescription for medicine he really doesn't want. You know, terrible system and all...