Good post Christian. I think you pretty much got it. But some towns in the US have a growing health-conscious part of the population. In my hometown of Portland there are dozens of healthy food places, many vegetarian or even vegan places, and even one gourmet vegan restaurant that's surprisingly excellent food. The natural health food supermarkets are also very successful here (Whole Foods, Natures, New Seasons, etc.).
To comment on the socialism thing. First, BroDeal touched on something when he wrote:
The mixture of religion and nationalism is scary.
The peculiar thing about this is that the level of nationalism doesn't stretch across borders, or apply to labor or any form of protectionism. The so called ultra-conservatives seem to have no concern about the fact that Saudi Arabia or China or Japan owns huge amounts of real estate in the country, and huge amounts of US currency/debt. They also have no concern at all about the way some Americans and US businesses use foreign tax shelters to avoid paying tax. Or the way many US companies have shipped jobs overseas in order to avoid paying for American workers, etc. Many of these other countries are socialist, communist, or in a case like Saudi Arabia, an Islamic monarchy/dictatorship. Either they strangely don't care, while being rabidly nationalist in the ways you note, or they don't know.
53 x 11 said:
What I can’t work out is why people are so frightened, terrified in fact, that the government wants to care for them, surely this is already going on to different degrees through the military, roads and other infrastructure and education.
Three comments on this. First, I think a lot of anti-government people view items such as infrastructure as a necessary evil. Next, our country is in a huge amount of debt. The only way we can pay for more items is through deficit financing (though it looks like health care overhaul may be a wash). So you end up with people like myself hesitant to have the government spend still more money, when we're already severely in debt.
However, many of the extreme conservatives would like to see most of this privatized as well. Hence, all roads, bridges, stop lights, plumbing, even education, would be built and paid for by individuals as they need it. Those who can't afford it, even to pool their money to have their streets paved, or educate their children are just going to have to work harder or learn how to make more money to afford it, or do without and accept poverty and the fact that working hard at a job where the owner takes in 99% of the income is just the way it is.
Strangely, the idea of unionizing to help wage earners is something the conservatives are adamantly against. Even private unions. They follow the super-wealthy conservatives in a mantra against unions, and against labor, even if they are the labor, and it is against their own financial interest.
craig1985 said:
Because people will have to pay higher taxes? I would have no idea how they would survive in places like Norway, Sweden, and Finland.
This is another peculiar one, as US citizens spend a much higher percentage of their income on health care than most any other nation with "socialized" medicine. They just don't pay it in taxes when paying for others who cannot afford it, they pay for it through insurance, hospital and physician costs. In the most extreme conservative view, some people feel as though the poor and infirm should get no health care if they cannot afford it. And if they can't afford it, that's what they get for not being born with a higher IQ, being more ruthless in life, or born into wealth.
As to taxes, yes people don't want to pay them. But a lot of people don't realize just how little they pay in taxes. This may be the oddest group of people of all. Those who are working poor, and when the tax year is over may only pay 5% of their income to taxes - some paying none at all. Yet they remain completely against all taxes, as if we eliminated all spending, and all taxes, the income they are left with would somehow privately pay for all of the education, health care, infrastructure, justice, military, etc. they currently benefit from.