Evolution of Governments

That may be changing.Some of the conservatives are beginning to realize that we already have a universal plan. Namely, the sick go to the emergency room; the hospital boosts the fees for everything else to pay for it; the insurance we all pay goes way up. It's a highly expensive and inefficient system, and not very effective.Businesses are beginning to recognize that a universal plan is the only way to keep employee benefit costs in check.Expect attitudes to change, as the realization sinks in.

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Just say no to McCain 2008; he abandoned principle when he caved on habeus corpus

Especially as there are countries with universal care where it is working and where it costs less.That is kind of hard to ignore eh?

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
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If they are so jolly, maybe you can explain why those nations are also among the highest suicide rates per capita...Loading...Polls aren't nearly as accurate as hard statistics. Hang on.... Wait a minute... The British are always in silent desperation, haven't you ever heard a Pink Floyd track before? SS and Medicare are a joke, I won't contend with you there. And if there isn't some kind of reformation soon, I'll surely never see what I pay into. Okay, Brazil is probably the country you want to be looking at who know nothing about moderation. They don't have a middle class. You're either filthy stinkin' rich or dirt poor. There is no middle ground. America not even remotely fits in that category. The US is primarily comprised of the middle class. Go to a neighborhood in Anytown, USA and that is very much evident. You are confusing two different things. Jesus said, the "poor you will always have with you," but the lazy get what they get from their own idle hands. Now, certainly, that doesn't indict every homeless person. Some people run some bad luck sometimes. Some people loose their home in a freak accident or a fire. Things happen. Some people are just lazy and basically get what they asked for. That doesn't mean that those people don't deserve forgiveness. They do. They deserve a hot meal and a warm bed. But they also deserve a good kick in the pants too. Life isn't nice. If you fold arms, it may ruin you. Omnivorous, I think you're mental if you seriously think that socializing the United States will clear up the homeless problem, because it won't. You think Europe doesn't have homeless? Get real. As for what happens to the poor who visit hospitals, I know very well what happens to them because I used to work in the ER of two hospitals. They get treated, they get fed, they get a warm place to sleep for the night. Then they go back out, get trashed, and do it all over again. Night after night, until they finally listen to someone and get help, or they fall asleep one night in the snow and get run over by a snow plow (true story). They got it all for free. See, there is a fine line between helping and hindering. If you just hand a man a sandwhich, you take care of his hunger for about 4 piddly hours. If you clean him up, offer him a way to earn his keep and regain his confidence, he might make something of himself. If you coddle the sluggard though, he will keep ending in the same hospital room, throwing urine bottles at the people who are trying to keep him alive. No kidding. I want reform for that too. Insatiable greed of capitalism? Would this argument have anything to do with oil? If so, I'd like to point out that every nation consumes oil. Its practically a basic necessity at this point. Though if anyone wants to lobby for FlexFuel I'm all for it.I guess I have to say, pick up an Ayn Rand book some time. She may be a capitalist, but she at least puts a spin on it that I think liberals can appreciate. I find it ironic that capitalism, particularly, laissez faire capitalism, places the highest esteem of individual rights, whereas socialism wants to consolidate everyone under the big brothers blanket. And yet, the biggest proponents of the Patriot Act are died-in-the-wool capitalists, and the biggest opponents are died-in-the-wool socialists. If that isn't irony, I don't know what is."The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force... Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries.” -Ayn Rand Edited by nemesis_juggernaut, : edit typos and added some info

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Faith is not a pathetic sentiment, but robust, vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. You cannot see Him just now, you cannot fully understand what He's doing, but you know that you know Him." -Oswald Chambers

one tiny nitpick--its "hanging on in quiet desparation is the english way"from Dark Side of the Moon. nice straw man. penniless does not mean homeless. there are no where near close to 45 million homeless. In Denver, there are about 8,000. (mind you, I'm still confused as to what is considered denver. the denver "area" can include fort collins, boulder, colorado springs, all towns separate from the growing metropolis. but then, my dad lives in westminster, but 10 miles from downtown denver. westminster is it's own city. somehow.) So let's give denver a population of about 3 million. multiply that by a hundred. Should give you about 800,000 homeless for a nation of 300 million.(it would be great if I could find a statistic for the whole US--so far I can't. urgh.)again, I repeat. ever see the movie John Q?

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True, but the claim was that it had to do primarily with preserving an economic model with "whack" incentives. Its the above line of argument I can never understand...1) In Scandinavian countries, while they pay more in taxes, they still live with the remaining money at higher standards than people in the US. On top of that, they have all of their basic needs covered so that they don't go broke by getting sick, having kids, or putting kids through school (or themselves). At least that's the way it was when I lived there (Denmark). Thus appealing to the fact that more of their pay is taken out in taxes is misleading. In fact it only works for those in capitalist countries who need to scrimp and save as much money as possible just in case... or the incredibly greedy.2) The poor in Scandinavian countries benefit by living in much higher standards than in the US and so can pull themselves up more easily. Rather than creating a larger and larger lazy class funded by the earnings of "the strong", the "weakest" are made strong and can and usually do go on to work. There is less incentive to advance when one sees no hope in getting what one wants (the carrot taken away).3) In the US (or capitalist systems) you still have to give much of your earnings away, its just a question of who you will give it to. The only difference between socialist countries like Sweden and a capitalist one is that you generally end up giving more away in the capitalist one, to private organizations instead of a single central organization, for less return on your money. HMOs and PPOs ARE communist healthcare systems, simply placing into a capitalist setting where the "politburo" is out of your control, gets to take a huge chunk of the cash, and fights you for the service you should be getting. Honestly I paid more for health insurance and college in the US then I ever would have in Scandinavian countries. That in a Scandinavian country it got deducted from my paycheck wouldn't seem that big a drawback. In fact that would be a convenience. Correct it either abandons them or it jails them. In either case they are "purged" in their own manner, and it is quite unfair for you to claim it is completely within their control to overcome. If you get an illness which wipes out your savings, loses you a job, and you already had college debts... how was that your fault?Further, when the economy slides and jobs are scarce, how is that your fault?This is not to mention that some people are born into poverty. How would that be your fault?Some people are lazy. Yeah. Rich and poor alike. Some companies are lazy and take plenty of money from the public coffers. Lazy poor people take less than the lazy rich and lazy companies. I'd say cover the lazy poor people so that at the very least you will cover the poor people who aren't lazy and will become productive again... or are suffering. I'd hesitantly agree to that. I certainly wouldn't say the change would be immediate, and a "better" economy couldn't just be pure capilatism, but tyranny has resulted in a lot of damage to their nation.Of course its not like capitalism did a lot for them either when it was enforced by gun.Personally I think free markets are one of the best ways to handle trade, especially on the global scale. Its just that I've also found certain common necessities (medical, education, housing, food) should be provided or at least available to all, and regulations in place on limited resources. Those are areas where the market is "dumb" and will cost one more for less return.Edited by holmes, : the aboveEdited by holmes, : y-not

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Eh, I was close.

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I think you're mental if you seriously think that socializing the United States will clear up the homeless problem, because it won't. You think Europe doesn't have homeless?

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Penniless doesn't mean homeless? Maybe for about two months before everything gets repossessed. You can't go very far without money in any society under any economic system. 45 million? Where on earth did you come up with that bloated estimate? The US would flop if a third of the nation was homeless. You'd have ten homeless people squatting in your backyard on average per night. Now, quantifying the number of homeless is difficult to do because its not like they take surveys often. They're too busy trying to eat or find a decent shelter for the night. However, there is no way that 45 million Americans are homeless. The UN-HABITAT estimates the following homeless statistics. These sound reasonable and plausible:United States: 847,000-3,470,000
European Union: 3,000,000
Canada: 150,000
Australia: 99,000
United Kingdom: 10,459-98,750
Japan: 20,000-100,000 Again, your figure is horribly bloated. 800,000:3,000,000? No. Portland has one of the highest homeless populations in the nation, and the figure is nowhere close to the figure you proposed for Denver. Places like Portland, OR and Austin, TX are becoming new hotspots for homeless. For the size of Denver, it has a low population of homeless, respectively. "Denver's homeless population is considerably lower than many other major cities..." -WikiI thinks so... Denzel Washington? Son needs some sort of transplant? Hospital won't accept their insurance and turn him away, so he holds people hostage until they do the surgery..?

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Faith is not a pathetic sentiment, but robust, vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. You cannot see Him just now, you cannot fully understand what He's doing, but you know that you know Him." -Oswald Chambers

I think maybe he was suggesting that in a socialist system penniless would not necessarily mean homeless. Contrary to your assertion you can have a place to live, despite having no money.When I moved to Denmark, it was to live with a gf who had recently moved back there and still had no job. She was unemployed and a number of her friends were too. Despite having essentially no money, she lived better than I did in the US with a decent job (but tons of student loan debt as well as having to worry about healthcare).One of her friends specifically lived in a development for the poor (mainly immigrants). It was nicer and about a million times safer to live in than some of the places I have in the US, again with a good job and all. In addition at least two of her friends used programs to enter school and so get better jobs later. Thus avoiding the catastrophic student loan situation many find themselves in in the US, most particularly the poor.I might note that during my entire stay there I only saw one homeless/poor person... and it was an American. Unlike everywhere else I have travelled, there was no homeless/bum situation that I could see at all. That included Copenhagen.I'm not saying there weren't any, or that times could not have changed, just what I experienced and the dramatic difference it was to anywhere else. And of course to point out that being poor was not necessarily an impediment to having a place to live, or medical care.Of course if you wanted really nice things to wear and put in your apartment, you needed to get a job. Socialism is not inherently an impediment to a free market, if worked right it is a beneficial supplement. It does not make lazy people, but gets them over the hump of barely existing such that their natural desire for a better life (better things) kicks in.

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Can we get back to proposing new types of institutions of government?

What's wrong with a constitutional monarchy where the first part of the constitution says "the monarch must be a liberal or shalt be beheaded"?

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The thread about this map can be found here.

where did I get the 45 million homeless?
from the understanding that you thought coragyps (?) implied that there were that many homeless--otherwise, why bring up the homeless problem. it has little to no bearing whatsoever on the issue.oh, and I didn't say 800,000 to 3 million. I said 800,000 to 300 million (for the nation)*. And that's 47,000 lower than your source says. glad you managed to find some sources--i normally don't have so much problem finding info on the web.*i said 8,000 to 3 million for denver. bartering is not an economic system? that's news to me.

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see Message 23?

LOL. As opposed to what we currently have - a poll-ocracy, where politicians can't say 'boo' without first seeing what the polsters results would be.Real leaders do not use polls, as they are willing and able to make unpopular decisions. This is where both Kerry and Gore failed, imho, and where Bush appeared to be a better candidate (his polls were front loaded for his target audience via Rove).But one concept I have uses media to communicate a running referendum on the people running for a position: the "American Idol" model.In the "American Idol" model all the participants give a series of statements on their position on the topic of the night, and the people watching the show vote on who is least popular, so they get winnowed out of the group and all those with acceptable views move on to the next referendum: at the end you take the top (remaining) 5 candidates and do a preferential vote for the actual position.This allows those that are really interested in the process to be fully involved, and those who are willing to take the results of the process to make their choice at the end, much in the way that people get involved in primaries or only at the last gate elections.Enjoy.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

Actually I do not mind if leaders take polls into account when making some decisions. The question is if they use them to craft their public persona on issues or to have it dictate all policy from an administration. After all the will of the public is supposed to be the nation's interest.But I do agree that in general a leader will not rely on polls. A good leader will be working with others to be create practical solutions, making polling somewhat irrelevant.To your overall thread question, I don't believe there will be any new general forms of gov't that can be invented. We have concepts ranging from no control by gov't, to absolute control of everything by gov't, and gov'ts ranging from an individual to the entire population.But we can have new variations/combos. I wish the future of the world was allowing nations (or any group of people) to experiment more freely with the full range as suits their tastes to find what works for them... even if found horrible by outside nations.I am personally interested in working on democratic-republic models, which themselves can have many many different forms. That's why I've always been interested in discussing ways of voting and maintaining adequate checks on gov't.I think the current US form of gov't is in need of revision. Not that it is critical... we won't die if we don't change it... but we can do better, using more recent examples of democratic gov'ts. In particular I have enjoyed watching parliamentary systems and think this should be worked into our concept of Congress.In this model, the entire House would be voted for at the same time (essentially becoming a parliament). Instead of candidates being voted on by individual states, parties would be voted on across all states and seats in the house distributed based on percentage each party receives. In that way pretty much everyone is GUARANTEED a voice of representation in gov't. Currently that is impossible. The effect will be to create an accurate representation of the will of the people as a whole.The Senate would remain pretty much as is, and represent the will/needs of each state.The presidency is useful as a separate power (I still see some merits to it as different than having just a PM) but its election process is certainly in need of revision. The electoral system is soooooo out of date.That seems to be the focus of your current post... While I think I'd prefer using a different voting method than just changing the run up to an election, your AI model is interesting and something I've mulled over as well.To my mind the one limitation is that it can still rely on pure rhetoric to win. I think a "Survivor" or maybe "Big Brother" style competition might be more interesting as well as effective at selecting a worthy leader.In this model, candidates are not just asked their opinions, but are put to the test to overcome challenges. This may be both intellectual challenges (such as demonstrating knowledge regarding some issue) as well as problem solving challenges. The latter can include having to work with other candidates in a pressure situation to accomplish a task.The only difference is that they don't get to deselect anyone. The candidates would have to rate each others's performance and so would the "audience" and a bottom portion are removed.This model may be a more accurate detector of who has leadership skills, and who is simply a show pony. Indeed it may also reveal character in a way no interview/debate could show us.Heheheh, and maybe there could be some form of physical test in the form of Celebrity Boot camp. It doesn't have to be about strength per se, but about willingness to put in the effort. That should feed the desire of the public to see their president as a military presence. Or it could just be a source of humor to keep people watching, while gauging the sense of humor of candidates.

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

I forgot to mention a type of "branch" of gov't that was only used once in history and sounds interesting.The spartans had a group of people called "ephors" who were randomly selected from the population and put in charge of watching the leader. It was a kind of citizen's watchdog commitee solely focused on their King, and could bring criminal charges against him.I've also mentioned in earlier threads that I would like to see a new branch of gov't devoted to information gathering, analysis, and dissemination. This would have to be politically neutral, and I would suggest drawn from specialists in specific fields as well as working with the media to help the flow of accurate info in both directions. Currently information agencies are tied to either the executive or the legislative branches and so susceptible to direct pressure and manipulation by them.While the three current branches act as checks on each other's POWER, this would be a check on the (mis)use of INFORMATION by the others, a tactic presently used to manipulate the populace for their own ends.Edited by holmes, : clarity

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

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Actually I do not mind if leaders take polls into account when making some decisions. The question is if they use them to craft their public persona on issues or to have it dictate all policy from an administration. After all the will of the public is supposed to be the nation's interest.

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I would add that a true leader will also attempt to use her influence to sway public opinion. I mean, as a teacher like Jefferson or Martin Luther King, Jr., not as a cheap propagandist like Bush & Co.-In your next post, you write:

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The spartans had a group of people called "ephors" who were randomly selected from the population and put in charge of watching the leader. It was a kind of citizen's watchdog commitee solely focused on their King, and could bring criminal charges against him.

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Heh. Kind of like the Council of Guardians in Iran? (Just a joke, I know what you're saying, and I'm not necessarily opposed to it.)-

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This would have to be politically neutral, and I would suggest drawn from specialists in specific fields as well as working with the media to help the flow of accurate info in both directions.

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I'm not sure that involving the media in intelligence work is necessarily a good idea. I realize that some reporters do pass on information to the intelligence agents, and I don't know what journalistic ethics says on this point, but I would fear that as people become more convinced that reporters are intelligence agents then their jobs will become more difficult and dangerous.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus