Liberal view of Government.

[Diogenes]

I/we don't hate the french.

When they did not want to join your crusade to Iraq, quite a few US citizens that I personally know were already talking about war with France and that quite seriously...

A lot of people have long regarded France as a contrarian country, and that they would oppose whatever it was that the Anglosphere wanted to do. This is how I and others initially regarded France's opposition to the Iraq war. Later, when it became apparent that French businesses and officials had been colluding with the Sadam regime to enrich themselves, the motivation for France's opposition appeared to be more sinister. As a sufficient quantity of prominent businesses and politicians can often influence public opinion, and as public opinion is traditionally inclined to thumb it's nose at the Americans anyway, it was not surprising that the Majority in France was against the invasion. That being said, while Americans had no reason to have any love for France at this time, nothing I ever heard or read seriously discussed going to war with France. It sounds like an idea concocted by childish blowhards.

Seriously, there was never any real discussion of any serious retaliation against France. Boycotts and criticism Yes. War ? Absolutely not!

Everything i'm seeing tends to indicate that Europe will be a Muslim continent in 50 years, so we may or may not have a friendly relationship with it in the future.

I agree with you on that. It is a scary situation and one of the reasons why I would rather like to move elsewhere. I have hard Iceland is quite nice...
LOL

I have always heard that Icelandic women are incredibly beautiful. That's not a bad reason to move there.

]Maybe, but I'm thinking more Doctors and more Competition might be beneficial. Perhaps create an apprentice type Doctor? One that can't proscribe narcotics, but can proscribe Antibiotics, Anti-fungals, and Viral inhibitors ?

I dont know about the US, but in Austria, all doctors to be have to go through a few years of the so called "residency" here (turnus). In this time they are still in traning basically, but are already working in a hospital. They of course are somewhat limited in what they can and can not do. So I think that this is pretty much what you describe.

Doctors here must also go through residency. Usually 2 years.

Btw, my father and my sister both are medical doctors and good ones. They would probably be able to provide some interesting input into this discussion from their point of view. All I know is that we had a time when we had way to many doctors here in Austria, because they made the medical studies to easy. It did lower the prices a bit, but that was outdone by the decrease in quality. The result was a lot of quackery and all sorts of incidents that made my father furious
The lowered standards were a result of socialist policy, btw (you may find that interesting). They wanted to reduce the cost of the health care system (more doctors that can be force to accept less pay due to competition) but in the end had to realize the errors in their ways and now they are making the studies harder again.

This is not exactly what I was thinking. I've noticed that nowadays doctors specialize. We have Ear, nose and Throat specialists, we have endocrinologists, we have gastroenterologists, podiatrists, Gynecologists, Urologists, Dermatologists, etc.

Like Dentists, they specialize on one particular type of practice, so why could they not start their specialization in the very beginning instead of being required to learn a great deal about medicine that they won't ever use?

I should not be surprised to discover that dentists don't study vertebra or colons, and yet in their specialty they perform just fine. Could not the same concept be applied to other Doctors ?

Don't know. Just a thought.

They taught people a moral code that made them less likely to rape, rob and steal. It dampened down the bad things that people do to each other, and made a stronger more symbiotic society.

There is very little wrong with the general morals tought by christianity (and I am saying that as a completely unreligious person), but all christian churches tend to interfer with politics too much. Like any larger insititution they want to increase or at least maintain their power.
This has had many very bad results.

I Think my point is, as bad as mixing politics and religion has been, the cases where athiesm was mixed with politics have turned out to be far worse.

The Protestant Schism was the result of the perception that the Catholic Church had lost its moral way.

Yes, but the protestants were not that much better than the catholics. They were e.g. also taking part in witch hunts.

George Will (Syndicated Columnist) pointed out in an article years ago, that if you believe in the devil, and if you believe that certain people are in league with him to wither your crops and bring sickness to you and your children, then hunting them down and killing them is a very reasonable thing to do.

With that being said, I hardly think the quantities are comparable.

I believe they did a great many good things throughout their history.

The question is whether the good outweighs the bad. I have my doubts.
I think the catholic church is responsible for a lot of the shit that went down in Europe and it delayd our development.
The US was founded by a lot of those that wanted to escape the catholic supression. Dont forget that.

Several people have now emphasized that point. It does seem to be likely now.

Even adding those casualties into the mix doesn't come close to the Deaths caused by the Socialists and the Muslims.

Communists and muslims. Socialists are going more towards the grey area (and I still dont like them much, just to make that clear).

The difference between a communist and a socialist is one of degree. I think it is the vector at fault. Not the scalar.

All of Europe bears the blame for not having more children. As I have pointed out elsewhere, having children has always been considered the right thing to do, as well as a duty. It makes it possible for a society to defend itself.

YES, I fully agree with you on that. This is one of the big failures of socialism.
There is another problem: Hitler supported women having lots of children. Nowadays, we have this extreme anti Nazi thinking here (which has its positive sides, dont get me wrong) that has been very kindly supported by the US as well, btw. Anyway, so having lots of children, or mentioning the idea of supporting women with lots of children more, emmediately makes all the lefties cry "you are bringing Hitler back!".
In Germany and Austria, the whole "anti Nazi" thinking has also brought about a kind of "anti German culture" thinking. Culture is good as long as it is not our own

The Nazis scared the h*ell out of people, and in some ways they have over reacted. Even today, the Nazi argument is still being used (by me and others ) to malign various socialistic ideas. Unfortunately for Europe and others, the Opposite of Nazi intolerance is Tolerance, and now it is advocated excessively. Nowadays anything which is perceived as being "intolerant" is now criticized as being Racists. This over reaction to Past intolerance is what is going to Kill Europe. Europe Needs to become more intolerant. It is going to do it one way or the other. If the Native Europeans don't establish their own Version of Intolerance for Ideas which are counter to their best interests, the New Europeans will establish THEIR version of intolerance, and Europe will have to live with it.

In an environment like that, you get the results we have to deal with right now. I dont like it, but again that is not the fault of our health care system. It might be the fault of our social system (pensions, unemployment money, etc). This I have my gripes with. Oddly enough, ours is not much more expensive than yours (you pay some 12.5 % or so to it, right?). As a self employed I pay some 15% for it (I think employees pay arround 23% here, or rather the company pays it for them, result is the same though). Both you and me are to much in my opinion, especially considering what we get for it.
I dont see the need for either of them also. I would much rather get rid of that completely.

I have simple ideas. One of the most important of them is that You can't spend more than you make. If you do, you are being foolish. If you can't afford something, you can't afford it, so you should put it out of your mind that you might wish to have it. Unfortunately, the socialist minded peoples of the world don't seem to understand basic math and basic economics.

Even when you can afford something, it is not always in your best interest to acquire it. Like the Fat person that buys themselves an electric mobile chair, rather than walking more. Sure, they can afford it, but the consequences of acquiring it may be that they die sooner and in a more miserable state.

[Skipjack]

Seriously, there was never any real discussion of any serious retaliation against France. Boycotts and criticism Yes. War ? Absolutely not!

Of course not among politicians, at least none that I know of. But I personally talked to a bunch of texans that were serious about it.

Doctors here must also go through residency. Usually 2 years.

It is 3 years here for general practicioners (those that dont have a specialization) and longer together with more courses and tests for specialized doctors.

Like Dentists, they specialize on one particular type of practice, so why could they not start their specialization in the very beginning instead of being required to learn a great deal about medicine that they won't ever use?

Because then you end up with a doctor that can not distinguish an infectious desease from skin cancer...
Besides you have to know enough about everything in order to understand how the body reacts to the medication that you prescribe and how and why sideeffects can occur, etc.
Also, knowing a bit about everything can save lives. My father is a specialist, but he cares a great deal about his patients so he always asks them about their other problems. He discovered a lot of illnesses that were missdiagnosed by colleagues and so saved a lot of lives.

Btw, dentists here have a different education. They share the first part (the first two years I think) of the studies with "normal" doctors, but then go a completely different path.

I Think my point is, as bad as mixing politics and religion has been, the cases where athiesm was mixed with politics have turned out to be far worse.

As I said earlier (ot at least I hoped that it would come across that way):
Communism is a religion too.
They dont believe in a god, but they have the same principles otherwise. Their savior is not jesus, but Karl Marx, but otherwise there is little difference. They both have high goals and their teachings both rely on "eternal truths".

The difference between a communist and a socialist is one of degree. I think it is the vector at fault. Not the scalar.

I always think that vector depends on your current position...
If you are on the far right, going towards the middle would be a vector turned left. If you are on the far left, the vectors goes towards the right.
In my personal opinion, extremism, no matter of what kind is always bad.
It is the right mix that makes the perfect batter so to speak.

If you can't afford something, you can't afford it, so you should put it out of your mind that you might wish to have it.

My look at things is different. First, you can always save up or work harder until you can afford something.
Or, you can compromise and try to get a little bit of the thing you want.
A social system is not a one or nothing entity. You can have a little bit of a social network, just enough to have the best of both worlds.
That is my way of looking at things. Of course if you people dont work hard enough (see above), then you will never be able to afford anything, but in this case a capitalist system will fail just as much as any other system will.

[Skipjack]

The Nazis scared the h*ell out of people, and in some ways they have over reacted.

People had all right to be scared. It wa a horrible time. There is no excuse for it. But, I do consider it rather unfair, that the Germans are made the symbols of evill, when pretty much everybody else had some dirt on their sticks as well.
Of course looking back, the Germans lost the war and so they dont get to write their own history like everybody else did.
I mean the English invented the concentration camps in the Bure Wars.
They also had the nice sport of hunting aboreginees in Australia not to long before Hitler took over Germany.
Nobody talks about what the Belgians did in the Kongo long after Hitler was gone. Yet, there is not a single year, a single TV show, a single book series, that does not have a Nazi Episode of some sorts. Heck even in Star Trek there were the evil Space Nazis, which seriously just was ridiculous. Where are the evil space communists? The evil space colonialists? The evil space cowboys that exterminate the space indians?
Heck, I am still asked about whether I took part in the evil Nazi deeds against the jews, every time I fly to the US... Why dont they ask people for communist connections?
It is just hairraisingly idiotic.

[alexjrgreen]

I mean the English invented the concentration camps in the Bure Wars.
They also had the nice sport of hunting aboreginees in Australia

Both true.

The concentration camp started as an attempt to protect women and children in a war zone, and unconscionable incompetence in resupply turned it into a massacre.

The Tasmanian aborigines objected to their land being taken so they were just hunted down and killed, except for the last few who were exiled to Flinders Island. Most of them died of European diseases.

Where are the evil space communists? The evil space colonialists? The evil space cowboys that exterminate the space indians?

That was Babylon 5...

[Skipjack]

That was Babylon 5...

Really I just saw the evil "Space Nazis" again with the nightwatch or whatever it was called and the symbols on the armbands...

[Roger]

Sillyness, they think its all about the public option, Nope, its about single payer. I had everyone fooled and now its too late. Cloture vote went 60-39.

If interested, you have untill 8 am Dec. 24th, to stop a Senator or 10, from voting for Single Payer Primary care.

[KitemanSA]

Seriously, there was never any real discussion of any serious retaliation against France. Boycotts and criticism Yes. War ? Absolutely not!

Of course not among politicians, at least none that I know of. But I personally talked to a bunch of texans that were serious about it.

Heck, there are texicans who seriously want to go to war with Oklahoma. Don't listen too hard!

[Diogenes]

Seriously, there was never any real discussion of any serious retaliation against France. Boycotts and criticism Yes. War ? Absolutely not!

Of course not among politicians, at least none that I know of. But I personally talked to a bunch of texans that were serious about it.

You were talking to Texans? Oh, that explains it.

Like Dentists, they specialize on one particular type of practice, so why could they not start their specialization in the very beginning instead of being required to learn a great deal about medicine that they won't ever use?

Because then you end up with a doctor that can not distinguish an infectious desease from skin cancer...
Besides you have to know enough about everything in order to understand how the body reacts to the medication that you prescribe and how and why sideeffects can occur, etc.

Also, knowing a bit about everything can save lives. My father is a specialist, but he cares a great deal about his patients so he always asks them about their other problems. He discovered a lot of illnesses that were missdiagnosed by colleagues and so saved a lot of lives.

There would still be a need for fully loaded Medical Doctors. Beyond that, it is customary for Doctors to refer patients when they encounter a medical problem which they don't feel qualified to deal with.

Interestingly enough, many years ago there was a fellow who Liked pretending to be other people. For several years he pretended to be a Doctor. For most patients he would offer simple diagnosis's and treatments, and anything more serious he would refer to a real doctor. Strangely enough, none of the patients had any complaints about him.

Btw, dentists here have a different education. They share the first part (the first two years I think) of the studies with "normal" doctors, but then go a completely different path.

An example of what i'm talking about. Obviously the other two years of Medical school are not necessary for them to practice Dentistry. A similar case may be said of those who wish to specialize in one area of the body.

By all means, we would still need General practitioners who completed a regular medical degree, but is it necessary for every Medical Practitioner to be an endocrinologist?

I Think my point is, as bad as mixing politics and religion has been, the cases where athiesm was mixed with politics have turned out to be far worse.

As I said earlier (ot at least I hoped that it would come across that way):
Communism is a religion too.
They dont believe in a god, but they have the same principles otherwise. Their savior is not jesus, but Karl Marx, but otherwise there is little difference. They both have high goals and their teachings both rely on "eternal truths".

I believe I have referred to them as a religion several times.

The difference between a communist and a socialist is one of degree. I think it is the vector at fault. Not the scalar.

I always think that vector depends on your current position...
If you are on the far right, going towards the middle would be a vector turned left. If you are on the far left, the vectors goes towards the right.
In my personal opinion, extremism, no matter of what kind is always bad.
It is the right mix that makes the perfect batter so to speak.

My understanding is that a Vector is only a direction. For example, { 1,0,0} represents a unit vector in the Positive X dimension. You might think that it is in World Coordinates, but it could also be in Model Coordinates.

In any case, I meant to imply that the Socialist/Communist Vector is relative to the Left of Middle. There is a reason why left means sinister.

If you can't afford something, you can't afford it, so you should put it out of your mind that you might wish to have it.

My look at things is different. First, you can always save up or work harder until you can afford something.
Or, you can compromise and try to get a little bit of the thing you want.
A social system is not a one or nothing entity. You can have a little bit of a social network, just enough to have the best of both worlds.
That is my way of looking at things. Of course if you people dont work hard enough (see above), then you will never be able to afford anything, but in this case a capitalist system will fail just as much as any other system will.

Too many mixed metaphors. Let me just end this with an old Russian joke. "Here in the USSR we have a simple system. We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us. "

[Diogenes]

The Nazis scared the h*ell out of people, and in some ways they have over reacted.

People had all right to be scared. It wa a horrible time. There is no excuse for it. But, I do consider it rather unfair, that the Germans are made the symbols of evill, when pretty much everybody else had some dirt on their sticks as well.
Of course looking back, the Germans lost the war and so they dont get to write their own history like everybody else did.
I mean the English invented the concentration camps in the Bure Wars.
They also had the nice sport of hunting aboreginees in Australia not to long before Hitler took over Germany.

Have you ever seen a movie called "Quigly Down under" ?
Tom Selleck plays an American hired by Australian land owners because he is a champion long distance sharp shooter. When he gets to Australia he finds out they hired him for a special task. If you haven't seen it, I won't ruin the plot for you, but I think you already know what happens next.

Nobody talks about what the Belgians did in the Kongo long after Hitler was gone. Yet, there is not a single year, a single TV show, a single book series, that does not have a Nazi Episode of some sorts. Heck even in Star Trek there were the evil Space Nazis, which seriously just was ridiculous. Where are the evil space communists? The evil space colonialists? The evil space cowboys that exterminate the space indians?
Heck, I am still asked about whether I took part in the evil Nazi deeds against the jews, every time I fly to the US... Why dont they ask people for communist connections?
It is just hairraisingly idiotic.

It is possibly the result of the news media. Many journalists throughout the last Century were basically communist sympathizers, if not out right communists themselves. Initially some of them actually liked the National Socialists, but when they fell out with the Communists, many journalists turned against them. Stalin killed far more people, but perhaps he kept a better rein on the publicity. In any case, the Journalists simply didn't cover the Stalin atrocities.

Also, the invading armies made a point to seek out and display every bit of information they could find. This of course, wasn't done to communist Russia. I Also don't think the Russians filmed as much of their Activity as the Nazis did.

The French Revolution was also full of very sickening atrocities, but there were no pictures at all back then. So quickly we humans forget our ugly histories.


Time for another Russian Joke.

One day the KGB knocked on the Door of Ivan Ivanovitch. Boom Boom Boom. Ivan answers the Door. The KGB officer says "Ivan Ivanovitch. You are Under Arrest! " Ivan asks "Why ?" The KGB officer says, "It has come to our attention that you are studying Hebrew, and we suspect you of being a spy! " Ivan laughed and said, "No, it is nothing like that. I have recently become a Christian, and if I die and go to heaven I want to be able to speak the language there!" The KGB official then asks, " What if you don't go to heaven when you die ?" Ivan replies... " I already know how to speak Russian!"

[Skipjack]

Have you ever seen a movie called "Quigly Down under" ?

yes, I think I did. IIRC, think the English got away to well in it.
Anyway it is one movie, versus how many Nazi movies?

You were talking to Texans? Oh, that explains it.

Help me real quick, where was your last president from again?

Seriously though, I lived and worked there (with interruptions) for a total of almost a year while my company was contracted by a texan company...

My understanding is that a Vector is only a direction. For example, { 1,0,0} represents a unit vector in the Positive X dimension.

Yes, a vector is a direction. That metaphor is not working to well, IMHO.

There would still be a need for fully loaded Medical Doctors. Beyond that, it is customary for Doctors to refer patients when they encounter a medical problem which they don't feel qualified to deal with.

Well the general practicioner, who knows a little bit of everything, refers the patient to a specialist, once he has made a diagnosis that makes him know which specialist to send the patient to.
You cant send someone to a specialist, if you dont know which one it should be.

Futher I think it is a necissity for everyone to have as broad an education as possible. I know that this is contrary to the thinking in the US, but that is also why European immigrants usually have a rather easy time in the US. A too specialized education results in what we call "Fach Idiot" (someone who knows nothing beyond his speciality).
I think that this is a very dangerous thing. People that are not well educated beyond their own speciality are easily fooled. James Randi referred to that in his NASA talk. He showed how easily Lawrence Livermore scientists were fooled by a con artist (with a very simple party trick).
Having a broad education does never hurt.
Here in Austria, we used to have a much better education (it is getting more americanized now). Children would learn up to 3 foreign languages beyond German and have a very broad education covering everything from math to geography. Sure some things were not quite in depth, but that is what college is for.

[KitemanSA]

My understanding is that a Vector is only a direction. For example, { 1,0,0} represents a unit vector in the Positive X dimension.

Yes, a vector is a direction. That metaphor is not working to well, IMHO.

Please! A vector is a direction and a length. One was described mathmatically which you then correctly called a UNIT vector, i.e., a vector of length 1. But vectors can be any length; any direction.

[MSimon]

Well, you know when you help the ones in need a little bit, it does improve the society as a whole.

Yes. And I'm in favor of that kind of help. If it is done voluntarily.

I think you misunderstand the nature of the problem. Enforced extractions ALWAYS decrease the productivity of the system. One of the reasons is that you then need rules and enforcers. And the rules don't always match the requirements of a given situation. Nor is enforcement equally applied.

So to work the system has to be corrupt. The Soviets found this out. And corruption is a HUGE disincentive.

And rules beget rules. Until the system strangles itself.

It is a wonder that so few Euros took any lessons from the collapse of the Soviet Union. The main difference between the Soviets and the Euros that I can see is that the Euros are going down the tubes at a somewhat slower pace. And the Americans? Same problem at a slower pace than the Euros.

We Americans do have one small advantage. Only about 40% believe in the Euro/Soviet solution.

[MSimon]

Here in America we do an excellent job educating our best and brightest.

As to European education being superior? Where did all the Euro Socialists come from?

[KitemanSA]

Here in America we do an excellent job educating our best and brightest.

Perhaps unfortunately, we also seem to do an excellent job of educating everyone else's b&b too!

[MSimon]

I mean the English invented the concentration camps in the Bure Wars.
They also had the nice sport of hunting aboreginees in Australia

Both true.

The concentration camp started as an attempt to protect women and children in a war zone, and unconscionable incompetence in resupply turned it into a massacre.

The Tasmanian aborigines objected to their land being taken so they were just hunted down and killed, except for the last few who were exiled to Flinders Island. Most of them died of European diseases.

Where are the evil space communists? The evil space colonialists? The evil space cowboys that exterminate the space indians?

That was Babylon 5...

Actually the concentration camp was an American invention. Used against the Indians. The Austrian Corporal claimed the American invention as his inspiration.

American methods though were slow. Taking decades to reduce the native population. The German genius was to industrialize the process.