On Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:58:09 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:20:05 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:


One of the major problems is that while "socialism," (with a
small s) has proven to be very workable in certain
countries, primarily Scandinavia,

Pay attention to the last sentence....

http://www.laissez-fairerepublic.com/Sweden.htm

The Future That Didn't Work
snip
"Right now I'd rather be in Sweden than in the U.S., because we have
seen the problems and are moving away from the welfare state," says
Wachtmeister. "On your side, you are moving right into it, and you risk
destroying your country."

===========
There is a big difference between a socio-economic system
that works tolerably well for the large majority of its
citizens and one that makes everybody happy. Remember that
even the Garden of Eden had a snake...

My point is that even if a more socialist/nanny state can be
made to work [and work well] for certain countries under
certain conditions, those conditions do not exist [and most
likely will never exist] in the U.S. Specifically: (1)
highly homogeneous population, with common language and
weltanschauung/zeitgeist [vital for reaching consensus and
trust]; (2) high (or at least adequate) levels of education,
literacy and numeracy for the large majority of the
population; and (3) absence of a significant, and
particularly growing/multigenerational, permanent under
class.

Another very significant difference is the size of the
populations, and relative lack of delusions of grandeur and
exceptionalism, that frequently result in foreign
interventions/adventures, with huge wastes of blood and
treasure and/or financial bubbles.

FWIW -- Iceland had hallucinations that it was a global
economic power and is now paying the price.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2...nancial_crisis
The citizens of Iceland, having far more say in how the
country is run than the citizens do in many of the larger
nations, refused to allow their government to bail-out the
banks and their foreign creditors, with tax money.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europ...repayment-plan

For those that were confused by the term "Scandinavia," this
commonly refers to the northern European countries of
Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and most English speakers include
Finland and Iceland in this grouping. Another common
identifier for this group is the Nordic Countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia


-- Unka George (George McDuffee)
...............................
The past is a foreign country;
they do things differently there.
L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author.
The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).