"Fire, police, roads, national defense etc... are essential services. Health care on the other hand is not."

- no personal offense intended but that's messed up


"You must have me confused with an anarchist."

- what does that have to do with health care being designated as an essential service? most developed countries in the world designate health care as an essential service and they have formal leadership hierarchy in government and health care systems



"Why is it perfectly acceptable to buy a new car valued at $30,000, but it is completely invalid to expect a person to pay $30,000 for a surgery that will save their life?"

- i can't believe i have to explain this: people don't die if they can't afford a $30,000 car...they might be wistful, or maybe even resentful, but they will survive



"Health care is a matter of personal responsibility, as nobody can force you to live in a healthy manner."

- what happened to your life saving surgery example? we're not talking about eating right, exercising, and taking your vitamins...that's not essential health care



"Due to the fact that government basically allowed monopoly power for these giants, they are responsible, and in fact should/will clean up their mess. "

- you make a good point there...fannie and freddie's assets and mortgage backed securities added up to about $5 trillion in 2007...but their share of the subprime market was less than 20%...over 80% of the risky mortgages were made outside of freddie and fannie...should the us taxpayer have to clean up that too? the us gov't took over fannie and freddie and is now using them to buy nearly worthless mortgage backed securities from banks on behalf of the US taxpayer (i think that's what they're doing)



"If Japan did not have US protection, then they would in fact have to allocate resources currently used for their consumption, towards national defense. Japan does have the protection of the US. Therefore they will not allocate more resources towards national defense."

- you don't know that if-then relationship is a fact (sorry, i don't know latin for "pulling the consequent out of your ass" haha?)...technically, all nations enjoy pooled military resources under the united nations...when iraq illegally invaded kuwait in 1991, the united nations kicked hussein's ass back into iraq....the entire cost of the first gulf war was around $60 billion, but it only cost the usa about $9 billion...that was cheaper than enforcing the unilateral no fly zones between wars...if canada was located in europe instead of north america, it would probably spend about the same on it's military thanks to the shared defense committments...but what if canada didn't have friendly relations with the usa? looks at russia: it is currently on the usa's superpower shit list and they allocated only $40 billion for defense in their 2008 budget, or about 2.2% of it's GDP (a tiny fraction of US military spending)...canada set aside $18 billion for defense in 2008, or about 1.5% of it's GDP (and that is twice as large as russia's military budget on a per capita basis)...IMO canada would not be compelled to spend a lot more on defense if the usa reduced it's military budget because canada doesn't have a lot of enemies as a result of constantly invading countries...canada doesn't run roughshod over the rest of the planet, bullying countries to join the so-called drug war...canada doesn't overthrow democratically elected governments because they aren't capitalist enough...canada doesn't need hundreds of military bases around the world...canada has the second largest oil reserves on the planet so it doesn't need to control middle east oil and politics...the usa's belligerant foreign policy costs a lot, and creates a lot of enemies, which creates the need for more money to defend the homeland...the usa isn't spending all that military money to defend the rest of the countries in the world - it's spending it to attack more countries than it defends



"This is why foreign governments and banks buy T-Bills. It is guaranteed!"

- they are not fully guaranteed...foreign governments take a loss when their low interest t-bills depreciate on the foreign exchange markets...foreign governments get nervous about lending increasing amounts of money to a government that cannot control its own finances...banks get skittish when the treasury secretary writes a letter to congress informing them, "unless the debt limit is raised or the Treasury Department takes authorized extraordinary actions, we will be unable to continue to finance government operations":
FOXNews.com - Snow: Congress Needs to Help U.S. Pay Bills - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum



"Read the statement above..."

- what statement? that you think T-bills are guaranteed? maybe the treasury secretary, the president, and congress should read the above statement cuz they aren't so sure