@CaptainKid:
Not the majority but yes more of the retarded hypothetical. My point is that both sides are extreme and if given free reign they'd fuck us bad but now that they are stuck they get nothing done. I am a lazy but I just find it odd how having only 2 parties is supposed to represent anyone, if you agree completely with either party you are mentally retarded. I like Ron Paul but I also like Kucinish and Johnson, people who say leave the social issues to society and get government's greedy hands out of my pocket and out of business except as refs.
Yes, to assume that the two party system of the US could ever be a accurate representation of the differing opinions and values of a 360m populace is retarded, but this is the state of matters for now. It may or will change in the coming decades, given that all goes well and some smaller groups diverge from their mother parties, which at this point seems more likely than the GOP staying the way it is for long. And again yes, as long as there is any such polarization, many changes on the level of legislation will be slow or possibly non-existent due to the notoriously constant filibustering that your politicians freely exercise. But the fact stands that this is what you are stuck with for now - realistically speaking for at least the next twelve-or-so years. By stating your intention of not voting at all under any circumstances, you also let everybody know that you don't trust in either party making even the slightest progress on any of the issues on their respective agendas despite this not being true by any stretch of the imagination. You know yourself it is an exaggeration, but to others it looks like you're so hung up on the notion that it seems outright silly and verbatim childish.
And concerning your counter-counter-argument of "But I never said anything about the president(s)!" I must ask you: are you actually serious with this? This entire debacle of a debate is about voting in the upcoming presidential elections (whose results may or may not have much importance depending on which of the two "bad wolves" gets more seats later on), and you insist that they're both bad choices because of what their parties stand for… and then you say that you never said anything about them at all when someone calls you out for saying such things because you were only addressing the problems with the two platforms? Perhaps not explicitly, that I give you, but my God if "these both sucks, not voting" is not about Obama & Romney. A piece of advice, if I may. Think back to your previous posts before making a new one in an argument. It comes back to bite you in the ass if you don't.
I know how good we have it. Wow, I just don't like how the system is working right now then again I've only been around for 5 or is 6 administrations. England has speech laws where if you insult someone based on something they can't change it's against the law, whether it's race, sexuality, disability. How is that not a nanny state? They also don't have privatized medicine which is one of the great things we have in this country. In Europe you can't defend yourself (I'm not even talking about guns, which I am in favor of). Also you get taxed higher to pay for social services, I'd rather keep more of my money. Granted England isn't a horror show like Communist Russia but it's becoming increasingly nosy and people get arrested for internet posts, I see the US becoming that way very soon which is what I don't want.
My take on the speech laws that every Western European country has these days is not that of a nanny state advocate - as a matter of fact far from it - but a one of someone who happens to be of the mind that people should be treated equally and given the same rights, as stated by the gasp constitution! It's perfect common sense that you don't start publicly badmouthing people and being a racist, sexist twat, because… well, no, I'm not even going to furnish reasoning. Common sense, you know. Nobody likes being called names, and what do ordinary people do when they get that from other jerks? Just like you in this very thread, they get pissed. Or annoyed. Whatever you want to call it is fine by me, as I'm sure that you get the point.
In Europe we have these problematic fellows known as populists who are very vocal in their dislike of immigrants. And that is causing huge problems everywhere. Not only do immigrants and other physically "abnormal" people face racist people yelling at them, they also get to watch the local politicians say that they should all be sent back to the poverty and anguish they originally chose to flee. What do you think this makes them think? Those people have got nothing to lose, and they're not going back even if hell froze, so they are ready and willing to do whatever they can to ensure that they can make a living out there. And that, in turn, causes public unrest, which brings many other problems with it. Those laws were set in place to fight against all this, because unlike in the States where you would get laughed at for saying stuff like "all the niggers are petty thiefs", we still have that here. And you sure wouldn't like to hear slander and lies of you being propagated behind your back and sometimes in front of your face every day yourself. Or get told to look for another job because your skin isn't the right colour. Or both, and even more. And then there's the fact that talk like that is asinine and below any acceptable standards in and of itself. Of course there are laws that prohibit that. Why on earth would there not be? It's not like anyone gets arrested for grunting "fucking Russians" when agitated by something.
You don't get to defend yourself? Not true. Our laws clearly permit the use of violence in self-defence. You're not allowed to kill, but I'm not even going to venture down that road. Killing people is so low that if you start defending such a thing here, you might as well just walk away and don't look back, because at that point it's fire at will for many of us here on AP.
You pay taxes for the social services like infrastructure, basic education, good basic healthcare services, libraries, museums, and so many more vital things that you don't even necessarily always think of. You might not even know all the things you're paying for. Everybody can't afford all privatized commodities, so it's nice that the state provides those people with tax-funded alternatives that are more affordable. Not all money is meant to bring in more money. Sometimes you should just spend a little for the good of your people, because that ensures your nation's, and more importantly your political entity's, longevity. Plus, it keeps those people out of the streets where they would cause waaay more trouble to everybody than they do when they take a ridiculously small amount of money from you and a few million others in order to live a normal life. I would also use the argument of that being the right or at least the empathetic thing to do, but I'm not quite sure how you would take to that, so I'll just shrug that off. The state can't run anything if it doesn't dip its hand into your pocket. You need the state. Do the math. We are really happy living our lives in an environment where many things are made more convenient for us. Does it make us any lazier? Well some people, maybe, but most of the time the majority of us get bored if we don't do something with our lives. And what do you think keeps the overly expensive system alive? The will of the citizens to work and pay taxes, so that they can keep living comfortably. I just read in The Economist, of all magazines, that Finland is the third most competitive country in the world right after Switzerland and Singapore. Clearly that illustrates how rotten and decadent we are.
And we do have privatized healthcare alongside with the state-subsidized public sector, what on earth are you talking about? Most people here have even started using the private places because most of the time they offer more reliable and faster services than the public ones do. And still the system survives for those who cannot afford anything else, and nobody is complaining. Might there be something wrong with your prejudice towards European countries and social security?
