Standards of Living, Goverment plans, benefits, and lack of.. Options

I consider americans as an example, has a good standard of living where the goverment supports it's citizen, unlike many developing countries where beggars, woman and children are still roaming, sleeping in the street, knocking for small changes on your window at most busy traffic lights.

American living isn't all groove and juice. I moved from Canada where the health care system kicks some major butt. Here, It costed me almost $200 for a friggen appointment that resulted in absolutely nothing (I required it for college...ugh). My health care costs for insurance are almost $800 a year, which from what I hear, is wicked cheap. In Canada....it would have costed me maybe $300 annually, and that covers everything. If I wanted to get a prescription, my plan would cover it without having to go through months of paperwork and crap. Here, in America, health care is given to the rich.

Here in America, you have those people who are roaming the streets, sleeping in the streets, begging for change at traffic lights. Everytime I go to Holyoke, there is ALWAYS a guy standing at the intersection by Barnes and Noble begging for money. American government taking care of their citizens?

In Canada, there are a bazillion outreach programs for the homeless. About two years ago, Vancouver starting kicking out the homeless from the city and forced them to come over to Kelowna. For a few months business' where actually shutting down because of the increase in homeless people crowding their front doors. The government set up more shelters, even a few of the churchs started shelters and programs. In about 6 months time, the percentage of homeless went down by at least %50, if not a little more. The Canadian government is putting more emphasis on finding these people jobs, getting them adequate housing, and necassary training to allow them to be self-sufficient. Here, I see nothing of that. I read the paper every day, keep up with the news on news talk radio, and not a single thing is mentioned on helping the homeless. Barely anything is ever mentioned on immigrants either, in regards to helping them. I see something wrong with this, or it could just be me.

Third world countries aren't the only ones lacking in proper government.

As with everything else, I do think it is a good thought to bring unity and peace. But, I also understand that it will never happen. Like what has already been stated, a whole government certainly wouldn't maintain peace, especially if that government was based in religious rootings. One major draw back, is naturally assuming this would ever happen, it would be under the basis of ONE single faith. What if someone decided that that faith was not good for them? What would happen to that person? What would happen to the groups that went with their own paths?

With the education system, as has been mentioned (pardon my lack of rememberance for who it was), finding a teacher who lacks any of those prejudices will be damn near impossible. Finding Anyone who lacks them will be next to be impossible.

Prayer is for those who choose to prayer, not to be forced. Freedom of will and thought and expression.

Turning the military force into a police force? My total lack of understanding of how that would be a good thing prevents me from saying anything at all about it.

Has anyone seen the movie Equillibrium? If not, it's a film about a society that doesn't feel a damn thing. Nothing. A society that doesn't have art, diversity, etc. It's all white and gray, straight walled, perfect organization, one government who controls millions of drones. People who walk the same way, dress the same way, eat the same way, look the same way, everything is done the same friggen way.

How boring, uneducational, dull, and almost revolting. How would that constitute as being good? To not even be yourself is setting you up for being incinerated. Fun.

Disclaimer: I probably worded some things wrong, or missed a few points. Being in a hurry isn't good, lol.

~ Title and description changed to reflect more accurately on topic content. ! Kinjo

This post has been edited by | Kinjo: Sep 21 2005, 07:23 AM

A major problem with democracy or those involved is that if you are not involved you will be underrepresented. White males are not the majority in this country yet they hold an overwhelming majority of elected positions. The main reason being that as a percentage of the population they dominate the polls! Women are currently the majority yet they vote at a lower rate. The same with other underrepresented areas, minorities, the poor etc. As previous posts state the poverty level is at 12.7% yet people at that level almost never vote or taking any active involvement. The hard and true fact is that no one is going to stand up for you if you can't help them to be elected and hold their position. Bush's election shows this fact. Evangelical Christian did vote in previous elections but their force wasn't felt until his. When you look at the numbers you see a dramatic increase in their numbers. He literally swept the south because of this. My own home town is a perfect example. I live in State College, PA which is the home of Penn State University, one of the nations largest institutions. The students who live here are constantly complaining that the surrounding town does not work with the University on student issues, yet students outnumber residents here nearly 5 to 1. In the last township election only 800 people voted out of a population of 75,000. Only 12 students voted. The election was decided by only 30 votes. Can these complaints really be justified? Non-involvement denies any rights to complain. It's all fine and dandy to beleive that people want to help those that need it but it is merely a pipe dream in the real world. The only thing to create change is power and until underrepresented groups seize that power they will continue to be left in the cold.