British Labour and Conservative MPs lash out at Paul Ryan

[Zioneer]

Politico, have you ever actually been to Britain or read any study of the NHS written from a British perspective? Yes or no.

Yes. I firmly believe that queuing resources is never a good idea. The promises of socialized medicine are not realistic. Obviously good intentions, but poor results. It's the results that matter.

Try actually finding personal responses from people who have been under NHS, rather than a screaming far-right tabloid of a website.

[Wisconsin+17]

Is there a reason why Britain cares about the US, but the US doesn't care about Britain?

[You kip if you want to...]

Is there a reason why Britain cares about the US, but the US doesn't care about Britain?

We don't like one of the cornerstones of our society being slagged off and smeared baselessly. Same as any other country.

[Wisconsin+17]

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And apparently you folks never slag off and smear America.

What, is Paul Ryan going to do a tour of Edinburgh and pal around with the UKIP and sing 'Scotland Forever' in front of all the tabloids?

[Supersonic]

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And apparently you folks never slag off and smear America.

The World slags off and smears America, the UK probably does it the least, par Israel.

[Wisconsin+17]

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Just a piece of friendly advice.

This is being interpreted as a lack of confidence in the British system. The reaction is speaking much louder than Paul Ryan ever could.

People who are confident in themselves don't feel the need to lash out against everyone who attacks them. And especially not against a VP candidate for the American presidency, probably one of the more irrelevant people in politics today.

You think the UKIP isn't going to sit up and take notice that it's a way to score lots of press and headlines? 

[Politico]

If anybody wonders why Britain is no longer a world superpower, please refer to comments of the NHS loving liberals/socialists in this thread.

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Fixed.

[bore]

If anybody wonders why Britain is no longer a world superpower, please refer to comments of the NHS loving liberals/socialists in this thread.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Fixed.

Oh dear.

[Supersonic]

If anybody wonders why Britain is no longer a world superpower, please refer to comments of the NHS loving liberals/socialists in this thread.

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Fixed.

Hmm, I just want to clarify, if I may, but are you inferring that the National Health Service was behind the end of the British Empire?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If anybody wonders why Britain is no longer a world superpower, please refer to comments of the NHS loving liberals/socialists in this thread.

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Fixed.

You are Correlli Barnett and I claim my five pounds.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

If anybody wonders why Britain is no longer a world superpower, please refer to comments of the NHS loving liberals/socialists in this thread.

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Fixed.

Britain is no longer a world superpower because they were in financial ruin after World War II and let go of nearly all their colonial possessions. But I doubt you've ever read a history book.

[Politico]

If anybody wonders why Britain is no longer a world superpower, please refer to comments of the NHS loving liberals/socialists in this thread.

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Fixed.

Hmm, I just want to clarify, if I may, but are you inferring that the National Health Service was behind the end of the British Empire?

No, I am stating that NHS is one of the cornerstones of the post-WW II decline. Had Churchill won the election of '45, with Britain never embracing socialism afterward, I am quite confident Britain would be much better off today than it is. To what degree better off is ultimately unknown. I suspect Britain would still be comparable to the superpower it was in the 1910s, for example, albeit to a lesser degree for obvious reasons.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If anybody wonders why Britain is no longer a world superpower, please refer to comments of the NHS loving liberals/socialists in this thread.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Fixed.

Hmm, I just want to clarify, if I may, but are you inferring that the National Health Service was behind the end of the British Empire?

No, I am stating that NHS is one of the cornerstones of the post-WW II decline. Had Churchill won the election of '45, with Britain never embracing socialism afterward, I am quite confident Britain would be much better off today than it is. To what degree better off is ultimately unknown. I suspect Britain would still be comparable to the superpower it was in the 1910s, for example, albeit to a lesser degree for obvious reasons.

[WARNING! OVERSIMPLIFICATION AHEAD! ALERT!]

Britain didn't decline because of Aneurin Bevan. It declined because of Mohandas Gandhi.

[Politico]

If anybody wonders why Britain is no longer a world superpower, please refer to comments of the NHS loving liberals/socialists in this thread.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Fixed.

Hmm, I just want to clarify, if I may, but are you inferring that the National Health Service was behind the end of the British Empire?

No, I am stating that NHS is one of the cornerstones of the post-WW II decline. Had Churchill won the election of '45, with Britain never embracing socialism afterward, I am quite confident Britain would be much better off today than it is. To what degree better off is ultimately unknown. I suspect Britain would still be comparable to the superpower it was in the 1910s, for example, albeit to a lesser degree for obvious reasons.

[WARNING! OVERSIMPLIFICATION AHEAD! ALERT!]

Britain didn't decline because of Aneurin Bevan. It declined because of Mohandas Gandhi.

Obviously no single one man all by himself is behind something so drastic as the rise or decline of a nation. But Britain is a warning to America: Ignore the long-term costs of socialism at your own peril.

Giving up Colonial possessions was the right thing to do; embracing domestic socialism was not.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If anybody wonders why Britain is no longer a world superpower, please refer to comments of the NHS loving liberals/socialists in this thread.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Fixed.

Hmm, I just want to clarify, if I may, but are you inferring that the National Health Service was behind the end of the British Empire?

No, I am stating that NHS is one of the cornerstones of the post-WW II decline. Had Churchill won the election of '45, with Britain never embracing socialism afterward, I am quite confident Britain would be much better off today than it is. To what degree better off is ultimately unknown. I suspect Britain would still be comparable to the superpower it was in the 1910s, for example, albeit to a lesser degree for obvious reasons.

[WARNING! OVERSIMPLIFICATION AHEAD! ALERT!]

Britain didn't decline because of Aneurin Bevan. It declined because of Mohandas Gandhi.

Obviously no single one man all by himself is behind something so drastic as the rise or decline of a nation. But Britain is a warning to America: Ignore the long-term costs of socialism at your own peril.

Giving up Colonial possessions was the right thing to do; embracing domestic socialism was not.

You might very well think that, and I agree with the first part of that sentence, but one of those things was the immediate, proximate, and obvious cause of Britain's geopolitical decline, such as it was (we're still talking about a Security Council-veto-wielding blue-water-navy nuclear state after all); the other was not.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That argument was comprehensively debunked, destroyed and generally reduced to the status of a stock joke almost as soon as Barnett published his book. The only people who take it seriously are people who are not to be taken seriously.

Anyway, and to just go over a couple of points that are obvious rather than insightful, Britain's status as a 'superpower' (to use a ridiculous and ahistorical term in this context) was effectively ended by the First World War, even if the Foreign Office continued to believe otherwise. The repeated economic fiascoes and diplomatic humiliations of the 1920s and 1930s are testament enough. That the Empire itself was doomed was obvious to all observers by the 1930s, which is why debates on the issue tended to verge on the hysterical. The stresses and strains of the Second World War merely completed matters. Even if this were not true, of course, talk of 'decline' misses the point and shows what might be thought of as an imperialist mindset; the Post War period was one of unprecedented (and almost unbelievable for many at the time) prosperity for ordinary people in Britain. When Macmillan said that people had 'never had it so good' he was being a paternalistic dick, but he was also quite correct.

Anyway, and if we're talking about Britain in the twentieth century, It really comes down to whether you'd rather live in a slum, work in a job that may well end up killing you, be bow-legged from rickets and shorter than you'd rightfully be because of malnutrition, have no financial security whatsoever and access to only limited medical services but live in a country with vast Imperial possessions overseas, or whether you'd rather have the opposite.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Wait, Politico's making an actual argument that people have actually made...?

[Politico]

Wait, Politico's making an actual argument that people have actually made...?

Believe it or not, there are even Britons who clearly articulate the full extent of the costs of Britain's love affair with socialism. Unfortunately, denial is a powerful force. Certain lies have been indoctrinated into generations of British people since primary school. Some eventually grow to accept that the lies were lies whereas most cling to denialism.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Wait, Politico's making an actual argument that people have actually made...?

Believe it or not, there are even Britons who clearly articulate the full extent of the costs of Britain's love affair with socialism. Unfortunately, denial is a powerful force. Certain lies have been indoctrinated into generations of British people since primary school. Some eventually grow to accept that the lies were lies whereas most cling to denialism.

Humor me: what is so bad about socialized programs? We're not trying to reestablish the Politburo buddy, when we advocate for certain functions like, I dunno, basic health care to be publicly funded.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Wait, Politico's making an actual argument that people have actually made...?

Believe it or not, there are even Britons who clearly articulate the full extent of the costs of Britain's love affair with socialism. Unfortunately, denial is a powerful force. Certain lies have been indoctrinated into generations of British people since primary school. Some eventually grow to accept that the lies were lies whereas most cling to denialism.

Would these be such illustrious Britons as Margaret Thatcher, she of the three million unemployed and love affair with the suburban parts of the southern half of England to the exclusion of the entire rest of the country?

[Politico]

Wait, Politico's making an actual argument that people have actually made...?

Believe it or not, there are even Britons who clearly articulate the full extent of the costs of Britain's love affair with socialism. Unfortunately, denial is a powerful force. Certain lies have been indoctrinated into generations of British people since primary school. Some eventually grow to accept that the lies were lies whereas most cling to denialism.

Humor me: what is so bad about socialized programs? We're not trying to reestablish the Politburo buddy, when we advocate for certain functions like, I dunno, basic health care to be publicly funded.

Many "socialized programs" are akin to a cart of people being pushed by many people. Unfortunately, over time fewer and fewer people are pushing and more and more people are being pushed. Over time, the cart is pushed slower and slower and eventually the people pushing are outnumbered. At some point in time beyond that, the people pushing the cart stop pushing because they choose not to, or because they are unable to keep pushing. The only way to prevent this phenomenon is with unthinkable coercion, as the Politburo was well aware.

An amusing little clip to get the point across:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h8O7V-WxWQ

Starter videos (Start with the 1980 episodes): http://www.freetochoose.tv/

Some serious learning: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/175-2484767-5542368?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=milton+friedman

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Wait, Politico's making an actual argument that people have actually made...?

Yes; Correlli Barnett (a military historian with no background in proper history; and it showed) wrote a load of drivel on the subject in the 1980s in a book called The Audit of War. It was popular with Thatcher cabinet ministers. It is generally remembered as an example of bad history and at Uni level is often introduced to undergraduates as such.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Believe it or not, there are even Britons who clearly articulate the full extent of the costs of Britain's love affair with socialism. Unfortunately, denial is a powerful force. Certain lies have been indoctrinated into generations of British people since primary school. Some eventually grow to accept that the lies were lies whereas most cling to denialism.

Amusing. Are you going to deal with those points I made a few points back, or are you going to continue with your Soviet approach to debate?

[Marokai Backbeat]

Believe it or not, there are even Britons who clearly articulate the full extent of the costs of Britain's love affair with socialism. Unfortunately, denial is a powerful force. Certain lies have been indoctrinated into generations of British people since primary school. Some eventually grow to accept that the lies were lies whereas most cling to denialism.

Amusing. Are you going to deal with those points I made a few points back, or are you going to continue with your Soviet approach to debate?

Imagining Politico's posts being stated aloud in this voice is the only way I keep myself from pulling my hair out.

[pbrower2a]

Here's to hoping the British will keep thrashing the Republican ticket all the way up through the election.

Yeah, that will show 'em!

It should. Alienating our closest and most major ally - not only Romney but Ryan, too - before even stepping into the Oval Office does not bode well for future relations. Or have Republicans simply stopped caring about foreign relations with our allies now that it is not convenient or based in war, due to the fact that neither Romney nor Ryan have any foreign policy experience or military service?

It says "Labour and Conservative MPs", not "Kadima and Likud MPs".

Meh, I still say Israel is third after Canada. It just takes in a lot more effort. I would comment on the effect of British MPs saying Americans are wrong criticizing the NHS, but Keystone Phil is doing an excellent job of it. Speaking of the NHS, I sure hope I'll live to see the day British health is privatized.

People dying without healthcare is a lot of fun to watch, hm?

I wish people would stop with this assumption that "Oh no, everbody who isn't rich dies without nationalized healthcare".

Wealth and income do not determine who lives and dies. Sam Walton, founder of retailing giant Wal*Mart, died of bone cancer. Your bones may seem rock-hard, but they are extremely vulnerable to radiation, poison, and pathogens. If I had to choose a lifestyle likely to promote longevity I would pick that of devout Mennonites... their only white-collar jobs are as preachers; most do hard physical labor (farming, often with human-powered or animal-powered equipment) but it is well-paced. Good habits (not smoking, not using drugs, not drinking heavily, rejection of sedentary jobs, not vegetating in front of a TV with high-calorie snack foods, not fornicating with anything that moves) matter more than does medical care in determining longevity for most people. This does not apply to genetic diseases.

Our medical-payment system can price people into the grave for the benefit of elite profits. How is that conscionable?