it is cheaper for govt and better for society to build a culture where you earn it yourself

And we're the source of the economy and our wages, and not the government.

It's MY money.

I don't really think McCain is qualified either.  He has not shown he can get things done in the Senate.  He has shown he can cuss like Donald Duck to try and get things done and ends up pissing people off.  If McCain posted here like he talks on the Senate floor to members of his own party he would be edited.

I must ask who says Comprehensive Immigration Reform aka MCCAIN-KENNEDY was "sponsored/authored" by Barack Obama.

If voting for stuff makes one qualified to be President then every member of every county board of supervisors is fit to be President.

Bush was  a governor of a major state for two terms and had a good record of bipartisanship down there.  He got endorsements from Texas Democrats in the state legislature.  Unfortunately in Washington  DC getting nothing done can be a win.

Bush was also his father's hatchet man inside the political campaigns of 1988 and 1992.  So apart from some social networking he had been an authority over some top Republicans.

All of them in Latin America because they follow the cuban model, they have a block party committee that bangs on your door and yells at you if you complain too much. Then if you argue with them you get arrested.

France I KNOW has a better infant mortality rate because live births of terminally ill children aren't counted.  In the USA, if the kids is born alive, even if his lungs aren't fully formed and he dies in a few hours, he's counted towards our infant mortality statistics.   Each country does its own reporting.

UK controls costs by turning people down, right?   Sure we could do that, universal healthcare that works like our veteran's care---Sgt Roy Benevidez won a Medal of Honor in Vietnam, got shot six times and took a bayonet through the hand kicking ass and rescuing a squad, and then spent thirty years trying to get the VA to help him.   

But what always happens, always, when you give Americans a service and figure they'll use it as often as if they'd buy it---they triple their use and the price explodes.   Bush's Prescription Drug benefit is already 2x overbudget and Medicare is 30x what it was projected to cost.

I think I can quote former Sen Alphonse D'Amato on that point

"Shut up. Shut up. They earn every penny. They're the best in the world. They're a bargain. Shut up."

Well thanks to you all and I look forward to moderating everybody in the near future! 

email the website you dl from

OR

they probably limited it to 26 letters and 10 numerals.  So that's only 36 to the 25th power possible combinations.

I think you'd better define "middle class" because I don't see how a "strong middle class" gets shoved into a pluticratic republic and denied the vote.

You asked for an example of a democracy without a educated middle class and I named the greatest. There are less than one hundred in the history of the world, so I don't see why you stick to your "law of democracies". Fact is, given the vote, most people vote their country good education and economic freedom, so democracies tend to transform themselves into that state even they start out otherwise.

Something about keeping your own money and having a job and not being sued or fined for breathing suits the American people very well, and liberals fight all three. So we'll always be around.

But yeah America has failed as a culture in one clear regard, we failed to educate the young about the mistakes of the past. Why Carter liberalism should be at 55% in the polls and the "opposition" promises to meet it halfway I can't understand. The money isn't there to support it and if they tax it out of the economy they just will suck up money for investment. We've been here before. We'll move beyond it again. It will cost lives here and abroad.  But we will learnthe hard lessons again, maybe for only another 30 yrs, but the facts of life don't change.

Sadly over here the idea is being developed that donations are de facto corruption. I say sadly because that's one sure way for voters to shape the choices that appear on the ballot to be voted on. If you can fund Mr Right better than Mr Wrong during the primaries, mr right will be the nominee of the party in the election.

Your idea Fool makes too much sense to be tolerated. If the pols ever accept they're actually the least necessary part of the civil service they'd have what we call a "[poop]fit"
If America shrank the House of Representatives by half and cut the Senate to 1 person for each state it would cost half what it does and run or not run just as well. But they would sooner fire every licensed professional on the federal payroll than admit it.