I agree, amazing job!

it's true that our current enslavement isn't as bad as what black people had to go through 200 years ago... but i still consider it slavery. if you disagree, at what stage in the "tale of a slave" video are we no longer slaves?

and yes, you can leave the US at any time... but you're still required to pay the IRS money, even if you leave the country and never return. even if you give up your citizenship, i'm still pretty sure that you're required to pay up.

and it's not wrong to call the US government tyrannical. they go around the world invading countries and killing millions of people. they torture innocent people and bomb little children. i don't even want to get into all the stuff they do in their black site prisons... but needless to say, it's horrific. not to mention all the stuff they do to their own population... putting millions in prison, infecting black people with sifilis and watching them die... faking the golf of tonkin incident to start a war that killed 1 million Vietnamese and tens of thousands of US soldiers... they sell weapons to other tyrannical government all around the world to oppress their citizens... they've overthrown a bunch of democratically elected governments. i could go on and on with all the stuff that the US government has done over the last few decades and continues doing to this day. so is it really wrong to call it a tyrannical government? if that's not tyranny, then what is?

i've already explained how a poor person might receive medical treatment... and under a free market, healthcare wouldn't be very expensive either. there would be plenty of charities and volunteer doctors who would help those in need. clearly lots of people voluntarily vote to have their money taken to help the poor... so why wouldn't they voluntarily donate their money to help the poor?

i singled out middle class people dying while in wait lists because rich people can and do just travel to the US to receive medical treatment. our politicians even do it. the poor people are probably still better off in Canada because most of them still eventually get treatment for free... so i singled out the middle class people because they're the ones who pay the taxes that fund the system and end up dying on a wait list or unable to see a doctor in time to diagnose and cure their disease.

also, you're under the false assumption that the US has a free market healthcare system. it doesn't. there is a lot of government interference in the medical system in the US. Canada has a socialized medical system whereas the US has a fascist medical system... both are bad. so just because Canada ranks better than the US in medical care according to some sort of ranking system, doesn't mean that socialized medicine is a good idea.

and you feel that the government has the right to steal money from people in order to pay for someone else's medical treatment. well... what if that person refuses to pay? is it right for the government to send police with guns to that person's house and put them in prison for not paying up? And if that person, who is otherwise peaceful and never caused harm to anyone else... decides to defend themselves from being kidnapped and thrown into a government rape room (prison)... do you have the right to kill that person for resisting and defending themselves? Would you be willing to do this yourself? If your neighbour refused to pay for one of your medical bills, would you be willing to go to their house and kidnap them at gun point (and kill them if they resist) for refusing to pay for your medical expenses? maybe your neighbour eats healthy and exercises... and you are fat and smoke... and therefore, your neighbour doesn't want to pay for your medical bills because he feels like it's your own fault for having health problems... would you personally be willing to kill that person for not paying up? i don't think you would do it. i don't think you would be willing to murder that peaceful person. i think you would be very uncomfortable threatening a peaceful person with violence. however, it seems like you're more than willing to have government agents do your dirty work for you so that you can continue believing that you're a good and moral person for trying to help poor people... when in reality, you're using violence and threats of violence against peaceful people which i think is wrong. if you feel negatively about threatening peaceful people with violence yourself... can you really feel comfortable with agents of the state using violence against peaceful people on your behalf?

will you answer this question? if someone refuses to pay a tax that would pay for someone's medical expenses... would you take a gun and go to their house and say "pay this medical bill or i'll come back and throw you in jail and shoot you if you resist." and if you're too much of a pussy to do it yourself, would you give this order to some thug in a blue costume to do this on your behalf? i've attempted to answer your questions... so please at least answer this one of mine.

if you don't like the system in place, nobody is keeping you in the US--get the **** out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_664t4rIGYM

My first thought: "Holy **** that weight loss is insane."

Second thought: "Wait a second, he's actually a pretty attractive guy now, that bastard."

Congrats.

Please define slavery and tyranny if you are going to use them in non-standard ways. It's very difficult to debate someone who is defining words as they please without informing the other side.

Video bored me a bit so I skipped around. My answer, anyway, is that at the least, it's no longer slavery when you're allowed to pick up your bags and leave whenever you want.

No, you never told me what is supposed to happen when the poor person shows up to the hospital without first having secured funds from their friends and family. You didn't provide even a basic outline of the logistics; you just handwaved them away.

Are you actually contending that if people stopped paying taxes to fund government-run healthcare, they would, in total, donate that same amount of money to healthcare charities? I don't know who could believe that. People like their money. They sometimes need strong encouragement to part with it, even for a charity they believe in. It's very easy for a large amount of people to be ok with the government taking taxes for healthcare without these people being willing to donate even close to the same amount to a healthcare charity if the taxes went away.

I am not assuming the US has a free market system. This is the second time at least that you tried to put words in my mouth.

The US has a less socialized system than Canada does. The US doesn't have the issue of the long wait times that you mentioned exist in Canada. You were concerned about people dropping dead while waiting for tests/procedures in Canada, a problem not present in the US. Despite this, the WHO thinks Canada is doing better in terms of healthcare than the US. It makes me question the actual impact of the wait-time issue that you think is a really big deal.

Seriously, can you write anything on this topic without resorting to over-the-top embellishments designed to sway emotion yet take away from the actual content? Are you that concerned that my argument might actually have some merit that you feel the need to try to associate my ideas with slavery, tyranny, and the raping of innocent people?

Oh, yeah, indirectly call me a pussy too. Because this isn't a serious discussion about healthcare systems, it's just another internet measuring contest. It's good to know what you're in this for.

Anyway, I have no problems with the government collecting taxes, as I've very clearly stated already. I think it's a fair way for a society to operate as I, and the overwhelming majority of citizens of our countries, think the government should exist to serve the people and it needs money to do so. It just doesn't work if people pick and choose how much to pay in taxes and where to allocate their tax money. Instead, you can vote for people that will support what you want the government to be doing with our money.

You must be looking at a different chart than me. Of 1st-5th only one doesn't have below average tax rate and that one is still average.

I think that chart is kind of deceiving. I'm pretty sure a lot of those countries have VAT's or national sales taxes. Doesn't a liter of gasoline costs like $5 in Euroland?

Genetics are definitely major in this, I have a good friend who is carrying a lot of extra weight, I lived with him for 2 years and can say 100% that he eats a lot less than me (I am skinny as a rake, barely 150lbs). A lot of people are complete dicks about body type nowadays, mega skinny guys like me are starting to receive abuse as well.

First off, that was me quoting someone else.

Secondly, I just made a plot where one axis is the ranking of the country by taxes (small number = low taxes), and the other axis is the ranking of country by whatever that quality of life index is (small number = better quality of life). I didn't use the numbers given on the side of the chart for the second axis's ranking because it didn't seem to make sense to me to consider Turkey 84th in that category while 13th in taxes when we don't have the tax info for like 60 of those countries. Anyway, there was a positive correlation (more taxes = less happy), but the R^2 was 0.07 (and if I used the numbers on the side of the chart, there were some serious outliers like Turkey making R^2=0.0059).

So, you are correct in that the chart isn't showing higher taxes making for happier people. It seems that there really is no significant correlation either way.