Latest experiment is socialism ending the same as always...

You're blaming the ills of those nations on events from FORTY years ago?!??!.

Aren't they responsible for their own fates at some point.

Oh yeah "people there" in the places you mentioned were communist guerrillas supported by Cuba and the Soviet Union. If they had major popular support by "the people" they wouldn't of had to try shooting their way into power.

For one, life expectancy in the U.S. is only four years from that of the nations on the very top of the lists. Only a 5% difference.

And U.S. interests ALWAYS are of massively greater importance than those of any other nation on Earth. I've explained this before and linked to historian Niall Ferguson's writings on this subject.

Wouldn't HAVE.

So again, how did the US come into power?

Irrelevant. You cannot compare conditions in 1776-1781 America to 1981 central America.

I don't think you get just how vast a difference four years as a mean average is. If you don't already see that as a massive gulf then it's hard to see how to explain it to you, not to mention the socio economic disparities win play which are by and large vastly more even in socialised systems, or the much wider impact impact of reliance on private insurers. I'm not sure you're grasping just how much you'd have to improve to bridge those gaps, I really don't.

As for US interests being more important than anyone elses', yes you've made that claim before. I laughed then, I'm laughing again now.

Please try to explain it convincingly in your own words because it isn't any more impressive now than it was then.

Those interests are more important to you perhaps, because you are a US citizen. To me as a non American living in a country with strong trade links to China and little love for the current US administration or the overall trends in policy I don't see any reason to view the US as a special case. On the contrary it is rapidly becoming a loose cannon on the world stage and one much of that world is increasingly wary and suspicious of. Why should we value you above anyone else?

So you are saying the American Revolution didn't have popular support?

About one third of the people living in the colonies supported independence from the British. About one third supported the British. The other third (in the words of one of my college professors) just wanted to be "left alone to farm".

I don't blame their ills solely on what happened 40 years ago, it's more complex than that. I am observing what happens when they try to break from US control. A large part of their problem is that very control - their obeisance to Washington's neoliberal prescriptions, which persist today. This is the path that you recommend for Venezuela.

As regards anyone "shooting their way into power" and their lacking popular support, that betrays your usual ignorance of history. In a thread where you're supporting a military coup sponsored by an outside power it is laughably hypocritical.

Was that just a slogan, or are you willing to stand by that through some examples?

To take just one --

The best healthcare that top money can buy in Dubai is better than the best that top money can buy in the US.
The best healthcare universally accessible in Germany is WAY better than universally accessible healthcare in the US.
The worst healthcare available in the UK is considerably better than the worst healthcare available in the US.

Or am i misunderstanding your use of best, middle, and worst?

Out of curiosity which nation has the most Nobel prizes for medicine?

I'll save you the trouble. More than half awarded to persons in the United States. Thus more than in all the other nations on Earth. Combined.

Illegal immigrants from Mexico isn't the problem. The current crisis involves asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle.

Ah, the good old days when the "migrant problem" was Mexicans jumping the border to pick our lettuce and repair our roofs.

So they had to try shooting their way into power?

You can't have it both ways. Either armed insurrection requires popular support or it does not. Either it is a valid political tool or it is not. Regardless of the century.

And that in any ways addresses the point being made how?

You realise that four year disparity is equivalent to that in turn between yourselves and Nicaragua, Columbia and Armenia?

Way to avoid every one of these points. What does it tell you when I have access to their best work at a reasonable monthly insurance fee, and you can't afford it?

And half the Miss Universe awards go to the Phillipines.

What's your point?

Considering the history attached to it, people should feel even worse about it than they do about the word "Nazi."

Seriously, why is the right like this? You can recognize that Communism didn't inherently stem from a bad place like Nazism did and realize that it's not workable. Geez.

Yes it did. Murder is an inherent part of socialism. Marx was all about killing the bourgeoisie. The laughable part is that most of the ones who want socialism now actually are the bourgeoisie, and they hate the proletariat.

I'll add that even if it wasn't, the fact still remains that socialism has killed millions more than the Nazis ever managed to, even if only because they've had a much longer stretch to do their work.

Marx was what now? I'm sure you have quotes to back that up...

When I see a group of Commies marching on Wall Street with touches and launching firebomb attacks on the homes of CEOs, I may consider your point.

It's the essence of Marxist "class struggle" - the oppressed must destroy the oppressor.

As for your quotes, a quick Google search reveals some:

"You must, therefore, confess that by "individual" you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible." (Published by Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1973 edition, page 66)

“there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.” Sauce

“The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.” - Sauce

"We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror. But the royal terrorists, the terrorists by the grace of God and the law, are in practice brutal, disdainful, and mean, in theory cowardly, secretive, and deceitful, and in both respects disreputable." - The final issue of Neue Rheinische Zeitung (18 May 1849)''Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe, Vol. VI, p. 503

"What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable." - Section 1, paragraph 53, lines 11-13.

"The unity is brought about by force." - Notebook I, The Chapter on Money, p. 70.
He actually sounds a bit like Bismarck there.

Here's an ironic one: "Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary." - Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League in London, March 1850

We've already seen what the commies do when they march, and it involves massive property massive property damage and attacks on their fellow citizens.

Per capita?

Oh, lookee here:

Country Number ¹ Per capita
Sweden 8 80.9
Switzerland 7 82.5
United Kingdom 30 46.2
United States 100 30.0

Now, what do the top three per capita have in common?

They are colder than the United States.

Put up or shut up.

If you had any way to quantify that claim you'd have done so by now, you've had enough chances and ducked for cover every single time wailing "history, history!" without actually giving any reasoned analysis whatsoever.

If you can, by any chance, prove it do so. Otherwise I'm calling bollocks.

Against all odds I was going to accept the claim at face value too.

Many thanks for saving me from ignorance.

A large number of America's Nobel Prize winners are immigrants, so we're not necessarily producing the best, but can (or could, I believe that the US is currently experiencing a bit of a "brain drain") attract them to move here.

get used to it...
Captain Millennial has yet to present an actual argument after all of these years.

Heatstroke can really fuck with your head, true.