GG, I appreciate your honest response on the topic. Sounds reasonable to me for the most part.
Thanks. I am glad you don't take offense and we can have a good debate.
I have a couple of things to add for your consideration:
1. Health care in socialist countries is used as a tool to control people, as are taxes. Whether they are used for the benefit of society or for tyranny depends entirely upon who is in charge. It creates the impression that individual citizens exist at the pleasure of the government. There is obviously a huge difference between soviet dictators and the leaders of Western Europe and I don't think Americans fail to see it.
I have the impression you are missing exactly this crucial difference: Soviet-style socialism was authoritarian, those countries were dictatorships, civil liberties like freedom of speech, and democratic elections to chose the leaders and influence the policy did not exist (or on the paper at best). In Western Europe/today's EU, this is different, no matter how much wealth redistribution there is: There are civil rights like freedom of speech and habeas corpus protected in republican constitutions, and there are fair and free elections that allow the people to chose a government by the people, through the people and for the people. That's the crucial difference. And this difference is much, much bigger than any tax could ever be.
This is what I have the impression many Americans fail to see: In East Germany for example, people could not vote against their government, if they disagreed with public healthcare, economic policies or their leaders in general. They could not even speak out against it -- when they did, they had to fear repression, that some Stasi snitch would arrest them out of their living rooms, make them disappear, torture them until they were finally broken. They could not even escape their country: Those who attempted to do that were shot to death at the Berlin Wall. In schools and workplaces, people had to parrot socialist slogans, else they'd get on the ****list and be denied promotions, or not allowed to go to college. And there was no way, no means to ever change that, except mass rebellion: And that's what finally happened in 1989, when the oppressed people peacefully forced down their oppressors.
None of this is the case in Western Europe or the EU today, no matter how "socialist" these countries are: You disagree with wealth redistribution or public health care? Vote against it in the election. You don't like your leaders? Vote for another. You want to make a ralley or form a party, using free speech to gather likeminded people? Nobody will keep you from doing that. If you are accused of a crime, nobody may arrest you except the police protecting your rights in the process, and if you are suspect of a crime, you have the right on a fair trial. Your right to vote for the candidates and policies you like is protected, your right on free speech is protected, and your freedom of movement is protected. And if you still hate your country, you are free to leave.
So you disagree with public healthcare? No problem, that's perfectly fine. Vote against it. Use free speech to convince people that it's wrong. Nobody will keep you from doing that -- not even Obama in his wildest dreams, nor Swedish socialists, nor German social democrats. And what is the worst that could happen? Your side loses the election and you have to pay higher taxes. But higher taxes are not oppression, and they are not tyranny. They are an annoyance at worst. You find it annoying to pay taxes for other people's healthcare bills, others may find it annoying to pay taxes for the military you might support.
Behaving as if the sky was falling, tyranny is only one step ahead and higher taxes and/or public healthcare are "socialism" à la Soviet Union, as some people do, is very hysteric to say the least. And it's incredibly decadent, if you ask me: Compare your loss when you have to pay higher taxes to the loss of someone who was raped and tortured by the communist secret police, like that former prisoner in the Stasi prison I mentioned. People who overreact this way don't know what oppression really is, in my opinion -- and maybe that's good. It shows how lucky your people is, because you never had such an oppressive regime. You have my honest best wishes it will stay like that forever.
2. On that note, I would expect a reasonable person to see the difference between arresting/torturing confessions out of your political opposition, and arresting/torturing (and I don't accept the premise that torture is an official policy) terrorists who are actively plotting to kill innocent people. Are you claiming a moral equivalence between the two?
If those people in question were indeed "terrorists who are actively plotting to kill innocent people", I might agree. Some certainly are. But the point is, as long as no fair trail has found them guilty, they are mere
suspects. All you got at this point, before such a trial has taken place, is an
accusation by the government. I find it ironic and contradictory that you would be suspicious of a democratically legitimized decision like public healthcare, but blindly take the mere word of the government to determine the guilt of a suspect.
The Nazis and East German communists did the same: They always claimed the people they imprisoned and tortured for political reasons were "criminals". Often, they even said those suspects were terrorists. Problem was, without fair trials, this accusation was worth nothing. A government that is accuser, judge and hangman in one person, can destroy people at free will -- and once it has this power and gets away with it, it will inevitably abused. Yet some people, unteachable Nazis and communists believed these accusations: "The government says they are criminals. That's good enough for me, they deserve it." Some unteachable people still believe that today: "They must have been guilty. If they'd been innocent, they wouldn't have been put in labor camps, wouldn't they?" Those people are fortunately not many, but the few are really a pain in today's Germany.
That's not how freedom loving people should think, no matter if the government is accusing the suspects of terrorism or whatnot. Only a fair trial can determine whether a suspect is guilty or innocent. And a suspect is innocent until proven guilty. That goes for people accused of terrorism against the USA as well, just like for a pickpocket.
When this most basic principle of a constitutional state -- fair trials and an independent judicary -- are violated, and the government takes the power to judge people without due process, I believe the potential for abuse is much bigger and more extreme than any potential for abuse when it comes to public healthcare (although I agree there is potential for abuse too).