Some of society's problems that concern you?

Backlash wrote
malmon wrote

>Liberal
>Censorship
>Fascism

Is it just me that's misunderstanding something, or do Americans not actually know what "liberal" means?

Haah~, well, most folks really don't I'm afraid... Unless you're one of a handful of people who's spent time in far-left circles, you never actually learn the rest of the world's definitions of ideologies, economics, and political philosophy. Instead, we've been fed, since the late-1800's, a false set of terms by a media that's firmly controlled by the political right. In fact, Fox News, the country's most widely-watched network, was started with the purpose of spreading propagandized stories to already-conservative Americans, the idea being to disparage the centre-right Democrats after Watergate, and deprive them the vote of more reasonable Republicans.

Of course, the results haven't been pretty. In writing, I've tended to liken it to closing one's eyes and walking along, careless to the fact that you've stepped into zero-gravity, and are languidly spinning on all axes as you ascend towards the clouds. Completely sure of oneself, but without any point of reference, essentially. ^^'7

I guess we're kinda lucky over here that impartiality laws prevent TV news from being too biased in any direction. The same does not apply to print, unfortunately, but it's better than nothing. However, the government are offering the position of Ofcom (the body that maintains broadcasting standards in the UK) to a right-wing tabloid editor, after already appointing a Tory friend as Director General of the BBC.

4 months later

Ahhggh... God, do I hate America's for-profit healthcare system... Y'all might wonder where I've been the past two weeks. Well, I'd kinda been waiting on this annual approval from my insurance co. for this drug that controlled my migraines. Turns out, they denied me it. They won't give it while I'm also getting long-term botox treatments.

Sad part is, I'm actually really lucky. I coulda paid a fortune for my surgery and the like. Instead I just gotta pay a quarter every month's wages to not have constant headaches.

I just don't understand how after so many families get bankrupted by medical debt, people still believe Europeans have it worse. Although, given what occurred in DC just a short while back, I suppose one should never underestimate the power of propaganda.

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Backlash wrote

Ahhggh... God, do I hate America's for-profit healthcare system... Y'all might wonder where I've been the past two weeks. Well, I'd kinda been waiting on this annual approval from my insurance co. for this drug that controlled my migraines. Turns out, they denied me it. They won't give it while I'm also getting long-term botox treatments.

Sad part is, I'm actually really lucky. I coulda paid a fortune for my surgery and the like. Instead I just gotta pay a quarter every month's wages to not have constant headaches.

I just don't understand how after so many families get bankrupted by medical debt, people still believe Europeans have it worse. Although, given what occurred in DC just a short while back, I suppose one should never underestimate the power of propaganda.

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It sometimes like your country just has epidemic-levels of Stockhold Syndome. I mean, in the UK I wouldn't say things are great. Our health system has been underfunded for many years now, and it's showing. Unfortunately, I don't see that changing for the better without a change of government. But at least getting ill doesn't bankrupt you here (£9 per prescription item, or £29 per 3 months for unlimited prescriptions).

You don't have any long lost European ancestry you could mooch off of to get citizenship~?

a month later
Sanya wrote

OK.

let me give you a hypothetical. you are an individual that they might call 'mentally gifted'. you are sent, through misunderstandings and bureaucratic mishaps in paperwork, to a specialized education program that focuses on children with learning disabilities or such or, otherwise, simply a lack of intelligence. this education program is akin to a boarding school. you try to connect with any of the other children around you, you try to talk to them about what is on your mind, you really try your hardest to speak. you can, on some basic level of pure surface, words on their own. but you notice the barrier of simple groundwork all too often. you know more than them, and you understand more than them, about the things around you, and about the connection of what you see and experience and can connect to anything else - they lack this groundwork for being able to connect, and it really tires you out and wears you out that, whenever you try to communicate on a real, deeper level than shallow nothingness, that wall, border is hit. it stresses you out a lot, you are necessarily isolated because none of them understand most or any of the things you say, or 'speak your language' (in a non-literal sense), because they do not and cannot know how to do so. you simply do not belong in that place, there was a mix-up. and so you are very upset about this and the lack of 'connectability' of any kind between you and any of the other children, and you speak to the higher-ups. you talk about this problem, and you talk about the difference in groundwork, the difference in knowledge, the difference in focus, the difference in ability. and the response is: "here, we have this magic pill that will destroy some of your brain cells. you just swallow it regularly for a while and that difference in knowledge and groundwork won't be something that you even notice or will ever have to think about anymore - you won't know."

you live in a place full of blind people. you talk about the beauty, the experience of, everything, blending. and you are told, in response, to make yourself blind because you see more than them. you live in a place full of deaf people, and you love music so much that you don't even words for it. and you are told that, "look, here is a solution to not being able to connect to the others - it's that you will never 'have to' experience music again. and so then your problems about speaking a foreign language with people who cannot experience the beauty of music due to being born deaf... they're gone, right? music is the problem here, clearly. you being able to experience it is the problem, because, surely, them experiencing less than you do means that you have to cripple yourself, too."

what kind of logic is that?

i think the second paragraph is a great analogy but I haven't heard of anyone mentally capable ending up like that recently. Does that happen you know of? Not saying it doesn't i just don't know

2 years later

quintuplicate It seems rather unlikely to me for now. Both countries would be shooting themselves in the foot, the US moreso. So much manufacturing and technology has gone to China that it would be incredibly painful for the US to go to war.

      2 months later

      Oh cool, allegedly two stray Russian missiles landed in Poland killing two people