I feel like the US is turning into the Soviet Union

Every day I just feel more and more like my country is slowly drifting more and more away from being "The Land of The Free". Anyone else feel like that?

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Banned

I would say we've become a nation of whiners and litigants. The only people we ever seem to see on television are the most divisive, close-minded idiots that networks can find; 'The Daily Show' (on Comedy Central) asks the questions the so-called 'news shows' won't ask; and every damn network has decided to chase the 18-40 demographic in the most lowest-common-denominator manner. I cancelled my cable for budget reasons, and the only things I miss are 'Mythbusters' and Turner Classic Movies. (I can get 'The Daily Show' and 'The Closer' on Hulu.com.)

Of course, we did it to ourselves. People demand 100% safety (or satisfaction, or whatever), and when reality intervenes, look for someone to sue, instead of doing something constructive about the situation. When infotainment crept up on us in the 1980s, we didn't fight the right battles, and now we have a culture in which idiots will pull stunts just to get on television, and a stupid celebrity will get more airtime than truly newsworthy events. (Don't you get the impression that, in our world, Galactor would take second place to the latest antics of Britney Spears or whoever else is self-destructing right now?)

And now we have the health care debacle, in which people who wouldn't know socialism if they were handed a definition of it try to scare people into keeping the system we have right now. Pay through the nose for health insurance, then have some company bean-counter deny your claim because you have a 'pre-existing condition' or suggest some other treatment than the one that works. (There's something wrong when they'll pay to amputate your foot from complications caused by diabetes, but not to control your diabetes.) I've actually heard people justify not supporting reform because of someone they know (or heard of) who would take advantage of the system. Really? Screw yourself and millions of hard-working people because of the less than one percent who try to play the system? Remember you said that when you have to take the third job because the insurance company raised its rates again.

We want simple answers, and they don't exist. We try to write regulations to cover every eventuality, and paralyze ourselves with conflicting rules rather than deal with unusual cases as they come. State governments pay for boondoggles while cutting social services and forcing lower-level employees to take unpaid days off. You can bet the governors aren't taking furlough days. (Not too long ago, the local veteran's home was forced to close its domiciliary. Fortunately, the town in which I live was able to step up and provide help for the now-displaced veterans. I don't think the city of Atlanta would have been able to do so. A sub-sub-paragraph in a sub-chapter of a long-forgotten regulation would probably have prevented it -- mostly because nobody could be sure if it applied to this situation.) And our social services people get folks off welfare by lying to them and humiliating them until they stop showing up to ask for help (according to 'Mother Jones' magazine).

We aren't becoming a communist or socialist country. We're just being idiots, pandering to loudmouths and fools who think 'Leave It To Beaver' is an accurate look at life in the 1950s and who don't realize that it was liberals who gave us workplace safety, Social Security, the 40-hour workweek, and other things we all take for granted. (You think Ann Coulter wants to return to the days when a woman couldn't have a bank account or credit card in her own name?)

People are going to get sick of this. And when they do, the 2008 election will look like just another Presidential election. They'll elect whoever promises to make everything better, and God help us if it's the wrong person.

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Benefits, not features; benefits, not features

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Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

It's always a balancing act, which people forget. Free enterprise can't do it all, nor can government. We have to keep our eyes open, and carefully examine what our leaders propose. Unfortunately, some people are so blinkered by their belief systems that any change from the status quo is immediately seen as a threat. And then things get bogged down.

(The Republicans screwed themselves pretty good, IMO. They catered to the rich a little too much. People who might otherwise have voted for McCain noticed this disconnect with the 'real Americans' that Limbaugh and Co. like to invoke, and either stayed away from the voting booths, or voted against the Republican party. And now the Republicans are acting like kids, digging in their heels and saying 'No' all the time.)

Freedom of speech is always popular, until someone says something you disagree with. Now, the problem is that so few people are willing to actually talk and discuss things. It seems that the only acceptable form of 'debate' these days is for the loudest, most extreme representatives of each side to yell at each other. Which doesn't solve anything, and makes both parties look bad (and I mean parties to the conflict at hand, not just the political parties).

Time to demand to be treated like grown-ups, and suit action to word.

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Benefits, not features; benefits, not features

My state is currently leading up to an election so I can certainly identify with your description of a debate, UW.

You know, I think I wouldn't be the only one to vote for a party based on how they conducted themselves during an election. I am so tired of the blame game and promises you know are only being made to be broken. If a party were to stick to the issues, kept it clean and fair without pointing the finger at the opposition, if they didn't sound so childish - I would be proud to back them, regardless of their political standings. Instead, on polling day I will slink into my booth, running from people trying to hand me more BS flyers and mark the box depending on which party is in power on the Federal level. (I will vote against them solely so I don't hand them the country and my state at the same time - too much power goes too quickly to their heads!)

What happened to the time when politicians were there to look after the people instead of themselves?

I hate to say it, but the greatest insult we can give our beautiful country is that it's becoming too much like America... Stupid lawsuits, ridiculous laws, power too concentrated among the few.

Our only saving grace is that when the country goes to vote it's all on the same day, and all out electioneering is limited, by law, to a scant 6 weeks. We elect a party, not a person; and if the truth is to be told, the differences between the parties are minor. The leader of that party automatically becomes Prime Minister and they decide who takes up positions of power within the Cabinet. We only have to hope that their selections are based on ability and not on favours owed or friendship...

AllentownDarkWater - you are not the only one that sometimes despairs that their country isn't heading in the right direction. I would dare say that many of us around the world look at ourselves and can only shake our heads at what we see.

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Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~Eliza Cook

Well I just found out that in Arizona, they just signed a bill banning ethnic studies in public schools. That is not good.

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Banned

If you want to know what sensorship is, watch the TV and see how much of the outside world they show(out of your own country,) and covers and for how long it actually covers it for. Thats why I like SBS, they give real world news in more than a few minutes! (Its the ethnic local channel...)

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Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up- Pablo Picasso.

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To be or not to be a gatchamaniac - that's the dilemma!