At Stardate 20030622.1901, Jan Coffey wrote:
> I also neglected to mention factors such as the large number of gun deaths > and the lack of universal medicare.
Murder happens all over the world. The UK (a country in which guns are illlegal) has more deaths by gunshot than Texas and Nevada combined. And you can carry a weapon in those states.
OTOH, other countries in Western Europe, which have very strict gun laws, have significantly *less* deaths by gunshot than the US. And how often do you hear about school shootings[*] in countries other than the US? I hear reports about such incidents happening in the US at least once a year, but I've never heard of something similar happening elsewhere.
[*] Definition of school shooting: student brings gun to school, then starts shooting at school staff and students.
Criminals are much less likely to commit crimes if they know that a large portion of the population is packing.
If that is true, then why is the crime rate in the US so high? If your statement is correct, the crime rate in the US should be significantly lower than it is now, given the number of fire arms in private hands.
If Universal medical care is so greate, then why do tens of thousands of people from all over the world (including Europe) come to the US to get medical care?
First, not all countries have universal medical care. Second, getting medical care abroad is sometimes necessary because of waiting lists for medical procedures. Third, some people really could take their place in line but don't want to wait and thus find help elsewhere -- even though it's quite possible that their Health Insurance will then not pay for it.
And fourth, some treatments are still so new (or even still experimental) that you can only get that treatment in only one place. For example, depending of the number of side effects that kick in, spina bifida in a foetus is either fatal or results in a severely handicapped child. Now, it seems that somewhere in the US some medical team has developed surgical techniques to repair this by operating on the foetus while keeping it in the womb. As they are the only ones who have that knowledge, people will have to go the US for that specific treatment (and probably pay for it themselves, because their Health Insurance probably doesn't cover it).
BTW if anyone, no matter how unable to pay, walks into a "general" hospital for medial service they will not be turned down. have you seen statistics on what country has the longest lives and the best health?
Longer lives and best health depend on the *quality* of the health care, not on whether or not you have universal health care.
> And what about Kyoto?
Don't get me started. Here is an "treaty" that says everyone but the US can produce just about as much greenouse gas as they please, but the US has to take a ~very~ significant hit to their economy, that sounds to me like some kind of economic war wrapped in the guise of a environemntal treaty.
IIRC, every country would actually have to take measures to cut down on emissions of greenhouse gases; the US would have to cut down more because it pollutes more.
Why on earth would the rest of the world want to launch an economic war against the US? Pretty much every country in the world imports goods from, and exports goods to, the US. They wouldn't have anything to gain from this alleged "economic war".
We havent even begun to talk about what Keyoto would do to the middle east. If the US suddenly reduced the use of oil based fuels what do you think would happen to the Middle East economies?
At what point would such a reduction qualify as "drastic"? If you lower your oil import by 20%? Or 30%? Or...?
BTW, cutting down on emission of greenhouse gasses is not simply a matter of using less oil. FREX, filtering the emissions before spewing them out into the atmosphere also plays a role.
The consensous in the scientific comunity is still out on whether the level at which ghgs are being emmited in the US will have any effect on the environment.
The problem is that those who are opposed to anything more than a token effort to reduce emissions, will use anything as an excuse. If 99% of all scientists say "US emissions have a dramatic effect on the environment" and 1% says "US emissions have a neglible effect on the environment", they'll still claim lack of consensus in the scientific community.
The US does have laws to significantly reduce greenhouse gases on a slower pace. Electiric cars or gas/electric vehicles are now becomeing quite popular.
And those make up how many percent of all motor vehicles in the US?
We were very much in favor of a version of Kyoto which was slower and had an equal step down across the board. Or, even one which had a uneven stepdown, but was not so drastic that it would ruine the US economy,
I doubt it would really ruin the US economy. Sure, you would have to make some sacrifices, but that's something we all have to do. This "it would ruin the US economy" sounds more like propaganda from the energy lobby in Washington.
and in such a case it would have to include helpe to rebuild the ME economies.
Given the wealth generated by oil in the Middle East, I think they would be quite capable of keeping their economies running if they sold a bit less oil. There might be some economic consequences for them, sure, but as I've said before: we all have to make sacrifices.
Jeroen van Baardwijk
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