Quote:
Originally Posted by garinda
It's been downhill ever since the great unwashed were foolishly given the right to vote.
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Mmm ... these wouldn't be the same unwashed that manned the trenches in WWl, and within living memory, stood alone against the Nazis while the Great Democracy in North America tried to figure out how to make a profit out of the war. Social programmes such as health care, education, pensions, workers' comp don't even come close to paying the debt the country owes to the working class. A quick glance at the order of battle on July 1, 1916 will show you where most of the troops came from ... the working class areas of the UK: the industrial midlands, the north, and the industrial areas of Scotland. The extent of this obligation is carved in stone on memorials all over the UK (and Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) ... I know it seems long ago to those of you in the generations which follow mine, but it should never be forgotten. Has "Lest We Forget" become nothing more than an empty slogan trotted out once a year in November? Access to free, universal health care is a right, not an economic football to be kicked around Whitehall. The drive should be improvement. Giving more services, not fewer. Anyone who can't see the importance of education and health care as corner stones of a true social democracy has spent too much time eyeballing his colon.
I'm not directly affected by any of these cuts. What pees me off is that I have, like many Canadians, always looked at the health care system in England as a model worthy of admiration and emulation ... and now look what is happening: a new tea party in the home of tea time.
No politician in my country, however right wing in his beliefs, would dare to threaten medicare. And, as an aside, when Canadians were polled and asked to pick the hundred most influential and popular Canadians of the last century, the man picked as No. 1 was Tommy Douglas. Most of you have probably never heard of him; but, he was the "Father of Medicare." He brought us universal, free health care based on the British model.