I probably shouldn't be
feeding the troll responding, but here goes:
Well, when you have people here who are blinded by patriotism (always follow uncle Sam and believe every false stereotype they hear about other countries and say stupid things like "the usa is the best") and seem to care about freedom moe than everything, which if too much freeedom is present and is not balanced, can affect safety, morals, health, and kindness of a culture, then their are problems.
Completely irrelevant, and also irrelevant to 95% of topics brought up in this forum.
Also, if a culture and the people in it don't want to make changes for the greater good and instead, only wants to buy unnecessary toys for themselves with a lot of their that money which makes them struggle even more in an economy crisis, then that's what happens, and someday it could be America's undoing, like Rome, perhaps.
So, Rome fell because all the people in Rome liked to spend money on toys. Wonderful logic. Perhaps the invading barbarians came for the toys?
Too much money to "the self" and not enough to things like healthcare and the infrastructure causes problems. To me, I can see severe problems with cultures who have an obsession with "the self" and money being embedded into it.
Healthcare, even without all this "self" condemnation, is pretty damn expensive. THAT is why people are uninsured, not because they are materialists. Part two of this has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with this thread.
It's their weakness and they became drones since America can't accept that it is wrong in so many ways. Lifestyle, violent crime, health, lack of decent fresh food, pollution, self discipline, etc. Far from being right. I just wish more here would accept that. The first step to good change is accepting that there is a problem.
Okay, so here you say that America is full of drones because we're materialists? I think you need to examine what materialist means, or drone, for that matter. The two are not related in this context. Violent Crime is not a hallmark of the "average" American, so I don't see exactly what you mean here. "Decent" is a completely arbitrary term, which we could argue the standards of from now to the energy death of the universe. And you wish that more people would accept that they are "materialistic and unhealthy" (Capitalist PIGS!). The first step to good change is accepting there is a problem, not making one up out of thin air, especially one so distantly related to the problem being discussed that they might as well be from different planets.
I still feel that if people made better health choices in their life and had enough self respect to do so, healthcare would cost less since there would be less people in the hospital at the same time (not crouded) and thus, less doctors needed and working less hours.
Nevermind that people can get SICK. Nevermind that when doctors work less they MAKE LESS MONEY (and don't bring up any bull**** about doctors being greedy materialists. Money exists for trade, and trade exists because not everyone can grow crops in their backyard). Hospitals aren't "crowded." Unless you have REALLY ****ed yourself up or are there for surgery, you generally don't stay in a hospital overnight. Now, hospitals can be "busy," but busy != crowded.