Originally posted by Snrrub

You incorrectly claimed that the US Bill of Rights and American freedoms are, "second to none", and I gave explicit examples of when that wasn't the case. Either come out and concede the point, or give me a counter argument.
Second to none doesn't mean "better than everyone else." It means "not worse than anyone else". The original Bill of Rights doesn't actually state anything about slavery or women's rights or anything like that. It doesn't even address the issue. It was only later expanded to explicitly include those issues later on when it was recognized as a social problem or an incredible social mistake.

Seriously, very few Western countries can take the high horse on the issues of slavery, women's rights, or child labor. All the great European nations were built upon systems that included slavery, indentured servitude, war, and religion, much like America. The stuff that the Westerns nations did to exploit the Asian and Arabic countries are disturbing, countless, and extreme human rights violations in today's society. They were all built on the blood, sweat, and tears of people weaker or in more vulnerable positions than the nobility or the ruling class. By the time Europe got around to getting rid of slavery, there was no more need for it. Europe had progressed far into industrialization and had moved pretty far out of agriculture. America was built on agriculture where slaves were an extremely valuable commodity for the cheap labor as well as the extreme number of slaves needed to maintain these huge spreads of land. Slavery was starting to make its way out when the cotton gin was developed because you needed far less slaves to get the same amount of work done. So, please don't mistake that Europe and the rest of the world got rid of slaves and the feudal system for anything other than economic reasons. That was the real reason before any human rights situations came to be.

When America was able to move more towards industry as its revenue stream and less from agriculture, then it was easy to "get rid" of slavery. The reason there was a civil war is that about a third (population-wise, half of the land mass) of the nation was still dependent on agriculture. The Civil War crippled the South because the South had not yet been able to make that transition from agriculture to industry, and the effects were incredibly long term. Even now, the some of the poorest states in the US are the ones that are mostly agriculture, even with all our machinery and aid.



Originally posted by Snrrub

Yes, I know that 'free' university tuition has to be payed for by tax payers. But that doesn't change the fact that a university level education is accessible to everyone, and that with a university education, middle class lifestyles are easily achieved. Hence my conclusion - a middle class lifestyle is easier to achieve in a more socialized country like Norway, than it is in the United States. However, because of the higher tax burden that accompanies social programs, becoming rich is more difficult than in the United States.
That's implying that a university education isn't obtainable in the US by anyone. It really is. The amount of grants, scholarships, and student loans (funded by the government) is quite staggering. It's not all state funded, but the problem isn't that it's not available. The problem is getting it out to kids how to go through the process of obtaining it and teaching parents that going to college is a great thing for their kids. In any country, you have people who don't know or understand the value of education. You have people who don't know what's available to them. You have kids you simply can't reach.

Can you show me a citation that it's easier to be middle class in socialized countries than in the US? I'm very curious as to how you came up with that. None of the statistic I've read agree with that, but countries define their poverty line differently. In addition, I've never lived in a socialized country or have ready access to one.


Originally posted by Snrrub

Firstly, you're wrong; most scientific and engineering research is unrelated to military projects. Secondly, most military research projects are contracted out to academia via. DARPA grants.
Yeah, I don't know the ratio for this, and I think it's kind of irrelevant to the whole discussion. Tons of projects get spun off the military, and tons of stuff is funded by private companies. One of the big concerns these days is the amount of projects being funded and given to academia. Academia was the last bastion against private interests groups and big corps, and with the funding and such, the lines are getting blurred. (Again, an interesting topic for a different thread!)