How Much Do You Love Freedom?

[Cavernio]

I'm all for freedom. But I don't think 'freedom' should be taken to the extreme that that somehow means that we should be self-sufficient.

Firstly, the ideal government IS run by the people. There's something gone terribly wrong when whack loads of people are against a DEMOCRATIC government and most of the policies it has. Government is not just Federal/national either. There's provincial (the state), and then the individual people who lead ridings (I don't know what its called in the states), and mayors. These are people who are more closely in tune with what's going on, and hopefully address the more immediate, closer to home issue about neighbourhoods and so forth.

Chardish's view is obviously one that the government is restricting freedom.
Personally, I'd hate to live in the states right now, because I think its starting to do just that. Bush has essentially given himself the right of military rule of the country as far as I can see.
However, I also think that the view Chardish is holding is extreme, and I'd choose 1 for most of the answers, subjective wording and all. I'm glad Canada has healthcare, funded education, public roads, labor laws, etc. Labor laws especially protect me. I'm damned happy that I'm not ever going to have to worry about being payed less than minimum wage, (although I think it should be higher than it is).
In terms of having government funded things like healthcare, anyone who's ever crunched the numbers about this knows that, despite the tons and tons of beaurocracy and waste in government, having a centrally funded program is far cheaper than having individual ones. (I know someone who has done the numbers.) Who needs a plan you say? If you come into any serious health problems, or your kids do, you'd better be well above average wage, or else you'll never be out of debt. Medical expenses are often too expensive for a lot of hard working people to pay individually. This brings me to another point. If healthcare were optional, and people started to opt out, then the entire system would probably break down because of lack of funds.

And I get the point that you should be able to sustain yourself, but I think its very selfish to say that people shouldn't get together to help out others. Which is essentially answers 2 or 3 in many cases. Anyone who chooses those want to live in a cut-throat, dog-eat-dog world. I don't want to. I use services which I pay taxes for all the time, but there're services which I don't use. But I'm not about to bitch and complain because I'm paying for rehab for someone who I might possibly hate if I actually knew them. I'm not about to say "No, I'm not going to give you 50 cents so that you can make a public building wheelchair accessible. I'm not in a wheelchair, why do I care?" That's the cruel way I see most of the answers 2 and 3. Instead of fighting your government, you should be actively trying to change it so that it allows you the freedom you want. Instead of things like having to be wealthy to be able to send your kid to a good school, and if you don't have the money, you've got no school or the one which is falling apart with 1 teacher for way too many kids, support someone who's going to improve the education system and who offers a variety of school settings/ideals so that you don't have to be rich to offer your kids something good. Let your local government leader know your preferences in the curriculum.
Government is supposed to be there to stop things like businesses have a monopoly over services. Of course, when the government starts to take the place of these businesses, and exploits and controls its people as badly as corporations often do, then there're problems.

Socialism rocks.