In Canada we have a system that says the person most in need of medical attention get it first...some people who have some extra money lying around don't want to wait and pay for private care in the US instead...

Why should a wealthy person with a cold get to see a doctor before a person who is having medical complications due a serious disease like cancer ???

Tens of thousands of uninsured Americans lose their homes every year due the cost of medical bills...

Wolf, I noticed that you live in Wisconsin, most states in the US do not have as in-depth assistance with medical bills for the uninsured as does Wisconsin...

The EU/Canadian way of Healthcare/Education systems is the best to me...but I've been raised in this system...

This topic started out about the EU constitution, and swerved into lengthy discussions about the past and the philosophy of social welfare programs, etc.

Everyone has so far avoided talking about the snarling beast that is stalking Europe's future. It is this: many of today's European toddlers will become grandparents in majority Muslim states in Europe that will be invoking Sharia law as a matter of public will. Women's rights, homosexual rights, equal justice will all become the providence of the clerics at such places as the Finsbury Mosque and its ideological counterparts across Muslim Europe. So all this talk about the future of the EU is wasted breath. What is left of 'Europe' will be making the second great migration to America near the turn of the 22nd century.

Ghost,

Where did that come from? You honestly believe that Europe is going to be "overrun" by the "Muslim hordes?"

I certainly don't prescribe to that belief whatsoever. It's kind of scary that you'd even mention it.

Wolf

Back to the EU constitution discussion, there is an interesting piece in the International Herald Tribune online:

Floyd Norris: Who cares about the EU charter?

International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2005

PARIS Chicken Little would feel at home listening to the political class in Europe as the French prepare to vote on the proposed European Union constitution.
 
A no vote on May 29 would create a "political cataclysm," said Jacques Delors, a former president of the European Commission. Romano Prodi, who was the commission's president when the constitution was written, made Delors sound sanguine. "The problem won't be just a catastrophe for France, but the fall of Europe," he prophesized.
 
But while the politicians fret, the financial markets go on about their business. Since March 18, when the first poll was published indicating a majority of French voters were opposed to the constitution, European stock markets have done a little worse than those in the United States, but better than the Japanese market. The euro has lost a little ground, but remains high. So far in 2005, European stock markets have lost less than those in either the United States or Japan.
 
Some point to widening interest rate spreads between Germany and Greece as a sign of growing alarm, but you need a magnifying glass to find the evidence. Germany, still viewed as the safest euro credit despite budget problems and high unemployment, now has 10-year bonds yielding 26 basis points, or about a quarter of a percentage point, less than Greek bonds. That spread is up 6 basis points since the French poll results. If investors thought Prodi was right, the gap would be far larger.
 
The reality is that Europe isn't working, at least not as it was supposed to when politicians were campaigning for ratification of the Maastricht Treaty that led to the adoption of the euro in much of the Continent. Some thought the euro would force economic reform, but the pace of change has been slow at best, and the halting nature of it has made consumers less willing to spend, fearing that generous state pensions may not be there when they retire.
 
Instead, there are signs that the inability to adjust exchange rates within the euro zone is making some areas, notably Italy, less competitive relative to Germany, which itself is facing economic stagnation. The news within many a European country is of various groups and unions fighting to preserve and expand their benefits, with no regard for the country's overall competitive position, let alone that of the Continent.
 
In Greece last week, Kathimerini, a leading Athens newspaper, counted eight demonstrations and job actions announced in advance. The protesters included Olympic Airlines workers angry over plans to privatize the airline and shop employees upset over planned changes in working hours. Plumbers demanded more training and judges staged a work stoppage to protest transfers of court officials. Music teachers were upset about working conditions. Accountants marched to demand bonuses for preparing balance sheets. During the same week, Greece's Parliament ratified the European constitution without consulting the voters.
 
It is not that French voters are really upset about the proposed constitution. It would establish a method for making decisions in the European Union that would please Rube Goldberg even though it is said to simplify the process. It would establish a foreign minister for all of Europe, although it would do nothing to assure that countries like France and Britain actually had a common foreign policy. Its defeat would leave things as they are, with a possible paralysis of decision making in Brussels. That is a prospect that does not appear to scare voters as much as it does politicians.
 
Instead, West European voters seem united in opposition to whatever party is in office and in fear of new competition, whether it is from Chinese textiles or from workers from East European countries that joined the European Union a year ago in an enlargement approved without consulting the voters. Jacques Chirac, the French president, urged support for the constitution on the ground it would prevent economic liberalization, but polls indicate that did not help rally support for the constitution.
 
The dream of the European Union was that it would make Europe a strong world player, able to compete with Japan and the United States, with national governments not needing to do much to promote the process. Europe may do better if that dream is laid to rest, leaving each country to fend for itself.
 
Floyd Norris can be reached at fnorris@iht.com

Copyright © 2005 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

 

Atahualpa's Avenging Ghost (interesting nick to have in this board...), I think that you don't have a deep knowledge on how moslems behave in Europe after the first generation. Moslems in France consider themselves french and have relaxed their original customs. They are like any other french, just a little bit browner and with some particular customs (those related to their religion, their original language and still a certain discrimination against women).

They are certainly not like thalibans.

Fernando

I don't think that's accurate at all Fernando. There have been many problems with Muslims in France, and in Holland. Many of them seem to not want to assimilate to their new county's customs. That certainly was the case in Holland where a couple of extremists assasinated a Dutch film director because his film cast a bad light on their religion. And there are countless cases of Muslims settling in countries like England, Germany and Spain and still being involved in all sorts of terrorist planning.

Depends on how you see it ColinK...

There are a coulpe of million moslems in France, 5 in Germany and 1,5 in Spain. Perhaps a hundred or so have commit crimes based on their extremist understanding on their religion. In Spain there are moslem terrorists, that's true, but the great majority of them behave in a proper manner (though they still have to integrate into our society.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that we can't judge a collective of millions for the actions of a hundred (or a thousand).

Fernando

I agree Fernando.

Wolf, there isn't going to be a 'muslim horde' pouring over the borders, its a simple matter of demographics. The present birth:death ratio in European societies simply cannot sustain European populations. The worst off is Russia (by 2050, a smaller population than Yemen. Russia is suffering from an unprecedented population decline in a nation not at war)followed by Germany, Italy and, yes, Spain. The populations of these nations and Europe as a whole are simply not replacing themselves. It is a death-spiral that Europe seems disinclined to snap out of.

Compare this to the exploding populations in Muslim lands and among Muslim populations in Europe. For every European baby born in Europe there are almost two Muslim babies born. As I said, Europe is well on its way to having a majority Muslim population by the end of the century.

The icing on this cake is the socialist utopian welfare states that Europeans have concocted for themselves. The massive public entitlements and anemic economic growth intrinsic to these systems is a disaster sure to happen. European welfare states need young workers to support the burgeoning pension obligations of the rapidly expanding retiree class, as well as the subsidized housing, health care, etc. that Europeans claim as a 'right'. European families can't (or won't) supply these needed workers, so the only solution is immigrant labor (legal or, increasingly, illegal). The overwhelming source of these workers are from muslim lands of Arabia and North Africa. When (not if) Muslims become the majority in European lands, they will be free to change societal norms to suit themselves.

And the Muslims of Europe are growing more, not less, Islamist. Every report I've seen suggests tha second-generation Muslim-Europeans are more isolated, less assimilated, less secular and more radical than their parents. Don't forget that Mohammad Atta was a middle class Egyptian engineering student until he came to Hamburg and was exposed to the radical Mosques there. Same goes for all of his 9/11 cohorts. How many Muslims with European citizenship have been found in Afgahnistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Chechnya? many, but not the majority by a long shot.

I'll stick by my assertions that the EU is a dead letter and Europe's future is as part of Dar al-Islam. The future of Europe's nationalities lies in America, Canada and Australia.

Ghost,

You offer a convincing argument. If you're anywhere near being correct, what you say could become reality in at least some of the nations of Europe.

It's not a picture that makes me too confident in the future.

Wolf