Health Care bill passed

[Tiberius]

Hardly irrational, given the oppression and death than so naturally comes with socialism and communism. People have every right to be fearful of such ideas; they have a long bloody history.

Unlike laissez faire capitalism.

Laissez-faire Capitalism has never been instituted. It is a theoretical model that no country has wanted to institute because all governments are innately corrupt and do not want free markets. All governments want control of the economy in some way.

And remember Britain has many trappings of a socialist country, especially the fantastic NHS, which is using a very expensive drug to keep my mum alive, something that would never be affordable in that capitalist mecca America.

The National Health Service is hardly a socialist idea. It is a ideal based on freedoms and government responsibilities. You do not have to be a socialist to support a National Health Service (case in point: me). America is far from a capitalist mecca; they have a freer market than us, but it still isn't completely free.

She would have been uninsurable because she had been ill before and is too wealthy for medicare.

And luckily they have now started to implement national health policies.

So would Adrian advocate the sucking away of my families life long savings for the sake of capitalism.

I have never said that. I have always been a supporter of the NHS, and I continue to be. It is a government responsibility to protect the lives of its citizens. Perhaps the only amendment I would make to policy is to ensure that people with conditions that they have brought upon themselves do not get healthcare support. Such a policy would only increase fairness of the system, and would act as a deterrent to people who engage in activities that are dangerous to their health. If you want to smoke 50 cigarettes a day, fine by the government, but don't expect their support when you get lung cancer.

Capitalism only works where there is enough money around for competition to thrive. When this is not present then vital services die, I'm thinking mainly of rural communities.

Not true. If there isn't enough money to spend on products, business drops, and the good businessman will decrease prices to match the drop. Despite what socialists like to think, rural communities were engaging in capitalism way before the word was invented. Capitalism is the natural process by which we expect to get things.

Person X has a sheep and wants some loaves of bread.
Person Y has loaves of bread and wants a sheep.
*Exchange*

Capitalism.

Of course, since there is no guarantee that Person Y wants the sheep, money was invented to be a standard representation of value. Instead of having long chains of bartering, for instance:

Person W wants a loaf of bread and has a sheep.
Person X has a loaf of bread but wants a piece of timber.
Person Y has a piece of timber but wants a new hacksaw.
Person Z has a hacksaw and wants a sheep.

Person W exchanges with Z, then with Y, and then with X. Of course, there is no guarantee that these exchanges will be there, or that everyone will be happy. Money allows people to do a representative exchange, and has additional benefits (such as savings). If Person W can sell his sheep for £10 and the bread is £3, he has saved £7 in the transaction. Person X can use the £3 to buy some timber, etc, etc.

Money also allows for services to be valued properly (i.e £1 an hour for doing some sweeping), and thus the whole structure for supply/demand and workforce labour is born. Why socialists want to change a system that is both natural and works is beyond me.