You picked roads, prisons, and the military for things the government runs well. Roads, prisons, and the military?
I’d write up a coherent rebuttal, but I’m fairly certain you’re being sarcastic. Or you were really high when you wrote that.
I picked healthcare because it is the most centralized and easiest to ram through from the top. D.C. will probably wait on the states to come around before they move on pot and gays at a federal level, whereas those same states are probably begging to have the feds take a load off of their Medicaid requirements and such.
That said, I don’t think we will get 100% nationalized healthcare before we get significant improvements in gay marriage and (to a lesser extent) marijuana laws/enforcement.
I don’t quite get the idea that the military is run badly. I was under the impression that the U.S. military was pretty effective.
Jason will be by with some $/kill numbers soon. (Just kidding!)
Nope, all of the above are acceptably well run compared to, say, AIG or GM.
I think his point was “in comparison to what privatization in the US model offers in those fields”, not an absolute celebration of government management. And with roads and prisons at least, many of the government management problems seem uniquely American in some ways versus a feature of state control across the board in developed countries.
That is a really ineffective comparison for what is otherwise a point I agree with.
I don’t really know all that much about the subject, other than a) there’s an unbelievable amount of money wasted in the military and b) they do a really good job anyway. I suspect the waste isn’t essential, but what do I know.
As a response to a rebuttal as subtle and nuanced as “you must be high” I think it was great. Got to keep the context in mind ;-)
So Jason if you like charts how about some of these apples.
Here using demographic trends is proof that gay marraige will be legal in all states within our lifetimes:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/will-iowans-uphold-gay-marriage.html
And here’s one on Marajuana usage:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/why-marijuana-legalization-is-gaining.html
Now for a thinking man who doesn’t worship charts, you’ll note that the chart says that Utah will legalize gay marriage by 2013. This is firstly based off of demographic projections which would indicate that Utah will continue to be the fastest growing state and that all that growth will be non-evangelicals. Basically that people will continue to want to live in Utah than California and Nevada. This assumption is probably wrong for various reasons.
This was intentionally funny, yes?
- He’s asking a pretty constrained question - for cases where the judiciary has made gay marriage legal, how likely is it that the legislature revokes it?
- It’s ludicrous to think that the judiciary in Utah will be approving gay marriage by 2013.
The general point about what things will probably look like in the future is right, but that doesn’t change reality at this moment in time.
I give up, the whole thread title is pick your pony, which one will be nationwide first. It’s not about what’s happening now.
I do see now how you keep your post count so high, you read one post, react to it with the first statistical link you can find and ignore all previous posts on the matter including your own.
So…you still think we won’t have national health care before national gay marriage? Based on a projection of hypothetical gay marriage is all states by 2024, compared to a substantial chance we’ll get national health care this year?
I think gay marriage is as likely to happen as national care. The “health care” plan from Obama is mostly concerned with getting more people insured, not everyone cared for. A single-payer solution would get everyone the health care they need but only a few politicians will even talk about it.
Since the poll option was nationalized health care I would say very much yes.