A quick note on the military; if you aren't certain why military force is a "public good" there's a bit of history that might be worth looking into. The United States has always been a military power in the world (with a couple exceptions early on, most notably the time our White House was burned down...). Even unused simply having a military force creates an economic bargaining point.

The U.S. is heavily reliant on trade for our economy. This is not new; it always has been. Our original government (not the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation) was pretty much limited to only dealing with trade. The idea of "noninterference" is pretty much a myth as far as our government's actual behavior has been since the beginning of our country.

Take a look at countries like Sweden. Sweden has been neutral and wealthy for a long time. There are plenty of countries (including us) with plenty of money in Sweden. Yet Sweden has a proportionally large military still based on conscription (although it has been reduced from its Cold War levels) and one of the highest GNP spending on defense in western Europe. They also have one of the highest standards of living.

I suppose you could argue such things are based on antiquated ideas and that once we become more peaceful the need for the military will vanish. Perhaps. I personally doubt it. My mind works in more of a strategy method; in chess you won't attack a pawn if your opponent is threatening your queen. Go is probably a better example where you cause your opponent to back off because of the threat you present. Nuclear weapons create this same situation; the Cold War idea where no one wants to attack because the price of doing so is too high.

When you're already defended it's easy to become complacent. You start to believe that because you're good now that defense is no longer necessary. History is full of examples of what happens when a civilization decides defense is no longer a priority (Rome, for example). It's not that you have to use it necessarily. But other civilizations, ones who want what you have, need to know that you have it.

And that's my speech on the military, who by no coincidence also provides my health care . See? I managed to link them together!

As for universal health care the problem conceptually I have with it is that people are not universally the same. We all have different needs depending on a million different factors. Trying to run a single organization designed to cater to all those needs is a nightmare.

Sure, it may work in smaller countries. Their populations are more homogeneous and beliefs are more in line with one another. Especially in collectivist cultures universal health care probably makes sense.

The United States is a big country. Not just population wise, but also simply in variety of culture and plain land area. The beauty of states is that each state can take a piece of that bigger whole and organize it based on the needs of those people. What is important to people in California is vastly different from what is important to people in, say, Georgia.

There's a reason why organizations delegate leadership, why there's a supervisor, a manager, and a CEO. The CEO can't effectively run everything on his/her own. I cannot see how a universal health coverage system can possibly work efficiently. Then again I can't see how our current federal government system can work efficiently trying the same concept on, well, everything. And, not surprisingly, our current federal government is nowhere near efficient. Imagine that .

Oh well. We fought a war over that idea and the states lost. That's what they get for not having enough defense!

Jacquesne