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No, but to classify the US democrats as staunch supporters of socialized medicine is just as ludicrous a statement.
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I didn't say that either.
What I alluded to was this:
If Canada had the same situation as the U.S. (pre-Obama) with respect to health care coverage, would Stephen Harper have made it a priority, and fought within the legislative system and defended in the media, something similar to Obamacare?
No, but to classify the US democrats as staunch supporters of socialized medicine is just as ludicrous a statement.
Heck what the US has with the ACA is just a subsidized user pay system. It's not socialized medicine, it's incentives to insurance companies.
What I'm saying is that the batsh!t craziness of the Republicans for the last 16 years has pulled the Democrats so far to the right, that they aren't Democrats anymore. They're Republican light. The US does not have a left leaning party. Democrats, at their absolute best are centrist.
Are the Conservatives conservative? Of course, but the thing of it is because of those dogmatic reasons, they'll never be "true" conservatives, as that's just not who Canada is. Is Harper a frothing lunatic like Nat thinks he is? Maybe, but the Conservatives aren't as a whole. The population and the system keep that in check.
The US has the same checks and balances. If somehow the socialists Sanders got elected, he would never get anything approved that he wants. He would be the most useless president ever. Obama had a small window when the Dems had both houses. Thats why he rushed the ACA. No Republicans supported it and it barely got enough Dem support. Obama had to buy off the final 2 votes which nobody knows about. It got passed right before the midterm elections and because it was such a single party issue the GOP has pretty much refused to work with Obama. I think everyone agrees the US health care system needed adjusted but to do what Obama did with the ACA is huge joke of domestic policy. Its not supposed to work that way in the US.
If Canada had the same situation as the U.S. (pre-Obama) with respect to health care coverage, would Stephen Harper have made it a priority, and fought within the legislative system and defended in the media, something similar to Obamacare?
I think the answer to that is no.
But it's not a comprable argument.
A better one would be C-51 v. the NSA spying program. One is open, relatively transparent, and up for debate, even if you don't support the outcome (which I don't), the other is a black box that has no public oversight, no controls, and no supposed limitations.
It'd probably be surprising for left-of-centre or centrist Harper critics, but Harper actually got some flak from the right-wing element of conservatives (note the lower-case "c" noting not the CPC itself). This discontent ranged from the belief that he wasn't fiscally conservative enough to elements of the religious right decrying the stance on abortion or same-sex marriage.
Where? Maybe you could show me so I can learn how they're the same?
Well there's this thing called City-Data. On it, they have a forum where people can discuss things. They have a discussion by creating "threads". The threads are generally organized by geography and in some cases interests. Well on one of the threads, called "Question of Canadian Politics" I made my point.
Now, if you read that, you'll see where the point was made, and where there has been some interesting discussion.
Now I know you're a Hokie, so I typed that really slow so you could keep up.
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