My friend keeps asking me why I don't save my money (I don't even have a bank account.) I tell her that I don't need to save a lot of money, because (as your friend said), what am I going to do with it while it's just sitting in the bank? Her answer was this:

"What if you hurt yourself at work? You have no health insurance, and an injury would take away your financial security for years to come."

And that's where I would like to interject my hatred for this country and its healthcare system. People want lower taxes, and they want a well-maintained healthcare system, as you said. But because they aren't willing to pay taxes for healthcare, it isn't national. And yet, they're perfectly willing to spend billions of dollars on our military. And if you say a derogatory comment about that military, soldiers' families and general "patriotic" Americans will rip your face off. Especially today, of all days. I'm afraid to go outside today, because I don't want to see everybody clad in our flag's colors. But anyway...

So I'm supposed to save my money in case I am hurt, when I'd rather have paid that money earlier to taxes that fund a national health system. However, it is odd where my tax dollars go. True, my federal money goes to the war machine, but that's about 10 dollars every two weeks. The two major tax burdens in this country are Social Security and Medicare, or "I'm going to help old people and poor, sick people." And that idea is great, except those two programs are sinking fast. I pay about 150 dollars every two weeks for those programs, and they're failing miserably. And they're programs that I don't receive if I am hurt. So it's not like I'm paying for myself. I'm paying for the elderly and the ill, but when it comes time for me to break my leg, I'm forced to pay for my own medical bills. My head hurts now. I hope it's not a tumor, because then I'm screwed.

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I expected the answer that you gave me. It doesn't surprise me that some countries with higher taxes can feel more communal than my country. I feel so alienated here, and I've lived here for my entire life. The only days people feel communal are days like today, when we're supposed to feel like a big, happy family. But we're that family who acts cordial at the Thanksgiving dinner table, then an hour later we're fighting over the TV remote control.

I'm actually not against the level of taxes that are levied in this country. I just hate the way they're spent. If we could stop paying for the war machine, maybe we'd progress further and the world wouldn't have a reason to hate us so much anymore.

How does one become a citizen of Sweden, anyway?

In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Haven't really had time to think this through, so you'll have to take what I say with a grain of salt. Been trying to come up with some stuff Sweden's doing better than the US and why, and as it stands we'd both agree I think that the US is doing slightly worse in education at the moment.
This is more of a rant than a coherent argument, but let's see where it goes.

I think it could very well boil down to taxes, both when it comes to having them and the general mentality among citizens about paying them.
There seems to be a problem in the US with the second issue, where (judging from online news videos) people appear to have great difficulty connecting sociopolitical issues with each other and applying them in real life.
Taxes and welfare issues in particular, to take an example for discussion's sake. To tie back to Sweden, it's probably safe to say that nobody really enjoys paying taxes like they would enjoy going to the movies or going out for dinner, but the fundamental understanding that the quality of our social benefits, schooling, infrastructure and healthcare are directly connected to the amount of cash the government takes makes it a natural thing in the public mind. The discussion isn't whether we should have them or not, but rather what education and healthcare standards we can live with before starting to discuss lowering taxes.
To tie back even further, to a few posts back when we talked about abortion, there seems to be a similar detachment from the issues of how the government is supposed to help take care of all the babies that the people who are against abortion want to save, when many of the same people are for lower taxes and taxcuts to a system which doesn't even have national healthcare, where the vast majority of cash goes to the military and where the military is the only branch the tax cuts won't ever touch. It doesn't make any sense, but when you look at the status of some states and the policies they're pursuing, it's becoming more clear that increasing taxcuts and lower taxes are linked to the failing public school system, crumbling infrastructure and lack of public healthcare. Kind of like wanting to have the cake and eat it up too, where people don't want to pay for the state/federal service but still expect it to maintain its quality.
In that aspect I think Sweden's doing much better than the US. Even though people on a personal level probably don't feel any different towards each other in respective country, I think Swedes as a community feel more strongly connected and are more focused on helping each other out than hoarding personal fortunes.

After all, even if I didn't have any kids or intend to get any, there'd still be several good reasons for me to pay for our public education and feel great about it. I'd know people with kids, who'd get kids or who knew people with kids, and I'd also like to be able to walk the streets at night without having to fear for my life.
A friend of mine who works at an eldercare clinic said, when asked about this, "I'm only sitting at home with my comp six days a week except for saturdays when I go out and party. What am I supposed to do with all of my salary?"

In reply to this comment by thinker247:
I was hoping you'd raise some issue about which I could argue, but I agree with you completely. Damnit. ha!

So what is your opinion of Sweden versus America? I always see Sweden at the top of the list when it comes to social issues, and I'm jealous. Are the lists an accurate portrayal of Swedish society?

I dunno, but something about this whole thing seems off...

The main reason the founding fathers began the gold standard was to counteract their first attempts at creating a monetary system that no one else would accept.

He throws out a lot of numbers in the video (years and prices), but the prices stop after 1931. Why? I wanted to know so I checked a few things out. I found out that in 1971, the price of gold sky rocketed (source, click on "1833-1999 Yearly Averages"). This would support qualm's remarks that speculation would have created a serious deficit for the federal government.

But this is in US$ still! If the dollar is inflating so rapidly then of course going off the gold standard would have this effect! Let's compare it to all the other nations of the world and then we will see how the dollar is sinking fast! http://www.goldprice.org/gold-price-history.html

It's also worth mentioning that this website is a site that SELLS gold for these exact reasons to protect yourself from inflation. Pay special attention to the curve similarities/differences between the major world economies (US$, the Yen, the Euro, the Swiss Franc, even the Canadian Dollar).

I'm not seeing a panic here, I'm seeing the price of gold inflating around the world at the same rate everywhere. Where's the flaw here?

Fletch is right, the wording needs changing in the guidelines, and all are correct when they say this does not qualify as snuff. Is not seeing an IED, going off, enough to paint a picture of what happens when the same goes off, with soldiers near? Same with Danny pearl viddy, and Sadaam's hanging...the knife against the throat, and the noose round the neck, combined with the news of the results, are enough to illicit a healthy discourse, without taking it to the faces of death level.....

What if we had some scenes of a cruise ship sinking fast, a high-res feed coming from a satellite, in real-time? Could we justify having THAT up here, with good conscience?