Um, what? I, too, live in Scandinavia, and it takes about $20 to change your tires in a repair shop - less than that if you use one of those temporary changing places that pop up at spring and fall.
Not here.
Also, the only Scandinavian country where tax rate even goes to 60% is Denmark
You Sir, have won some herring.
and even there it tops at 62.28%, which would require you to be a top earner - according to Wikipedia, even the equivalent of $138,000 wouldn't hit even 50%, much less 60%. Which means there's no way in Hell you'd have to work for two days for a net gain of $100.
Care to explain?
I most certainly would care. You are confounding average tax and marginal tax. Once I have hit an income of 59000 dollars(I'm just about there) a year I pay 60% tax on everything earned beyond that. So if I have to have a net gain of 100$ I would have to earn 250$. I earn about 160$ a day. So I would have to work ~1.6 days more, not taking travel costs and extra expenses into account. Not so far from two days I would say.
Bonus info: about 1/3 of all working Danes are earning enough to hit the top percentage.
3. There are no "czars" in this government. Some people are more senior, and have more authority; other people are less senior and have less authority. Are you in favor of everyone having the same authority? Or do you object to the word "czar"? Heaven knows it's an objectionable word, but it's one that the media uses to describe otherwise boring titles.
Yes, yes I object to the word "Czar", it's a bastardisation of the root word, Ceasar. Realistically we should have more accurate names, right now in Australia there is certain politician who's title is "Minister of Communications, Broadband and the Digital Economy" when he really needs to be called the "Fürer of the Internet".
Wouldn't that just be a bastardisation of the root word, Führer?
Because I live in Scandinavia and changing tires(summer/winter) is most certainly relevant to safe driving?
Plus, Scandinavia is one of them ebul sociamolist places without poor people, so getting your tires changed is ~$100 (cost of labour only), and I'm paying 60% tax. It makes no sense for me to work two days more to afford something I could do myself in 30 minutes.
Read GPs post again.
He said that Iraq was the only area in the middle east where women had anything resembling equal rights.
We certainly should see the full horrors and then we can discuss who it was that unleashed the scourge of islamic fundementalism on Iraq.
Women had it markedly better in Iraq under Hussein, than other Arabic countries. He had abolished Sharia law. He ran a, for the middle east, largely secular state.
Do not delude yourself. This was not a crusade for justice and peace. It was, as the middle-age crusades, for political expediency and economic reasons. If it really was for making the world a better place, then why are we not heavily engaged in Somalia or North Korea?
I don't mind condemning soldiers who step across the line. But I have a real problem with the hypocricy of forgiving everyone else in the world for their sins and being the first to step up onto the soap box to condemn our own.
We are condemning them and more importantly their leaders for, exactly, hypocrisy. They were supposedly there to stop this kind of abuse. Instead they have perpetrated the very acts they were supposed to stop. Furthermore violence, ethnic/religious conflicts and fundamentalism has spread, again directly against the stated goal.
... then if you decide to shoot yourself with the pistol in the safe in the living room.
quibbleman to the rescue: Just make sure your safe is too small for you to fit inside and you'll be alright.
It's probably relatively cheap to build such a probe, and probably also relatively easy to get the funding for a short project like that, but the problem comes when we have to listen to the probe. That's probably expensive and a very long-term project, which are very difficult to get funded(plus they are the prime victims of budget cuts, because such long-term projects are often funded directly outside the normal proposal calls.)
I'm sorry you've been so thoroughly indoctrinated that you do not believe it necessary to examine or argue for your country's form of government.
A constitutional monarchy is also based on the consent of the governed while making mob rule deliberately difficult.
Having a hereditary head of state gives the possibility of training and educating the head of state specifically for that job. It also places a much larger burden on the person to do a good job. His/her livelihood and that of his entire family hinges on the continued support of the public.
The head of state is a politically neutral figure, and the daily powers are vested in the elected prime minister who has to base his political decision on broad consensus in a multi party system fostering cooperation across all parties and preventing unilateral behaviour benefiting just one party in a winner takes all system.
There are monarchies around the world that have existed for more than a 1000 years Sure, because in most cases the elected representatives in those countries have chosen to retain those monarchies as celebrity pets. In cases where the monarchies actually have any real power or authority, it's maintained by force - not by the happy support of a given family's subjects. Of course you know that, and you're just thrashing around trying to find a way in which a constitution-based representative republic can be made to look bad, since you'd prefer a pure Nanny State.
I think you don't know the difference between Absolutism and Constitutional Monarchy. Hint: the first is a relatively recent form of government. Or maybe you do now the difference, and you're just thrashing around trying to find a way in which a constitution-based representative monarchy can be made to look bad?
You even have to resort to name calling instead of actually showing through reasoned argument why a republic is the pinnacle of government.
Well, the US does have the longest standing Constitution of any nation. I think that says a whole lot about the effectiveness of our chosen form of government.
Sorry but you're wrong. There are constitutions twice as old as the US's still in use today, and nations have existed that had the same constitution for much longer. Part of my country had the same constitution from mid 13th century to the beginning of the 20th i.e. more than 650 years.
I wouldn't be so proud of your constitution it has after all allowed slavery, segregation, torture camps, and the suspension of habeas corpus.
When you think about it, our system is really only one of two that could contain itself long enough to achieve so-called "Superpower Status". The other (apparently, looking at history) was Communism (speaking of the former Soviet Union).
So you've taken the two powers that has been called superpowers recently, but many nations have had the same level of power throughout history. A few examples:
The roman empire - republic/dictatorship
Mongolian empire - meritocratic despotism
British empire - monarchy
However, seeing as the United States is still here and still retains it's Superpower status, I believe we've proven that only the mixture of Democracy and Authoritarianism that is the "Representative Republic" form of Government can withstand the long haul of time.
I don't think you've proven anything.
Is the US really a superpower still? It's definitely declining. Looking at history I think it's delusional arrogance to believe the US has found the "perfect" government. Especially when you consider the US being such a young construct, which definitely has yet to stand the test of time.
There are monarchies around the world that have existed for more than a 1000 years.
If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
