Tooth loss by state

[Nuclear Raunch]

Woohoo, 50th! Kinda strange since we have soooo much meth use here.

Here's an odd anamoly for you, most of the worst states are red states.

[Devari]

Red states? Communists in the US?

[The Beatles]

In comparison to Europe, both major US parties are heavily right-wing. In other words, while Republicans might be more extreme than Democrats, there is no significant difference in policy. Which is ironic, for a presidential system.

In contrast, parliamentary systems in Europe seem to be doing just fine. If you look at most countries, they actually have a varied political landscape.

(BTW, Devari, regarding our conversation a few weeks ago, Attlee actually turned out to be a very successful peacetime PM, implementing policies that became de facto government policy for all parties, right until Thatcher came along. http://www.mori.com/polls/2004/leeds.html )

[edit] Wow, down already! Lucky I had a backup:
https://tokaj.no-ip.org/html/Rating%20U ... index.html

[bjornredtail]

Ye olde solid south. Not all that long ago the area was dominated by the dixicrats... So not that much political menaing. However, as those are southern states, thier higher populaiton of rednecks would be using more chewing tobacco, causeing more tooth decay... Perhaps.

[windhound]

8th.. not bad actually, thought we'd be worse

be nice to the rednecks = P

[Gen. Volkov]

11th? *laughs*. Buncha hick farmers.

*laughs*, communists.. nice Devari.

Just because Europe is left-wing as all get out does NOT mean the US system doesn't have substantial differences between the parties. It's ironic really, we save Europe from the Soviet Union, and then Europe goes socialist. Your politicians don't seem all that varied to us, all of them would be considered left-wing nuts here. I'm not insulting you though, I'm just pointing out that our point's of view and news sources heavily bias how we think of other political systems. Course I don't think any system is good, but that's because I think for myself. My perfect system would be a plutonic meritocracy. Where, as Plato said, "kings are philosophers(scientists/academics nowadays I guess) or philosophers are kings."

[The Beatles]

Well, you didn't formally colonize Europe, and gratefulness is notably lacking in geopolitics and crowds. The fact that you have the most power doesn't mean you have the most popular political system.

The difference between the US and Europe is, I think, largely attributable to their respective age. Notice how almost all European states have parliamentary republics or constitutional monarchies. Most newly-formed states, such as the US, many Latin-American countries and African nations, all have presidential systems. (Commonwealth countries are an obvious exception, so we'll lump them with the oldies.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Form ... rnment.png

A meritocracy in any form would be good, but it's impossible because an individual can accumulate money. That's where it fundamentally breaks down. A credit system would be preferable.

[Gen. Volkov]

That's because we have subsequently saved Europe's rear 3 times since 1900. And I never said ours was the most popular, I was just pointing out that Americans see things differently from you.

And yes, the differences have to do with history, most European systems evolved out of monarchies, or aristocracies, so a parliament or a constutional monarchy is the logical extension of those systems. Most New World governments were created by newly independent states trying to differentiate themselves from there former European masters. So they modeled themselves on our system. Which we basically created out of whole cloth ourselves to make sure everyone knew we were different from Britain.

Oh and according to the Wikipedia entry, our system IS the most popular. *Snicker* About 60-70 countries are true presidential republics. The remainder are a grab bag of systems, no single system comes close to that number though.

What's wrong with having money? I never got this idea that people shouldn't be allowed to have money. I don't think the RULER should have an excess of money, but someone who has worked hard and earned money should be allowed to keep it. Wouldn't a credit system just be another form of money? Instead of something costing x number of dollars, something would cost x number of credits. Unless you mean you earn credit for doing things, and then can use that credit to get stuff, with is essentially what money is, in tangible form. You can't get rid of money, because there is not an alternate that is better. You can improve money, so that you don't actually have to carry cash, and you can change it's name, but as a system, there is, as yet, nothing better.

[Freenhult]

Easy gets...Lets keep our cool here. I know we all love our teeth and all. But I think we can leave governmental types out of this. Unless you had a facist government that forced you to eat sugar.

*Equips Flame Sheild*

[The Beatles]

No, see, you missed the point. Yes, it's like money. But you shouldn't be able to hoard them, i.e. at the end of each month when you get your "paycheck" or "meritcheck", it should never increase your credits beyond a fixed amount. In one stroke, that eliminates the monetary system and all its paraphernalia, returns politics to a military scale, and reintroduces the barter system, perhaps by valuation of course. This requires a rather centralized government though, and is not the sort of thing you can achieve in a liberal democracy.

It's a pity that the one experiment mankind has had in Communism didn't go all the way, so we could actually have tested this in the wild. As it is, the USSR's system was an uneasy compromise between past and future, so it was a miserable failure. Maybe true Communism would also be a miserable failure, but it's harder to tell.

Back on topic: three times? You joined WWI rather late, so that doesn't qualify. You saved us in WWII/Marshall. So which are these three events?

As for popularity of the presidential system... are you lumping the semi-presidential systems with it too? Are you looking at population figures as well? In fact, why the heck are we debating the /popularity/ of a system of government, when we know that the most popular form would also be the most harmful: anarchy. I only brought it up because you seemed to think that your aid to us would imply us choosing a political stance akin to yours...


*Flame shields on here too*

[Devari]

Oh and according to the Wikipedia entry, our system IS the most popular. *Snicker* About 60-70 countries are true presidential republics. The remainder are a grab bag of systems, no single system comes close to that number though.

Only the United States uses that crazy Electoral College system. (Seriously, one of the purported advantages of the full Presidential system is that the people directly elect the leader. However, by adding the electoral college, someone can be elected without receiving a majority of the votes. 1876, 1888, and 2000 are examples of this.

Besides which, you must have looked at the Wikipedia maps:

While perhaps, looking at this, the Presidential system is the single most popular (although not a majority):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Form ... rnment.png

Let's look at this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Form ... _House.png

Many of the counted "presidential republics" are, in fact, not very democratic states.

[Gen. Volkov]

Sorry that you two didn't get my joke. I was just being silly. Sorry.

No, see, you missed the point. Yes, it's like money. But you shouldn't be able to hoard them, i.e. at the end of each month when you get your "paycheck" or "meritcheck", it should never increase your credits beyond a fixed amount. In one stroke, that eliminates the monetary system and all its paraphernalia, returns politics to a military scale, and reintroduces the barter system, perhaps by valuation of course. This requires a rather centralized government though, and is not the sort of thing you can achieve in a liberal democracy.

It's a pity that the one experiment mankind has had in Communism didn't go all the way, so we could actually have tested this in the wild. As it is, the USSR's system was an uneasy compromise between past and future, so it was a miserable failure. Maybe true Communism would also be a miserable failure, but it's harder to tell.

Back on topic: three times? You joined WWI rather late, so that doesn't qualify. You saved us in WWII/Marshall. So which are these three events?

It's arguable whether WW1 could have been won without the fresh infusion of manpower from the US, so that's my first. The second is WW2 and the Marshall plan, and the third is the Cold War. Without us as a counterbalance to the USSR, all of Europe would be speaking Russian and calling each other comrade. And a large portion would still be doing so if we hadn't outdone them in the arms race and made them go bankrupt trying to compete with us.

And I don't miss your point, a true communist system stifles creativity and the economy. If everyone makes the same amount, and no one can ever make more money than another, it is fair, but it causes humans to lose ambition. It's just not workable with anything but robots. The same problem occurs in your system. If people can't make more money, and can't ever save money, where's the will to work hard come from? It dissapears.

That's why the American medical establishment is so much more advanced than the rest of the world. It's why Indiana has more MRI machines than all of Canada. Because it's not free, because doctors who do good work can make more money than ones who do poor work. It's why being a doctor is so revered here. So as a result, almost every major advance in Medicine in the past 50 years has come from America. It's why the Human Genome was decoded by a private venture, not the government funded "Human Genome Project". The last time a government project led to to major technological breakthrough was the Manhattan Project. And that was just for making a weapon, it had nothing to do with the actual discovery of nuclear fission, which was discovered by Enrico Fermi, working in a private lab. Well and the Internet, which started out as ARPAnet in the US Department of defense, but it didn't go huge until it was privatized. People in the US, working in conjunction with the people at CERN are the guys who created the Net as we know it today.

My point is, capitalism is a better system than communism. It promotes creativity and creates the will to work hard. And money is simply an advanced form of the barter system, so like I said, there really is no better alternative right now. And a meritocracy would not require such a centralized government as your idea, though it would require voters to pass an IQ test before they were allowed to vote.

[The Beatles]

If the Electoral College system is crazy (and yes, I agree, it is, e.g. a Californian's vote counts more than a Delawarer's vote), so is the first-past-the-post system in the UK. Our system in Hungary is fine, except the people in it are not...

[bjornredtail]

and yes, I agree, it is, e.g. a Californian's vote counts more than a Delawarer's vote

That simply isn't the case under electoral college. Voters in SMALLER states get an advantage as a result of the two "free" electoral college votes based on senate seates. These carry more weight in states with fewer electoral votes. Giving the smallest states an advantage isn't necessarly a bad thing either, though I'm not sure if our current electoral college is the best way of doing this.

[The Beatles]

Well, I'm just quoting my statistics textbook from last year, I could look it up again, because I may remember it wrong.