http://endsufferingparty.com/index.html/

Here’s a great essay on the effect of socialism on the British national character (Linked to my name). It applies with only minor modifications to us here in Canada, where over half the population is employed by the State, either directly or at one remove, and tax freedom day is June 20th. All the news here is either about the Government, or about what the Government need to do about some problem that is afflicting us. We’ve become whining children.

Canada has more natural resources than any country save Russia, an educated populace, the world’s biggest trading partner to the south of us, robust infrastructure and a seacoast in each of the two biggest oceans on Earth. We should be the richest country on the planet. Instead we’ve been recently leapfrogged in terms of GDP per head by the tiny island states of Taiwan and Ireland. We must be doing something very, very wrong for this state of affairs to obtain.

I’m still clinging to the fantasy that I can join the Free State project and live with some semblance of dignity, but it looks more and more like the U.S. government is swelling at an unprecedented rate with nothing in sight to stop it or slow it down. Please tell me I’m wrong.

“Their unanimous advice: Never have a baby in England.”

My same friend with the above NHS story told me that her sister and every woman in London has to give birth standing up. I know that’s how things used to be done and perhaps that’s a better way to do it, but it seems like people should be given a choice about such a personal thing.

Canadians constantly commit the fallacy of the false dichotomy by judging their health care system only in comparison to the American system, which is itself quite distant from a free market situation. This is typical of my petty countrymen. They don’t care how miserable their lives become, as long as they can feel morally superior to Americans.

I’ve got friends in England with their own bumper crop of horror stories. Their unanimous advice: Never have a baby in England.

When my friends move to the U.S. they invariably encounter the notion that our system is spectacularly successful, and have a hard time disabusing people of their wrong ideas about Canadian health care. Well, here’s the skinny from the horses mouth: The quality of health care in Canada is the same as that a homeless man would receive walking into a state hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska with no insurance and no money. The very few Canadians who get better care either have connections, or have flown to another country.
I should add that this terrible situation persists in spite of amazing dedication on the part of many medical professionals. It’s quite an amazing system that can take everyone’s sincere good intentions, their hard work, and huge amounts of money, and turn it all into steaming piles of shit. Wow!