Television Crisis!

The United States Congress recently gave television stations an extension for the digital switchover in the hopes Americans would be granted more time to prepare for this momentous event.

After all, there is now the risk that some Americans might not be able to watch television. Wouldn't that just be horrible? What would we do in the face of this catastrophe? Read books? Talk to each other? Go outside and look around? Oh, the horror!

Healthcare Will Be Linked to Reproduction

Since healthcare is at its root an ethical question, at some point we are going to end up linking it to reproduction.

In any place where some sort of minimum healthcare is guaranteed, the society immediately faces the question of when to give up on people and let them die. Taking this a little further, it seems likely that at some point some governments will likely tie healthcare to reproduction.

That is, either you can live, or your children can live. The more children you have, the less healthcare the society will be likely to want to give to you.

Though it may seem cruel, it is a rather fair way of looking at the issue. If someone has ten children, they are creating ten more consumers of the healthcare system. At some point, the system needs to cut off the parent in favor of the children.

How spoiled are Americans?

The American standard of living has become so high that Americans seem to be unable to tell how good they have it.

The United States is embroiled in two wars, but the average American has no day-to-day experience of those wars. Could anyone in any other nation say the same? When the U.S. was involved in World War II, Americans could not buy cars or fancy clothes. The entire economy was dedicated to winning the war. Now America simply deficit spends while Americans are urged to go out and spend, spend, spend on whatever they can to "support the economy."

The United States is in a recession, but the average American lives like a king. Americans still pay for mobile phone service, premium television, luxury automobiles, and so many other luxuries that seem unthinkable to the "middle class" of many other nations.

What will it take for Americans to be able to realize what their own nation is doing?