“Whatever happened to private firefighters? The answer is that they are alive and well, just not around here.

Much of Arizona and a growing number of cities in the South and West depend on private enterprise for fire protection. Private fire companies range in size from one-truck operations to Rural/Metro Corp., which serves more than 400 communities in 23 states. Many of them are owned by former public-sector firefighters who became convinced there was a better way to run a firehouse.

[...]And the quality? In terms of saving lives, private companies match or outperform public fire departments. Compare Scottsdale, which covers 183 square miles, to Detroit, 140 square miles in size. During a recent five-year period, Scottsdale suffered only a single fire-related death while 18 citizens of Detroit died due to failed fire equipment or closed fire stations alone.”

http://www.firefightingnews.com/article-US.cfm?articleID=51807

I think ultimately capitalism does work, but it’s just we live in a system that is so far from that, a system that is so systemically flawed that it’s hard to imagine.

It’s something that I went through too. I watched “Money as Debt,” and “Masters of Money,” and those really opened things up for me. I saw how fractional reserve banking and having private central banks are a major problem, and that our world would look very different without them.

As far as “relying on the Republicans,” well, they weren’t relied on. This was passed without them. This was all Democrats, and one Republican, I think.

The answer is to take the profit out of health care – nationalize the entire industry (including the drug companies), but not under the control of the same government bureaucrats but under the control of the workers and patients themselves.

In any case, we will never get any sort of real reform as long as we rely on the Republicrats. It’s just like tax “reform”: Every tax “reform” measure passed in the last 50 years has resulted in lower taxes for the rich and increased taxes for the middle income earners. (See: “America, Who Really Pays the Taxes?”)

What we need is a mass political party based on working class people, not the corporations and the rich.

Here is a link to Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s position on the bill http://kucinich.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2806&Itemid=76

Here is a link to Congressman Ron Paul’s position on the bill http://www.house.gov/htbin/blog_inc?BLOG,tx14_paul,blog,999,All,Item not found,ID=091109_3598,TEMPLATE=postingdetail.shtml

I always say, whenever people are talking about root causes of problems, fractional reserve banking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC720Cl3N-0

That is one of the two videos that really changed the way I viewed the world. (The other one is Masters of Money, which is about central banking.)

Josh

Also, which enumerated power gives the Federal government the power to require anyone to buy anything from any private entity? Look in Article 1, Section 8. There is none, and then read the 10th Amendment which is supposed to limit the power of the Federal government to those powers specifically conferred upon it by the Constitution.

I’m not saying that the Federal government doesn’t have the power to collect taxes for and spend money on Medicaid and Medicare, but I am saying that it does not have the power to require any citizen to buy anything. Yet, those who took millions in official contributions from the insurance, health care, and pharmaceutical cartels decided to “reform” health care by requiring everyone to buy it from a insurance cartel without any legal basis to do so and under threat of fines and imprisonment if anyone fails to do so. Does that seem like bribery and extortion to you?

As with the sales job done to require mandatory car insurance in most states, the authorities in the government and the “news” media claim that when everyone is insured, premiums will go down. Of course, premiums always go up when you increase demand for any product or service especially if it is turned into a crime if you dare go without it for some reason, like the factory that you worked in was moved to China or Mexico and you can’t pay for insurance unless you give up feeding your children.

If you have wondered why the government passes laws that virtually everyone opposes, like the bank bailout, and why the government refuses to investigate and prosecute obvious crimes, like torture and murder, check out Why Does the Government Ignore Our Wishes? at http://dailycensored.com/2009/09/11/why-does-the-government-ignore-our-wishes/ and don’t miss my 18 minute speech.

If you take a look, you’ll learn why they get away with violating our rights, abusing their power, and committing horrible crimes. My article on torture includes a link to the U.S. Supreme Court case which explains how one of our stolen rights makes the difference between justice and injustice, between freedom and slavery.

There has been one major change. We no longer have a president who, on the face of it, embarrasses us. But we do have a president and administration that have contempt for us, in the most obvious ways on a non stop basis.