Aesa

Thanks for your advice everyone. But going to see a psychologist will have to wait until next year.. My father will not pay for that. It's a long story, but I really should've stayed with my mother. I moved with him just for this year. Mistake.

I feel so dehumanised and empty lately. In the last three to four months I've had more days where I have been on the brink of bursting into tears than ever before in my life. Why? I keep thinking: "God." But it just seems so impossible to know what God even is.

That's the imperative of this system. The only way to keep the banks going, is to create more debt and thus inflation. Unfortunately, the tables have to turn sooner or later and nobody will take loans, because they wont be able to afford what they've already got.

A big problem is the left-right paradigm that exists. It's liberty vs. tyranny, well, that's how it should be. Democrats and Republicans are just two sides of the same coin. Two wings of the same eagle. Two hands of the same body. Two headlights of the same car. ... you see where I'm going with this.

I have been drawn the LDS Church for years. In-fact it was when I first attended a Christian church with a friend my father explicitly stated "Don't get mixed up with those Mormons." It's funny how denigrating remarks will lead a curious person to question "What do you mean by that?" In my experience, most people are wrong about the LDS Church. I myself even feel it is right to correct people when they espouse nonsense about it. Just do what you feel you are lead to do.

If/when America falls, that'd really be an almost 'hook, line and sinker' scenario for me. If the Church is what preserves Judeo-Christian culture in the Western World ... then that seems like a huge fulfillment of prophecy (i.e., the church is true) to me.Aren't there a few places in Scripture where God says he'll preserve his people/his church?

Personally I think the unemployment is above 10%. You have to take into account the people that have been out of work long-term, who only have access to part-time work, etc,... In my part of the world, something favourable seems to be happening - part time jobs are on the rise and hours are dropping. Though, in saying that, I think the media is hyping it hugely as it doesn't seem to be widespread.

Exactly what's going to happen as it keeps up (bankruptcy).Thank-you for responding to the conjecture I made. I do admit it was not based off anything but a thought that just suddenly came to me. I don't necessarily agree with your response completely (though in a very different context that's not really relevant to the topic at hand) but it's a good one. :)

This is very interesting me, because I just had this thought:If there's a depression or dip in the economy in the United States, and people don't have enough money to maintain their standard of living they cannot use things such as medical care. Whereas, in a "socialised nation" the healthcare is a public service and generally not impending on you being able to directly afford it. Therefore, if there's a depression you should still have access to it.

Not at all. I'm just not a position of having enough time to get into a drawn out discussion about the human being, and how much a product learning we are, etc, etc,.

I think there are really bigger issues than phones ringing, really.

I disagree with you on so many levels, based on experimental psychology alone, but I'm not going to turn this thread into a debate over that. You are welcome to hold that the human being is fundamentally unchangeable as to the "way things are", but it is very wrong.

I'm not going to turn this into a debate of why such an accusation against The Movement is so wrong, because that's totally off-topic. What you basically just said is "It's Marxism but everything is different!" Great antithesis to your own comment. The simplest argument (and I've said I can expand on these) is that we do not advocate a war of the classes, and Communism most certainly does. If you wish to have 'that' discussion start another thread or PM me.A country with a high standard of living and pretty much the highest age expectancy on the planet, has a healthcare system which is centralised (and which also happens to be the best in the world, by many comments), in the words of their government: "All inhabitants of Iceland have the right of access to the best possible health service at any given time for the protection of their mental, social and physical health. The law ensures that there is no discrimination against patients on the grounds of sex, religion, beliefs, nationality, race, skin color, financial status, family relations or status in other respect. The health service in Iceland is primarily financed by central government. Financing is mainly based on taxes or 85% and 15% is fee for service. The country is divided into health care regions, each with their own primary health care centres, some of which are run jointly with the local community hospital. The primary health care centers have the responsibility for general treatment and care, examination, home nursing as well as preventive measures such as family planning, maternity care and child health care and school health care. Hospitals in Iceland may be ranked as specialized teaching hospitals, general hospitals and community hospitals. Hospitalization is free of charge. The specialized hospitals perform most operations and procedures in all specialist medical fields. The health service is staffed by trained and qualified professional groups. Life expectancy in Iceland (2005) is among the highest in the world. Average life expectancy at birth for females is 83,1 years and for males 79,2 years. Infant mortality is among the lowest in the world - 2,3 per 1000 live births." Fancy that, that dirty-filthy Marxist nation! Australia's healthcare system (like any) has it's shortcomings. There have been issues with waiting at times, but generally it's fairly good. The only thing which causes some degree of consistent issue with our healthcare system is that 85% of the population lives in the urban areas, and with it constantly growing there is sometimes disparity in surgery waiting lists and so forth. However, if one wants to get their surgery done quicker they can go to a country hospital where the waiting lists are generally nowhere near as long. Our biggest problem is a shortage of personnel (Australian's always seem to want a pay rise!).

This is one disagreement I have with the free-market ideology verrrry strongly. Australia's healthcare is mostly government owned, and it's generally very good healthcare with access to all people. If you don't want the socialised healthcare, there are church-owned (or other private) hospitals in many towns and cities. Socialisation of healthcare is a very good thing, and I'm all too happy to have to pay for the betterment and availability of healthcare to fellow members of society.

I should explain the point-of-reference I'm coming from, I'm talking of the ideal. In other words, what we should as a sane society hope/aim for. Ofcourse, we have admissions that there are shortcomings and that these things "do happen." Yet at the same time, we work towards personally and socially eliminating the propensity for the conscious killing of other human beings as far as we possibly can at the time. This "ideal" is much the same as self-improvement. We are always trying to perfect ourselves in our essay writing, in our understanding of a text, in our methods of relating to this with different opinions, etc,. Yet, at the same time we realise that in all things we will never reach a point of absolution where we cannot improve any further.