Government

That is complete nonsense and a direct parroting of welfare state propaganda. It isn't "those with money know what's best" it is the proven Economic (and common sense) FACT that a person will be more careful with decisions made with their own money than when spending other people's money. Your country did not collapse and you did not have massive unemployment from Thatchers policies. In fact, both the wealthy and the poor were more wealthy under her policies. Also, she was Conservative party, not neo-liberal. The cabinet messed her over in the end, but her policies had blockbuster success. Class warfare is BS used by power hungry officials to utilize the envy of people to expand government. Your entitlement programs are drowning your economy. Government by its very nature is inefficient and wasteful. Your infrastructure was and is perfectly adequate and it doesn't matter how your infrastructure is doing if you don't allow enough capital to remain in the economy for private business to grow the economic pie and offer jobs. It is a great idea to allow private companies to handle tasks at which the government does poorly. Social mobility is always stronger with a stronger economy and a thriving private sector. Do NOT even start on trying to tell me that my country was founded as a secular nation because that is patently false and I have no desire to get into that debate. A church can not be in control of the government and the government can not have control over religion. Elected officials can be any religion they want and it can effect their decisions so long as the aforementioned situations are not presented.

I didn't reall want to debate this either because i've grown sick of explaining to brainwashed people how economies work. It IS and will always be as simple as choosing to vote for a person or not. If the People want to be governed by the views held by a particular religion then that is the choice made. It seems that some people want democracy... except when it is something that they disagree with. Sure, business owners have some money, but your vision of wealthy fat cats dictating the actions of goverment is beyond silly. A closer picture would be the mob (government) demanding protection money from businesses or else they smash up the place (regulate you to smithereens or sick the IRS/EPA/etc.,on you). And if anyone is controlling large swaths of the population through media in the US it is the big government crowd. For most of our media outlets our president can absolutely do no wrong and they continuously spin doctor for him. Hikki, ask yourself why Greece needed that loan. They ran out of their peoples money and started borrowing from others, and instead of stopping unsustainable entitlements they just kept spending borrowed money. Their debts got called in. Rioting has nothing to do with why they went broke, that train had already left the station. That did make it even worse though. If I was short or curt with this I apologize. But, I did study Economics for 4 years and graduated Magna cum Laude, so the fallacious welfare state propaganda nonsense gets under my skin big time. I should probably leave this thread before it gets more hostile. I know how unpopular actual economics are with supporters of welfare government, especially those in the UK and France. No hard feelings.

in reply to Wiglaf. I do not disagree with any of what you have just said ( regarding greece ), however it seems my point didnt make it through... What I imply is that the people who decided to go ahead with the irresponsible actions of the greek state and economy as a whole, was well aware of the results it would have, it was done intentionally and willfully. The reason i brouht up the riots, is the fact that the media concentrated on the riots during the important choices that caused the situation. By NOT reporting accurately what the riots was about, the rest of the world and most of greece was kept in the dark, is all im saying. as a side note, i am opposed to democracy, majority rule is stupidity rule. the people are dumb and impulsive and not fit to rule.

^your last two lines really jump out at me. I never really cared for politics or the economy. But I'm learning it now in senior year, and this discussion is helpful for providing different viewpoints that I can bring up to my teacher, since I seem to be the only one outside of the AP Gov and Econ class who cares the slightest bit about politics and money. But only because I'm curious. Not because I'm passionate about changing anything.

The government needs to stop dictating how people lead their personal lives. We need to stop trying to run this country as a christian country because we have a very wide array of religions here.

There is one thing I learned about the government. That is if you get involved deep in it you can make changes or make life a living hell for the ones screwing you. From personal experience. If you join a group the does work for elections and stuff beware they mean it when they say they need your help.

Trumps Presidency: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEAqsBXXcuA Behaves like a 4 year old, loosing his temper constantly over twitter, and nobody ever called him out for it. Thanks to him, the local drinking water is orange... I'm still a little bitter about that. Biden's Presidency: https://zombo.com/ Kinda a zombie. Does a whole lot of nothing because he's stuck doing damage control after 4 years of reganomics and a pandemic fucked up world supply lines and gets blamed for it. I agree with him on Ukraine though. Fuck Putin. Aside from that, a mediocre president as long as he takes his Alzheimer pills. US Politics as a whole: I have issues with it. But I am Appalachian, so when has the government ever been on my side? Its not irredeemable, but god damn it, we really do need to update a lot of our policies, and get money out of politics before we could really make any substantial societal advancements. Local Politics: J.D. Vance is a fucking cunt who intentionally derails literally ANY conversation with unrelated conspiracy theories in order to deflect blame or attention. Ohio is actually a purple state, but due to gerrymandering, you would never be able to tell. And our governor is an idiot. @rafaelsanzio 11 years? No. I'm old now. Go back 21 years, and I was actually an anarch. Few years before that, I was republican.