the most rabidly right wing Brit would probably be regarded as a commie pinko begging to be relieved of their life by their American counterpart.
You noticed that too?
What most countries consider basic public healthcare is considered to be an affront to liberty, democracy, capitalism, and the American Way by many Americans.
Wasting zillions of dollars on the military, prisons, law enforcement, surveillance of citizens, and defense of corporations is OK though.
This always baffled me. Average citizen in US can not afford a normal cancer treatment provided by basic healthcare service available everywhere else in the western world, right? So if he gets cancer, which one stands pretty good chance to get, he has an option either not to get normal cancer treatment or bankrupt his own family forever. How's then small state beneficial to average citizen in this case? Why do people vote for small state if they are not rich and expose themselves to this enormous risk?
Do we really want to know the answer?
We know San Fransisco will be hit by another catastrophic earthquake within our lifetime, still hipsters and "bassoons" flock over there like it was made of cotton candy.
That's different. A lot of people have no choice, can't afford to move somewhere else because of the job or the family. Being against or for free general healthcare costs you nothing, you just have to vote. And again many, many non-rich people vote against free general healthcare and for small state, with very large chance to give themselves or some family member a death sentence. Amazing.
It goes back to the civil war, with the division between the slave run economy in the south and the more industrial north. The north won the war and the US was de facto a federal state rather than a confederal state. Slavery was abolished, but as we saw in the sixties, and to some extent today, parts of the south maintains those race lines and are vehemently against taking any instructions from the federal level (That's also where this right wing anarchism and hate towards "The Government" comes from). And according to this thinking you don't use rich white peoples money to pay for healthcare for other races.
Of course, most states don't think like this, so these forces started cooperating with the classical liberals/libertarians and christian conservatives because they had overlapping interests, turning the republicans from the party of Lincoln and against suppression of blacks, to what we've seen for the last 50 years. Up until Nixon America was adopting social policies just like europe and much of the rest of the world.
The true genius can be found in the modern day propaganda developed by the republicans and Rupert Murdochs FOX News. They know they are lying, and they know what they are saying can be proven wrong very easily. But they also know that their core audience won't care or understand this if they just keep droning on as if it was true anyway. If you understand that what they are saying is stupid, then you're not their core audience and they don't need you. It's a kind of brainwashing which both the chinese and the Kreml have adopted. It makes it much easier to control populations.
What they also find is that a majority of the rest starts, not agreeing with the BS, but treating it as a legitimate viewpoint. Which makes fertile ground for new fools to fall for their stupidity. How many times haven't you seen people being interviewed trying to be "balanced" when asked about "Obamacare". We in europe would just roll our eyes and say that the republicans were off the plot.
sry, TL
volatility is good i guess. But now its going sideways again 
