Fred, A very good friend of mine is a physician who practices in Copenhagen. Socialized medicine, in fact lots of their whole philosophy is socialist. I have spent hours with him discussing it in a very open, nonconfrontational way. He explained (now mind you this is one person's testomony, so it has to be considered less than scientific) that he takes the bus to work everyday with other people, not a group of rich elite.

He says when he goes to a cocktail party, it is not necessarily all physicians, and the people you would normally expect at a party frequented with doctors, it has a broad cross section of folks; plumbers, factory workers, retail sales folks, etc. They have no feelings of people in socioeconomic strata. The one thing that is frowned upon, criticized, and ridiculed,though is people who do not work. You see there is pride in gainful employment. THe kicker is that it is a system that has to begin in the family unit. People are taught as small children that they are no better nor no worse than others, but there is great importance in contributing to society.

He makes far less money than his counterparts in the USA, but his overall lifestyle, lots of manditory vacation time, several weeks of personal development set aside in his schedule that is provided every year, just a no rat race existance. HIs taxes are extrordinary high, but there are many benefits that are provided, ie healthcare, childcare, everyone draws a check monthly from the time they are teenagers.

But somehow, this system works there because the people of Denmark are remarkable people in their value systems. If we had similar things here in the states, the corruption would be unbelievable, because we don't have the family systems they have. I know I am probably making more of this than it really is, but I wanted to say than even I agree with liberal philosophy On paper. It is just the reality of adding dishonest lazy people makes in impractical in my opinion.