How Swede It Is

[oselle]

Bill O'Reilly sez:

"Far-left zealots want to destroy America so they can rebuild it as a socialistic paradise, a hyper-Sweden."

This isn't the first time I've heard a conservative disparaging Sweden as some hellhole that we'd never want to be like. Why, oh why are conservatives so revolted by Sweden? What did Sweden ever do to them? Is it the safe cars? The reasonably priced flat-packed furniture? The ubiquitous crispbread?? WHAT??

The truth is, whenever you see those worldwide quality-of-life rankings, Sweden tends to be pretty high up on the list. The Swedes are healthier, better educated, greener and generally happier than Americans...than most other people in the world. What would be so terrible about becoming more like Sweden?

Far-right zealots like O'Reilly wanted to destroy America and rebuild it as an out-of-control industrialist nightmare like...China. A totalitarian state where the government controls the flow of information to the public, civil liberties are virtually nonexistent, a very few get very rich off the grinding toil and poverty of the masses and an almost complete lack of government regulation of industry blights the landscape and poisons children with leaden toys and melamine milk.

I don't know about you guys, but given a choice, I'd rather see America "rebuilt" as Sweden, not China.

Comments

[janissa11.livejournal.com]

Jag talar lite Svenska. :-/

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Do you speak Swedish? Is it hard to learn? I guess I should start learning it so I'll be ready for the domination of our Swedish socialist overlords. OH MY GOD they're going to make us eat Wasa and lingonberry jam while giving everyone access to QUALITY HEALTHCARE!!! NOOOOOOOOOO!! Anything but QUALITY HEALTHCARE!!

Lady Liberty...she is weeping.

[janissa11.livejournal.com]

I will say that China has a far superior national cuisine.

But good GOD, woman, NATIONAL HEALTHCARE IS THE WORK OF SATAN DID YOU NOT KNOW??

Christ, and some chick tried to go to the inauguration and got halfway there before the police and FD called her back home -- somebody'd burned her house down for supporting Obama.

Granted, this was in a kinda scary part of Georgia, but. Fuck. Burned her house down.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine anything more un-American than a whole country full of healthy people. Doesn't everyone know that healthcare is a privilege not a right? It should only be available to those who can pay for it.

I've heard that maternity leave in Sweden is also like...a whole year. But I think they allow gay marriage so they're clearly anti-family. Those godless family-hating heathens.

That lady needs to move the fuck outta Georgia.

[janissa11.livejournal.com]

I'll put on my serious hat for a second. You might really enjoy reading Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health. It goes into exquisitely painful detail regarding just how, historically, we went from kinda showing the world how to run a successful public-health department to -- well, laying the onus and the financial burden of any illness squarely at the patient's feet. It IS true that healthcare is considered a privilege, thanks to the AMA. It's the AMA that's sold us the bill of goods that says people who get sick deserve to get sick. That it's all about the individual, never about the society in which they live.

I will say this, though. After two reads of that book, I thank my lucky stars I do not live in Russia or the former-USSR-akhstans.

But then I look at our absolutely stunning rates of RSV this season in infants, and I think about the fact that we have a vaccine for RSV. But it has to be administered monthly, and it costs $5000 a pop.

So we'd rather let babies sicken and possibly die, than lower the cost of a goddamn injection.

It ought to be criminal.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Well, if those kids' parents were just entrepreneurial enough to make more money, they'd be able to afford that injection. That's the American way. I mean, it's not those kids' fault for being born to losers but what can you do? Make it affordable just to save a few kids' lives? Take bread out of the mouths of the pharma industry? You filthy socialist.

I think if I read that book my hair would catch fire. There was another book published a few years ago (can't remember the name now) about how doling out healthcare became dependent upon insurance risk models and just reading the review made my hair catch fire.

[merylmarie.livejournal.com]

Far-right zealots like O'Reilly wanted to destroy America and rebuild it as an out-of-control industrialist nightmare like...China. A totalitarian state where the government controls the flow of information to the public, civil liberties are virtually nonexistent, a very few get very rich off the grinding toil and poverty of the masses and an almost complete lack of government regulation of industry blights the landscape and poisons children with leaden toys and melamine milk.

Word! You always hit the nail on the head.

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

God, I know. Healthcare and civilized maternity leave. What a godless country that Sweden is!

[cpsings4him.livejournal.com]

Save us all, Bill O'Reilly from the evilness of being Sweden-esque! D:

Only, you know, not.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I'd rather hit O'Reilly on the head. When will the audience for these idiots dry up?

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I have literally heard Sweden described as "godless" along with "socialist" and "anti-family" and God knows what else. With so many genuinely evil regimes out there, it amazes me that there are people in this country who think Sweden is the boogeyman.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

An imbecile like O'Reilly probably wouldn't have such high ratings in Sweden so it's no wonder he's got such scorn for it.