acropolis:

subjecttomeg:

jhnbrssndn:

bunnynico:

For as long as I can remember, I have been intrigued with The European Way of Life.  My ancestors are of primarily Dutch and Irish origin, and from an early age, I became particularly interested in Dutch language and culture.  It wasn’t until my mid-teens, after traveling throughout Western Europe, that I realized the feature of European life that seems to particularly grate on an American sensibility:  contentment.  I like leisure; I prefer non-confrontation; I like feeling as though “I” might actually matter like anyone else.  

While there are exceptions, during my experiences abroad, I have indulged in a different pace, a Way of Life where different value systems seem to coexist quite well.  In the Netherlands, for instance, healthcare is virtually free (there is a guaranteed base level of coverage, to which people can add supplemental coverage if they pay for it), college is significantly cheaper (so much so, that I wish I’d applied to universities abroad rather than attend a US institution), childcare is subsidized, individuals receive a mandatory four weeks’ worth of paid vacation in addition to public holidays, and employers pay vakantiegeld, or “vacation money”, which is nearly 10% of your annual salary, intended to cover plane tickets and whatever one does while on vacation.  This may seem like socialism gone wild, but assuredly, it is not.  The system in the Netherlands, like many European countries, consists of a marriage of capitalism and social welfare principals, many of which are (and have historically been proven to be) beneficial during economic downturns.

In general, people live well, and while taxes can reach as high as 52% (which, in the US would cause a cacophony of dissent by the likes of O’Reilly and Limbaugh), there is a general lightness in the faces one sees while walking (or biking) down the street.  It is a lightness — a sense of leisure and contentment, if you will — that results from a life without worry about the sufficiency of a child’s college fund or whether bankruptcy can be avoided if one undergoes a needed surgery.  That is not to say that people do not work hard, though work ethic certainly tends to differ: there is a greater sense that people work so they can live and enjoy their lives, rather than the other way around.

I was recently bedridden with a virus in Iceland and, after spending several days with a fever, reluctantly maneuvered myself to the nearest emergency room where I was immediately examined by a physician, blood work was administered, and medicine prescribed — the cost of which totaled less than $60, only because I am a foreigner.

Sometimes it feels as though Americans have become so accustomed to being manipulated and maltreated by “The System” that we enjoy it because we fear anything else — we are bitches to ourselves.  But there’s more to it.  For instance, the tax issue.  The top income tax rate in the US is 35%, but this number excludes Social Security, which is an additional 6.2%. There are also state, local, and real estate taxes to take into consideration.  When added up, this can easily reach close to the 50-52% number (which includes the social security equivalent)  of countries with more advanced socialized welfare programs.  These systems also allow for various tax deductions.

Another issue is that Americans (via our politicians, corporations and special interest groups) have created a false dichotomy of sorts:  the notion of a left-wing ideal consisting of direct (and vast) government control of social welfare programs, and the right-wing’s determination to preclude any advances toward it, privatize the system and leave people to either sink or swim.  The socialized systems in Europe are not necessarily government run or financed! Many of these societies (for instance, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands) have combined various institutions that play a role in social well-being — including individuals, corporations, government, and nongovernmental entities (like unions, churches and non-profits) — in different ways, in an effort to balance social welfare and individual freedom.  In short, the European welfare state has given way to skillfully mixing public and private.

The point is that the current system in the US continues to exist the way that it it has because we have chosen to promote certain values over others, like paying our government to become a militaristic empire of sorts, and because of plain ignorance.  Real intelligence includes being able to hold two seemingly contradictory ideas in one’s mind at the very same time.  I wish that every US congressman and congresswoman could live in the Netherlands or Denmark for a while and witness how it works both financially and logistically, because to comprehend the ways in which these systems work is to comprehend a different state of mind altogether.

Socialized healthcare is perhaps the most distinguishable aspect of socialized welfare programs, but what one can clearly see after witnessing the way these programs function is that there is less emphasis on government and more emphasis on and belief in society generally — it is a sense that all people matter, not just special interest groups and the wealthy.  That is to say, to individuals in these countries, it is inconceivable that the people in a country as developed as the US could choose a system that allows college to cost so much and for so many to go uninsured.  Because at the end of the day, it’s not about paying less taxes.  It’s about our attitudes towards others.

I could not have said it better.  I may or may not show this to my fundie dad.  Probably not, though, because that would open things up for another fight, but still.