Comment by VonGallifrey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by VonGallifrey | Hacker News Reader

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Germany is a Federal Republic and so is the USA. Germany has states as well.

I grant you that they are different forms of federal republic, but the point that California is not a country stays the same.

I don't care what kind of power the federal government of the United States has or doesn't have. That is a problem for the US to figure out for themselves.

I don't think that when people compare European nations to the US that they are speaking about the US federal government specifically or imply anything about the power of the US federal government. What is more likely is that they are asking why the people of the USA have not archived what people of other countries take for granted. The fact that this would have to be archived via state or federal government is a detail at best.

If you want to enact political change then the legal structure of the government is most definitely not a “detail at best.” Consider gun rights, for example. Due to the Second Amendment, every level of the US government is greatly limited in its ability to enact gun control. To change this requires not a mere majority vote in congress, nor even a supermajority in the senate, but a constitutional amendment which much clear both houses of congress AND be ratified by 3/4 of the states!

These details matter, and they are important specifically when talking about public policy matters and trying to advocate for change.

Back to my original point, there is nothing stopping any US state from adopting universal healthcare, but it’s not clear if the federal government even could if it wanted to (see Medicare expansion and how many states have chosen not to opt in!). Thus if you want to make comparisons to the “things that Europeans take for granted,” it is often more productive to look at what individual US states do and can do, rather than obsess over the federal government. Trivializing that is just a road to getting nothing done.

From his argumentation it is clear that he lacks geography knowledge at all. Beginning with this, it is hard to discuss.

Geography isn't even consistently taught in the US. Americans don't seem to care about it, they are busy eating their donuts and sipping their mountain dews, despite having a huge GDP and $ per capita... a declining age expectancy that matches third world countries.

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