Ironically, about half of that is closer to the US reality than the European one, not that I'm much a fan of either system.
Where do you see the problems with the current European system?
(Actually that 'the' should have big fat quotation marks around it. German and British healthcare for example have very very very very very very very very little in common. In fact we tell horror stories about the NHS like the Republicans do about Europe )
"The European System" as a term, is mostly just referencing that Europe has healthcare laws instead of letting the insurance corps run roughshod over the population.
My problems with it can be hair-split all day, but the big ones are that European governments have a tendency to act like the bill they're accumulating will never come asking for payment (thereby leading to Fuck if and when it does) and that the people who try to deal with that exact problem sometimes go about it by doing a less crazy version of not allowing certain treatments (thereby leading to Fuck for people with rare or expensive conditions). Considering all that alongside the euthanasia policies of certain nations....well, Europe makes me nervous from time to time. It wouldn't be too hard to take that step, especially not if the far-right surge continues.
Trying to make borderline racist people not racist is as frustrating as it is exhausting though.
Welcome to the game of persuasion. Nobody ever called it an easy art.
These guys are probably good people at heart, but there's not even a foundation to work with there, you are just building on quicksand.
Hey, you've got plenty of foundation. They aren't going out and hanging black people while mainlining rage fantasies about them, they most likely believe in equal rights at least conceptually, and as you've said they aren't totally vacuous on the idea of morality. That's way more than a bunch of your predecessors got, and you can see how well some of them did. Frankly, Tea Party types are easy mode compared to people who consciously and unashamedly hold ideas like "God created the Lesser Races to serve us" or "if a black man looks at a white woman like that, well, he's just tired of living" (
almost actual quote).