Daniel Bell

I'm a New Zealander living in Australia, and would happily change places with you, and I am an unskilled worker, and would make much less in America than I do here. Australia has UHC and everybody pays for it, a long with the welfare system which is huge. Youth allowance, aboriginal allowances, single mother allowances, disability pensions, student allowances, you name it we have it. You need a license to do basically anything. In fact a lot of these social restrictions are why I am moving back to my native NZ in a month and a bit, I am a keen shooter/fisherman/general outdoors stuff, and in Australia you need licences and have to pay fees and meet silly requirements (for my firearm license I must go to a shooting range every 3 months and fire a few rounds, as if I don't go I don't have a genuine reason to own a firearm and they will take it off me - the application forms state in big red block letters that protection of person or property is not a genuine reason to own a firearm, but shooting paper targets is). Our internet will soon be censored. Australia has no real bill of rights. As a factory worker, every element of my employment almost is dictated by the Government - in fact I lost 2 days work this week because of a Government mandated public holiday, I don't lose pay though, as the Government forces my employer to pay me. I have no experience working in white collar industry, but I can imagine it is the same. Out of the top 4 political parties in Australia, none of them believe in individual rights as we do. You have Labor, a social democratic party - The Liberal Party, who are conservative but far to the left of the Republicans - The Nationals who are probably pretty Conservative but are only in Government because of an alliance with Liberals, and the Greens, who are pretty much flat out Socialists. You have much more of a voice and much more chance of getting things fixed in the U.S. than Australia - Australia is heading the same way as the U.S. is, but it's had a massive head start. When I saw you say your destination was Australia, from a political point of view I did not understand it. For sun, great beaches, etc. Sure, it's awesome. Politically? Perhaps watch some Australian news.