[batista]

>It's because we've been pacified through handouts and the welfare state.

I call BS. As far as welfare states go, the US has one of the smallest and less pervasive of any modern western country. Actually, it's like in that field you're living in the medieval ages.

A "welfare state" with your health system, close to a million people in the streets and tens of millions eating with coupons, is not a welfare state, it's a joke.

Nobody in his right mind would call your "food stamps" a welfare support that makes people "dependents".

We would actually think of it as an incompetent, half-arsed mockery of a welfare system... more like charity than welfare.