> Basic principles cannot be true somewhere and not true somewhere else.
Not so!
The United States embraces a slightly different subset of “basic principles” than what we in New Zealand do. So what is “true” in the United States is “not true” here.
Give you an example: gun rights. In the US you have the right to Keep and Bear Arms that shall not be infringed. That is True in the US. We don’t have that right. It is Not True here.
There are perfectly-good NZ Conservatives that do not embrace the right to Keep and Bear Arms. There are perfectly-good NZ Conservatives who do (I am one of the latter). But because the subset of values is different between the two places, so equally is the definition of True and Not True.
> Even you admit that your socialistic health-care system, for which you are forced to pay under threat, has flaws.
Yet I am totally unaware of any NZer in his/her right mind who would vote in favor of doing away with our social medicine scheme: it is too good and works too well. Anybody who proposed doing away with it for a “user-pays-only” system would be laughed to scorn, or perhaps tar-and-feathered and run out of town on a rail.
> If you had a free country (and for that matter, if we had one), you would not be forced to pay for anything for your fellow man,
That is an excellent example of one of the core values that we have that you do not have. New Zealanders are Team Players and we always have been. The Maori who first populated our islands were excellent at rowing huge boats across the Pacific Ocean in well-synchronized teams, and then fighting battles in well-ordered teams. So were the Scots and Irish who settled here. We play as a Team: that is why we dominate in Rugby and nearly every Team sport we take up. So helping your Team-mate with his medical bills is something that is deeply ingrained in our psyche.
America is the opposite: you value the rugged individual and individual achievement. You see, we don’t. To us the “rugged individual” is “an old weirf bugga what keeps to ‘imself” — not something to be aspired to.
> Charity is a virtue.
More than that: in New Zealand, Charity is the Law. It is therefore illegal for us to be unvirtuous!
Well, you won this argument. By misquoting me, you were able to destroy my side of the issue. Nice going. You’re not worth talking to, so I’m going to stop now. You have drunk the koolaid.