[A. Pole]

How is it possible that the arguably greatest generation, postwar, managed to survive (never mind thrive) without medicare and universal health care, the EPA and dozens of government supported NGOs?

Are you saying that a survival is a measure of success? You can as well ask, "how is it possible" that Russians or Kambodians "managed to survive" the Gulag and Pol Pot?

You must be desperate to use such argument.

[Durus]

Why would you compare our country (prior to "New Deal" socialism) to communist countries? Do you realize how perverse it is to suggest that creeping socialism somehow made us a better country even though it is bringing us closer to the "Gulag" or a dictator like Pol Pot?

Speaking of desperate arguments...