Geezer Test

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Tonchi

I was talking about the examples of China and Switzerland. Period. Your sarcasm is unwarranted

I'll keep my own counsel on that; my sarcasm is warranted whenever I deem it so. When I suggest you're off-base about how well prepared most Americans (when you include the population *outside* the Blue cities) are to deal with emeregencies, handwaving about China and Switzerland misses the point.

Originally Posted by Tonchi

The deal is, we give them money and they take care of "all that", that's a contract that citizens have with their governments....

Did you ever sign a contract where you exchanged valuable consideration for the promise of something as vague as "all that"? We're pretty far from universal agreement on what "all that" actually entails and how to provide it, which is one reason we have the "pieces of paper" to which you allude.

With any kind of luck we'll avoid some of the definitions in use in Switzerland and China, where the distinction between "civil defense" and "welfare" does indeed seem a bit blurry. You should go read that Swiss law you're holding up as an exemplar. When the law requires me to turn over shelter space for use as the government sees fit (i.e. to give to somebody else), I'd say we're in the blur zone.