> If voting could change anything it’d be illegal.

The absolute best way to ensure that nothing changes is to get cynical and try and demotivate anyone else from trying.

Maybe you're both right.

The only path to substantial change is and has always been violent revolution. I welcome anyone to try that.

There’s nonviolent revolution, too. But it’s still likely to yield violence in response because these systems are inherently violent and ultimately enforced with violence.

What would you consider the most substantial change to come about via nonviolent revolution?

I doubt that will ever happen when the Western world is so conditioned to view overthrowing the government as treason

Is there a part of the world that doesn’t view overthrowing the government as treason?

The mainstream media also doesn't mention that Americans already spend, on a per capita basis, the most on socialized medicine on the planet. I wonder if it has anything to do with those drug commercials that they play constantly?

By my understanding, that's the most on health care. This includes private insurance premiums, which is why the "we like private because it's cheaper" argument doesn't hold water.

Nope, the US government spends the most on socialized medicine.

The "We need to raise taxes to have universal coverage" argument doesn't hold water.

https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm

Interesting. In the summary, it's not clear what qualifies as "compulsory health insurance":

> Health care is financed through a mix of financing arrangements including government spending and compulsory health insurance (“Government/compulsory”)

Digging into the source report[0], we see the following footnote exclusive to the US:

> All spending by private health insurance companies reported under compulsory health insurance. Category “Other” refers to financing by NGOs, employers, non-resident schemes and unknown schemes.

[0]: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/ae3016b9-en/1/3/7/4/inde...

> If voting could change anything it’d be illegal.

Yet things do change, dramatically.

And I do wonder what the root of that is.

The root is you. The root is people believing they can change things. The far right believed it and has (unforunately) achieved inconceivable successes based only on utter bullshit and madness.

That’s one way of looking at it certainly. However I’ve never in all my life voted in any election where my vote had any capacity to have any bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the election. This is by design: America is about clumping people together into voting blocks so large that first past the post dynamics prohibit any but the most conventional of viewpoints rising to the surface.

What have the “far right” changed? And was it through voting or other means? In a sibling I admit violent revolution as a plausible change causer, and claim it is unique in that regard.