Countries full of cowboys.

Yup. You have a right to own as many guns as you want – but not to free healthcare.

Thats not quite the argument that the liberal right (who tend to dominate American politics) use though - they have the absolute right to carry arms and the absolute right to not have government provided healthcare added to their tax bills.

Government intervention into anything is akin to communism, it really is, even to liberals with a small "l", to which end they allow hugely powerful lobby groups to dictate policy to the policy makers and no-one sees the irony that all you've done is replace an elected government with a non-elected opinion group.

Yep. The Americans do my head in. They can be so wonderful, innovative, clever and almost insanely kind at times and yet can be so monumentally introverted, backward and stupid almost in the same breath.

On a slightly related note, I occasionally watch Fox News whenever I need a good laugh, their latest bizarre point is that LGBT people (or anyone for that matter) who either boycott or criticise Chick-fil-a for what their President said is somehow a violation of right to free speech.
In between bouts of damage control for Mitt Romney of course.

It is quite extraordinary.

What I find worrying, though, is that they're managing to export that: you increasingly see, cropping up on British forums etc, the suggestion that this country – and everywhere else in Europe, for that matter – are socialist countries.

It's a culture of 'anything that doesn't tally, utterly and completely, with our belief in laissez faire, fundamentalist economic ideology is obviously socialist or communist'.

It's such a damning illustration of the utter idiocy of these cretins.

I do think that Jon Stewart was good on that on the [iDaily Show[/i the other day, though.

rlSikhs are unfairly targeted because they "look" like muslimsrl

A 1.2billion record war chest provided by his donors to fight the next presidential election according to yesterdays Times.

Heaven help us!

Plus Clint Eastwood. I vow never to like any more of his films, no matter how much I like them, except for the "Outlaw Josie Wales" which is really about socialism.

Yep. Although I seem to remember something similar happening here just after the 7/7 bombings. Every country has its weirdos and idiots, it's just America appears to have a larger proportion than most.

The majority of his acting, and films, have been wooden and cack, along with his other republican conservative buddies Bruce Willis, Arnie and Sly.

Nope, he's made some great films - in my opinion, and that of many millions around the globe. You don't like him, or them, presumably because you despise populist cinema, or actors like these hitting on a winning formula that strikes a chord with the paying public, and that is your right, but you're not the judge.

Speaking of judges, I suppose one way of measuring the status of someone in the movies is to look at awards given by their peers, specialist festivals etc. Here's a list of Eastwood'shttps://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000142/awardsrl
This actually confirms his status as a giant of the cinema, and some might say your dismissing of his body of work as mostly "cack" is, er, cack.

The films he has directed are far superior to the films he has acted in, imho.
Wooden actor for me, but your viewpoint is allowed to differ.

Clint for President!

A better actor and President would have been Paul Newman. I suspect Clint would have got into character and blown half the world to bits, whereas Newman would have been too cool to start shooting off nuclear weapons.