I've dismissed Scientific American with a sneer more than a few times. The "argument from authority" seems to be alive and well here in terms of scientific subjects. "If it's in Nature, Virginia, it must be so!"

Socialized health programs in Europe and elsewhere are slowly going broke. England is no longer used by advocates as an example in these arguments. Usually, it's France that's used as the shining example now, but that's getting a bit iffy, too.

Even Canada's health costs are going up steadily.

The Nordic countries are "bedroom communities" as far as nations go, largely uninvolved in many critical world issues. They have the luxury of devoting themselves to the maintenance and comfort of their own citizens. If the U.S. has ended up the "world's policeman," such countries are the "world's bystanders."

It's easy to be "neutral" when somebody else is doing the heavy lifting. The word "finlandization" was coined for a reason during the Cold War.

And, as Lee also points out, the entire populations of Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Denmark combined are about 8 percent of the U.S. population. Of all these nations, only Sweden exceeds the population of New York City. You can have a lot more fun with social experiments when you aren't dealing with 300 million people and a nation that has a few more responsibilities in the world than Sweden does.