and I don't think it would be disrespectful for a military man to call the President 'sir', rather than 'Mr President'.

There isn't much of an issue here. Ms Boxer expressed her desire to see her title used, the guy started using it. Does that imply 'arrogance'? By whose curiosu standards?

I have to leave now, so this will be my last post.

The Labor party basically shoved it through after the end of WWII even though Britain was technically bankrupt.

Considering the situation in England, that was quite possible--they had full support of the majority who voted them in, and Churchill didn't, despite having 'won' WWII. There's nothing like this in America now: quite the contrary, the country is deeply divided along these issues. If England had been like that, the Labor party would never have succeeded in pusing anything and would likely be replaced by the Tories in the very next election. Labor knew what the situation was, what they could do, and they did it. They had a realistic chance. Which is precisely what is missing here.

It is a myth that doing nothing is socially irresponsible and/or lazy. Doing nothing is exactly what we should do since the present system is unsustainable and will crash. When that happens it doesn't matter who is in charge, health care will be nationalized. The public mandate will make the old broken system last longer and that's the last thing we want.

I'm not sure if you realize what you're saying here. In other cases when 'the system crashed', was what followed really better? Think of the Bolsheviks in 1917, when the Czar's timid attempts at democratization (via Kerensky) failed, and the Communists seized the chance with popular turmoil. Yes, the old monarchy disappeared, but was the next stage really better? Or think about the failure of the Weimar Republic in Germany, and the rise of the Nazis after Hitler became Chancellor in 1932.

It's not at all clear to me that, if this system fails, something better will emerge. It's not at all clear to me that "health care will be nationalized anyway" if the current system fails. I can think of much worse alternatives than that, along the lines of the examples I mentioned. And I think you could, too, since "Corporate America" is not going to disappear just because the political system crashed--even if you were right, the consequence would be that "Corporate America" would buy/co-opt the next system.

Again I maintain, real changes come with the changing of mentalities, which is always a slow process. Bigger steps like the American Revolution should be taken at moments of minimal risk. Or else, they will either fail or make everything worse.