Political Discussion Thread

I'm done with trying to talk to people who are so blind in their viewpoints that they won't change.

I came to these conclusions by looking at what the plan is. I saw, by example, what its going to do to the country.

People like to disagree with others, even though they have no idea what they are talking about.

Have fun with your healthcare, I'll just go to a country for surgery that offers competitive medicine and decent service, instead of waiting in line forever for people to get their liposuction.

You know, like what leaders of socialist countries do, they get thier surgeries here instead of the country they lead. Ask that Italian guy how his surgery in New York went.

The only vessel that introduced this cosmetic surgery/cancer dilemma was your brain when you said, "Millions more people who will pay for your cosmetic surgery and let some poor guy with cancer wait in line." I don't know if you're aware or not, but oncologists don't perform cosmetic surgery, so it's not like anyone is "cutting in line" for some all-purpose doctor.

You're not making any sense. Please reform your argument and represent it in a coherent manner.



Good because, though you were talking to me, you weren't discussing any points that I made.



Precisely. They haven't happened. Never. Nada. The doomsday to private businesses that you portray when the government seeks to join a market in the economy have never happened. Private companies still exist in them.



Right. You "showed" us what would unfold in Korpg's mind through imagination. Must be true...

Notice how I didn't refute with my own special super-duper cause/effect playwright?



As Blinphleb has already stated, those aren't the correct insurance companies. This is a discussion about health insurance, not how much it costs you to drive a car.



Discussing the ratio of bad businesses/good businesses in regards to how well they adhere to the current regulations and laws is a different issue altogether. I veered off to that tangent with you in an attempt to display that doubting a business is not a blasphemy to capitalism. In fact, it is a very important process of making sure capitalism performs ideally.

I would have listed more, but it was ultimately irrelevant to do so, hence the ",etc" ending I left.

What's important with regards to private health insurance as a business is that it is one that is (and has been) failing at what it was created to do. This is an effort that has largely been off and on since Teddy Roosevelt, but has increased in intensity with the medical and economical landscape for the past 20 years.

Health insurance reigns in a free market system, and has for a great long time. It has failed. Period.



Bolded is QFT. You came up with them yourself, but they are not based off of logic and human behavior. Rather, they are the tried-and-true smoke-screens used for the conservation of a shareholder's paycheck. Nothing more.



No. My predictions are that if we throw out accusations born from our minds and not history only to retreat to our opposite corners and disappear into the woodwork that nothing will get done. Discussing things logically, coherently, and maturely while providing reasons and sources for our opinions needs to happen at some point and it might as well be now.

If you don't agree with some of the changes being discussed on capital hill, give reasons as to why without them being the foundation for a "socialist take over" conspiracy.



If the "past experiences" that you're referring to are as unlikely as the rattle snake you encountered, then you should re-examine their content.

And no, I did not agree with your cause/effect playwright.


More cries of socialism. There's a reason why slide 35 of the Blind's link had these catch-phrases present:



Besides the fact that government entering a market does not equate to socialism nor does it spell doom for private companies, you have conveniently ignored the fact that what happens is more options, more choice, and more competition takes place - which doesn't sound socialist at all. (As I said before, think UPS, FedEx, USPS)



We're not Canada. We're not China. We're not France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, etc.

It's not as if introducing a government option in the health insurance market is going to make us one of those other countries and, therefore, inhibit growth. And I'm not saying that as if all of "those other countries" are "bad" and we're "good." Being the USA is more dynamic than that, and it would be premature to jump the gun and say that we're all of the sudden not worth living in because we introduce a non-private entity into one of our markets.

Had to giggle at these quotes. lol

Very well said and given the political climate of the last few months agree with this more than anything else. No one wants to have to either exclusively talk to people they agree with or get in an overblown argument with someone who disagrees with them, because neither case is really conducive to learning much of anything. Glad you joined this discussion, Skiutah, and not just because I agree with you on the matter.

i usually try not to go near this thread

but damn, that was a beautiful post, Skiutah

incidentally, my views are closer to korpgs than they are to yours, but i love seeing a well-argued case no matter which side it is on



read: I'm so tired of arguing with people who keep refuting my arguments instead of giving up and letting me have the last word, thinly veiled ad hominem, etc.

Logic is a great tool, but it doesn't guarantee a correct conclusion unless you start with a premise absolutely proven to be true.

you can begin with a false premise, use perfect logic, and come to a false conclusion

More like talking to you guys is the same as talking to a brick wall.

But then again, there I go talking to a brick wall again.

Thanks Caiyuo and Sevourn. It's a relief to know that there are more reasonable eyes reading these posts.

Hay look! ad hominem! ^^

A lot of talky about forum posters and not enough about politics.

every time i talk about politics i get excited and spend my evening stringing together 3-hour posts with multiple sources cited for each point and 3 people read it and its 3 am and my math homework still isn't done

so please forgive me if i dance around the subject instead of wading in

Ok, watch these videos then lets discus them.

Pt.1


Pt.2


Pt.3

I cant talk about bill maher/watch his stuff, I've seen him just say stuff like "republicans are HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE ***!" "*** you <enter person>" and stuff... so I'm too biased.

Go find some videos you'd like to discuss then? Might be more insightful than posting one liners.

I actually used to do that on purpose to mess with people to prove how little they knew of some basic stuff they shouldve known

Haven't watched Immigration gumballs yet, but I liked the quote "I think too many democrats have had their spines surgically removed." lol I generally like Maher a lot more when he's tackling serious issues instead of being an entertainer or a comedian, but I guess that does help to knock the edge off and ease the attitude of some of the topics.

One of the things I enjoy most is just watching smart people converse and trade ideas, even if it makes me feel small and slightly HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE. lol In reference to the Moyer interviews, I agree that Democrats in general just need to become better at the game of politics. They seem to get bossed around a bit in the public eye, even when they have no reason to. Maybe that's not so much elected republicans and the RNC as it is the right-wing having guys like Beck and Limbaugh willing to say whatever it takes, and the Left not having "that guy" or guys to do the same.

Outside of that point I think people in general would be able to talk about these things a lot more freely if every democrat and republican respectively aren't pegged as being huge fans and complete supporters of everything Obama does or Bush did. Both sides have a large swath of people who in general likely didn't pay attention to a lot of it but voted party-line and that was it, but I think those on either side who were actually interested in politics found and are finding things about their elected candidates that they both like and dislike. It feels more like a football team now where "our boys" are out there to kick "their guys'" *** and disagreeing with your own team makes them seem weak or gives the opposition a one-up on them. That just seems like a bad premise in itself. I think I'm rambli--!

Liberals have those people, someone just posted three videos with one of them. Though I suppose there is a general aversion to 'mainstream' type information amongst the liberal demographic, making such a figure unable to latch on. I would say that John Stewart and Stephen Colbert do a pretty good job filling that role.

I liked the linked too. I agree with it 100%. The difference in our views though is: I don't want more government at all. The government is already in our lives way to much.

The government (regardless of which party is in control) is 100% corrupt.

I agree heath care and health insurance need major reform, but I don’t think adding the most corrupt entity to the equation is the answer.

I’d actually leave things as they are, then give the government more leverage into our lives.

While your statistic isn't valid, I will agree that corruption is something to be concerned about. Our government's history doesn't exactly have a clean record in its past politicians. (And possibly/probably present)

However, it does us no good to accept the current mechanisms for fear of this vague notion that groups of power - be they businesses or the government - will be corrupt. It's "the devil we know" stance where one accepts a poor standard because they have known it for so long and fear a different one may be worse.

The simple truth is corruption is likely to be present on either sides of the spectrum, be it corporate or government. They both have this history. Because of this, it's very hard for us to say if one would be more/less corrupt than the other; we can not know the degree of corruption that may or may not result from redistributing our health insurance providers.

I think you'd be hard pressed to seriously declare Rush Limbaugh is on the same level as Bill Maher.



The primary difference here is that people generally do not take John Stewart or Stephen Colbert seriously. Both of them are, again, generally, received in jest.

Living in the heart of the mid-west, I can attest that people do very much take programs like Rush Limbaugh's shows seriously. And it is a travesty that so many consider propaganda a reliable source.

When he isnt on his show cracking jokes. He is on the same level.

Pretty cool video Lu'. I'd have to say he makes probably the best case for less immigration I have seen. One particular thing I am pleased to see, when viewing his website, is that he tries very hard to be as fair with his assessment of the immigration issue as he can be. I see no racial bias for his reasons, and he seems to have a level of disgust for anyone that tries to vilify immigrants.

I do however have one positive view on the immigration issue. If we intend to keep our social security system as it is. We will need many more people paying into the system as the baby boom generation starts their massive withdrawals. To do this we need a pyramid-type population graph. As far as I knew Americans aren't reproducing like they should to provide this pyramid, the immigrant communities are. Most notably the Hispanic community.

I don't mean to make the claim that bringing in everyone that wants to become an American will suddenly fix our social security system (because it won't), but to only view the immigrant issue on what they consume, instead of what they produce is a bit short sighted in my opinion.

I however, will concede that immigration issues are not my forte. Does anyone else wish to weigh in on this video?

I would have to say that Bill Maher isn't one of my favorite television personalities. I watched his movie Religulous, and though it had parts I thought were important to see, as a whole I thought it was too one sided and soap boxy.

The videos I posted were more about the guest, and what he had to say. Bill Moyers has won over thirty Emmys including the Lifetime achievement award. He was press secretary under President Lyndon Johnson during some of America's most trying times. Forgive me, but when he decides to speak I think it might be something worth listening to.

Forgive me, I meant Bill Moyers. My mistake.

I liked that movie quite a bit assuming everything is accurate and am actually really surprised it isn't in wider circulation. Seems like a pretty open and shut case for Immigration reform, ya know?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-ratigan/americans-have-been-taken_b_285225.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-ratigan/health-care-lets-liberate_b_294234.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/opinion/17wyden.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1253769192-ZaX7khcX2jKPPPGa90A53A

Thoughts?

Great read about the history of health insurance in America.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/12734