Allen Quist, a Republican former state representative challenging U.S. Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN), explains why he’s running for office:
“It’s because I, like you, have seen that our country is being destroyed. I mean, this is — every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom. This is our fight. And this is our time. This is it. Terrorism, yes — but that’s not the big battle. The big battle is in D.C., with the radicals. They aren’t liberals, they’re radicals. Obama, Pelosi, Walz — they’re not liberals, they’re radicals. They are destroying our country. And people all over are figuring that out.”
Hear that? The big battle isn’t against the terrorists… it’s against us liberals. Because, I suppose, we’re, um, worse than the terrorists.
It’s good to see that Republicans haven’t lost their perspective.
Well, terrorists are scary enough to spend trillions fighting, and erode our civil liberties over. But they’re nothing compared to those scary libruls. I mean, what’s more terrifying than healthcare access for all?
@1..whats more scary? ummm, the bill thats going to come due sooner or later…
@2 Are you referring to the $1 trillion that healthcare for Americans will cost, or the $2 trillion that Bush spent on killing Iraqis? Funny how asswipes like you worry about anything that helps American citizens.
Republican congressman John Linder, a multimillionaire owner of a loan company, thinks the rich shouldn’t pay taxes and the poor shouldn’t get food stamps.
As long as the GOP runs candidates like Quist, there is absolutely no chance of bipartisanship or civility.
Let’s just hope Allen didn’t name his son ‘Johnny’.
That could be rough on a kid.
Well, we’ll just take all those discomfitting numbers out of the budget — so you don’t get all hot and bothered by it.
The fishwrapper says 2009’s top Darwin Award — a rare double award — has been bestowed on two ATM thieves who overestimated the quantity of dynamite needed to open the ATM machine. Their bodies were found in the rubble of the bank building.
Hard to tell who’s dumber, those guys, or the dude who tried to blow up a jetliner with his underwear. In a case like that, perhaps it’s better to not survive.
God Save Us From Missionaries Dep’t
News item from today’s fishwrapper:
“KAMPALA, Uganda — Last March, three American evangelical Christians … arrived in Uganda’s capital, to give a series of talks. The theme of the event … was ‘the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda’ — and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family.
“For three days … thousands of Ugandans … listened raptly to the Americans … discuss … how ‘the gay movement is an evil institution’ ….
“The three men now find themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence on homosexuals.
“One month after the conference, a previously unknown Ugandan politician … introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, which threatens to hang homosexuals.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....nda04.html
(Quoted under fair use.)
Roger Rabbit Commentary: What the fuck did those idiots think that crowd would do? Start kissing guys? I wonder how many Uganda gays will be murdered because of these twits? Just wait until God asks them to explain this.
Maxwell @ 2
Universal healthcare with a single payer costs 1/2 of our current system, per capita.
This is not in dispute.
Being a partial step towards healthcare for all, the public option would have yielded some, but not all, of the savings inherit in universal healthcare.
This is not in dispute.
You opposed healthcare reform. Congratulations. Now you (meaning we) will continue to pay more than we should. Hurting small businesses, holding down job creation. Also hurting families.
Good job.
Well, we’re clearly successful at inciting terror…or maybe the wingnuts are terrorizing themselves.
RR @ 10
Uganda’s legislation was instigated by anti-gay cultural warrior Rick Warren and The Family (Sen Ensign, Gov Sanders, etc). (Apparently, conventional wisdom in Uganda is that homosexuality is imported from The West.)
Very much like The Discovery Institute’s support of Turkish Islamic fundamentalists opposing evolution.
Right wing demagogues exporting ignorance and intolerance. I’m sure they’ll be shocked, shocked by the blowback. I’ll be surprised when they blame us liberals. Again.
@11…thats right, it was ME who was the final decision maker in the Democrat run congress..BWAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHH
Speaking of Minnesota republicans, we haven’t heard any screeching about the census from Michele Bachman lately. Anyone want to take a guess as to why?
@14: Wow, Max thanks for being a total idiot.
I suppose the fact that every republican except one voted against the health care bill didn’t enter your puny little mind?
Do you even remember the republican bill from a few years ago (the one supported by the pharmaceutical industry, lobbyists, republicans and Bush) that prevented Medicare from price negotiating on Pharmaceutical drugs and has been estimated to cost the US treasury upwards of 100 billion dollars and is currently breaking the budget?
Hypocrite.
Bush spends over 1 trillion on an unecessary war in Iraq and republicans say nothing.
Bush and the republicans spend billions more of our tax money giving breaks to big drug companies and the republican hypocrites say nothing.
Bush gives tax breaks to the rich and the economy tanks and the republicans say nothing.
Hypocrites.
ROTFMLAO
I love the crazy (Republicans). Anti-science, anti-reality, anti-fact, anti-evolution.
I know the Crips hate the Bloods. I get a bit of the ‘my party is perfect and yours is evil’. But that’s supposed to be the SUBTEXT, you don’t actually say that OUT LOUD, because it’s…well…crazy. LOL.
Between the tea-bagger nuts, the religious extremists, the creationist anti-science crowd, the Republicans have gone from the party of main street and business to just loonies. Meanwhile the Democrats are still the same “other” party of unorganized endless infighting groups cobbled together out of everyone who wasn’t Republican. So fun times…fun times.
The fact that whiny chronically unemployed Davey Goldstein took the time to post this means he feels that his fellow liberals in gov’t are threatened. Evident by this sniveling post. Funny, fitting, and thanks for the smile.
What planet do you live on Jason. Are you one of those who takes the Gruber Microsimulation Model (GMSIM) and believes it will work on small businesses? How come those small businesses don’t agree with this academic model?
SBE has said mandatory health care coverage will kill small businesses. So has other organizations. So does the Urban Institute which has reports saying small businesses will pay a high price for health care reform. How about small builder contractors? So do women entrepreneurs feel it will hurt them.
Yes correctnotright you mean the ones; they are called Pelosi Bill H.R. 3962, and the Reid bill H.R. 3590. Fully supported by your pals above.
Maxwell @ 14
If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
This is not in dispute.
Goldy can’t read.
Quist said “The big battle is in D.C., with the radicals. They aren’t liberals, they’re radicals.”
Then Goldy said “Hear that? The big battle isn’t against the terrorists… it’s against us liberals.”
No, Quist said the battle is against radicals, not liberals.
Troll@ 22–
Many thanks to you & puddy for holding down the fort in my absence.
Yes, Goldy makes the quantum leap from Radicals to Liberals….I know Goldy can read, he is just more comfortable being called a Liberal than a Radical Atheist Progress (which is much closer to reality).
These KLOWNS want “radical” changes to the American way of life.
Obam-Mao, Reid & Plastic Face are RADICALS!
So are the HA KLOWNS.
Happy New Year.
PS–
Screaming you are not Radical Goldy…will get you nowhere.
It was 80 degrees the past few days here.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Be back in a few more weeks!
Cynical @24:
Hell getting ever closer to freezing over, eh?
No need to rush back.
I see that the wingnut @23 who tells us racist jokes is giving some love to the wingnut @22 who calls blacks niggers. Of course, Puddy, who is indeed one very strange black man, is here to give his love to both of them.
It never ceases to amaze me that PuddWaxx will take the time to look up some arcane bit of information (the Gruber McHale’s Navy micromanagement modular doohicky identity), but fail to deal with the basic fact that our health system costs twice as much as everyone else’s and delivers worse care.
Cuba has better health care.
re 23: If the people you name were Radicals, the entire Fox stable of right wing propagandists would be broadcasting from their jail cells — and you’d be right next to them — but in a different jail.
The rich get sent to country club jails. They’d just ship a rabble rouser like you to the federal pen in Limon, CO.
Corporatism is not the American way of life. It’s the fascist way of life.
Then go to Cuba racist fool!
Regarding this “health care bill” what does it “fix” moron?
It continues to crack Puddy up when Puddy sees Steve appear after he’s imbibed a quart of Steve’s Stupid Solution.
Carry on fool!
@30 Sigh! Yeah, Puddy, it’s really stupid of me to point out that you, a black man, hang with folks who call blacks niggers and tell jokes about them. I’m here reminded that “Perspective” is the title of this post. My guess would be that the irony escapes you.
@10 Ah, the good (and no doubt oh, so white) Christian missionaries going over to “enlighten” the savages.
With “salvation” like that, hell’s going to become a more popular destination.
Well, the Republicans certainly are certainly in their full “eating their own” mode.
S.C. Republicans in Lexington County have voted to censure Lindsay Graham, the conservative U.S. Senator from South Carolina. His crime? for being willing to discuss immigration and climate change issues with Democrats across the aisle. It was the second time since the November elections they have voted to censure him.
I haven’t had time to check, but I’m wondering if the Lexington County Republicans bothered to censure their own governor for his “walk along the Appalachian Trail” with an Argentina mistress.
I mean, really! Why did the north bother to try to keep them in the Union?
(Note: S. Carolina actually suffered less during the Civil War than many of it’s fellow Confederate states, Especially Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia. That might be part of the reason they are so difficult to deal with now – they still haven’t learned the consequences of not playing well with others.)
Re 29: “Then go to Cuba racist fool!”
How would that solve our health insurance problem in the U.S.?
Your side works overtime to drag their feet on health care reform and sabotage the bill and then ask how such a watered down bill will help solve problems?
Bitch…
Dang, I forgot to add the link:
County GOP censures senator for working across aisle
@31
Chris Rock called some blacks niggers. And some say Jesse Jackson called Obama a nigger.
I’m amazed the missionaries even felt a need to go to Uganda with such a message. Africans tend to already have very little tolerance for homosexuality. This has caused some big problems for the Anglican church in Africa, which is threatening to split with the international Anglican Conference since several openly Anglican priests being ordained as bishops of the church. The African Anglicans are saying that beign associated with homosexuality is hurting the Anglican Church’s evangelism efforts there.
Re 11
Actually Jason all of the things you say aren’t in dispute are.
Have active Republican voices been raised to dispute your numbers? No, because we aren’t (yet, thank God,) proposing a single payer system. There isn’t much point in refuting an argument not made and not on the table.
But, as a wise man once said, ‘if you think health care is expensive now, wait until it’s free!
Re Brainless Lucy
I get that you hate this country and everything about the way we do business. I’m curious, this being the case why you don’t simply move. You’d be happier, even if the unfortunates you selected for your new residence weren’t.
And try to marshall facts not picked up on the internet. If Cuban health care is so good why do leftist dictators all over the world needing premier care come here? After all, Cuban health care is the best in the world, and fits their ideological bent. The answer is that statistics lie, and you bought a big one and keep repeating it.
Re
“I suppose the fact that every republican except one voted against the health care bill didn’t enter your puny little mind?” It’s called principled action. You wouldn’t understand.
As for your second paragraph the current bill angers conservatives as an attack on free markets. I become a criminal for not purchasing a product I don’t want or need, insurance. By the way didn’t Obama just gaurantee pharma raises in price? Oh yeah, he did. That means that the shills for pharma and insurance have a ‘d’ after their names too. Have the intellectual honesty to admit it.
As for the rest I understand you hate Bush. I hate Obama. Only difference is I hate Obama as a souless power mad loony out of his depth trying to ruin my country socially and financially. You hate Bush because he believed in something enough to risk something for his beliefs. This is intolerable to liberal minds who want others to take risks for which you get gain.
please name these alleged leftist dictators coming here to get health care.
Was that mao tse tung? Joe Stalin? Kim il Jong? or did Fidel come, and I missed it??
Btw tell me this, if our system is so good, how come the Canadians French Swiss Germans Auzzies Swedes etc. all nations which went with socialized health care…not ONE of them voted to end it.
The Conservative Party in UK just pledged to maintain the NHS budget.
That’s democracy in action. They love it. Why is this irrelevant in your world, why do you make up lies like saying all kinds of leftist dictators come to the usa for health care?
“You hate Bush because he believed in something enough to risk something for his beliefs.”
Like what? Other peoples’ lives? That takes some real cojones now, doesn’t it?
Re 41
Canadas Workmans Comp system just started contracting with private clinics. The reason? Recovery times from workplace injuries went up by factors of as much as 10 due to long wait times for care in their socialized system. It’s cheaper for the government to use private clinics because people get back to work and spend less money on therapy.
This is “unfair” according to the Maple Leaf journalist who mentioned it to NPR. The average citizen suffering an injury has to wait in long lines for care, why not workers injured on the job? In addition he complained that the good doctors would abandon the socialist system for the private clinics which pay better and have modern facilities.
Basically a primer on why socialized medicine doesn’t work. But the follow up question by the so called journalist Steve Scher was “why do you think Americans won’t vote for universal health care?” This is the leftist lack of logic on full display.
As for why once instituted these systems don’t go away that’s easy. Layabouts and lazy people always want something free, even if it’s substandard. They don’t care, they don’t pay for it. I do.
See what your side wants is called the tipping point. This is the point at which an electoral majority pays no taxes. EITC, social services, food stamps etc actually make the taxes they pay a negative number. We’re near that now. 5% of the highest earners pay close to 50% of taxes as it is. 42% effectively pay no taxes at all. We real taxpayers essentially cut them a check for being poor. Of course the thieves love the loot from their theft. No mystery there.
This is the democrat base and once you get the disastrous social changes you want you’ll have the voting block to keep it, no matter the damage it does or the costs it bears.
It solves your health care problem headless.
Oh, before anyone complains about baseless numbers, here’s the link.
http://online.wsj.com/article/.....56587.html
Re 42
Any comment on the substance Art old boy?
No? Probably because there really isn’t an answer.
By the way, one more link on “fair taxes” showing what really happens, not just your leftist urban legends. Actually the numbers I had used were too low, with the top 25% paying 87% of taxes. VERY fair. For a leftist.
You can disagree with the source, but the numbers come from the IRS, so don’t bother with the biased source BS.
http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/fre.....-Share.htm
@41,
These “socialist health care” countries don’t pay much for their national defense because the USA foots most of the bill. Even England has a lower defense cost because of the US. Hence they can afford these health care programs. Have the US pull out of Nato and see what they would do with this additional budget need. Also since they benefit from the US drug company research they reap the benefits of lower price drugs.
If you took some time to figger things out you’d see the forest and the trees.
Can any conservative explain to me how health insurance for all, particularly government single payer, will hurt businesses?
It seems to me the reason conservatives gave as to why GM couldn’t be competitive selling cars is becasue the UAW’s cost of health insurance jacked up the price of new cars by thousands of dollars.
But, the exact same year, make, and model of car could be built cheaper using UAW labor in Canada.
The difference?
Canada has single payer health care and America has employer based health care.
Now, please give me the logical explanation.
My prediction: there wont’t be any.
@ 48
Puddy, now you know why your Republican president, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, warned America about the “industrail military complex.”
Do me, and you, a favor for substantive debate purposes and educate yourself what President Eisenhower was referring to and the consequences for America’s future.
Re 49
A dollar spent by a business is a dollar. It doesn’t much matter whether that dollar goes to the IRS or to a private insurance company.
What does matter is that businesses and others deemed able to pay (by whom?) will foot the bill for everyone, their employees or not. That may be temporarily good for competition, but is long term bad in every other possible way.
It’s like you guys believe in some magic formula. If I take a dollar out of my pocket and spend it that’s a dollar spent. If the government spends a dollar somehow no one pays for it.
Puddy @ 48
Wow. You got one right. I shouldn’t surprised. Even a stopped clock is right once a day. It was bound to happen. Eventually.
Alas, lucidity is fleeting. It was good while it lasted.
No reasonable person is suggesting leaving NATO.
Or, and here’s an idea, leave Iraq and use the monies to take care of our families and level the playing field for small businesses.
re 39: Lostinaseaofhisgrandmother’sbluepubes:
I’m not moving anywhere and as things stand now, my side is beginning to win and change the way things are done in this country.
Healthcare is a monopoly at this point, and if that’s your view of how things should be done in the ‘American Way’, maybe you should move to a different country in the Americas — like Mexico.
lost @ 38
I’d like to argue with you. I really would.
But you first have to stop arguing with yourself. That’d give me the room to get in a few punches.
First, you contradicted yourself. (You both dispute and don’t dispute my position.)
Then, you dropped a non sequitur. (No one calls healthcare free. Is the fire dept free?)
Once you have a coherent position, thesis, argument, or joke from a Dixie cup, please call me back.
Take as much time as you need.
Re 54
There’s a book describing arguments from the left. They start with what fleetingly appears like an idea not totally insane. Further debate shows all the logical and fiscal flaws. The leftist says ‘fuck you.’
Quick word of advice: the clever pun on my tag isn’t. Two things need to be true for an insult to be cutting. First it has to have some grain of truth. Second the insulted party has to care about the opinions of the one doing the insulting.
Your side isn’t winning. Your president broke pretty much every promise made to the far left, as he had to in order to stay politically viable. Health care reform isn’t. It merely says to poor people who can’t afford insurance to go buy it. If they can’t afford it some unspecified funding device will pay for subsidies in some other unspecified amount to help them. If they don’t or can’t buy insurance they will be fined or jailed. Great plan!
This leaves off all of the other ways your president has failed you. In doing so he has alienated a galvanized political force of extremist lefties and callow young people whose votes got him elected. He already was hated by the right and tolerated barely by moderates. Don’t look so good for ‘your side,’ Brainless Lucy.
By the way, the suggestion to moe wasn’t meant to be rude, well very rude. It simply states a truism. If a person is unhappy with 70% of the basic social and governmental ways of doing business where they live moving simply makes sense. It’s just a bonus that one more silly liberal is gone from the voting rolls.
Speaking of radicals…
How come you rarely hear about a loose coalition of Liberals openly preparing for and advocating the violent overthrow of the American government. Who loves their country?
http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=392
(Go ahead Puddy, search the interWebs and find me the few examples of liberal extremism that are swarmed over by the avalanche of righty and conservative violence advocates.)
Jason,
Most of those posting here, on either side of the issues appear to be using it as a vent for their poisonous anger. They answer argument with vitriol and personal attack without touching the actual matter at hand.
However, there are 3 or 4 people on this blog that seem sincere and intelligent proponents of the position they’ve taken. Usually you seem to be one of them.
If my text was confusing to you I suppose that’s a fault of composition.
Here it is in brief. You claim no one disputes your numbers. I wrote that this is because they haven’t been at issue to be disputed. They are not however indisputable.
And the ‘free’ comment was only one mans’ answer to the sales pitch given by progressives to support health care. You promise free care to those unable to pay, subsidized care to those barely able. That doesn’t leave much of a pool of actively paying citizens, Jason.
Re 57
I don’t imagine anyone doubts the love of country of the founding fathers. They fought for what they concieved to be basic rights inherent in being human. The government charged with representing them wasn’t. They reasoned, cajoled and argued for these rights and finally came to violence as the only remaining answer.
I don’t support revolution for 2 reasons. First, we have adequate means within the Constitution to redress grievances we have with our government. The founders of this country didn’t. Second, really, who in hell is going to take on the US Armed forces and win? It’s like voting libertarian. It’s attractive, but ultimately doomed to failure.
But leftists like you really underestimate the growing resentment of the over-reaching of Obama, Reid and Pelosi. I’m glad you do and encourage you to keep doing so. It’ll make 2010 and 2012 that much easier for real Americans.
@59
Standard righty BS response. I was born here, my parents were born here, my grandmparents and great grandparents were born here. I’m a liberal so I’m not a “real” American. I’m just as “real” an American as the immigrant you was naturalized on January 1st. The moment you suggest that I, and Pelosi, Reid, Obama et al, are not “real” Americans you’ve proven you don’t grasp why the Constitution and the governmental institutions created within exist.
The growing resistance from the right, rather than focus on the Constitution, elections, and civil discourse is increasingly violent. Those in the “Patriot” movement can only focus on the years prior to and immediately following the struggle with King George. Revolution is their goal. They see clearly that the only means to restore this country to their vision of “real America” is violence because the people (you know, “real Americans”) elect those with whom they disagree.
I read the constitution and grasp the concept of “provide for the general wellfare” and conclude that the founding father’s intended to fully fund education. Contemplate how many founding father’s also founded institutes of higher learning, most of which were free at their founding. I come to the conclusion that “provide for the General welfare” includes doing everything possible to insure that citizens do not perish for lack of food of medical care.
Time for the personal attack. The fact that you would even suggest that I, and my brethren aren’t “real” American’s displays a shocking lack of intelligence and an amazing naivete about your country and its history. I applaud you for not being a revolutionary. I still think you’re uneducated regarding the history of your own country.
Lost @ 45 & 47
There’s so much wrong with that opinion piece, one hardly knows where to begin. I’m particularly fond of this sentence:
This so-called “plunder” would consist of allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire. For some historical data that shows what the effect would be and puts that effect in context, see here. Seems we’ve survived this level of “plunder” before.
And this gem:
Since Prof. Lerrick fully understands the concept of a “marginal tax rate,” one can only conclude that he’s being horribly disingenuous. Changing marginal tax rates does not introduce a situation under which the after-tax income of high-income earners will fall as their incomes rise.
There are really only two possibilities here. The first is that the marginal utility of an extra dollar’s worth of income to someone who already makes > $250,000 isn’t all that great in the first place. In this case, changing the marginal tax rate on that dollar is likely to have very little effect on incentives one way or another.
The other possibility is that the marginal utility of an extra $1 of income is very high to people making > $250,000. In that case, the decreasing the after-tax percentage that such people get to keep could just as likely induce them to work even harder as it wold induce them to work less.
Lastly, we come to the right’s equivocal argument about a “fair share” of taxes–an argument in which goes something like this:
To see what’s really going on here, consider this statement from the same article:
However, if you go back and look at the table of marginal tax rates that I linked above, the wealthiest Americans are paying a lower percentage of their income in taxes today as they were during the Carter administration–a substantially lower percentage of their income.
How can this be? How can the wealthiest Americans continue to pay a larger share of the overall tax burden all the while paying a smaller percentage of their income in taxes?
The only way this can possibly happen is if the income distribution has changed in such a way as to shift that income from lower marginal tax rates toward higher marginal tax rates.
Which is why this equivocal argument about overall tax burden is so despicable. The right can promote policies that result in a more disparate distribution of income across the population, and still piss and moan about an overall tax burden.
Of course, as I said, this is an equivocal argument. When progressive’s speak of a “tax burden,” the term is defined vis-a-vis one’s ability to pay a certain percentage of one’s income in taxes. This isn’t the same definition that conservatives use when the talk about tax burden.
Conservatives make this semantic substitution without any effort to discuss the fact that the semantic difference exists, let alone providing some justification for preferring their definition of “burden” over the one that progressive’s use, which makes the conservative argument fundamentally dishonest.
So, Lost, is that substantive enough for you?
@40 Lost without a brain:
hahahha – wow, more stupidity in one ignorant post than can be fathomed.
first, Lost says this:
“I suppose the fact that every republican except one voted against the health care bill didn’t enter your puny little mind?”
Principled? What is the priciple – that the US should be the only industrialized nation in the world to NOT insure its citizens? Some principle. I got mine and you can suck it and die from disease…is that your precious principle?
You don’t want to buy insurance? Tough crap, you wimp – I don’t want my tax money going to fix your sorry ass from a car crash because you are too cheap and too stupid to buy insurance for medical bills. Wow, you really are stupid.
Or maybe you have insurance already – but don’t want people with pre-existing conditions to be able to get health care.
Not really sure what your principles are…but there are pretty damn stupid.
What an ass!
Re 60
For my comment about “real americans,” I apologize. A democracy is made up of disparate but equally valid points of view and the electoral constest between them. Too extreme a shift either to left or right is desirable, and made possible by recognizing this.
Otherwise-
” I come to the conclusion that “provide for the General welfare” includes doing everything possible to insure that citizens do not perish for lack of food of medical care. ”
Well, yes. That’s the problem with the elastic clause. A sentence that begins with some variant on “I believe that ‘provide for the general welfare’ means-” can end in anything. I believe that provide for the general welfare means that a yearly trip to Europe is good for me. Therefore it’s good for everyone and the taxpayers should collectively administer a program to provide, fund and oversee a program providing this.
See the problem with overextending the application of the elastic clause? I believe you to be well meaning. Certainly no child should go without adequate clothing food or health care because of an accident of birth, for instance. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we have a collective duty to provide these to that child through the government, or that the government is the best vehicle for such provision.
@ 60
It doesn’t necessarily mean that we have a collective duty to provide these to that child through the government, or that the government is the best vehicle for such provision.
I would also argue that it does mean that we don’t exclude government as a vehicle for such provision for solely ideological reasons. It means we need to debate the relative merits of various policy proposals without characterizing one or the other as “socialism” or “fascism” or whatever “ism” happens to be convenient.
Jason you sure love to twist things not said
Where did Puddy suggest that fool? Show me… Puddy will wait.
Re 62
Summation of this post-
I’m angry about something and need to vent. Look at this post from lostinaseaofblue. I hate Republicans. I’ll vent on him.
But to correct a few fallacies; I don’t propose that we don’t address the health care system flaws. I do propose that we actually think about good solutions before rushing into ill thought out bad ones. For instance, the CBO says that the cost of premiums will rise under Obamacare. They will rise at a rate greater than if nothing had been done. Clear enough?
I do have insurance for both my car and health.
But the auto insurance analogy is a bad one, as follows. I ask the state for the priviledge to drive. I test with them to prove I sort of can, then get a license. That license has a stipulation that I must carry liability insurance. Now for health care. I’m born and need very minimal health care for the first 50 years or so, if I take care of myself. I can easily pay these expenses out of pocket. In fact this is much less expensive than the premiums add up to over the 18 to 50 period of my life. I can choose to carry catastrophic coverage for major costs outside of preventive care needs and still save money. I can alter my insurance as MY needs dictater, not as inept government officials decide.
Or the Obama plan. I cut a deal with big pharma and the insurance industry. I’ll pretend to be against them, then gift them with gauranteed price increases for pharma and a pool of consumers who must buy my product or go to jail.
Also clear enough?
GBS whined
Go back and read the #19. Take your time and read it s l o w l y.
Don Joe,
I knew you’d hate the source, and appreciate the analysis. Most of it is encapsulated in this though-
“Of course, as I said, this is an equivocal argument. When progressive’s speak of a “tax burden,” the term is defined vis-a-vis one’s ability to pay a certain percentage of one’s income in taxes. This isn’t the same definition that conservatives use when the talk about tax burden.
I’d argue that this is the root of the problem. You’re basically correct, so far as I can tell, in your view of how liberals and conservatives view tax burdens. You won’t convince me that I’m wrong about what constitutes fair distribution of taxation. I won’t convince you. Stalemate really, modified by elections supporting one view or the other.
As far as the biased statement of dishonesty on the part of conservatives I’ll chalk that up to partisan zeal and leave it alone.
GBS,
Canada?
Canada?
Here it is again because Puddy knows you have moronic mindless memory malady. Conservatism is the only cure.
Re 64
For solely ideological reasons it’s stupid to take things off the table in general.
For reasons of practical experience, though? Should Washington DC decide the health care needs for Topeka Kansas to Walla Walla Washington and decide they are the same? Any government office with sufficient staffing to make these decisions would necessarly be too large, too expensive and far to invasive of basic privacy.
@63
Thanks for the “ad absurditum.”
Introduce a bill to send you to Europe and I’ll lobby my representatives to reject it.
Show me a bill that provides single payer healthcare and I’ll argue that is exactly what “provide for the general welfare” is all about.
Puddy @ 65
Life imitates art.
Have you read Matt Groening’s Life in Hell comic? There’s a great panel showing Binky towering over Bongo, where Bongo obviously just trashed the place, and Bongo says “I swear to God, I didn’t do it.”
Alas, I can’t find a scan online. It kinda looked like this one, but with a different caption. You’ll just have to believe me that it totally applies here.
re 66: We’re not rushing. We’ve been doing this since the Truman era. ‘Let’s think this over’ is Conservospeak for ‘Let’s sit on our thumbs for eternity.’
The foremost expert on health insurance reform was Tom Daschle, but you guys torpedoed his nomination on the grounds that he accepted a few rides and didn’t report it on his income tax.
So, from the get go, conservatives have done all that they could to impeded the process =– including unfairly discrediting the best authority on the subject.
So stop your handwringing. No one here is buying it.
Well Jason, that’s a nice “diversion” but as Puddy said earlier, these countries you posit earlier have the funds to perform those services because they don’t have other budgetary needs. It’s very plain and simple.
re 70: Is the cost of gas in Alaska related to the availibility of that product.
No. It isn’t.
The oil companies’ explanation is that they want the prices to be fair to those in the lower 48, so they charge Alaskans the same rate, free market be damned.
Re 70: The subject is price manipulation and response to local needs and availability of goods and/or services — not whether gas and healthcare are the same item.
I used to think you guys were just playing that you were that stupid.
Now I know that you are not playing.
lost @ 58
I try really hard to stay civil. Mocking, but not ad hominen. Thanks for calling me on it.
Healthcare is personal for me. As it will be for most everyone at some point. People who make believe for partisan gain gets me worked up.
From my observation, you support your unprincipled position with logical fallacies. So, you’re right, I should have been more specific: Reasonable people do not dispute that the public option would save us money.
(I’m not factoring in the bribes the trogs require to support reform. So the specific merits of any reform package need to be determined by the CBO and GAO.)
Here it is in a nutshell:
To society, healthcare is exactly like emergency services (fire, police, medic). Ethically, morally, economically, collectively, etc.
Make the case against the fire department using the same arguments you used against healthcare. Doesn’t wash.
Why? Because the marketplace doesn’t apply to the public good.
Students of history know that fire departments used to be privately owned and operated. Our society made them public.
Why? Because the marketplace doesn’t apply to the public good.
—
The part that really frosts me is how transparently selfish the winger arguments (such as yours) are. Screw the many for the profit of the few.
I could understand your motivation if you stood to profit personally for the current corrupt system. But no. You’re happily carrying water for some fat cats. Screwing yourself, along with the rest of us, and acting like your position is principled.
Puddy @ 74
Correct.
Europe and Japan should pay more for their own defense.
We should pay less for their defense. We could then use that savings to serve our own society.
Providing healthcare to every American citizen would cost a fraction of our defense (military) spending. With the added bonuses of being less expensive overall, keeping money in people’s pockets, making it easier for small businesses to hire people, and transitioning to a preventative (capitation) vs treatment model.
Win, win, win, win.
The only losers under universal healthcare with a single payer are the current insurers. And maybe Big Pharma. Everyone else saves money, becomes more profitable, or both.
I can live with that.
No Jason, you went wrong again. If these European socialized medicine countries have to pay their own defense, their socialized health care costs would force them to look at alternatives. Their medicine model would fail.
Re 71
Right back where we started. I know you would argue for single payer, as would a minority of your fellow citizens. Just because a group of people say something is for the general welfare don’t make it so. Frankly for legal clarity striking that clause from the Constitution by amendment would be a godsend. That was the whole point of the reductio ad absurdum argument. Give some thought to that Europe thing, though. Obama policies are killing the dollar and I can barely afford to eat over there anymore.
Re Lucy in general
First, to the extent that I was rude to you I apologize. I imagine you’ve read and discussed with friends all the injustices to which our society is subject. This is called life and we can’t fix everything through tax and government.
Yes, we have been trying to pass some form of reform since Truman. Some poeple might take the message from that, but it takes all sorts.
Prices of oil in Alaska or health care in Topeka or tea in China aren’t the issue raised. The issue was the size of any effective governmental agency able to account for regional health needs, respond to them and do so fairly. Any costs realized by your one size fits all plan would be eaten up, assuming your claims of cost savings are true.
You see, there are costs to having government too involved in our daily lives. Financial costs in the form of taxes are one. Personal costs in the form of lost liberties another. You seem willing to pay those costs, except the financial ones. You’d like your more prosperous fellow citizens to pay for your health care for instance. I’m not, and neither are a pretty significant number of other Americans.
Re Jason
If health care is personal because of the illness of yourself or someone important to you I wish you the best.
Please explain the logical fallacy, though. If you said you couldn’t understand someone who didn’t see the public good in single payer I’d understand that. I don’t understand much about supporters of single payer whom I know to be intelligent thoughtful people. That’s a philosophical issue, though, not a logical one.
And philosophy is the real thing here. Those against government run health care could cite examples of cost overruns, rationing, long waits for poor quality care etc all day long. You wouldn’t believe them. You could cite studies about how single payer will save money while delivering better care to all in some sort of health care utopia. I don’t believe that.
As I said to Don Joe, stalemate. And the marketplace is involved, despite your wish for it not to be. The marketplace of ideas will determine this through politics and political activism on both sides. Whoever has the best ideas of the biggest voting block will win.
Well, have fun kids. I’ve got stuff to do, and no issues will be resolved here. At least this particular discussion was mostly civil, though. Thanks.
If you believe in the slogan “Country First”, if you are a patriot of America FIRST, then you have to stop supporting Republican candidates in 2010.
Why?
Michael Steele gives THE answer on Sean Hannity’s show:
GOP leader doubts party can retake House
Steele unsure if Republicans are ‘ready’ to regain majority in Nov. elections
WASHINGTON – GOP Chairman Michael Steele thinks Republicans have “screwed up” for the most part in the years since Ronald Reagan was president. (GBS commentary: DUH! We’ve all known that and America has paid its price) And, he adds in an interview on the heels of his new book’s release, Republicans won’t win back the House in fall elections and might not be ready to lead even if they do.
OK, so here we have it from the RNC’s mouth:
A) Republicans have screwed up since 1988.
B) They can’t win in 2010.
C) And, even if they do, they are NOT READY TO LEAD!!!!
What else do you need to know as to why no one should vote Republican in 2010.
They’re screw ups and not ready to lead.
Only terrorists would want people running America who are screw ups and not ready to lead our nation and our MILITARY during a time of WAR.
What say you, Patriots? You’re either with America and the Democrats or with the Republicans and al Qeada.
Priceless!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34703760/ns/politics
Enjoy the permanent-minority status. I’ll bet that within a generation the GOP will apply for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Puddy,
Why are you supporting politicians who, by the admission of the RNC leader, have screwed up and are not ready to lead?
Do you love America, or do you love your party more?
Will you support unfit to lead, and therefore unfit to command Republicans or will you choose to hurt America by supporting Republicans?
Just asking.
@80
Well, back up the statement “Obama policies are killing the dollar.”
Dollar vs. Euro 2001-2008 increase of 26% over the length (high of 1.58)
Jan 2009-present, increase of less than 7% (high of 1.5) currently 1.43euro per $1. And during the substantive HCR debate and passage by Congress, the dollar has actually strengthened slightly.
Not that the health care debate directly impacts the dollar (although if the CBO is correct and HCR decreases the deficit, that would historically tend to increase the value of the dollar) The dollar has increased in value during the substantive debate and passage of HCR. So I’ll raise your non-sequeter and call.
But you’ve stumbled into the larger debate over Keynesian economics as practiced by the current administration.
In a rational situation where a decreased dollar increases exports the result of deficit spending might be O.K. But in the current climate where our largest trading partner in terms of imports is owed billions upon billions in bonds in order to finance an off-books wars and can therefore tell us to go spit as far as trade disputes are concerned….
steve–
You and the KLOWNS would keep Blacks on the reservation if you could.
Give them a few handout scraps and tell ’em to shut up and vote Democrat.
I still think Steve should tell us all about Tollycraft’s!! Right steve?!!!!!
I realize I was unclear. The value of the dollar against the Euro has decreased since 2001.
I regret the error which stems from the fact that the word dollar, apart from it’s current usage, is old Norse for “That green mossy substance that grows exponentially on the sand with each successive high tide.” I speak the truth, look it up.
in 1917, new yorkers went to russia to facilitate communism. it evetually failed. by force it didnt work. now they try a different method, legal government control of everything. why do you all miss that point.
@16….I am not a Republican….
epic fail for you…
Let’s see. House, Senate, Judicial Appointments, a liberal supreme court for 40 years, drawdown in Iraq, health insurance reform.
Looks like you’re winning!!!!
Watch out for Christianist clerics. “They are the devil in disguise. You can see it in their eyes.
Now they’re telling lies.
They’re the devil in disguise.”
Flying Burrito Bros.