As I write the House is on the verge of passing a bill that will socialize 1/5th of the US economy. The red swollen teat engorged with milk, the populace, its current protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, will eventually acclimate to the suckling and prove to be impossible to dislodge in the future. The Democrats know this, which is why they are willing to sacrifice near term power in next November’s midterms for long range power over the functioning of greater and greater swaths of American private enterprise.
Count today as the final nail in the coffin of American exceptionalism.
If an alien race ill-disposed to America were to devise a plan to bring the US to her knees as quickly, efficiently, and bloodlessly as possible (so as not to arouse a mighty backlash of patriotic fervor, i.e. survival instinct) they could do no better than what we have done to ourselves over the past 50 years. A plan to drain the nation’s coffers and psyche — not to mention the good will of her allies — with half-cocked schemes to export democracy to shitholes around the world that are constitutionally incapable or unwilling to embrace democracy, coupled with a zeal for importing vast numbers of ethnically (and genetically) antagonistic and listless peasant stock who will vote 2 to 1, generation after generation regardless of the desperate political pandering to staunch it, for socialist politicians and the concomitant racial grievance spoils machine whose gears never stop thirsting for the slick blood of the hated enemy, would break the back of the nation’s people insidiously, cracking each vertebrae in the middle of the night with hairline fractures designed to avoid sudden jolts of pain. Numb any immunological reaction with the soul poison of feminism, enervating porn pills, mollifying technogadget distractions, and a PC shaming mechanism psyche-out that would make Orwell blush, and you have a perfect recipe for destroying a world-bestriding superpower in less than half a century without firing a single shot.
I don’t believe the Americans In Name Only who bought into this plan are stupid. No. It’s much worse than that. They are venal.
I am wishing for the day to come when the traitors swing from the lamp posts. Swing high sweet Benedicts.
Friedman, liberdroids, NYBTimes, RINOs, SWPLs, and the rest of you goddamned filthy fucks… never forget:
Proximity + diversity = war.
So it is written in the blood of humanity, then, now and forevermore.
Amen.
Afterthought. Since I’m in a magnanimous mood today, I will impart my tremendous wisdom to those who still harbor dark thoughts of saving their country from the clutches of obsolescence or, worse, civil war II. Here it is:
Take a page from the pickup artist’s manual. Stop playing by the enemy’s rules. Reframe, reframe, reframe.
Examples upon request.
buy gold and silver
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I came to leave a comment and was pleasantly surprised to see Roissy’s post on this.
We are now in a Beta Society. The body politic has decided to employ the power of the law to suck from the producers and providers.
“Take a page from the pickup artist’s manual. Stop playing by the enemy’s rules. Reframe, reframe, reframe.”
This is sound advice, near brilliant. There are many names – living off the grid, going Galt, or going Omega (in a nod to Jessica Grose). Just like when you elect to employ Game, decide if you want to feed the machine.
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Must agree here, but where else is one to go where I can get first-world amenities and (until recently) a shot at a first-world income? Europe fucking sucks. America used to combine a robust economy with personal liberties, now we’re hurtling towards a social-welfare state where individuality is subsumed in the name of collective entitlement.
One could either decamp to Europe, where you have more broke governments catering to your every “need” while nanny-stating you, or to the third world, where there is more “freedom” because of a lack of government legitimacy, but far less economic prosperity and the ancillary benefits of living in a superpower state. For a long time, the U.S. was able to sit astride this fence. No more, with the advent of Husseinism.
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Examples, please.
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Good to here your thoughts. The right and the tea parties have done a lot wrong over the past year, but they are dead right on opposing this bill. It’s just too bad they weren’t able to win.
Your part on the death of American exceptionlism is sad…but maybe true. The really sad part is too few people understand that term to begin with. I always thought that if McCain had really, really wanted to stick it to Obama in 2008, he wouldve point-blank asked Obama his opinion on American exceptionalism.
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Well, at least the military knows.
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“Citizen Renegade”, huh? I like it.
Reframe request: How to argue against those oh-so-necessary social welfare programs. How could I be so heartless as to advocate the closure of
[ ]Headstart
[ ]Subsidized Housing
[ ]Food Stamps
[ ]HUD
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So what is the contry collapses into a third-world, nanny-state sh*thole, Democrats will get to rule– that’s all they want. Their self-destructive idiocy is THAT myopic.
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Another factor to consider: there are always collateral problems with sweeping laws that validate nanny-state worldviews. In this instance, I have a bad feeling alimony reform is going to become a tougher road to hoe.
The reason is that now that we have established that it’s the producers’ job to fund everybody else’s basic needs, just because, it’s going to be that much harder to tell divorcees they aren’t entitled to their ex’s money just because it’s there.
Strangely enough, Massachusetts’ alimony reform law, which would take the Bay State from the worst alimony state in the union to one of the best, was introduced by Scott Brown, whose subsequent election to the U.S. Senate as the filibuster insurance vote led to the procedural shenanigans that have culminated in today’s health care passage.
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RINOs?
I do not consider myself fully educated on this topic to contribute to this discussion, but I’ll try. I thought disallowing insurance companies to drop people who become sick was a good thing?
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There is nothing exceptional about America and there never has been, as you have eloquently explained time and again on this blog. (See posts regarding American women.) Our system of selfishness to the extreme has spawned a feminist movement with the ostensible goal of equality but the pragmatic foundation of a business establishment cynically plotting to double the workforce (by adding women) while paying each employee half as much in terms of real spending power capital. Case in point – virtually every American whose family has been here long enough knows that in our grandparents’ or great grandparents’ generation there was one sole breadwinner in the house – the male – who could afford to support the entire family.
My grandfathers on both sides were able to provide, working blue collar jobs, without their wives ever needing to work a day outside the home. Fast forward to the next generation and entering the “feminist” period, to parents who BOTH needed to work supposedly superior white collar jobs in order to pay for their family’s needs. Now look at the current generation, where the draining of the middle class has continued, unabated and even two providers in a single family home cannot afford to keep up with a cost of living which is spiraling up, up and away. You need look no further than the huge levels of personal debt in the US to see that even two workers at home is not cutting it anymore.
Chief amongst the exorbitant rises in the cost of living is health care costs. Premiums have grown out of control in this country leaving regular working families deeper in debt and governments with larger and larger deficits trying to keep up. This bill today is far from perfect. But it needed to be done. It reduces the deficits caused by Medicare substantially and begins to introduce competitiveness into the marketplace for insurance policies. It’s a good first step and an important victory for working people in this country.
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Sweden vs USA.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=89141853352&ref=share
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Not to worry… It always looks darkest at dawn. This frantic, spastic, open grab for power is the last gasp of socialism and feminism. It can all be undone in less than a generation, so don’t worry about that. The key is to see that internet changes everything. (Google “thinking the unthinkable” by Clay Shirky) The NYBT is no longer in control of the agenda or the debate. It is sites like this that are not afraid to face the truth. Slate can delete references to Roissy but they cannot stop the truth, short of shutting down the internet. They have lost and they know it. Thanks Roissy.
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You all still give a fuck about a country that has totally betrayed your interests for decades, other than trying to strip mine as much wealth out of this bitch and GTFO before she sinks?
Huh.
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Eh, rhetoric.
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NO!!!!
They are NOT extending health coverage to the poor???
Allowing people a shot at dying on a mattress, when the bloated and inefficient US Healthcare system would prefer them to die in the street? Out-fucking-rageous!
Allowing people sidestepped by HMOs to actually get some help with chronic illnesses? Unbelievable.
STFU
Stop whining.
Tell us about girls.
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Wow what a post.
Several points:
1. Orwell was a socialist who strongly supported extension of social benefits and jobs. He died from a combination of poverty and bad medical care, so it’s very likely he would have been strongly in favor of nationalized health care. Read “How the Poor Die” for pointers.
2. Historically, the most powerful empires have been very diverse ethnically, religiously, and racially. Think Roman Empire in its heyday (0-200 AD); Tang China; or the Mongol Empire. What makes a strong empire/country is 1. lots of money; 2. a strong army firmly under civilian control and 3. good infrastructure (roads, sewers, schools, etc.). What made the Roman empire collapse was an army over-involved in politics, recurrent plagues, and really bad economic policies. Diversity just doesn’t really matter one way or the other.
3. As seen from the Roman empire, having a low level of health in your population is a terrible thing (your population falls, you can’t find enough soldiers, your economy stagnates, and the barbarians can then surmount your unmanned fortifications). The average white American used to be three inches taller than the average white European because the US was a healthier and wealthier place. Now the average white American is shorter. (See this article). Most other American health measures are worse too (life expectancy, infant mortality, etc.) yet our costs are higher. While I am not really a fan of Obama’s plan, something needs to be done. What’s your suggestion?
4. Most other rich countries have some form of nationalized healthcare, including super-capitalist Taiwan and Singapore (where they provide almost no other social welfare benefits. It is hardly a marker of socialism.
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Samois’ point about the true ill effect of feminism is very good and often overlooked. We spend so much time lamenting the micro-level corrosive effects that it has had on interpersonal relations, that we forget just how fucked in the aggregate we all are, too.
I wish I lived in 1910. Shit.
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The most important thing is to not despair. Believe that beauty, goodness and truth win in the end. How will victory look like? I have no idea.
It may look like thousands of little towns all over the USA circa 1950, with small, orderly neighborhoods, camaraderie of fellow real Americans, and pretty girls everywhere. Or it may look very different, but still brilliantly good in unanticipated ways.
But as long as you know that international oligarch/socialists, and their DNC and RINO puppets, are usurpers loathed by God and man, you know that they will lose as evil always loses in the end.
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Behold as we plummet to the depths of socialism, fascism, and communism embodied in those hellholes we know as Germany, France, Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Australia. Good-bye American dream where hard work and perseverance gets you ahead. Opps, maybe not: Mobility in earnings, wages and education across generations is relatively low in France, southern European countries, the United Kingdom and the United States. By contrast, such mobility tends to be higher in Australia, Canada and the
Nordic countries.
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I hope you mean Thomas Friedman.
Milton Friedman would have been the very best spokesman for the opposition.
I miss him.
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biktopia -great video
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Holy sh**, just saw another Beta consumer ad…this one for Kohler faucets.
A bunch of guys all ask a woman to marry them. She appears to consider their offers. They she wanders into a house and admires the neato faucet…sure enough, the next frame is her getting married to a short, balding Danny DeVito-looking dude; apparently the king of faucets.
I’m not sure which impression is more enlightening – that the media tells unattractive guys that they can get hot women to love them by buying them the right stuff (a total lie), or that it shows a woman selecting her husband based on his material provider status (which is the closest thing to real truth you’ll get on TV today)?
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Just hope they don’t make me pay even though I don’t get to use the service. Oh fucking well. Excuse time is almost here maybe get to pop some champain after all.
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depends on the type of diversity. it’s a shame we don’t cherry pick our immigrants to assimilate and enrich our culture and gene-pool.
otherwise, well done.
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Yawn…stick to talking about women.
With so many just getting whatever health care their employer chooses, it’s not even close to a free market anyways.
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So extending health care benefits to poor who can’t afford it is beta and death of America? Letting drug and insurance companies make billions on the backs of millions is very Alpha? I like your game advice but you are wrong on this one. This is not the death of America.
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@ Carlton
I had the same thought and am almost certain that Roissy means Thomas. He has talked about him before.
Though they way Roissy seems to feud with certain not-to-be-named Cato and Mercatus folks, I wouldn’t be suprised if he wasn’t a big fan of Milton either.
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A plan to drain the nation’s coffers and psyche — not to mention the good will of her allies — with half-cocked schemes to export democracy to shitholes around the world that are constitutionally incapable or unwilling to embrace democracy, coupled with a zeal for importing vast numbers of ethnically (and genetically) antagonistic and listless peasant stock who will vote 2 to 1, generation after generation regardless of the desperate political pandering to staunch it, for socialist politicians and the concomitant racial grievance spoils machine whose gears never stop thirsting for the slick blood of the hated enemy, would break the back of the nation’s people insidiously, cracking each vertebrae in the middle of the night with hairline fractures designed to avoid sudden jolts of pain.
A ridiculous run-on sentence sprinkled with racism. Disappointing.
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Roissy…fantastic post.
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@ Madras
Roissy seems pretty libertarian for the most part, but departs from that philosophy on issues of immigration and national defense. He seems to want heavily restricted immigration or none at all, and a realist foreign policy rather than a non-interventionist one.
[editor: correct. libertarians suffer a huge mental handicap when discussing the issue of human nature and population group differences. they are too aridly theoretical in a world of mud and blood.
liberals, btw, fall into two main camps: the just plain traitorous, and the oversympathizing feel-your-pain’ers who can’t think clearly from the pull of their heart strings.]
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I guess it would be good for child support paying dads who can’t afford health insurance he he he
But if it is just another mandatory bill like cs then wtf are they supposed to do then?
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Like the citizen renegade title. It’s the truth.
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Halo
The United States is now overall a far worse country than it was before millions of impoverished, illiterate Mexicans invited themselves across the border. The United States is a far worse place because of the millions of Africans that were (unfortunately) brought here. If you don’t like that, that’s fine. It won’t be any less true.
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Very very very good post (hopefully all the compliments will not induce megalomania) the idea of Game as applied to politics is a fascinating one. Well done.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Venus_Project
Reframe indeed.
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Ah, like most Americans you fail yet again to look outside your own country.
I’m surprised that a guy who is exceptionally talented at seeing through the veil cast over so many subjects has swallowed the lie that universal healthcare is socialism and will destroy the US.
Perhaps you should come to Australia and when you’re here, develop a cancer of some sort … and no one here asks about those headaches your doctor wrote down three years ago and then denies your lifesaving treatment.
Universal heathcare is fucking brilliant – a tiny increase in tax to pay for everyone to stay healthy.
But like most Americans you only hear what is being said in your own country. You utterly ignore basic facts like cost of healthcare around the world and utterly ignore the position of the US on the world heathcare ladder.
You can have your own opinion but not your own facts.
Look a little deeper Roissy … consider if your freedom loving position itself contains elements of a greater lie that eludes you. You’ve seen past so much self-deception – so turn that intelligence to seeing past the bullshit of “healthcare is socialism” and that socialism is the death of America.
You can do better mate.
[editor: i start from a completely different premise than the majority of those who support socialized healthcare: i don’t believe healthcare is a right.]
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I think it merits discussion how wonderful the women are in many of the of the more socialist nations widely disparaged on this board.
Swedish women? Fine fucking-fantastic.
Norwegian women = Norwegian inspired wood in virtually all straight male trousers
Danish women? Yes, please.
Dutch women? Hell yes.
I would even take the more pedestrian Canadian woman over an American any day of the week.
So what exactly are you American exceptionalists defending? Besides the bitch factory system we’ve created with rampant “Me First – Fuck Everyone Else” Capitalism in the United States?
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I agree wholeheartedly with Jeffersonian Democracy.
I hope that our government officials create even more treasury draining socialistic programs for more parasites to feed off of. I hope that our debt goes to unforeseen record levels and is paid off with inflated dollars from the federal reserve. I hope that it will cost $50 to buy a big mac within my lifetime.
Because my physical gold and silver as well as gold and silver futures will skyrocket. Go USA Go! We’re counting on you!
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In theory I like universal healthcare, and if our government was more fiscally responsible these last few decades we probably could have afforded it. True it would have been big dumb fraudulent and wasteful like every other government bureaucracy, but I still think it would’ve worked in some form or another.
But America is not Sweden. Sweden has been one big productive Swedish family until recently, similar to other European countries with socialized healthcare. America, even among the Europeans here, is a collection of individuals combined with racial groups working for their own interests. We’ve had the most idiotic immigration policy in the history of civilization. We’ve had the dumbest foreign policy for decades as you pointed out. We can’t even pay for medicare and social security. We have 300 million people. Maybe it’ll work, I doubt it. I can’t wait to hear all the horror stories!
The third worldification of America continues, but most observant people already knew that was happening a long time ago. So I really don’t care, I’m just gonna watch it all burn. I just hope there is such thing as karma and the liberals pay a price.
Oh btw the health care bill has racial preferences to. Nice.
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t-100
but far less economic prosperity and the ancillary benefits of living in a superpower state
please explain
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One Big Lie: He learned on MySpace that his wife had divorced him. He knew the marriage was in trouble, but he was in Iraq — and thought he was protected.
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/03/offduty_divorce_031510w/
Divorced him, married another guy, demanded $1000/month for him to see his son.
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[editor: i start from a completely different premise than the majority of those who support socialized healthcare: i don’t believe healthcare is a right.]
Why don’t you think healthcare is a right? In the long-run this “socialist” plan will save America more money.
[editor: if healthcare was a right, the state could force hand chosen citizens, or unwilling doctors, to perform medical procedures at gunpoint.]
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We can’t even pay for medicare and social security.
well we can always save when we’re young for when we become old.
We have 300 million people. Maybe it’ll work,
It can, start taking care of yourself before you turn 40. walk daily, eat fruit and vegtables, don’t eat untill you’re full, enjoy life sleep well, don’t smoke, drink hard liquor or do harder women to excess.
I doubt it
if the average weight of americans continues to ^ then yes it will become very expensive.
P.S. doctors can stop prescribing medicine for every little thing will help keep cost down too. sometimes just laying in the bed for a few days eating light foods help more than meds do.
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Whats the best bet for the actual trigger point to cause the next civil war/revolution in the US? Care to guess a date?
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So, is this blog no longer called “Roissy in DC” but instead “Citizen Renegade”?
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Anonymous, ooblyboo and others must be joking. This movement is about creating a huge new entitlement class for the political benefit of the Democratic Party. You are either willfully ignorant or you want a nanny state to wipe your ass for you.
Demanding that the ever-shrinking pool of productive people foot the bill for everybody else is what makes a Beta Society. It’s our “job” to provide, just like the husband of a shiftless entitled wife.
Spare me the hand-wringing about “giving children health insurance.” Talk to social workers – they can’t get poor people and children signed up for the free insurance programs they already qualify for. And talk to doctors, who can’t get smart, middle class people to do what they tell them for their health, let alone indigent populations.
This isn’t the national ethic I signed up for. I sure as hell won’t be working hard for my money when people (through the force of Congress) can just dip into my wallet anytime they think they “need” it.
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The other bad part is nowhere to escape to at some point. Every country is movin on up to the eastside. America will not be competing financially for long when everyone else has a better living standard and more shit to do. ie woman.
If pussy was standard of living america is close to bottom.
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In most countries where there is “socialized medicine”, there is a thriving private sector that gets the work done more efficiently and without waiting. Australia is a good example. There, about 50% of elective surgery is done in private clinics.. Advocates of purely socialized care NEVER talk about this – the near universal need of people to find a way around the choking off of needed care.
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Ferguson:
In the United States, it is a SMALL number of persons who make very GREAT use of the health care system. And these are INVARIABLY people who smoke, are overweight, and don’t exercise. This health care law will do nothing more than spread the risk and the cost of the poor choices of the small number of people, onto everyone. I don’t want to pay for that. None of us do. The cigarette-smoking burger abusers do, but no one else does.
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[…] the possibility that the dude is way less apolitical than he’s claimed to be. There may be something to that […]
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I’m still amazed that any man here gives a fuck about America anymore.
My loyalty is not cheap. It requires payment in reciprocity. The US has not been loyal to me. Therefore I will take whatever I can however I can and leave this place to the flag wavers and other suckers.
It’s 2010. There’s money and pussy all over the globe just waiting to be taken. Unless you are already rich via the sperm lottery or however, just choose a field in demand all over the world, do whatever is necessary to get into that field and then fucking profit.
How often do you people need to get fucked over before you change your mindset and set your ass free? It won’t affect my interests regardless, but I am genuinely curious.
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gunslinger,
There is an option, but the window is closing soon…get to another country that’s poor, small or out of the way. Cash in your savings and the benefits of being American while it’s still good, and live like a king in another society. Some places might be a step down in the almanac but are good about protecting their wealthy expatriates.
There are a lot of countries that are basically like New Orleans – the good parts are for the rich people and tourists, and a major job of the cops is to keep the riff raff out of the nice part of town so the tax base doesn’t dry up.
Rum,
In Canada, the private-sector option is called “America.” Ask northern docs about Canucks coming down for expedited services. One of the tragedies of socialized medicine – which is not the bill that passed tonight but is nonetheless where we are going – is how it causes a falling backward in technology, to the point where Canada reportedly has fewer MRI machines than some American cities. The money and the institutional will to try new things is just not there.
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The first mistake problem in talking about health care as a right is, “What do you regard as health care?”
I work in emergency medicine, much of the time. So, how fast of an ambulance ride is a citizen entitled to? I mean, the slower it is, the lower health costs become; doa is a bargain. The faster it is, the more hopeless cases get into the intensive care units at 5,000 dollars a day.
In socialized systems, it is an open secret that they drive really slow and look for excuses to leave questionable cases until they are room tempature.
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Yes, a plan forcing people to buy private insurance and not be free riding blood suckers on the system and treat themselves only at ER’s on our dime is truly socialism. Get a grip. The GOP is idiotic by trying resist a mandate, doesn’t it go along with GOP principles of personal responsibility to say everyone needs to buy insurance? You actually WANT people to not buy it so we can pay for their care in higher taxes and premiums?
Pop quiz, doctors are forced to treat everyone, at ER’s. That’s where the uninsured go for us to pay their dime.
The problem is simple as this, you need to get rid of pre-existing condition exclusions, everyone has to be in the pool, you need a mandate. If you have a mandate, there has to be way to subsidize the poor buying it. If there is a better way, I’d love to hear it.
A libertarian argument of “leave those people to the wolves” is not only macho posturing horseshit, it’s not politically practical. You only have a socialist point if there was a public option, there isn’t, this is a massive gift actually to the insurance companies.
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If individuals do not purchase health insurance they are fined. To whom is this fine paid? Answer, the Federal Gov. Who takes the hit when people wait to pay for insurance until they are sick and need it and cannot be denied it at standard rates? Answer, Insurance Companies.
There will be nothing left standing.
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Immigration in and of itself isn’t bad – what is bad is the idea of ‘integration’ as opposed to assimiliation.
Australia is full of ethnic tensions which have only arisen in the past 30 years or so despite us having immigrants long before that.
Previously immigrants who came here became part of the culture. Adults embraced the opportunities and contributed to society. Their kids became as much aussie as the rest of us, right down to the accent.
Then the left wing morons said that was all racist and lets import people who aren’t going to try and fit in. Before we were one country and culture and united by common ideals and now we are really a bunch of different cultures loosely grouped under the title of country but a lot of people have more in common with foreigners than their neighbours which means that they no longer feel part of the same group.
This is the so-called diversity that left wing fools trumpet and the Cronulla riots are a testament to how well it works.
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Public Option indeed. Will they use seperate waiting rooms? Be seen after all the regular paying patients? If not, why not?
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Saomis, you made a number of very good points in your comment btw but I wanted to add something.
Saomis Case in point – virtually every American whose family has been here long enough knows that in our grandparents’ or great grandparents’ generation there was one sole breadwinner in the house – the male – who could afford to support the entire family.
Yup, my granddad brought my grandmother a house(paid in full) as wedding present. He didn’t have a high paying job either.
Some women in our grandparents time chose to work outside of the home and some poor women had to work outside of the home to make ends meet.
My grandfathers on both sides were able to provide, working blue collar jobs, without their wives ever needing to work a day outside the home
Our Grandparents were much simpler, plainer living folk. They didn’t have all of the expensive gadgets that we have today. I doubt if they ate out often. How many of them had two cars, two very expensive cars that they upgraded every 2-3 years? How many of grandparents got a new large screen TV every couple of years? How large was the average house then compared to now(maintence,upkeep)? Grandma was born with a big nose and went to her grave with a big nose.
Most Americans(?) now have cell phones which run some of us about 50-100 bucks per month. Our Grandparents also didn’t have to pay for internet service(60 bucks) or cable(50-100 bucks). Your grandmother didn’t own 300 dollar Coach bags made in China for 50cents or 800 dollar shoes with red bottom soles that serve to advertised to anyone within distance how much she paid for them thereby showing how vapid her soul was and her need to belong with the cool kids. Those same 5-6 inch healed shoes that will have her spending 800+ dollars to see a podiatrists because those shoes have caused the bones in her feet to become malformed.
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saomis Now look at the current generation, where the draining of the middle class has continued, unabated and even two providers in a single family home cannot afford to keep up with a cost of living which is spiraling up, up and away.
Partially because we want more stuff.
and sending Skippy to that 50k per year private school that isn’t Harvard or Yale for an English degree makes it that much harder for the average middle class couple to stay/get out of debt.
Saomiois You need look no further than the huge levels of personal debt in the US to see that even two workers at home is not cutting it anymore.
True that I got some ideas on how to change things. But I’m just a lowly NAM so what do I know.
*shrugs shoulders*
Chief amongst the exorbitant rises in the cost of living is health care costs
I agree with this and this is why people must take more proactive steps to maintain their health.
btw, I’m for universal healthcare but I don’t deny that people need to do more to protect their health.
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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
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“this is a massive gift actually to the insurance companies.”
You won’t get an argument from me here. I loathe the insurance companies as I loathe Wall Street and the clueless auto companies. What do they have in common? Oh yes, the current Democratic majority is getting in good with all of these corporations.
The typical Republican model has been to play with policy and install laws that make certain business successful. Then the politicians profit with their shareholdings, or by getting into the business themselves, and making profit with schemes they set up for themselves. They sell it as free capitalism, but it’s more like classical fascism – the state’s influence on ostensibly independent business.
The typical Democrat model has been to get in bed with coporate enterpises, subsuming the corporation into some kind of sick public-private partnership, and using that as a profit annuity as well as (most important) a new lever of power. This is sold as “addressing market failure” but it’s really more like socialism, controlling the means of production. Even freedom-oriented companies don’t mind, of course, because who doesn’t want to have a good friend in Washington DC?
In either case, the political system is working corporations into their fold for their own self-aggrandizement and profit.
This bill is of a piece.
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RUM Who takes the hit when people wait to pay for insurance until they are sick and need it and cannot be denied it at standard rates? Answer, Insurance Companies.
Who takes the hit when people wait until they are very sick to go to the emergency room when a doctors visit at the free clinic would of prevented the full scale illness that later comes about?
For those of you who are 100% against universal healthcare, I hope you don’t have any genetic disease or cancers in your family.
Imagine if you had penile cancer and your insurance company droped you because penile cancer is a preexisting condition.
How many Heart Attacks has dick chenny had(6 or 7)? If he was poor and without influence would he have made it this long?
alright that’s it for me folks.
*chic noir waves bye bye*
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So many of the American left comments reflect the normal magical thinking of the left.
This bill will reduce the deficit (not according to the CBO)
This bill will give everyone insurance (No, it won’t)
etc.
Orwell died in Britain after the National Health Service was established (Studies found that in the decade after the NHS was established the life expectancy of the poor declined, despite the years after WWII being the ones when antibiotics became available.
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[editor: if healthcare was a right, the state could force hand chosen citizens, or unwilling doctors, to perform medical procedures at gunpoint.]
the doctors’ unwillingingness is not necessarily excusable. compare: “the guy was laying bleeding and unconscious on the side of the road [with nobody else around] but i was unwilling to call an ambulance/take him to hospital. i had a hot date i wasn’t going to miss.”
[editor: let’s speculate a scenario where not one citizen chose to go to medical school to learn how to become a doctor. if healthcare was a right, it is conceivable that it would be within the government’s power to force a select bunch of high IQ citizens to study medicine so that sick people aren’t deprived of this right. no, healthcare is not a right, it is a service good. a service good that rests entirely on the willingness of some people to study medicine and to be remunerated commensurately.]
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Nah…things aren’t that bad. Hyperbole is fun, but it doesn’t get us far in grasping complex situations. Sounds like Roissy just had a bad day.
But let’s say he’s right. Well, I don’t plan on having children, so I don’t much care what happens to the country once I’m gone. Borders don’t mean much to me, and they won’t mean much to future generations.
That said, I will retire in a foreign land. Retirement is still at least 20 years away, but I’m already focusing on 2-3 specific countries. It’s not because the U.S. sucks as bad as some of you claim, but because living abroad is cheaper. And some of those third-world shitholes are hidden gems….
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Oh, you are dead wrong, Roissy. Multicultural mass democracy is the alpha and omega of our purpose, our justice, our everything. Only right-wing extremists suspect otherwise.
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Way to go, Roissy. 63 comments in an hour. I have not read them all.
But, one correction. This is not a victory of the betas,
who are producers, this is a victory of the super-alphas
in DC and the omegas who produce nothing.
Us regulars, lower alpha through the rest of the Greek
alphabet, will pay —- and pay —- and pay —-.
On a related topic:
In the beginning, there was Atkins, and the Atkins’ diet revolution.
Then there was an acolyte called Arthur DeVany (sp?), still active, talking diet and exercise.
Then there was Wallace Ward, pen name Frank R. Wallace. Interesting character, great fan of Atkins, although that was not his main point. Wrote “POKER – a
Guaranteed Income for Life” and various other books, including two novels, a little simplistic but OK. Did time for tax evasion. Died by being hit by a car while running an exercise round. Solid Libertarian.
Then a Ward acolyte, Mark Hamilton, another solid Libertarian (but not using the term.) (Twelve Visions etc) various books. Interesting fellow, but I believe his stuff should be read essentially as utopisms or allegories, echoes of Swift, except utopic, not dystopic.
I am working on one of his books. More comments to follow.
The thought experiment “where would we be if the abandonment of the US constitution that has been going on for 100+ years had not happened” is interesting. As is the “what would happen if we went back to the constitution”.
All are googlable.
Nils
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Backdoor Man,
Care to hint to us which countries to consider?
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We currently have the poisoners offering us the cure.
The arsenic the socialists and their ilk forced down our throats during their reign of tyranny known as the great depression lingered with us today. They saw employer-paid health insurance as a means to which they could injure their hated foes the industrialists, forcing them to dole out cash to their employees. Thus securing the union and worker votes for the progressives.
In time the industrialists realized the great opportunity for control this gave them. Employees were chained to their profession; thanks to the gorgon of income tax any man securing health insurance for himself would be paying $1.40 for every $1 an employer had to pay.
In time the industrialists had been abandoning America, and her far too troublesome races in search of blooming yellower and brown fields. But the aging communists who have dosed America with their fetid poison recognized the power and influence such “health insurance” brought. They drooled to finish the job to necrophilicly by seizing the last vestiges of a free system.
The vote was today.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
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examples of reframe?
brick through democratic voter’s window?
[editor: ha! please to youtube.]
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@Topher,
I’ve got a soft spot for Latin America.
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whoa… Dude, think about yourself.you claim to be a hedonist, enjoying life, not stupid work and money. So why in the world you would support this freeper bs? This is the thing about “socialist” europe – it is a true democracy over there and working shlubs there are smart enough to vote for their own interests, not for someone elses greater good, country sake crap. So they voted themselves 6 week vacations, free healthcare and education etc. and surprise, sky didn’t fall and germany is still so efficient, it has become a problem for the rest of EU.
This is perhaps the root of the issue in this country – by supporting rich’s agenda every middle class beta slub gets to feel like he belongs and is one of them…
Feeling betaized just by typing this, can we find something sexier to talk about please… spring is in the f’n air =)
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Healthcare enforced by the IRS… the nitwits who audit people for following their guidance. Screw the Constitution, who needs it? Due process, rule of law… that’s for “racists,” right?
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DrS,
I don’t necessarily have a problem with a mandate. In fact, I’m more or less a fan of the Swiss system, mandate and all.
But that’s not really what this is all about. Because of our absolutely insane immigration policy, America is no longer just a bigger version of Switzerland. Instead, we are becoming more like Brazil and less like Switzerland with each passing day.
There is a reason why Switzerland can achieve things that Brazil can’t. Demographics is destiny.
The U.S. system has imported huge numbers of low IQ cretins who will simply not be able to afford the mandates (how much money do you expect people with IQs in the 70’s, 80’s and low 90’s to earn?).
No problem…just subsidize! And then KEEP bringing them in by the millions, for subsidies without end. It’s a transparent scam, importing voters for yourself while passing the bill to the other guy. Great work if you can get it, pretty much a demographic stuffing of the ballot box.
In a sane society such a policy would be recognized as the most vile and illegitimate form of cheating, a clear breach of the social contract. In a remotely honest polity, you don’t get to “win” arguments by demographically swamping your opponent.
But in our insane system? Cheating is just business as fucking usual.
What amazes me is that the libs actually seem to think that this sort of thing is sustainable, that the goodies can be dished out to their favored groups with no consequences whatsoever. Maybe it would have been sustainable if they hadn’t turned a once great nation into a Brazil North cesspool, but they did and so it isn’t.
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How about this: If “health care” is a “right”, then government is obligated to pay whatever is needed to provide citizens with a full measure of whatever they deem to be healthcare. At full market price. To do otherwise is to deprive a citizen of an established right.
I can dig it.
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Screw-up healthcare, destroy freedom and jack-up taxes– but it’s for “social justice,” you know. No one benefits, except left/libtard Democrats living out some control fetish.
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If I may, I suggest a few hours of healthy George Carlin deprogramming. Something recent, on corporations who own you and ‘ you gotta be asleep to believe it’. Always felt your blog was quite in tune with his stuff…
My political maxim #1: freepers are to rich ruling class what manginas are to feminists.
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chic noir,
Your points are well taken regarding the selfishness of American consumers, male and female alike. However it’s also worth noting that with the rise of Asian and specifically Chinese manufacturing, the price of foibles and gadgetry is at an all time low. The first television my grandparents bought in the 1950s was a significant investment for the family. Ditto their Super 8 film camera. So I don’t think it’s that people have a taste for more gadgetry these days (my grandparents loved making little Super 8 films and watching Black & White TV back when those were the popular technologies of the time), it’s rather that such gadgetry is cheaper due to cheap Chinese labor.
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Maybe the ‘solution’ is to vote in all the fringe left wing until the system can’t take it anymore. if this gets us a 2nd ‘russia’ on the other side of the atlantic, then all worse for the europeans who gave us this mess in the first place. two nihilistic corporate shell states that will shut off their heat in the middle of winter, because you’re our bitches, and don’t forget it
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“no, healthcare is not a right, it is a service good. a service good that rests entirely on the willingness of some people to study medicine and to be remunerated commensurately.”
This is precisely the problem. Thank god we’re starting to finally change it.
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A personal story:
I recently (last 6 months) lost my job, due solely to the Obama economy. MY boss, the one who let me go, told me point blank he’d write a great reference for me, because I was only a casualty of bad economic times—last hired, first hired. My work has laid off 80 people this year.
I am a lawyer by trade. Not just a lawyer: an Ivy league undergrad and an Ivy league law school (top 5 law school, if you must know). In addition, I served as a clerk to a federal judge (for non-lawyers, that’s a very prestigious job to have had). I say all this not to brag, but to show that I have a resume that even in moderately bad times would get me snapped up in a heartbeat.
Problem is, no one is hiring. I know a guy #1 in my law school class with 2 clerkships under his belt without a job.
After a fruitless job search, I planned on doing what I had long fantasized about: joining the military and serving my country. To that end, I have been working out to try earn a 300 score on the PFT well before OTS. Yes, I was joining the marine officer school.
A score of 300 translates into 20 pullups, 200 crunches in 2 minutes, and running 3 miles in 18 minutes. Recently, I hit the 300 plateau, and was elated. I began pumping iron to push myself past the plateau and become a force for my nation.
However, with the passage of this bill, I can no longer in good conscious defend my country. Thanks to the socialistic garbage, America has lost a defender.
My country, as I knew it, is dead. I now oppose my nation and all she stands for. America has lost a defender, and gained an antagonist.
I implore those of you in the military here to leave the service. Lay down your arms, claim you can no longer fight for our country, and walk away. Don’t go AWOL, but register now as a conscientious objector. If your term comes up, don’t re-enlist. If you can take early retirement, take it. And if you’re thinking of joining, don’t.
This whore of a nation should never drink another drop of your blood. It deserves to be defended only by the fascist scum who support this dog of a man you are forced to salute as the Commander-in-Chief. And we all know how quickly those cowards fold when asked to defend by force.
America will not get my bravery, my blood, or my ample brain power. It deserves nothing but its own death.
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Samois,
Nothing is more selfish than doing evil to people “for the children” or their own good because it makes the doer fell good.
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Mathew Ferguson – “Perhaps you should come to Australia and when you’re here, develop a cancer of some sort … and no one here asks about those headaches your doctor wrote down three years ago and then denies your lifesaving treatment. Universal heathcare is fucking brilliant…”
Compare U.S. and European cancer survival rates:
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/08/5-yr-cancer-survival-rates-us-dominates.html
Tell us again how government health care is “brilliant” for cancer patients.
(“But like most Americans you only hear what is being said in your own country” <- priceless)
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samois However it’s also worth noting that with the rise of Asian and specifically Chinese manufacturing, the price of foibles and gadgetry is at an all time low.
Point noted.
I wonder how many Americans pay cash vs charge* for their new gagets. Our great/grandparents payed cash for the most part.
@stud dynamite- cosign
I doubt if any plan will cover everyone but this is better than nothing.
Obama and Michelle* will have to start the hard talk of Americans being more proactive in preventing illness. moderation motherpluckers!!!!
Maybe you don’t need the 500k house if you have to work 60+ per week to afford it. How about the 200k house that allows you to spend time with your family or devote time to your hobbies.
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lame, you republicans are the whiniest pussies to ever have existed on planet earth. and roissy is really very ill-informed and stupid, or is just whining in an effort to scare other people who are ill-informed and stupid. this bill will not change much at all, which is a shame. if you have health insurance through work, guess what, you still do. if you’d like the option to buy health insurance through the government (at a substantially lower rate), guess what, you can’t because it isn’t available unless you qualify for medicare and medicaid. canada and england, two bastions of dirty communism, both have completely government-run health care, and they pay 45% as much per person as america does already. it’s a pity republicans only stand up for things that are catastrophically dumb, like the war in iraq, and letting health insurance companies dictate who can get health insurance and who can’t in america, and how much.
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Who didn’t see all this coming a mile away when Obama was still a candidate? It was clear as day to me. The man always has been clearly hostile to the free market system that made America great. Anyone who didn’t see that plain as day cannot see their hand in front of their face.
We’re becoming a nation of do-nothing rent-seekers dependent on a nanny government. The Dems are only to happy for this. It makes me want to puke.
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@Samois
““no, healthcare is not a right, it is a service good. a service good that rests entirely on the willingness of some people to study medicine and to be remunerated commensurately.””
“This is precisely the problem. Thank god we’re starting to finally change it.”
OK, so you think it is OK for some people to force
some other peoople’s needs by using overwhelming
military power to force them to do so? (That the power is
so overwhelming means, as a practical matter, that it
rarely needs to deployed – open resistance in indeed
futile).
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@ Samois
I hope so. The next time your federally employed physician says you need to actually put the $500 into his pocket (because if he reaches for it, he’ll probably drop your newborn baby, you should thank the democrats that the worst that can happen to him is a 6 month performance improvement plan
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“[editor: let’s speculate a scenario where not one citizen chose to go to medical school to learn how to become a doctor. if healthcare was a right, it is conceivable that it would be within the government’s power to force a select bunch of high IQ citizens to study medicine so that sick people aren’t deprived of this right. no, healthcare is not a right, it is a service good. a service good that rests entirely on the willingness of some people to study medicine and to be remunerated commensurately.]”
Another way to look at this…..
We all have the right to a lawyer. If we can’t afford one, one will be appointed. So what do we have now? Only people with money can afford the best legal defense and everyone else gets relegated to a public defender.
This is what is going to happen to healthcare once the take over is complete. Only the wealthiest will afford the best health care.
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lurker Problem is, no one is hiring. I know a guy #1 in my law school class with 2 clerkships under his belt without a job.
“Law work” is being outsourced to India too.
FYI So are personal assistants.
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Leftists let the state f*ck them in the ass and imagine that it loves them.
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I hope I meet Samois one day, so I can stab him to death.
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Anonymous says
“Samois,
Nothing is more selfish than doing evil to people “for the children” or their own good because it makes the doer fell good.”
Try actually explaining your point next time. Thankfully, we don’t all live in your myopic moral universe.
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[editor: let’s speculate a scenario where not one citizen chose to go to medical school to learn how to become a doctor. if healthcare was a right, it is conceivable that it would be within the government’s power to force a select bunch of high IQ citizens to study medicine so that sick people aren’t deprived of this right. no, healthcare is not a right, it is a service good. a service good that rests entirely on the willingness of some people to study medicine and to be remunerated commensurately.]
then let’s speculate a scenario where everyone is running around murdering and raping each other because there are no police. or a scenario where arsonists are burning buildings full of people indiscriminately and there are no firemen. or a scenario where the country is being invaded and there is no army. a, let’s call it a “medical draft,” could conceivably be justified in such circumstances.
[editor: police are not a necessary prerequisite to the right to life. the court system– the law — assumes the responsibility of meting punishment on a murderer. but doctors are a necessary prerequisite to any presumed right to healthcare. i liken a right to healthcare to animal rights. both are illogical.]
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Thor says
“OK, so you think it is OK for some people to force
some other peoople’s needs by using overwhelming
military power to force them to do so? (That the power is
so overwhelming means, as a practical matter, that it
rarely needs to deployed – open resistance in indeed
futile).”
You, or your Mom, will be pleased to know there are some good measures protecting mental health care in the new bill. I strongly suggest looking into them.
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Don’t you just love totalitarian abortions like Hunter and Samois? Where the only choice for them is anarchy or oppression?
The role of the government is to prevent one person from harming another, not patching up the lazy ass for free.
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ryder The U.S. system has imported huge numbers of low IQ cretins who will simply not be able to afford the mandates (how much money do you expect people with IQs in the 70’s, 80’s and low 90’s to earn?).
So how much does the average Chinesse worker earns in China?
[editor: structural deficiencies can mitigate IQ advantage.]
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I’m starting medical school in the fall, and if I were “drafted” as a physician, I would kill all the patients they gave me.
Now say it loud, so everyone can hear you.
Betcha I don’t get drafted 😉
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Roissy, ban Samois. Either that or post his IP and home address. so I can toss a molotv cocktail through his front window.
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When roissy writes a political post lots of new commenter’s appear with robotic liberal style shaming language – “stick to girls – blah, blah…”
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Samois, simply because you’re too stupid to get a point doesn’t mean it wasn’t explained to you.
Now smile and enjoy your castration.
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Socialized medicine doesn’t even work in racially homogenous countries. It’s insane to think it will work here, with White people nearing minority status.
They claim that the reason we need this “health care reform is because of the 45 million uninsured. Hell, half of that number is illegal aliens, and most of the rest is immigrants and their children from the last 40 years.
What this is is a huge transfer of money from Whites to nonWhites. White seniors who paid into medicare their entire lives will have their medical rationed in order to pay for Blacks and Mexicans medical expenses.
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Samois,
Monsters always believe they’re a good person who just does bad things… Hitler loved animals (people, that’s another story). Most child molesters honestly believe they love children, too. Leftists… well, “you can’t make an omlette without breaking a few eggs” (as Stalin said) on their way to socialist utopia where everybody’s happy, especially them.
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Samois, don’t feed it.
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yo says
“I hope so. The next time your federally employed physician says you need to actually put the $500 into his pocket (because if he reaches for it, he’ll probably drop your newborn baby, you should thank the democrats that the worst that can happen to him is a 6 month performance improvement plan”
As anyone with children knows, $500 is an amazing bargain and a half for childbirth out of pocket expenses in this day and age. Thanks for the silly, uninformed, fearmongering argument though. It’s nice when my opposition makes my points for me due to their own ignorance.
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@Lena
You speak nonsense, mobility of earnings is massive here in the UK. The Education system is far more male and poor friendly i should know i was both. University education is cheaper and more accessible to the poor. Any percieved lack of mobility is due to a cultural void caused by the break up of the two parent family and the welfare state. The people over here not making it, aren’t making it BECAUSE THEY DON’T WANT TO or have never had reason to try.
The biggest problem with the UK nation is not free healthcare, in principle it’s a great idea just like here in Britain.
THE PROBLEM IS POPULATION CONTROL. There is no longer stringent enough control on who is being born in and who is border hopping into our nations. I am more than happy to share a healthcare system with people equally as responsible as myself who generally put in more than they take out. I am not prepared to share it with some dirty somalian and his 10 kids and 10 brothers and sisters who haven’t earnt a penny for our government. Sadly net tax consumers are becoming an ever increasing percentage of the population, the richest 2 per cent of mofos over here in the uk who pay over 40 per cent of total income tax are beggining to leave the uk in droves, headed for places like switzerland, monaco, andorra and lichtenstein. Total welfare and benefit expenditure over here is now greater than the total income tax paid to the government. it’s ridiculous. It’s quite ironic really but the only people who actually deserve socialist reforms like this are generally the same people who vote right wing because they realise the reality of the situation. THAT THEY END UP BECOMING HOSTS FOR PARASITES. Single mother and immigrant families are being housed in prime west/central London locations for FREE. Central London has the HIGHEST LAND VALUES IN THE WORLD. Even your relatively wealthy hard working proffessionals can’t afford to live there and would have to work and save 15+ years plus get a mortgage and still be lucky to afford it.
No single mother failures.
No benefits and welfare.
No divorce theft.
Enforced abortion for anyone attempting to break these rules. NO child policy for single mothers and the poor who cannot raise them properly.
NO immigration or at least very selective high skill immigration.
Massively altered education system which discourages university education, TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE GOING TO UNIVERSITY IN THIS COUNTRY WE NEED TO TAKE IT DOWN FROM 50 PER CENT TO 20 max. Especially women in non technical subject areas.
Free medecine, science and engineering education to encourage competiveness as these graduates end up paying on average 100 000s to millions more tax over their working lifetimes.
Then you can begin to have an efficient and adequate health service.
The NHS here in the uk now funds fucking 100 000 dollar gender reassignments for transgender freaks because their condition is causing them psychological distress and would imporve their quality of life…….*FACEPALM*
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Roissy,
I have long loved your blog. I hate SWPL disingenuous white liberals more than any person on earth.
The day will come when their day comes.
http://www.sbpdl.com
Sorry for the shameless plug, but I loved this blog post of yours and realize we are alike politically.
Best,
SBPDL
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@Samois
“You, or your Mom, will be pleased to know there are some good measures protecting mental health care in the new bill. I strongly suggest looking into them.”
Is this supposed to be some kind of clever argument?????
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Yo yo
I’m starting medical school in the fall, and if I were “drafted” as a physician
If physicans make less as a result of this bill, then it’s only fair that the cost of medical school is lowerd to make up for lost wages.
P.S. to make it into medical school, you’ve already went thru a mini draft of sorts.
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I didn’t think poor people had to pay, but guess I was wrong
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The key is the “death of American exceptionalism”, and for that I agree with you, ’tis a sad thing.
But it was inevitable, wasn’t it? The United States will always have a preponderance of power; just not omnipotence.
Here in Canada we are now the most capitalistic country in the world; the best place to do business. Credit default swaps were waved in banker’s faces and they calmly replied, “Fuck off with that shite”.
Greed killed america, not socialism. As you say, reframe. You’ve now entered the matrix. Canada has more firearms per capita than the usa, is more capitalistic and has universal healthcare.
Look at the bright side: Blue Cross and Blue Shield will be forced to relinquish their Hurculean grip on your nutsac. They will be your bitch; not you.
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lurker, the Internet pussy, says,
“I hope I meet Samois one day, so I can stab him to death.”
Go ahead and try it you fuck and you’ll end up singing the praises of government health care (Medicaid) in your wheelchair, while you piss and shit into a bag, till your dying day, after I stick the knife straight up your fucking ass, Mr. Internet Tough Guy. But, don’t worry, I’ll be sure to send you home porn tapes of me having threesomes with hot, socialist Swedish chicks so you can remember what sex was like. Fucko.
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Yo, yes, all those poor people who couldn’t afford health insurance now will have to pay another $2000 in taxes to pay for it now. Hoped they liked voting Democrat… BOHICA!
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chic noir, agree re: cost of med school, but that’s not the real barrier, it’s the difficulty of getting in and making it through.
fewer quality physicians (due to diluting the pool of applicants) and less well educated physicians (because the cost has to be reduced).
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Thor asks,
“Is this supposed to be some kind of clever argument?????”
Would you know one if you saw one? Of course not. So why would I ever waste my time.
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Samois, it’s better to be thought to have a tiny dick than iopen your mouth and prove it.
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@ chic noir
The burbs are fueled by two things: Schools and Crime. I’ll focus on the schools.
Families pay for these 100k homes because it does one thing: gets their children into a good school. People go to the ends of the earth to give their children the best opportunities. How many fathers delay retirement for ten to fifteen years in order to finance their child’s college? How many people immigrate to secure the blessing of liberty for their children.
The government’s laws have outlawed private and parent controlled schools for most of society, reserving them only for the wealthy elite.
This UC Berkley talk is very interesting. She compares median families of today and yesterday. Check out 39:00 mark. “Students would rather live near a toxic dump than live in a place where the schools were under performing.”
This situation of schools that don’t teach a pupil how to read or write but does teach them that the government is the supreme good was put in place by the communists in control of the national education apparatuses.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Charlotte+Thomson+Iserbyt
The median family house is $170k. Even if it were your stated $500k I would be more than willing to pay that to ensure my children have the best chance at life.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=American+House+Prices
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cat patrol White seniors who paid into medicare their entire lives
They use more than what they paid.
will have their medical rationed in order to pay for Blacks and medical expenses.
Most blk men aren’t around to get a piece of the medicare and social security money so consider that a gift to you. blk men paid into something they aren’t around to use.
if it means that much to you how about we scrap the entire system and we just make people save for every little lifes emergency.
They claim that the reason we need this “health care reform is because of the 45 million uninsured. Hell, half of that number is illegal aliens, and most of the rest is immigrants and their children from the last 40 years
What about all of those whites who are now out of work? What about the poor whites who can’t afford cobra? What about those big whites who live in Chucks area who are a big mac away from a heart attack ? Are you so heartless that you can watch them die???
P.S.
Can someone help Chic noir out please tupac,R,PA, Dana etc…
doesn’t a person need to own land and be self supporting to really be a Libertarian? Can one really be a Libertatian if he/she works a 9-5 and depends on others for their livlyhood?
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Samois the liberal faggot, post a time, date, and place, and I will lay a pipe across the back of your fascist head.
[editor: all right folks, let’s try to refrain from posting death threats. it elevates the discourse on this blog and i’d like to keep the blog safe and snug in the sewer where it is happiest.]
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Samois has a tiny dick, a tiny brain, and ticking clock on his life span.
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“Yo, yes, all those poor people who couldn’t afford health insurance now will have to pay another $2000 in taxes to pay for it now. Hoped they liked voting Democrat… BOHICA!”
Obama’s not going to force poor people to pay 2000$, he’s going after the working people who are already paying federal, state, and payroll.
From each according to their ability, To each according to their needs!
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Anonymous quotes Glenn Beck:
“Samois,
Monsters always believe they’re a good person who just does bad things… Hitler loved animals (people, that’s another story). Most child molesters honestly believe they love children, too. Leftists… well, “you can’t make an omlette without breaking a few eggs” (as Stalin said) on their way to socialist utopia where everybody’s happy, especially them.”
Thank you for your unoriginal, mentally unhinged, grammatically embarrassing comment. Good luck to you. You’ll need it.
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Chic “Misses the Point By a Mile” Noir:
“So how much does the average Chinesse worker earns in China?”
Wonderful, atrocious grammar aside. Are you seriously telling me that you can’t grasp the undeniable reality that low IQ people face limited job prospects and severe income limitations in a First World economy?
Ah, Chic Noir. Living proof that diversity doesn’t work.
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Samois, citing Hitler, Stalin, and Castro: “I’m a good person.”
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Roissy,
There are some serious constitutional challenges with this health care bill. The Democrats should understand that there is a REAL risk the Roberts court will ‘gut’ a lot of this bill (just like they did campaign finance reform) in the near future. States, like Virginia and Idaho, are already passing laws to challenge the bill and are gearing up for a federal legal challenge.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/print/58900
Also, Medicare is going bankrupt. This bill relies on future Congresses to restrain their spending. If they can’t, the country becomes bankrupt a lot more quickly. At a certain point, even American politicians will have to bend to the will of foreign debt collectors, as a far more socialist state like Greece is finding out.
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Yo chic noir, agree re: cost of med school, but that’s not the real barrier,
but those student loans 150k-200k are a killer even with a high sallry. That’s a house of debt.
it’s the difficulty of getting in and making it through.
Agreed and that’s what I was hinting at with the mini draft of sorts.
fewer quality physicians (due to diluting the pool of applicants)
I don’t understand why the pool would become diluted. the standards should remain the same.
and less well educated physicians (because the cost has to be reduced).
The costs are probably climbling because the schools can charge more because of student loan money being given out.
IMO, the best and brightest medical students should go to school for free.
IIRC, a 25% of all American doctors are foreign born, in Britian it’s 50%. How many of those doctors attend medical school here in the west and how many attend medical school in their home country?
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lurker, the pussy says:
“Samois the liberal faggot, post a time, date, and place, and I will lay a pipe across the back of your fascist head.”
Fuck you, you piece of shit. Post your name and address, you pussy, moron, fako Internet tough guy. I fucking dare you, dumbass.
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@Anonymous: shaming language, stick to girls… That’s because politics (and on particular what I wrote about thinking anyone that matters cares about what you think) is pen-f’n-ultimate B E T A. System doesn’t care about you. Life isn’t fair. Learn to deal with it. “Man”.
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Samois the faggot: “Fuck you, you piece of shit. Post your name and address, you pussy, moron, fako Internet tough guy. I fucking dare you, dumbass.”
—-ladies first, pussy. I double dog dare you.
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To the moderator:
I missed your comment above. I will lay off the ultraviolence with the unrepentant, disgrace of a pussy, lurker. Thank you for the moderation.
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‘Fraid not, Samois. I just came up with that off the top of my head right now. Just call me a big dumb poopoo head and be done with it (liberal debate being what it is) but, unfortunaterly, you can “reframe” it away… that happens to be the truth. The road to hell is paved with good intentions (only in James Bond movies do villains lust evily for power without “selling” it, to themselves and others, as good somehow). Communism has only killed 100 million people, but left/liberals always figure THEY will get it right somehow.
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In Barry Obama’s America 98% of all American doctors will foreign born.
It is cheaper and if the gov’mnt is on the hook for the bill Barry O. has a mandate from the American people to bring these people in to reduce health care costs.
He doesn’t have any ulterior motives though. There is nothing sinister about importing people permanently dependent on democrats. Its not like they systematically built the system to keep people in their slums.
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ryder Wonderful, atrocious grammar aside
come ryder, it’s what I’m known for buddy 🙂
Are you seriously telling me that you can’t grasp the undeniable reality that low IQ people face limited job prospects and severe income limitations in a First World economy?
Of course I’m not but we are now living in a world where having a high IQ doesn’t make the world your playgronud. When someone in China or India(or machines) is willing to do your job for 50k+ less per year with fewer workplace rules who do you think most employers will look to hire first?
ryder living proof that living in the good old days doesn’t pay.
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You shouldn’t give something you can’t take away. We can’t afford national health care.
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sorry “can’t reframe it away” (my lousy typing, language skills, etc.).
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Anonymous says,
“Samois, it’s better to be thought to have a tiny dick than iopen your mouth and prove it.”
Please go back to school and study English before posting again. Thank you.
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“I will lay off the ultraviolence with the unrepentant, disgrace of a pussy, lurker.”
—oh yes. An internet fight with a faggot liek Samois is ultraviolence!
You are a tiny dicked, tiny brained mentally bankrupt faggot, Samois.
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Next on the Obama Agenda: Amnesty!
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Been reading for a while this blog for only a few months; while all the information is useful, relevant or amusing, the posts tagged “Goodbye America” are guaranteed classics.
Thanks so much.
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“‘Fraid not, Samois. I just came up with that off the top of my head right now. Just call me a big dumb poopoo head and be done with it (liberal debate being what it is) but, unfortunaterly, you can “reframe” it away… that happens to be the truth. The road to hell is paved with good intentions (only in James Bond movies do villains lust evily for power without “selling” it, to themselves and others, as good somehow). Communism has only killed 100 million people, but left/liberals always figure THEY will get it right somehow.”
Why not try to actually solve an enormous problem – health care – than sit around spewing the Glenn Beck party line? And my argument, by the way, is not that the government is the only answer to the problem. Like everything in this country a private-public partnership is necessary to get things done successfully. But just sitting around throwing epithets doesn’t really help anything, now does it? Maybe it makes you feel like a man. But if you need to go on a blog and talk shit to feel like a man, I would suggest developing some game, turning off the computer and getting laid instead. It’ll save us both a lot of heartache.
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psylo It is cheaper and if the gov’mnt is on the hook for the bill Barry O. has a mandate from the American people to bring these people in to reduce health care costs.
Psylo, that started before Obama got into the White House my friend. What you see happening is good old fashioned greed.
If you’re a die hard capitalist and you aren’t willing to work for the same wages that someone in China is, don’t be surprised with your job is shipped over seas. Remember, capitalism has good and bad sides just like anything else.
P.S. I like your aberv for government. I think I will add it to my stash 🙂
_______
Obama’s not going to force poor people to pay 2000$, he’s going after the working people who are already paying federal, state, and payroll.
When the poor can’t afford to pay their emergency room bills, who pays? FYI, it costs 1500 per night to lay your butt down in a hospitol bed.
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This site focuses on the battle of the sexes so let’s focus on that. On the surface it would seem this helps women, especially mothers without access to private healthcare, but I’m not so sure. Women generally don’t care about people they don’t know, and at some point women will put two and two together and say “I’m paying $20,000 a year in federal taxes to support kids I don’t know, when I can’t afford to put my kids through private school”.
Our government has failed since the electorate can vote for more welfare and less taxes while at the same time asking for balanced budgets and sound money. Our government is broken.
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Jacko
Canada has more firearms per capita than the USA???
Perhaps. I mean, much of Canada is rural and much of the US is urban. But you must understand, I live in S. Texas and that just might skew my perceptions on this matter.
BTW, concealed carry laws are great. Violent crime took a nice fall when the Texas law came along in the mid 90s. And the idea that a crazy person might do a Columbine-Style departure from life in, for example, a SteakHouse in Abilene Tx, is nowadays literally unthinkable. It be a one-way slaughter of innocents, just a short, multi party gun fight…
Even crazy people are not that crazy.
Law Enforcement has become very supportive. The reasons are subtle. Basically, such laws bring LE and righteous citizens much closer and more mutually supportive.
Where I am, the courses are normally taught by the Cops, especially the SWAT guys. They never even ask why a citizen might want to go armed. And they believe in citizen deterence.
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Oh, sorry, that should be:
“Samois, it’s better to be suspected of overcompensating for having a tiny dick than to open one’s mouth and confirm it.”
I can’t really write that you could open your mouth and show having a tiny dick, literally, unless you are physically capable of performing such a maneuver. My bad.
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People are of course outraged at this shit that Obama and Congress are doing, but the US has been going in this direction for decades. With the changing demographics of this country, it will get worse.
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psylo The median family house is $170k. Even if it were your stated $500k
Actually, I was saying it’s better to live in the 100k-200k home that you can afford versus following the jones buying a 500k you can’t.
Even if it were your stated $500k I would be more than willing to pay that to ensure my children have the best chance at life.
Only if you can afford it right.
Families pay for these 100k homes because it does one thing: gets their children into a good school. People go to the ends of the earth to give their children the best opportunities.
agreed. I don’t deny this in any way.
How many fathers delay retirement for ten to fifteen years in order to finance their child’s college?
but what if your child majors in something that justs a waste of money? Why pay 200K for something you can learn at the community college for 10k tops.
How many people immigrate to secure the blessing of liberty for their children.
Agreed again.
I said I was done and yet I’m still here. Alright night night folks 🙂
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“I won’t have to work out how to put gas in my car, I won’t have work out how to pay my mortgage. If I help him, he’s gonna help me.” America is crashing and burning.
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it would not be a one-way slaughter of innocents, just a short, multi-party gunfight…
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I have a reframing challenge to all my new found haters here. Given the attitudes seen so far and the animosity – which I admittedly indulged in – it won’t come easy. But I’ll extend the offer anyhow, this one time.
Rationally argue your point with me. Minus death threats, adolescent jokes, curse words etc. And as I say I am just as guilty of all of the above, and will offer to refrain as well. If you’re confident in your ability to hold a rational argument – as a MAN should be – then it should at least be possible.
Thanks.
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All of this depends on what “right” means. Is health care a specifically enumerated right in the Constitution? Clearly, not.
But clearly we have policies and programs that are not specifically enumerated, for example: medicare, and veterans health care.
The most expensive care in our system tends to be end of life care, which is used primarily by the elderly. Do they have a right to their care? Is getting old something that entitles you to health care?
It’s easy to rail against the poor, but it is just as valid for me to ask: why should I pay for the health care of your aging middle class parents? They’re YOUR parents, YOU take care of them. Why should medicare be taken out of my pay check?
A more interesting analysis would be whether this whole scheme (or parts of it) is constitutional. Is this a valid exercise of Congressional power under the Commerce Clause? What do you think lurker? I figure that if a ruling like Gonzales v. Raich can stand, then maybe this is also constitutional.
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The True Intent of Health “Reform”
From Karl Denninger:
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1792-The-True-Intent-of-Health-Reform.html
Here’s how it will happen.
1.
Congress will pass and Obama will sign something containing this “individual mandate.”
2.
This will generate immediate lawsuits which will begin their way through the system, headed for the United States Supreme Court. That process will take several years. Note that the so-called “benefits” of this reform will also take several years to show up. This is not an accident.
3.
Meanwhile, the taxes begin immediately. This is exactly what happened in the 1930s by the way – taxes were raised right into the maw of an economic recession, and helped turn it into a Depression. Such it will be this time as well.
4.
Young, healthy people will pay the “fines” under protest and refuse to buy coverage (it’s cheaper than complying with a $15,000/year mandate to pay the $750/year fine!) and join said lawsuits in Step #2. This will in turn begin to force private companies out of the system (remember, there are also price controls in there!) as adverse selection will not be eliminated as promised.
5.
At some point the courts will strike the individual mandate. Free to not pay the fine or buy insurance and prevented from raising rates adverse selection will collapse the remaining private health insurers.
At this point you have:
1. Permanently higher taxes (since it is constitutional to tax!)
2. NO private health insurers left in the market.
3. The “standards and practices” remaining and impossible to remove (note the super-majority requirements in the bill – intentionally put there to prevent the removal of those standards and practices!)
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Roissy,
I completely sympathize with this post.
There is a group of IQ 130+ (mostly white) folks with above average insight who are well aware that the fundamental structure of the US is being altered. If trends continue (and there is no reason to think that they won’t) the population will shift from majority self-sufficient to (eventually) majority state-dependent. The consequences of this, as bleeding hearts will endeavor to”help” the new majority will be profound.
In the current climate, it is not possible to openly discuss the ramifications of these developments lest one be accused of racism. And though many whites are vaguely pissed that they are losing their majority status, the fact is that the IQ 130+ folks who truly “get” it are such a tiny piece of the populace… there is basically nothing that they can do. They see the see the iceberg right ahead but the captain refuses to hear them.
It is actually pretty depressing.
Even though Roissy is game-meister, he writes about the issues with superior clarity. He’s a smart and insightful guy, clearly smarter and more insightful than than 99% of the general pop, so he is burdened with an understanding of the consequences that are afoot.
Enjoy the violins my friend.
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police are not a necessary prerequisite to the right to life. the court system– the law — assumes the responsibility of meting punishment on a murderer.
where people are being murdered police are surely requisite to the right to life. where people are being killed in fires firemen are surely requisite to the right to life. etc.
[editor: why not guns for self defense? the point is that the right to life (a bit of a sketchy right in any case) does not depend on police for its existence. but a right to healthcare does depend on doctors and medical professionals for its existence.]
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Samois, to quote Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” Government isn’t productive and already entitlements consume more than we can pay. The bill, currently before the House, will make that worse and, on the way to ruin, our freedom and well-being will be destroyed as well.
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Cat Patrol says:
“Next on the Obama Agenda: Amnesty!”
This is true…and it’s good politics. Latinos are the fastest growing voting block in the United States. Making them happy with Dems and angry at the GOP before the election can make good things happen at the polls for the Democrats. It’s a no-brainer, politically speaking.
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OhioStater,
“On the surface it would seem this helps women, especially mothers without access to private healthcare, but I’m not so sure. Women generally don’t care about people they don’t know, and at some point women will put two and two together and say “I’m paying $20,000 a year in federal taxes to support kids I don’t know, when I can’t afford to put my kids through private school”.”
This bill validates the worldview of the feminist generation, which is that they are owed resources by men, and entitled. The feminist worldview is that women have options and men have obligations.
This bill is a move to Betatize America itself – making the producer class beholden to the “needs” of everybody else.
In that way, this bill is a massive victory for the entitled feminist class.
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Anonymous: I appreciate the more civil argument and I’m happy to engage.
You wrote: “Samois, to quote Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” Government isn’t productive and already entitlements consume more than we can pay. The bill, currently before the House, will make that worse and, on the way to ruin, our freedom and well-being will be destroyed as well.”
The premise of this is wrong unfortunately. The current estimates out of CBO are that the bill will save the government $128 Billion in the first decade – and much more in the second decade. CBO is not perfect, but it’s the best we have to project on this, so we’ll go with them. This bill does more to rein in spending on entitlements than any bill in the past 30 years. So in essence they’re fighting your “anti-entitlement” battle for you – even though I’m sure you probably don’t want to be on the same side.
Beyond that there is no public option in this bill. None. It’s not single payer. It’s not expanded Medicare. Billions more are going to flow into the private sector as a result of this legislation on the new exchanges. Those are just the facts.
Now I’m happy to argue the fact, but first we need to get them straight. All the fear mongering talk has confused the issue. So let’s get beyond that and into the real – where ugly lies perish.
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Samois? Is the pussy-faggot Samois still here? Doesn’t he have to go blow a minority?
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LOL! Chic’s strategy: first, make an incredibly dumb comment. Then, when called out on it, follow it up with something that is completely obvious and not at all in contention. You go girl!
Yes, I certainly get that employers can import cheaper labor. Have you alerted the media to your keen insight? Surely you deserve some credit for this paradigm shifting breakthrough.
Anyway, back to my point. Under the current system of cheating, First World employers get all of the benefits of operating in a First World society, but can then turn around and cheat by importing cheaper foreigners instead of hiring the citizens of the society that they are based in. Just import Pablo for the blue collar jobs and Apu for the white collar jobs. So much for the quid pro quo, or the social contract. Instead, just take the benefits of a society and then do your best to displace the citizens of that society. Seems reasonable to me!
One reason that this cannabalistic behavior is possible is that the worship of diversity provides cover for the business to, in effect, cheat. To violate the social contract with impunity.
Of course, with the breakdown of quid pro quo, the First World society won’t remain that way. All one has to do is look around to see the truth of that.
Then there are those who quite enjoy what is going on. There are certainly those that take pleasure in the swamping of the white population, right Chic?
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as a 3rd yr med student, i hope this bill somehow translates to doctors salaries gong through the roof. back in the early 60’s, most doctors thought that medciare/medicaid would destroy their salaries….but the opposite actually happened, and it turned into the beginning of doctors becoming ridiculously wealthy. the cha ching cha ching has faded over the past 17 yrs. Lets bring it back.
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@ freak show at 9:43 3/21
I read the article regarding the constitutional challenge to the health care bill. Even though the article disagrees, I think that this is something that would definitely fall under the Commerce Clause, even though a personal mandate seems intrusive, once an area is deemed to be a legitimate end under the commerce clause then the Supreme Court (even the Roberts Court) wouldn’t look too closely at the means.
I think the best way to overturn this bill would be the political process…or I guess we could take Lurker’s advice and jump straight to bloody civil war.
Lurker, care to take a break from your spat with Samois and enlighten us on this constitutional question?
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Some of my posts appear to not get posted.
I hope this is not a repeat.
A couple of things:
1) Yes, you can be a Libertarian without
living on a self-sufficient farm.
(Although, regardless of your personal
ideology, it might be the best place to live
if civilization collapses). As long as you work
for an employer/customer that hires you
voluntarilily, and, outside of defense work,
preferably an employer NOT the govt or
one using govt money.
2) As to getting the f*** out, try small jurisdictions
that COMPETE for expatriates. The Caribbean has many,
there is Switzerland, Lichtenstein and others. The main
catch is, typically you need to BRING YOUR OWN MONEY.
You will either have a hard time being allowed to work
off the local economy, or the local wages are coolie wages.
Sell assets (pension funds, houses, stocks, whatever).
Bring the stuff with you. Put in in gold kept ELSEWHERE,
not in the same jurisdiction. Find work you can do over the
internet. Writing software is a tough business, lots of
smart Indians compete at 10 bucks an hour, ditto Russians. Try consulting, or writing books/articles,
or something. (I already moonlight as a translator,
pays 20-40 bucks an hour, but is irregular, and I
do it beside my day job, can usually be done from
anywhere over the Net. And Indians do NOT write
my mother tongue well.)
Anyway, after the system collapses in the US,
when we re-start it, start with the old US Constitution
and the Bill of Rights. Think hard about what amendments
you want to re-enact. (State legislators appointing Senators was a great brake on galloping fedpower,
for example). And REMOVE all the mind-numbingly
stupid and/or evil interpretations of the Constitution.
And, above all, add a rule that there will be no
representaion withoug taxation. The tax eaters
should NOT be able to vote themselves benefits!
Thor
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Don’t you love liberals like Samois? “If we all just act women and don’t make me cry and treat my illogic as rational, why, we can have a good talk!”
Take your strap on off, faggot. You ain’t fooling anyone.
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lurker says:
“Samois? Is the pussy-faggot Samois still here? Doesn’t he have to go blow a minority?”
Thank you for ably demonstrating what you’re all about:
– idle threats
– homophobia
– racism
– hate
Why is it so difficult for you to rationally argue a point? Do you indeed have a brain? If so, try using the larger, non-reptilian parts.
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“If you’re a die hard capitalist and you aren’t willing to work for the same wages that someone in China is, don’t be surprised with your job is shipped over seas. Remember, capitalism has good and bad sides just like anything else.”
Actually, trade with China is not Free Trade based on capitalism. The Chinese government artificially lowers their currency vs the US dollar. In a true free market their currency would appreciate. Under a true free trade system we wouldn’t be having any dealings with China because of their currency manipulation.
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@ Carl
The problem with the democrats problem is that hispanics are not solid democrat voters.
Here in Texas many hispanics vote Republican whereas most hispanic groups shill for democrats.
I think the 2004 vote was 42-58% or something.
They see the writing on the wall. They know the democrats want to do for them just what they’ve done for the blacks: create a permanent servant class entirely dependent on a particular party for handouts of daily bread.
This is done through pandering. “English Second Language” classes where children receive sub par educations, etc.
Heck here in Texas immigrants can become company owners and wealthy through their own sweat and hard work. Many second and third generation Mexicans are Lower and Upper Middle class.
(Many immigrants also become destitute drunks, drug pushers, and bigamists through the evils of illegal immigration, people able to pay them below wage, cheat them, kidnap and rape them with impunity, but I won’t go into that here.)
Despite calls for immigration reform from American citizens loosing their jobs to illegals who were willing to work for below minimum wage Bush and Co. refused to implement any meaningful reform because they saw the political winds shifting. (It was also advantageous to many of their wealthy donors who relied on such a supple work force.) The Republicans need the growing hispanic vote as much the Democrats. The thing is the Republicans can’t advertise that because it will push away the hard working lower class white whose job is being taken by lower paid immigrants.
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lol. I love Samois: He’s getting his ass kicked all over the board, and then demands we play by a new set of faggot rules so he has another chance!
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There’s a reason repubs couldn’t come up with anything better. It’s the same reason this post was void of specific examples on how exactly this bill will “socialize 1/5 of the US economy.” THE BILL IS CENTRIST. These cries of socialism are delusional and misleading. When it all plays out, people will see that this bill didn’t really destroy America, Obama will look reasonable, and you chicken littles crying socialism will look like the fools. This drama queen baby attitude is killing conservatism, and that fucking sucks.
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I’m just back from a weekend in our nation’s capital: a sink of greed, malice and corruption so vile, so squalid it shrieks to high heaven for purification. I had to leave just as things were really heating up because my wet blanket of a companion was pleading exhaustion, but oh how I wish I could have stayed longer. I’ve been to tea party protests before, but nothing was like this. The rage, the barely controlled fury, was unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It must have been like this just before the storming of the Bastille. It was brilliant. Thrilling.
There was a moment when I stood in front of the Capitol, raised my arms, threw my head back, turned my face to the sun, and just let it all flow through me–the glory of it. I laughed and laughed and there were tears burning my eyes, and I know I must have looked completely mad; but everyone around me seemed to feel it too. Liberty or Death.
There was a time that in my snobbery, fanned by years of associating with smug, self-congratulating libertarians, I believed that Americans would be just as supine and unresisting in the face of tyranny as the Canadians or the Europeans have been. The “American sheeple,” as my libertarian friends would say, would run like lemmings off the cliff to ruin and only we, the elect, would be intelligent enough to see what was happening. How badly I misjudged them. How very badly Obama and the left have misjudged them.
My companion quickly exposed himself as a fraud. Nothing but an overeducated coward–all mouth and no heart, whining incessantly about Homeland Security and disbarment or some such drivel.
The protestors I met were from all over the country. All over. They came on planes and busses and cars and trucks–some finished work on Friday then drove all night to be there. I met grizzled old vets, families, men in tee shirts and baseball caps, women who probably shop at Wal-Mart and who don’t give a damn who mocks them. There wasn’t an intellectual among them. But when I started preaching anarcho-capitalism they had no trouble following me, oh no. Their eyes were glowing with excitement as I spun the dream of a nation without a state. They hit on all the counterarguments immediately, faster than any political science major I’ve ever met. I’m disgusted with myself for being so surprised.
This is it, you know, socialized medicine is the tipping point. You can’t come back from that. It fundamentally corrupts the character of a people, infantilizes them so completely, they become incapable of any independent action. They can’t take care of themselves. Even Britain. When I lived in London I was shocked at how bad things really were, even after all Margaret Thatcher had done.
Over there they like to sing “There’ll Always Be an England,” but the England they sing of is already lost: “May this fair land we love so well, In Dignity and freedom dwell, While worlds may change and go awry, Whilst there is still one voice to cry!—There’ll always be an England.” It’s too late, far too late. Not that they care, they are Hollow Men.
Obama and the gang will win in Congress, I don’t doubt, and they’ll think they’ve won it all. And maybe they will have. Maybe it’s futile to fight. But, yes, there will be a fight. The spark caught a year ago, and this final assault will fan it into a raging blaze. So I take my lesson from the Father of Seduction:
“What though the field be lost?
All is not lost—the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power
Who, from the terror of this arm, so late
Doubted his empire—that were low indeed;
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of Gods,
And this empyreal substance, cannot fail;
Since, through experience of this great event,
In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,
We may with more successful hope resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal war,
Irreconcilable to our grand Foe,
Who now triumphs, and in the excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven.”
This may be the way America as we know it ends, but there will be no whimper. No. We are NOT going out like that. When the end comes, it will come with a bang.
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Samois the pussy-faggot: ”
“- idle threats”
—said the boy who ran away, won’t post hsi address, and tried to “take the conversation down to civility” when he got threatened.
“- hate”
—riiight, the left never engages in hate. Castro, hitler, Chavez, Stalin, Mao—all peace loving hippies.
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@thor, thanks for ansering the libertarian question. As for the farm, from what i’ve read, it’s one of the reasons why when the Chinesse economy takes dips, the average person doesn’t suffer so much.
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“Don’t you love liberals like Samois? “If we all just act women and don’t make me cry and treat my illogic as rational, why, we can have a good talk!”
Take your strap on off, faggot. You ain’t fooling anyone.”
I know my cock is as big as a typical strap on, but I assure you it is real. Why are you looking at it though? Is that what gets you off?
Make me cry? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
I am offering you a chance though to actually discuss something like a rational human being. Something a real man should be capable of. It’s obviously out of no love for you, asshole. Rather a love of knowledge and Democracy. Two of the greatest things in this country.
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Samois, only if the premises in the bill are correct. Unfortunately, it can’t “save” money simply by saying that it does. Government spending will soar, paid for by printing money (which will destroy the value of the Dollar, ruin the government’s ability to borrow money and, once the biggest borrower in the U.S. financial system can’t support its debt, the U.S. financial system and our economic way of living will be broken too… far from being grist for rebuilding in some new, “just” society, we’ll have Zimbabwe). Calamity may not happen immediately, but withing fifteen years it definitely will.
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lurker, I asked you post your address and you pussied out. Go ahead and man up, fool!
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“lol. I love Samois: He’s getting his ass kicked all over the board, and then demands we play by a new set of faggot rules so he has another chance!”
Ass kicked? I’ve handled you clowns like Dolemite handles a whorehouse. To the point where it got boring.
So now I reframe. Express a rational, non hate-filled point, if you have one.
I won’t hold my breath.
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Samois the pussy-faggot:
“Make me cry? .”
–yep, that’s why you’re suddenly demanding civility; because being mean to you hurts your feelings.
“I am offering you a chance though to actually discuss something like a rational human being.”
—Liberals aren’t rational human beings; they’re dogs that need to be put down.
“Something a real man should be capable of.”
—you’re nothing but a stupid beast, faggot.
“It’s obviously out of no love for you, asshole. Rather a love of knowledge and Democracy.”
—word up, faggot: liberals hate knowledge and democracy. That’s why they ignore Castro, Hitler, Stalin, Chavez, Mao, and all of history, which shows that liberalism=totalitarianism and oppression.
You lose, pussy-faggot.
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“Historically, the most powerful empires have been very diverse ethnically, religiously, and racially. Think Roman Empire in its heyday (0-200 AD); Tang China; or the Mongol Empire. ”
These empires had zero racial diversity. Stop repeating slogans from your sociology teacher and think for yourself.
Its time for whitey to start thinking like other races. F*** the USA. Make money for yourselves and your family and vote your racial interests. Every other race does.
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“Unfortunately, it can’t “save” money simply by saying that it does.”
Again, Anon, the CBO says it. Not the Democrats.
The major savings come from restructuring Medicare, which they’ve not been too eager to advertise out of fear of scaring the shit out of old voters. There are major cuts in the subsidies to private insurers over Medicare.
Now this is not a cure all or anything. We’ll still be borrowing shitloads money, due to entitlement programs AND defense spending. And that’s something that needs to be addressed. No question. But it is the biggest reform and cost saver of an entitlement program, Medicare, in the past 30 years. Which I think you might agree, is something we need.
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“the CBO says it. Not the Democrats.”
—yawn. typical liberal lie. The Dems separated this and doc fix to hide the cost, and then magically projected estimates that are untenable.
You lie, liberal.
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Notice how when Samois gets insulting or just shuts up on a topic when you’ve hit a sore spot… it’s how liberals concede a point (nyah, nyah, I’m not listening– ignore it and it doesn’t exist).
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“Samois the pussy-faggot:
“Make me cry? .”
–yep, that’s why you’re suddenly demanding civility; because being mean to you hurts your feelings.
“I am offering you a chance though to actually discuss something like a rational human being.”
—Liberals aren’t rational human beings; they’re dogs that need to be put down.
“Something a real man should be capable of.”
—you’re nothing but a stupid beast, faggot.
“It’s obviously out of no love for you, asshole. Rather a love of knowledge and Democracy.”
—word up, faggot: liberals hate knowledge and democracy. That’s why they ignore Castro, Hitler, Stalin, Chavez, Mao, and all of history, which shows that liberalism=totalitarianism and oppression.
You lose, pussy-faggot.”
Thanks for making all my arguments for me. You’re truly a sad little piece of shit. Have fun in the living hell that is your life. I’m done with you.
By the way….Health Care just passed… 🙂
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Samois…come on pussy…. post your address….
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John Dickinson
“Let these truths be indelibly impressed on our minds – that we cannot be happy, without being free; that we cannot be free, without being secure in our property; that we cannot be secure in our property, if, without our consent, others may, as by right, take it away; that taxes imposed on us by parliament, do thus take it away”
22nd March 1765-21 March 2010
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pussy…oh pussy….where are you….lol faggot.
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Demo-rats have just hit 216 Yeas.
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What happened Anon? We were getting somewhere and I didn’t insult you once. You can do better than that, dude.
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Samois is hoping to be a commisar in the new order.
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I predict that, with the imposition of this totalitarian doctrine on the will of the people, violence will ensue.
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@ Kevin Robinson
Hey Kevin,
I’m sorry you don’t want to pay for that overweight smart guy to get healthy … I guess you’re okay with him dying and taking his 40 years of social investment with him. On pure investment figures alone, the guy is worth a lot of money. Don’t you work to save your investment from destruction?
I suggest you go to a hospital and have a walk around talking to patients and see what they have to say about how they got there. Sure, you’ll find the fat guy who had a heart attack but you’ll also find plenty of people there because shit happens.
@Scrutineer
Hi Scrutineer, thanks for the link.
I love the stats games you guys have got going but it’s not going to work. Yes, you can find one measure the US is doing better on and blow it up all you want but it’s a tiny drop compared to the rest of the failings. For example, a 99% survival rate means fuck all if only 1000 people got treatment compared to a 77% survival rate where 80,000 people got treatment.
You need to look deeper at what is going on. Is the low STI rate in a community because they don’t fuck around as much or is it because the doctors don’t systematically record and report it?
When you get cancer in Australia, you get treated, no matter what. When you get cancer in the US, your chance of being utterly fucked is high.
What about all those people who don’t get treated? Do they factor into those survival rates? I think if you included those denied treatment, those who run out of money and those partially treated but not given full paid treatment then the US 5-year survival rate would be very low.
I just don’t understand how you guys can read stories of normal hardworking Americans who are utterly fucked, driven into bankruptcy and then die due to your fucked healthcare system and not have your blood boil.
Some guy works his entire life, the epitome of what the US is about, gets a cancer but is denied treatment because his doctor wrote he had a headache three years go or some other bullshit. Now it doesn’t matter if this insurance agency is later sued and loses because the guy is dead and gone by then. You can’t fuck around with disease – there simply isn’t time to fight an insurance company when you need treatment right fucking now.
I don’t understand how you can see the insurance companies making massive political donations, utterly perverting the course of democracy and not want to string their executives up from the trees.
And to reframe, as I mentioned before: a person is a massive investment in money, time, effort. That 30 year old guy who would survive in Australia but die in the US is a big chunk of money walking around. All his effort, his ability to work and contribute, everything he means to his family and his children and his community for now and until he dies is gone. And it seems there are people who want to say “oh, he was ten kilos overweight so why the fuck should I pay for his heart surgery?”. Well … you’ll pay a few bucks because the load is spread across the whole tax base and he survives and continues to contribute and pay tax and raise happy children rather than fatherless sociopaths and is a net benefit to the country.
I’ve never seen a proposal from an anti-Universal Healthcare proponent that wasn’t somehow tied up with muttering about socialism, selfishness and deluded ideas about why poor people are poor, why uneducated people need help and why the hell should I pay anyway.
So reframe it as a business proposition: you’ve got a lot of uninsured wealth walking around that you can save if you just invest a tiny amount of money into it. Why not do it? Especially when it works all around the world.
Compare U.S. and European cancer survival rates:
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/08/5-yr-cancer-survival-rates-us-dominates.html
Tell us again how government health care is “brilliant” for cancer patients.
(“But like most Americans you only hear what is being said in your own country” <- priceless)
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How’s that? But, anyway, healthare-o-rama is going to break us. And some new “social justice” where everybody’s happy and the sun always shines won’t come out of it.
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Obama said he wanted to “remake America”. He wasn’t kidding.
————————————————————————–
Socialized Health Care
Amnesty (but no border wall to stop illegal immigration)
Cap-and-trade (biggest scam in history)
Educational DE-form that Collectivizes grades/punishment
Large Federal land grabs (to stop people from moving to
rural areas out west)
Biggest debts in world history
Continued outsourcing of jobs
Biggest wealth transfer from the middle class to wealthy in history in the form of Wall Street bailout
————————————————————————-
He is trying to get all this done before the November elections because everyone expects the Republicans to make gains in House and Senate seats. Obama doesn’t care how unpopular he might become, as new entitlements generally become permanent and difficult to rescind. He campaigned as a moderate, but has revealed himself to be quite leftist.
Obama is what the GOP gets for electioneering their primary to give their voters Juan McCain, whom the grassroots voting base didn’t like. The GOP will do it again if they have a chance. Look for it. They will get a Huckabee or some other religious-candidate to run and win some early midwestern primaries and split the vote so that the party hack can pick up enough delegats in winner-take-all-delegate count “moderate” states (that allow Democrats to vote in the GOP primary very shadily) like Rhode Island early on just like McCain did. The GOP isn’t called the “stupid party” for nothing.
—————————————————————————
On reframing the debates: I can think of several ways to reframe them, but the GOP leadership wouldn’t do it to save their lives. They might be useful for popular radio talk show hosts, but getting Lispy Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell to play to win is hoping for the Bad News Bears to beat the Yankees. They have no heart and aren’t really fiscally or culturally responsible. The GOP needs a purge, badly.
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The new Demo-rat motto: F*cking America Over for Our Pleasure! (Left/liberals feel good about themselves when they spend other people’s money for their own good.)
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if healthcare was a right, it is conceivable that it would be within the government’s power to force a select bunch of high IQ citizens to study medicine so that sick people aren’t deprived of this right.
are you saying states don’t heavily subsidize medical school costs? or that medical residencies aren’t entirely funded by Medicare? or that a vast majority of medical research is funded by the US federal government?
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@Scrutineer
Oops – sorry, I left in part of your response in my post. I pasted it so I could remember what you said while I wrote. So ignore everything after “around the world”.
cheers,
Mat
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Let’s get the government out of health care!
FIRST.
Let’s remove the AMA’s deathgrip on who can provide medical treatment. Prescriptions, basic stitches… and not so basic care either.
SECOND.
Let’s remove the Certificate of Need laws that prevent hospitals from facing competition.
THIRD.
Let’s go back to the 1800s where anyone could buy any drug they wanted over the counter. It fixed Portugal’s drug problem.
PREDICTION OF THE CHANCE OF DOCTORS AND HOSPITALS GIVING UP THEIR GOVERNMENT SINECURES:
0%
Oh, but you have such a high horse for the “government getting involved” do you? That’s kinda like Jeffery Dalmer complaining about being beaten up.
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Chic Noir, all of the material bullshitty trinkets you list (shoes, electronics, gadgets) are things that are largely marketed to and bought by women.
Women “work” in our modern society, but they still spend their earnings on crap. Women are much less likely as a group to invest, save, or be prudent with their income. The ONLY thing that women in the workplace has yielded is an increase in crass consumerism.
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You people really are ignoring the real problem. National health service is a great idea in principle…..But it’s ability to be cost effective and efficient is entirely dependant on who is using it. Halt immigration, Halt unproductive births and then you have your problem solved. It’s not the health service thats the problem here in britain, IT’S THE CITIZENS.
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Samois lost the argument, tried to turn on me, got bitch slapped, and ran away.
Now I’m going out to find a liberal at an NYC bar and kick his ass. Any joiners?
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Sloth
This bill only appears to be centrist. In fact, it gives the Federal Government absolute power to define health care benefits, the way providers are paid and how much, and to torture and kill anyone who gets in the way of the advancement of the plan. OK, they can only torture you until you die. Technically, they cannot actually kill you. Yet.
If you get into a dispute with an insurance company, it is purely a matter of civil law. If you get into a dispute(as a provider) with Medicare/Medicaid they can make it a criminal matter. In other words, they can have you arrested, dragged into Federal prison,etc. if you merely argue back at their concepts of right payment.
Listen carefully, kiddies. This bill provides increased access but decreased availability of care. No providers will actually want to see you if you have only Gov-Care and there is only so much they can do to hide it.
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Levi, you do understand what the word “force” means, right, dingbat?
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Wait, check that, if levi’s a liberal he can’t understand what a dictionary is.
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I’ll join you, lurker. Where we headed?
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“Rum
In most countries where there is “socialized medicine”, there is a thriving private sector that gets the work done more efficiently and without waiting. Australia is a good example. There, about 50% of elective surgery is done in private clinics.. Advocates of purely socialized care NEVER talk about this – the near universal need of people to find a way around the choking off of needed care. “
Yesterday afternoon my Kid got hit in the head with a cricket bat in Sydney.
I went to free clinic 1 – 1hr wait, it was filled to the brim with migrants(M’s) I was told by the M doctor that they couldn’t do the Op (a few stitches) and sent to (free) balmain hospital
I went to free Balmain hospital – 1.30mins wait, I was told by the M doctor that they wouldn’t do the Op because they recommended a Cat Scan and because the Cat Scan machine they have wasn’t designed for little kids
Went to childrens hosiptal – 4 hrs wieght all sorted in the end.
Australias health car system is a crumbling incompetent mess crippled with by M’s free-riding off the taxes of working people.
Riossy is dead right on this issue
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Pick a bar, Samois. The more liberal, the better. The more I get with the kitchen knife, the better the world will be.
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Lurker, are you really a T5 grad with a federal clerkship, who can’t find ANY job? Or do you just troll blog comment sections instead of look for work?
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Wait….I already know where you’re writing from, lurks. I hacked into WordPress and found your IP address. It’s from a gay bar on Christopher Street with free WiFi.
Sorry, I’m going to have to raincheck on this one. Nothing against your lifestyle or anything but I prefer to talk to some chicks to celebrate the new HCR legislation. I don’t think you’ll have much trouble finding a liberal over there though. Have fun!
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t-1000: yes and yes.
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“Letting drug and insurance companies make billions on the backs of millions”
The problem with the healthcare situation is everybody wants something done, but noone understands this bill…..
Under Obama’s plan the healthcare industry will make EVEN MORE BILLIONS!!!
Basically it doesn’t reduce the price of anything…it’s just the govt helps you out…
It’s not capitalism or socialism…it’s corporatism
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This is making me sad. I hope my dad or someone kicks soon and leaves me their money, so I can drop out of law school and pay off my fooking loans.
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who cares? everyday life is civil war. i thought that’s what this blog was about. if ev bio teaches one anything, it is that nothing is more natural than war. most men would happily kill most other men if they thought they could get away with it. patriotic crocodile tears are unbecoming. nobody gives a shit about their fellow man or their country, liberal or conservative. politics is all signalling, i.e., all Game.
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Note how Samois runs away. When challenged face to face, all liberals back down.
See you, pussy-faggot!
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Samois the pussy-faggot:
“It’s from a gay bar on Christopher Street with free WiFi. ”
How hypocritical, as he just accused me not a few posts above of that evil of liberal evils:
“-homophobia”
Game, set, match, faggot.
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TG writes:
“The problem with the healthcare situation is everybody wants something done, but noone understands this bill…..
Under Obama’s plan the healthcare industry will make EVEN MORE BILLIONS!!!
Basically it doesn’t reduce the price of anything…it’s just the govt helps you out…
It’s not capitalism or socialism…it’s corporatism”
This is sad but true. Unfortunately everything is corporatism these days. It’s the only game in town and when either party wants to push through legislation is must meet with K Street’s approval. I wish it weren’t the case, but it’s true.
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Regardless, we’re in for a political sh*tstorm coming-up. It’s not going to end well; one side or the other will be SEVERELY disappointed and that’ll mean trouble.
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I have no problem with your lifestyle, lurker. I wish you didn’t have a problem with it either. The closet can be a lonely place that leads to disturbing, violent thoughts…
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NiRo:
I read the article regarding the constitutional challenge to the health care bill. Even though the article disagrees, I think that this is something that would definitely fall under the Commerce Clause, even though a personal mandate seems intrusive, once an area is deemed to be a legitimate end under the commerce clause then the Supreme Court (even the Roberts Court) wouldn’t look too closely at the means.
i guess we’ll see how this plays out. i just don’t see how politics is separated from readings of the constitution. i think all of the supreme courts in recent memory have interpreted the law with a legal bent as well. the conservative 5 members of the supreme court will feel extreme pressure to interpret the law accordingly. i predict this bill will likely get ‘gutted’ just like campaign finance reform got ‘gutted.’
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t-1000 Chic Noir, all of the material bullshitty trinkets you list (shoes, electronics, gadgets) are things that are largely marketed to and bought by women.
Actually, I called both genders out on their BS.
BTW Electronics and gadgets are largely marketed to men.
*chic noir waves to comment whatever*
Howya doing hamdsome 🙂
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Chicks buy a bunch of useless crap and rack up consumer debt. They’re much more predisposed to be spendthrifts.
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So Samois, you agree that all faggots are violent sociopaths?
lol. You lose, liberal.
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no…but I agree you’re a waste of my time. good luck finding a job, loser. you’re going to need it with that fucking attitude.
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Lurker are you cheating on me now. Why are you flirting with Samois. Remember the good times we had. My sheep miss you.
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Chic Noir:
“BTW Electronics and gadgets are largely marketed to men.”
You’ll notice that the larger consumers of all that stuff are typically the men traditionally labelled as ‘nerds’.
I’ll leave you to connect the dots as to how they got there.
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Race is everything. Change the people, change the culture.
With dwindling ‘American’, i.e. white birth rates, the country will descend, irrversibly into something completely foreign then what our progenitors fought for two centuries ago.
Within the next few decades all will be on the line. Civilization, high-culture, art, science, space, ad infinitum will cease to exist on this planet if the children of the West do not fight for their existence. Tooth and nail.
From an old tale illustrating the tenacity and fervor of our people when faced with utter oblivion — “Forward, you sons of Hellas! Set your country free! Set free your sons, your wives, tombs of your ancestors, and temples of your gods. All is at stake : now fight!” —
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Chicks buy a bunch of useless crap and rack up consumer debt.
I’m going to say if this is true only slightly more so than men. Men waste money on big ticket iteams like fancy cars,boats, motorcycles, RVs and other crap.
They’re much more predisposed to be spendthrifts.
We save money but we are much more risk adverse than men are. WE aren’t willing to take big gambles. Will prefer sake moneymarket accounts to stocks.
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RMM, i think you’re right.
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He’s all yours zunder goingdownunder. Or all your sheep’s! Hopefully they can provide the love and woolly tenderness lurker failed to find in the society of women.
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In Australia the only 3 areas not touched by our “Universal Health care” system are
Dentistry – Costs have fallen slightly (adj for inflation) in last 30 years… Many improvements to patient care.
Cosmetic Surgury – Costs have halved in last 30 years… Many improvements to patient care.
Lazic – Costs have halved in last 8 years… Many improvements to patient care.
The answer is simple. Let the free market work = costs go down, availability and service go up
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[editor: why not guns for self defense? the point is that the right to life (a bit of a sketchy right in any case) does not depend on police for its existence. but a right to healthcare does depend on doctors and medical professionals for its existence.]
What if the right is to health not healthcare? This does not presuppose the existance of doctors, only equality of access to the goods that protect/encourage/promote health.
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Stud Dynamite:
My political maxim #1: freepers are to rich ruling class what manginas are to feminists.
Useful idiots, in other words? You might have a point. Hmmm….
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Samois,
Oh my little lurker gets like that sometimes. The next time I see him we’ll play a game of wool bandits.
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@The realist
Hmm. BNP?
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I should have added above that in those 3 areas the 1 single driver of the cost reduction and care improvements was American Exceptionalism.
The rest of the world has had pretty much a free ride of your (free market derived) healthcare innovations .
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Rum said:
“Listen carefully, kiddies. This bill provides increased access but decreased availability of care. No providers will actually want to see you if you have only Gov-Care and there is only so much they can do to hide it.”
Paying more for worse insurance that’ll buy reduced care (if we can get it). And, those folk who don’t have health insurance because they can’t afford it now, will have increased taxes (which affect EVERYONE, not just everybody but them) to pay for their “free” care.
The road to hell is paved with liberals’ intentions.
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Rum
I’d be a libertarian if that movement had any strong leadership in this country. I’m sure we’re on the same page on many critiques of the bill. Nuanced criticisms are good. I just object to the form of this post. It does nothing for political discourse. I come to this blog b/c I often appreciate roissy’s insight. However, this post is a prime example of someone who overestimates his own intelligence and inevitably worsens whatever it is he is trying to fix. When people worsen things I believe in, I get pissed.
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oh well, I wanted to key all the cars with Obama bumper stickers a while ago anyway
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Matthew Ferguson – “I love the stats games you guys have got going but it’s not going to work. Yes, you can find one measure the US is doing better on and blow it up all you want but it’s a tiny drop compared to the rest of the failings. For example, a 99% survival rate means fuck all if only 1000 people got treatment compared to a 77% survival rate where 80,000 people got treatment.”
The stats are for *all* people diagnosed with cancer.
You begin by lecturing Roissy that he needs to stop being so provincial and accept facts that contradict his prejudices. Then you proceed to demonstrate that your own prejudices are impervious to facts.
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What a bunch of whiny little bitches.
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I can’t believe that wretched tyrant Pelosi is 2nd in line to the President.
The arrogance of her marching with that gavel, as if to spit in the face of the people who aren’t supportive of this bill or her corrupt tactics to get it to pass.
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In Texas, feral hogs are un-protected game animals. They may be shot, stabbed, burned to death, rendered by chainsaw, even voted against…
O… bama. You are soo much like julius ceser.
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Take a page from the pickup artist’s manual. Stop playing by the enemy’s rules. Reframe, reframe, reframe.
Examples upon request.
Very True. Essentially what Mystery, Style and the others did .
1) They threw out their old lives (the ultimate reframe)
2) Developed new Identities (Peacocking)
3) Use many multiple attempts (sargeing, amogging etc) to ultimately Hack the system.(deep inner game)
My advise – delevop a cash generating (part time?) off the grid income earning system and build your retreat.
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What’s really interesting is Samois’ total lack of response to what I implied about his penis size and ability to perform auto-fellatio… from a Playin’ the Dozens perspective, that should’ve gotten at least a “F*ck you!” or “Ask your mama, she knows first-hand who sucks my dick!” for the purposes of saving face.
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Again, I am having trouble posting, sorry if some
of the below is a repeat.
@Samois
“But it is the biggest reform and cost saver of an entitlement program, Medicare, in the past 30 years. Which I think you might
agree, is something we need.”
Simple solution to Medicare: Make it into an MSA.
On reaching 65 (or maybe earlier) the govt sets up
an account from which you can draw to buy medical
care (including disaster insurance). The account should
contain all the money you and your employers put in,
plus cost of living increases, plus a modest interest.
If you die, it pays out any remainder, cash, to your
estate. N.B. Somebody argued – with some justification –
that some ethnics statistically die young, and collect
but little from Medicare. This reform would fix that too,
by paying off the estate.
Some technical fixes might be necessary, such as
working out marital rights in the MSA, and to
deal with people already on Medicare.
And, yes, as Comment_Whatever writes,
if we get the fedgov out of health care
altogether, costs will plunge, as they do for elective
surgery etc.
Thor
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Lurker, that’s some impressive fitness work that you’ve done. But is that roid rage that we are hearing?
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Who do you think pays when an uninsured person goes into the emergency room? Think before speaking.
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Every empire will fall. American Empire is not an exception to this! It was a nice streak, it had to end someday. Let’s see if the Chinese could do something better.
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” I am not prepared to share it with some dirty somalian and his 10 kids and 10 brothers and sisters who haven’t earnt a penny for our government. ”
One thing people don’t consider is that wealthy nations spends more income on “comfort services” that can only exist with a mass pool of cheap labor.
It seems like everyone in the US has lawn care services these days instead of mowing the lawn themselves. When I worked for the dept of homeland security, many people had maids…
As we consume more “comfort services” the more you need people from outside the country to fulfill these roles…
The more people you have in the country who are just getting by…and thus will use more govt services….
Lawncare/Maid services may seem cheaper, but you pay for it on the backend with higher taxes…
due to the fact that you have an immigrant population that needs those services because they don’t make a lot of money in the first place…
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Scrutineer, you are correct. Cancer survival rates are higher in the US than Europe, where a greater emphasis is placed on preventive medicine as opposed to end-of-life care.
The Europeans much spend less and their offspring are about half as likely to die during childbirth than white Americans: http://pqvarus.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/infant-mortality-and-race/
Unfortunately, Obongo-care at present isn’t anything like an actual NHS system. In fact, it seems unlikely that Roissy’s reframed reality will come true for at least another decade or so.
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“Why don’t you think healthcare is a right?”
If it is a “right”, from where does this right emanate? In the constitution? I don’t see it there. From God? That presumes everything believes there is a God (we don’t), or that our constitution allows for us to be governed according to one religion or another. No, we in fact have very few rights in this country, and healthcare isn’t one of them.
The many things that people are assert are their “rights” are, in actual fact, privileges. Some of them are nice privileges. But they are not “rights”.
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House Minority leader John Boehner’s alpha moment tonight. It get’s good at 1:00 but it fizzles out right after. I wish he kept that intensity. “Hell no you can’t!”
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“Proximity + diversity = war”
Not for portuguese former colonies.
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Oh come on, Roissy. You’ve never viewed America as anything but a host for your parasite Israel.
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On a side note…
I was in DC tonite…
Apparently Ringling Brothers beats animals…
who would have known?
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@Scrutineer
I think perhaps you might want to read that full study and think about what they did, how they did it and what conclusions they came to.
It doesn’t say anywhere in there that it is for *all* people diagnosed with cancer. They used a variety of sources, some dating back to the eighties.
They do not account for those who cannot afford to see a doctor, for example. They also do not discuss what methods patients enter the cancer registries, how this is recorded across the entire country, what happens to patients too poor to receive treatment and what happens to patients denied coverage.
They do discuss PSA testing and its positive effect on males in the US. Great, fantastic – testing works.
But this is what I was talking about: taking a tiny fragment and trying to pretend it is the entire picture.
The US is down low on so many healthcare measures it isn’t funny. And the US is high on other measures like medical bankruptcies, insurance court cases and infant mortality.
To point to ONE single paper on cancer rates is the same typical bs that has been going on over there for so long. How about you explain the infant mortality rate? How about the world health rankings? How about all those medical bankruptcies? You’re going to have trouble with comparative figures on that on – it doesn’t happen much in the countries with Universal Healthcare.
ONE study is not proof. It’s not a wealth of evidence. Yet on the side of Universal Healthcare is a wealth of evidence that you, Roissy and the US ignore.
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I’m surprised that no one has mentioned the real loser in the health care debate is both Canada (no longer a cheap outlet for healtcare south of the border) and Europe (no military muscle). Each already have socialized medicine and military protection provided by the United States due to WWII agreements or quirks of geography. In Europe, the only military worth a damn is Britain. In Canada, they are largely defended by their proximity to American military might.
How much do you want to bet that within five years….Hell….probably three years that their is a drastic reduction in military Spending?
That will essentially doom Europe because they have done no serious military buildup in 60 years, development or training of any kind outside of Britain combined with massive Islamic immigration.
If I were an Islamo-fascist I’d be dancing for joy because America has just relinquished its 50 plus years of commitment in the old country and ceded the desire to protect the western continent.
Corey
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I am so sick and tired of hearing about how everyone else’s healthcare system is soooo great. Ohhh Canada…Ohhh Australia…you’re so wonderful.
Tell you what…I propose the following changes to the American medical system:
1) Canadians are not allowed to buy medical services in the United States. They are expressly barred from such purchases under penalty of law.
2) All international sales of pharmaceutical products are done by consignment through the US government. The government is required by law to get 95% of the American retail price. The proceeds are distributed between pharmaceutical companies and the patients. Any attempt to reverse-engineer or violate the patents of these manufacturers will result in tariffs imposed on the offending country.
3) Export sales of medical devices and medical equipment are rationed to a fraction of current sales.
All of these “socialist” medical systems free-ride off of the United States while, at the same time, lecturing us about how superior they are. Let’s see how well they do without American medical innovations subsidizing their asses.
Let’s see what happens when some Canadian governor can’t buy his heart surgery in Miami.
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re: “House Minority leader John Boehner’s alpha moment tonight.”
Alpha is not screaming out to protest the fact that you’re a loser. That would be Gamma.
Alphas win.
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The real reason Boehner is so pissed about this bill is cuz it will put a 10% tax on tanning salons. He’s not an alpha he’s a fuckin’ whiney douche.
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To the idiots that think Australia or Finland is like the United States: get a clue! America is 66% White, and about 34% Black/Hispanic, with Blacks making up about 12.5% and Hispanics about 21.5%. This law will set off the mother of all racial spoils battles:
1. It provides winners and losers in Health Care based on Race. There is not enough money in the world cover all 303 million in the US now, with high standards. Winners and losers did not cease to exist — Whites merely are the ones screwed, paying for everyone else while being shunted to the back of the line. Blacks and Hispanics to the front of the line. That is what you get with a Black President.
The response to that is “White Socialism” with Whites combining to kick out all the illegals, and those who cannot prove citizenship, perhaps also Welfare recipients. Every White woman in America can get free bi-annual breast/ovarian cancer screening and first class treatment … if only you kick out all the illegals/welfare recipients.
2. The law requires racial quotas in Med School for Blacks and Hispanics. The only way to do that is by standards so low you end up with … Michael Jackson’s Doctor. I’d prefer not to die, just so my Doctor is Black. About 4% of all doctors are Black according to the AMA. That’s about the size of the Black Middle class (5% of the population). Deshaun, Keyshaun, and Jamiqua are not going to be qualified to be Doctors unless you change standards for them so that every Black Doctor has very low standards. Same for Jose and Juan in the Barrio.
3. The law has a federal takeover of student loans, with of course race-based decisions on who gets the limited amount of money (Blacks, Hispanics) and who does not get the money (White kids).
4. This law creates huge costs per employee and more taxes, its a law designed to ship jobs overseas to China! It will kill any nascent recovery.
Of course even with kicking out non-Whites, defense will have to cease to exist (to pay for all this stuff) and the US will be at the mercy of Iran, China, Russia, India, North Korea (nukes+ballistic missiles) and Pakistan (same). I’m sure that will work out well, its not like they’d nuke a defenseless USA and then demand surrender/tribute or anything.
———
Anyone thinking of ex-patriate life is deluding themselves. You’ll be:
A. WHITE (the one skin color anyone in the world is free to hate and discriminate against).
B. NOT A NATIVE (i.e part of the mestizo or what have you oligarchy) and therefore fair game, ask the folks in Dubai how that worked out.
C. Vulnerable to any Black or Hispanic or Asian native who wants what you have, and wants to take it, by force, without any of your own (relatives, family, friends) to back you up.
Begun, the ObamaCare wars they have.
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@Rodimus 903
You’re insane if you think a decline in military is coming any time soon.
The military industrial complex will find a war to fight…
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This one is more appropriate:
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The GOP’s Waterloo….. beautiful. )))
Appropriately sung by Abba.
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@ The Admiral
Do you have a blog? The reason I ask is that the link on your name is dead.
Chic Noir said: “Most blk men aren’t around to get a piece of the medicare and social security money so consider that a gift to you. blk men paid into something they aren’t around to use.”
This seems to be a myth – there is no gift. The Bush administration made this “gift” claim about Social Security (in a vain effort to win black support for privatization), but it was pretty soundly debunked. For example, one of the reasons for the difference in life expectancy is that many young black males are killed early in life. Sure, they never get Social Security or Medicare, but generally they paid little or nothing into the system (though undoubtedly most of them had sucked down huge amounts of social services dollars as a child, not to mention the enormous amount of education dollars wasted on them, medicaid dollars, etc).
The research found that blacks benefited disproportionately on things like survivors benefits and disability. Also, the Social Security formula favors low earners. Social Security may pay peanuts, but low earners get disproportionately more peanuts than they put in. I’m sure the research is still out there if you are interested in looking at it.
Point is, the research seemed pretty clear that blacks disproportionately benefit from these programs, despite a lower life expectancy.
It’s telling that the black political leadership supports these programs to the hilt. Would they do that if the programs were ripoffs for blacks, and “gifts” to whites? Not a chance.
Sure, they may support all sorts of programs that are arguably damaging to blacks, but they aren’t in the habit of supporting “gifts” to white folks at the expense of blacks. I’m not sure that they are the sharpest tools in the shed, but they aren’t that dumb – or fond of whitey. And even if they are wrong about that, which I doubt, certainly it is not the clear cut “gift” that you suggest.
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@TG. You forget one thing: technological innovation. This allows us robots. We have little to no need for humans. Just pray you’re part of the Singularity when it happens.
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“The Europeans much spend less and their offspring are about half as likely to die during childbirth than white Americans: http://pqvarus.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/infant-mortality-and-race/”
Sure. And they buy drugs at close to manufacturing costs, while US patients (directly or indirectly) pay for the expensive part, development of drugs.
And much of the mortality has to do with how to massage statistics. Really premature babies are not considered born alive in most European countries, wheras in the US Herculean efforts are made to try to save them. This pushes up infant mortality statistics.
The rest is life style, anything from obesity to gang warfare. Lifestyle makes a HUGE difference; Mormons
(NO, I am not one of them) live on average ten years longer then the rest of us, presumably due to
modest life style, little fat, no booze, no smoking, not even
coffee.
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As usual, Steyn said it best:
“Think of anything you expect to get in a timely manner – movie rentals, e-mails, vacation flights – and ask yourself whether you’d want the federal government running it. Well, now they are. Lotsa luck with that.”
I too hope that Samois and his ilk get run over by 9 blind guys driving Cadillacs.
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To echo another commenter:
Stop whining, and tell us about girls.
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I just don’t care about stuff like this anymore. I left the U.S. over 20 years ago and have no plans to go back.
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TG — the military is now dead. All resources like every other nation will be shifted to health care. We are at the mercy of whoever wants to nuke us.
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@Truther:
You are already 60% on the path to full socialized medicine. Veterans, Medicare and Medicaid compose 60% of all medical costs in the USA. Roll those programs into a single payer universal health care system. Problem solved.
Just look at the issues discussed already discussed here on this one post. Some people are not even disguising their racism. Surely an indicator of a healthy society is their attitude regarding their health care system. So yes, we in Canada are fat and happy with ours, as is Australia, France, Japan, and every other industrialized country.
I have already said, yes, the USA has the cream of the crop, the best surgeons and doctors in the world, provided you are rich and famous. If you are not, so sorry Jack, hit the road or sell your house. Blue Cross and Blue Shield has your nuts in a vise.
Nobody buys that freedom crap anymore. You don’t have capitalism, you have corporatism. Americans are nothing but slaves to giant corporations.
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yes let’s all follow these Mensans toward a brave new future in a libertarian State of Nature http://tv.gawker.com/5498533/tea-baggers-fail-health-care-reform-passes
please stick to your core competency Roissy : Game
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Black Flag, that was a great post to hear about your feelings in the capitol this weekend. I’m an American living in Europe and just woke up to see that this bill passed. My first reaction was a pain in my gut toward what this means. This reckless passage of more and more restrictive laws, regardless of any good intentions behind them, could doom freedom in our country and thereafter in other free countries such as in Europe who have benefited from US strength. I hope to see the bill challenged on constitutional grounds and as a side benefit to continue to arouse more Americans. Blogs such as this are great for their realism, and as a realist myself I always take advantage of current situations and political reality to my benefit. But I maintain certain ideals as well. I believe that a ‘oneitis’ for a great U.S.A. is still a good thing.
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@TG- I said drastic cuts are coming. Their is simply no logical way to pay for a modern military and have a 1st ranked comprehensive medical system.
Even before healthcare, the F-22 program has already been scrapped. If you think any government with socialized medicine is going to invest in new programs for military development, your nuts. There is no money for it.
It simply does not matter what you call “military industrial complex” fights for. The reality is they will be fighting for an ever smaller pie. Some companies may be forced to sell tech to other countries in order to remain solvent. Those tech sales will not be America and the equipment that defines the American military will be in American hands.
Corey
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keep ta- talk – talkin’ that blah, blah, blah…
really, roissy… i think everyone here agrees with you where this ship is headed. so the big question is what do we do about it? i’m thinking move to china.
btw – totally disagree w/ you here: “you have a perfect recipe for destroying a world-bestriding superpower in less than half a century without firing a single shot.” <– what about 9/11??
oh, and i'm BACK bitches. missed all you misogynists!!!! xoxo
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moderating comments now?? you know what they say…
all things in moderation, except moderation 🙂
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The world which we create by answering the question “how do we make life as equal as possible?” is radically different from the one created by answering the question “how do we make life as good as possible?” As many socialist nations have learned, making life equal for all often results in a worse life for all than that enjoyed by the poor in capitalist nations. This is as true for health care as for any other economic activity.
Canadians brag that nobody has to struggle to pay for cancer treatment in Canada, yet cancer survival rates are higher in America even for the poor. Would you rather live and have to deal with bill collectors? Or die and be buried with a piece of paper that says you were entitled?
Those who wish everyone was equal need to ask themselves what price they are willing to pay, and impose on everyone else, to make that happen. The U.S. is the medical innovator that the socialist nations of the world depend on for life saving discoveries. If America transitions to a completely socialist health care system it will slow medical innovation to a crawl. Perceived equality and “social justice” is worth exactly how many sick, suffering, and dead people who might have been spared if the market were designed for maximum efficiency and innovation?
It’s also prudent to remember that the world we create through sweeping laws is often radically different from the one we intended to create when making those laws. Did the authors of Social Security or Medicare anticipate skyrocketing costs or insolvency? Did those who created and expanded welfare anticipate that it would decimate the family unit in poor communities, leading to perpetual poverty and crime? Did the proponents of prohibition anticipate that it would lead to the popularity of hard liquor and the entrenchment of organized crime, ultimately aggravating all the problems they hoped to solve?
Only the truly naive believe that this health care bill will lower medical costs, lower the deficit, or insure 30 million more Americans. It will more likely lead to skyrocketing insurance premiums and plummeting service as insurers struggle to deal with new burdens and compliance costs, and ultimately their collapse as Americans rationally choose to abuse the no preexisting conditions requirement. The more conspiracy minded have suggested that this bill was designed to destroy private insurance from the beginning.
Given the history of the CBO it’s likely this bill will cost many times what it has been estimated to cost, while indirectly costing more Americans their jobs as companies shift production overseas. We cannot afford either. In fact, our debt burden is so dangerous already that the expense of this bill could lead to unintended consequences more dire than any supporter has imagined. The goal was to improve health care, but the result might ultimately be a debt default by the U.S. Such an event could lead to the unraveling of what’s left of the global economy which is, ironically, about the worst thing that could happen for everyone’s health across the globe.
For more unintended consequences, particularly as they relate to racial quotas, simply scroll up and read whiskey’s post.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. And right now capital hill is loaded with celebrating fools.
God help us all.
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“And they buy drugs at close to manufacturing costs”
In a capitalist economy this should be the norm should it not?
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Alas, the standard of discourse on this site has deteriorated severely because Roissy put up a political post. I preferred barbabbs to these twits.
The easy way to tell is that the political idiots have many unstated assumptions and make many unsupported statements, and then criticize other respondents, not for mistakes in reasoning, but for not accepting their unstated assumptions or ignoring their unsupported statements.
A tip for you losers: this blog is NOT a place for “talking points”. You’re on your own here, and if people disagree with you you really need to consider the possibility that they have good reasons for their opinions, instead of assuming you have nothing to learn and are here only to enlighten us by bestowing your wisdom.
Regarding the substance of the health care issue, all I have to say is that, however much the healthcare system in the USA needs improving (and it needs a lot of improving), the particular legislation that passed today is almost entirely a power-grabbing manuever with the object of permanently increasing the influence of federal officials and bureaucrats and rewarding and increasing the number of clients of the Democratic party. It is unprecedented for such a consequential bill to pass with the minority party 100% opposed. Unfortunately for the Democrats, most of the voters have figured out, or will have figured out by November, that the majority party would much rather improve their own position than fix the country. 2010 will be another 1994, to be followed by 2 years of gridlock.
Roissy, I agree with the earlier comment that this is not exactly a beta-fication of America. What we are seeing is a conspiracy of the top and the bottom against the middle; beta providers getting screwed ever more comprehensively by the entitled. If you just care about getting laid, that may actually get easier for those with natural or learned game, but both the overall livability of the society, and the quality of the people in it, are spiraling down fast.
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whiskey said:
“TG — the military is now dead. All resources like every other nation will be shifted to health care. We are at the mercy of whoever wants to nuke us.”
F*ck keeping my family and city from being blown up be terrorists or North Korea, I want free sex-change operations and boob jobs paid-for by obscenely high taxes while oldsters have to die on rationed care and junior gets mandatory “wellness” classes in school on gay sex techniques before he even understands how reproduction works! (Shame on you who voted Democrat.)
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“They do discuss PSA testing and its positive effect on males in the US. Great, fantastic – testing works.”
Not really. According to recent studies, simple over-under testing for PSA, which is the standard in the USA, has been much more effective at making cancer-free men impotent through unnecessary surgery than removing somebody’s cancer.
…to a ratio of (get ready for this) 47:1. Thus the PSA doesn’t affect life expectancy nearly at all.
Lest you think this is hyperbole, this commentary I read was written by the discoverer of the prostate-specific antigen itself. He notes that the PSA IS useful as a baseline test; if your PSA spikes you probably have cancer, but the simple “is your number over this threshold” method is stupid and non-specific.
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“You’re insane if you think a decline in military is coming any time soon.
The military industrial complex will find a war to fight…”
Actually, the M-I C has mastered the art of making themselves indispensable contractors to the government. It will be very easy for them to turn around their legal, lobbying, secretarial, IT and other departments to be a cog in the federal health machine.
They’ll just have to get rid of the ex-soldiers, engineers and analysts (you know, the people that actually make their business have any value in the market) and replace them with doctors, actuaries and claims adjusters.
If it REALLY became a national imperative for the Pentagon to cut its budget by a double digit percentage, many of its contractors would find new government business without too much trouble. The people who wore a uniform would be existentially screwed, though – sort of like how lawyers are hosed in this economy.
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““And they buy drugs at close to manufacturing costs”
In a capitalist economy this should be the norm should it not?”
You have to amortize fixed costs across the lifetime of the product, so no, it can’t just be close to manufacturing costs. In the case of drugs, the fixed costs are not just the cost of developing that drug, but of developing all the other drugs that failed to work.
The whole “buy imported drugs” thing (which is actually banned in the bill, I believe) is a huge scam…drugs are price-controlled in other countries, which drives UP the stateside price because they have to make up for the price control in a more free market.
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“James
To echo another commenter:
Stop whining, and tell us about girls.”
Dude, you don’t have to agree with Roissy or anybody else.
But if you just, like, don’t want to talk about existentially world-changing stuff because you’d rather just hear about getting laid, brah…
…then you’re an idiot.
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ways this law can be killed in the future:
1) it is overturned on constitutional grounds by a supreme court with a conservative majority. this article more clearly details what is in store for the law’s political supporters in the federal courts:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/19/AR2010031901470.html
2) the reps push for elimination of the filibuster. they argue the point biden was making that it is unconstitutional to hold future congresses to rules established by previous congresses. the main objection to this by conservatives at this point might be that such a procedural change would also affect supreme court picks, not just laws. so, the reps might not want to go there…
3) perhaps someone more familiar with the law can elucidate the legality of this idea: why can’t the reps (assuming they come into power in both houses and the presidency), simply do reconciliation on any random bill the senate signs off on and add all the stuff to repeal this health reform law in the process? i understand that this will set off a level of partisanship in america that might be utterly invidious.
so, my guess is that the easiest route will be to let the roberts supreme court do the job. the wapo article above delineates the legal challenges awaiting this bill. as long as there is a possible argument on constitutional grounds, this supreme court might find a reason to ‘gut’ the law. politics has always influenced these decisions. this is no different.
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Close to three hundred comments so far and no one has written the three letter word beginning with j and ending in w.
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btw, i think the real reason for a lot of this socialization is not just changing demographics but the women suffragist movement. john lott of the washington times has closely examined this issue:
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~iversen/PDFfiles/LottKenny.pdf
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lurker,
You have inadvertently stated exactly why you need to be in the military. The military needs normal, independent people (especially as officers) more than any other institution anywhere. Every totalitarian in the world lives in terror of the day he has to order his soldiers to shoot their brothers and sisters in the angry crowd. Just ask Ceausescu or Milosevic what often happens. Also look at Turkey or Pakistan, where the army serves as a secular check on the wild political (Islamist) mood swings of the populace.
Sorry it took me so long to reply.
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Topher
Topher, you’ve swallowed big pharmas argument in one gulp, without even chewing.
Big pharma makes huge profits, well over and above the R&D costs. It could afford lower prices while maintaining R&D at current levels while still staying profitable.
The reason drug costs are high in the US is due to lobbying. Some other countries are following this corrupt system.
The U.S. goverment through the FDA is in collusion with big pharma to keep drug costs high. They profit obscenely from pharma, and pharma hires government employees into top positions and lobbies obscenely. Its as corrupt as corrupt can be.
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Aw cute Americans arguing over whether to give people medicine or not.
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I should also mention that the FDA/pharma collusion keeps out the small players, through prohibitively high regulatory costs. Its anti competitive to the extreme, to the point where some effective drugs can’t make it through the system, because the system is stacked against the free market.
This isn’t paranoia, it’s common knowledge.
This system you defend is a meme you inhaled from your environment. You got religion without even knowing it. You are infected with a toxic meme.
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NIro: “Lurker, care to take a break from your spat with Samois and enlighten us on this constitutional question?”
—its really all about the composition of the Supreme Court when it comes up. Sad to say, but objective truth doesn’t have much place in the legal world.
I’m a legal realist; after 2 full Con Law courses and 3 years of reading cases from all over the US and doing internships, as well as observing court cases as a clerk for a year and doing legal research in private practice, I’m well versed in court decisions in the U.S.
And, unfortunately, the US court system is really shaped by who’s in charge.
Most judges, far from being impartial nonpols, are thoroughly invested in politics. As such, they are willing to sacrifice even their own logic to see their ideals come to pass.
There have been few instances in US history where a powerful judge truly attempted impartiality in his decision-making process, and was willing to see his political desires go down if the Constitution blocked them. Learned Hand, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Clarence Thomas are the only three that really exist in history.
All the others—whether very liberal or very conservative, will bend over backwards to have politics made. Scalia, for example, can’t bring himself to overturn Administrative Law, despite originalism dictating it as such—mainly because Scalia was a famous Administrative Law professor. Lawrence v. Texas, probably the worst decision since Roe v. Wade, will haunt liberals someday despite being a liberal decision, as basically the Supreme Court stated that states couldn’t regulate how people interact (the case declared that states couldn’t outlaw homosexuality).
Thomas, on the other hand, is perfectly willing to overturn Brown v. Board and all the New Deal programs that supposedly benefited blacks, precisely because his stone cold logic dictates they are antithetical to the Constitution. He doesn’t believe that the Supreme Court should engage in changing the way the world works simply because lying about the Constitution is “in the best of spirits and intentions.”
So really, it depends on whether there are 5 justices who hate Obamacare versus 5 who love it.
Now, speaking as a pure logical person who thought the Constitution would never burn as it did today, I can say that parts of Obamacare maybe constitutional, and parts are clearly unConstitutional.
The mandate is unconstitutional—it is merely slavery by another name. The government forcing insurance companies to provide care to anyone the government wants is unconstitutional—it is both slavery and a takings under the takings clause.
Much of the redistributive policy and business control is only constitutional if you believe that somehow—despite the commerce clause being very restrictive when the founders enacted it—magically the New Deal expanded it without any amendment. Which, as anyone with half a brain can see, is pure horseshit, but liberals threatened and lied their way into browbeating the Court into upholding them.
So really, its a crap shoot, and lets not forget the movie The Pelican Brief: liberals will surely resort to assassination should it become likely that the Supreme Court makeup just before it hears an Obamacare case is hostile to Obamacare.
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“chrisis
Aw cute Americans arguing over whether to give people medicine or not.”
—aw, cute, communists free-riding off our country’s research upset that we don’t steal all the wealth from white people and give it to black people yet.
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And for the socialist commenters, you have realize that racism is not a dirty word for everyone. Some people would love to feel as part of something bigger than themselves, to give to society and support the group cause, but feel this is naive and they can’t behave this way, because some segments of society are leeches who live lifestyles they don’t want to support. And this segment is racially definable. There is a clear us/them divide that won’t disappear because the world would be a sweeter place without boundaries.
People are naturally inclined to take care of their family and tribe first. Then their village, then city, then country, then perhaps the world. But if your families needs are in conflict with your neighbours families needs, your family comes first. Its no longer about the tribe. So national health care is going to go against the best interests of the hardest working and richest in the nation. And the socialist versus individualist interests fall rather neatly into races, just now. The browns tend to lean socialist, as it tends to be in their interest to do so. The upper class whites lean individualist, while only the super upper class whites with nothing to lose lean back into socialist, as its again in their best interest.
So don’t talk about people being “openly racist”. Of course people are openly racist? Why the hell not? People are taking care of their interests.
I lived in a Phillippine getto for a time. Babies were crying for lack of food. My girlfriends extended family had kids who couldn’t afford to go to school, and couldn’t even always afford rice.
What was I supposed to do? Take care of their family also? The fathers were using food money for drugs and alcohol, and lazing around all day. The city, the island, the country was full full full of these people. How many could I help?
I eventually stopped the free lunches, and took care of my own.
I get it that people don’t feel warm and cuddly to the nation, as if it’s a big family. Its not.
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19A, in the immediate future, the armed forces will only be used to attack those who would destroy the illegitimate Obama government.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Especially since we’ll soon be turning the military on our own who dare protest the scumbag-in-chief.
I can’t in good conscious defend this country. What is more, if every soldier who understands logic and freedom laid down their arms, this country would dissolve, since there would be no soldiers left to enforce Obama’s totalitarian aims.
The best thing we can do is not feed the beast. Entropy and chaos will do the rest.
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[…] says it best: If an alien race ill-disposed to America were to devise a plan to bring the US to her knees as […]
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How is it against the interests of the wealthy or :: cough :: hardest working, to prevent revolution?
Let’s be real here.
If I’m rich, and my neighbors aren’t, and I press them hard enough, they’re going to try to take what I have. If not enough of my neighbors are on my side, those who want to rob me are going to succeed.
What some of you are having trouble realizing is that not all working people have health insurance. A great many who do, don’t have reasonable coverage.
If you’re okay with being surrounded by a bunch of unimmunized, diseased people who feel they have nothing to lose, then that’s you…but I’m not okay with that.
There’s a minimum standard of living that is required to keep people from becoming pretty savage. It is in your interest to ensure that others around you are getting their basic needs met…especially if you depend on them to work for you.
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I can assure you the military could not be used like that. One has only to look at the demographics of the all-volunteer army to know what I’m talking about. The combat-arms units (with the most and biggest guns) are full of rural white people…exactly the type of people who would walk away (with their weapons) when given an order like that. Think long term and worst-case. History is full or turning points when weapons = power = freedom for whoever has them, no matter how they got them or who they work for. I think you were ignoring my point.
Also, keep in mind this is a health-care micromanagement bill, not a communist revolution. It’s effect will be to make our country a weak, European nanny state. That’s it. But I agree it’s yet another big step towards our eventual downfall.
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The Realist – re http://roissy.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/exporting-democracy-importing-socialism/#comment-161197
“Improving Quality of Life” in this case means
a) Changing a 50% death rate to less than 3%
b) Changing an 80% disability rate to 10%. Instead of being constant drains on the public purse, they become taxpayers, adding to the state’s coffers. The investment (and no way is it near $100,000 – try $20,000) – pays off in a few years.
Think about it – a $15,000/year disability pension becomes a $10,000/year tax payment instead.
In the long term it may cost though, as such people are far more likely to live to old age, and the costs of geriatric care are huge.
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””””””Rum
Jacko
Canada has more firearms per capita than the USA???
””””””””
Last I checked 7 or 8 years ago the canadians were going house to house taking even antique firearms they were so scared of people having them before they started importing immigrants enmasse.
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My desire to expat is even greater now.
The supporters of this bill deserve the consequences, but productive citizens deserve their freedom.
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Dam another one bites the dust job wise.
””””’Lurker
A score of 300 translates into 20 pullups, 200 crunches in 2 minutes, and running 3 miles in 18 minutes. Recently, I hit the 300 plateau, and was elated. I began pumping iron to push myself past the plateau and become a force for my nation.”””
Nice my highest was 296 should of had 300 but they lengthened the track after I ran it in 10 minutes (2mile).
If it is your dream do it for you as you can’t go back again later quite so easily plus you will get to learn just how shity it is he he he
but probably have some fun too.
Don’t have to do it for patriatism but just so you will never have to wonder what it would have been like you will know what it was like and that you did do it for personal satisfaction. Just like when I read the vietnam books and dudes talking about doing 3 tours was a big deal well I did 5 tours straight through so proved myself to myself of what I was capable. After a while it wasn’t for patriatism but for my satisfaction of proving I could do it.
”””’Topher
gunslinger,
There is an option, but the window is closing soon…get to another country that’s poor, small or out of the way. Cash in your savings and the benefits of being American while it’s still good, and live like a king in another society. Some places might be a step down in the almanac but are good about protecting their wealthy expatriates.
”””””””
Already did it not in us now. he he he
Don’t only talk the talk
I walk the walk.
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Anyone else notice a trend don’t see brothers or woman coming on here who don’t have jobs it is the white boys. Dang. Whitemancession. Work save money retire. Only takes around a hundred g’s or so to live decent.
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””’I can’t in good conscious defend this country. What is more, if every soldier who understands logic and freedom laid down their arms, this country would dissolve, since there would be no soldiers left to enforce Obama’s totalitarian aims.””””
Plus you will gain valuable insight into how it works so if you ever have to fight it you will know how. I could probably take out 60 percent of the armies vehicles with 30 men and 10 gasoline trucks on a night creep.
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Socialism?
THe private sector is still going to be the supplier and administrator of your healthcare.
You are going to benefit by these key ways:
-cannot be denied coverage b/c you get sick or b/c you have a pre-existing condition.
-will not lose your insurance if you lose your job. or change jobs
-controls costs in part by spreading out risk btw healthy and sick (same as auto insurance)
Besides, this will allow people to be self-employed entrepreneurs and still have option to buy affordable health insurance.
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Everywhere you look, this legislation is a house of horrors.
Beyond the immorality of the creation of the granddaddy of entitlements, we have the specter of the brand-new concept of applying Medicare taxes to investment income. Bigtime job killer. We make money, we pay income taxes on our wages, and invest our after-tax income in a corporation. If they make a profit, they pay corporate income taxes. With their after-tax income, they distribute dividends, which will now be taxed to individual investors as ordinary income(few nations do this, btw). And now, an additional, brand-new motherfucking medicare tax will be layered on top of it all. Put it all together, and we have the highest taxes on business income in the world.
And, the new income tax surtax on higher-income beta males, pushing the top marginal rate higher still. And, of course, the sop to the higher education racket. And the massive new creation of federal employees to run the new healthcare racket, which creates just one more great big dependency class.
Farewell, capitalism. Hello, poverty.
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Lest me forget, the new law makes high-deductible health insurance policies…ILLEGAL. You read that right, illegal. Those of us that choose such policies so as to slash our premiume costs will no longer be able to do so. In fucking America.
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haha
So much more Alpha to bend yourself over, drop your pants & asked to be fucked in the arse for private health care.
silly, silly Americans
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I feel a bit of pity for the dumbasses who are so ignorant of contemporary reality that they can equate the US with Canada or Australia.
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gunsslinger-
kudos left the US myself 10 years ago ..living in Brazil..went back to Miami recently for a spell ..all the negatives of the 3rd world with none of the benefits..
$100 grand kind of tight ..I recomend a bit more if possible..
lurker – I could understand your mindset completely best revenge is go GALT ..but totally ..I use my intellect and ability for my own ..I dont take 2 ounces of shit from anyone… but ..never ever show them your anger..you get killed like Sonny in the Godfather.. Good luck to you bro ..you’ll come thru
Blackflag washington story !!! powerfully written ..you have a talent ..get a blog!!
Samois – you are deluded and lost imo ..I think anyone with any combination of intelligence and experience realises that these grandious govt schemes ..NEVER.. (live in Russia Ukraine Venezuala Cuba and experience it) come to fruition.. and whats worse is you actually think logic would dictate your postion ..it doesnt …
xsplat – damn enjoy your riffs when you go off- learn alot and great perspective ..
roissy – thanks love the blog – great post ..
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For those who follow politics closely (as I do), the passage of this bill isn’t remotely the last word on the matter.
There are going to be waves of challenges. The constitutionality of the bill will be tested, and if needed, a constitutional amendment to repeal the bill will go forward.
This isn’t the end, it’s just the beginning of the fight. And it will be a hell of a fight.
Alphas fight. Betas go along with the rest of polite society.
European fools don’t realize they’re free riders on our prescription drug innovations. That tap will be shut off if the US government gets its tentacles into healthcare.
And if the US pulls its troops out of Europe because it can no longer afford to pay for their presence, Europe will be left defenseless and have two choices: become a vassal territory of Russia or start spending on defense.
It’s a whole lot easier to speak nobly of how the poor should have health insurance when big daddy America subsidizes your needs.
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chrisis: “Aw cute Americans arguing over whether to give people medicine or not.”
There is so much stupidity on this thread that it’s not worth trying to refute it all, but I’ll take chrisis on just to make a more general point.
Dude, there is a difference between “X should happen” and “the national government should do X”. Failure to recognize this distinction is what leads to deadly amounts of statism. In the USA, we have been particularly well equipped to resist making government everybody’s mommy and daddy because of our federal system, but the cultural drift has been pushing us in that direction for a lifetime. The biggest pathology American liberals exhibit (thought they have many others) is an inability to tell the difference between the state and the society. Their distinguishing mark is worship of the federal government, as evidenced by a refusal ever to consider any other way of tackling a societal problem.
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[editor: let’s speculate a scenario where not one citizen chose to go to medical school to learn how to become a doctor. if healthcare was a right, it is conceivable that it would be within the government’s power to force a select bunch of high IQ citizens to study medicine so that sick people aren’t deprived of this right. no, healthcare is not a right, it is a service good. a service good that rests entirely on the willingness of some people to study medicine and to be remunerated commensurately.]
This sort of speculation is totally useless. The odds of the world ending in nuclear winter are more than those of not one person choosing to become a doctor.
Furthermore, this socialist stuff that you mention *does* actually take some of the money away from the fat, rich, lazy, TV-watching, crisp-eating, beer-guzzling, ill-mannered, sloppy betas who feel entitled to healthcare just ’cause they’re born into a rich family, and redirects it to some poor, but honest, hard-working, and handsome alphas so that they can get a couple of good-looking girls before they die.
Reframe.
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[…] Ulysses is sad. Even Roissy – er, Citizen Renegade – seems a bit sad. Professor Boudreaux wants to vomit. The […]
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“A plan to drain the nation’s coffers and psyche — not to mention the good will of her allies — with half-cocked schemes to export democracy to shitholes around the world that are constitutionally incapable or unwilling to embrace democracy, coupled with a zeal for importing vast numbers of ethnically (and genetically) antagonistic and listless peasant stock who will vote 2 to 1, generation after generation regardless of the desperate political pandering to staunch it..”
I don’t wish to mention Hitler, ’cause that is supposed to be the ultimate failure of debate over the web. But seriously. Think about how this sort of thinking went for him. Ended up topping himself in a dark basement with a couple of other Nazis for company while the world bayed for his blood.
You may ethnically hate some races. Fine. Doesn’t mean *all* of them who come to this country are brainless peasants. In fact, a lot of them are more intelligent and hardworking than a lot of fat American slobs.
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@beta_disciple
“Furthermore, this socialist stuff that you mention *does* actually take some of the money away from the fat, rich, lazy, TV-watching, crisp-eating, beer-guzzling, ill-mannered, sloppy betas who feel entitled to healthcare just ’cause they’re born into a rich family, and redirects it to some poor, but honest, hard-working, and handsome alphas so that they can get a couple of good-looking girls before they die.”
One of the “problems” in the US (and elsewhere) is
precisely that the type of mindless beta (and not
just in the womanizing sense, actually, more like
an omega) that you descirbe above is a VERY
endangered species – typically assembly line
workers being paid WAY over any kind of market
wage due to union fascism.
Unless you are born rich, you can no longer become
rich or even afford much of the above if you have a
“beer-guzzling” attitude. You must have overdosed
on the “Lardburgers” or whatever the UK show
was called, showing Americans as blithering idiots.
Well maybe many are, but no worse than the average
UK citizen.
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“-controls costs in part by spreading out risk btw healthy and sick (same as auto insurance)”
I don’t see how that controls cost. It averages cost, which will be good or bad, depending on the individual.
I’m not much of a believer in health insurance in any case. It’s quite costly, and is designed to be a gamble. Most likely I’ll be throwing my money away, money better invested for troubled times.
And besides, health care is available at lower costs if you source your drugs and surgeries overseas. It’s possible to manage your own insurance system in a way that financially more prudent and with a better risk/benefit ratio than US health insurance.
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xxxxxxx
@popeye Doyle:
“You are going to benefit by these key ways:
-cannot be denied coverage b/c you get sick or b/c you have a pre-existing condition.”
Most people are covered in group plans through their employers.
A reasonable fix would have been to make med ins payments tax deductible
for everybody, not just employers, and changing the system so that you carry your
insurance with you. An important fix that would solve most problems. But, no,
that would not have transformed the country. And it is a fantasy that people
get cancelled because they “get sick”.
“-will not lose your insurance if you lose your job. or change jobs”
Cobra already takes care of that, thezedayz, you only have to pay a third and keep
coverage for at least 18, sometimes 36 months.
“-controls costs in part by spreading out risk btw healthy and sick (same as auto insurance)”
This is grossly unfair. And Auto insurance does the exact opposite, your insurance rate
is carefully calibrated based on where you live, the car you drive AND YOUR DRIVING RECORD!
“Besides, this will allow people to be self-employed
entrepreneurs and still have option to buy affordable health insurance.”
This is important. See above about portability, a minor fix we could have got.
As to pharma, it is true that the industry
needs to amortize their development costs.
It is also true that those costs, due to
FDA hurdles, are needlessly high. It is
also true that PRECISELY because most people
do not pay for drugs out of their own pockets
directly, drug costs have soared. When
Medicare was changed to include drugs,
many drugs increased 40% in price.
For some interesting reading, see the Pericolosi
sausage factory:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703775504575136133814210008.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
@xlpat
No, the nation is NOT a family, you are quite right. But we
are being propagandized to think that, see “Uncle Sam”,
“Mother England”, “Der Vaterland” etc at fake nauseam.
@trainspotter
You are right about Social Security, it is a crooked scheme.
I have been paying in at or near the maximum for decades.
A simple spreadsheet, using my and my employers’
contributions, assuming they had gone into the Dow Jones
average at the end of each year, and assuming an averge
dividend payment of 2%, would produce, today, despite
the 2008 meltdown, a kitty of over a million bucks.
Let’s assume that the after-tax contributions paid
direcly by me had been invested in a Roth IRA. Let’s
assume the rest in regular IRA. I would have over
half a million in tax-free funds, the other half taxable.
If I retired at age 65 and lived to be 100, I would NOT
get my money back with interest. No way.
So the whole scheme has been a lousy deal, for me.
Hillary says “everybody loves Social Security”. BS,
just give me my money back, and I will quietly go away.
And fund my MSA with my Medicare payments, that would be about 300 000. I would spend part to buy disaster insurance.
As to expatriating, some places ARE white, such as
Switzerland/Lichtenstein. In others, in the Caribbean
for example, the trick is to be worth more alive than
dead to the locals. Keep your money (preferably as gold)
in a jurisdiction OTHER than the one where you live.
They could kill you, but they would not want to, you are the golden goose.
I left a country partly because of its lefty politics, at least once,
arguably several times, decades ago. I ended up in the US.
I can do it again, leaving the US.
For some details, read e.g. “The Sovereign Individual”,
by James Dale Davidson and William Reese-Mogg, pub ca 1998.
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And a lot of people are finding that working in tandem with their doctors and their own research works better in terms of diagnosis and treatment. Trusting your doc is not the way to go for any illness, especially serious illnesses. It is unlikely that a doctor will find time to practice and keep up with all the latest research – even in a specialty field. The internet combined with the testing resources of your local hospital allows for a much more informed diagnosis and treatment plan than you’ll find in your doctors office.
Combine that with sourcing drugs directly from overseas manufacturers, and hire nurses to administer your drugs, and you’ve slashed by orders of magnitude your health care costs, while increasing your health care quality.
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The right to health care is as palpably real as the Easter Bunny.
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@xsplat: fuck you, dude.
@sheepfucker: Good to have you back, sheepfucker! How’s the pussy nation known as New Zealand doing? Still as pathetic a backwater as ever I see.
@samois: so where’s your address, pussy? I double dog dared you. According to your liberal playground rules, that’s untouchable.
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xx
@popeye Doyle:
“You are going to benefit by these key ways:
-cannot be denied coverage b/c you get sick or b/c you have a pre-existing condition.”
Most people are covered in group plans through their employers.
A reasonable fix would have been to make med ins payments tax deductible
for everybody, not just employers, and changing the system so that you carry your
insurance with you. An important fix that would solve most problems. But, no,
that would not have transformed the country. And it is a fantasy that people
get cancelled because they “get sick”.
“-will not lose your insurance if you lose your job. or change jobs”
Cobra already takes care of that, thezedayz, you only have to pay a third and keep
coverage for at least 18, sometimes 36 months.
“-controls costs in part by spreading out risk btw healthy and sick (same as auto insurance)”
This is grossly unfair. And Auto insurance does the exact opposite, your insurance rate
is carefully calibrated based on where you live, the car you drive AND YOUR DRIVING RECORD!
“Besides, this will allow people to be self-employed
entrepreneurs and still have option to buy affordable health insurance.”
This is important. See above about portability, a minor fix we could have got.
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Apparently, large posts get lost, so I chop into pieces.
As to pharma, it is true that the industry
needs to amortize their development costs.
It is also true that those costs, due to
FDA hurdles, are needlessly high. It is
also true that PRECISELY because most people
do not pay for drugs out of their own pockets
directly, drug costs have soared. When
Medicare was changed to include drugs,
many drugs increased 40% in price.
For some interesting reading, see the Pericolosi
sausage factory:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703775504575136133814210008.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
@xlpat
No, the nation is NOT a family, you are quite right. But we
are being propagandized to think that, see “Uncle Sam”,
“Mother England”, “Der Vaterland” etc at fake nauseam.
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@trainspotter
You are right about Social Security, it is a crooked scheme.
I have been paying in at or near the maximum for decades.
A simple spreadsheet, using my and my employers’
contributions, assuming they had gone into the Dow Jones
average at the end of each year, and assuming an averge
dividend payment of 2%, would produce, today, despite
the 2008 meltdown, a kitty of over a million bucks.
Let’s assume that the after-tax contributions paid
direcly by me had been invested in a Roth IRA. Let’s
assume the rest in regular IRA. I would have over
half a million in tax-free funds, the other half taxable.
If I retired at age 65 and lived to be 100, I would NOT
get my money back with interest. No way.
So the whole scheme has been a lousy deal, for me.
Hillary says “everybody loves Social Security”. BS,
just give me my money back, and I will quietly go away.
And fund my MSA with my Medicare payments, that would be about 300 000. I would spend part to buy disaster insurance.
As to expatriating, some places ARE white, such as
Switzerland/Lichtenstein. In others, in the Caribbean
for example, the trick is to be worth more alive than
dead to the locals. Keep your money (preferably as gold)
in a jurisdiction OTHER than the one where you live.
They could kill you, but they would not want to, you are the golden goose.
I left a country partly because of its lefty politics, at least once,
arguably several times, decades ago. I ended up in the US.
I can do it again, leaving the US.
For some details, read e.g. “The Sovereign Individual”,
by James Dale Davidson and William Reese-Mogg, pub ca 1998.
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xxxxxx
@trainspotter
You are right about Social Security, it is a crooked scheme.
I have been paying in at or near the maximum for decades.
A simple spreadsheet, using my and my employers’
contributions, assuming they had gone into the Dow Jones
average at the end of each year, and assuming an averge
dividend payment of 2%, would produce, today, despite
the 2008 meltdown, a kitty of over a million bucks.
Let’s assume that the after-tax contributions paid
direcly by me had been invested in a Roth IRA. Let’s
assume the rest in regular IRA. I would have over
half a million in tax-free funds, the other half taxable.
If I retired at age 65 and lived to be 100, I would NOT
get my money back with interest. No way.
So the whole scheme has been a lousy deal, for me.
Hillary says “everybody loves Social Security”. BS,
just give me my money back, and I will quietly go away.
And fund my MSA with my Medicare payments, that would be about 300 000. I would spend part to buy disaster insurance.
LikeLike
As to expatriating, some places ARE white, such as
Switzerland/Lichtenstein. In others, in the Caribbean
for example, the trick is to be worth more alive than
dead to the locals. Keep your money (preferably as gold)
in a jurisdiction OTHER than the one where you live.
They could kill you, but they would not want to, you are the golden goose.
I left a country partly because of its lefty politics, at least once,
arguably several times, decades ago. I ended up in the US.
I can do it again, leaving the US.
For some details, read e.g. “The Sovereign Individual”,
by James Dale Davidson and William Reese-Mogg, pub ca 1998.
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Thor, you’re trying to teach Shakespeare to monkeys. Just let them eat their own poop.
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The government of America is now illegitimate.
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WAIT A F**KING SECOND.
How is ANY of this related to tail?
Get with the program people. We are here to learn how to get laid and drool over quivering breasts, not to talk politics like stuffed shirts who get harangued by their wives at dinnertime.
Stick to the talk about getting laid.
Amen
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Poor wittle wiberal bitch beta-disciple. Doesn’t like his ears hurt by all this truth, tearing down his man-crush, Nobama.
You;’ve just seen the destruction of America, liberal. You will never be alpha. Go to your ugly feminist harridan cunt and take your pegging, troll.
The government of America is now illegitimate.
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How is ANY of this related to tail?
Left’s past 50 years of public policy make it so that there are no pretty girls to look at or swoop when we get older.
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Dude,
You need to stick to talking about girls.
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“As I write the House is on the verge of passing a bill that will socialize 1/5th of the US economy”
Are you retarded? It mandates that everyone buy private insurance.
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Dr: are you retarded? Either you buy it or be fined; and the government sets the term care and limits. And the government taxes the plans so more government workers can “oversee” and “Control” how they are doled out.
You lose, liberal.
The government of America is now illegitimate.
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“How is ANY of this related to tail? ”
It’s better for men when women see them as a means for security.
If you are interested in the social causes of women’s attraction for men, you are also interested in pro and anti feminist movements. Pro feminism is anti average male.
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Oh, and in case you didn’t notice, feminism is socialist and pro quota. Its generall aim is to take away the need for men for security.
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Why do people invoke simplistic war threats ever so often?
In fact there’s quite a bit of research that suggests (civil) war isn’t an issue to worry about while the security forces remain adequately funded. Read Bates’ “When Things Fell Apart”.
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Dear Mr. Anonymous from Australia,
Here is a great example of socialized healthcare: my grandfather has had colon cancer for years. He lives in one of the world’s most socialist countries in Europe with this dream healthcare system.
Do you know how long he waits to be scheduled in for a life-saving surgery? 18 months. This is not a poor man, nor a rich man. Simply your everyday man, who worked hard all his life, believed in a system that would help him and who is being failed miserably.
My own parents came to the United States to get treated for cancer because they would get the immediate attention they deserved. Had they chosen to stay in our home country, I am pretty sure they wouldn’t be alive today.
There is a reason why for many years, those who could would come to the United States for medical treatment. Members of the European royal family come to the States, and even high-level politicians from Canada.
Roissy is absolutely correct in this. The US is too corrupt for the good coming out of this bill to outweigh the bad. The potential for our current healthcare system is going to be mercilessly slaughtered.
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get all the motherfucking worthless mexicans out of the country and all of this stupid shit wouldn’t be happening. Fucking revolting scum. Unlike asians who become doctors, lawyers, and businessmen to help the prosperity of the America, the mexicans have 10 kids to each fat fuck teen mom and proceed to sit of their ass for the rest of their lives collecting welfare.
I have no problem with immigration if the people who come to America are hard working, smart, and contribute to the prosperity of the country like the asians do. I fucking hate the stupid fucking mexicans who ruin america. Get the fuck out of my country scum. I am glad everyone agrees with me.
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I’m not a liberal, but I do understand the definition of Socialism, which this bill is not.
What is this Citizen Renegade shit? Are you trying to re-brand?
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I thought that waiting overnight would produce an answer or two.
However, it looks like it’s much easier for most men here to buy into the liberal/conservative PR horseshit and call each other names than to actually, genuinely reframe their Weltanschauungen to break out of the nationalistic propaganda that YOU HAVE CHOSEN to believe because it’s easier than thinking independently.
So congratulations librtards, teabaggers, repubs, treehuggers, faggots, rednecks and repubs. You’ve chosen to live life as a bunch of suckers and cunts, and you’ll continue to be exploited like a bunch of little bitches unless you man up and break out of your self-imposed mental prison.
Now let’s hear you all talk about being alphas and real men some more.
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the difference between this entitlement and medicare/social security is that it started out as deeply unpopular and was believed by many to be socialism.
that’s important. it suggests that unlike previous entitlements, this one is unique in its own way and could possibly be repealed. if enough of the country remains irate, i think another possibility for how this gets defeated is if the reps simply get 60 senators, the house and the presidency and repeal it outright.
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Its not AMERICAN exceptionalism. Its WHITE exceptionalism. And right now,the majority of babies being born are NON-WHITE. Not good!
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Dr, you retard: “I’m not a liberal, but I do understand the definition of Socialism, which this bill is not.”
—it is a bill designed to force insurance companies to take on people who can’t pay for care by taxing those who can.
Redistribution is a form of socialism. Get a mothafucking clue.
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This is the kind of stupid cant you have to ignore as being unnecessary to Roissy’s ipolitical nsights about gender relations. Why mess up good observations with an effort to weave it all into a vast “worldview”.
1)This tepid healthcare bill bends over backward to preserve private enterprise power – it socializes nothing and leaves everything int he hands of private insurance.
2)Why should I be scared of government bureaucrats, but not BCBS bureaucrats?
3)My employer spend 8000 a year on my health insurance. Why is that not a “tax” (since I could be getting that in cash income instead) but a $4000 tax increase to support single payer (which isn’t even on the table and never was) would be? Americans are dumb shits – they will pay interest to borrow money for consumer goods, outsized premiums for health care, and don’t consider any of that a “tax”. If we had songle payer, taxxes would not go up as much as my employer’s premiums paid on my behalf would go down.
4)Libertarians can’t see that large concentrations of wealth and corporations with the rights of citizens (but none of the responsibilities) are far more injurious to our liberty than government is.
5)Single Payer isn’t government “takeover” of anything. it is just national health insurance and it will have no more bureaucratic meddling than the private system has – same problems, but cheaper and universal. And single payer isn’t even on the table and never was.
There is no reason Roissy’s keen-eyed observations about gender relations and the dating market need have anything to do with this paranoid weirdo political ranting.
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Man. You should quit writing about all that Game bs and write more on politics!
“I am wishing for the day to come when the traitors swing from the lamp posts. Swing high sweet Benedicts.”
Hear, hear! (I’ll bring the rope….)
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The only play is to want post-America more, to believe in it more, than our enemies. Bring on “health care reform,” bring on gay marriage–quickly! Let us have what is next, urgently, without shame or hestitation. Let the contradictions inherent in the system play themselves out. Let us attack the most impossibly malfunctioning elites from the left–we want them to malfunction even more.
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Your nation is just one step closer to making the rich pay for everything twice/three times over. Here in Uk i have to wait over up to 2 weeks to see my general practitioner.
Then when i eventually do get to see him, The attitude seems to be because i am young, well off, muscular and WHITE that there is nothing wrong with me, and that i have to self diagnose and then tell the doctor whats wrong with me to warrant any kind of treatment or acknowledgement of a problem whatsoever.
Case in point. I Tore my knee ligament in my early 20s, went to see the GP and he was repeatedly telling me there was nothing wrong with me. I had to make my own appointment for an X-ray at the local hospital for which i had to wait 2 weeks even though my GP could have got me an appointment within 2 days max if he had called the hospital directly for me. During this time i could barely walk. So after going to the hospital and getting the X-ray they tell me i have a completely torn crucia knee ligament, THATS IT. No suggestion of treatment or even any advice of how to look after the injury. “yes you are fucked sir on your way”. So I decide to seek a second opinion from a specialist. Low and behold my injury turns out to be VERY serious and requires surgery within days to ensure correct healing and decrease chance of permanent arthritis from a young age. GUESS WHAT the NHS tell me they won’t do it for me. Which is strange because i knew 2 people who had already had such surgery. One a woman in her 50s and another a young pakistani guy in his teens, Both whos injurys were much less severe and could have afforded to wait 6 MONTHS before surgery.
So being desperate as i was and not liking the idea of having a crippling disability from such a young age i go to see a private doctor at Bupa. They suggested immediate surgery which i did not even have to pay for up front, because of the urgency of the operation i simply signed a contract stipulating that i pay in installments over the next 6 months, having a good job and fairly well off family to co-sign for the surgery if something went wrong because due to 5 week waiting period i had damaged the knee further there was only a 50 per cent chance of success.
If i’d taken the GPs advice at face value i would not be able to walk right now. If i’d taken the NHS hospital advice i would not be able to walk without a cane and would be drugged to the eyeballs for the rest of my life(and had to pay for the medication!!). Now it’s not even the money or the fact i had to pay that pisses me off, it’s the fact these NHS cunts would have happily allowed a young healthy productive man become disabled just because i was young, muscular and WHITE, while some TURK transgender freak gets her £60 000 gender reasingment paid for on NHS!!
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2896956/60k-sex-swap-for-migrant.html
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Let poor people die. All they do is burden the country anyways. Seriously.
Poor people have no right to life. Let them fucking drop dead in the streets. Just have a street sweeper come and sweep them up.
Poor people choose to be poor. Do you think I want to fucking bust my ass to work hard and get a decent paycheck? Fucking hell no. I wish I could just sit on my ass and watch tv all day. But, I can’t do that. I have something called pride. If more fucking lazy motherfucker had some pride they would get off their ass and work.
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This whole thread = beta resentment and overreaction. I can’t help but think my casual observation about conservatives is true – they are generally personally weak and beta and thus overreact. You guys that politicize this shit have already shown your beta flag flying high. A real man has no threat from any of this because biology prevails.
You should go join the weak, thin men of the most anti-feminist parts of the world (The Middle East and East Africa).
“Oh no, the elites are threatening my privledge!” “Oh no, the world is changing and I might not compete without help!” Cry me a river – if you guys were real men, none of this political shit would matter a whit – if you had the power of your personal magnetism and domiance, this shit simply wouldn’t matter. Roissy seems to have that power, so why he gives a rats ass about political window dressing is beyond me – many of his posts seem to recognize that nature will always prevail, so I am always surprised when he pulls out one of these resentment politics posts.
Wasn’t the whole point of the name-sake Chateau de Roissy in Story of O that one could be a “feminist” in terms of surface political commitments (such as equal pay, careers, etc), but indulge submission and similar contradictory delights in one’s personal lives, thus giving one the widest latitude for personal fulfillment by not forcing the personal to be political? I am a socialist on many matters simply because I am lucky, strong, and can get by without any help, but recopgnize that others aren’t lucky enough to be as outstanding as I am. It doesn’t bother me at all that women don’t “need” me for support or whatever because I don’t play with that currency. Only beta males need to trade on their “support” credentials. My personal life and commitments don’t in any way mesh with my political beliefs and I see no reason why the need to.
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when did this site go from talking about picking up bitches to talking political shit? if i wanted to hear this shit I would go to a news website man
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Get back to talking about getting pussy. Nobody gives a fuck about this stupid shit. save it for fox news.
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“Poor people choose to be poor. Do you think I want to fucking bust my ass to work hard and get a decent paycheck? Fucking hell no. I wish I could just sit on my ass and watch tv all day.”
I am a determinist – I am simply lucky to be the kind of person who would so choose. You don’t really wish you caould do that, or you would. Poor people choose to be poor, but they don’t choose to be the kind of people that choose to be poor. There will always be hierarchies – if you kill the lowest 30% of income earners, the next lowest 30% will become poor. I am total in favor of hierarchies – some people should be rich and some people should be relatively poor (and I don’t even need to think they “choose” be poor – some people are just born with no talents and a low IQ).
I don’t get this instinct for ideology, either one “kills the poor” or you let them be rich off welfare. There is no inbetween. And why does my belief in one thing have to carry with it a whole host of other beliefs? Can one not just decide issues on an ad hoc basis? I am for single payer healthcare, but strongly against NHS-style national healthcare. I am adamantly against “academic” feminism that tries to deny broad essential gender differences but in favor of the basic rights of individuals to persue jobs and education as individuals and be judged as such regardless of gender. I am strongly against gun control, but strongly in favor of gas mileage standards for cars. I don’t see why I have to have an ideology that pre-decides political questions for me. On some questions, I think the injury to private rights outweighs the public considerations and on others questions I don’t. I don’t understand why everything has to fit into some sort of worldview.
The facts about poverty is that most poverty is simply hereditary – people born rich or middle class sort of get to coast by even if they are of mediocre ability and while people born poor or working class have to work alot harder for the same outcome. You can just shrug and say “well, that is just the way of the world” and I can buy that, but moralizing about it is just mistaken.
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Roissy is a wingnut! HA HA! No wonder he was so happy about being mentioned in The Weekly Standard.
THOOPER ALFA!!
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Ozamn said:
“Historically, the most powerful empires have been very diverse ethnically, religiously, and racially. Think Roman Empire in its heyday (0-200 AD); Tang China; or the Mongol Empire.”
And yet they were ethnic hegemonies not multicultural democracies. You know, like Anglo-European America. Can’t you see the difference?
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I like seeing Roissy use his writing talents for something other than PUA stuff.
It doesn’t make sense to allow huge numbers of uneducated peasants into this country when we already have a large, poorly educated population with very high unemployment. Shouldn’t our first obligation be to people that are already Americans? I’m wondering if maybe some of these employers prefer Mexicans because they are easier to work with than black people. If you want to enjoy the benefits of this country then you must accept some of the challenges, the biggest one being the legacy of slavery. Liberal policies, by and large, have made the problem worse.
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Realist, the U.S. is unlikely to end up with a system as screwed up as the U.K. partly because of the cultural differences.
Here in Israel, though the system is by no means perfect, it runs pretty well if you’re not an idiot who falls for whatever someone in a white coat says.
I usually get an appointment with my family doctor on the day I call. I get very good care, and I have a variety of doctors to choose from. The problem is that not everybody knows how to pick a good doctor, or how to make sure they’re getting proper care.
What’s funny is that many people here go to private doctors, clinics, or hospitals thinking that they’re going to get better care. Most of the medical horror stories I’ve seen have been from this, not from the kupat cholim. One guy I know got an infection because the colonoscopy equipment at supposedly the best private hospital around, hadn’t been cleaned properly.
At least at the hospitals run by the kupat cholim, they sterilize the equipment or heads are going to roll. As corrupt as the government here is, that’s saying a lot.
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Roissy = Alex P. Keaton
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””””””lover of women
gunsslinger-
kudos left the US myself 10 years ago ..living in Brazil..went back to Miami recently for a spell ..all the negatives of the 3rd world with none of the benefits..
$100 grand kind of tight ..I recomend a bit more if possible..
”””””””’
Yea bought a hectare about 3 years ago for 10g’s now they go for 25 g’s so yea I think the window could be closing somewhat. Plus they have been building suburbs like mad. Right now though my bills are 45 bucks a month so not too bad overall plus own the house. Their will probably always be a cheap area to go to I suppose. I live in farming community so not the ritzy area but it is starting to creep in. I guess price of rice will keep going up. See a lot of adds for tourist houses in diferent countries and yea in the 150k range and such. So yea if you plan on living in an area with old retirees or some kind of development where it is geared to seperate you from your cash gonna be more. Live in the actual economy and less although changing at a fast pace it would seem. Plus they are being introduced to credit and the joys of a thirty year mortgage instead of buying a house cash so yea land/house prices of course will rise if you give someone 30 years to pay it off.
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Hunter, and Roissy, good comment on the need for govt police force here:
http://mises.org/daily/4101
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But seriously, at least Roissy has the courage of his convictions to openly advocate for ethnic cleansing in the U.S.
Tancredo/Roissy ’12! REFRAME THE CONSTITUTION! YOU BETA BELIEVE IT!
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Groan is speaking the truth.
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@fucking shit
“Get back to talking about getting pussy. Nobody gives a fuck about this stupid shit. save it for fox news.”
Four hundred posts, including yours, tell me that you
are wrong; enough people care, even on this list.
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The government of the United States is now illegitimate.
Dr is a liberal pussy.
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And let me add, I am a cultural nationalist and think “multiculturalism” risks cultural suicide (see Europe) yet I am a liberal and borderline socialist on many matters. But I do think the American model of assimilationism is a fine model. I think it is just fine to have lots of immigrants so long as their is substantial pressure to Americanize and clinging to their old culture is not facilitated (and to me, that primarily means adopting the values of the secular enlightenment which could be some milquetoasty “mainstream” religious horseshit, thoroughly tamed by a commitment to the rule of secular law and separation of church and state).
Being in favor of moderate immigration and being a “multiculturalist” are two different things by far. I am all for the folks who dissent from the backwardness and religious barbarism of their home countries coming here, so long as they know we won’t bend over backward to accomodate their culture in ways that hinders their assimilation into larger society – that they come here knowing that although the umbrella is fairly broad, there is something definite that defines “Americanism” and they must consent to that. I am an assimilationist/amalgamationist – I don’t believe in “multiculturalism” or cultural relativism or any of that stuff.
We have plenty of home grown Americans who don’t believe in Americanism (namely, evangelica Christians) and we sure don’t need to import more of the same, who simply call their mythical sky fascist by a different name.
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By the way, it looks to me like the illiterate, mouth-breathing peasant stock were the ones standing on the Capitol lawn yesterday waving NOBAMA SOSHULISM signs and calling Barney Frank a faggot. I’m sure Roissy will stand side-by-side with those inbred cornpone Nazis when the time comes to TAKE. BACK. MURICA.
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May Tom in NOLA be murdered in his sleep.
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May lurker’s children be licked by a syphylitic Mexican. WHODAT MOTHERFUCKER.
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Only college graduates should be able to have an opinion on this issue. To all the stupid fucks who work blue collar jobs and can’t find employment…. fuck you. You are the ones who decided to not go to college. You have to suffer the consequences of being fucking morons and becoming welders or some other stupid fuck job. That was your own choice.
If people don’t want healthcare let them fucking rot in the streets. Let them choose that route. The less uneducated, poor people there are in America, the better America will be. Let the weak die and make room for productive members of society.
Also, get all the fucking illegal aliens from Mexico and drag their fucking worthless asses back to Mexico. Those motherfuckers have done more harm to the country than any other group of people in the history of America. When will the fucking immigration issue be taken care of? That shit is destroying the fucking country. The influx of subhuman animals from Mexico makes everyone sick.
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Tom in NOLA, have you considered the possibility that the real ethnic cleansing in America is already well under way in the form of mass immigration of the past 50 years, which replaces America’s historic 85% white/Christian, 10% black, and 5% “other” population?
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Anything which makes us more like the cuntrags of Europe and, sadly, increasingly Australia (banning semi-auto rifles, video games, etc) is something to avoid. To become such effeminate, spineless, pusillanimous shits is worse than death.
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Be kind to Tom in NOLA, he’s still processing the gangbang ass raping he and his Marigny residing boyfriend received by AIDS infected Lower 9th residents.
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Here’s the only politics you need related to this blog: Conservatives deify and worship the pussy, liberals just fuck and don’t give a damn. With that said, we need more pussy and less politics. Ranting comes off as beta.
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Groan: “Cry me a river – if you guys were real men, none of this political shit would matter a whit – if you had the power of your personal magnetism and domiance, this shit simply wouldn’t matter.”
LOL! Give me a break. So “real men” should just let their political opponents decide everything, control everything? Doesn’t sound like a “real man” to me. Sounds like a shrinking violet, an effeminate wallflower. It’s pathetic.
Your approach reminds me of the typical female response to any sort of criticism: if the male dares question the wisdom, sanctity, and all around goodness of female behavior, he must be a loser.
This is the height of modern day female “reasoning.”
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Great Article.
I live in ‘Great’ Britain and our state is a foreshadowing of things to come if the U.S. continues on its current course.
Feminism and Political Correctness have males too scared to do or say anything.
Extensive CCTV and proposed laws for databses, ID cards have everyone paranoid.
Laws favour criminals to such that if someone invades my home and I attack him, I’d be committing a crime. If he doesn’t attack me, I have to let them rob me. Insanity.
Our society once had civil liberties out the yazoo and a robust economy. Now we’re dependent solely on bankers in London and goods made in China.
Count your days, Americanos. I’ve seen your future and it’s an insult to the human race. Don’t come to England – nothing is worth it.
And it always fuckin’ rains.
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“There will always be hierarchies – if you kill the lowest 30% of income earners, the next lowest 30% will become poor. ”
Yeah, there are lots of poor Chinese, but they don’t have the level of dysfunction and criminality and violence that the poor in the US have because the poor in China are Chinese. You could say the same about Japan. Also, poor people who are law abiding don’t require a bunch of resources for adjudication and incarceration.
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“Conservatives deify and worship the pussy, liberals just fuck and don’t give a damn.”
What planet are you living on? Pretty much every liberal male I’ve known has been an effeminate killjoy who couldn’t get laid in a whorehouse with a fistful of twenties. Insufferable bores, the whole lot.
Of course, conservative guys are hardly better, but the idea that “liberal” males are out fucking with wild abandon is ridiculous, unless of course you mean one another.
Liberal females are a different matter,though. They are still humorless killjoys, but seem to enjoy slutting around as if it were their birthright. Basically, STDs without the good times to go along with them.
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@Nicole.
The British system is completely ass-backwards. I live in a high property value area, rents and land value is high BUT the housing is heavily subsidised and given to poor single mother and immigrant families for FREE.
In other words not only have me and my family paid 100 000s of pounds to live where we do, we also pay 100 000s more taxes than the rest of the local bums.
I should NOT have to share healthcare with these people, they should NOT even be allowed to live in my area let alone use the local doctors before me. So then on top of actually paying to live here and paying for the health service I can’t use when i need it, I then have to pay again for the surgeries that i do need!! Then on top of that we have to pay council tax dependant on the value of our property, which is funny because all those poor families pay precisely zero council tax irrelevant of the fact their property is in the same high land value area. Then when my parents die my inheritance will be taxed, then when i die my inheritance will be taxed.
Thats not even mentioning the fact that ive had to pay full student fees and student loan even poor people get extra grants they don’t have to pay back. They give more money per year in benefits to people sitting at home doing nothing than they give to students for the same period. The governtment would give me more money for doing fuck all then studying for a degree!! AND THE STUDENTS HAVE TO PAY THAT MONEY BACK, the government will never expect those people getting benefits to pay it back. And im doing all this so that guess what…..i can get a good job and PAY MORE TAXES.
What is the sense in that? what is the point in working at all ion this god damn country if this is how they reward you?
Just pray your country doesn’t head in this direction.
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Realist, people who let their country become a shithole shouldn’t complain that it’s a shithole.
I mean, it’s not even about let…You paid for your country to become increasingly a shithole. So did all of the Americans here crying about national healthcare, who did absolutely nothing to pressure health insurance companies to make health care accessible.
My husband has a little riddle: What is a crisis?
Answer: the result of neglect.
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Seriously?
This weak bill, which doesn’t do much of anything, is what you have your panties in a bunch about, Roissy?
Grow up and quit overreacting like a beta.
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1. healthcare is not a right
2. housing is not a right
3. education is not a right
4. food is not a right
5. socialism = communism = big government = less freedom =more taxes
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@Nicole
You are right, i didn’t pay for it personally though i’m still young and although i will stick around until the next election(this may) to use my vote and see what happens, i intend to leave as soon as possible.
Ignorance is to blame, alot of people have their heads so stuck in their 9-5(more like 7-11 usually) and their families they don’t really know whats going on outside their own home until the government finally admits how fucked they are. We’re at this point now, everyones just realised it, the only people who don’t realise are the net tax consumers who are loving it and wouldn’t change it for the world.
The conservatives are saying some of the right things to make a change and get elected, but it’s all too little too late as far as i’m concerned.
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Fuc*ing great post Roissy.
Waaah waaaaah, give me more. More entitlements.
You want access to health care? Go improve your life, stay off the freaking couch buying a new car, cell phone, and flatscreen every two years.
Start saving money, invest, be RESPONSIBLE.
In the end, it is no guarantee you will get what you want. But quit pushing the costs to everyone else. Idiots are destroying this country.
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CITIZEN Wrote:
“Being in favor of moderate immigration and being a “multiculturalist” are two different things by far. I am all for the folks who dissent from the backwardness and religious barbarism of their home countries coming here, so long as they know we won’t bend over backward to accomodate their culture in ways that hinders their assimilation into larger society”
Indeed, this is puzzling. Why do so many Mexicans
(for example) come to the US and then want to
make the US, or parts of it, more like Mexico?
That would defeat the whole point of coming here!
I come from a lefty European country, and I am
APPALLED when I see the US turning the same
way. This is what I wanted to get AWAY from.
I s’pose I will be off to some microjurisdiction within
a few years, maybe earlier. I have already skipped
out from leftism at least once.
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in other words, we’d be better off with a king
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Um. You do realise that the US was founded as a republic and that as late as 1928 the US Army Handbook denounced democracy as a bad idea, don’t you?
Also, communism was introduced to the US in 1933 with the ‘New Deal’. They called their brand of ‘communism’ ‘democracy’ to make it look different to the Russian brand of communism and to create ‘divide and conquere’.
The US has been a communist country since 1933 and only the thinnest veneer of ‘freedom’ has been sprayed over the top. Now? They are taking that very thin veneer away and people are noticing they are slaves. Only they have been so dumbed down they don’t know what to do about it.
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@The realist
If you don’t like paying for all those babymamas and foreigners then just stop paying income taxes and council taxes. It is prefectly lawful Check out John Harris great work at http://www.tpuc.org.
The only people who pay income taxes are those numbskulls like I used to be who were ignorant of how to NOT pay them..LOL!!
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@Jack
“You have to suffer the consequences of being fucking morons and becoming welders or some other stupid fuck job. That was your own choice. ”
Oh no. Tradesmen are SKILLED workers, it takes years.
Maybe not quite as many years as for those who
go the college route, but still. When the pipes burst
in the middle of the night, you need a PLUMMER,
not a major in English Lit.
The travesty is when utterly unskilled labor at the
assembly line are conceptually commingled with
the tradesmen. (The real diaster was the merging
of the AFL and the CIO.) Those who planned a career
making 70 bucks an hour (including bennies) at the
assembly line are now hurting. That should
not come as a surprise, the only surprise is that the
joy ride lasted as long as it did.
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@chic noir *sigh*
Yep. My grandfather was a shearer and raised 6 kids on a shearers income until he managed to save up and by the local general store when he was a bit older.
How many people can imagine raising 6 kids on the earnings of a shearer now?
The PTB want fewer people. And they are doing a damn fine job of slowing down the population growth. Soon they will be winding back the population. If anyone thinks that ‘health care’ is going to actually, you know, CARE for your health you must be living in a dream world. They have taken over health care to make it easier to KILL people….with their ‘health care’.
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Entitlements are never repealed. Entitlements are never repealed. Rinse, repeat. Ten years from now the GOP will be falling over themselves to add goodies to Obamacare—the same way they are now in love with Medicare after vociferously opposing it for decades. There will be no constituency for a repeal—after all, no one is straining to repeal the prescription drug entitlement that Bush enacted. Why? Because it’s a political loser—and repealing Obamacare will be, too. If the individual mandate withstands the inevitable court challenges, Obamacare is here to stay and the right-wing will get on board the same way the did with Medicare.
The biggest loser in this thing was the GOP—and Romney. Obamacare is bascially a larger version of Romneycare in MA. How can he attack Obamacare when he ran on his own version of it two years ago?
I predict that the Democrats will do better than expected in the midterm elections. Romney will have to run against his own past and Obama will be re-elected with no problems. The American people don’t hate Obamacare—they hate executive weakness. With this legislation, Obama showed he is anything but. Like or not, the guy gets shit done.
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“If anyone thinks that ‘health care’ is going to actually, you know, CARE for your health you must be living in a dream world. They have taken over health care to make it easier to KILL people….with their ‘health care’.”
You can’t seriously believe this. The “them” we have to worry about right now is insurance corporations and I am sure as shit unsure why the government is worse. The health stats of Canada, Europe and, well EVERY OTHER COUNTRY ON THE FUCKING PLANET say otherwise.
“The US has been a communist country since 1933 and only the thinnest veneer of ‘freedom’ has been sprayed over the top. Now? ”
This is plain idiotic. if you can’t tell the difference between Norway and the Soviet Union, you should have your fucking head examined (yeah, I knoe, everything on the left is a “slippery slope” when you are called on this kind of nonsense. This is like idiot liberals and bullshit left-wing radicals in the 60’s and 70’s who equated American with Nazi Germany or “colonialism” or somesuch nonsense. Brain dead idiocy and this is the kind of shit that will make you obsolete forever. You guys are like the right wing version of the Weather Underground – a bunch of entitled beta weenies hiding behind radical chic. And you will make normal conservatism on the losing end in the same way the radical 70’s left turned the country off of liberals period.
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@citizen renegade
“The PTB want fewer people. And they are doing a damn fine job of slowing down the population growth. Soon they will be winding back the population. If anyone thinks that ‘health care’ is going to actually, you know, CARE for your health you must be living in a dream world. They have taken over health care to make it easier to KILL people….with their ‘health care’.”
There will be Death panels – yes.
The first one was Ted Kennedy’s windshield.
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“LOL! Give me a break. So “real men” should just let their political opponents decide everything, control everything? Doesn’t sound like a “real man” to me. Sounds like a shrinking violet, an effeminate wallflower. It’s pathetic.
Your approach reminds me of the typical female response to any sort of criticism: if the male dares question the wisdom, sanctity, and all around goodness of female behavior, he must be a loser.
This is the height of modern day female “reasoning.”
That sword cuts both ways, my friend. What I often read on here is a bunch of whining, as if your manliness is so precarious it can be knocked over with a feather. I am all for the substantive political debate (I think conservatives often have a good point about the line between iimportant ndividual rights being sacrificed for negligible good to “the commons”), but I am opposed to the stylistic issues – the whining and hyperbole.
If you guys think the US is freer than Norway, you are mistaken. Yes, Swedes are groaning under the yoke of the gulag and totalitarianism. I mean, government, you believe, is really the only entity that can rob your freedom? You honestly think life in Canada or Norway is more or less like the Soviet Union or North Korea, or that it is on its way to that? You need the same awakening that idiot 60’s left radicals got when they moved to their socialist paradices and found how damn wrong they were.
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You do not have a right to other people’s labor.
Also, once socialized taxpayer funded medical care is absolute, if I see any of you fatties eating anything other than healthy food – I will slap that fucking shit from your hands
You’re on my dime now fatass.
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Thor,
You’re right about the skilled tradesmen. I have a liberal arts degree and a plumber, electrician, car mechanic, carpenter, etc. is doing something way more valuable than anything I can do with my education.
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Dat_Truth_Hurts for the win!
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“You’re on my dime now fatass.”
If you have health insurance, they have always been on your dime. And no more so now. That is the whole point of insurance of any kind – you gamble a little bit of money that you will most likley lose so you are covered in catastrophe. Insurance is all about subsidizing losers on the outside chance that you might be one of the losers.
“You do not have a right to other people’s labor.”
I love how conservatives talk about “rights” sometimes like it is so metaphysical fact and other times like it is just something people have decided. We have a right to X that transcends human invention, but no right to Y outside of human invention. The only “rights” we have are the rights we, as a society, decide we have.
Clearly, there was a time when people did have a right to other people’s labor, until we decided they didn’t. If you really think the whol relationship is so uncomplicated as to be a perfect duality between freedom (as defined by “choices” as if they are made in a vacuum) and servitude, I don’t think even Roissy gets the implications of some of the stuff he says about gender differences (wherein micro-servitude could give one macro-freedom – did Roissy even read Story of O before appropriating its locale?)
A great example is government regulation of hunting and fishing – you have a common good issue where everyone doing what they want would ruin the freedom for everyone. So we submit to some curtailment of our immediate freedom to preserve a larger freedom. This dynamic defines almost everything and I don’t see how any “one-size-fits-all” ideology can address each instance of finding the balance.
Explain to me how Canada and Europe have better health outcomes, and cheaper costs, than we do. And Europe has to support a bunch of ingrates from Muslim countries and still manages to do it. Do you think they just make different “health choices” than us, in a vacuum? People make the choices they make based on what is incentivized and many times people would prefer to make other choices if the environment made them able to do so (I am thinking about commuting, suburbanization, food decisions, and a whole host of other allegedly “free” choices).
It seems to me the debate taking place here is quite valid, but it doesn’t warrant the hyperbolic tone.
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@Laura
“You’re right about the skilled tradesmen”
Thanks for the kind words.
The distinction blue vs. white collar is largely bogus.
The useful distinction is
valuable skills, i.e.
skills people are or would be willing to pay for in an open
(i.e. not strongly unionized) market
vs.
“No skills that people are willing to pay for voluntarily”
As to Laura, you have my sympathy. Maybe you could
become a political columnist or somesuch? Seriously!
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I’m amazed at how many people just don’t get it. They believe that sympathy for the poor and the Brobdingnagian clusterf* that just passed the House are one and the same. Anyone who doesn’t give it their best s**t-eating grin must hate poor people.
What’s wrong with the idea of voluntarily donating toward healthcare of the poor? If fraud is happening, you don’t wait until it reaches the $500 billion mark, then say expect that someone will fix it if the taxpayers pay for an even bigger program…you take your donations elsewhere! The sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood have struck a deal–they split the take and give the rest to their supporters.
Roissy, I enjoy your game columns but would really appreciate some examples of reframe in this context.
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the only people who go to the doctor all the time are woman. Fat men ain’t hitting up the health care system. Shit i had one operation other than that the insurance companies have made out like bandits on me.
”””””Dat_Truth_Hurts
You do not have a right to other people’s labor.
Also, once socialized taxpayer funded medical care is absolute, if I see any of you fatties eating anything other than healthy food – I will slap that fucking shit from your hands
You’re on my dime now fatass.
on March 22, 2010 at 2:32 pm PA
Dat_Truth_Hurts for the win!
Someone always wants to control someone why the fuck I knew I had to get the fuck out of dodge when all the anti smoking laws passed. Next they start taking kids en mass from woman he he he
Oh well once you start the ball rolling might as well control every aspect from cradle to grave.
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How bout a few rules to follow and other than that live your fucking life how you see fit. Pretty soon there will be a time to blow your nose or wash your ass in the united fag states of america.
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@Groan
Who the fuck said I was a conservative? I oppose this giant debt bomb and now I’m a right-winger? Ever heard of common sense? Haha, indeed.
I don’t have health insurance douche. I have TRICARE, which is the US Military GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH SERVICE. Read that again fuckstick, I actually have GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE in the USA.
I also get paid less than my civilian counterparts because I get all these “free” goodies, like waiting two months to get a dentist appointment and getting told to fuck off after three sessions with a physical therapist that is an Air Force E4 (lower enlisted HS grad type) for an injury I suffered during training. The reason? The huge waiting list.
TRICARE fucking sucks. This is but a taste of what all you retard are about to get shoved up your buttholes.
I won’t pay health care for the “oh I’m a poor stupid fuck that can’t save money and loves to buy processed carbs and gold rims for my ’83 Oldsmobuick” When I get out of the service. I eat a primal diet, work out and fucking pay attention to my finances. Obesity, IBS, Diabetes, Acne, all symptoms of the West’s reliance on grains and processed carbs.
When I get out, I’ll travel to wherever Exapat doctors are to get cheap, cash only treatment for a fraction of what we pay and no wait. Suck it, I invested wisely and didn’t blow my money on useless shit like gold teeth and affliction shirts. Or a wife.
Fuck you. Health care is expensive because of all the stupid fucking rules government is imposing on it. Insurance companies have damn near the LOWEST profit margins of big companies today. Low single digit. Know what a profit margin is? I doubt it. So lets get even more government involvement, yeah, like that HAS EVER MADE ANYTHING COST LESS AND RUN BETTER EVER IN HISTORY.
/thread
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@citizen renegade
As to being on somebody else’s dime, insurance companies –
unless they are legally prohibited from it – are pretty
good at assessing risk, and charging higher rates for
people with unhealthy life styles etc. This is usually
done for life ins and car ins.
But the government is now imposing much stricter
limits on them doing so for health insurance. This is
penalizing those responsible in favor of those
irresponsible.
As to “rights”, cit-ren is of course correct in that
they are human inventions in any case.
However, there is a fairly sharp distinction
between “negative rights” i.e. the right NOT
to be imposed upon by government, and
“positive rights” i.e. teh “right” to be given
various things. Borderline case, much debated
among libertarians is the right to police
protections.
In a very similar vein, there are “natural rights”
and there is “fairness”. Both are human inventions,
and the cosmos and a despotic govt care little
for either. They are, in a sense, fraternal twins.
But “natural rights” are fairly well defined, and
two people advocating them will have LARGELY
the same definition. “Fairness” is the ugly sister,
and people advocating “fairness” will each
have their own self-serving definition of what
is included.
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There are no “anti-smoking” laws any more than there are anti-nudity or anti-masturbation laws. Not being able to do these things in public doesn’t make them against the law. I reckon teh same rationale that defines why I can’t drop trou and stroke it in the middle of a McDonalds is why you can’t smoke there either. Does anyone think they are living in a socialist hell because they can’t nude up and run around the Safeway?
You guys need to spend some time in a totalitarian country and see how ridiculous slippery slope arguments are and how dumb it sounds to imagine that any consideration of the public good is socialist. Just like the dumbass entitled leftist “radicals” of the 60’s whose hyperbolic conflation of the US with various political baddies got its corrective right quick when they saw the real thing. All of the countries that freed themselves from the communist yoke still enacted some sort of universal healthcare for themselves.
I have insurance, so I already pay for you slack fatties to live your individually damaging and unhealthy lifestyles. Your choices (to smoke, to eat shitty food, to sit on your lazy asses) already costs me money. If we had single payer, it would cost me less.
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I do not care how Europe or other places “make health care work”. Nor do I care about comparing their “freedom” versus ours.
In the end, freedom is not measured by the size of your jail cell. And right now, we are putting ourselves in a prison cell and shrinking it over time.
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Multiracial empires like the US are ungovernable and that’s why you see it collapsing. Different racial and ethnic groups want different things. Just the way it is. That’s why social medicine works in Sweden and Norway where 98% of the people there are Swedish and Norweigan by birth.
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Oh, and I forgot that all those awesome places with “free” social healthcare – all of them are subsidized by market forces in drug companies in America. You know, the guys that invent Viagra to pay for research.
You think drugs like viagra are going to be developed when the last great drug research country has to “reduce evil profits” for the good of all mankind?
Fuck yea I want greedy bastard inventing all kinds of cool shit so they can get paid$$$.
What has Sweden invented, other than the Feminist party and Ikea? Canada, what you going to do when you can’t run over here to get an MRI without waiting a year? Who will take care of your government MP’s that live by the motto “good for thee, but not for me” as they fly to the US to get the best treatment on planet Earth?
Yea, I fucking though so.
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And all the guys in the military gave up their freedom for you to have yours bla bla bla
Its all bullshit.
People with money leving us and what totalitarian government are you talking about?
The us is the only one that started the bullshit life sentences for having kids.
Other countries the men are free.
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http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/03/22/rel5a.pdf
source is CNN:
There are not that many “right-wingers” or “Teabagger” or whatever the shaming language-of-the-month-to-stifle-debate- catchphrase in America. These are some big ugly numbers for Grand Marshall Obama.
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Dat_Truth_Hurts:
First, I was using “you” in the third person plural sense, not addressing you particularly.
Yes, you have Government Run Healthcare, which I oppose. I am in favor of single payer insurance – where the market defines the services, but the insurance is from the government. I will take what we have now oever something like Britain has for the reasons you site. I am unclear how the free market’s strengths are of any use in the insurance market.
As for the resentful idea that the only people stricken with bad health luck are lazy or fat, I am 100 percent sure I live a healthier lifestyle than you. I am 40 and a distance runner (one of best over 40’s in the country). 6% bodyfat, well over 6 feet tall, and can bench my weight 20 times. And I could get cancer tomorrow. I should not have my life savings wiped out from bad luck when we could have national health insurance that does exactly what private insurance does for cheaper and free us from a job so we can open businesses, etc. (things capitalists allegedly love).
By an important metric, a country like France is more capitalist than we are – they have far more people who make their living from business ownership. If it was some socialist hell, this would clearly not be true.
There are no good arguments against single payer – it will certainly have many of the drawbacks of regular health insurance, to be sure, but at least it will be cheaper and universal.
“Fuck you. Health care is expensive because of all the stupid fucking rules government is imposing on it.”
This is just a mistaken talking point.
I think conservatives should have pushed tort reform hard, I think it is their best argument and I would gladly accept the most strident tort reform on offer in exchange for single payer. Despite the fact that malpractice insurance isn’t really that large of a cost in the grand scheme of things, it has great symbolic value. Why on earth were they too stubborn to press this issue – I bet they could have gotten satisfaction from an overly-willing-to compromise Obama (it can’t be that they believe their propganda about him that they tell the rabble – that he is some sort of inflexible demagoguge, can it? If so, they have lost their political edge – tell the ignorant rabble one thing, while operating on what you know to be true).
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[…] without doing anything to break the stranglehold of HMO’s over healthcare. Roissy’s stream of consciousness rant ties together a number of points about the failure of democracy, which social realists have been […]
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Nikon, the U.S. has always been “multiracial”. The difference between the past and now is that it didn’t matter what race you were or what country you were from. You were American first.
If you want to have a “multiracial” nation, you must promote a kind of nearly sick level of nationalism. I’m not a politician, and I know this. So I’m sure politicians know it too.
So my question is why they’re not doing it. It should probably be your question too.
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Of course, when you ask people about specific provisions of the bill, those numbers change. The rabble is ignorant – witness how many old people say “hands off my medicare” and “down with national health insurance” in the same breath.
And in those stats, if you add the “Favor” with the “not liberal enough” numbers, you have a majority.
And, this is also just more projection, as it is the Right that uses shaming langauge “Obama is Hitler”, “socialist”, “communist”, etc.
“Oh, and I forgot that all those awesome places with “free” social healthcare – all of them are subsidized by market forces in drug companies in America. You know, the guys that invent Viagra to pay for research.”
Nobody claims single payer is free (this is more conservative obfuscation of the issue). It is just cheaper and universal and otherwise pretty much the same as private insurance. And if Canadians had to wait so long for stuff, why do they live longer than us? And report higher levels of happiness? Why can’t we have a system where you get catastrophic coverage in single payer fashion and otehr coverage ona pay as you go basis? I mean, there are lots of positions one could take besides this angry shit.
All you gotta do is look at the outcome statistics – we must be having too many MRI’s because they don’t seem to improve our outcomes.
And, need I say again, that anyone with insurance of any kind already subsidizes sloth and bad behavior.
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@Groan, Why are you benching any weight 20 times? poor workout, up the weight lower the rates then you’ll be benching 170-240 per cent bodyweight like me.
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Imagine…………
Imagine a world where medical services are traded freely……..
Imagine a world where no government tells you what
services you may buy – or sell……….
Imagine a world where you don’t need a
“prescription” to buy the drugs you need………
Imagine a world where you could order your own tests…….
Imagine a world where you could consult with a
health care professional on your own terms,
if you so chose………….
OR do you own research on the net!
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whats this about sweden anyways from what iv’e been hearing the crime rate there is a big problem, with twice the rape rate of the UK and yet a quarter of the convictions. Same with Finland highest murder rate in europe. Norway is doing OK because of decent amount of oil. Generally these countries do ok because of a racially homogenous population and low population density.
But don’t kid yourselves. Sweden hasn’t done shit since Alfred Nobel, and the Brits and americans took over innovation from there.
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Sweden=feminist shithole
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Fuck health care insurance.
”””””“Fuck you. Health care is expensive because of all the stupid fucking rules government is imposing on it.”
This is just a mistaken talking point.
””””””””’
My kid spent a night in the hospital cost me 85 bucks.
Fever hooked up to iv all that good stuff had a private room big enough for all the people that visited. So yea no need for health care insurance when it is that cheap.
The 30k that I put into health insurance over the last 5 years alone sure pays for a lot of those visits could almost live in the hospital at that rate.
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Keep it at women- you know nothing about economics.
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Regarding France being more capitalist, that’s because we are the United States of WalMart. WalMart won, America lost. We’ve destroyed small retailers and shipped too much production to Asia. The middle class can only be forced into poverty in a WalMart nation.
Regarding the military, anybody who thinks we should keep spending 50% of all global “defense” money is a moron. If our allies don’t want to pay their share, it’s time to bunker down and focus our efforts at home instead of in 150 countries. Military might needs brains behind it to be productive, we’ll spend trillions in Iraq by the time we pay off our Chinese lenders and all we’ve done is destabilized the whole region.
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Kaviani,
Enlighten us.
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I only made it through 1/2 the comments and I skipped to the bottom to say Lurker is awful are arguing his points.
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I agree that we needed health care reform of some type or another, It just bothers me that it was implemented by this group of Democrats and the way they did it. The GOP and Democrats have always been corrupt but I’ve never seen anything like this. The tyrant Pelosi and her gang of thugs are so self-righteous and arrogant they have no regard for congressional rules and procedures. They wanted to pass this bill by any means necessary.
Pelosi: “We will go through the gate. If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we will parachute in. But we are going to get health care reform passed.”
The throwing around of tax payer money to buy votes from their Democrat cronies including Unions is a disgrace.
here’s a list from http://dailycaller.com/2010/03/20/health-care-reform-shouldnt-need-special-deals/
* There is still $100 million for a single university hospital in Connecticut placed into the bill by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT).
* Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) still gets $1 billion for New Jersey drug companies.
* Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) ensured that Vermont will get $600 million in additional Medicaid funding. Since Vermont is a small state, that averages out to nearly $1,000 for every man, woman, and child in the state.
* Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) will still get $5 billion to cover medical costs of union members. Additionally, the unions negotiated with the President to reduce the “Cadillac” tax on health plans by $117 billion. Many of the plans affected by this tax are union negotiated.
* While the Cornhusker Kickback gets expanded from just Nebraska to all states, Sen. Ben Nelson still gets an exemption from new fees for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska.
* Hawaii’s two Democratic Senators successfully exempt hospitals in Hawaii from planned reductions in federal payments.
———
I have no idea whether these things are going to be taken out with the Reconciliation bill or whatever, but it’s great how Obama plays games with our tax money. I don’t know how anyone can support this crap. It’s official, we have a third world government.
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Fine, health care shouldn’t be a right, according to you, but I have to ask…with all the other free shit our government gives away to lazy ass people, wouldn’t health care make the most sense? If I’m close to any one type of political party, it is the libertarians, but our country will never stop being stupid enough to be that free. If you own a business (small, medium or large) and employ anyone, you should pay their health care after a thorough screening of their health, period. Businesses should pay, not the people.
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are you really claiming that an individual using his own money to buy a private insurance policy is the same thing as the government forcing everyone to buy an “approved” plan?
when you grow the number of entitlements, you grow the number of people who rely on them. in other words, you build constituency. that is what this really about. the democratic party is firming it’s hold on “the people”, while simultaneosly keeping things cushy for insurance companies and wall street banks. moral hazard and the culture of dependency be damned!
unfortunately, the other side is too busy invading countries and fighting the wrong culture war; so even though there will be great setbacks for the Dems this year, the republicans won’t be able to do much to reverse things.
welcome to the future. it’s going to look a lot more like greece or italy than denmark or sweeden.
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Sweden is not looking so hot now that people on the inside have started talking. Their shiny, “neutral” cover is getting blown open.
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Don’t worry about socialism, fellas– things always get worse before they get…. worse still!
Turning our healthcare system into a European-style death machine is just the beginning. Amnesty is next, followed by the nationalization of our energy supplies via cap’n’trade. If we’re lucky, the Party of God (the Hezb’Allah) will detonate Iranian supplied nukes on our soil. Change!
Obamacare will be immortal for the same reasons that G.W. Bush’s Medicare Part D is immortal. Those who do not have penises don’t want to take away largesse from grannies, children, and the poor. Don’t be mean, silly! Sharing is caring! There is no way facts and principles will stand against this rhetorically.
Of course, this is not the future any of us were expecting. While it is easy to blame Christianity for making society soft, or feminism, or multiculturalism, the answer is staring us in the face– social liberalism leads to economic liberalism. The state is our family now! Don’t be part of a clan, be part of history! Ugh.
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Roissy,
I believe you have erred by allowing yourself to get drawn into a debate about “rights”. There is no such thing as a right, outside of a legal context, and even there, whatever your rights are on paper, in fact, you have a right to whatever you can get away with, less whatever any other parties to the action can get away with.
“Rights” are the apotheosis of pretty lies. Have you heard that “all men” have an “unalienable right” to “life”? To what aspect of reality does that statement refer? None that I can see. Rather, the only thing that one can say with perfect certainty concerning all men, is that each will one day be alienated from his life.
Moral arguments in general are just statements about one’s feelings, dressed up in fancy clothes. “That’s wrong” is an effective way to socialize children, but let’s not make the mistake of thinking that when we say it, we describe some feature of the real world outside our own skulls.
That said, I agree that the outcomes you describe are likely if present trends continue, and undesirable. Any deviation from present trends would require a murderous level of popular discontent with the government and other supporting social institutions (the press, universities). So, at this point, I think, the worse the better. Though I don’t imagine the people, should they ever realize how brutally they’ve been fucked, and for how long, and with what gleeful abandon beneath the po-faced sanctimony, and to what staggering advantage in terms of property and pussy, are likely to excise the tumor with sufficient surgical precision to spare me my own lamppost, given where I live and what I do for a living. Or to successfully replace our rotten system with something better, come to think of it.
In this sense, the study of our political system (into which I was dragged against my will ~10 years ago by a bunch of pathetic douchebags who couldn’t get laid) has turned me into a mad Lovecraftian cultist: I know that our world is doomed, I strongly suspect that what will follow its destruction will be even worse, even so, I look forward to the end. All I ask of the hideous thing from beyond is the opportunity to watch those I loathe suffer before I, too, am devoured.
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@Groan 10:45
On point and on target.
I would like to think that Roissy is just milking this bullshit kabuki drama for the post count and increased attention from the suckers, and milking suckers is always admirable – that’s why they’re suckers – but I am not too sure.
If he really truly buys into the bullshit republicrat PR campaign then I will have to discount his future advice accordingly. Although the post count is really high and that has to be good for his financial interests, whether it’s monetized now or later, so good on him for that if for nothing else.
Sheep get sheared.
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I think Sweden is doing ok, its just there are hell holes in the vicinity of the bigger cities that is not doing ok at all! No kid growing up there will remain intact, very few will become good citizens, most of them just sit and live of social security or get involved in criminality. But those kids they had no family back up and the state offered a crap education. The key problem is the terrible education, the kindergarten teachers speaks horrible Swedish, the level is always adjusted to the one that is the stupidest or the loudest, there is no homework and it is just getting worse, a lot of delusional child rights that obviously are not doing well for these kids are implemented. The end product of this ill taken care of minority in the population is causing a bitter taste in the mouth.
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America has always been a socialist country since at least the New Deal of the 30s which started the US’s move to the top of the food chain. Defeat of fascism, national highway system, man on the moon, fall of communism, and the internet all courtesy of American style socialism, folks. Read em and weep becaues its all true. I’ll leave with the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson, who was recently expunged from Texas history books for being something of a proto-socialist:
“If we’re going to have a successful democratic society, we have to have a well educated and healthy citizenry”.
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“the oversympathizing feel-your-pain’ers who can’t think clearly from the pull of their heart strings.”
Was Jesus Beta?
@Lurker-
Where have you been my #1 frenemy?! You taught me the art of debating without debate! I am eternally grateful.
Let me chime in on the rhetorical action going on here;
Who do I trust more? A kind hearted if a bit naive, intelligent, hard working and articulate magical negro just trying to find his footing in the cut throat world of US and international politics by the silly name of Obama who in no way would be a puppet of the NWO/communist/facist/zionist elite (Come on, he’s a mut who grew up in a single family home in HI. A manchurian candidate he is not.), or a massive, multinational mega-corp pharmacutical cartel with lawyers and accountants who are paid six figure salaries just to figure out ways to screw over joe six-pack?
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“Removing the unrealistic annual Medicare savings ($463 billion) and the stolen annual revenues from Social Security and long-term care insurance ($123 billion), and adding in the annual spending that so far is not accounted for ($114 billion) quickly generates additional deficits of $562 billion in the first 10 years….” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21holtz-eakin.html
The real question is whether those who fervently support the healthcare reform bill understand how fiscally irresponsible it is. I’m certain many of them would run to seek the government’s help if they invested in a company & discovered such blatantly fraudulent accounting practices. Why don’t they blink twice when it is the government being shady… See More?
Much of the opposition to the bill was on fiscal grounds. Healthcare reform is a terrific concept – yet not a single one of the fiscally responsible methods for doing so were considered in the bill that just passed. The reason those ideas were dismissed is precisely because they would save money and therefore leave no opportunity for graft.
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Those who claimed that a sweeping majority elected Barack Obama and the Democrat majority in Congress meant the country supported change are awfully silent about the fact that a significant majority of the country opposes this bill. Isn’t Congress supposed to represent the will of the people?
Predictions: Barack Obama is a one term president. He will leave deeply unpopular and be remembered as a failure, taking “Worst President” away from Jimmy Carter. Congress will switch to a Republican majority by 2012 and stay that way for awhile.
The bill included a federal government takeover in student loans, supposedly to save money by cutting … See Moreout the middleman banks. In fact, tuition costs will increase above and beyond the amount which was to be saved resulting in a net spending increase. Unemployment will see a brief uptick as those evil, greedy banks lay off thousands of employees as a consequence to the bill’s action.
CHANGE!
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“Now, I really don’t care if you overeat, smoke like a chimney, hump like a bunny or forget to lock the safety mechanism on your pistol as you jam it in your waistband. Fine by me. And as a laissez-faire social-libertarian live-and-let-live kind of person, I would never under normal circumstances condemn anyone for any of the behaviors listed above. That is: Until the bill for your stupidity shows up in my mailbox. Then suddenly, I’m forced to care about what you do, because I’m being forced to pay for the consequences.” http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/2010/03/20/why-america-hates-universal-health-care-the-real-reason/
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“Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) ensured that Vermont will get $600 million in additional Medicaid funding. Since Vermont is a small state, that averages out to nearly $1,000 for every man, woman, and child in the state.”
Is that all? Years ago Sarah Palin got $27 million in pork for Wasilla, over $3000 for every man, woman, and child, but conservatives had no problem with it. When Republicans get pork, they are just trying to help their constituents. When Democrats do it they are evil socialist wealth redistributors.
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“Are we now in a world where there is absolutely no recourse to the tyranny of the majority? Republicans and other opponents of the bill did their job on this; they persuaded the country that they didn’t want this bill. And that mattered basically not at all. If you don’t find that terrifying, let me suggest that you are a Democrat who has not … See Moreyet contemplated what Republicans might do under similar circumstances. Farewell, Social Security! Au revoir, Medicare! The reason entitlements are hard to repeal is that the Republicans care about getting re-elected. If they didn’t–if they were willing to undertake this sort of suicide mission–then the legislative lock-in you’re counting on wouldn’t exist.”
“If the GOP takes the legislative innovations of the Democrats and decides to use them, please don’t complain that it’s not fair. Someone could get seriously hurt, laughing that hard.” http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/03/the-future-after-health-care/37799/
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Heathcare or no healthcare? My penis doesn’t care. He does however have a great idea for a website: one that exposes the many iniquities of the female vaj and extols the virtue of being alpha. Where would I find such a blog?
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Roissy, good post.
The USA will be bankrupted by Obama’s agenda – we simply can’t afford a social welfare system at this point in our history due to fiscal mismanagement over the decades.
Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, programs recited last night by the shrew Pelosi as huge successes, have debts of trillions and will be bankrupt within the decade (unless more dollars are printed and accepted by our foreign lenders).
Our wealth-creating industries in manufacturing have been shipped offshore due in part to “free trade” policies of both (D)’s and (R)’s.
Social policies have created mindless immigration of impoverished millions who have depleted our ability to maintain a stable society.
It’s time for a ‘reboot’ of the system in the USA. Back to a sustainable economy based on what is best May get bloody. But removal of the parasite (e.g. career politicians and DC-based 1960’s Leftists) will be necessary to reclaim what is left of what our grandfathers and great grandfathers worked so hard to build here.
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Not to late Yeah, there are lots of poor Chinese, but they don’t have the level of dysfunction and criminality and violence that the poor in the US have because the poor in China are Chinese
Punishment for crimes is much harsher in China. They won’t hesitate to hang or execute a screw up.
Also people in China haven’t lost their sense of shame. It’s the reason why we here/read about East Asian killing themselves after doing something shameful or embarrassing their family etc… google Zhang Shuhong for starters.
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Groan did make a lot of good points. Also, is there some huge advantage for a man if a woman is completely financially dependent on him? I’m not sure there is.
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Sam sam
Let poor people die. All they do is burden the country anyways. Seriously.
Sam you may be on to something. If you can’t afford it, you can’t have it. If a 50k working stiff needs a heart operation that costs 100k but don’t have the money to pay… oh well. Ya should of saved your money. If you develop Cancer, that’s your fault you have bad genes. Next time breed better. If you don’t have the money to pay for your treatment, don’t look to my tax dollars to help cover your costs. Insurance should be abolished. Employers should give their employers 8k they pay to insurance companies. Let the employees save it to pay for their health costs. To much nannyism going on in this country.
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@biktopia
“its just there are hell holes in the vicinity of the bigger cities that is not doing ok at all”
Does the name Malmö mean anything to you? The once
pleasant city across the water from Copenhagen!
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Groan did make a lot of good points. Also, is there some huge advantage for a man if a woman is completely financially dependent on him? I’m not sure there is.
If money is the only thing you’ve got in your bag of tricks, then you’re probably right. But if it’s just *one* arrow among many in your quiver, then having a monetary differential — no matter how small — can go a long way.
Agreed that Groan made some good points, though.
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Yes it does, But i’m from Stockholm, (now living abroad) i don’t know so much what is going on in Malmö but my friends told me that Malmö has become terrible,, so probably similar faith as Stockholm.
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Biktopia, why can’t you just overcome your fear of admitting what you clearly feel is true: mass immigration on non-Europeans to European countires is a huge, criminal mistake, for which people should be hanging on lampposts.
Furthermore, their “underperformance” or criminality is not due to some abstract “failure to assimilate” or some other implied fault of the host nations. The problem is the immigrants themselves, their huge numbers, and their powerful enablers.
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chic_noir said:
Actually, the medical industry DOUBLES OR MORE the cost of everything if you have “sinned” and don’t have health insurance.
Health Insurance Companies are very special, wonderful things, and if you refuse to give them money, you will pay.
So actually chick, the people here would probably have nervous breakdowns if the Health Insurance Companies(key chorus) were shut-down.
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For those of you upset that Roissy discussed on his blog something other than your particular narrow interest…
(Woiiiissy! Politics are sooo boring… pwease tawk about women!)
…choose one of the following:
(1) grow up;
(2) go massage one another in the Seduction Chronicles forum; or
(3) get your own damn blog.
Roissy,
You struggled with defining clearly rights (natural rights, properly understood, such as speech, defense, religion, or association) versus non-rights (healthcare, shelter, or sex).
I think it was Walter Williams who wrote that differentiating between rights as understood by the founders and the false rights of which so many speak of today is whether one’s exercising of a ‘right’ places a burden on anyone else.
A right is something that every person possesses and whose exercise of such places no obligation on or diminishes anyone else.
My exercise of a right to speech requires nothing from you, the government, or any other entity; it is a self contained thing.
For there to be a right to healthcare requires the government to tax and confiscate the resources, earnings, and talents of some for the benefit of others.
To get to tyranny is a simple matter of degree. And time.
B.
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I do normally enjoy reading this site, you write very well on occasions and come up with some very through provoking points.
You have no idea how silly you look though, to most people in europe or people living in countries with functioning health care systems. To watch people defend such an awful system is very ugly and hard to watch. Is it so hard not to be swayed by childlike arguments about socialism and government interference – stop taking the path of least intellectual resisitance and use your fucking brains. Ignore idealogoies and dogma for a minute and look at the cold hard facts and look at the ways some other people do things.
Your government spends more per head than any other country in the world to cover a minority of the population. The rest of you are paying huge premiums for equivalent healthcare (life expectancy, waiting times, availability of treatments) people in other counties get for a fraction of the cost. Your healthcare system is run, (very successfully) for profit.
What makes americans so hard to treat compared to people in other countries – especially considering the majority of americans are made up of relatively recent imigrants of said countries? Do you think the fact the system is dominated by huge companies making massive profits, is anything to do with the fact you pays so much for your healthcare? Why are people in other countries with the same or higher standard of living able to provide excellent healthcare at a significantly lower cost? Do you genuinely honestly believe socialised healthcare is so evil, when you are happy to have socialised policing, roads, civic infrastructure, education, defense(!), etc.
Do you realise how silly you look to some outsiders?
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Our dear blogger said: “if healthcare was a right, the state could force hand-chosen citizens, or unwilling doctors, to perform medical procedures at gunpoint.”
Damns yeah! I have been saying this for years whenever anyone tried claiming that healthcare is a right. In essence, this point of view says that slavery is okay so long as it only involves drug companies, medical device manufacturers, and skilled physicians/surgeons and nurses. These people provide goods and services, and we have only the right to purchase them, not to have them in limitless quantities whenever we want them however we want them.
Pay for your own shit, fucking bottom feeders.
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M
why do outsiders persist in thinking americans care about your opinions?
maybe you should start worrying about what we might think of you one day
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Comment_Whatever Actually, the medical industry DOUBLES OR MORE the cost of everything if you have “sinned” and don’t have health insurance
You’re right. Has it ever triped you out how your insurance company breaks down what they are willing to pay for what service on your claims form? Why does a hospitol charge so much for two doses of tylenol($14-$21) when you can get a bottle of the same stuff at the drug store for 5 bucks.
BTW, I was just being sarcastic 🙂
So actually chic, the people here would probably have nervous breakdowns if the Health Insurance Companies(key chorus) were shut-down.
They most certainly would.
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Hi dana, a great and comprehensive response, you really blew all of my points out of the water and answered all those questions I posed. Really, I’m stumped.
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@M
“You have no idea how silly you look though, to most people in europe or people living in countries with functioning health care systems. To watch people defend such an awful system is very ugly and hard to watch. Is ”
I grew up in Sweden. Granted, if you get hit by a truck,
they take good care of you. But the percentage of
GDP taken up by health care is very similar to that
of the US. And waiting times are often deadly, an
acquintance of mine died of bladder cancer, mainly
because it took a year or two from initial problem
definition to surgery.
I was diagnosed with an overbite, and my name
was placed on the list for orthodontia, socialized.
At age 20, they called me. I told them to perform
an anatomical impossibility.
I will take US care any day. If I have to pay out of
pocket (or from an MSA) for anything major,
it would pay to fly to India or the UK, the costs
in the US are inflated for various reasons. Hospitals
and insurance companies do not make massive profits,
but they have to practice defensive medicine, comply
with too many mandates, pay lawyers etc etc.
This is much less so in any other country. Remember
that MOST of the elected representatives are
themselves lawyers….
I don’t believe for a second that I “look silly” to
people residing outside the US. And if so,
why should I care?
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M
When will eurosocialists realize how ill-informed and clueless they are about American society?
Guess what jackoffs, we have lots of negros here, and lots and LOTS of mestizos, and more coming in every day, and they are outbreeding whites. The median IQs of these two groups is 85 and 90, respectively. Google “smart fraction theory” to understand why this is important. That is, if your socialist internet commisar will allow you to read thought-crime. If not, I’ll sum it up for you: because of the shape of the IQ bell-curve, not very many niggers or spics have IQs above 115; that means they won’t ever make much money in a cognitive economy, except for government make-work. They are a drag on per-capita productivity, and per-capita productivity is what makes socialist schemes possible. No amount of magic pixie dust can change this.
Secondly, not all American whites are small-c communist, unlike in Europe. Many are, we call them progressives, but some are, in fact, not. You need to appreciate this. We have the remnants of a small government tradition here. You know our constitution? Little known fact: the whole thing was a scheme to LIMIT government! No joke, actually impose set limits on government. That was the whole POINT of the thing, from the outset. NOT to set out entitlements. You have no hope of understanding why this is, because your idea of freedom is freedom from uncertainly. That’s not what it means over here.
Try to digest those two points.
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Yep, from a Canadian perspective, you guys looks ridiculous. You’re defending your right to be enslaved, raped and ass-fucked by multi-trillion dollar health care conglomerates. Unbelievable. Only in America. Meanwhile, up here in Canuckistan, I am about to light up a joint, smoke it in front of the cops, and all they will do is smile, and maybe, just maybe ask me to smoke it somewhere else. Meanwhile, somewhere in America, some poor shmuck is rotting away on a life sentence for doing the same thing. LOL!!!
Here in Canada, we the people own the health care system. ROFL!!! It’s mine, it belongs to me, and I frigging love it. It costs very little, as everyone pays into it. No robber barons are fleecing me, I am as free as a bird. You, conversely, have been and are now, skull-fucked by the rich. The fact you defend them is deserving of amazement. You are the land of the (not) free and the home of the slave.
Why would you not only bail out the banks, but also defend the medical industrial complex? Bizarre. You think you are capitalist, but you are not. newsflash: you are corporatist. An oligarchy at the top, and lots of little peons at the bottom.
Oh well, have it your way. I’m going to spark up a doobie and go for a walk. I usually walk by the hospital; it gives me a veritable chubby just knowing that I own the motherfucker.
Who is the one who is truly free? Me or you?
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“Why are people in other countries with the same or higher standard of living able to provide excellent healthcare at a significantly lower cost?”
Those people don’t have the same unrealistic sense of entitlement that people here have. Also, they don’t have the disparate groups all wanting to “get their share” at the expense of “The Man”.
” Do you genuinely honestly believe socialised healthcare is so evil, when you are happy to have socialised policing, roads, civic infrastructure, education, defense(!), etc”
Evil? No. LIkely unworkable here? Yes. Though we already have most of these same problems with private insurance where the cost of consummation is not borne by the consumer (and the cost of the insurance premiums are not in many cases ever considered by the consumer since he or she doesn’t pay them directly). You don’t live here, so you don’t get the differences. Most of us intuitively understand that (i) given the grievance politics of the U.S. and the inefficiency of government here, this will prove to be a big unworkable money suck that is ripe with fraud and (ii) once things like this are in place here, it has proven almost impossible to cut back on them or get rid of them altogether.
But I have to say, your examples of other “socialized” services are really poor examples. Those are all classic examples of services with positive “externalities” associated with them, which are the standard function of government. Education is the one possible exception, but even that has pretty discernible externalities associated with it. On the other hand, there is a pretty convincing case that with education it would be better provided by private groups with government vouchers (the obvious problem with that being that a lot of people would take that money and use it to teach their kids a bunch of religious mumbo jumbo – heck we’d probably find muslims using the vouchers at madrassas).
Lastly, there might be about 100 people in the country that have any idea what this thing really says – a small handful of congressmen and senators (and I emphasize “small”) and their policy advisors. I have no reason to trust any of them.
But you’re right that our system is completely f’in broke. My suspicion is that what’s broken is that pricing mechanisms are simply not the product of any market – partyly for the reason I specified above (the consumer often doesn’t bear the cost or typically even understand the cost of premiums, yet the insurance company has little practical power to deny services – even the most costly and cutting edge stuff) and partly for the reason that individual consumers would have no bargaining power even if they were paying and would have no access to sufficient information to make consumption choices (as opposed to, say, routine dentistry, etc.).
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“Groan makes some good points”?
I must have missed that part. I just saw a lot of ignorant bullshit.
“Real men don’t care about politics, because biology will prevail?”
How did “real men” do during WWI? EVERYONE does better during times of peace and prosperity. In squandering both, our ruling class destroys a public good, on the basis of some nonsensical moral argument about a “right” to health care.
Most of Groan’s pronouncements can be filed under, “Things people say who have not been paying attention for the last few decades.” For example:
1. “I am for single payer healthcare, but strongly against NHS-style national healthcare.”
Incomprehensible.
2. “I am adamantly against “academic” feminism that tries to deny broad essential gender differences but in favor of the basic rights of individuals to persue jobs and education as individuals and be judged as such regardless of gender.”
Practically speaking, any opposition to the former is going to be painted as opposition to the latter. Perhaps you’ve heard of Larry Summers?
3. “I think it is just fine to have lots of immigrants so long as their is substantial pressure to Americanize and clinging to their old culture is not facilitated.”
Is there pressure to Americanize? or is American history and culture denigrated? Who is responsible for this? Who do non-Americanized immigrants tend to vote for?
Groan, it’s great that you just started paying attention, but really, questions like these:
1. “Explain to me how Canada and Europe have better health outcomes, and cheaper costs, than we do.”
2. “I am unclear how the free market’s strengths are of any use in the insurance market.”
3. “And if Canadians had to wait so long for stuff, why do they live longer than us?”
… HAVE answers, even if you haven’t bothered to look into them.
Statements like, “I think conservatives should have pushed tort reform hard, I think it is their best argument and I would gladly accept the most strident tort reform on offer in exchange for single payer.” Suggest that you think these decisions are made on the basis of something approximating reasoned debate, not negotiations between powerful blocs intent on securing their interests above all else. Who gives a fuck what you “would accept”? Are you Nancy Pelosi? Then you’re just another asshole on the internet.
I said above that I’m glad you started paying attention, but really, I think you’d be happier if you turned around, walked away, and stayed blissfully ignorant of the true nature of our system of government. It’s uglier than you are currently capable of imagining.
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Interesting response. Everyone can find examples of how socialised healthcare has failed someone fairly easily though – with such big systems treating so many people expecting everyone individually to get great care isn’t realistic. I’m sure you would take the US system if you are fairly well covered.
The key point is this: The US taxpayer already pays by far enough tax to cover everyone in the US with a high standard of healthcare. Other countries do this with less money per person than the US has to spend. There is no need to increase taxes to pay for healthcare for everyone. Also note: You aren’t forced to use state healthcare – there are lots of companies making money providing private healthcare in countries with state healthcare.
When I spoke about “looking silly”, I meant the people frothing and fitting, spouting garbled words about socialism, liberals, hands off my body etc (and was trying to be provocative). There is an interesting debate to be had, it doesn’t involve idiotic arguments about communism, death panels, and the like. I am constantly intrigued as to how every issue in the US, including something fairly mundane like how to treat peoples medical problems economically, can become so deeply idealogical and extreme? It seems to me most people enjoy the political mudslinging and giving the other side a kicking more than seeing actual progress or decisions made?
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Double-quoted, originally from “Groan”.
1. “Explain to me how Canada and Europe have better health outcomes, and cheaper costs, than we do.”
2. “I am unclear how the free market’s strengths are of any use in the insurance market.”
3. “And if Canadians had to wait so long for stuff, why do they live longer than us?”
OK,
1) Doubtful if they have “better outcomes”. Infant mortality
in the US is inflated (compared to elsewhere) because
extreme preemies are counted as born alive, and
great effort is expended trying to save them. Most
places, they are considered DOA.
As to longevity, for example, it is mostly life style choices.
Obesity is more extreme in the US, for example.
Gang warfare creates lots of short lives, as do other forms
of homicide and suicide. As previously noted, Mormons
live about 10 years longer than average (in the US);
presumably this is largely due to life style,
not better medical care.
2) Much could be improved in the old system. For example,
med ins could be made tax deductible for employees,
not just employers, and the system pushed to where
YOU own your insurance. A stiff deductible (possibly
coupled to an MSA) would make people much more cost
conscious, this would push prices down, as happened with
Lasik surgery for example.
3) Same as 1).
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@M
” every issue in the US, including something fairly mundane like how to treat peoples medical problems economically, can become so deeply idealogical and extreme? ”
Things become, by definition, political, when the government
does them.
If the fedgov got completely out of medical care, there
would be no “ideological” or “political” debate on
exactly HOW they should run it. Imagine a country
where everybody did their own thing, with or without
insurance, with or without physicians etc.
Same for e.g. education. If the governments at all
levels got out of it, it would no longer be “political”.
Etc.
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Jacko
The thing is, some of my best friends are Canadians.
Medicare of Canada spends about 70% as much as the US. For that you get universal coverage. In the entire province of Nova Scotia, there is exactly one pediatric endocrinologist. Waiting times to see him are meaningful. I have relatives there who need appointments from time to time and have learned to be very patient.
The Medical Center in Houston has more MRI scanners than any province in Canada.
Endoscopic exams (like, you know, giant, cold rubber tubes forced deep into your rectum) are often eased by Anesthesia – in upscale parts of the US. In Canada, they give you a maple stick to bite down on. If your screaming gets out of control, the RCMP are called in to beat the helpless patient into quiet acceptance.
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Groan: “If you guys think the US is freer than Norway, you are mistaken. Yes, Swedes are groaning under the yoke of the gulag and totalitarianism. I mean, government, you believe, is really the only entity that can rob your freedom? You honestly think life in Canada or Norway is more or less like the Soviet Union or North Korea, or that it is on its way to that?”
Dude, I never made any such claims. I just called you out on your silly Chick Logic, and now you are doing it again. Females are famous for making baseless claims and missing the real point by a mile (Hi Chic Noir!). Your *real men don’t complain about politics* spiel was such an absurd example of Chick Logic that I couldn’t resist mocking it. No biggie, and I’m done with it.
Now, as to the politics themselves. I’m not necessarily convinced that the US is “freer” than Norway. In the ways that matter most to me, the US no longer qualifies as a free country…and that was true long before yesterday’s vote.
So if you’re looking to argue with a Limbaugh fan, you’re barking up the wrong tree here. On the other hand, for demographic reasons alone, it is obvious to me that the healthcare legislation will prove unsustainable, and will mostly be yet another transfer of wealth from whites to non-whites, for as long as the fraud can be kept going. Or to put it another way, from non-Democratic constituencies to ever growing Democratic constituencies. And it will be run about as well as your local public school – if we’re lucky. What’s not to love? Here is the catch, though: it ain’t gonna last.
Recently, the Congressional Budget Office calculated that the interest payments alone on the national debt will soar from a bit over 200 billion today, to over 900 billion by 2020. Yes, that’s over 900 billion dollars (not a typo) by 2020 (not that far down the road, and also not a typo).
The federal income tax doesn’t typically take in much more than that. And that’s not all. The baby boomers (the earliest born in 1946) are already beginning to retire, and will soon grow into a tidal wave of red ink.
This is a double whammy from the government’s point of view. They lose this large generation of fairly well educated whites at their peak earning potential, and therefore peak taxpaying potential. The great cash cow is about to become a phenomenal cash drain, and the net effect is going to destroy Social Security and Medicare as we know it. And what are they being replaced with? Low IQ immigrants who gobble up more in government services than they produce – even while of working age! And guess what? Immigrants get older too, and ultimately retire. Pure liability, all in the name of a faux “growth.” (let’s destroy the environment, and go into debt at the same time!)
Do I need to continue? Wars without end, an educational system that doesn’t work (we can’t even produce our own scientists anymore); the list goes on.
Point is, the idea that we are going to be able to afford First World healthcare for everyone is absolutely absurd. You guys (if you’re a lib, otherwise feel free to exempt yourself) should have thought of this before advocating policies that destroyed a once great nation.
I have to laugh in amusement at the imbeciles who are so proud of this legislation. It will prove a quite empty victory, I’m convinced. Had this country pursued sane, sustainable policies for the last several decades, it might have been a different story. But it didn’t, so we’ve got the story that we’ve got. The solution? I’ll tell you one thing, it won’t be found amongst the liberals and conservatives – two sides of the same shitty coin.
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Medicare of Canada spends about 70% as much as the US. For that you get universal coverage.
Population of Canada: 33,311,389 (2008)
Population of U.S.A: 307,006,550 (2009)
It’s far easier to provide universal coverage when you population is 10% that of the United States. You also spend less as well (surprise).
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You guys (if you’re a lib, otherwise feel free to exempt yourself) should have thought of this before advocating policies that destroyed a once great nation.
No, libs don’t get excused from this…many of the entitlements were enacted by “libs” that put us on the road to all of this in the first place…social security (not designed to sustain a retiree past 10 years, the life expectancy then in 193something), Medicare, Welfare, etc.
Now, medicare is starting to go broke with SS not far behind. Bush (and I hate to side with him, but in this case…) wanted to go for Social Security retirement accounts, that allowed a employee to put aside a certain percentage into a money market account to grow (like and IRA). We could have done something similar with health costs…allow a certain percentage to go to a medical account, pre-tax.
Now, get ready to have your Medicare withholdings increase, your Federal tax increase, your Social Security withholdings increase, and MANDATORY requirement of purchasing health insurance, which was the problem with this whole scheme in the first place…people couldn’t afford insurance then, what makes you think they can afford it now? Especially with a whole new slew of taxes coming?
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Ryder – well put.
Comparing a Euro state to the USA is like comparing apples to oranges. I’ve lived in both geographic regions and each has its good and bad points. (However, the only place where I’ve witnessed truly negligent health care was at an NHS hospital outside of London).
Check out the 3/11/10 Fed Res “Flow of Funds” report. In it you will see that as of late 2009, for every $1 of debt the US Gov’t issues (i.e., the Obama Administration), our GDP **decreases** by 45 cents. Not a path to job creation or even solvency. Used to be parity in the early 1960’s before social programs in the USA grew (in other words, a dollar of debt would grow GDP by a dollar).
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Used to be parity in the early 1960’s before social programs in the USA grew (in other words, a dollar of debt would grow GDP by a dollar).
Enacted by, guess who? Democrats/Liberals. Enabled by Republicans.
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Both political parties used entitlements to gain votes. However, the Democrats are guilty of enacting a mammoth social welfare scheme in the midst of a recession, potentially leading to a depression (as FDR’s additional spending did in the 1930’s). For that, they are worthy of contempt.
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Sorry, Mark you are incorrect. Real economic recovery of GDP began almost the day FDR took office, and paused only when some of the spending was cut back, then started with vigor again. Unemployment figures were slower to recover, as they will be this time too.
From the article:
“…FDR’s first term marking one of the fastest periods of GDP growth in history.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal
All in all, we did better than the Germans…
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I live in that world.
I can buy antibiotics and many “prescription” drugs over the counter. Others, like pain or anxiety medications can be obtained in the black market, or I can easily get a script through connections. In Indonesia, someone knows someone who is a doctor. Anything else I can import cheaply from China or India.
Doctor consultations can be scheduled the same day, along with most tests. Basic surgeries are ok to perform here, complicated surgeries can be done in Singapore or Thailand.
Home nursing is cheap and a better option than hospital stays, but hospital stays run about $80 a night, including nursing care.
I understand that the quality of healthcare here is worse than in the US, but I’m confident that in the hands of an autodidact, the freedom available here would lead to better outcomes at a cost orders of magnitude cheaper.
Healthcare insurance in the dollar amounts normal in the west would be stupid here – throwing money into an irrelevent machine.
Healthcare is a racket – a monopoly. They exclude the individual from taking action in order that they have tight control over their racket. And enforce the racket punitively. Fuck that noise.
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@Thor
“Imagine a world where you don’t need a “prescription” to buy the drugs you need………”
That’s a world headed for utter and complete disaster. I work in the biotech field, and let me tell you, the shit we’re seeing with the rapid development of antibiotic resistance is downright scary. People who are misusing them are going to be responsible for millions upon millions of deaths as our last lines of defense get broken by the rapidly changing (and exchanging) genetic material of dangerous bacteria. In some places we’re down to our last line of defense antibiotics.
We absolutely need a tight grip on these drugs. Prescriptions? At this rate we’re going to need people with guns to control antibiotic usage and make sure they’re used properly. I kid you not.
Of course, other drugs don’t have the same problems and don’t have a particular need for tight control.
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Dat_Trurth_Hurts said:
“I don’t have health insurance douche. I have TRICARE, which is the US Military GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH SERVICE. Read that again fuckstick, I actually have GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE in the USA. … TRICARE fucking sucks. This is but a taste of what all you retard are about to get shoved up your buttholes.”
Yup, he’s right. And the VA’s worse. Military healthcare is military people with a mission to fix us and get us back to work. VA’s all civilian “stop f*ckin’ bugging me, I’m underpaid and on my coffee break”… you’re an occupational hassle forwhich they’re paid to endure. (Guess which one healthcare “reform” will encourage for all the taxes and new gummint aggravations you’ll endure– hint, it ain’t TRICARE.)
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Bill – even though non-military federal spending grew from 1.5% of GDP (1929) to 7.5% of GDP by 1939, real per capita GDP was still below 1929 levels a decade later.
(Real per capita GDP = the sum of all goods and services produced, weighted by market prices and adjusted for inflation).
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RMM, for tuburculosis, not only do some western countries require a prescription, but have schemes in place to ensure compliance. Someone visits your home and watches you eat the pills. I agree that antibiotic resistance is a public health concern.
I also agree that as a matter of public policy, the greatest good is going to come from a system that protects the stupid from their stupidity. But where does that leave the intelligent auto-didact? People like us get better outcomes when we don’t blindly follow our doctors counsel. People like us have our lives endangered by the FDA, not protected by it.
And the horror of the US healthcare system is not merely that its over regulated. It’s that the regulations combined with lawsuit and legal fees combined with collusion with a corrupt government to keep drug prices high make the system overpriced.
When the system is that overpriced, outcomes are better, for the autodidact, outside the system all together.
Forget health insurance. Buy a house. If you get sick, sell your house and move to a country with cheaper healthcare and access to generic drugs. Consider the risk/benefit ratio.
Every time you drive your car, it’s a risk/benefit. Cancer is like that. Lower your risk by learning inexpensive and BETTER health care. Be able to work with your doctors, and find access to generic versions of patented drugs. Find hospitals that will give you your tests as soon as you need them, for a modest fee. If these are overseas, get current recommendations from expats about them. Set aside your healthcare premium payments towards a conservative investment. Odds are then in your favor that you will have improved your overall financial and health outcomes.
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Oh, and did I mention be an off the grid entrepreneur?
I don’t own a watch. I wake up after I’m done sleeping.
Being inside a system is like living with your parents. You get security, but you have to follow other peoples rules.
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Yes We Can!
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@ Mathew Ferguson,
Do you imagine that a large, data-skewing number of Americans get cancer and die from it without ever seeking medical attention?
Since you didn’t read the linked study, let me point out that it includes World Health Organization stats on cancer-related death rates.
They do not account for those who cannot afford to see a doctor, for example.
It’s nice that someone who’s never heard of Medicaid lectures Americans about the need to learn about health care systems in other countries.
To point to ONE single paper on cancer rates is the same typical bs that has been going on over there for so long.
Here’s another:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7510121.stm
I’ve cited two studies. You’ve offered nothing beyond impressionistic blather, and yet you have the cheek to say I’m the one engaging in “typical bs.”
You can have your own opinion but not your own facts.
Exactly. You seem to be blissfully free of self-awareness.
How about you explain the infant mortality rate? How about the world health rankings? How about all those medical bankruptcies?
I’m specifically addressing what you said about cancer treatment, not defending the U.S. health care system as a whole. It’s a ridiculously inefficient mix of government and private elements.
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(Me, suggesting imagining a world of medical freedom)
@xplat
“I’m confident that in the hands of an autodidact, the freedom available here would lead to better outcomes at a cost orders of magnitude cheaper.
Healthcare is a racket – a monopoly. They exclude the individual from taking action in order that they have tight control over their racket. And enforce the racket punitively. Fuck that noise.”
Exactly. I could not have improved on that.
Thanks.
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Me:
“Imagine a world where you don’t need a “prescription” to buy the drugs you need………”
@RMM
“That’s a world headed for utter and complete disaster.”
How come the disaster hasn’t happened?
Since many countries do NOT exercise tight
control.
And, at least until recently, antibiotics were used
indiscrimately and profylacticaly in animal husbandry,
cheaper than hygiene in various forms.
Also, removing regulatory hurdles would spur
drug development, and we would have a
better shot at outrunning/outgunning the bugs.
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@TG
“Lawncare/Maid services may seem cheaper, but you pay for it on the backend with higher taxes…
due to the fact that you have an immigrant population that needs those services because they don’t make a lot of money in the first place”
That is true. But it is true only because we have
dogooder politics that force us to pay for
free medical care for people who don’t pay for it.
Some people in Mexico, with health problems, collect
money from relative to pay for the Coyote, will bring
them across the border, and THEN they will through
themselves on the mercy of the USA.
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All liberals are betas. The end.
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@Thor:
“How come the disaster hasn’t happened?”
The answer lies in the mechanisms behind it. Antibiotic resistance is nothing new, it was noted even in the early days of penicillin. But ever since then we’ve been searching for other antibiotics, and the “easy pickings,” so to speak, were there for the taking and promptly stomped any resistant bacteria, simply add a second antibiotic that acted in a completely different way.
The way it works, every time you use an antibiotic, there is a tiny chance some bacteria will have a mutation that makes it resistant. The chance by itself is tiny, and control with a second antibiotic makes it almost nonexistant. However, in parallel there have been other developments in the microbial world.
Bacteria have mechanisms to exchange genetic material, and often they even carry foreign material that acts more or less on its own (plasmids, you may have heard the term before). In the decades since the introduction of penicillin, we’ve seen a huge surge in plasmids carrying genetic material that confers drug resistance, and that jump around between bacteria with careless abandon. This is something that has probably been around for a long time, but we have artificially created a huge positive selection pressure for them. Plasmids are very mobile, very versatile, and can carry just about anything.
This is only half the story. The other half is how misuse (read: incomplete courses) of antibiotics help create these resistances. When you use antibiotics correctly, high doses kept over a certain period of time (usually a week for most common prescriptions, can be up to 6 months in things like Tuberculosis), you ensure a very hostile environment for the bacteria, only those that have developed a complete resistance to them survive. If, on the other hand, you have antibiotic only for a short period of time and not in high doses, bacteria that carry mutations that give a slight advantage (but not complete immunity) will manage to survive, and their descendants are more likely to become fully resistant, and you will select for them upon a second exposure to the antibiotic.
This second half is typical of people who abandon treatment when they start feeling better, but it’s even more important in third world countries, where well-meaning first world non-profits and their ilk give antibiotics in insufficient amounts and with no control to the general population, who use them partially, share them with family members (since there’s not enough for everyone, nevermind that a partial dose will kill both instead of saving one while at the same time strengthening the bugs), or even take a few and sell the rest. Many of the newest multidrug resistances are coming from such places and scenarios, and a quick search in Google or Pubmed will yield you articles pointing out the alarming rate of resistance development in third world countries.
So, with that background, to answer your question: How come this hasn’t happened yet?
The way resistance is spread, by horizontal gene transfer, makes it so that its effect is kind of exponential. It starts slow, but every time you hit upon it, it spreads fast. Once highly mobile plasmids carrying resistance genes started appearing, it kept getting worse. This is aggravated with misuse of antibiotics (where you let only partial resistance spread, arming the next generation of bacteria better). And we keep getting less new – completely new, not simply modifications – antibiotics due to the “easy” sources being already mined out, it gets increasingly harder to stop the resistant strains, and less R+D in the field.
So it’s not that it hasn’t happened until now, it’s that it IS happening right before our eyes. Started slow, and it keeps gaining momentum.
“Also, removing regulatory hurdles would spur
drug development, and we would have a
better shot at outrunning/outgunning the bugs.”
We’re gonna have to spur development, and better sooner than later. But it won’t get us too far unless we get a hard grip on them. This isn’t like the old days where this was fresh and new, and bacteria had had no time or pressure to adapt; even with a brand new drug, the bugs are carrying fast-moving plasmids prepared to take the genes that confer resistance the second they happen and spread them around. And who knows what else these little buggers will invent next.
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@xplat
“the greatest good is going to come from a system that protects the stupid from their stupidity”
Why? Let nature take its course.
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“As I write the House is on the verge of passing a bill that will socialize 1/5th of the US economy. The red swollen teat engorged with milk, the populace, its current protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, will eventually acclimate to the suckling and prove to be impossible to dislodge in the future. The Democrats know this, which is why they are willing to sacrifice near term power in next November’s midterms for long range power over the functioning of greater and greater swaths of American private enterprise.”
How is it that Roissy can be such a brilliant writer on game, but when he writes about politics he’s just an unoriginal hack, repeating some cliched talking points he read somewhere as if they are facts?
One-fifth of the economy has not been socialized, and there will be no sacrifice in the mid-term elections. Obama and the Dems were elected to reform health care, and that’s what they did.
The “socialism” crap is just raw meat that Republican elites feed to the rubes — they don’t actually believe this bullshit. (Ronald Reagan warned us that Medicare would turn us into the Soviet Union. Seriously. He probably knew better at the time.) And the “Dems will pay in November!” line was a crude attempt at a scare tactic — as if the American people suddenly decided they didn’t want HCR after all. It’s a political-hack line now past its expiration, and it’s embarrassing to see Roissy parrot it here.
Roissy’s repeating this obvious crap sullies the exceptional writing on game on this blog. Political hackery is beneath him. Roissy’s writing on politics is the equivalent of the average mainstream “dating expert’s” cliched advice on relationships. “Buy her flowers!”
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@RMM
“We’re gonna have to spur development, and better sooner than later. But it won’t get us too far unless we get a hard grip on them. This isn’t like the old days where this was fresh and new, and bacteria had had no time or pressure to adapt; even with a brand new drug, the bugs are carrying fast-moving plasmids prepared to take the genes that confer resistance the second they happen and spread them around. And who knows what else these little buggers will invent next.”
Very little of what you write, quoted and unquoted,
is news to me, I have known
about plasmids and its result, “infectious drug resistance” for decades.
I agree that the use in third world countries is
creating problems. The usefulness of severe restriction
in just the industrialized world is therefore questionable.
I would suggest solutions along the lines of
1) Forbidding (and this hurts, I am not much
for forbids) the profylactic use in veterinary medicine.
As many countries as possible. The really poor countries
are presumably too poor to use brand spanking
new drugs this way anyway.
2) Spurring development. This means getting the FDA
out of the way, and its Euro brethren.
It would be nice – but I see no way of achieving it –
to dissuade the Chinese practice of having a single
multi-story building with multi-defecating critters and
humans, breeding viruses in a cross. If the probabilty
of a given hut producing something really nasty
is one in 100 000 000, and you have 100 000 000
huts, the probability of NOT getting a nasty bug
out of it is only 1/e. Seriously. And the pathogens
are typically viruses, where few antibiotics do any
good whatsoever.
In Europe and European-settled North America, the
tradition for the last 1000 years or more has been
to keep the livestock separate, in a barn, even when
Europe (and the rest of the world) was dirt poor.
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@Thor
“Very little of what you write, quoted and unquoted,
is news to me”
Hm? Then why ask why disaster hasn’t happened yet? The answer that it is happening now should have been obvious to you then.
I’m not advocating restrictions only in the industrialized world. I’m in fact saying that we need a tight grip on them _everywhere_.
You touch a very good point about barriers and separations. Not just the Chinese and their livestock, but also if you’re going to be sending antibiotics to third world countries you need to use them better, it’s a hell of a lot more effective to completely cleanse a particular group of the population that has its own separated physical space than try to spread insufficient drugs as wide as possible. The latter not only is a waste of time – as you’re not lowering the re-infection rates at all -, it is ultimately counterproductive.
Spurring development takes more than just getting the FDA & Co. out of the way. Right now, antibiotic development is nowhere near as profitable as drug development against chronic disease or “lifestyle” drugs. Presumably these latter drugs also have to go past the FDA and clinical trials and all that. We need to make antibiotics more profitable in some way.
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“We need to make antibiotics more profitable in some way.”
And/or reduce development costs.
Consider the indie film. If you keep your budget low, your product needn’t be a blockbuster. If you remove barriers to marketing, you get plenty of competition.
It’s the FDA that creates barriers to marketing and that inflates development costs.
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PA.
Well, i don’t think that is the problem, i am sitting in the same boat, i was born in Sweden but my parents came from abroad, and both of them are good people, and i had a bit of a wobble when i was a kid, my mom took me out of the area school i was talking about and put me in a private one, i was behind, i had a terrible swedish accent and the level of the school was at least three years above my previous one, which made a lot frustration and bad grades in the beginning but i slowly adapted, so i’m thankful for my parents doing such a wise step, and i am doing fine know, but the other kids didn’t have that.
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Jack Burton:
“Groan makes some good points”?
I must have missed that part. I just saw a lot of ignorant bullshit.
3. “I think it is just fine to have lots of immigrants so long as their is substantial pressure to Americanize and clinging to their old culture is not facilitated.”
Is there pressure to Americanize? or is American history and culture denigrated? Who is responsible for this?
Yeah, I have to admit that as much as I enjoyed the rest of Groan’s screed, this part struck me as a bit naive, even as I would like it to very much be so.
In fact, in this paragraph, Groan here reminds me of my father and how he raised me:
Being in favor of moderate immigration and being a “multiculturalist” are two different things by far. I am all for the folks who dissent from the backwardness and religious barbarism of their home countries coming here, so long as they know we won’t bend over backward to accomodate their culture in ways that hinders their assimilation into larger society – that they come here knowing that although the umbrella is fairly broad, there is something definite that defines “Americanism” and they must consent to that. I am an assimilationist/amalgamationist – I don’t believe in “multiculturalism” or cultural relativism or any of that stuff.
Unfortunately, I live in a high immigration area, and I can say from experience that it doesn’t work out this way.
When you get enough numbers of an outgroup, they reach a critical mass where all incentives *direct* them to their *remaining* as they were in their home country. Why assimilate when you can construct your own little Bio-Dome of transplanted customs from the Old Country? This is what has happened in Miami-Dade with the Cubans. They basically swamped the area and now most of the Anglos have moved northward. (To add insult to injury, you have the Lurkers of the world singing the Cubans’ praises for their anti-communist stance and industriousness).
But in reality, on the ground, you have a Little Cuba where no one bothers to speak English — they don’t have to. It’s the ANGLOS who have to learn Spanish to get along here. The Anglos that remain have been largely cowed into silence, only to occassionaly belch their displeasure on anonymous message boards. Or actually, in all the little dive-bar strongholds where the gringos congregate, where, under muted breath, quietly complain about the Hispanification of Miami, where no one speaks English. But only in whispers.
And that right there is the problem. It’s fine to hope for a world where immigrants learn to assimilate, but if there is no social opprobrium for those who get out of line, then their backward ways continue apace. And since the vast majority of the populace has been infected with liberal PC-groupthink, no one dares speak out. There is no SPINE among the extant American population to put their collective foot down when:
1) Service industry employees (think malls and restaurants) who interact with the public can’t speak English
2) Cubans don’t understand the importance of turn signals because they had no need for them in their home country
3) Immigrants keep chickens and roosters as pets, allowing them to crow at all hours of the morning, a situation so bad that a local police department was forced to create a “Chicken Busters” to round up all the loose chickens. (seriously, google “chicken busters miami”. It’s damn HARD to catch a chicken!!!)
4) Immigrants living 4 famiies to a house and blaring the radio at all hours of the night
5) An aggressive, macho “alpha” belligerance that reveals itself in cutting into movie lines, or refusing to allow someone to enter traffic in your lane while you are at a standstill
6) The rowdiness of blacks who talk during movies in the cineplex
7) A general culture that mixes (as Ricky Raw has noted) the worst elements of third world culture with the worst elements of materialistic, superficial American culture (look up Miami Bass)
I could go on and on. This is just a partial rant. The point being, this sort of cultural and normative change is INEVITABLE during immigration UNLESS the white population has the SPINE to express their disapproval of such behaviors in each and every instance such ugly heads arrive.
But it won’t happen as long as people are taught bullshit equalist notions of cultural relativism and the “audacity” of judgement.
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Me:
This is just a partial rant.
I just wanted to emphasize *partial* here. I could go on an on with horror stories you northern gringos would cringe at.
But…we have some damn fine women here. I will say that.
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@xsplat
The thing is, if you simply remove the FDA (or severely cut their weight in drug development process), that’s also going to affect the other drugs that are already more profitable than antibiotics. What we need is to make antibiotics more profitable compared to _other_ drugs – and removing the FDA from only one particular kind of drug may be a hard sell; I very much agree it’d be a good thing, but how exactly are we going to justify it?
Consider also this: New antibiotics are likely to be used as little as possible, as a last resort kind of thing, and increasingly more as resistance to the old ones advances; with good reason, but it’s not the way to convince someone to spend millions upon millions on research. By the time the antibiotic is getting good use, the patent life is about to expire.
Talking of patents, another proposal I’ve read is to extend the life of the antibiotic patents, while at the same time getting rid of the garbage patents that have drug companies making tiny modifications to drugs to try and extend their “branded” patent life. I think that could work well, too.
One thing that annoys me is how much money is wasted uselessly in all this public healthcare stuff while research for antibiotics keeps dwindling. A single “gender reassignment” operation can pay the salary of a reasonably good researcher for a year. Hows that for irony?
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RMM, I think the FDA can’t be removed. There is just too much money involved. Big pharma is multi billion dollar fascism. You can’t fight with government/industry collusion at that scale. It’s a mafiosa that will win.
Sometimes the only way to fix a system is to use a totally different system.
China is starting to do research.
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For all regimes that tumbled, wasn’t it because of lack of participation of the populace? Lack of funding? I was watching a show about the fall of the Berlin wall, and what led up to the communist governments loss of control. I think it’s fair to say that enough of the populace just wasn’t participating economically within the system to keep it going. They couldn’t afford to keep down the dissidents anymore.
There are some systems that can’t be fixed, from the inside. Reform is not always possible. In those cases people acting selfishly by acting outside the system is what leads to revolutionary reform.
I’m not an advocate of anarchy for the sake of it though. Right now the shit is hitting the fan by the bucketful. When it hits by the ton, I don’t have confidence that a new and better system will rise from the ashes. It could. It could be anything.
But institutions like the FDA have overstepped their mandate by miles.
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A note to the public in lieu of nationalized health “service”:
YOU ARE YOUR OWN BEST HEALTH PLAN
1)Paleo-diet (read about it)
2) Excercise 2-3 times per week with at least moderate intensity
3) Get a decent amount of sleep, be mindful of vitamin D needs (sunlight or fish)
With our coming lousy healthcare in 15 more years, when there really will be a shortage of decent doctors, long waiting lines, rationing………………..YOU will be your best health care guarantour
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Jack Burton says, “All I ask of the hideous thing from beyond is the opportunity to watch those I loathe suffer before I, too, am devoured.”
Just let me touch it once. You don’t have to enjoy it.
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First of all, excellent post Rhyder.
Secondly, I have lived for the past year on student exchange in Germany. Comparing just the “health outcomes” of the US to a European country implies that you might not even have a GED. I wonder if these “outcomes” are different BECAUSE YOU ARE DEALING WITH 2 TOTALLY DIFFERENT POPULATIONS.
On the one hand, you have all of the fatasses in the US who have increased risk of pretty much everything.
Here is something else. I had a pretty bad fever and went to see a general practitioner. I talked to him for 5 minutes and he said to come back in week if I was sick. (I felt better in a week) Compare that to the US where I would have been given 3 months of anti-biotics and scheduled a follow-up. Now ask yourself why some Europeans have “better outcomes” for “less money”. The amount of intellectual dishonesty coming out of DC and the MSM these days is epic. I think everyone who displays clear thinking is blacklisted.
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Why do we need to be a world-spanning hyper power to survive anyway? This ideology of “exceptionalism” as you call it does nothing but convince you that you’re working towards some greater cause, or that you’re acting in your own best interests as you run the machines that enslave you. Come ON, you stupid people! America is a regular country, just like any other, albeit our self-importance has been played on by those with power.
I don’t have two patriotic shits to give for an ideology that doesn’t give a shit about me OR you. If you’d take a second to look at the big picture, without falsely believing yourself to be the beneficiary of some impressive legacy, you’d understand that.
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@chunk2
“Why do we need to be a world-spanning hyper power to survive anyway? This ideology of “exceptionalism” as you call it does nothing but convince you that you’re working towards some greater cause,”
Nonono. The American “exceptionalism” is not derived from
any superpower status. The USA were “exceptional” right
from the founding. (Note the plural).
The exceptionalism is that it was a country created in
freedom, without a Euro-style opressive government.
It was also, but this is but a part of the picture,
a country with elected representives, this was at the
time quite unusual. But the point is, the country was not
a “democracy” in the sense that the elected government
could do anything it wanted, even if the voters approved.
On the contrary, a number of devices were implemented,
such as the separation of powers, and the government,
or at least the federal government, was strictly limited
by the constitution (specifically the 9th and the 10th
amendment to the constitution) as to what it could do.
THIS IS THE EXCEPTIONALISM!!! A COUNTRY
GUARANTEEING THE FREEDOM OF ITS CITIZENS.
Granted, the ideas have a long and proud history,
including the Magna Carta, and various British thinkers
such as John Locke and even Adam Smith, but this
was the first sweeping implementation.
Unfortunately, over time, various politicians
and bureaucrats have been chipping away
at those constitutional limitations. One of the
landmark cases, Wickard v. Filburn, extended the
rule of the feds in a particularly massive and
pernicious way – it passed because FDR threatend
the Supreme Court justices that if they came
out against him, he would expand the court
to 20 justices, and pick the extra 11.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
So, over time, American exceptionalism has withered
away to a large (but not yet complete) extent.
This has nothing to do with its rise and probable
fall as a superpower, except insofar as the
rapid economic expansion made possible by
being freer than other countries was very
helpful in establishing the superpower status.
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Compassion with someone else’s resources can only last for as long as the compassionate and the parasitic doesn’t outnumber the productive
this is why the Greek crisis is good, because it is like that “flower begotten from a flower” that heralds the end of the Age of Kali.
the Greek crisis marks the beginning of the end for Social Democracy . Thank God I am able to live this time while still young
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@gig
Yes ineed. After the crash and the reset, we MUST
implement the “no representation without taxation” rule,
otherwise the tax eaters will start bleeding us dry again.
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“The Democrats know this, which is why they are willing to sacrifice near term power in next November’s midterms for long range power over the functioning of greater and greater swaths of American private enterprise.”
Our current health care system is “functioning”?
News to me.
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[…] a particularly pungent item from […]
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whew
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dragnet is right insofar as entitlements are never rescinded, but wrong in implying that they can be expanded forever. Eventually the party ends because there aren’t enough of a shrinking number of producers to support the growing number of parasites.
He is also right that the Dems’ congressional losses will be minimal in 2010 (although the GOP’s best chances are among governorships). As a long-time GOP activist myself and former party official I have noticed that for a long time the party base has become increasingly superannuated, with very few young people getting involved (this actually is happening to the Dems too, but to a far lesser extent).
He is also right to predict an Obama win in 2012, despite the posturing of conservative media and the blogosphere. With the possible exception of Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, can anyone think of a single state he won in 2008 that he couldn’t win effortlessly in 2012?
A growing non-white population and the cult-like Obama followers among the SWPL crowd guarantee Democratic dominance for the forseeable future. However, the Dems will self-destruct in the long term as well as the GOP fades as a countervailing political force and the common motivating hatred of “Chimpy Bushitler McHalliburton” holding the Dems together is forgotten. At that point, the Democratic party will reveal itself to be a very fragile and tenuous alliance of a lot of interest groups that really hate each other’s guts, and will collapse of its own weight.
I won’t be around to see it happen, but politics 20-30 years out will be far more interesting–if the USA survives in something like its current form.
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tupac chopra:
“Unfortunately, I live in a high immigration area, and I can say from experience that it doesn’t work out this way. …”
Absolutely f*ckin’ right… righteous concurrence from an Hell Paso, TX resident, you bet your ass!
See the dudes… third generation in the U.S., born here but speak English as an obvious second language (repeat the last thing you said and nod a lot to make you think they understand), latest in family to not graduate high school and got a D in Spanish before dropping out, drive 10mph UNDER the speed limit in the center lane so the police don’t rape and rob them, and say things like “Outta my way, blanco!”
Carlos Mencia went to El Paso and was driving west along I-10 near the border. “Hey, dude, did a distaster happen over there?” he asked. “No, that’s Mexico,” the driver said. “Holy sh*t!”
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Government is a zero-sum game, and as the man said: “If you’ve been in the poker game 30 minutes and you don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy.”
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As I’ve said before, it’s almost impossible to argue the facts of universal health-care because opponents are beholden to an ideology.
Roissy echos the common assertion: health-care is not a right. Well, what rights to people possess? Is somebody violating my rights when he attempts murder? Let’s agree that he does. Person A attacks person B. Is person C liable for taxes to support police protection for the community? If so, that’s theft. Person A should summon means of protection himself, if he can. The vast majority of commenters here fail to appreciate the fact that negative rights entail positive obligations, unless they’re ready and willing to accept the logical consequences of their peculiar suite of rights: anarcho-capitalism.
Universal health-care not only promotes the economy, but individual autonomy, human flourishing — a life determined by free-choices rather than arbitrary circumstances.
It’s also worth noting the comparison to animal rights, as if THAT idea is so absurd. Is its OK for me torture an animal I purchase with my own money? If not, then the state prevents from disposing of my property as I see fit. Why? If animals do not have rights, then animal cruelty laws are an invasion of privacy, a restriction of expression, an unjust regulation of property.
There have been some developments political and moral philosophy in the last two-hundred years. Since I appreciate what this blog has done for me, I could put together a reading list.
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Glengarry
“Government is a zero-sum game”
Nonono. It is very much a negative sum game,
vast resources being expended, with some
beneficiaries (mostly politicians and
crony capitalists, some crumbs being
thrown at hoi polloi).
The rest of as get the negatives, which
dominate – they have to as much effort
is expended by so many.
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the latest from Jon Meacham in Newsweek happens to be about this…go figure.
“Nobody since Lyndon Johnson has anything like the political instincts Bill Clinton was born with. At the end of a conversation about childhood obesity last week, I asked the former president about partisanship in the capital, and out came a shrewd assessment of American politics and of President Obama. “There are objective reasons that huge numbers of Americans are confused, angry, frustrated, and afraid,” said Clinton. “In that environment, the proper response is relentless explanation. The president made a real effort to move away from conventional eloquence toward explanation in the State of the Union speech. That’s the right move. Everybody knows he can give a pretty speech. But if you give me a pretty speech and I’m scared to death, I think you’re trying to put something over on me. Whereas if you explain something to me, even if I don’t entirely understand it, even if I don’t agree with you, you have nevertheless honored me. And so it was partisan then, it’s partisan now. I got better at dealing with it and so has he. If they can make this health-care thing work between now and November, [they take] some job-generating actions in the energy area, and show that he’s credible on the budget thing, then it will probably work out well for him.” Optimistic, yes, but if you had come back from crisis as often and as well as Bill Clinton has, you’d be optimistic, too.
Relentless explanation is a memorable phrase—or at least it ought to be remembered. Whatever the fate of health-care reform, the complexity of the problem and the president’s failure to use his rhetorical skills to make the essence of the legislation intelligible complicated the reform effort. I hate being second-guessed—and admit it, you do, too—but being the recipient of unsought counsel and glib analysis is as much a part of the presidency as Air Force One or the Rose Garden.
So here goes. The irony of Obama’s administration thus far is that he has been professorial without teaching us and eloquent without moving us. He is not pedantic, certainly, and Lord knows he has a Clintonian capacity to absorb and articulate great masses of information. As we have argued before in the magazine, the issue is that the president fails what veteran politicians call the “15- to 20-word test”: in politics, if you can’t answer a question in 15 to 20 words, you are not going to get through to your interlocutor. What Clinton calls Obama’s “pretty speeches,” meanwhile, has not produced an identifiable vision of how the disparate policy issues the president faces create a coherent whole.
He needs to address this going forward. Like all presidents, Obama has two interlocutors: the present and the future. On the one hand is the perilous and exhausting minute-to-minute grind of governing, the seemingly insatiable need to placate lawmakers, woo the public, and manage the press. On the other is posterity, in both substantive and reputational terms. What eases the trials of the moment does not automatically translate into a long-term benefit for either the country or the given president’s historical stock. It could be argued that the two are inextricably linked, for there is no hope of accomplishing the second without doing the first well.
That argument, however, would be wrong. Often what hurts the most in political terms in the short run is the best thing on the merits and for a president’s legacy. (My friend Michael Beschloss wrote the book on the subject, Presidential Courage.) My favorite recent example—recent in a historical sense, anyway—is George H.W. Bush’s 1990 budget deal, a step toward fiscal responsibility that cost him the Republican base and helped give the White House to Clinton. Obama, who knows history and thinks in narrative terms (remember, he has written two memoirs and is not yet 50), is most likely telling himself that the push to enact the health legislation was worth the cost. If it works, he fought the good fight. If it does not, well, he fought the good fight.
But his life and the life of the nation would be a good bit easier in the coming years if he undertook the unpopular armed with the lessons of his first great battle, over health care. First, explain relentlessly. Second, tell us how what you are explaining will lead us to a better place, and describe that place. Assume nothing; repeat yourself until you are numb. Only then will the message begin to sink in. It is a curious irony that Obama has been hobbled by a failure to communicate, but he has. The good news is, as Bill Clinton can tell you, there’s always tomorrow.”
–as written by Jon Meacham
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If you really want to make America better, stop letting destitute blacks immigrate here. We already have more than enough poor blacks in America and do not need any more. They have low IQs and leech off the welfare system.
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@Vince
“As I’ve said before, it’s almost impossible to argue the facts of universal health-care because opponents are beholden to an ideology. ”
Call it “ideology” if you like. I much want ME to be in charge
of medical decisions for me, not the government.
Third-party insurance is bad enough, but at least
I have some choices, short of leaving the country.
“Roissy echos the common assertion: health-care is not a right. Well, what rights to people possess? ….unless they’re ready and willing to accept the logical consequences of their peculiar suite of rights: anarcho-capitalism. ”
Libertarians vary in their opinions as to whether police
protection is a “right”. I could take it either way.
But if logical consistency is a requirment
(politicians never seem to worry about such things*)
then, OK, I will take anarcho-capitalism (what other
kinds of anarchy make any logical sense?) any day.
“Universal health-care not only promotes the economy, but individual autonomy, human flourishing — a life determined by free-choices rather than arbitrary circumstances. ”
?????? Statements without a scintilla of evidence.
“There have been some developments political and moral philosophy in the last two-hundred years. Since I appreciate what this blog has done for me, I could put together a reading list.”
So could I, including
Albert Jay Nock, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard,
Milton Friedman, Böhm-Bawerk, Ludvig v. Mises,
Friederich v. Hayek, Frédéric Bastiat (barely making
the 200 y cutoff) and many others.
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I’ve spent my life designing a perfect form of government. It is similar to John Galt Land, but it employ’s libertarian, Milton Friedman’s, internalization of negative externalities, along with an income tax cap at 9.9%.
It’s like Sparta except devoted to original thinking instead of fighting.
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@wattsmith
“I’ve spent my life designing a perfect form of government. It is similar to John Galt Land, but it employ’s libertarian, Milton Friedman’s, internalization of negative externalities, along with an income tax cap at 9.9%.
It’s like Sparta except devoted to original thinking instead of fighting.”
OK. Sign me up. Do you have a link or something?
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Thor writes:
I’m not sure if you’re going for a straw man or a digression, probably a combination of both.
Ah, an insouciant disregard for fundamental moral principles on the matter of police protection. So it’s OK to rob Peter to finance Paul’s security?? How and why do we then make a difference between human interference, and the interference of, say, disease? This is yet another ad hoc, morally arbitrary libertarian trope intended to prop up a preconceived ideology.
I’m pretty sure I discussed this in the previous thread on this topic, but let’s stick with a central theme: suppose I can empirically demonstrate that universal health-care promotes these outcomes better than a free market. If I could do so, will you agree that it follows we can tax Peter to finance Paul’s heart operation? Again, evidence generally does not matter one bit to the typical Internet-libertarian, who is closer to a religious fundamentalist on these matters.
Your list includes some real philosophical heavy-weights. Ayn Rand, wow. The best of the bunch is probably Milton Friedman, an economist who wrote a highly readable book called _Capitalism and Freedom_; it’s worth noting he argues from utilitarianism, or what Rand would label a “collectivist” empirical philosophy. For Friedman, at least theoretically speaking, it’s really a matter of discovering what works best; individual rights are merely a useful construct for achieving economic efficiency, an idea that does not seem to sit well with the position I was attacking Roissy for taking.
Now we could have that argument, if you want, but judging from your reality-challenged assertions about government, I don’t think that’s something you should beg for. Also, you failed to mention probably the most compelling and brightest libertarian thinker, Robert Nozick. I like Rothbard’s demented writings if only because he carries his premises to their logical conclusions (e.g., it’s legally permissible to starve your kids, sell your kids, torture animals and blackmail). Good stuff.
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@Vince
I think we have exhausted most of this subject, but
I will have one more go.
Of course various Libertarians disgree on some things
among themselves as to what if any minimal state
power there should be, and other things. Friedman
(père. there is a fils [David, delightful person] and
even a pétit fils [Patri, b. 1976] all three Libertarians,
more-or-less) said “there might be, somewhere,
two Libertarians who agree on everything, but
I am not one of them”.
And of course I did not list all more-or-less libertarian
thinkers over the last 200 years. Ayn Rand, although
she personally abhorred those types of classifications
(and BTW she was NOT an anarcho-capitalist) definitely
deserves a mention as she is likely to be the most read
of the lot, regardless of any ranking as a thinker.
Your text contains many unsubstantiated assertions,
calling me “reality challenged” is not much of an
argument. More importantly, you use terms like
“better” and “best”. Those are necessariy value
judgements, and I suspect that your and my
value judgements differ quite a bit.
Specifically, yes, I DO believe it is immoral to force Peter
(by e.g. taxation) to pay for Paul’s surgery. But, of course,
“moral” is also a value judgement.
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Thor,
I think you’re avoiding the substance of the disagreement.
1) Why is it OK, on your view, to force Peter to pay for Paul’s police protection? Again, the point is inescapable: negative liberties entail positive obligations. I understand your position that paying for a surgery is wrong — the problem is that your position is inconsistent. This is A and not-A stuff.
2) Yes, I fully realize Ayn Rand believed in a role for government. Now see the “Open Letter” sent to her by Roy Childs where he uses her premises against her. Let’s keep in mind that Rand wanted a government financed by “voluntary taxation.” She was a piss-poor thinker, and the esteem to which he’s held libertarian circles is an indicator of their philosophical sophistication.
3) The people you cited do not merely disagree on some esoteric, far gone point, but central moral values, and I brought those tensions to the fore prior to your mentioning of them. Friedman, is one of the first people to support a negative income tax (with many claiming he invented the scheme) — straight up, redistributionism/govt. welfare. As a utilitarian, he begins from wildly different premises, even if he ends up generally supporting similar institutions. For example:
Friedman (the father) claims the minimum wage is unjust because it’s highly inefficient, leading to unemployment and misery; terrible public policy. For pre-empirical libertarians, such as Rothbard or Rand (see her quote on the front page of capitalism.org), the minimum wage is first a violation of free-contract. Suppose the minimum wage was a boon to the poor, or increased the material prosperity of a society — she would nevertheless oppose it.
This is precisely why, at the outset, I asked what your position would be if I could scientifically demonstrate the claim that UHC better promoted the general welfare. This pleading that we have different values is a total cop-out; just suppose I could demonstrate it to your satisfaction. Let’s clarify matters by boiling things down to fundamental moral principles.
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Poor people do have health insurance – Medicaid. Part of HR3590 expands the limits of who is eligible for Medicaid.
“Preventive medicine reduces costs” was the arguement behind the Federal Government promoting HMO’s more than a quarter of a century ago (HMO’s are Ted Kennedy’s real legacy). It hasn’t worked. Not because preventive medicine doesn’t work, it’s because HMO’s and the full coverage co-pay plans hope to encourgage people to get preventive care by disconnecting the cost from the service. The is absolutely no indication that the wide spread adoption of preventive medicine as envisioned by Ted Kennedy has done anything to “bend the curve” and there is no reason to believe HR3590 will by making another small fraction of the population eligible for “preventive medicine”.
Disconnecting the cost from the service destroys market efficiency.
By mandating insurance coverage, HR3590 “The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act” further reduces the pay-for-services market and will increase the inefficiencies.
Is there any example where a complicated regime of price controls and subsidies has improved the delivery of any service?
Read the bill –
Price Controls
Subsidies
Mandates
Only someone unfamiliar with the 20th Century could think this is a good idea.
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Everyone has free healthcare, it’s called the “taking care of you own goddamn self” plan. No waiting rooms, only common sense and personal responsibility.
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I just read this piece about immigration in a comment over at Half Sigma’s and think it belongs here as well:
Swedish Welfare State Collapses as Immigrants Wage War
From the desk of Fjordman on Tue, 2006-03-28 22:49
Last year I wrote an article about how Swedish society is disintegrating and is in danger of collapsing, at least in certain areas and regions. The country that gave us Bergman, ABBA and Volvo could become known as the Bosnia of northern Europe. The “Swedish model” would no longer refer to a stable and peaceful state with an advanced economy, but to a Eurabian horror story of utopian multiculturalism, socialist mismanagement and runaway immigration. Some thought I was exaggerating, and that talk of the possibility of a future civil war in Sweden was pure paranoia. Was it?
In a new sociological survey (pdf in Swedish, with brief English introduction) entitled “Vi krigar mot svenskarna” (“We’re waging a war against the Swedes”), young immigrants in the troubled city of Malmö have been interviewed about why they are involved in crime. Although it is not stated, most of the immigrant perpetrators are Muslims. In one of the rare instances where the Swedish media actually revealed the truth, the newspaper Aftonbladet reported several years ago that 9 out of 10 of the most criminal ethnic groups in Sweden came from Muslim countries. This must be borne in mind whilst reading the following newspaper article:
Immigrants are “waging war” against Swedes through robbery
The wave of robberies the city of Malmö has witnessed during this past year is part of a “war against the Swedes.” This is the explanation given by young robbers from immigrant backgrounds when questioned about why they only rob native Swedes, in interviews with Petra Åkesson for her thesis in sociology. “I read a report about young robbers in Stockholm and Malmö and wanted to know why they rob other youths. It usually does not involve a lot of money,” she says. She interviewed boys between 15 and 17 years old, both individually and in groups.
Almost 90% of all robberies reported to the police were committed by gangs, not individuals. “When we are in the city and robbing we are waging a war, waging a war against the Swedes.” This argument was repeated several times. “Power for me means that the Swedes shall look at me, lie down on the ground and kiss my feet.” The boys explain, laughingly, that “there is a thrilling sensation in your body when you’re robbing, you feel satisfied and happy, it feels as if you’ve succeeded, it simply feels good.” “It’s so easy to rob Swedes, so easy.” “We rob every single day, as often as we want to, whenever we want to.” The immigrant youth regard the Swedes as stupid and cowardly: “The Swedes don’t do anything, they just give us the stuff. They’re so wimpy.” The young robbers do not plan their crimes: “No, we just see some Swedes that look rich or have nice mobile phones and then we rob them.”
Why do they hate the Swedes so much? “Well, they hate us,” Petra Åkesson reports them as answering. “When a Swede goes shopping, the lady behind the counter gives him the money back into his hand, looks into his eyes and laughs. When we go shopping, she puts the money on the counter and looks the other way.” Åkesson, who is adopted from Sri Lanka and hence does not look like a native Swede, says it was not difficult to get the boys to talk about their crimes. Rather they were bragging about who had committed the most robberies. Malin Åkerström,a professor in sociology, sees only one solution to the problem: “Jobs for everybody. If this entails a deregulation of the labor market to create more jobs, then we should do so.”
It is interesting to note that these Muslim immigrants state quite openly that they are involved in a “war,” and see participation in crime and harassment of the native population as such. This is completely in line with what I have posited before. The number of rape charges in Sweden has quadrupled in just above twenty years. Rape cases involving children under the age of 15 are six times as common today as they were a generation ago. Most other kinds of violent crime have rapidly increased, too. Instability is spreading to most urban and suburban areas. Resident aliens from Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia dominate the group of rape suspects. Lawyer Ann Christine Hjelm found that 85 per cent of the convicted rapists were born on foreign soil or from foreign parents. The phenomenon is not restricted to Sweden. The number of rapes committed by Muslim immigrants in Western nations is so extremely high that it is difficult to view these rapes as merely random acts of individuals. It resembles warfare. This is happening in most Western European countries, as well as in other non muslim countries such as India. European jails are filling up with Muslims imprisoned for robberies and all kinds of violent crimes, and Muslims bomb European civilians. One can see the mainstream media are struggling to make sense of all of this. That is because they cannot, or do not want to, see the obvious: this is exactly how an invading army would behave: rape, pillage and bombing. If many of the Muslim immigrants see themselves as conquerors in a war, it all makes perfect sense.
Malmö in Sweden, set to become the first Scandinavian city with a Muslim majority within a decade or two, has nine times as many reported robberies per capita as Copenhagen, Denmark. Yet the number one priority for the political class in Sweden during this year’s national election campaign seems to be demonizing neighboring Denmark for “xenophobia” and a “brutal” debate about Muslim immigration. During last years Jihad riots in France, Sweden’s Social Democratic Prime Minister Göran Persson criticised the way the French government handled the unrest in the country. “It feels like a very hard and confrontational approach.” Persson also rejected the idea of more local police as a “first step” in Sweden. “I don’t believe that’s the way we would choose in Sweden. To start sending out signals about strengthening the police is to break with the political line we have chosen to follow,” he said. Meanwhile, as their authorities have largely abandoned their third largest city to creeping anarchy, there is open talk among the native Swedes still remaining in Malmö of forming vigilante groups armed with baseball bats out of concern for their children’s safety. As I argued in another essay: If Arnold Schwarzenegger fails to get re-elected as Governor of California he may like to do a sequel to “Conan the Barbarian.” He could shoot it in Malmö. He will get the extras for free.
What happened to the famous Swedish nanny state, you say? Don’t Swedes pay the highest tax rates in the world? Yes, they do. But tens of billions of kroner, some say several hundred billions, are being spent every year on propping up rapidly growing communities of Muslim immigrants. Sweden has become the entire world’s welfare office, because the political elites have decided that massive Muslim immigration is “good for the economy.” Soon Sweden’s “army” may comprise no more than 5,000 men, five thousand troops to defend a nation more than three times the area of England. Moreover, it may take up to a year to assemble all of them, provided they are not on peacekeeping missions abroad. That Sweden might soon need a little peacekeeping at home seems to escape the establishment. In 2006 the celebrated Swedish welfare state has become the world’s largest pyramid scheme, an Enron with a national flag.
Although Sweden is an extreme example, similar stories could be told about much of Western Europe. As Mark Steyn points out, the Jihad in the streets of France looked like the early skirmishes of an impending Eurabian civil war, brought on by massive Muslim immigration and Multicultural stupidity. Law and order is slowly breaking down in major and even minor cities across the European continent, and the streets are ruled by aggressive gangs of Muslim youngsters. At the same time, Europeans are paying some of the highest taxes in the world. We should remind our authorities that the most important task of the state – some would even claim it should be the only task of the state – is to uphold the rule of law in exchange for taxation. Since it is becoming pretty obvious that this is no longer the case in Eurabia, we should question whether these taxes are still legitimate, or whether they are simply disguised Jizya paid in the form of welfare to Muslims and our new Eurocrat aristocracy. Although not exactly the Boston Tea Party, perhaps the time has now come for a pan-European tax rebellion: We will no longer pay taxes until our authorities restore law and order and close the borders to Muslim immigration.
This is urgent. When enough people feel that the system is no longer working and that the social contract has been breached, the entire fabric of democratic society could unravel. What happens when the welfare state system breaks down, and there is no longer enough money to “grease” the increasing tensions between immigrants and native Europeans? And what happens when people discover that their own leaders, through the EU networks and the Euro-Arab Dialogue described by Bat Ye’or in her book “Eurabia,” have been encouraging all these Muslims to settle here in the first place? There will be massive unemployment, and tens of millions of people will feel angry, scared and humiliated, betrayed by the system, by society and by their own democratic leaders. This is a situation in some ways similar to the Great Depression that led to the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s. Is this where we are heading once again, with fear, rising Fascism and political assassinations? The difference is that the “Jewish threat” in the 1930s was entirely fictional, whereas the “Islamic threat” now is very real. However, it is precisely the trauma caused by the events of 70 years ago that is clouding our judgement this time, since any talk at all about the threat posed by Muslim immigration or about preserving our own culture is being dismissed as “the same rhetoric as the Nazis used against the Jews.” Europeans have been taught to be so scared of our own shadows that we are incapable of seeing that darkness can come from the outside, too. Maybe Europe will burn again, in part as a belated reaction to the horrors of Auschwitz.
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“Everyone has free healthcare, it’s called the “taking care of you own goddamn self” plan. No waiting rooms, only common sense and personal responsibility.”
–hey, that’s my healthcare plan. Should I patent it and sell it along with sunshine and oxygen?
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america was built to be a republic, not a democracy.
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@Breeze
Sounds like in Sweden the Muslims are the Alphas. Mutt nation in one generation. Interesting.
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Ron Paul’s the only guy in Washington I trust.
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If we could prevent illegal immigrants from going to ER’s and allow health insurers the right to increase rates based on poor health practices (smokers and fatties) pay more I would be for universal health care. Its a good idea in principle, but our lazy fatt ass population makes it unafordable.
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I agree with your premise, but even to use a word as abstract as “socialism” is to be too nice to the theftists.
I think this cartoon says it all:
http://the-classic-liberal.com/new-health-care-system-in-pictures/
It’s time that patriotic Americans re-learn the use of tar and feathers.
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Nicole
Yes, this must be why the extremely rich lean socialist, while the moderately rich lean individualist. The exremely rich have their interests better served through a bit of socialism. It’s in their best interest to share and promote sharing. To avoid revolution or instability or a diminishing of the worker and consumption base. Moderately wealthy people take care of those concerns through gated communities and private schools
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