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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Soul Crusher on August 12, 2009, 06:08:31 AM
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Obama's healthcare horror
Heads should roll -- beginning with Nancy Pelosi's!
By Camille Paglia
Aug. 12, 2009 | Buyer's remorse? Not me. At the North American summit in Guadalajara this week, President Obama resumed the role he is best at -- representing the U.S. with dignity and authority abroad. This is why I, for one, voted for Obama and continue to support him. The damage done to U.S. prestige by the feckless, buffoonish George W. Bush will take years to repair. Obama has barely begun the crucial mission that he was elected to do.
Having said that, I must confess my dismay bordering on horror at the amateurism of the White House apparatus for domestic policy. When will heads start to roll? I was glad to see the White House counsel booted, as well as Michelle Obama's chief of staff, and hope it's a harbinger of things to come. Except for that wily fox, David Axelrod, who could charm gold threads out of moonbeams, Obama seems to be surrounded by juvenile tinhorns, bumbling mediocrities and crass bully boys.
Case in point: the administration's grotesque mishandling of healthcare reform, one of the most vital issues facing the nation. Ever since Hillary Clinton's megalomaniacal annihilation of our last best chance at reform in 1993 (all of which was suppressed by the mainstream media when she was running for president), Democrats have been longing for that happy day when this issue would once again be front and center.
But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises -- or that he would so easily cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens. She is doing grievous damage to the party and should immediately step down.
There is plenty of blame to go around. Obama's aggressive endorsement of a healthcare plan that does not even exist yet, except in five competing, fluctuating drafts, makes Washington seem like Cloud Cuckoo Land. The president is promoting the most colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation since the Bush administration snookered the country into invading Iraq with apocalyptic visions of mushroom clouds over American cities.
You can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance, if you're happy with it, Obama keeps assuring us in soothing, lullaby tones. Oh, really? And what if my doctor is not the one appointed by the new government medical boards for ruling on my access to tests and specialists? And what if my insurance company goes belly up because of undercutting by its government-bankrolled competitor? Face it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing.
I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The U.S. is gigantic; many of our states are bigger than whole European nations. The bureaucracy required to institute and manage a nationalized health system here would be Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically absorb whatever savings Obama thinks could be made. And the transition period would be a nightmare of red tape and mammoth screw-ups, which we can ill afford with a faltering economy.
As with the massive boondoggle of the stimulus package, which Obama foolishly let Congress turn into a pork rut, too much has been attempted all at once; focused, targeted initiatives would, instead, have won wide public support. How is it possible that Democrats, through their own clumsiness and arrogance, have sabotaged healthcare reform yet again? Blaming obstructionist Republicans is nonsensical because Democrats control all three branches of government. It isn't conservative rumors or lies that are stopping healthcare legislation; it's the justifiable alarm of an electorate that has been cut out of the loop and is watching its representatives construct a tangled labyrinth for others but not for themselves. No, the airheads of Congress will keep their own plush healthcare plan -- it's the rest of us guinea pigs who will be thrown to the wolves.
With the Republican party leaderless and in backbiting disarray following its destruction by the ideologically incoherent George W. Bush, Democrats are apparently eager to join the hara-kiri brigade. What looked like smooth coasting to the 2010 election has now become a nail-biter. Both major parties have become a rats' nest of hypocrisy and incompetence. That, combined with our stratospheric, near-criminal indebtedness to China (which could destroy the dollar overnight), should raise signal flags. Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?
What does either party stand for these days? Republican politicians, with their endless scandals, are hardly exemplars of traditional moral values. Nor have they generated new ideas for healthcare, except for medical savings accounts, which would be pathetically inadequate in a major crisis for anyone earning at or below a median income.
And what do Democrats stand for, if they are so ready to defame concerned citizens as the "mob" -- a word betraying a Marie Antoinette delusion of superiority to ordinary mortals. I thought my party was populist, attentive to the needs and wishes of those outside the power structure. And as a product of the 1960s, I thought the Democratic party was passionately committed to freedom of thought and speech.
But somehow liberals have drifted into a strange servility toward big government, which they revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills. The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it.
As a libertarian and refugee from the authoritarian Roman Catholic church of my youth, I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism. This is in fact what Sarah Palin hit on in her shocking image of a "death panel" under Obamacare that would make irrevocable decisions about the disabled and elderly. When I first saw that phrase, headlined on the Drudge Report, I burst out laughing. It seemed so over the top! But on reflection, I realized that Palin's shrewdly timed metaphor spoke directly to the electorate's unease with the prospect of shadowy, unelected government figures controlling our lives. A death panel not only has the power of life and death but is itself a symptom of a Kafkaesque brave new world where authority has become remote, arbitrary and spectral. And as in the Spanish Inquisition, dissidence is heresy, persecuted and punished.
Surely, the basic rule in comprehensive legislation should be: First, do no harm. The present proposals are full of noble aims, but the biggest danger always comes from unforeseen and unintended consequences. Example: the American incursion into Iraq, which destabilized the region by neutralizing Iran's rival and thus enormously enhancing Iran's power and nuclear ambitions.
What was needed for reform was an in-depth analysis, buttressed by documentary evidence, of waste, fraud and profiteering in the healthcare, pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Instead what we've gotten is a series of facile, vulgar innuendos about how doctors conduct their practice, as if their primary motive is money. Quite frankly, the president gives little sense of direct knowledge of medical protocols; it's as if his views are a tissue of hearsay and scattershot worst-case scenarios.
Of course, it didn't help matters that, just when he needed maximum momentum on healthcare, Obama made the terrible gaffe of declaring that, even without his knowing the full facts, Cambridge, Mass., police had acted "stupidly" in arresting a friend of his, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Obama's automatic identification with the pampered Harvard elite (wildly unpopular with most sensible people), as well as his insulting condescension toward an officer doing his often dangerous duty, did serious and perhaps irreparable damage to the president's standing. The strained, prissy beer summit in the White House garden afterward didn't help. Is that the Obama notion of hospitality? Another staff breakdown.
Both Gates and Obama mistakenly assumed that the original incident at Gates' house was about race, when it was about class. It was the wealthy, lordly Gates who committed the first offense by instantly and evidently hysterically defaming the character of the officer who arrived at his door to investigate the report of a break-in. There was no excuse for Gates' loud and cheap charges of racism, which he should have immediately apologized for the next day, instead of threatening lawsuits and self-aggrandizing television exposés. On the other hand, given that Cambridge is virtually a company town, perhaps police headquarters should have dispatched a moderator to the tumultuous scene before a small, disabled Harvard professor was clapped in handcuffs and marched off to jail. But why should an Ivy League panjandrum be treated any differently from the rest of us hoi polloi?
Class rarely receives honest attention in the American media, as demonstrated by the reporting on a June incident at a swimming pool in the Philadelphia suburbs. When the director of the Valley Swim Club in Montgomery County cancelled its agreement with several urban day camps to use its private pool, the controversy was portrayed entirely in racial terms. There were uninvestigated allegations of remarks about "black kids" made by white mothers who ordered their children out of the pool, and the racial theme was intensified by the director's inept description of the "complexion" of the pool having been changed -- which may simply have been a whopper of a Freudian slip.
Having followed the coverage in the Philadelphia media, I have lingering questions about how much of that incident was race and how much was social class. Urban working-class and suburban middle-class children often have quite different styles of play -- as I know from present observation as well as from my Syracuse youth, when I regularly biked to the public pool in Thornden Park. Kids of all races from downtown Syracuse neighborhoods were much rougher and tougher, and for self-preservation you had to stay out of their way! Otherwise, you'd get knocked to the concrete or dunked when they heedlessly jumped off the diving board onto our heads in the crowded pool.
In general, middle-class children today are more closely supervised at pools because the family can afford to have a non-working parent at home -- a luxury that working-class kids rarely have. What happened at the Valley Swim Club, whose safety infrastructure was evidently also overwhelmed by too many visiting kids who were non-swimmers, may have been a clash of classes rather than races. Were the mothers who pulled their kids out of the pool that day really reacting to skin color or what they, accurately or not, perceived to be an overcrowded, dangerous disorder? The incontrovertible offense in all this, which went unmentioned in the national media, was the closure for budgetary reasons by the city of Philadelphia this summer of 27 of its 73 public pools. There is no excuse for that kind of draconian curtailment of basic recreational facilities for working-class families, sweltering in the urban summer heat.
Camille Paglia's column appears on the second Wednesday of each month. Every third column is devoted to reader letters. Please send questions for her next letters column to this mailbox. Your name and town will be published unless you request anonymity.
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Great article by Camille Paglia.
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(http://netrightnation.wordpress.com/files/2009/06/cartoon-follow-the-money-600.jpg)
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/fladj11/Economy%204/ObamaJeopardy.jpg)
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(http://netrightnation.wordpress.com/files/2009/06/cartoon-follow-the-money-600.jpg)
Great picture.
But I think you should put the war machine in the place where you got the "3rd world countries".
Because that is a much bigger cost than ever any "handouts" were.
If the war machine would be shut down, there would be a tremendous saving.
Spending tax payers money on fighting wars in other part of the world doesn't make much sense.
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The US already has rationing and limited choice of doctors under the privatized insurance system.
The privatized insurance system makes cash by denying claims. Shareholder profit and insurance employee compensation is tied to denying claims, limiting care, and limiting reimbursements.
In sum, big Insurance makes billions of dollars b/c it denies people healthcare.
Politics is a grueling business. There's give and take, accomodation, negotiation etc.
Obama is too concerned with playing politics with the right and these 'bluedog' assholes.
He should pull an FDR and have a single payer health insurance system installed.
But then guys like 333... would call him a dictator.
So, in short, Paglia is an alarmist pointing out the ugly side of politics in self-serving hyperbolic language.
She ought to know better.
But she doesn't b/c she's a holier-than-thou libertarian.
...why if we could only get rid of taxes and big government.....
The rest of her article is all over the fucking place....that's what happens with ranting.
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28 unaccountable Czars and counting.
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The US already has rationing and limited choice of doctors under the privatized insurance system.
The privatized insurance system makes cash by denying claims. Shareholder profit and insurance employee compensation is tied to denying claims, limiting care, and limiting reimbursements.
In sum, big Insurance makes billions of dollars b/c it denies people healthcare.
Politics is a grueling business. There's give and take, accomodation, negotiation etc.
Obama is too concerned with playing politics with the right and these 'bluedog' assholes.
He should pull an FDR and have a single payer health insurance system installed.
But then guys like 333... would call him a dictator.
So, in short, Paglia is an alarmist pointing out the ugly side of politics in self-serving hyperbolic language.
She ought to know better.
But she doesn't b/c she's a holier-than-thou libertarian.
...why if we could only get rid of taxes and big government.....
The rest of her article is all over the fucking place....that's what happens with ranting.
You are like a broken record, you try to quantify everything because <insert name here> did it, or <insert evil capitalist entity here> is doing it. Like that somehow justifies the federal government trying to take over every aspect of your life. Maybe you are just politically and socially lazy, I don't know, but this country was founded on the ideals of freedom and liberty not government control. There was a time when people actually took up arms and fought for the right to be free, now you think we should just piss on the graves of the founding fathers and make America into the very thing they fought and died to prevent.
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You are like a broken record, you try to quantify everything because <insert name here> did it, or <insert evil capitalist entity here> is doing it. Like that somehow justifies the federal government trying to take over every aspect of your life. Maybe you are just politically and socially lazy, I don't know, but this country was founded on the ideals of freedom and liberty not government control. There was a time when people actually took up arms and fought for the right to be free, now you think we should just piss on the graves of the founding fathers and make America into the very thing they fought and died to prevent.
I read that only 30% of the population supported the American Revolution at the time.
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You are like a broken record, you try to quantify everything because <insert name here> did it, or <insert evil capitalist entity here> is doing it. Like that somehow justifies the federal government trying to take over every aspect of your life. Maybe you are just politically and socially lazy, I don't know, but this country was founded on the ideals of freedom and liberty not government control. There was a time when people actually took up arms and fought for the right to be free, now you think we should just piss on the graves of the founding fathers and make America into the very thing they fought and died to prevent.
What are you trying to say?
I think you know very little about the concept of freedom.
This country was founded on the ideals of rule by the wealthy. The propertied class, the 'right' people rule.
Private insurance works b/c of governmental intrusion into the health insurance arena by Medicare, Medicaid and VA health care. Without those programs, private health care could not afford to operate at a profit. Those programs cover the high risk people that private insurance will not cover.
Private insurance is failing.
It has nothing to do with 'freedom' or 'liberty.'
That's just more libertarian bilge.
Private insurance makes billions denying healthcare coverage to people. That's it in a nutshell.
Where's your fucking liberty and freedom in that concept?
You'd rather see people suffer...I'm sorry, get what they deserve...rather than implement UHC.
It's nice to see that you have well reasoned ideas...like not wanting the 'federal government trying to take over every aspect of your life.'
That's deep.
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Government shouldn't be running healthcare period. There is too much in the bill that is suspect.
Like 333 said...we have almost 30 "czars" that are only accountable to Obama, and people thought Bush was bad.
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Government shouldn't be running healthcare period. There is too much in the bill that is suspect.
Like 333 said...we have almost 30 "czars" that are only accountable to Obama, and people thought Bush was bad.
Bush was Bad.
The use of "Czars" dates back to the FDR administration. NOthing to see here.
This is another non-issue.
So we should ignore health care and just keep things as they are?
That's not an option.
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Paglia been my favorite feminist since about 1991.
Decker - you're a generally well-reasoned individual, which is why you've earned so much respect here and in real life, I'm sure, but the reality you're choosing not to accept is that we do not need MORE federal government for ANY reason.
So we should ignore health care and just keep things as they are?
That's not an option.
You're focused on the wrong thing. Throwing more money (regardless of source) into the same hole is not the solution to the problems you've outlined.
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What are you trying to say?
I think you know very little about the concept of freedom.
This country was founded on the ideals of rule by the wealthy. The propertied class, the 'right' people rule.
Private insurance works b/c of governmental intrusion into the health insurance arena by Medicare, Medicaid and VA health care. Without those programs, private health care could not afford to operate at a profit. Those programs cover the high risk people that private insurance will not cover.
Private insurance is failing.
It has nothing to do with 'freedom' or 'liberty.'
That's just more libertarian bilge.
Private insurance makes billions denying healthcare coverage to people. That's it in a nutshell.
Where's your fucking liberty and freedom in that concept?
You'd rather see people suffer...I'm sorry, get what they deserve...rather than implement UHC.
It's nice to see that you have well reasoned ideas...like not wanting the 'federal government trying to take over every aspect of your life.'
That's deep.
Yeah every thing is libertarian bilge in your world ::) get some new material the shit is getting old.
Why don't you explain to me how in the last 18 months the healthcare system has collapsed and private insurance is faling? You can't, you know why because it hasn't. It's just like every other fucking "buzz word" that gets put out there by the government. Everything is always another fucking disaster of epic proportion just over the horizon. There always has to be some "evil" out there just waiting to fuck you over, and deny you shit. Medicare. Medicade, and the VA have you ever had to deal with the fucking black hole of these programs? I would bet not, don't fucking try to tell me how wonderful government run medical programs are, because they are not. But somehow when they take over eveything it will just be peachy when they can't even deal with 1% of the population with their other programs.
And this has everything to do with freedom and liberty, health insurance is not a right. If this program is so fucking great why isn't the POTUS and Congress going to be on it? Well they will say they have their own healthcare plan, which by the way is the best of everything, why would they want to be on the same plan as the unwashed masses?
It is about control of the populus, I still fail to understand why you lib just don't get it. You come here with the emotional arguments that don't mean jack shit in the real world.
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Paglia been my favorite feminist since about 1991.
Decker - you're a generally well-reasoned individual, which is why you've earned so much respect here and in real life, I'm sure, but the reality you're choosing not to accept is that we do not need MORE federal government for ANY reason.
Thank you Tre. I've followed her career for about 10 years now. She's not dumb but read her article. It's full of hyperbole and tired cliches.
I get it. Government works slowly, sometimes badly and compromise is generally necessary. It's an ugly process of give and take.
You're focused on the wrong thing. Throwing more money (regardless of source) into the same hole is not the solution to the problems you've outlined.
I would rather throw money at this problem with the prospect of providing some much needed relief to the lower and middle classes than not.
Private Insurerance companies make money by denying claims and relying on existing gov. programs - medicare, medicaid and vA health.
If I had my way, I'd have a single payor system and let the private insurers offer anything they want re policies in excess of the baseline coverage.
This society should not reward private insurance companies for denying healthcare coverage with billions of dollars in profit.
That is wrong.
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Thank you Tre. I've followed her career for about 10 years now. She's not dumb but read her article. It's full of hyperbole and tired cliches.
I get it. Government works slowly, sometimes badly and compromise is generally necessary. It's an ugly process of give and take.
I would rather throw money at this problem with the prospect of providing some much needed relief to the lower and middle classes than not.
Private Insurerance companies make money by denying claims and relying on existing gov. programs - medicare, medicaid and vA health.
If I had my way, I'd have a single payor system and let the private insurers offer anything they want re policies in excess of the baseline coverage.
This society should not reward private insurance companies for denying healthcare coverage with billions of dollars in profit.
That is wrong.
According to who????
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Paglia been my favorite feminist since about 1991.
Decker - you're a generally well-reasoned individual, which is why you've earned so much respect here and in real life, I'm sure, but the reality you're choosing not to accept is that we do not need MORE federal government for ANY reason.
You're focused on the wrong thing. Throwing more money (regardless of source) into the same hole is not the solution to the problems you've outlined.
NOW I KNOW WHY - THIS WOMAN REALLY GETS IT!
THIS IS FROM AN INTERVIEW SHE DID. THIS IS WHAT I THOUGH TRUE LIBERALS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT.
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Real inconvenient truths
I know you are a Democrat, but you certainly have very strong libertarian opinions. I was wondering where you stand on the Second Amendment. I'm a registered Independent who, the older I get, leans more toward libertarianism. Ideally there would never have been a Bill of Rights, and all freedoms would be understood to be the rights of every American. But since we have one, the rights listed, to me at least, are sacrosanct -- all of them, not just the first and third through the tenth!
I am pro-gun ownership. I have never been arrested, and the sum total of my criminal activity amounts to a pair of moving violations when I was still in my 20s. However, since I live in New York City, I need to either be rich and famous or navigate a confusing legal process if I want to acquire a permit.
We are always reminded, not least by Mayor Bloomberg (whom I generally like and voted for) that illegal guns kill. The problem is, there is no real means to get a gun legally, and those in the world who are anti-gun want to make it harder. The thing that leaves me scratching my head is when people say, Mayor Mike among 'em, that we need stricter laws to crack down on illegal guns! Exactly what needs to be in place to make an illegal gun more illegal!
I know there are bigger issues right now facing our presidential candidates, but this speaks to personal freedom as much as any other issue. Just wondering how you see it.
Dave Hunt
Brooklyn
As a Salon columnist (dating back to the founding of Salon in 1995), I have tried to provide a forum for defenders of the Second Amendment to make their case. The Northeastern major media, which remain heavily liberal, rarely permit these voices to be heard.
I do not own guns and have no interest in them. (Swords, those Homeric and chivalric emblems, have always attracted me more.) But as a libertarian, I read the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights as granting to private citizens the right to bear arms against the potential abuses of a government turned tyrannous. Furthermore, should police authority evaporate after a cataclysm of storm, flood, earthquake or terrorism, citizens have a right to defend their families and property against criminals and looters. If food and water are in short supply over a protracted period, expect predators and violence.
The horrendous problem of illegal guns now rampant among the urban underclass cannot be solved by depriving all American citizens of their Second Amendment rights. Major cities must address their internal problems, which include improving public education and vocational training, creating job-rich public works projects, and instituting on-the-street neighborhood policing. The major media, concentrated in their metropolises, should stop extrapolating their local issues to the nation as a whole.
Just wondering what your thoughts are on the global warming issue. Have you seen the Al Gore movie? Any thoughts on the current debate on climate science?
Many thanks,
April
Vancouver
Oh, great, here comes the hornet's nest!
As a native of upstate New York, whose dramatic landscape was carved by the receding North American glacier 10,000 years ago, I have been contemplating the principle of climate change since I was a child. Niagara Falls, as well as the even bigger dry escarpment of Clark Reservation near Syracuse, is a memento left by the glacier. So is nearby Green Lakes State Park, with its mysteriously deep glacial pools. When I was 10, I lived with my family at the foot of a drumlin -- a long, undulating hill of moraine formed by eddies of the ancient glacier melt.
Geology and meteorology are fields that have always interested me and that I might well have entered, had I not been more attracted to art and culture. (My geology professor in college, in fact, asked me to consider geology as a career.) To conflate vast time frames with volatile daily change is a sublime exercise, bordering on the metaphysical.
However, I am a skeptic about what is currently called global warming. I have been highly suspicious for years about the political agenda that has slowly accrued around this issue. As a lapsed Catholic, I detest dogma in any area. Too many of my fellow Democrats seem peculiarly credulous at the moment, as if, having ground down organized religion into nonjudgmental, feel-good therapy, they are hungry for visions of apocalypse. From my perspective, virtually all of the major claims about global warming and its causes still remain to be proved.
Climate change, keyed to solar cycles, is built into Earth's system. Cooling and warming will go on forever. Slowly rising sea levels will at some point doubtless flood lower Manhattan and seaside houses everywhere from Cape Cod to Florida -- as happened to Native American encampments on those very shores. Human habitation is always fragile and provisional. People will migrate for the hills, as they have always done.
Who is impious enough to believe that Earth's contours are permanent? Our eyes are simply too slow to see the shift of tectonic plates that has raised the Himalayas and is dangling Los Angeles over an unstable fault. I began "Sexual Personae" (parodying the New Testament): "In the beginning was nature." And nature will survive us all. Man is too weak to permanently affect nature, which includes infinitely more than this tiny globe.
I voted for Ralph Nader for president in the 2000 election because I feel that the United States needs a strong Green Party. However, when I tried to watch Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" on cable TV recently, I wasn't able to get past the first 10 minutes. I was snorting with disgust at its manipulations and distortions and laughing at Gore's lugubrious sentimentality, which was painfully revelatory of his indecisive, self-thwarting character. When Gore told a congressional hearing last month that there is a universal consensus among scientists about global warming -- which is blatantly untrue -- he forfeited his own credibility.
Environmentalism is a noble cause. It is damaged by propaganda and half-truths. Every industrialized society needs heightened consciousness about its past, present and future effects on the biosphere. Though I am a libertarian, I am a strong supporter of vigilant scrutiny and regulation of industry by local, state and federal agencies. But there must be a balance with the equally vital need for economic development, especially in the Third World.
Here's a terrible episode from my region that made the news just last year. A bankrupt thermometer factory in Franklin Township, N.J., vacated its building in 1994 but ignored a directive to clean the premises of residual mercury toxins. There was a total failure of oversight and follow-through at the state and local levels. The result: In 2004, a daycare center opened in the renovated building and for two years subjected children and pregnant women to a dangerously high level of mercury vapors from the contaminated site.
The degree of permanent health effects on those children is still unknown. This kind of outrageous negligence should not be tolerated in a civilized nation.
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WOW. What clarity!
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Yeah every thing is libertarian bilge in your world ::) get some new material the shit is getting old.
Why don't you explain to me how in the last 18 months the healthcare system has collapsed and private insurance is faling?
In 2008, according to the US Census Bureau, 47 million people had no health coverage.
That doesn't include underinsured people.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/567737
That's about 16% of the entire US population.
Sounds serious, doesn't it?
You can't, you know why because it hasn't. It's just like every other fucking "buzz word" that gets put out there by the government. Everything is always another fucking disaster of epic proportion just over the horizon.
Does something have to be a disaster-like healthcare insurance- before you'd act?
There always has to be some "evil" out there just waiting to fuck you over, and deny you shit. Medicare. Medicade, and the VA have you ever had to deal with the fucking black hole of these programs? I would bet not, don't fucking try to tell me how wonderful government run medical programs are, because they are not. But somehow when they take over eveything it will just be peachy when they can't even deal with 1% of the population with their other programs.
Medicare alone covers 45 million high risk people. That's 15% of our population.
Some governmental coverage is better than no coverage at all.
Right?
And this has everything to do with freedom and liberty, health insurance is not a right. If this program is so fucking great why isn't the POTUS and Congress going to be on it? Well they will say they have their own healthcare plan, which by the way is the best of everything, why would they want to be on the same plan as the unwashed masses?
The president and Congress are not poor or lower middle class people. They don't need the gov. option. 47 million americans do.
It is about control of the populus, I still fail to understand why you lib just don't get it. You come here with the emotional arguments that don't mean jack shit in the real world.
Which part of 47 million uninsured people is an emotional argument?
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According to who????
According to Jesus Christ.
According to the Golden Rule.
According to any humane moral view.
You value corporate profit over the well being of your fellow man.
There are a lot of people like you populating this country of ours.
Let me know if I'm wrong about you.
If so, what is your view?
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Sorry Dicker - I dont think 20 milli9on illegal aliens are entitled to free health care on your and my dime.
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According to Jesus Christ.
According to the Golden Rule.
According to any humane moral view.
You value corporate profit over the well being of your fellow man.
There are a lot of people like you populating this country of ours.
Let me know if I'm wrong about you.
If so, what is your view?
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Ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You bring Jesus into this now?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
WTF bro??????????????????????
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Ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You bring Jesus into this now?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
WTF bro??????????????????????
Why? B/c my argument is that this is a moral issue. It's the right thing to do. I could have referenced Aristotle, Gandhi, or the like. I chose a literary figure identified with universal compassion and care.
That's right, you guys make fun of Christ by castigating liberals as 'bleeding hearts'.
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Sorry Dicker - I dont think 20 milli9on illegal aliens are entitled to free health care on your and my dime.
Are you drunk?
That's right, illegal aliens are the cause of all our problems. You must love that moron Lou Dobbs.
Does Obama's plan cover illegals?
Or are you just making shit up again?
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Are you drunk?
That's right, illegal aliens are the cause of all our problems. You must love that moron Lou Dobbs.
Does Obama's plan cover illegals?
Or are you just making shit up again?
20 million of the 47 you claim are uninsured are illegal aliens.
The real number is a fraction of what you claim, you religious freak.
Decker, you totally lost any and all credibility with me bringing up JC to support your argument.
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20 million of the 47 you claim are uninsured are illegal aliens.
The real number is a fraction of what you claim, you religious freak.
Decker, you totally lost any and all credibility with me bringing up JC to support your argument.
So the US Census Bureau is wrong and 333386 is correct.
Where do you get the ego?
Certainly not from your childish posts.
Evil gov. .... Tax = theft. etc.
I got news for you, even if all taxes were eliminated you'd still be doing the same shit job for the same shit pay b/c everyone else would also be relieved their tax burden.
Now you think 'religious freak' is funny or something.
This is why it's so difficult for educated people to deal with folks like yourself.
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Sorry Dicker - I dont think 20 million illegal aliens are entitled to free health care on your and my dime.
I understand your outrage over this, but there's no shortage of reasons why we MUST provide care to non-citizens.
It's a myth that residents who are here illegally pay no taxes. They buy goods and services just like the rest of us and they aren't tax-exempt just because they're foreign. While it can be argued that they pay no federal or state income tax, I would counter that argument by saying that most of them are NOT earning wages that would be high enough to generate sufficient tax revenue in the first place.
That said, we require parents of school-aged children to send their kids to school, regardless of citizenship status. It would be highly irresponsible for us to require this, but then not provide even basic health care and immunizations to them. Some of my friends have argued that we should not pay for their public education, but then in the next breath will complain about non-citizens being unable to speak English. We want a more educated population, period. This isn't a debatable point. :)
Although the dangers of communicable disease outbreaks are often overblown, are you willing to take the risk? I'd rather pay a little bit more for a lot more peace of mind. Sure, there's no guarantee that we'll stop every possible outbreak, but I certainly think it's prudent to move the odds in our favor and if we leave 8-10% of our population with virtually no healthcare whatsoever, then we're opening ourselves to unnecessary risks.
The fear-mongers are continually focused on the wrong things, though.
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I understand your outrage over this, but there's no shortage of reasons why we MUST provide care to non-citizens.
It's a myth that residents who are here illegally pay no taxes. They buy goods and services just like the rest of us and they aren't tax-exempt just because they're foreign. While it can be argued that they pay no federal or state income tax, I would counter that argument by saying that most of them are NOT earning wages that would be high enough to generate sufficient tax revenue in the first place.
That said, we require parents of school-aged children to send their kids to school, regardless of citizenship status. It would be highly irresponsible for us to require this, but then not provide even basic health care and immunizations to them. Some of my friends have argued that we should not pay for their public education, but then in the next breath will complain about non-citizens being unable to speak English. We want a more educated population, period. This isn't a debatable point. :)
Although the dangers of communicable disease outbreaks are often overblown, are you willing to take the risk? I'd rather pay a little bit more for a lot more peace of mind. Sure, there's no guarantee that we'll stop every possible outbreak, but I certainly think it's prudent to move the odds in our favor and if we leave 8-10% of our population with virtually no healthcare whatsoever, then we're opening ourselves to unnecessary risks.
The fear-mongers are continually focused on the wrong things, though.
We should treat them in the ER, and then immediately proceed to call ICE for deportation.
Additionally, most schools are funded by local property taxes. Most illegals dont pay property taxes and live in flop houses or grossly overcrowded illegal apartments where the locality is completely overwhelmed.
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I understand your outrage over this, but there's no shortage of reasons why we MUST provide care to non-citizens.
It's a myth that residents who are here illegally pay no taxes. They buy goods and services just like the rest of us and they aren't tax-exempt just because they're foreign. While it can be argued that they pay no federal or state income tax, I would counter that argument by saying that most of them are NOT earning wages that would be high enough to generate sufficient tax revenue in the first place.
That said, we require parents of school-aged children to send their kids to school, regardless of citizenship status. It would be highly irresponsible for us to require this, but then not provide even basic health care and immunizations to them. Some of my friends have argued that we should not pay for their public education, but then in the next breath will complain about non-citizens being unable to speak English. We want a more educated population, period. This isn't a debatable point. :)
Although the dangers of communicable disease outbreaks are often overblown, are you willing to take the risk? I'd rather pay a little bit more for a lot more peace of mind. Sure, there's no guarantee that we'll stop every possible outbreak, but I certainly think it's prudent to move the odds in our favor and if we leave 8-10% of our population with virtually no healthcare whatsoever, then we're opening ourselves to unnecessary risks.
The fear-mongers are continually focused on the wrong things, though.
You make great points.
333..... is also assuming that 20% of the 47 million number are illegal aliens. The US Census does not address that.
In other words, he's making shit up again.
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Ok.
1. There are no illegal aliens.
2. The post office is flush with cash.
3. The national debt does not matter.
4. Deficits dont matter.
5. Medicare is fine.
6. Illegal immigration is a good thing,
7. The govt is benevolent in everything it does.
I got it decker. Whether the number is 10 million or 20 million, its still outrageous to give even one border jumper a dime of our taxes without a airplane ticket home.
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Ok.
1. There are no illegal aliens.
2. The post office is flush with cash.
3. The national debt does not matter.
4. Deficits dont matter.
5. Medicare is fine.
6. Illegal immigration is a good thing,
7. The govt is benevolent in everything it does.
I got it decker. Whether the number is 10 million or 20 million, its still outrageous to give even one border jumper a dime of our taxes without a airplane ticket home.
The Census report I viewed refers to uninsured Americans. I thought they meant american citizens.
Tre was right. Any worker in the US pays payroll taxes that fund medicare - the same program that keeps private insurance in business. Why shouldn't illegals get the benefit they earned? If a worker has a US based source of income, they get qualified retirement plan benefits. It's the law. I think healthcare should be the same.
I dont' think Obama's plan extends insurance to illegals though.
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The Census report I viewed refers to uninsured Americans. I thought they meant american citizens.
Tre was right. Any worker in the US pays payroll taxes that fund medicare - the same program that keeps private insurance in business. Why shouldn't illegals get the benefit they earned? If a worker has a US based source of income, they get qualified retirement plan benefits. It's the law. I think healthcare should be the same.
I dont' think Obama's plan extends insurance to illegals though.
Once they get amnesty like he is pushing they will. This is another scam being pushed by your beloved Democrats.
No, law breakers should not get medicaire, its already on its heels and you want illegals to get it now too?
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We should treat them in the ER, and then immediately proceed to call ICE for deportation.
Additionally, most schools are funded by local property taxes. Most illegals dont pay property taxes and live in flop houses or grossly overcrowded illegal apartments where the locality is completely overwhelmed.
That is one of the most ridiculous statements you've ever made on these boards, ...and you've made plenty.
Regardless of the level of their accomodations, they're still paying property taxes. No landlord, ...even ...especially a slum landlord is going to pay property taxes on behalf of his/her tenants. Those property taxes are included in the rental fees charged. You name me one landlord that doesn't figure property taxes into the rental price. C'mon, ...I dare you, ...infact... I double dog dare you! :P
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That is one of the most ridiculous statements you've ever made on these boards, ...and you've made plenty.
Regardless of the level of their accomodations, they're still paying property taxes. No landlord, ...even ...especially a slum landlord is going to pay property taxes on behalf of his/her tenants. Those property taxes are included in the rental fees charged. You name me one landlord that doesn't figure property taxes into the rental price. C'mon, ...I dare you, ...infact... I double dog dare you! :P
Jag, again, you are clueles. Look up Brewster New York and see the disaster that is taking place over there etc.
Illegals over crowd an area and never even come close to paying for themselves.
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We should treat them in the ER, and then immediately proceed to call ICE for deportation.
Additionally, most schools are funded by local property taxes. Most illegals dont pay property taxes and live in flop houses or grossly overcrowded illegal apartments where the locality is completely overwhelmed.
A portion of the rent they pay does go toward property taxes in almost every state.
ICE is a federal agency...grossly overpaid and inefficient. And who pays the costs of deportation? We do. And when they come back, we pay it again.
While there are some seriously undesirable immigrants - both legal and illegal - most are just as peace-loving and hard-working as I am and we should be welcoming more of them into our citizenry and into our workforce.
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A portion of the rent they pay does go toward property taxes in almost every state.
ICE is a federal agency...grossly overpaid and inefficient. And who pays the costs of deportation? We do. And when they come back, we pay it again.
While there are some seriously undesirable immigrants - both legal and illegal - most are just as peace-loving and hard-working as I am and we should be welcoming more of them into our citizenry and into our workforce.
Almost everyone I have ever met does not want to be American. They want to work for cash here to send home to "their country" so they can build a house down in guatamala or wherever. Additionally, many file tax returns and claim the EITC based on dependetns in other countries.
I have way too much experience with what goes on in this than to fall for the bullshit.
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A portion of the rent they pay does go toward property taxes in almost every state.
ICE is a federal agency...grossly overpaid and inefficient. And who pays the costs of deportation? We do. And when they come back, we pay it again.
While there are some seriously undesirable immigrants - both legal and illegal - most are just as peace-loving and hard-working as I am and we should be welcoming more of them into our citizenry and into our workforce.
Tre, if you break the law to get here, that means you don't care about the laws that still exist...Kinda like how Christians pick and chose out of the bible what to follow...And many continue the same practices that they did in their country, like beating their wives, driving drunk, driving w/o a license...And they get pissed when you question them about it...This is their country not yours...combine that with the fact that many don't have any formal education, let alone are literate in their native tongue, you have a recipe for disaster...
These people are also being exploited because they are the new underclass.
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Once they get amnesty like he is pushing they will. This is another scam being pushed by your beloved Democrats.
No, law breakers should not get medicaire, its already on its heels and you want illegals to get it now too?
I've never had to use the services of a 'free clinic' in my life, but only because I hit life's lottery. That doesn't make me a bleeding heart, it makes me a realist.
99% of us are just a heartbeat away from being in such a position. Even though it's unlikely to happen, it *could* and I don't mind having my tax dollars supporting that safety net. No, I don't want to use it and hope I never have to, but it needs to be there.
It's just flat-out irresponsible and against our own self-interests not to provide basic healthcare to anyone who needs it. Does that mean than the 48-year-old, non-citizen father of 5 automatically gets a liver transplant when he asks for it? No, but if he's got hepatitis, we're going to pay the cost to treat him immediately. Why? BECAUSE WE DON'T WANT HIM SPREADING IT! Trust me when I say that you'd much rather pay $10/year more in taxes than to deal with hepatitis in your neighborhood or workplace.
Regarding the issue of amnesty for immigrants, the reality of the situation is that both sides of the aisle want non-citizens here, because the power brokers - regardless of which side they're on - all benefit from the cheap labor that illegal immigrants provide.
And guess what? YOU benefit, too...we all do, because the costs of many good and services are kept down because of the cheap labor available to us.
So, don't think for a moment that Democrats have sole ownership of the pro-immigrant agenda. The rhetoric from each side may be different, but that's the only difference.
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Tre, if you break the law to get here, that means you don't care about the laws that still exist...Kinda like how Christians pcik and chose out of the bible what to follow...And many continue the same practices that they did in their country, like beating their wives, driving drunk, driving w/o a license...And they get pissed when you question them about it...This is their country not yours...combine that with the fact that many don't have any formal education, let alone are literal in their native tongue, you have a recipe for disaster...
These people are also being exploited because they are the new underclass.
Excellent post and I will add to that something I've been saying for well over a decade and that is that America NEEDS its underclass.
Without a true underclass, the American Dream would cease to exist.
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Once they get amnesty like he is pushing they will. This is another scam being pushed by your beloved Democrats.
What are you talking about?
No, law breakers should not get medicaire, its already on its heels and you want illegals to get it now too?
Illegal aliens are not eligible for medicare.
http://www.medicare.gov/MedicareEligibility/Home.asp?dest=NAV|Home|GeneralEnrollment#TabTop
But they are eligible for emergency care. I think that has something to do with our customs and that jesus thing. We don't let people die or suffer needlessly.
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Excellent post and I will add to that something I've been saying for well over a decade and that is that America NEEDS its underclass.
Without a true underclass, the American Dream would cease to exist.
This man alluded to it...
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We should treat them in the ER, and then immediately proceed to call ICE for deportation.
Additionally, most schools are funded by local property taxes. Most illegals dont pay property taxes and live in flop houses or grossly overcrowded illegal apartments where the locality is completely overwhelmed.
ER care is the most expensive kind of health care.
A reason why so much money in the USA is going to health care, is because so many don't have health insurance and have to rely on ER care.
Eg, think of a non-insured person who gets stomach ache.
But instead of seeing a doctor, he or she waits. Until there is a bleeding ulcer and they have to seek care at the ER.
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ER care is the most expensive kind of health care.
A reason why so much money in the USA is going to health care, is because so many don't have health insurance and have to rely on ER care.
Eg, think of a non-insured person who gets stomach ache.
But instead of seeing a doctor, he or she waits. Until there is a bleeding ulcer and they have to seek care at the ER.
Fine - treat them and send them home.
On my way to work in the morning, these bums are lined up on the sides of the streets for two miles. Its ridiculous.
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Fine - treat them and send them home.
On my way to work in the morning, these bums are lined up on the sides of the streets for two miles. Its ridiculous.
Why use the most expensive kind of health care to treat these "bums"?
It doesn't make any sense.
Why should people be excluded from decent health care based on "pre-condition"?
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Excellent post and I will add to that something I've been saying for well over a decade and that is that America NEEDS its underclass.
Without a true underclass, the American Dream would cease to exist.
Haha... did you read his post??? He was disagreeing with you!
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Why use the most expensive kind of health care to treat these "bums"?
It doesn't make any sense.
Why should people be excluded from decent health care based on "pre-condition"?
They shouldnt be here in the first place. If they get sick, I agree treat em, and ship em out.
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Additionally, most schools are funded by local property taxes. Most illegals dont pay property taxes and live in flop houses or grossly overcrowded illegal apartments where the locality is completely overwhelmed.
Most of the 12 million illegals rent standard apartments. The landlords pay property tax on those units. Flop houses??? Overcrowded illegal apartments? You have a very strange view of the world.
Know how most undocumented immigrants arrive in the US? By plane on tourists and student visas.
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Most of the 12 million illegals rent standard apartments. The landlords pay property tax on those units. Flop houses??? Overcrowded illegal apartments? You have a very strange view of the world.
Know how most undocumented immigrants arrive in the US? By plane on tourists and student visas.
No, I see my neighborhood and what i see on the way to work each morning.
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No, I see my neighborhood and what i see on the way to work each morning.
How do you manage to see overcrowded flophouse conditions on your way to work? You travel through the Bronx to get to work, right? How can you tell if an apartment in an apartment building is overcrowded when you drive by?
I've (sort of ) lived in the Bronx before, and this doesn''t match my observations of what went on there. There were several families that quite clearly had to be illegal immigrants, but they lived regular American lives. One family to an apartment, getting up and going to work everyday, buying clothes, sending kids to school, etc.
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How do you manage to see overcrowded flophouse conditions on your way to work? You travel through the Bronx to get to work, right? How can you tell if an apartment in an apartment building is overcrowded when you drive by?
I've (sort of ) lived in the Bronx before, and this doesn''t match my observations of what went on there. There were several families that quite clearly had to be illegal immigrants, but they lived regular American lives. One family to an apartment, getting up and going to work everyday, buying clothes, sending kids to school, etc.
I am in woodlawn and go on Yonkers Ave. in the AM. There are no less than a few thousand illegals along the sides of the streets each morning.
Guess what, there are also boarded up stores, garbage, beer bottles, etc laying on the street, while the cops pull over people for stop sign violations and tasil light violations.
One of my friends livbes on Yonkers ave. and had to go out there with shovel to get these vermin from sitting on her stoop and leaving trash on the property.
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A few thousand? :o
I don't know anything about Yonkers ave, but if what you describe is true (which I suspect it isn't), then it is certainly inconsistent with what goes on in most parts of the south bronx.
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A few thousand? :o
I don't know anything about Yonkers ave, but if what you describe is true (which I suspect it isn't), then it is certainly inconsistent with what goes on in most parts of the south bronx.
There are more illegals in westchester, like port chester, yonkers, nerw rochelle, mt. kisco, elmsford, than there are in the SB.
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Why should people be excluded from decent health care based on "pre-condition"?
Because its too expensive.