I expect people to get emotional about a war they themselves may get sent to fight and die in. I try to give people a wide berth for getting emotional about serious issues; it’s when they’re getting emotional about things that are not really happening that I start to get annoyed about the whole thing.
And on that note, given what happened in Vietnam, I don’t think baby killer is inaccurate or undeserved. How many people were killed in Southeast Asia, 3 million? There were villages massacred, and plenty of people who were not involved in the war were killed or injured by defoliant and so on. It’s not something I’d expect people to be polite and calm about.
I haven’t criticized anybody for protesting. I do think that when you compare the president to Hitler for trying to pass a health care plan and make up stories about how it’s a eugenics program that will murder old people, you’ve lost touch with reality and ought to stick to criticisms of the actual plan.
Pointless? Cost hundreds of billions? That’s weird - I thought the whole point of health care reform was to reduce / control overall costs (that being the point, afterall). Huh - guess I’ll need to look that one up.
They get emotional about ANYTHING they don’t agree with. That’s the problem. Right now people who oppose government health care are being called little better than baby-killers. We supposedly favor “obscene” insurance company profits; don’t care about anybody but ourselves; don’t want to spend “our” money so people can be healthy; have a “fuck the poor” attidude; and favor throwing people out into the streets to die for lack of health care.
Such hysteria, if you’re on the other side, is utterly ridiculous. And the fact that it’s a serious issue doesn’t make it okay.
Yeah, the Vietnam war was a pulled-punches war that in my opinion wasted a lot of young American lives, but the way people behaved in response to it (and percentage-wise, prescious few stood to be drafted and sent there) set the tone for the angry, intolerant and inflexible attitudes of lefties for everything they’ve championed since. And that was the point – not the relative merits of the Vietnam war.
“They” meaning lefties, or “they” meaning people in general? Emotion over political issues, or any other topic, isn’t a leftwing or rightwing thing. And neither is inflexibility.
“They” means lefties. Until now. With regard to their own health care, the right is finally getting up in arms and beginning to fight fire with fire, and the whinging of the left over the unfairness of such tactics now that they’re coming from the other side, is most amusing to watch.
Whether the right continues this approach, or whether it will slip back into complacency and apathy as the left increasingly encroaches on our freedoms remains to be seen.
But, to this point at least, I’d say that, yeah, lefties are the ones who have traditionally gotten upset and reacted angrily and inflexibly to anything they don’t agree with, with the starting point being the Vietnam war.
A poor move on his part. The torture that has gone on at Gitmo is downright evil, and the furor causes by his comments outweighed what should have been an even greater furor over what actually went on there.
I haven’t read or listened to everything Moore has said. I’ve seen a couple TV interviews, and three of his films (Sicko, Fahrehnheit 9/11, Bowling For Columbine) and that’s how I based my opinion.
I’ll note that I haven’t seen any Democratic Party leaders get cozy with Michael Moore or go to bat for him.
Oh, well I guess that excuses pretty much everything then.
Look, the point is, the Vietnam protests changed the nature of political demonstrations in this country and it was done by the political left. Thus saying at this late point in the game that somehow the tactics of the people protesting the idea of government-run healthcare are changing the rules is specious and disingenuous.
Two points: One, being drafted did not necessarily equate with being sent to Vietnam; and two, if you are implying that blacks were being called up disproportionately due to their race, you might take into account the fact that students were given deferments, and while it is true that due to the racial environment that had existed in this country since its inception blacks had little opportunity to attend college, the fact is that fewer whites were called up because they were in college, not because the U.S. government put less value on black lives. And while I don’t have a cite, I believe that most voluntary enlistment the last few decades has disproportionately been blacks, who sign up to take advantage of the educational and vocational opportunities that military service offers.
Actally - I didn’t mean to say anything about race at all (although I know that I did), and in fact I agree with you to some extent on both points. I meant to simply address the overall likelihood of getting drafted, which to me seemed greater than “precious few”.
And to this:
I’ll merely point out the following:
Evil Government Programs:
Social Security Overhead: <1%
Medicare Overhead: 2-5%
Administrative Cost for Canada’s Gov. Healthcare: 16%
Free-Market and therefore Efficient Private Programs:
Life insurance Overhead: 12-14%
Private Health Insurance Overhead (low estimate): 10-15%
Private Health Insurance Overhead (higher estimate): 31% or >31%
Overhead does not address wasteful spending. Government programs are notorious for inefficiency and wasteful spending, while ironically providing their intended beneficiaries with scant resources and benefit. And this doesn’t even address Congress’ proclivity to take money intended for one area of government spending and use it for something else, which is one of the factors that has made Social Security so difficult to finance.
I’m wondering if you might not be comparing apples to oranges to some extent. Does your figure for Social Security include the cost of running the IRS? And the SSA does not have to pay corporate income tax.
First of all, there is no private-sector social security or medicare programs to compare with. Second, I’d like to know how those overhead costs were calculated and by who.
Most large retail firms charge about 100 basis points or less for infinitely more choice and value.
Technically, all Social Security is doing with your money is buying government bonds. Mutual funds that do that (like Vanguard) often charge 20 basis points or less.
And as others have pointed out, it ignores the cost of collecting it via the IRS.
And like the oft-cited ‘Medicare’ comparisons, the value you are getting for that cost is not apples-to-apples with the private sector. Many mid-to-upper income wage earners will see a negative real return from SS over their liftetimes for that supposed 1% cost. You can do a hell of lot better than that by just buying TIPs, which will also cost much less than 100 bps.
So wait … you missed him being given a seat of honor at the 2004 DNC weeks after releasing Farenheit 9/11 and its inside-job theories? You missed him getting ovations from Democratic crowds for saying of Republicans that “they aren’t patriots” or “real Americans?”
It certainly is apples to oranges, and your point about the IRS is valid. However, I don’t know how else to compare the potential efficiencies of government versus private sector, except by looking at actual examples. And yes - it’s true that overhead isn’t the only (or even best) metric to use - but it is one data point to consider (or ignore) as people see fit.
I would add that your point about the government not paying income tax seems like an argument for government run healthcare - since there is an immediate savings right off the bat. Not to mention that, without a profit motive, the government doesn’t need to charge higher rates to then pass on a profit to investors.
Others seem to be arguing that government is bad at doing pretty much everything and therefore would be bad at an expanded role in healthcare. I honestly don’t know how to respond to that.