Here’s a most interesting graph regarding health care:
Objectivism vs Empirical Reality.
Any comments, Rand Rover?
In one of my previous posts I cited ‘brain drain’ stats for Britain - a country which does indeed have brain drain problems, but most emmigrants are headed to Canada, Australia, or continental Europe. So there is obviously something else at play other than tax rate and liberal ideals.
Canada makes a good comparison to the US because our cultures are similar in many ways, and the history of the two countries is similar. Anti-UHCers such as yourself hate references to Canada and desperately want to dismiss them out of hand. If you want to cite some European country do your own legwork and find some relevant cites.
I’d like you to check out my thread "Is the German model a better form of Capitalism?". Here, I think, is an example of the kind of government you oppose. High taxes and the most expensive social programs in the world. Guess what? Their economy also has some of the best stats in the world. There doesn’t appear to be a brain drain either.
What is your answer to that?
I find it amazing that the Democrats managed to win huge majorities in both houses of Congress, plus a major-league ass-kicking of John McCain in the 2008 election by advocating health-care policies not supported by the majority of the American people. I blame ACORN.
You may have common sense backing you, but Rand Rover has THE polls, just as Karl Rove had THE math:
So you listen to shitty music from 5 decades instead of just the one magical decade you love so much? Duly noted.
So rap is too vulgar, but you don’t mind NIN? Wow. (FTR, I LOVE NIN)
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and again.
Folks, I’m currently on the way to the airport for a vacation, so please call yourselves idiots for the next week or so. Thanks.
That wasn’t what I asked. I am just trying to understand how you know what you claim to do and on what grounds you think that other peoples’ opinions are unknowable. You assert very strongly that pretty much under any circumstances, low taxes and minimal government are always good, but that it is impossible to make a social welfare argument because it is just “belief”.
Regardless of your beliefs about the role of government, this logic seems pretty unsustainable.
If the laws of physics were as sloppy as your economic imperatives, we’d call them ‘suggested guidelines’ and people would make a habit of ignoring them.
Let’s recap. First, we have Meyer6:
Then you:
Then finally, yours truly:
You were the one who presented brain drain as purported evidence for societies being “brought down”. Your words. I simply offered evidence that you were mistaken in asserting this relationship. You then, as you usually do when presented with evidence that contradicts your prior beliefs, shrugged it off.
Still, you’re a helluva lot more entertaining than that colostomy bag, curlcoat, so you’ve got that going for you.
Relatively speaking, I guess a room-temperature fireplace poker up the ass…
Also, the guy kvetching about violence in music listens to Eric “I Shot The Sherrif” Clapton. And complains about glorifying drugs while listening to Steely Dan ("…the fine Columbian makes tonight a wonderful thing").
In these our civilization’s waning years, he’d’ve shot the deputy too.
Yeah, I also like the way he completely disregards both Canada and Germany as proof of anything. They are just anomolies, not worthy of note in his mind. One of the problems with people like him is that the only evidence they will accept is that from their own sainted USA, and of course that evidence is lacking because many social programs have never been tried in the US. Like to prove UHC works you have to prove it works in the US, but you can’t try it in the US because you have no proof that it works. Makes perfect sense, no?
Well, I must admit that I still find curly amusing, because she seems a little more demented than Rand, and she seems a little stupider. Arguing with either of them is like slamming your head against a brick wall, though.
No thanks. Sorry if I misremembered something about your location. This post’s description of a crime (“Here in the town I live in a homeless middle-aged woman was shot to death from twenty feet away by two cops for walking toward them with a knife and refusing to put it down.”) suggests this crime. Perhaps you live in Los Angeles instead? In that case, summer high temperatures range in the 70s with a single record high of 110. Remember, you are the one who claimed to routinely mow lawns in 110 degree temperatures, not me. Moving the goal posts back to 100 doesn’t make your fairy tale any different.
See, my point wasn’t to trap you in some lie. As I said before, “One hundred ten degrees is nowhere a common summer temperature. It’s a small point, but like your other maunderings, even your memories of temperature are not in accord with reality. You really need to give up the personal anecdote as citation business; it isn’t working for you.”
Of course, my statement isn’t totally accurate either. You may in fact live in Death Valley, where temperatures actually do average well into three digits. But if so, I doubt there’s much lawn to be mowed. Or many neighbors in need of mowing help, either.
Let me refresh your memory. What I said was:
Notice I said “in as much as 110 degree heat”. That is far from saying that I routinely mow in 110 degree heat.
I don’t like to go into detail about where I live or what I do or anything else because because people like to latch onto it for purposes of stereotyping and dismissal when they lack anything of substance to argue with me on. You have seen what has happened since I revealed my age. I never got ‘cranky old man’ comments during the four or five years I posted here before I made the mistake of answering a question asking how old I was, and ever since that’s all I hear when someone gets ticked off over something I’ve said.
Trust me. I’m not maundering and I know perfectly well what temps I mow in. Like I said, I’ll be happy to prove my claims - all it takes is a little dough.
And besides, look at all the time you’ll save from having to play internet detective. 
Are you under the impression that this will help us to be suitably impressed by your bad-ass mowing abilities?
No, I’m under the impression that fools like Sleeps who act post insults to the effect that I can barely get around are merely showing their ignorance and stupidity.
And besides, everyone knows that 60 is the new 40. 
Who said you could barely get around? People just said you were old and behind the times (and also wrong).
I think it’s hilarious that mowing the lawn is the most crazy, active thing you can think of to prove your youth.