No, just you, Sparky.
Feel free to post a couple cites backing this up.
-Joe
No, you can just take my word for it.
Regards,
Shodan
Oh, I don’t think RR is insane, he’s quite sane. He as examined the topography of his bread long enough to ascertain on what side it is buttered, and then made the happy discovery that his political opinions coincide precisely. Hell, I’m the one who’s insane, I’m a very religious person who doesn’t believe in God, how crazy is that?
What you’re leaving out here is that a party rules as a group. Suppose your issue is abortion, and in your particular election the Republican is pro-choice and the Democrat is pro-life. You still support the pro-choice cause by voting Democrat and the pro-life choice by voting Republican. Because as a practical matter, the pro-life Democrats are marginalized, and the pro-choice Republicans are as well. Effectively the full power of the Republican party backs the pro-life position and of the Democratic party the pro-choice. (I remember hearing a lot about how Reid was pro-life when he got the Senate Democratic leader job, and he has not used any of that power to push a pro-life position, and the Senate Democrats were just as unified in opposition to any SC nominee that might override Roe V. Wade as they had been.)
Of course that’s not always completely true, as evidenced by the issue that aroused the ire of the OP. But it’s generally the case. Even in the case of UHC, had enough liberal Republicans been elected to give the Repubs a majority of the house & senate, UHC would not even be on the table, whatever the sensibilities of those particular congressmen and senators.
It’s also reasonable to argue that people support “free health care” as a general principle but are uncomfortable with making significant trade-offs to get it, and various other associated details. So as long as it was a nice slogan, that sounded pain free, it got a lot of support. But once people looked closer at the details, including both the accompanying details of the various plans, as well as the long term ramifications of the programs themselves, it looked a whole lot less attractive.
In addition, hanging over this whole issue is the fact that “health care reform” at this time refers to several very different bills being worked on by different house & senate committees. And since Obama has refused to commit to specific details, and since he has already shown himself to be dishonest about this issue, people’s unease is only increased.
Passing the health care bill will be a process not an event. There are several bills and they will be presented, discussed, changed and voted upon. There will be a lot of input from many groups and people. Nobody knows what the final bill will look like. Why does Obama have to commit to one now? He is a politician and they do compromise and develop coalitions. There will be backroom trading in the House and Senate. That is just the system.
Wrong–quite the opposite, actually. I was a communist from junior high through undergrad when I figured out that it’s a dumbass philosophy that doesn’t take into account the reality of how people work. I then became fiscally conservative, then went to law school, and here I am today.
http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/bg1674.cfm
I understand that particular site might not be to your liking so I’ll link a couple of others just for you luci
This one tells a bit about why this won’t work for a medicare revamp (and if you read into it) Why it probably wouldn’t work as a major health care for the poor.
http://www.urban.org/publications/900489.html
Finally, a brief which describes why it works so well. Hint: Because the government picks up a majority of the insureds cost.
You know, it’s funny. I was a Republican from junior high through part of undergrad, when I figured out that it’s a dumbass philosophy that doesn’t take into account the reality of anyone beyond one’s self. I then became more of a socialist (in today’s definition of the word), then went to law school, and here I am today.
Other than the fact that my family is also financially well-off, I think I’m the anti-RR.
That’s a pretty big “other”, and in my opinion puts you rather firmly in RR’s camp rather than in the socialistic one.
What you have done is retain enough of your earnings so that you and your family are “well off”. This is exactly what most conservatives want!
Most conservatives, contrary to popular opinion (among the left, that is) are not rich. Some are indeed affluent, but many more are middle and lower class. And most conservatives, myself included, see the need for (limited) social programs to help the truly needy, disabled and elderly. Where there is disagreement with the left, it is usually with regard as to how to implement them.
Now you may be more willing, should government decide to do so, to allow more of your income to be taxed so as to benefit others than would be most conservatives, but I doubt very much that you would want to be taxed to the point that you and your family are no longer “well off”, and that is the fear that most conservatives have with regard to ever-increasing government social programs and the tax increases that support them.
We are to the point now where even after less than a century of income tax, self-employed people earning as little as $40,000 a year are working half the year for the government (including SE tax, income tax, state, county, property taxes, etc.). IMO, that is a good deal more than enough.
Now many people around here would find it just peachy if everyone paid 90 or 95 percent of their income to the government in return for cradle-to-grave government support. I am not one of those people and I doubt that you are either.
So, given the fact that you have retained enough of your income so as to provide a lifestyle for yourself and your family that could be described as well-off without voluntarily donating it to the public coffers, I’d say that your actions put you more in line with RR’s philosophy (and most conservative ones) than with socialistic ones.
Fuckin’ clueless as always. And again with the “socialism” boogeyman.
For instance, did you know that that well-kown socialist bastion, Norway, produces more millionaires per capita than does your glorious Capitalistic empire?
Well, it does: Norway can claim the most millionaires in the world
So put that in your pipe and smoke it. Because you sure as shit have proven over and over that you simply can’t understand the concept. Or to borrow a great line from Brain Glutton: “Socialism is system proven to work in practice but not in theory.”
How much of Norway’s population is made up of immigrants? Illegal or otherwise.
Much of today’s problematic health care issues stem from immigration (pay no taxes/use ER for runny nose types) and insurance companies intermingling with the pharmaceutical companies.
btw, what’s Norway’s tax rate at these days?
Gimmee a break, OK, Kearsen? If I delilver twice as many scholarly papers supporting my side of the argument, does that mean you haul down your flag and join my team? Permit me to politely doubt that.
Cite wars are nearly as stupid as flame wars. Pretty much everybody knows that this is an issue that you can find all the opinions you want. And Heritage not to my liking? Well, no, is it to yours? Is it not pretty much a “think tank” funded by wealthy benefactors to offer scholarly support to opinions already held? Hired guns, academic wise?
Better, give me your own opinion. Tell me why this thing which works fairly well all over the world simply cannot work in America? Are the laws of medicine and/or economics not applicable here? Are they lying everywhere else?
Runny immigrant noses & and the coorporate interests [read: greed] of the pharma and insurance Co are equally taxing on the faulty American health care system?
Who knew. :rolleyes:
As for Norway, you can start here Norway is a welfare state and one of the richest countries in the world and then wonder throughout the rest of that site to get all the info you want about them.
Shush, we all know what’s important are the handful of people who are super duper diamond-studded bathtub rich.
Millionaires. Pah.
Edit: Is there a list of countries by millionaire per capita? It’d be an interesting list.
Oil. “Only Saudi Arabia and Russia export more oil than Norway.” via cia.gov. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Furthermore the Scandinavian states are actually more business-friendly than most US leftists would be comfortable with. If we look at measures of economic freedom, especially those measures which track freedom independent from the size of government expenditures, the Scandinavian countries have become much freer. (Note that the Netherlands, which until very recently was outperforming the other European welfare states, experienced the greatest gains in this category.)
I didn’t read all of the cites so I may be off base, but I think some of the quibbling here was over describing different things. One side says X Americans support the idea of major reforms to health care, and someone replies yeah but only Y Americans support Obama’s plan or actions to date.
The difference is not necesarily because people have stopped liking health care reforms, but that they don’t personally approve of what Obama/Pelosi are doing. This can even be because they don’t think the reform is extreme enough.
I have to say that this is one of your most coherent, lucid posts I have read. Nice work.
Perhaps it’s just a ruse by Obama to rile up public option supporters to them to push back against the death panelers. Or maybe he needs to concede the public option because Democrats in Congress won’t go to the mat with him because they don’t think he’s truly a progressive. Who knows.
My main complaint about this “debate” is that nobody in the administration nor the news media have done much to explain what the substantive terms of the proposed legislation are. I’ve heard a lot about the town-hall uproar, Blue Dog Democrats, and Sarah Palin, but nothing about the bill.