Health Care Reform & Lieberman

[Bricker]

@ShadowFacts

Your magnanimousness and restraint in avoidance of the cheap shot would be much more commendable if you weren’t holding up a sign saying “Look how magnanimous and restrained I am!”

Yeah, well, this IS the Pit. Can’t I be a bit assholish?

[Bricker]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Oh, alright, they’re not quoting Jefferson - but they’re pretending to, and that’s just as good, right?

Okay, maybe not, although this Henry St. John fellow sounds like a capital guy, but Wikipedia had something interesting to say about him:
So it’s entirely possible that Jefferson did borrow his exact words.

But remember please to always call it ‘research.’ [/Tom Leherer]

Yes, good point. But kinda weakened by the ostentatious lack of any sourcing to Jefferson original material. Still, I agree it’s possible.

[elucidator]

@Bricker

… Can’t I be a bit assholish?

Let the record show that I am nobly and magnanimously ignoring this straight line.

[Bricker]

@elucidator

Let the record show that I am nobly and magnanimously ignoring this straight line.

You’re gaining points in heaven, son.

[elucidator]

You’re a lawyer. How would you know?

[Euphonious_Polemic]

Just lost the points.

[Lobohan]

@Bricker

It’s hard to know which of these assertions to rebut first. I thought of addressing them seriatim, to give some sort of order to the response, but realized that such a disordered set of accusations would only be more confusing with such an approach. Alphabetically seems likewise unhelpful. So I’ll address them in order of decreasing silliness.

I appreciate the effort.

“Grudgingly?” No. I held my position based on what I thought were solid reasons. As each was rebutted, I moved on to the next. When there were no reasons to support my position left unrebutted, I abandoned the position. That’s not grudging – that’s the essence of being convinced by debate. I didn’t hold the opposition to same-sex marriage because of some personal animus towards gays, and there was no reason to begrudge anyone anything. You seem to confuse “grudgingly” with some other word that means something else.

The fact is that you held to it long after it should have been obvious to you. As we’ve gone over in other threads, there is no argument against SSM that isn’t based in prejudice. What you had to do was slowly come to realize that you were prejudiced.

“An issue I could give a shit about…” If you mean, “…an issue that affected me personally…” then that’s true. But that’s true of most issues on this message board to one degree or another. Even if we care passionately about an issue, our support or rejection of it rarely moves the issue closer to some kind of actual decision or change. If you’re advancing the canard that one can only have an opinion about an issue that affects them personally, then I disagree. If nothing else, I’m a voter. Like any other voter, I’m entitled to express my policy preferences at the ballot box. By your lights, since I “couldn’t give a shit” about civil unions, one would think that you’d have wanted me to be silent about my approval for them, too – except that I suspect that’s untrue. I suspect if there had been a discussion in those times that targeted civil unions versus no legal rights at all for same-sex couples, you would have welcomed my support on this “issue I don’t give a shit about.” Right?

I welcome intelligently thought out positions. Civil unions can be a pragmatic compromise in a world of prejudiced clods. To that extent I’d be happy that at least you weren’t on the “let 'em all burn” side.

“Purely ideological reasons.” This commentary comes last, because you have (undoubtedly by accident) offered an observation that has a grain of truth.

What other reasons are there? The concept that all people should have equal rights, which you would most likely offer in support of same-sex marriage, is itself an ideological reason, is it not? At their heart, all of this argument is ideological: we imagine a set of principles that we believe should govern society and seek to adopt actions that will lead to those principles. In the present debate, we might imagine someone virulently opposed to socialized medicine who suddenly contracts a rare disease and is dropped by his insurance company – and how he reacts. If he maintains his opposition, we might applaud his commitment to ideology or scorn his pigheaded reliance on ideology. And if he reverses himself, and seeks public help for his condition… he has STILL acted on ideology, this time the ideology that what benefits him is the real motivator.

Again, ideology should be shaped by intelligence. Choosing ideology based on what you think is true without examining the issue isn’t a good thing.

For instance, take the teabaggers and their issue against the Czars. They hate them because it somehow makes them thing that Obama is setting up a series of kings in America. That’s ideological, but it isn’t based in reason. It’s based in a flawed understanding of what is happening and is simply a reason glommed onto to support their hate of the administration.

Ideology should be the mark of reason not the abandonment of it. Deciding that all Americans deserve equal rights is an easy rational case to make. Deciding that a specific group doesn’t deserve them because they are gross, unholy, an abomination or destroying marriage isn’t a rational case.

So I’ll grant you that my positions in every debate are influenced by ideology, as are yours, as are everyone’s. But I’ll also point out that the “ideology” in question is not purely partisan on my part, which is why adducing facts that contradict my assumptions will get me to change my course.

I addressed this above, but like I say, ideology should be reached by rational thought, not, “Czars means king and Obama is setting up Russan Kings in our government!!!”

See, now, for someone who claims a fondness for rational reasoning, you leapt into a strawman pretty quickly, there. Two peopel may each rely on rational reasoning to reach opposite conclusions, if their initial assumptions – their postulates, if you will – differ. You begin and end your analysis with the postulate that it will be better for everyone to share costs, and you reason for that – quite rationally – that this applies to healthcare just as much as anything else. You are undoubtedly willing to be swayed from that position as it relates to any given subject, but it remains your starting, favored position.

It isn’t really a strawman since you specifically said it was a slippery slope.

I don’t share it. I believe that as a whole, humanity benefits not by lifting everyone up, but by creating environments that allow for achieving individuals to garner greater rewards. It is better, in my view, for everyone to have to work for everything, because it fosters a spirit of achievement and competitiveness that leads to innovation. I am willing to be swayed from THAT position as it relates to any given subject, but it remains my favored, default position.

Your opinion is great. It’s fantasy, but great. The fact is that not everyone can achieve great success. And even those who aren’t as smart as either of us deserve (in my opinion) to have access to healthcare. The real issue is that for a large segment of the population they have no access to insurance. Because the insurance companies don’t want their business and the prices are out of reach.

Your stance is flawed on the surface. Unless your stance is “let the poor and lower middle class die in the street, it’s their fault, since they don’t make as much money as me.” Which for point of reference is a reasonable stance to have, if you’re evil.

We are each applying rational analyses to our positions. Only one of us knows it, apparently.

No, not really.

[Translucent_Daydream]

@elucidator

You’re a lawyer. How would you know?

Oh okay. I get it now.

[kaylasdad99]

@Bricker

I’ll ask you the same kind of question I asked elucidator earlier: does this mean that my opponents in the thread can use all sorts of tactics without raising anyone’s eyebrow, but I’m constrained in my responses somehow?

Obviously, I have failed to articulate my point adequately. Permit me another attempt.

In me, Bricker, you have found an admirer. With your participation on this board, you have demonstrated many qualities that I would be quietly proud to have people notice in me. You are intellectually rigorous in forwarding an argument; you are generous with your time and knowledge skillset when explaining a legal concept or analyzing a court ruling; you are a gracious settler-of-accounts when concluding a wager; and you are a connoisseur of fine whiskey. Throughout it all, you treat us, your interlocutors, with dignity and respect.

And, yes, you have shown a courageous ability to examine your prior assumptions and publicly acknowledge a change in your position when such has occurred. Thus, I found your parry of Lobohan’s ad hominem to have been entirely on point. The riposte with an ad hominem of your own, in my view, tends to mitigate the admiration I have noted above.

That said, I’ll leave it up to you to decide what constraints you will place on your own behavior/responses. Rest assured, you will still have me as an admirer.

Cheers!

[kaylasdad99]

@Bricker

Well, if the analog is to the human body, then Missouri isn’t too bad a spot. But that’s merely cavilling; my real disquiet comes from the text.

Funnily enough, when you introduced the link, you didn’t even mention the text; it was all about the imagery.

And it’s not an analog to a human body; it’s an analog to a circulatory system. Difficult to cavil with the concept that the center of national government represents the organ that drives circulation.

[Bricker]

@kaylasdad99

Funnily enough, when you introduced the link, you didn’t even mention the text; it was all about the imagery.

You mean this post, where I said:

@Bricker

I find the “collective body” language quite disturbing, to say nothing of the image.

Yeah, I probably should have made it clear that I found the language disturbing. Wonder what I should have said to accomplish that?

[kaylasdad99]

:smack:

uhhh. . .

kaylasdad99 runs away

[ShadowFacts]

@Bricker

Yeah, well, this IS the Pit. Can’t I be a bit assholish?

Of course. Just don’t expect applause.