# "Leave Donald Alone!" Pleads His Press Secretary **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 2, 2017, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125 "2017-01-02T04:23:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/261 "2017-01-05T11:22:17Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Begging your pardon, but has President-Elect Trump already assumed the power of the President? Has President-Elect Trump’s cabinet been seated? Imagine the audacity of any President-Elect keeping, or breaking, campaign promises before he assumes the authority of President. I wonder what the U.S. Congress has to say about every President’s pre-inauguration campaign promises. If Trump has not used his presidential powers to achieve all these things, (that he has not actually achieved), then he should certainly not be lying that he has achieved them and the Mouth of Sauron should not be whining that people are mocking him for lying. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/262 "2017-01-05T11:31:18Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > 1. Conservatives couldn’t care less about how many jobs you have, nor do they deliberately seek to keep anyone trapped for fear of losing their insurance. They simply don’t want government run health care because they trust competition and profit motive to result in their getting better care than they would through a rationed (and rationing is not only inevitable but unavoidable) government system ruled over and administered by nameless and faceless bureaucrats. Ri-i-i-ght! Competition has worked so well for things like prisons and logistical support for the military. Meanwhile, government programs such as Medicare and Social Security have been highly successful for decades, (when Congress is not “borrowing” funds to prop up the general fund or forbidding the government from seeking competitive bids on medicines). Neither private investment/competition nor government services are guaranteed to either succeed or fail. However, it is the Right wing that religiously believes, in the face of evidence, that only one of those approaches can be successful. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/263 "2017-01-05T14:09:03Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > All of the above is what conservatives are really thinking. Some conservatives, undoubtedly. There are honest and decent conservatives. But there are also bigots and fuddy-duddies and others with other motivations. > [@](#): > > But liberals have long known, thanks to the likes of Karl Marx, that to foster revolution one must demonize the motives of their enemies. There are asshole and dishonest liberals, but there are also honest and decent ones. Just as you don’t want liberals maligning conservatives and getting their motives wrong, you should recognize that there are plenty of liberals with genuine and good motives and no desire to be dishonest in any way, including any desire to mischaracterize their opponents. > [@](#): > > This serves both to short-circuit rational debate and to energize and impassion people toward their side. So what we hear about conservatives from the manipulative leaders of the left and their gullible lackeys who swallow every word, is that conservatives _want_ people trapped in jobs they don’t like, or we _want_ to see people dying for lack of insurance we selfishly don’t want to pay for, etc., etc, etc. This happens, and we also see similar demonization from some conservative leaders. Have you ever heard right-wing radio types talk about liberals? According to them, I’m a really terrible, evil person, dishonest and stupid and evil all at the same time. > [@](#): > > The same crap comes into play with abortion as well, where the meme from the left is that conservatives want to control what women can do with their own bodies. The truth is that they don’t. What they try to have control over is what women can do to someone else’s body - a body they created, and had no say so whatever in its own creation at that. This stuff about us trying to deny women control over their own bodies is merely a smokescreen, and a deliberately inflammatory one, designed to deflect attention from the true fact, which is that after a certain point, a living, feeling and sentient human being is being killed, often in horrific and painful ways, in order to serve the convenience of the person who created it. > > So again you see that the conservative position is not driven by mean or punitive motives. To the contrary, it’s driven by empathetic, sympathetic and humanitarian concerns about human life. In our view it’s those who champion abortion who are the mean, cruel and heartless ones. There are different views mixed into pro-life and pro-choice views, but it really isn’t a smokescreen about control over one’s body, at least for some liberals – I’m pro-choice _entirely_ because I think women must be in sole control of their bodies, including who and what gets to enter and remain inside their bodies, rather than the government or anyone else. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s a fetus or a person or a chunk of tissue – in my view, every individual adult of sound mind must have complete control over who and what gets to stay inside their bodies under any and all circumstances. But I trust that women are more decent, in general, than the government, and I trust that women won’t end their pregnancies without good reason, and won’t wait until the last minute to do so without good reason (like a health problem or complication is discovered late in pregnancy). I think women and their doctors should be able to make these choices without government interference at all, even with the risk that some women might make choices I think are bad. Since the alternative is government restricting the ability of women to make these choices, even when the choices are good and reasonable, I’d much prefer to err on the side of women controlling their own bodies without government interference. But in general, much of what you accuse liberals of in terms of demonization and misrepresentation also goes on from many conservatives, and I’ve seen it from you as well. There are reasonable, honest, and decent reasons to come to liberal conclusions about issues, just as there are for conservative ones. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/264 "2017-01-05T14:43:50Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > 1. Conservatives couldn’t care less about how many jobs you have, nor do they deliberately seek to keep anyone trapped for fear of losing their insurance. They simply don’t want government run health care because they trust competition and profit motive to result in _ **their** _ getting better care I see that the Honesty Fairy left a nickel under your pillow, and this is where you chose to spend it. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/265 "2017-01-05T14:44:32Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > …This happens, and we also see similar demonization from some conservative leaders. Have you ever heard right-wing radio types talk about liberals? According to them, I’m a really terrible, evil person, dishonest and stupid and evil all at the same time… Of course **Starving** has heard those guys. Where do you think he gets the ideas he vomits up here regularly? (I’m also amazed at his idea that women, alone, conceive. It takes two.) ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/266 "2017-01-05T14:53:42Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > There are different views mixed into pro-life and pro-choice views, but it really isn’t a smokescreen about control over one’s body, at least for some liberals – I’m pro-choice _entirely_ because I think women must be in sole control of their bodies, including who and what gets to enter and remain inside their bodies, rather than the government or anyone else. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s a fetus or a person or a chunk of tissue – in my view, every individual adult of sound mind must have complete control over who and what gets to stay inside their bodies under any and all circumstances. It might behoove Starving Artist to start putting [a United Way update](http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-10-02) or something between the expositions of the positions: 1. Requiring me to contribute to someone else’s health insurance is PinkoCommieSocioMarxist Tyranny, and 2. Requiring a woman to provide full life support for someone else is PuppyKittenRainbowPony Compassion. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/267 "2017-01-05T15:29:17Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I see you took a course in Cultural Revolution 101, where false villainization of one’s opponent is de rigueur, and that you apparently swallowed it all wholeheartedly and graduated with honors. Did anyone else’s irony meter just break? [Donald Trump’s Nicknames For Everybody He Dislikes, Ranked On A Scale He Would Understand](https://www.bustle.com/articles/160378-donald-trumps-nicknames-for-everybody-he-dislikes-ranked-on-a-scale-he-would-understand) ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Krupe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ebca7d/32.png) [@Leo\_Krupe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Krupe)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/268 "2017-01-05T15:55:57Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > They simply don’t want government run health care because they trust competition and profit motive to result in their getting better care than they would through a rationed (and rationing is not only inevitable but unavoidable) government system ruled over and administered by nameless and faceless bureaucrats. This is what I don’t understand: what’s the difference between nameless and faceless government bureaucrats, and nameless and faceless corporate executives who are motivated by profit? As for “death panels,” it seems to me that denying insurance based on pre-existing conditions is a death sentence. My wife is diabetic, and she will be losing her job this summer (company moving, and we’re not moving with it, so she’s taking a form of early retirement). If we went back to the old ways, she wouldn’t be able to afford her medicine, which means she’d die. Now, if any new solution keeps the pre-existing condition portion, she may have a chance to live. Personally, I’d rather have to buy health insurance through the ACA than the old way of off-the-shelf. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/269 "2017-01-05T16:29:49Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Conservatives couldn’t care less about how many jobs you have, nor do they deliberately seek to keep anyone trapped for fear of losing their insurance. They simply don’t want government run health care because they trust competition and profit motive to result in their getting better care than they would through a rationed (and rationing is not only inevitable but unavoidable) government system ruled over and administered by nameless and faceless bureaucrats. Instead they would prefer it to be administered by nameless faceless corporate stooges who have a financial interest in rejecting as many claims as possible and seeing that their most sickest clients totter off to meet their maker as soon as possible. > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > They also know that in virtually every country with universal health care, long waits to see specialists and to get needed surgeries is the norm. It is also the case that after Rosa parks it was much harder to for white people to find a seat at the front of the bus. Under universal healthcare some people have longer waits because they have to wait for those who without universal care, would not be able to get care at all. What’s an inconvenience for some is life and death for others. > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And then we have the inevitable matter of ‘death panels’, which in reality would simply be functionaries in cubicles following government directives and denying expensive procedures and medications because their actuarial tables show that the patient’s age or condition doesn’t justify the expense. As opposed to now where even inexpensive procedures are denied because the patients bank accounts don’t justify the expense for. Even among those with insurance there exist death panels within the insurance companies who have a financial incentive to reject as many expensive procedures as possible, or better yet find that you didn’t declare your acne at age 16 when you signed up for their policy to they can cancel your reject your cancer treatment claim. At least a government death panel (which by the way is a [myth](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/dec/18/politifact-lie-year-death-panels/)) would have the incentive to keep their constituents happy and healthy so they can vote for their administration in the fall, particularly the elderly who are reliable voters. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/270 "2017-01-05T16:55:14Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I’m quite unaware of any legislative attempts on the part of conservatives to do any of these things, much of which is nonsense on its face. Well, they voted for it some [60 times](https://thinkprogress.org/gop-lawmakers-vote-to-repeal-obamacare-again-on-groundhog-day-6f0c931a8549). Oh sure, you can argue that that’s not what they voted for, but in practice, it’s _exactly_ what they voted for - a return to the old system, where often the only way you could hold on to your health insurance was keeping your job, with the knowledge that if you lose your job, you would be unable to get health insurance again. > [@](#): > > 1. Conservatives couldn’t care less about how many jobs you have, nor do they deliberately seek to keep anyone trapped for fear of losing their insurance. They simply don’t want government run health care because they trust competition and profit motive to result in their getting better care than they would through a rationed (and rationing is not only inevitable but unavoidable) government system ruled over and administered by nameless and faceless bureaucrats. They’re kinda stupid. An “open market” solution really doesn’t work that well when you do not get to choose whether or not to buy things. The USA’s healthcare system is demonstrably worse than that of the UK, France, Germany, Canada, and many others. Because demand is essentially fixed, they can charge whatever the hell they want, knowing that as long as people have the money, they’re still going to have to buy epi-pens, whether they cost $60 or $600. > [@](#): > > They also know that in virtually every country with universal health care, long waits to see specialists and to get needed surgeries is the norm. The USA ain’t exactly much better. [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/sunday-review/long-waits-for-doctors-appointments-have-become-the-norm.html?\_r=0](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/sunday-review/long-waits-for-doctors-appointments-have-become-the-norm.html?_r=0) The study found that 26 percent of 2,002 American adults surveyed said they waited six days or more for appointments, better only than Canada (33 percent) and Norway (28 percent), and much worse than in other countries with national health systems like the Netherlands (14 percent) or Britain (16 percent). When it came to appointments with specialists, patients in Britain and Switzerland reported shorter waits than those in the United States, but the United States did rank better than the other eight countries. And why is that? Why, _our profit motivation!_ Americans are more likely to wait for office-based medical appointments that are not good sources of revenue for hospitals and doctors. In other countries, people tend to wait longest for expensive elective care — four to six months for a knee replacement and over a month for follow-up radiation therapy after cancer surgery in Canada, for example. In our market-based system, patients can get lucrative procedures rapidly, even when there is no urgent medical need: Need a new knee, or an M.R.I., or a Botox injection? You’ll probably be on the schedule within days. But what if you’re an asthmatic whose breathing is deteriorating, or a diabetic whose medicines need adjustment, or an elderly patient who has unusual chest pain and needs a cardiology consultation? In much of the country, you can wait a week or weeks for such office appointments — or longer if you need to find a doctor who accepts your insurance plan or Medicare. […] There is widespread agreement that Americans receive unnecessary treatment when it is profitable to do so. For example, they are far more likely to get steroid injections or surgery for back pain than people in other countries, even though medical guidelines suggest six weeks of conservative treatment before other interventions are tried; backs often heal on their own, and there are risks to the procedures. Huh. Interesting. Almost like “what makes the most money” and “what’s the best for us” aren’t the same thing. Weird how that can be a thing, huh? Of course, in the US, if I am unemployed and need chemotherapy, my wait time is going to be longer than my wait time in the UK no matter what, because my wait time is “Forever, unless I win the lottery”. > [@](#): > > And then we have the inevitable matter of ‘death panels’, which in reality would simply be functionaries in cubicles following government directives and denying expensive procedures and medications because their actuarial tables show that the patient’s age or condition doesn’t justify the expense. What we have is a limited resource everyone needs. Which makes more sense: that it is rationed by a group trying to determine who needs it most and where it can do the most good, or that it is rationed by “who has money”? In fact, that’s not even it, because even in places like Great Britain, if the NHS can’t help you, there’s still the option of private practice to avoid the wait time! I bet the guy doing botox injections is earning more money than the local doctor giving out measles vaccines. > [@](#): > > All of the above is what conservatives are really thinking. Then they’re dangerously misinformed. As someone who’s spent half his life in Germany, I cannot for the life of me _imagine_ finding the US system before _or_ after Obamacare better. Your healthcare system is one of the worst-functional ones in the developed world, _because you don’t realize how badly capitalism is failing you in this case._ ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/271 "2017-01-05T16:58:06Z")
See? These things that most of you guys are bringing up would come under the heading of rational discussion. Some of your points are good and worthy of consideration in trying to determine the best way to deliver health care to the country’s citizens. But the point is that conservatives do not object to government health care because they _want_ people trapped in their jobs and unable to leave, which was among the many false and wrongheaded assertions **Johnny L.A.** made about conservative positions on a variety of social issues. I mean, what on earth is supposed to be the rationale behind such a motive in the first place? Why the hell would a conservative care if someone changes jobs or not, much less actively desire to keep them trapped where they don’t want to be? Just pointless sadism? What? People like **Johnny L.A.** hear this crap and swallow it wholesale without ever stopping to think about whether it makes the slightest bit of sense. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/272 "2017-01-05T17:12:40Z")
It makes perfect sense for Corporate America to want people to feel as if they are trapped in their jobs and can’t move-retraining costs money, and a broken workforce is a docile workforce. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/273 "2017-01-05T17:13:48Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > See? These things that most of you guys are bringing up would come under the heading of rational discussion. Some of your points are good and worthy of consideration in trying to determine the best way to deliver health care to the country’s citizens. > > But the point is that conservatives do not object to government health care because they _want_ people trapped in their jobs and unable to leave, which was among the many false and wrongheaded assertions **Johnny L.A.** made about conservative positions on a variety of social issues. I mean, what on earth is supposed to be the rationale behind such a motive in the first place? Why the hell would a conservative care if someone changes jobs or not, much less actively desire to keep them trapped where they don’t want to be? Just pointless sadism? What? People like **Johnny L.A.** hear this crap and swallow it wholesale without ever stopping to think about whether it makes the slightest bit of sense. Motives aside, the end result is that people are stuck in their jobs, for no reason other than leaving their job would mean losing their insurance, which could be their death or bankruptcy. (Not sure which is worse.) If they want to start their own business, they can’t. If they want to go work for some small start-up, they can’t. If they just want to work for a small business, they can’t. Not without losing their health insurance. The effect is definitely limiting the freedom of the American people, whether intended or not. Now, as far as speculating as to why they may be motivated to keep people from moving jobs, I could speculate a number of reasons, but mostly because it gives employers more power over their employees, and employers tend to be bigger political donors than employees. The ACA helped me out, as before it, I was concerned about leaving my job to open my own business, and I dealt with some pretty shitty employers, and took it, because I couldn’t afford to lose my insurance. I spent some time in 2007 working for a small employer that did not offer insurance, and so I got my own individual policy. It cost about 50% more than what my aca premium is now, had a higher deductible, and would not cover anything to do with my spine or joints. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/274 "2017-01-05T17:22:51Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > [T]he end result is that people are stuck in their jobs, for no reason other than leaving their job would mean losing their insurance, which could be their death or bankruptcy. (Not sure which is worse.) If they want to start their own business, they can’t. If they want to go work for some small start-up, they can’t. If they just want to work for a small business, they can’t. Not without losing their health insurance. > > The effect is definitely limiting the freedom of the American people, whether intended or not. This. Though **Starving Artist** isn’t capable of picking up on nuances, so I understand his rant. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/275 "2017-01-05T18:16:44Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > See? These things that most of you guys are bringing up would come under the heading of rational discussion. Some of your points are good and worthy of consideration in trying to determine the best way to deliver health care to the country’s citizens. > > But the point is that conservatives do not object to government health care because they _want_ people trapped in their jobs and unable to leave, which was among the many false and wrongheaded assertions **Johnny L.A.** made about conservative positions on a variety of social issues. I mean, what on earth is supposed to be the rationale behind such a motive in the first place? Why the hell would a conservative care if someone changes jobs or not, much less actively desire to keep them trapped where they don’t want to be? Just pointless sadism? What? People like **Johnny L.A.** hear this crap and swallow it wholesale without ever stopping to think about whether it makes the slightest bit of sense. Well, having people trapped in jobs means you can pay them less and work them harder without their quitting on you. It’s the same reason they oppose any other policies and organizations that would shift negotiating power from labor to management. However I don’t think that this was their primary goal (I think their primary goal was to make sure that any legislation put forth by a Democratic adminiatration be viewed as a failure) and I also agree with your sentiment that simply stating Conservatives are evil for the sake of being evil as some posters tend to do is unhelpful. But given the extent to which you [ascribe](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=19896171&highlight=liberals#post19896171) [hateful](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=19842190&highlight=liberals#post19842190)[motives](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=19895894&highlight=liberal#post19895894) to[strawman](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=19787148&highlight=liberal#post19787148) [Liberals](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=19842303&highlight=liberal#post19842303), I don’t think that you may be the best spokesman for this attitude. By the way do you actually have any actual responses to our “good and worthy points”? Or can we take your lack of response to indicate a retraction of your previous complaints. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/276 "2017-01-05T18:19:33Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > See? These things that most of you guys are bringing up would come under the heading of rational discussion. Some of your points are good and worthy of consideration in trying to determine the best way to deliver health care to the country’s citizens. And conservatives in the US have chosen to reject them, for no good reason. > [@](#): > > But the point is that conservatives do not object to government health care because they _want_ people trapped in their jobs and unable to leave, which was among the many false and wrongheaded assertions **Johnny L.A.** made about conservative positions on a variety of social issues. I mean, what on earth is supposed to be the rationale behind such a motive in the first place? Why the hell would a conservative care if someone changes jobs or not, much less actively desire to keep them trapped where they don’t want to be? Just pointless sadism? What? People like **Johnny L.A.** hear this crap and swallow it wholesale without ever stopping to think about whether it makes the slightest bit of sense. Have you ever heard about hyperbole? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/277 "2017-01-05T18:19:59Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > By the way do you actually have any actual responses to our “good and worthy points”? Or can we take your lack of response to indicate a retraction of your previous complaints. No to both. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/278 "2017-01-05T18:25:12Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Motives aside, the end result is that people are stuck in their jobs, for no reason other than leaving their job would mean losing their insurance, which could be their death or bankruptcy. (Not sure which is worse.) If they want to start their own business, they can’t. If they want to go work for some small start-up, they can’t. If they just want to work for a small business, they can’t. Not without losing their health insurance. > > The effect is definitely limiting the freedom of the American people, whether intended or not. QFT ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/279 "2017-01-05T18:25:36Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > No to both. So, by definition then, you are just disagreeable? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125/280 "2017-01-05T18:34:15Z")
So, you ask him to agree that he is disagreeable? I think I see the problem. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-donald-alone-pleads-his-press-secretary/776125.md?page=15)