# Way too long Bush Bashing SotU blow by blow
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [February 3, 2005, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136 "2005-02-03T06:30:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 10
### Author:  [@Dancing\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dancing_Dead)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/181 "2005-02-07T01:52:39Z")
> [@Weirddave](#):
>
> I apologise, I was not intending an insult against your wife. In fact, I think your wife is a good example of the problems with health insurance, Sven’s example was a healthy person working only 30 hours a week by choice. Notice too that I excluded people with disabilities in my post, certainly a person with a chronic illness would fall under that umbrella.
Thanks, I appreciate your classy response to this.
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### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/182 "2005-02-07T02:25:27Z")
> [@Weirddave](#):
>
> That’s a particularly stupid example. The moron isn’t even working full time. If he needs money that badly, why isn’t he working 50 or 60 hours a week?
Fuck it, you’ll never understand. Go on thinking that every person that wants to/works hard enough/really deserves it can land any number of decently paid full-time jobs. Nevermind that the unemployment rate shows pretty clearly that we don’t exactly have jobs to spare. Go on believing that companies would never dream of hiring people- even white collar educated people- at slightly less than full time precisely so that they don’t have to pay benefits. You keep on living in your fantasy liberertarian land and I’ll try not to bring it up when America finally catches up with the rest of Western civilization.
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### Author:  [@Dancing\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dancing_Dead)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/183 "2005-02-07T02:30:03Z")
> [@elucidator](#):
>
> Aha! But by asserting that healthcare should _not_ be a luxury, then you are asserting that it is, as of now, a luxury. Therefore, despire your insistence otherwise, you are in fact proposing a program of providing luxury to the underpriveleged and/or undeserving.
>
> Let’s see you squirm out of that, Mr. Smooth-talking Liberal!
Yeah I know, fucking terrible of me isn’t it? 😉
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### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/184 "2005-02-07T02:35:18Z")
Oh, and FWIW, I was not refering to **Dancing Dead** wife, but rather to my own rather extensive experience in the field. Most low-paid jobs (food service, retail, etc.) right now are just under full time, and do not have set schedules. This means you could work a forty hour week one week and an eight hour one the next.
In theory your hours are determined by how busy the workplace is, but in reality hours are withheld as punishment (for example, if you ask for a specific day off, they will often not assign you for the whole week- imagine not making money for a week), subject to how many people the manager feels like hiring (nothing sucks more than the manager bringing two more people on that suddenly dramatically reduces everyone’s ability to pay their rent), influenced by sheer favoritism and sporatic enough that holding more than one job is almost impossible (if you can be assigned any shift on any day between 9AM and Midnight, and you are punished for not being able to work certain shifts with a reduction in hours, it’s really a trick to pull of two jobs. I used to just hope that my shifts on my jobs would just magically not conflict, but the beginning of the week was always a scramble to find people who could cover one of my doubled-up shifts).
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### Author:  [@milroyj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/milroyj)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/185 "2005-02-07T02:45:18Z")
> [@even sven](#):
>
> Nevermind that the unemployment rate shows pretty clearly that we don’t exactly have jobs to spare.
Nevermind that the unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been in more than 3 years, and is well within the “natural” rate of unemployment for our economy.
I guess you wouldn’t want to have facts getting in the way of your rant, though.
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### Author:  [@Dancing\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dancing_Dead)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/186 "2005-02-07T03:01:54Z")
> [@milroyj](#):
>
> I guess you wouldn’t want to have facts getting in the way of your rant, though.
Nor, from what I have read from you, would you want to have compassion get in the way of your Social Darwinism.
I am beginning to suspect you do not live in the real world at all. You know, the world where people struggle through no fault of their own. The world where not everybody has the inborn ability to get themselves an above average wage job. The world where families have difficulty keeping a roof over their heads.
I ought to write a book - maybe I could make some extra cash.
“Humanity is from Earth, MilroyJ is from the bottom of the pond”
Catchy title I think.
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### Author:  [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/187 "2005-02-07T03:16:13Z")
> [@even sven](#):
>
> Oh, and FWIW, I was not refering to **Dancing Dead** wife, but rather to my own rather extensive experience in the field. Most low-paid jobs (food service, retail, etc.) right now are just under full time, and do not have set schedules. This means you could work a forty hour week one week and an eight hour one the next.
>
> In theory your hours are determined by how busy the workplace is, but in reality hours are withheld as punishment (for example, if you ask for a specific day off, they will often not assign you for the whole week- imagine not making money for a week), subject to how many people the manager feels like hiring (nothing sucks more than the manager bringing two more people on that suddenly dramatically reduces everyone’s ability to pay their rent), influenced by sheer favoritism and sporatic enough that holding more than one job is almost impossible (if you can be assigned any shift on any day between 9AM and Midnight, and you are punished for not being able to work certain shifts with a reduction in hours, it’s really a trick to pull of two jobs. I used to just hope that my shifts on my jobs would just magically not conflict, but the beginning of the week was always a scramble to find people who could cover one of my doubled-up shifts).
You know what you are **sven**? You’re a professional victim. “Wah, wah, wah, it’s not my fault, the big bad world is out to get me! It’s hard and mean out here!” Anyone treated me that way on the job, I would have walked. It’s not like McDonalds is such a valuable work environment that Wal Mart or Arby’s or Best Buy wouldn’t let you make the same money and not have an abusive manager. You let your employer abuse you, and then come crying for sympathy here rather than doing something about it. Grow up.
Oh, and since it was you in the earlier example, how come you didn’t pick up an extra 10 hours of work on another job and pay for your damn health insurance yourself?
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### Author:  [@milroyj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/milroyj)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/188 "2005-02-07T03:38:26Z")
> [@Weirddave](#):
>
> Oh, and since it was you in the earlier example, how come you didn’t pick up an extra 10 hours of work on another job and pay for your damn health insurance yourself?
Yes, **even sven** , why don’t you?
Alternatively, if HI is $200/month as per your example, your $20K will get you 8 YEARS of health insurance. Now surely, as put-upon, and down-trodden as you are, even you can get a better gig with insurance sometime in the next eight years, right?
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### Author:  [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/189 "2005-02-07T03:42:54Z")
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> If there were no oxygen in the air, I wouldn’t have made it either. But I don’t take the time to qualify that it was my efforts, PLUS the fortuitous presence of oxygen.
>
> So, too, with the availability of private scholarships. Their presence made a difference, to be sure, but we’re not debating the wisdom of private scholarships. Like oxygen, they exist today, and like, oxygen, are available in equal measure for whoever wishes to take advantage of them.
Whats the deal here Bricker? It sounds like you were stretched to the max when you went to school is that true? If so you do realize that in fact you were stretched to the max or anywhere close you would not have made it now? Do you care? Would you be a lazy bum if you didn’t? Is the amount of aid the state provides set at the level in which you can make it?
How can a student who has never seen a computer before compete with me in our computer based freshman classes when I have grown up with them. The world is changing. A new power is rising in the east. Soon the towers of err… The world is changing we are in an information age. Technology is what drives the economy. If you don’t have computer skills you are nigh on unemployable. The jobs with decent wages that an unskilled worker can get are all being shipped overseas. If we want to sit back and say to someone ‘get an education if you want a better job’ we can’t blatantly and egrigiously stack the deck against them.
Lets look at the facts one more time. Since you went to school the real tuition on average has at least doubled. Would you have made it through school if you had to work 6 jobs to pay for it?
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> Of course the rich kids had it easier. I agree with that.
>
> But that’s the way it is. It’s not the proper role of government to force everyone to have absolutely equal chances.
I am not advocating equal chances I am advocating something in the neighborhood of an equal shot. Our nations educational system is terribly biased towards the rich. The poor get run down facilities, substandard teachers, old textbooks, virtually no computers while the rich get in a public school many times superior. Are you in favor of the state providing an equal education to all of its citizens or would you like only the rich to recieve an education?
Do you have a specific opinion on the situation in Ohio regarding the constitutionality of current funding?
[link](http://www.kwfdn.org/derolph.html)
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> Seriously - what about the fact that the athletic kids had better chances of getting sports scholarships? Isn’t that unfair? Shouldn’t we eliminate sports scholarships, to destroy this unfair advantage?
Why don’t we give scholarships to the kids that need it in addition to the sports scholarships? You keep on bringing up trivial things like looks, athletic ability and musical talent. I am talking about the differance between living a full life and living sick, poor and hungry until you die an early death from a treatible illness.
Bricker you’re an intelligent guy look at the system. The deck is stacked against poor kids in this country from the get go and I am sure you realize it better than I do. How can we blame the individual when as a society we set them up for almost certain failure? Then be crass enough to sit back and accuse them of blowing money at sex parlors and being lazy bums. Tell me Bricker do you really think 30% of the people in America are blowing money on blowjobs and sitting on their ass while their families go stretches without health care, food, adequate baby sitting or housing?
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### Author:  [@Dancing\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dancing_Dead)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/190 "2005-02-07T03:49:09Z")
> [@milroyj](#):
>
> Yes, **even sven** , why don’t you?
>
> Alternatively, if HI is $200/month as per your example, your $20K will get you 8 YEARS of health insurance. Now surely, as put-upon, and down-trodden as you are, even you can get a better gig with insurance sometime in the next eight years, right?
You want to try that when that $200 is 25% of your income? And house, feed and clothe yourself? Then there is the cost of running a vehicle - no public transport here.
What, pray tell, happens if sometime prior to that “eight years”, one comes down with something pretty awful? I guess in your worldview then tough shit. Right? What about the employers who are no longer offering insurance because the costs are rising so dramatically? I cannot say I blame them. Have you ever looked at what it costs to buy it outright? Your $200 would not even be a deposit on the monthly costs.
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### Author:  [@milroyj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/milroyj)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/191 "2005-02-07T03:57:35Z")
> [@Dancing Dead](#):
>
> You want to try that when that $200 is 25% of your income? And house, feed and clothe yourself? Then there is the cost of running a vehicle - no public transport here.
>
> What, pray tell, happens if sometime prior to that “eight years”, one comes down with something pretty awful? I guess in your worldview then tough shit. Right? What about the employers who are no longer offering insurance because the costs are rising so dramatically? I cannot say I blame them. Have you ever looked at what it costs to buy it outright? Your $200 would not even be a deposit on the monthly costs.
The $200 figure was quoted by **even sven** , and she certainly can afford it, she just chooses not to spend her money that way. Which is fine, in and of itself, but then her saying that her healthcare should be free, i.e., paid for by the rest of us, is a bit over the top, don’t you think?
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### Author:  [@Dancing\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dancing_Dead)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/192 "2005-02-07T04:01:22Z")
> [@milroyj](#):
>
> The $200 figure was quoted by **even sven** , and she certainly can afford it, she just chooses not to spend her money that way. Which is fine, in and of itself, but then her saying that her healthcare should be free, i.e., paid for by the rest of us, is a bit over the top, don’t you think?
I think I understand what it is you are saying here. I just disagree with you. I do think people ought to be responsible for health costs - by way of taxation. Businesses would save huge amounts on benefits, all individuals would be covered (the taxation could be raised using the savings on insurance benefits) and nobody need go without medical treatment
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### Author:  [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/193 "2005-02-07T04:39:36Z")
> [@Dancing Dead](#):
>
> I think I understand what it is you are saying here. I just disagree with you. I do think people ought to be responsible for health costs - by way of taxation. Businesses would save huge amounts on benefits, all individuals would be covered (the taxation could be raised using the savings on insurance benefits) and nobody need go without medical treatment
Can you name one thing that government has ever run better and more efficiently than private industry?
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### Author:  [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/194 "2005-02-07T04:45:44Z")
> [@](#):
>
> !" Anyone treated me that way on the job, I would have walked. It’s not like McDonalds is such a valuable work environment that Wal Mart or Arby’s or Best Buy wouldn’t let you make the same money and not have an abusive manager. You let your employer abuse you, and then come crying for sympathy here rather than doing something about it. Grow up.
Your comments to **even sven** specifically aside, I think you’re overstating the ease with which one can just go out and find work.
I probably would have felt the same way a few years ago. But when we moved here for my residency, it took **CrazyCatLady** six months to find a job. This is an intelligent, talented, and hard-working person with a college degree, an EMT certificate, and lots of vet tech experience. What’s more, she was lacking all the barriers that traditionally make finding work difficult–she had reliable transportation and no kids or other obligations. There was nothing in any of her fields of training and experience, nothing in office work, nothing in the crappy restaurant jobs. Every single job opening anywhere for anything had dozens and dozens of applicants, and since we knew basically no one in town, there was no way she was getting picked for any of them.
Granted, this would probably not be the case right now; this was at the bottom of our local (and, to a lesser extent, our national) economic cycle. But it was what it was, and she was far from an isolated case at the time. That’s why it’s easy to say, “Why can’t they just pick up another ten hours a week?” or “If they kept me less than full-time to keep from paying benefits, I’d quit”, but it doesn’t always match reality.
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### Author:  [@Dancing\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dancing_Dead)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/195 "2005-02-07T05:52:29Z")
> [@Weirddave](#):
>
> Can you name one thing that government has ever run better and more efficiently than private industry?
Would you care to see private law enforcement and the total disbanding of all federal, state and local agencies?
OTOH, efficiency is irrelevant to this. I am talking of providing what I see as a basic right. I also note that health is not provided in a totally inefficient manner in nations with nationalized care.
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### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/196 "2005-02-07T06:31:23Z")
For fucks sake, I’m not talking about myself. But I have at least a taste of what it’s like for people who don’t have a land owning grandparent knock off early and really do have nothing to rely on but a minimum wage job or two. If you want to talk about my personal situation, I honestly do invite you to share your job-getting expertise in my resume thread.
I never asked you guys to pay for _my_ health care. But most people working low-wage jobs really don’t have any outside resources and don’t have anything to fall back on. And working people in a rich nation shouldn’t go without basic health care. It’s just wrong. Our wealth is built on these people as surely as it is built on anyone else.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/197 "2005-02-07T07:06:17Z")
Of course, to be fair, we will also insist that rich folks have access to health care, too.
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### Author:  [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/198 "2005-02-07T12:32:36Z")
> [@Weirddave](#):
>
> Can you name one thing that government has ever run better and more efficiently than private industry?
Uhm health care? We are 37th while France a country with socialize medice is number one.
[link](http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2000/08/28/gvsa0828.htm)
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### Author:  [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/199 "2005-02-07T12:35:50Z")
Oh boy let me try that again:
We are 37th while France a country with socialed medicine is number one.
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### Author:  [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2005, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/way-too-long-bush-bashing-sotu-blow-by-blow/288136/200 "2005-02-07T14:46:32Z")
I’m puzzled by some of the more hard-line personal responsibility types who at the same time espouse Christianity. I seem to recall something about “as you do unto the least of these” in the Bible somewhere.
_[Since when did believing in God and having moral values make you pro-war, pro-rich, and pro-Republican?](http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0502&article=050210)_
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