# WTF is wrong with you, conservative America?!?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [February 19, 2011, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896 "2011-02-19T08:16:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 8
### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/141 "2011-02-21T20:20:40Z")
> [@Mr.Svinlesha](#):
>
> Originally posted by **Sam Stone** :
>
> :dubious:
>
> You mean, like when you posted the following:
>
> …in a [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=216495) about how well the Iraq war was going, and which later turned out to be lifted word by word from an unlinked speech by Paul Bremer?
Oh, now that’s just sad. First of all, it was not lifted ‘word for word’ - it was a bulleted list of facts that I compiled from the official documentation of the coalition provisional authority. And second, I linked to the source _right under that quote_.
And in any event, plagiarism does not consist of re-stated facts printed by government agencies. At worst, it’s simply not citing a source for public material. But since I did cite the source, you don’t even have that.
And, you had to go back eight freaking years to find that lame-ass quasi example, then misrepresent it to boot.
> [@](#):
>
> I would remind the reader how utterly, totally, completely wrong **Sam** was regarding the Iraq invasion, from beginning to end.
A) That’s your opinion
B) It’s a total non-sequitur to this conversation.
> [@](#):
>
> Furthermore, without even bothering to dig into the info he quotes above I will give you my personal guarantee that it is 100% horseshit, as usual.
Well, since you aren’t going to even bother to look at it, your opinion is worth exactly bupkis. But then, you’re used to having worthless opinions. Dogma is much easier to deal with.
> [@](#):
>
> And do us all a favor please, **Sam**? Get down off that fucking smug, self-righteous high horse you rode in on, you worthless lying sack of shit.
Says the man who can guarantee that my opinion is worthless without having to bother to look at it.
> [@](#):
>
> Ohhh…and while we’re at it, can you perhaps provide a few links of us poor lefties being so overwhelmed by the superiority of your arguments that we start shouting “Liar! Plagiarist! Mouthpiece of the right-wing establishment!” at you? Judging by the context of your statement, this must happen pretty often, so, say 5 examples of such scurrilious behavior on our part would do the trick.
>
> Thanks in advance.
No, I’m pretty sure the regular readers of the board can recall plenty of such occasions. I’m not going to go trolling for you. Besides, you just finished calling me all three. And you know damned well it’s not the first time.
---
### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/142 "2011-02-21T20:27:16Z")
Actually, following that link, I see that **Sam Stone** was not a plagiarist, gullible yes, but not a plagiarist **Mr. Svinlesha**.
---
### Author:  [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/143 "2011-02-21T20:29:11Z")
> [@Uzi](#):
>
> The truly stupid rarely do.
Which I guess would explain why you think you’re right. 😃
Ontopic: One of the problems with conservatives is that they have’t learned that personal experience doesn’t equal wide-ranging reality. Uzi above has one bad incident, which is likely his own fault, because he’s angry, ignorant and blustery, and it means UHC is the devil.
It’s like confirmation bias is a virus for these people. It works its way into their heads and facts, reality and statistics are just noise forevermore.
---
### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/144 "2011-02-21T20:32:53Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> Actually, following that link, I see that **Sam Stone** was not a plagiarist, gullible yes, but not a plagiarist **Mr. Svinlesha**.
I think that’s fair. And I actually agree about the gullible part in that case. I had no business accepting government glurge as indisputable fact. Confirmation bias in action, I guess. I certainly wouldn’t have been that willing to accept a similar press release from the Obama administration without double-checking the facts for myself.
---
### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/145 "2011-02-21T20:35:07Z")
> [@Lobohan](#):
>
> It’s like confirmation bias is a virus for these people. It works its way into their heads and facts, reality and statistics are just noise forevermore.
Confirmation bias affects _everyone_ - most of all, those who believe that they are immune to it or that it’s an affliction unique to their political opponents.
---
### Author:  [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/146 "2011-02-21T20:37:55Z")
> [@Lobohan](#):
>
> Uzi above has one bad incident, which is likely his own fault, because he’s angry, ignorant and blustery, and it means UHC is the devil.
The link that GIGObuster posted actually confirms what I’ve said about shortages of doctors.
And it wasn’t only one bad experience, nor was it mine or my wife’s fault. I’ve had quite a few actually. That doesn’t mean that all my experiences were bad. But for someone to post that Canada’s health care system is the Utopia that the US should shoot for is ignorant and probably is based upon their political bent rather than reality.
---
### Author:  [@Cyningablod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyningablod)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/147 "2011-02-21T20:38:34Z")
> [@Uzi](#):
>
> So, when the OP says:He is actually referring to the majority of Americans and not just the Right.
Bull-fucking-shit.
Don’t put words in MY mouth because you don’t understand _someone else’s_ comment.
> [@](#):
>
> Why do you think there is so much resistance in the US to public health care?
I would guess that it’s because reactionaries like you fill them with bullshit horror stories about having to wait two weeks to have a spurting artery stanched in an emergency room.
---
### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/148 "2011-02-21T20:40:52Z")
> [@Uzi](#):
>
> The link that GIGObuster posted actually confirms what I’ve said about shortages of doctors.
>
> And it wasn’t only one bad experience, nor was it mine or my wife’s fault. I’ve had quite a few actually. That doesn’t mean that all my experiences were bad. But for someone to post that Canada’s health care system is the Utopia that the US should shoot for is ignorant and probably is based upon their political bent rather than reality.
I’m on record of acknowledging the problems, but the reality is that the problems for many in th USA are worse than the ones you experienced. To put it in other words, it seems to me that you are going for the straw man when claiming that someone in this thread said that it was an Utopia.
---
### Author:  [@Cyningablod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyningablod)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/149 "2011-02-21T20:42:33Z")
> [@Uzi](#):
>
> But for someone to post that Canada’s health care system is the Utopia that the US should shoot for is ignorant and probably is based upon their political bent rather than reality.
Right. Because that’s what we’ve all been saying, verbatim and word-for-word: “Canada’s health care system is the Utopia that the US should shoot for.”
Seriously, **Uzi** , do you even understand what a straw man argument is?? 😕
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### Author:  [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/150 "2011-02-21T20:51:10Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> Confirmation bias affects _everyone_ - most of all, those who believe that they are immune to it or that it’s an affliction unique to their political opponents.
If you’re smart enough to know it exists you can control for it. You for instance believe in a fantasy version of economics that is widely discredited. But you cling to the tatters that support your ideology wherever they are available.
My political opponents, to the extent that I have any, are the ones who deny general scientific consensus when it conflicts with ideology. As a fairly uniform lefty, I personally am pro nuclear power, because I understand the arguments for it. Contrast this with the precious few righties that are pro universal healthcare. The right chooses monolithically to ignore the evidence of the rest of the industrialized world and insist that our (America’s) fucked up broken system is somehow actually good. They focus on the fact that many Americans are satisfied, while ignoring that many Americans are utterly ignorant of how bad it objectively is compared to elsewhere.
I’m sorry that as a person of the right your ideological brethren are largely complete morons. But that’s hardly the fault of the left.
---
### Author:  [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/151 "2011-02-21T20:53:27Z")
> [@Uzi](#):
>
> The link that GIGObuster posted actually confirms what I’ve said about shortages of doctors.
>
> And it wasn’t only one bad experience, nor was it mine or my wife’s fault. I’ve had quite a few actually. That doesn’t mean that all my experiences were bad. But for someone to post that Canada’s health care system is the Utopia that the US should shoot for is ignorant and probably is based upon their political bent rather than reality.
It doesn’t have to be a utopia to be better than the American system. The fact that it doesn’t leave 1/6th of your country without healthcare for half of what we pay means that even if it provides exactly comparable care it is still vastly better.
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### Author:  [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/152 "2011-02-21T20:53:29Z")
> [@Uzi](#):
>
> T
> But for someone to post that Canada’s health care system is the Utopia that the US should shoot for is ignorant and probably is based upon their political bent rather than reality.
Who was it who said this now? Oh, that’s right, nobody.
Canada’s system is certainly not utopia. However it does cover everyone in the country for significantly less cost per capita than the US system, and with better health outcomes. Yes, sometimes people must wait for non-emergent care. Especially if they show up at an emergency room with a non-emergent problem that requires an antibiotic.
So perhaps those on the right in the US should seriously look at it, instead of shouting “socialist socialist!” as if that is an argument.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/153 "2011-02-21T21:08:43Z")
**GIGObuster** :
Uh, I never claimed **Sam** was a plagiarist. Actually, what happened is:
1. **Sam** snidely (as usual for him) claims _“You have my personal guarantee that anything I post here from another source will be in quote tags, with a proper link cited. You also have my guarantee that this has always been the case…”_
2. I provide an example of **Sam** doing precisely what he just assured **'luc** i he never does.
3. Hi, Opal! (Since we’re kickin’ it old school).
4. **Sam** finds (as usual) about 4 ways to disavow that he’s been caught out, including the claim that my quote is “old”. Par for the course.
It’s a tribute to **Sam’s** general underhanded sneakiness that when the entire exchange is finished, innocent bystanders are left with the impression that I’ve accused **Sam** of plagiarism.
I will say though that ole **Sammy** is exhibit A for the OP; a rabid conservative who utterly refuses to listen to reason, no matter how obviously wrong he is. By chance he hasn’t sipped the birther coolaid, but I assure you that if he had, he would be right here arguing just as tenaciously that Obama is a secret, Kenyan-born Muslim.
---
### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/154 "2011-02-21T21:15:54Z")
> [@Lobohan](#):
>
> If you’re smart enough to know it exists you can control for it. You for instance believe in a fantasy version of economics that is widely discredited. But you cling to the tatters that support your ideology wherever they are available.
Oh for God’s sake. This is exactly what I’m talking about. If you believe that free market economics is ‘widely discredited’, you’re guilty of confirmation bias, because the vast majority of economists would disagree with you. If you’re talking Keynesian economics in particular, the economic field is quite split on the issue, with serious economists on both sides of the issues. Including many economists with Nobel prizes.
The fact that you believe all the facts are on your side indicates to me that you read what you want to hear and dismiss the rest as right-wing glurge.
> [@](#):
>
> My political opponents, to the extent that I have any, are the ones who deny general scientific consensus when it conflicts with ideology. As a fairly uniform lefty, I personally am pro nuclear power, because I understand the arguments for it. Contrast this with the precious few righties that are pro universal healthcare.
Again, you can only believe this if you completely dismiss opposing arguments and swallow whole all the pro-UHC arguments.
Most people on the right that I know are perfectly willing to admit that there are serious problems with health care delivery in the U.S. They admit that changes have to be made. But the reality of the situation is that there are a lot of UHC systems out there that are failing badly. The best health care system in the world right now is arguably in Singapore, and it’s not a Canadian-style UHC system. For that matter, Canada is not the socialist system you seem to think it is. We have a hell of a lot of private medicine here.
> [@](#):
>
> The right chooses monolithically to ignore the evidence of the rest of the industrialized world and insist that our (America’s) fucked up broken system is somehow actually good. They focus on the fact that many Americans are satisfied, while ignoring that many Americans are utterly ignorant of how bad it objectively is compared to elsewhere.
Yeah? So is it your contention that the American system is worse in all respects than all UHC-style systems? Or are you willing to concede that there are aspects of the American system that are better than just about anywhere else, and that it would be nice to retain those while improving the things that are worse?
> [@](#):
>
> I’m sorry that as a person of the right your ideological brethren are largely complete morons. But that’s hardly the fault of the left.
No, I think there are complete morons on both sides, in about equal measure. I think you tend to ignore your own morons or write them off as ‘fringe elements’, while assuming that every stupid thing you can find uttered by a Republican is indicative of what they all believe.
And that would be confirmation bias.
---
### Author:  [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/155 "2011-02-21T21:19:00Z")
Me: \*I would remind the reader how utterly, totally, completely wrong Sam was regarding the Iraq invasion, from beginning to end. \*
**Sam:** _That’s your opinion._
Two posts later:
**Gigo:** _Actually, following that link, I see that Sam Stone was not a plagiarist, gullible yes, but not a plagiarist Mr. Svinlesha._
**Sam:** _I think that’s fair. And I actually agree about the gullible part in that case. I had no business accepting government glurge as indisputable fact. Confirmation bias in action, I guess._
See, now I’m confused: is it my opinion that you were wrong, or your own?
Oh well. I guess a donation to the Foundation against Cognitive Dissonance is in order.
---
### Author:  [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/156 "2011-02-21T21:28:02Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> Oh for God’s sake. This is exactly what I’m talking about. If you believe that free market economics is ‘widely discredited’, you’re guilty of confirmation bias, because the vast majority of economists would disagree with you. If you’re talking Keynesian economics in particular, the economic field is quite split on the issue, with serious economists on both sides of the issues. Including many economists with Nobel prizes.
How much of that Nobel prize work is for undercutting Keynesian economics? The fact is ideology is the one thing those on your side have in common.
> [@](#):
>
> The fact that you believe all the facts are on your side indicates to me that you read what you want to hear and dismiss the rest as right-wing glurge.
Not all the facts. Just most of them.
> [@](#):
>
> Again, you can only believe this if you completely dismiss opposing arguments and swallow whole all the pro-UHC arguments.
>
> Most people on the right that I know are perfectly willing to admit that there are serious problems with health care delivery in the U.S. They admit that changes have to be made. But the reality of the situation is that there are a lot of UHC systems out there that are failing badly. The best health care system in the world right now is arguably in Singapore, and it’s not a Canadian-style UHC system. For that matter, Canada is not the socialist system you seem to think it is. We have a hell of a lot of private medicine here.
No one is holding up the Canadian system as the best possible. But it is far better than ours. Now we (America) are a very rich country, so of course our best of the best facilities are the best in the world. But that doesn’t matter to a plant manager in Michigan who starts getting terrible headaches and blurred vision. He’s going to access normal-people healthcare.
> [@](#):
>
> Yeah? So is it your contention that the American system is worse in all respects than all UHC-style systems? Or are you willing to concede that there are aspects of the American system that are better than just about anywhere else, and that it would be nice to retain those while improving the things that are worse?
We have high-end boutique care that is the first in the world. But the every day access for the vast majority of the population is terrible.
> [@](#):
>
> No, I think there are complete morons on both sides, in about equal measure. I think you tend to ignore your own morons or write them off as ‘fringe elements’, while assuming that every stupid thing you can find uttered by a Republican is indicative of what they all believe.
Most Republican primary voters are birthers. Almost no Republicans believe in evolution. There are probably nearly as many stupid people on the left, but they aren’t the ones making policy decisions. Look at the House, their priority this new session has been enacting anti-abortion laws, not fixing the economy.
> [@](#):
>
> And that would be confirmation bias.
I’m sure you think so.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/157 "2011-02-21T21:32:43Z")
**Mr. Svinlesha** , what got me to agree with \*\*Sam \*\*(on the plagiarism item) was your say so of “lifted word by word from an unlinked speech by Paul Bremer”
Not a biggie as the context show, overall \*\*Sam \*\*is shown to be gullible then and it is a lesson that it seems to have been learned…
Until the next talking point from the conservative media arrives, that is.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/158 "2011-02-21T21:40:27Z")
Ah…fair enough. It wasn’t meant as an accusation of plagiarism, but rather as an example of \*\*Sam \*\*quoting a source without providing a link. To be absolutely clear, I am \*\*not \*\*accusing \*\*Sam \*\*of plagiarism, nor have I ever done so, as far as I can remember.
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### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/159 "2011-02-21T21:54:16Z")
But I did post a link.
And the reason BrainGlutton was being fair and you weren’t was because he made a more limited and reasonable criticism, which is that I was being gullible in accepting the coalition provisional authority’s press release as fact. That’s something I can cop to.
You, on the other hand, decided to go for the wild hyperbole and claim that everything I write is 100% horseshit - so much so that you don’t even have to read my posts to know that I’m completely wrong. You also claimed that I am a ‘lying sack of shit’.
And let’s not go too literal here. I said, “You have my personal guarantee that anything I post here from another source will be in quote tags, with a proper link cited. You also have my guarantee that this has always been the case…”
Clearly I was talking about verbatim quotes. Hence the QUOTE tags. If I say the sun is 93 million miles from earth, I’m not going to post a cite and put the fact in quote tags. Even if I list a series of facts like I did in that message, I’m not going to put them in quote tags unless, you know, they’re actually a direct quote of something. Because if wrote my own words and then put them in quote tags, that WOULD be misleading, wouldn’t it? You’d accuse me of making up false quotes to make what is my opinion sound like the opinion of someone else.
In the case of the message you quoted, I put in a list of facts, then immediately thereafter posted the link to the Coalition Provisional Authority, the source for those numbers. Since what I posted wasn’t in fact a direct quote but a bullet list I compiled, they didn’t belong in quote tags.
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### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-you-conservative-america/571896/160 "2011-02-21T22:07:45Z")
> [@Mr.Svinlesha](#):
>
> **GIGObuster** :
> I will say though that ole **Sammy** is exhibit A for the OP; a rabid conservative who utterly refuses to listen to reason, no matter how obviously wrong he is. By chance he hasn’t sipped the birther coolaid, but I assure you that if he had, he would be right here arguing just as tenaciously that Obama is a secret, Kenyan-born Muslim.
Let’s see… This ‘rabid conservative’:
- supports gay marriage
- supports gays serving openly in the military
- opposes the death penalty
- supports welfare programs
- believes that Anthropogenic Global Warming is happening
- hates the religious right
- is an athiest and skeptic
- believes the government has a role to play in health care
- admits that there are genuine market failures that require government intervention
- believes immigration is good and healthy
- believes drugs should be legal
- supports unions when they are voluntary
- hates creationism in schools
- supports embryonic stem cell research
- believes that taxes should be somewhat progressive
And by the way, this ‘rabid conservative’ who ‘never listens to opposing ideas’ changed his mind on at least three items on that list because of good arguments by liberals on this board. How’s your record?
The fact of the matter is, I’m far to the left of most ‘conservatives’ on social issues. I believe the size of a necessary government is probably around 20% of GDP, which puts me to the left of most libertarians.
I only look like a ‘rabid conservative’ on this board because so many of you are way, way over on the left and unwilling to credit anyone with any amount of moderation so long as they oppose your big-government, high-taxing, quasi-socialist ideas.
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