DebateGate

<<Pick any industrialized nation, regardless of the health care system used.

<<Your quote would apply to that nation as well.

<<So, it's a pretty useless quote.>>

I might have misunderstood but I assumed "integrated payment systems" meant single-payer systems, which as far as I'm aware means government health care such as the Canadian system.

The quote was that the administrative costs of US health care were THREE TIMES those of integrated payment systems.  This means that private enterprise, at least in the health care field, costs more and delivers less.

What did I miss?

sirs:  I asked you a pretty specific question:  Show me how the UN "caters to" anti-Semitism and "America Bashing."

Here was your response:
1.  I am just repeating myself
2.  I am repeating "pathetic" anti-American anti-Israel "dren" (whatever "dren" may represent in your childish lexicon, I will assume for the purposes of this discussion it is not well-reasoned, impeccably sourced, irrefutable argument.)
3.  I have honed my "pathetic" anti-American anti-Israel "dren" to a specialty . . .

Aww, geeze, I am getting kind of tired waiting for an answer to what SEEMED to be a fairly simple and straightforward question.  Maybe the guy is just incapable of formulating a cogent response to a simple question.  Maybe he thinks an ad hominem attack IS a cogent response to a simple question . . .And then,

well, not an answer to my simple question, but what seems to be a subject at least worthy of some kind of intelligent debate:  the UN's seeming ineffectiveness, the resolutions it passes and passes again and again only to see them broken, defied and scoffed at.  Well that's not too bad, we could debate it sometime in the future, why IS the UN so wimpy?  Maybe we should have a more muscular UN, a NUCULER-ARMED UN, you know, defy our Resolution once, shame on you, defy it twice, MUSHROOM CLOUD TIME, RAGHEAD FAGGOTS, you were only polluting this fucking planet anyway and now you're history.  Maybe THAT'S what the founders of the UN really had in mind, but their cowardly successors were too politically correct to execute until one day a man named John with a walrus mustache strode into their sissified halls and set them straight.  Taught 'em the AMERICAN way of problem-solving.  Yeah, but still.  What about MY  question . . . is it not WORTHY of an answer?

Onward I plunged.  

And then suddenly:  <<And catering to is precisely what the UN has become.  >>  Was this it?  Was this sirs' long-awaited answer to my question?  At first glance, it didn't SEEM to be.  Wasn't he just repeating himself again?  Ah, but I had failed to appreciate the subtlety of sirs' thought processes - - not only is the UN catering, sirs tells us, but catering is PRECISELY what it is doing.  Yet still those nagging doubts . . .  is he not just repeating himself more emphatically??  And if he is, how does THAT answer my question?

I didn't have to wait long for the mystery to clear up, however.  There it was, in the very next sentence:  <<An organization [the UN] that indeed finds favour in anything anti-American or anti-Israel. >>   (OK, that's not the exact quote, I had to clean up a little malapropism here to make some sense out of it, but it's pretty damn close.  I didn't alter the SENSE of what sirs was saying.)  That was sirs' answer to my question.  Show me how the UN "caters to" anti-Semitism and "America Bashing" and the answer (albeit buried under about 16 tons of irrelevant drivel) is that it "finds favour in" (i.e., loves to hear) "anything anti-American or anti-Israel."

But isn't saying that the UN has been "finding favour in anything anti-American or anti-Israel" pretty much the same thing as saying that it "caters to anti-Semitism or "America Bashing?"  Wasn't sirs just cleverly repeating his original falsehood in a different way?  And is repeating a statement the same thing as proving its truth?  This is really important now.  Haphazardly, we have stumbled upon the key "reasoning" process of the conservative Republican mind.

You see, to a conservative, things aren't true because they can be objectively verified.  To a Republican, to a conservative, things are true BECAUSE A CONSERVATIVE TELLS YOU THEY ARE TRUE.  If sirs makes an absolutely ridiculous and completely unverifiable statement about the UN and he is asked to prove it - - he doesn't worry, like a normal, sane, rational human being would worry, "Omigod, how can I PROVE it, it's totally false and absolutely absurd and I just made it up because it sounded good and THERE IS NO FUCKING PROOF, I'm busted!!!"  No, the conservative doesn't worry about stupid little trifles like that because there is no such thing as reality anyway, or more accurately there IS, but it's whatever they SAY it is.  Reality?  FUCK reality, reality is whatever's in my fucking head or comes out of my fucking mouth at the present moment.

But then I guess what I'm describing is not conservatism but prejudices, unexamined beliefs that are not grounded in reality but that we don't challenge in ourselves because we believe they ARE reality.  And then it's not just conservatives or Christians or Muslims who are guilty of that kind of thinking, it's a way of thought that can affect any of us.  Except for yours truly.  

Hey sirs, I might have taken a few shots at you while I was writing this, but I sincerely appreciate your willingness to step up to the plate and speak your mind, knowing that smug liberal assholes like myself are just waiting to rip into you.  I might not agree with much of what you say or think but I don't disrespect it, which I wanted to say here because I felt that it might not have been all that apparent from the general tone of what I was writing.

The UN as such had nothing to do with Chavez' remarks, other than providing him with a forum, a "bully pulpit" from which his comments would obtain maximum publicity.

What demonstrates the low esteem into which America has fallen under Bush is the almost universal sense of glee with which (apart from the usual MSM whores) the world seems to have greeted these remarks.  Even people like my young assistant, who normally don't give a shit, were totally pumped by the idea that this lying little bastard was finally being given the disrespect he was entitled to in a very public way, by people who even five years ago wouldn't have dared.

It's kind of sad, but some men are made for war and others for peace.  In the general elections of 1045, while the war in Europe was still going on, the British people voted out Winston Churchill and his Conservative Party and elected a Labour government.

Perhaps Nasrallah has reached the limits of what war and violence can accomplish.  He demonstrated to Israel and probably to its U.S. patrons the dangers of unprovoked aggression, even against seemingly "weak" opponents, and he demonstrated (albeit indirectly) the rising power of Iran.  To all Arabs, everywhere, he gave an infusion of pride and self-respect, a glimpse of the coming end of their ongoing victimization by America and Israel.  This was definitely a turning point, but Nasrallah probably sees it in more personal terms, as the beginning of his own eclipse as the deal-makers and negotiaters take over from the resistance fighters and guerrillas.  Some men will naturally take it harder than others.

My assistant walked in this morning and the first thing she said was, hey, did you hear what this guy from Venezuela called Bush yesterday in the UN?  She was kind of elated, almost gleeful, and she's not at all political.  I personally thought it was funny as hell. 

A lot of people are talking about this and all the comment is favourable.  I haven't heard a negative word yet, but admittedly did not watch the TV commentary this morning or last night.  The general feeling seems to be that it's about time this low-life got his public comeuppance, and Chavez deserves a big vote of thanks for finally saying it in such a setting.

If further evidence were needed as to how low the U.S. has sunk in world public opinion under Bush, this latest would be very much to the point.

The poor guy can't win, can he?  When he rants and raves about destroying Israel, he's a Hitler.  When he softens up and talks peace, he's a Hitler.  This guy's only a Hitler because neo-con nutbars  say he's a Hitler, but why not make up a check-list and see how many points he gathers:

1.  Tortures and murders domestic political opponents?  Yes
2.  Tortures and murders foreign political opponents?  No.
3.  Tells his people they are a Master Race destined to rule over all of humanity?  No.
4.  Legislates Jews out of all professions and the military? No.
5.  Legislates against racial mixing? No.
6.  Claims to believe in international Jewish conspiracy?  Yes
7.  Rounds up all Jews for extermination?  No.
8.  Claims his country needs the land and resources currently occupied by its neighbours?  No.
9.  Takes or threatens to take land from neighbours to satisfy national needs?  No.
10.  Claims that his people living in neighbouring countries are oppressed and need rescue?  No.
11.  Believes that the Slavs and Blacks are "sub-humans?"  No.
12.  Mustache?  Yes.

Pretty low on the Hitler scale, IMHO.  It's funny, though, that on the first two questions, he'd score about the same as Bush, only with reversed answers.  No. 10 was kind of dicey because the Palestinians aren't his peple or his immediate neighbours, but I think he WOULD like to come to their rescue if he could.  And I think that if Bush were to be rated on the Hitler scale, No. 9 would have to be revised, because Bush's territorial ambitions are more global than Hitler's were at the time.

Lanya asked for a source on the MoveOn.org allegations only because she found them hard to believe (as did I.)  My comments weren't directed at you personally, or anything you posted, just at the general idea from somewhere back in the thread that liberals opposed the invasion of Afghanistan.  The only examples given to date were MoveOn.org and I believe one other specific individual or institution.  The fact is that many prominent liberals were NOT opposed to the invasion of Afghanistan, as any "roll call" of liberals would probably indicate.