Author Topic: Uninformed & unthinking Americans fall easy prey to demagoguery  (Read 5028 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

sirs

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27078
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Uninformed & unthinking Americans fall easy prey to demagoguery
« Reply #30 on: June 19, 2007, 05:42:14 PM »
Well, thanks for taking the time to explain the post to me, sirs.  Sorry I didn't get the meaning the first time round.  You're wrong, of course, as usual.

LOL......like I said, those bastard Founders, daring to push liberty on us common folk when the end goal is of course for the Government to take care of all us, such as universal healthcare for all.  We, including the middle to low middle classes, all paying for the healthcare of George Soros, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Gates for crying out loud.  Funny how liberty is so repulsive when people dont voluntarily do what you conclude they must do, yet jump all over the term when you're grossly misrepresenting & distorting the Justice Dept's wiretapping program.  Then again, I've gotten used to the tact....ends (the complete vilification of anything & everything Bush) justify the means (distort, misrepresent, ignore reality and facts contradictory to one's already made up mind, even lie when need be).  SOP



"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Michael Tee

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12605
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Uninformed & unthinking Americans fall easy prey to demagoguery
« Reply #31 on: June 19, 2007, 07:31:36 PM »
<<like I said, those bastard Founders, daring to push liberty on us common folk when the end goal is of course for the Government to take care of all us, such as universal healthcare for all.>>

No, the goal of the founders was not universal health care for all.  Nor was it a Darwinian race for survival where the economically unfit and their children would sicken and perish for their inablility to purchase the costly necessities of medical care in the 21st Century in a free-for-all competition with the whole populace participating.  The founders probably weren't even thinking about health insurance and its affordability, because there was no such thing in their time.   What they did was bequeath to you a system wherein arguments could be made for and against any kind of health care system imaginable and the people through their elected representatives would decide.

  <<We, including the middle to low middle classes, all paying for the healthcare of George Soros, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Gates for crying out loud. >>

Well, means tests for eligibility have been investigated and they are just not cost-effective.  People with the financial clout of those you mentioned are relatively rare amongst 300,000,000 Americans.  Since they usually don't have to earn their daily bread in coal mines, night shifts at the convenience store in the ghetto, putting out fires or erecting buildings, their demands on the health-care system are probably less than the average Americans and in any event are statistically speaking a drop in the proverbial bucket.

<< Funny how liberty is so repulsive when people dont voluntarily do what you conclude they must do, yet jump all over the term when you're grossly misrepresenting & distorting the Justice Dept's wiretapping program. >>

Funny how you seem to equate a doctor's freedom to charge exorbitant fees for his services with the freedom of every citizen to express his thoughts freely without worrying that Big Brother may be listening in.

<< Then again, I've gotten used to the tact....>>

What, to logic and common sense?  To reliance upon fact instead of hyperbole?  Good, sirs, you are making progress.

<<ends (the complete vilification of anything & everything Bush) justify the means (distort, misrepresent, ignore reality and facts contradictory to one's already made up mind,>>

Oh, like the breach of international law in invading Iraq  and the deaths of 600,000 is justified by the ends of bringing them "democracy? "  Or were you referring to the ends of national security justifying the means of torture?  You really should be more specific, sirs.

<<even lie when need be).  SOP>>

I don't lie.  Ever.  Perhaps through some extreme dysfunction of normal brain function common to crypto-fascists, er, I mean conservatives like you,  you have managed to confuse me with your "President" or some member of his administration.

sirs

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27078
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Uninformed & unthinking Americans fall easy prey to demagoguery
« Reply #32 on: June 19, 2007, 07:48:15 PM »
<< Then again, I've gotten used to the tact....>>

What, to logic and common sense?  To reliance upon fact instead of hyperbole? 

LOL.....Tee, you wouldn't know logic and common sense if it was injected into you, thru a central line.  The complete asanine conclusions you come to using your version of dot connecting would confuse even Freud.  The examples you provide of such are endless........but alas I concede, entertaining in an acutely twisted way.  I can see why not just I, but so many other rationally minded folks, actually spend substantive time "debating" you and your morally superior intellect.  And yes, when you perpetuate a DNC lie or some MoveOn.org lie, you are indeed lying.  I realize how sincere your belief may be in whatver lie is being bandied about, as being the gospel truth, but repeating it adnauseum still does not bring not a grain of truth to it.

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Amianthus

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7574
  • Bring on the flames...
    • View Profile
    • Mario's Home Page
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Uninformed & unthinking Americans fall easy prey to demagoguery
« Reply #33 on: June 19, 2007, 07:56:45 PM »
What they did was bequeath to you a system wherein arguments could be made for and against any kind of health care system imaginable and the people through their elected representatives would decide.

And the people's representatives have turned down all previous plans for a national health care system.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Michael Tee

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12605
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Uninformed & unthinking Americans fall easy prey to demagoguery
« Reply #34 on: June 19, 2007, 08:13:17 PM »
<<And the people's representatives have turned down all previous plans for a national health care system.>>

Which I am well aware of and which has absolutely nothing to do with the argument here.

Michael Tee

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12605
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Uninformed & unthinking Americans fall easy prey to demagoguery
« Reply #35 on: June 19, 2007, 08:18:02 PM »
<<LOL.....Tee, you wouldn't know logic and common sense if it was injected into you, thru a central line.  The complete asanine conclusions you come to using your version of dot connecting would confuse even Freud.  The examples you provide of such are endless........but alas I concede, entertaining in an acutely twisted way.  I can see why not just I, but so many other rationally minded folks, actually spend substantive time "debating" you and your morally superior intellect.  And yes, when you perpetuate a DNC lie or some MoveOn.org lie, you are indeed lying.  I realize how sincere your belief may be in whatver lie is being bandied about, as being the gospel truth, but repeating it adnauseum still does not bring not a grain of truth to it.>>

Nice rant, but it does nothing to get you out of the hole you dug for yourself, that a universal health care system was contrary to the Founders' intentions.  I guess you agree with my basic point that the Constitution in fact allows the voters and their elected reps to decide such things for themselves, without being bound by what the Founders intended should be the ultmate result of the debate.


sirs

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27078
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Uninformed & unthinking Americans fall easy prey to demagoguery
« Reply #36 on: June 19, 2007, 08:27:46 PM »
Nice rant, but it does nothing to get you out of the hole you dug for yourself, that a universal health care system was contrary to the Founders' intentions.  


The hole is the notion that we sacrifice liberty for the sake of everyone having healthcare (YOUR words, when you were decrying Plane's daring to chose liberty over funding healthcare for someone else)  The Hole is trying to rationalize why low middle & middle income familes, barely able to provide for themselves should be saddled with the additional burden of paying for the uberrich's healthcare and their families.  The hole is the asanine notion that the Founders intended a Government to take care of everyone, when all the original Bill or Rights provided were to RESTRICT & LIMIT what the Fed could do.

No my friend, the hole to China is sitting at your shovel.
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Michael Tee

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12605
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Uninformed & unthinking Americans fall easy prey to demagoguery
« Reply #37 on: June 19, 2007, 08:46:18 PM »
<<The hole is the notion that we sacrifice liberty for the sake of everyone having healthcare (YOUR words, when you were decrying Plane's daring to chose liberty over funding healthcare for someone else) >>

Well of course a small amount of liberty (the doctors' liberty to opt out of the public system, the rich man's liberty to buy his health care where he wants to buy it by outbidding competitors for the same provider) is sacrificed.  This sacrifice in no way contravenes the Founders' intentions since there are many instances of the infringement of liberties for the greater good.  Indeed government could not function if everybody's liberty was held sacred.  If you need examples of freedoms curtailed or abridged under perfectly valid and constitutional laws, just ask me.  I think you're smart enough to see the examples yourself without my holding them up.  So the suggestion that the abridgement of liberty necessary to create universal health coverage is against the intention of the Founders is total bullshit.  They expressed no opinion either way, or at least if they had an opinion (hard to see how, there being no health insurance at the time) they certainly did not enshrine it in the Constitution.

<< The Hole is trying to rationalize why low middle & middle income familes, barely able to provide for themselves should be saddled with the additional burden of paying for the uberrich's healthcare and their families. >>

Well, I've been through that.  First of all there is no reason in theory why there couldn't be some kind of means test.  Or even a claw-back, where persons declaring over a million dollars a year or ten million dollars a year in income have to pay back all health benefits received in that year.   However, means tests are largely un-economical and the system will function without them.  The injustice of Bill Gates getting a free ride is not seen as serious as the injustice that 9 million children are without coverage.  This is just another instance of conservatives having their heads stuck up their asses.  They just don't live in the real world.  In the real world, Bill Gates getting a free ride is not terrible but 9 million uninsured kids is terrible.  Conservatives don't seem to realize that they are dealing with real people and real lives.  A theoretical blemish (Gates' free ride) is equated with real-life hardships.

<< The hole is the asanine notion that the Founders intended a Government to take care of everyone, when all the original Bill or Rights provided were to RESTRICT & LIMIT what the Fed could do.>>

Quite honestly the Founders did not consider a universal health care system, it did not exist at the time and to claim they would have been against it had they seen detailed studies of how the alternative systems actually perform in the real world is just pure speculation.  The fact is that the Constitution they designed does in fact permit such a system to be created if the Legislative Body will vote for it.  So therefore they could not have been as dead-set against it as you claim.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2007, 08:48:23 PM by Michael Tee »

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Uninformed & unthinking Americans fall easy prey to demagoguery
« Reply #38 on: June 20, 2007, 02:14:59 AM »
<<And the people's representatives have turned down all previous plans for a national health care system.>>

Which I am well aware of and which has absolutely nothing to do with the argument here.

Most Americans feel that they are taxed plenty , and everyone in the world knows tht nothing the government can do will stop death from happening once for each of us.

So if we elect Representatives who know better than to saddle us with a system that is possibly a marginal improvement to public health and possibly a major loss to liberty this is not wrong and it is pertanant to the arguement.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2007, 02:18:02 AM by Plane »

Michael Tee

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12605
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Uninformed & unthinking Americans fall easy prey to demagoguery
« Reply #39 on: June 20, 2007, 11:33:24 AM »
<<Most Americans feel that they are taxed plenty , and everyone in the world knows tht nothing the government can do will stop death from happening once for each of us.>>

I believe that among industrialized nations, they are either in the middle or at the low end of the range of per capita taxation.