patrick.net

um, so, um, you just said that people screw each other when they know they have the chance ... and I suggested that man is normally an ass hole (unless taught morals and follow them). So, I think we are close to the same thing.

"Morality is all about cooperation" - not a bad idea. I think morality is also about personal accountablity, responsiblity, and helping those less fortunate without being asked and without expecting a return. Doing the right thing, when noone (but God) will ever know the difference .... that is one of my favorite things.

Republicans are promising to repeal and redo "ObamaCare," while preserving pre-exisitng conditions coverage, and all of the other favored aspects of ObamaCare, but killing the mandated coverage of everyone (or penalty (tax if you prefer)for not being covered).

Yeah? Who says? Is this a direct quote from some media/Democrat talking head, or what?

As far as I know, Republicans are promising to repeal Obamacare, and I have yet to hear of any specific proposal to put in its place.

Which is A-OK by me. Healthcare only became a national urgency all of a sudden in 2008. So what changed in 2008? Absolutely zip. Except it was time for the Democrats to pull out some vast monstrous Save The Planet scheme and try to panic everyone into throwing away their liberty and money to support it. Because that's what Democrats do. They're always the party of Big Ideas. Wars to Save Democracy, Wars on Poverty, Wars on war itself.

It's their same old same old. We have a panic about missing kids, and we get kids on milk cartons. Then that mysteriously vanishes, when people figure out not a whole heck of a lot of kids are actually abducted by strangers. We have a panic about school shootings that leads to "assault weapons" bans and hand-wringing about guns in America, and metal detectors at school and what not. And then that drifts away. We have a crisis with girls not being able to play Division I sports. Or gays not being able to marry. Or "equal pay" for women, and the Equal Rights Amendment (remember that? The Republic was going to collapse if that didn't pass.) Or redlining in insurance. Or uninsured motorists. Or apartheid. Global warming (or maybe cooling). Oil spills. Oil addiction. Drug addiction. Legalization of drugs. Education. The homeless. The uninsured.

And on and on and on. There's ALWAYS a Panic Of The Year whipped up by people who want you to send them your vote and your money, so they can hire a bunch of $250,000 a year lawyers and assistants and coffee-fetchers and have meeting after meeting in some nice conference room in Washington, or possibly in Aruba or Paris if it involves international stuff, at which absolutely nothing gets done except more plans and rules are drafted which will -- what a surprise! -- require still more of your tax money and still more of your attention to following another thick book of rules. And after a while, when people realize the "crisis" isn't really happening, it drifts out of sight and out of mind, until the next one is dumped on you, like a fresh steamer from the dog on your newly cut lawn, right from Democratic Party headquarters.

It's all bullshit. All of it. The "health care crisis" is completely manufactured, no less than the global warming that was supposed to destroy the planet any day now, or the food riots that were supposed to be consuming the United States a few year ago, according to the timeline of the 1980s Democrats.

If Obamacare were simply repealed, and we went right back to the status quo as it existed in 2007, after a few years nobody would notice a damn thing. Aside from the eternal grumbling that There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, we were all pretty satisfied with our healthcare and how we bought it in 2007. Nobody felt any huge sense of disaster. There was no marching in the streets. No Nightline coverage of the millions dying of infection because they couldn't afford to have their broken bones set, or the grandmothers denied their chemo and sent home with aspirin and a whiskey bottle. Because there never was any genuine crisis, and there still isn't. It's a manufactured bit of FUD to sell you a bill of goods.

Sure, the cost of medical care rises year after year. Duh. So does the price of a smartphone, in case you hadn't noticed, or the top of the line Mercedes E class, or the best HDTV you can buy, and for the same reason. The best keeps getting better, and if you insist on the best, you'll be paying more and more. (You can very easily keep your health care costs down to 1970s or even 1950s levels, simply by making do with 1970s or 1950s health care outcomes. It's only if you want 2012 outcomes that it's going to cost you 2012 prices.)

But so what? Anybody who has a decent job gets almost all his costs covered as part of the job. (Which means the REAL scandal -- the one the Democrats don't want you thinking about -- is how hard it is to get a decent job under President Obullmaster.)

Sure, healthcare is going to eat up a larger and larger fraction of your budget, compared to other stuff. Again, so what? That's progress. We all spend WAY more of our monthly budget on electronics and communications than we ever did. In 1975 you paid $15 for your monthly phone bill, and that was it. No cell phone, no cable TV, no Internet, no data roaming plan, no WLAN. You bought a phone and a color TV. The phone lasted 20 years, the TV 10. None of this buying of a phone for every person in the household, and replacing them every two years, plus a router, a cable modem, maybe a flatscreen TV for each room of the house, plus a handsfree thingy for the car, not to mention a PC or two, maybe a Kindle and an iPad, just for when it's too much trouble to walk up to the bedroom where the PC lives...

We don't begrudge that. We are a wealthy people, we LIKE the fact that we have money to spend on electronic toys and communications, we feel it's worth it, it improves our lives. Well, so does 21st century healthcare. The statins, the drug stents, the white cell boosters for chemo, the liver and kidney transplants, the hip replacements, the blood pressure meds, the arthroscopic surgery, the MRIs to tell whether it's just a migraine or a brain bleed, the fancy radiotherapy that lets guys with prostate cancer still get a boner. Superior allergy meds, Viagra, birth control pills that take away most periods, arthritis pain meds that don't give you ulcers, patches to help you quit smoking, drugs to control your diabetes so you don't have to stick yourself with needles every day.

These things all let us live years and years longer than our parents, and more importantly in much greater comfort. We are lucky that they are available, and we should be pleased and proud of ourselves that we can afford to devote an increasing percentage of our income to simply improving our health and longevity well past what our genes (and lifestyles) would naturally give us.

The thing that's going to surprise a lot of people this November is how many people are fully capable of comprehending this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/opinion/the-real-winners.html?source=Patrick.net&_r=1&hp

You might want to check it out Carl.

marcus says

The point is that we are moving forward. And we get the things that everyone wants:
*Preexisting conditions covered
*no lifetitme caps including no caps on medications to seiors (the so called donut hole)
*nobody get's kicked off health insurance for being sick
Everyone wants these things. Obama Care delivers these and attempts to pay for them with the mandate.
Republicans say they can magically deliver these things without a mandate.

Actually, I don't think that rank-and-file Republicans say they can deliver these w/o a mandate. It's not a priority to them (you can tell where I stand on this). A person shouldn't choose to get sick unless they have enough money to pay for the treatment. If they don't have enough, then then they should ask for private charity. If they can't get it, that is unfortunate but not the goverment's concern.

GOP leadership usually won't explicitly say that these issues are of no concern, but they also won't say that tort reform, high deductible ins plans, etc will enable universal coverage. Because they won't.

The issue goes beyond economics, to a value judgement. Is it OK that some percentage of US citizens should suffer or die due to being unable to afford health care? Some say yes, some say no.

SiO2 says

The issue goes beyond economics, to a value judgement. Is it OK that some percentage of US citizens should suffer or die due to being unable to afford health care? Some say yes, some say no.

I agree with you here, except it's not that simple.

Many republicans are extremely capable of programming themselves to believe what they want. They wouldn't even be republicans if they weren't very good at ignoring how against their own interest their votes often are. It happens for a number of reasons.

In one case it might be that they've bought the whole Guns, Gays and God bs. In another it might be a southerner with strong racist upbringing. Often it's just allegiance to a party that they aligned themselves with 30 years ago, because of parents, or whatever reason, and they aren't changing. This happens on the left too.

Many of these people either won't honestly look at the question:

"Is it OK that some percentage of US citizens should suffer or die due to being unable to afford health care?"

Or, they will somehow magically convince themselves that that isn't what it's about. It's about government takeover, death panels, blah, blah, blah,.....(insert propaganda here)...

But you're right, in many other cases, they simply don't believe that we should all pay for health care for everyone.

If asked why we're the only developed country that doesn't have some type of universal health care, what would their answer be ?

I suppose they think it's because we're special.

rootvg says

I'm on a first name basis with a few people who write for Newsmax and they're saying we already have southern governors who are seriously talking secession. The general consensus seems to be that both parties have betrayed us.

Yeah but they won't because of this:
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/what-states-are-leeching-off-the-taxpayer/question-2475027/
I personally wish they would though so America could get back to becoming the greatest country in the world again.

Bap33 says

man is inherently evil, and man came up with every religion except God's.

I bet Romney and Glen Beck are pleased that you have come to know that Mormonism is God's one true religion and all others are abominations. It must have been a difficult first step for you to realize that your brand of Christianity is a corrupt and evil construct of man.

The next step is to have a few lessons before your baptism.

http://mormon.org/missionaries?gclid=CK_liouY_rACFSgbQgodSE_lWA

"My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right — and which I should join. I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong, and the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in His sight: that those professors were all corrupt . . ."
-Joseph Smith, "History of the Church", Vol. 1, page 5-6

"no man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith...every man and woman must have the certificate of Joseph Smith, junior, as a passport to their entrance into the mansion where God and Christ are"
-Brigham Young, "Journal of Discourses", vol. 7, p.289

Carl Pham says

Which is A-OK by me. Healthcare only became a national urgency all of a sudden in 2008. So what changed in 2008?

You forgot 1996 when Bill Clinton had to save us from those pesky $35 premiums. He failed but we got $300 premiums for his effort, and a convoluted health privacy act, but for some reason we know exactly how much someone weighed and how much drugs were in their system at the time of death, with more precision than ever.

Medical billing is so complex now, that Medical MD United HC biggest business is their billing practice for smaller doctors.

Thanks Clintons, I can really feel the Vaseline now.

@leo,
Have you forgotten my view of Joe Smith? I think your full force attack aimed at me is based on a misunderstanding. I'm not surprised at your willingness to kick shit my way, but I am surprised that you did so on a baseless, or at the very least misunderstood, point. You are much better at this, than that, normally.

Bap33 says

Have you forgotten my view of Joe Smith?

What, you are not open to change?

Bap33 says

I think your full force attack aimed at me is based on a misunderstanding.

Come now Bap, an "attack"? Yes, this is indeed a misunderstanding. I was merely responding to your comment that all religions were evil except "God's" (whoever that is!). Remembering that Joe Smith once said a very similar thing. I was merely suggesting that perhaps the mormon god is the right one.

An attack no... but yes, knowing what a supporter you are of prominent mormons I thought a good-natured ribbing was in order.

As you well know mormons hold Joe Smith in the same regard/level that they hold Jesus, So...

Right from God's mouth --to--> Joseph Smith's ear --to--> Mormon scripture --to--> Romney and Beck's brains.

The quote can be read on the LDS website right here:
http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/js-h/1.19?lang=eng#18

Is Beck a mormon ? I thought he converted to Catholocim. Who am I thinking of,...Gingrich ?

marcus says

Is Beck a mormon ? I thought he converted to Catholocim. Who am I thinking of,...Gingrich ?

Yes, Glen Beck is a mormon. I am not sure who the Catholic convert is though.

thomas.wong1986 says

Its a pity that the above still are happening in Africa... systematic and on a massive scale for the past 30 years.. You will not find it happening in the USA

James Byrd would disagree, if he were still alive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Byrd,_Jr.

leoj707 says

Is Beck a mormon ? I thought he converted to Catholocim. Who am I thinking of,...Gingrich ?
Yes, Glen Beck is a mormon. I am not sure who the Catholic convert is though

Yes, Newt converted to Catholicism.

Joe Smith simply wrote a plagiarized version of the OT and added in some Cowboys and Indians ... anyone with a clear mind that has read the Bible will see that the very first time they read The BoM. Joe Smith is a fake, just like Mohamad.

God does not need religion. Religion is man's thing.

I did not pick Romney, he is the only choice I have now due to the "system". I wanted Cain, or anyone as conservative as him. Romney is on the same level as Newt in my opinion. Same shit as on the D side, only with an R stamped in it.

Bap33 says

anyone with a clear mind that has read the Bible will see that the very first time they read The BoM. Joe Smith is a fake, just like Mohamad.

Anyone with a clear mind would not believe a book with talking animals to be true.

there are no talking animals ? man is an animal, and talks. Whales communicate with sound. Heck, squirrels sound the alarm when the cat walks by. But I kid,,,,, I guess you are speaking about the snake talking to Eve? That was before the flood. Maybe all the talking snakes, or the people that spoke snake, were allowed to die off in the flood? Next.

By the way, I did not say one must believe the Bible to be a Holy book, or even to be true in any way, to see my point about Joe Smith's fairy tale. I said what I meant to say. Anyone with a clear head that read the Bible would see the the plagerism of Smith's tale.

Bap33 says

um, so, um, you just said that people screw each other when they know they have the chance ... and I suggested that man is normally an ass hole (unless taught morals and follow them). So, I think we are close to the same thing

Your hypothesis that man is non-altruistic unless taught (acted on by outside social, political, or religious forces) is easily disproved and has been many times. Altruism, the act of an individual performing an action that costs the individual while benefiting only others, is widespread throughout nature. Altruism is clearly shown in all apes, meerkats, vampire bats, dolphins, and many other species. In fact, just about all mammalian species and many intelligent, social non-mammals behave altruistically.

Altruism is an invention of evolution that helps species that live in social groups maximize their chances of survival. There are great practical benefits to altruism. Hence, altruism, like selfishness, is instinctive. Culture may enhance or diminish these tendencies, but those tendencies are the result of nature.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/N6dTU7KVpsg

http://www.amazon.com/The-Selfish-Gene-Edition---Introduction/dp/0199291152
http://www.amazon.com/The-Moral-Animal-Evolutionary-Psychology/dp/0679763996/

Bap33 says

I think morality is also about personal accountablity, responsiblity,

Nope. Personal responsibility and accountability are important traits in the modern world. However, they are independent of morality. Consider this thought experiment. Image you are on a deserted island. You could be responsible or not. You could take care of your survival and be pro-active, or you could starve to death. However, there is nothing moral or immoral that you could do because there are no other people or intelligent animals around.

Morality is all about interactions with other sentient and quasi-sentient beings. Personal responsibility is not.

Bap33 says

Doing the right thing, when noone (but God) will ever know the difference .... that is one of my favorite things.

If a man does the right thing because he thinks an all-power entity is watching and keeping a checklist, then he isn't being moral. He is simply looking out for his own best interest. The existence of the belief in god undermines morality. The thief that refrains from mugging a person on the street because a cop is watching isn't being moral.

Carl Pham says

As far as I know, Republicans are promising to repeal Obamacare, and I have yet to hear of any specific proposal to put in its place.

Obamacare should be repeals and restarted from scratch, but not by the Republicans. They are the reason Obamacare sucks. The Republican plan is to make health care a privilege for the ruling class alone. The middle class ceases to exist as it moves into the ranks of the poor who get no health care. Life becomes cheap, and as a result, labor becomes cheap.

zzyzzx says

So, if I understand you correctly, you are FOR socialized medicine when it's implemented by Democrats, but AGAINST it when it's implemented by Republicans?

Insurance, by definition, is the socialization of the costs of what is being insured. Socialized medicine is what we have in the status quo and what all alternatives are. That's not the issue. The issue is how things are socialized.

Real health care reform requires several things.

1. Transparent honest pricing that does not vary from individual to individual. This means we need a single-payer system, a centralized national clearinghouse.

2. Near zero economic profit for all forms of insurance. This means near 100% efficiency in the insurance market, whether it is done by private business, government agencies, or non-profit institutions. This is almost impossible to get without a public option.

3. A complete divorce of health care and insurance from employment.

4. Medical tort reform that reduces frivolous lawsuits while compensating true medical malpractice victims. This greatly affects the malpractice insurance that all doctors, including good and compassionate ones must carry and charge their customers for.

5. A comprehensive, national software system for all hospitals and private practice that reduces administrative costs to near zero. It can be tied into the clearinghouse, but it is an independent system. I could build such a system for a mere 100 million dollars and five years. It would save our nation about $182 billion a year. That's a 182,000% return every year for all eternity. Why the fuck is no one paying me to do this?

rootvg says

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Obama aren't Democrats anyway. That party ceased to exist as of 1968. Today's Democrats are Greens, with their embrace of rabid environmentalism, endorsement of legalized perversion, the right to kill unborn babies

Pretty much, yes. The Democrats represent rich childless folks that go to Whole Foods and live on the West Coast and in Boswash. The Republicans represent Corporate America and Big Finance.

Everyone else is skrewed.

wthrfrk80 says

rootvg says

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Obama aren't Democrats anyway. That party ceased to exist as of 1968. Today's Democrats are Greens, with their embrace of rabid environmentalism, endorsement of legalized perversion, the right to kill unborn babies

Pretty much, yes. The Democrats represent rich childless folks that go to Whole Foods and live on the West Coast and in Boswash. The Republicans represent Corporate America and Big Finance.

Everyone else is skrewed.

I go to Whole Foods all the time. No, we don't have kids.

evilmonkeyboy says

I personally wish they would though so America could get back to becoming the greatest country in the world again.

You're kidding right? When was the USA ever becoming the "greatest country in the world?" That's utopian BS.

Get real. It's all about the money.

Dan8267 says

Reader says

I just saw a bumber sticker that went,

"Are You Losing The Debate? Just Shout Racist And You Will Silence The Opposition."

Reader

False accusations of racism and false accusations of race baiting are easily disproved through transparency.

Yes, so true it is too bad many don't remember that fact.

Bap33 says

Anyone with a clear head that read the Bible would see the the plagerism of Smith's tale.

You don't even need much of a clear head to see the plagerism. Many passages of the BoM are an almost word-for-word copy of the OT.

Bap33 says

I did not pick Romney, he is the only choice I have now due to the "system".

Yes, our system always seems to be a choice of the lesser of two evils rather than the better of two good candidates.

That said there are always two choices who have a legitimate chance of winning.

I find it interesting that you are choosing to put your trust and faith in a candidate who...

1. Is lacking the "clear head" (as you put it) to see that Joesph Smith's story is a clear fraud.

2. Believes scripture that calls your religious beliefs an abomination (yes, the same word used in the bible to refer to homosexual behavior) and corrupt.

3. In addition mormons believe that someone, like you, who would write such anti-mormon statements is inspired by the devil to do so.

In short you are supporting a candidate, who will lead the entire country, who thinks you are a Satan inspired corrupt abomination. Ummm... yeah... you must really hate Obama for some reason.

It is also interesting that you pay Glen Beck, another mormon who feels the same way about you, fill your head with any idea that Mr. Beck seems fit.

wthrfrk80 says

You're kidding right? When was the USA ever becoming the "greatest country in the world?" That's utopian BS.

Get real. It's all about the money.

That is my point exactly, Americans are fat and lazy. We can't do math and science because it's hard. We don't even remotely compete with the rest of the world in education anymore. Yet, we can't grasp why health care cost are going up when eating a piece of broccoli is unAmerican.

good thing he is running for POTUS and not Pope/King/Rabbi/Pastor. Right?

Lord Barry got a shot at the job based on zero life/work history. Romney will get his shot with loads of life/work history. I don't expect much to change. As soon as an R gets in, Code Pink, body counts, and the Militant Sexual Deviant Nation demanding school kids be taught how Steve bangs Larry, will be on every media outlet 24/7. Then AIDS and StemCell research will be front page ... then Global Warming ... then energy ... the same crap the libs use each time to control the conversation (and oddly, these issues have been awefully quiet for Lord Barry). I doubt we will see Romney tell the media, "The Constitution and the Congress are not doing what I want them to do so I am doing it myself". I doubt Romney voted "present" 80% of the time he was on the job. I doubt Romney will be golfing as much (not even half as much, bet). I doubt Mrs. Romney will have long lavish vacations on the public dime (and every dime she does spend will be disected on NBC Nightly). I just think the double standard in place in the American mass media, as well as the public education system and legal system, will continue. And I think the R-side is just as much a part of the cancer killing America as the D-side is. Read that last line again before you rip my eyeballs out - again.

We should annex Mexico soon.

Reader says

You cannot be serious? Transparency tells me otherwise.

Transparency tells you what? That the GOP doesn't spend more than the Democrats?

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/obama-most-fiscally-conservative-president-in-modern-history/254658/

Bap33 says

Maybe all the talking snakes, or the people that spoke snake, were allowed to die off in the flood? Next.

By the way, I did not say one must believe the Bible to be a Holy book, or even to be true in any way, to see my point about Joe Smith's fairy tale. I said what I meant to say. Anyone with a clear head that read the Bible would see the the plagerism of Smith's tale.

LOL... you crack me up. For some reason in your head it is completely okay for a snake to talk to a person if it happened before the "flood". I can't wait to here why it's okay to believe that a donkey talked to Saul/Paul after the "flood" in the NT.
So my statement stands as well:
Anyone with a clear mind would not believe a book with talking animals to be true.
Thus, people with a clear mind don't waste their days reading the bible.

My apologies, I thought you were serious.

I also thought you lived in a kid's closet in Quahog, RI. When did you move to San Jose?

wthrfrk80 says

I also thought you lived in a kid's closet in Quahog, RI. When did you move to San Jose?

Yeah, there was just no money in that. Moved out to SJ about two years ago.

JodyChunder says

this is becoming a very trendy way of saying 'a fucking shitload more.'

We'll see that term being used more in scientific journals:

"The Higgs-Boson particle is a fucking shitload larger than we anticipated..."

It might be like in the movie Idiocracy.

CL says

Reader says

You cannot be serious? Transparency tells me otherwise.

Transparency tells you what? That the GOP doesn't spend more than the Democrats?

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/obama-most-fiscally-conservative-president-in-modern-history/254658/

no, Obama isnt spending because of gridlock from GOP, which is a good thing!

thomas.wong1986 says

no, Obama isnt spending because of gridlock from GOP, which is a good thing!

Why didn't the GOP keep spending down when they ran all branches of Government, but had no fiscal crisis to thwart?

Their reputation as fiscal conservatives is imaginary, unless it benefits them politically.

agreed 100%. GOP does not equal conservative.

evilmonkeyboy says

a donkey talked to Saul/Paul after the "flood" in the NT.

never seen Shriek? lol

wthrfrk80 says

The Higgs-Boson particle is a fucking shitload larger than we anticipated..."

I see football field used as a metric in scientific periodicals and journals often enough (and yes, JC reads science ..the high desert ain't all fun n games all the time)

Bap33 says

never seen Shriek? lol

That sentence doesn't make sense on any planet in our solar system, Sorry, but you live in America! Learn the language!!

Bap33 says

you dipshit

Comment deleted for directly insulting another user.

Repeated offenses will get your whole account deleted.

dang ... you know what, my mistake. I was lost in the moment. Wont happen again.

Bap33 says

dang ...

I am working on my first million little man. What kinda big deals you got lined up?

just your sister