No, as you say, it's factual. When the government has the power to take what's yours forcefully, saying that it's at gunpoint is not melodramatic. It's accurate.
There is a difference between paying for services and taking money from one person and giving it to another. You're making the moral equivalence between a policeman and a welfare bum; not a good logical argument.
Again, the moral equivalence between theft and services. You lefties do that a lot.
IOW, you're in favor of theft and not in favor of work. Nice.
That's certainly the lefty way (Chicago politics at work).
As you know, I help people with computer problems, for free. Friday morning a local business owner that I've helped, and a mechanic he knows replaced the water pump on my old truck. Every time I had saved enough for the parts, someone or something else got priority on the $100+ it would cost for the parts. I limped along with that problem for over a year, on the verge of destroying the engine rather than leave another disabled Veteran with no way to get to their appointments, or a severely disabled friend unable to make the co-pay on her prescriptions.
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You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.
Hospitals should take the VA's approach: Urgent Care Clinics in their hospitals for minor problems, instead of everyone using the emergency room. The new VA CBOC (Community Based Outpatient Clinic) also has an Urgent Care clinic, instead of you having to wait for your PCP to squeeze you in. I've had to use it several times, and the wait is usually under an hour, and if they write a prescription it is filled before you leave. I like the layout of that clinic, since there is a separate set of doors near that clinic, in case they need an ambulance to transport someone to a hospital.
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You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.
It's not accurate. They don't take it at gun-point. There may be the implication that they could, but tax collection doesn't take place at the point of a gum, so you are imagining a non-existent situation to make a rhetoroical point which is precisely what melodrama is about.
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Paying a a policeman is one way of influencing the behaviour of the welfare bum, and giving the bum money directly is another. As a right- wing nitwit, you imagine that the cop is a worthier recipient of your tax money than somebody who is between jobs. but more sophisticated thinkers note that the government is merely the biggest protection racket in town, which makes the cop morally equivalent to the Mafia enforcer (whose moto is "we are number two so we try harder).
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Whereas the right-wing nitwit sees his preferences as embodying moral choices between good and evil.
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But then again krw doesn't seem to see much value in education, so he probably wouldn't want to spend money on that either. A few more choices like that and society becomes a lot less productive, and you don't have as much to give after all.
Wrong. He's in favour of helping people get back to work - that's an investment, no less than building a road or a bridge - rather than theft.
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on the other hand, spending lots of money on lobbying your politicians is a right-wing habit, and it pays off in bespoke tax loop-holes. You problem is that getting your mortgage paid off isn't a big enough pork-barrel to get your congress-person's attention. Something like an oil-depletion allowance is theft on a larger scale, and can justify attention-getting bribes.
Perhaps they can and perhaps they can't. Part of the issue is that it is way too easy to be fat and prosperous purely on welfare compared to doing some part of the work their selves. A really bad negative reward for = most of the way to being self supporting from being a leach. How do you think that got to be that way?
People getting "fat and prosperous" purely on welfare is one of those right wing myths, like the dependency culture.
You can survive on welfare, but that's about it. If you are sufficiently stupid, psychologically disturbed or physically sick you may not be able to do better under any circumstances, but most people on welfare are enthusiastic about getting off it, if they can see a route to regular work.
In a country where the people with capital seem to be intent on shipping all the unskilled jobs off to China, the routes to regular work mostly run through education and retraining but our right-wing nitwits don't seem to appreciate this.
They had little choice. The floodgate of new patients was unleashed on them by congress when they changed the eligibility requirements, without additional funding. They are still recovering from that, as evidenced by hospitals with mold problems, and having to leave patients in hallways because the patient rooms are all full.
Most of their problems are caused by politics. Limited facilities, and the fact that the staff are civil servants. It is very difficult to get rid of duds & burnouts.
The test model of updated clinics opened near here recently. There are 100 exam rooms, and a lot of services that were formerly only available at a hospital. This includes two minor O.R.s
If they are like the closest VA hospital, they had to wait several decades to add space for additional clinics, so they were forced to lease space off their campus. The Gainesville finally got funding a couple years ago to build anew patient tower. When that stage is done, most of the patient areas in the hospital will be gutted and the space used for more operating rooms, and specialty clinics. That hospital had to stop doing any non emergency surgery at least five years ago, because they couldn't schedule O.R. time. The final stage is a parking garage, to eleminate off campus parking & the shuttle buses.
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You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.
Actually I'm making the moral equivalence between (non-corrupt) policemen and welfare *recipients* who are *not* violating any of the programs' rules.
I willingly admit that I see funding both the military/police services as well as welfare as fundamentally moral and necessary jobs for the government.
Perhaps because many people don't view it as "theft" -- that's just a pejorative label that does little to further legitimate debate.
I mean, it comes off as absurd when people argue that everything from public education to social security to welfare is all unconstitutional and theft. Maybe they're 100% correct -- heck, let's assume they are -- but you're not going to make much headway with "reasonable people" -- who happen to disagree with you -- when you start with such strongly polarizing language. It may not be the intention, but the result is that you are pushing people towards a more radical reaction such as a civil war which I have to believe even most highly conservative people would find to be a Really Bad Idea.
You indeed are. Like all leftists, you've bought into the whole moral relativism bit; hook line and sinker. You see, one of these people is being paid for a service. The other is a bum who is too lazy to add anything to society.
BTW, "welfare bum" doesn't imply a cheat of the system at all. The system
*is* the cheat. Since it's easy, people will use it. The easier it's made, the more will stop producing.
How the hell is welfare a fundamental an necessary job. How the hell is it "moral"?
But is *is* theft. You're taking money from one person and giving it to another. Just because government does it doesn't mean it's any less theft.
Now you're lying again. You lefties do that a *lot*.
Facts are facts. You want to whitewash language to justify your immorality. You do the same to the Constitution. You're proving yourself to be a Slowman Socialist.
The intention is *exactly* to call a spade a spade. Your intention is to cloud the waters so you can justify *anything* that suits your fancy today.
There may well be a civil war. It's not the right who's pushing, though.
So you admit that it is theft. Now we're getting somewhere.
That kind of half-witted claim would piss off any number of job- seekers who hadn't yet found work. I was stuck on unemployment benefit because I couldn't find a job, not because I was lazy. You probably won't believe this, because you are the kind of right-wing nitwit who imagines that there's always some of kind of paid work to be had if you look hard enough. There may be be - if you can lie convincingly about your background and training - but I got knocked back for being over-qualified once or twice.
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Don't be stupid. Being on welfare sucks, but it's better than starving to death.
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Leaving people to starve to death because nobody is hiring is moral?
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When the church does just that, it's still theft? Taxation isn't theft, no matter how much you enjoy making the claim. Taxation is a perfectly legal process, controlled by legislation passed by your elected representatives. If you don't like it, campaign for the election of representatives =A0who share your demented delusions, rather than lying about the process.
Neither an honest or remotely accurate claim. But right-wing nitwits aren't liars - they are too stupid to realise that the the claims that they are making aren't actually true.
Sadly, krw's opinions aren't facts, and have very little connection to reality.
Whereas your attempt to confuse taxation with theft - which is blackwash language of the most blatant sort - s perfectly moral.
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There's nothing particularly socialist about being pragamatic and realistic. krw lives in his right-wing cloud-cuckoo-land, where everything that he disagrees with is immoral.
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Whereas calling "taxation" "theft" is a perfectly reasonable equation. The IRS is arrested and thrown into prison every day because it's a criminal organisation. Or it would if the FBI weren't aware that the IRS collects the money that pays their salaries.
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Not pushing. Just adopting irrational ideas and taking them seriously, and getting upset when anybody points out that you are spouting irrational nonsense. That's not "pushing", but it is provocative.
The last time I went to an ER the room was full of illegals with (unhappy) babies and their extended families, sort of like the markets I saw in Baja California. I was fine, but left sick--they gave me the flu.
Many people. I'm telling you I've SEEN it. It's real. But, to answer your question, people with nothing better to do, people who get paid the same for not working whether they're there, or somewhere else.
Mind you I'm not arguing we should throw off the sick or needy. I'm not making a value judgement, I'm just reporting what I've actually seen.
The ER nurse mentioned before is a friend's wife. She's seen more than I. My xGF worked in ICU, not ER, but had a bale full of yarns as well, many of which I saw in person.
To the bigger point, if you break the feedback (e.g. price), people consume carelessly. If there's an incentive to behave non-virtuously, many people are encouraged to lose their virtue, i.e., corrupted.
There are no end of YouTubes of "entitled" people to make the point.
(Sorry for the slow response--I'm swamped, trying to deliver something.)
No, you don't. Think about it. On balance, for this thing to work numerically, you have to take from most people, and only give to a few. Redistribution. You're taking. From people who don't need or want what you're offering. That's how you intend--and the only way-- to create the surplus that's to be redistributed to others.
Not a fair prediction at all. I assume the opposite.
Per above, you're not sharing, you're taking. And, should government rule us like children? Obama's not my parent.
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This assumes a lot, a lot that isn't true. What makes humanity wealthier--from which flows every other measure of well-being--is increasing productivity. Period. That is, making it possible for each person to make more food / services / stuff per unit of their time.
Our society is so productive that it's possible for virtually every one of us--no matter how humble--to earn enough to keep ourselves, and salt away some for the lean times.
But, if you tax away 100% of someone's safety margin, you've rendered that person unable to save for contingencies. Congratulations, you've just created the need for a safety net.
If you take 15% of someone's earnings in the name of "retirement," and give that to someone else, you've rendered many people unable to save for retirement.
The fact that you think someone might come down with a disease doesn't give you the right to run / ruin his life, force him to spend a certain way in some bankrupt scheme you like, or make his investment decisions for him.
People make all sorts of bad decisions--about what they eat, what they study in school, they drive at night on wet roads, etc. That's theirs to choose, not ours.
You mean like Detroit? Harlem? Watts? Bell, CA? New Orleans?
Most don't realize it, they're just angry. Like the calculating neighbor I wrote of--she's angry. At us.
The best answer yet devised is to all look out for ourselves in the sense of "making our own decisions and optimizing our own outcomes however we deem best," without taking anything from anyone else, maximizing the harvest for all, then sharing, voluntarily, some of the bounty that results.
Mikek
Handouts corrupt us all. The thing is, they aren't free. It's all a big over-unity scam, that hurts people in the end.
The free market is the best answer in a lot of situations, but not all of them.
Some problems can only be handled collectively, which does involve "taking something from other people". The classic example is defence, but public health - in the sense of defending the community against infectious diseases - has exactly the same features, in that the threat is usually potential rather than real, but you've still got to spend money on preparing to defend yourself now against a threat that may never materialise. Free market thinking isn't much use there - if you buy in your defence, you end up being ruled by mercenaries.
Social security works in the same sort of way, but the social consequences of screwing it up aren't quite as obvious a streets filled with plague victims or invading looters, if no less real.
=A0 Mikek
Handouts can corrupt, if you don't pay attention to the mechanism of distributing the help. Of course they aren't free. There'd be no need to hand them out if they were.
It's not a scam, and if properly done it certainly improves the situation of the people being helped and should improve the condition of society as a whole.
The current US arrangements seem to have produced a generation of people of whom a significant proportion weren't adequately educated, perhaps because they didn't get fed well enough (quality as well as quantity) to take advantage of the shoddy education that the US offers to children of the inhabitants of poor neighbourhoods.
They can't get legitimate work - in part because the US is busy exporting many it's unskilled jobs to China - so the more enterprising members of the group go into drug distribution and end up being housed in US jails at the tax-payers expense.
It doesn't always happen. John Larkin ignored a lot of his education, and still found himself a niche selling bespoke electronics to physicists who are notoriously uncritical about the electronics they get, as long as the gear does the job they want done, no matter how baroque the architecture nor how expensive the components chosen.
Your current social policy thus hurts the people who end up not being able to get honest work, and it hurts US society because keeping more people in prison than any other country costs you money.
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Your support of the status quo would seem to be a scam - you may be too stupid to recognise the consequences of the moronic policies that you tout, but sincerely believing something very stupid isn't a virtue.
What service do the police perform? When my wife's car was vandalized the police told me to fill out a form online. When my dad's business was burglarized they told him to come down and fill out a report. The only thing police have done for me, personally, is hand me a speeding ticket.
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OK: Go apply for welfare. Then come back and tell us how easy the process was.
Government helping people out is sadly necessary these days. Daughters of friends, recent college graduates currently working survival jobs, found that they qualified for food stamps. Should they leave them on the table, or should they eat better than the minimum wage would allow?
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Ah, you're not a Christian. Christ commanded us to help the poor, therefore it is moral to do so. Read, for example, Matthew 25:34-46 and Luke 3:9-11
Most health care expenditure is concentrated in the last eighteen months of life. The majority who pay for it know that they are going it back when they need it.
Saving up for you own terminal care would be your prescription, but terminal care differs a lot from patient to patient. If we all pay in, we pay more than most of us will - individually - need, but we cover the risk that we - individually - will come down with something that's particularly expensive. It's redistributing the risk, which is what insurance has always been about.
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It's called insurance. It's been around for a few hundred years now. The founding tax evaders probably took advantage of it.
You claim to be numerate. Why don't find some evidence?
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does suggest that having people at work when they should be at home on sick leave costs everybody; the sick employees infects more people at work than they would have done at home.
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According to your right-wing nitwit opinion. Infectious diseases are problem for society as a whole, and your approach ignores this.
Citizens obey laws. Children do as they are told by their parents. The situations have some parallels, but the government has been elected to regulate society for our mutual benefit, and to that extent they are required to constrain the behaviour=A0of individuals with that society - even you.
But he is your president, empowered to execute the laws that your legislature has passed.
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Some terminal conditions are a lot more expensive to treat than others. People have been insuring against improbable events for a couple of centuries now. You should find out about it.
Nobody taxes at 100% - there used to be some attempts at 95% maximum marginal rates, but nobody seems to go for more than 60% marginal rates these days, nor seems to expect to be able collect more than 45% of total income.
And forced a number of people who wouldn't otherwise have saved to make provision for their own retirement.
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Actually we know that a certain proportion of people will come down with any disease you care to mention. Around the world, people have come to think that universal health care funded by universal medical insurance is the best way of coping with this situation. Every last scheme that they've come up with is cheaper than the US system and some of them are at least as effective.
So what?
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She's probably angry at you - with reason. Pompous patronising know-it- alls who don't actually know what they are talking about tend to generate that reaction. People who are ostensibly offering help, but in practice trying to find every possible reason to refuse it,tend to generate much the same reaction, and your social security system is hamstrung by exactly that attitude.
At this point, the Constitution means whatever Tony Kennedy thinks it means. No more and no less. For the past dozen years, the Constitution has lined up precisely with right-wing ideology.
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The Supreme Court is driven strictly by ideology any more. Scalia in particular picks his desired outcome, and them rationalizes it. Citizens United was a good example: There was no doctrine of separate corporate personality when the Bill of Rights was written. The voice of the joint-stock company was the voice of its shareholders. The doctrine that corporations have speech rights independent of their owners is pure judicial activism. No wonder Obama protests this sham.
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The only problem with Social Security is that the trust fund was used to (partially) make up for Reagan's tax cuts for the rich. GWB's further tax cuts just poured gasoline on the fire. Those chickens will come home to roost soon. Will the vast majority of Americans put up with being screwed by the 1%? We'll find out pretty soon.
How did you establish that they were illegal? =A0Or were you relying on the rule that says that anybody who doesn't share your accent is illegal?
Odd that you should still be failing to think about the social implications of infectious diseases - but that's thinking about society as a whole, and only socialists do that.
You did in-depth interviews to make sure that they weren't anxious about having something more serious?
Or as real as a James Arthur observation ever gets. He does see the world through right-wing blinkers.
Nobody wants to sit in a hospital ER. There's always got to be somewhere that's quieter and more comfortable, where you are less likely to get flu.
But James Arthur sees the world though judgemental eyes - and if he were a judge he'd be thrown off the bench, on the grounds that his judgements didn't have anything to do with the situations he was considering.
The UK National Health service was free when I lived in the UK. It was a great deal cheaper to run than the US system and delivered adequate health care. Price isn't the only mechanism that can discourage people from consuming carelessly.
So what? Anecdotal evidence is never conclusive, though it can be regrettably persuasive.
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