scottishbastard

Right on the mark dude. Right on the mark. Everything is biased, so why is it that only conservative or libertarian bias gets called biased? Why is it not ok for this conservative to be humorous and openly biased, but Michael Moore, Steven Colbert, Bill Mahr, John Stewart and the rest of the liberal elite can talk shit all day in a snarky voice?
I don't really care if ANYONE is biased and snarky. I'm just sick of the accusations being so one sided.

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Yeah but you're going to do what you wanna do
No matter what I ask of you
You think you hold the high hand
I've got my doubts
I come from Chino where the asphalt sprouts
.....

And even if I have to go to Claremont
Well I guess I'll just have to go to Claremont
Let me go
Let me lie low

Yeah but you're going to do what you wanna do
No matter what I ask of you
And you send your dark messengers to tempt me
I come from Chino so all your threats are empty

- the mountain goats

Being

some people aren't biased and aren't associated with any demographic. when one has viewpoints from multiple demographics, they aren't biased, they are just opinionated certain ways on certain subjects.

the problem is, conservatives usually end up being so biased, lies are created that negatively impact the country and citizens (usually for personal gain)

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R.I.P. Gov

zerodown

Heres a forum project for you guys to do:

A group of you will need to find a few forums frequented by canadians and ask them what the health care system is like, then form your opinion and share back here. Try to get people who go use privatized doctors and government doctors.


Go!

verklingen

when an opinion, idea or perception causes one to remove his considerations from what is best for everyone in favor of focusing more on instating/sustaining/propagating an ideal -- especially when that ideal is the opinion, idea or perception itself -- it becomes bias.

with that said, the shit's hitting the fan and we don't have the luxury of being biased. we have systems in place today and have tried other systems in the past, none of which have worked. and by "worked" i mean provided a quality of life in which everyone lives comfortably. there's work involved in that, and it doesn't come from a government. the sad thing is that we're already doing that work. we already have a deep network of providing services to one another in order to produce comfortable living for everyone. it's called "society," and the problem is that our institutions of government have gotten in the way.

we have an opportunity to think proactively about how it's working and how it's failing. reflexively labeling potential solutions as "socialist" or 'fascist" is just about the stupidest hurdle to get caught up on imo

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“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

scottishbastard

Ok, what you said "Conservatives usually end up being so damn biased"...That's what I'm talking about. It's not that there's more biased conservatives, it's that when Liberals call conservatives biased it sticks. When conservatives call liberals biased it's called paranoia (i.e. "The liberal media").
I can name four well known biased liberals in satire/comedy - Mahr, Moore, Colbert, and Stewart - and thats just off the top of my head. How many conservative equals are there? I don't mean the news, because that's hard to judge. I'm talking about people who influence those who don't necessarily watch the news. Entertainment people.

And Ego, I see your point. But dude, isn't it our jobs as Americans to stand up for what we believe in? If we just sat around accepting that the government is made up of good people "just trying to work things out" we'd be in a lot of trouble. People act like the rebellious American nature is something only needed in the past, but I believe it's more needed today than ever.
And these things we're saying are only scare tactics because they're true, and they scare people. It's like saying "If you're locked in a room with a wolverine, you'll probably be hurt". It's not a scare tactic, it's just scary.

__________________


Yeah but you're going to do what you wanna do
No matter what I ask of you
You think you hold the high hand
I've got my doubts
I come from Chino where the asphalt sprouts
.....

And even if I have to go to Claremont
Well I guess I'll just have to go to Claremont
Let me go
Let me lie low

Yeah but you're going to do what you wanna do
No matter what I ask of you
And you send your dark messengers to tempt me
I come from Chino so all your threats are empty

- the mountain goats

Ego Tripping

But in this case and most often the case with a lot of conservative "motivation" is that scary wolverine is actually a pitbull puppy.

Of course stand up and do something...but I really did like what Obama said "disagree without being disagreeable." We can easily get involved and find a solution to this problem for all, if we could move past the political gain that this issue is causing. It feels like the Repubs just want to repeat the 90's and their actions are demonstrating this. There doesn't seem to be cooperation, just a "No, that won't work either, sorry" vibe. Sprinkle that with some good old fashioned "if you do this, America is destroyed!" and what do you know, the status quo remains and the issue is moved to the back burner for another 10 years. All the while, they never contributed to solving the problem, just nay-sayed it to death. Classic Republican tactics, at least the tactics I've been observing for the past 8 years.

And I disagree with you. I think both stick on both sides when one calls the other biased...depends on who it's sticking to. I think what Being was trying to say is conservatives, by their definition and nature, do not want to shake things up. They want the status quo and the status quo is the dollar/capitalism/war. Liberals tend to want to really radically shift things around (perhaps too much too fast) and seem to have more domestic focus. I also find that conservatives seem to have a lot more fear of change which tends to incite anger and hate as a result. Liberals on the other hand can be too idealistic.

/rant

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John F. Kerry

obamas flowery rhetoric was fine until as some have said, it met with reality.

i like obama and his goals are laudable when he talks about them

but when it comes time to implement them he seems to think that if he is nice and talks about it right that people simply wont fight against him even if they think his actual policies are wrong and misguided. if i dont think his health care plan will give us better care or better costs and i think it will lead to rationing of crappy healthcare. then im gonna say so. if obama choses to just keep talking like hes above it all (and above the concerns americans have about his plan) then i predict he will not be talking as our president for 2 terms.

Ego Tripping

I understand what you mean, but I don't find him ornery about it at all. He never seemed to state or display that he didn't expect or even want resistance...it's just that, that's ALL the Right is giving, rather than a little cooperation to go along with that resistance.

It IS about speaking your voice, having it heard, that's America/Democracy, right? But just because some people are resisting, doesn't make them correct. It's about compromise and right now, I don't see any, especially from this entire thread. It just seems outrightly spiteful and butthurt at this point.

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Being

Thats the main problem. Conservites and GOP refuse to help the situation, they only want to just nay say Democrats and Liberals so they can gain their ground back.


The key to the whole problem:

No liberal has ever said don't speak your mind, but when all you do is bitch and say no no no no no, you're wrong. YOu sound like an old grumpy asshole who thinks he is the smartest man in the world.

Compromise, contribute, do SOMETHING other than just nay-saying, its not helping anyone, its only hurting the country in more ways than one.

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R.I.P. Gov

John F. Kerry

frankly i dont think conservatives had said nothing.

basically obama got elected promising one thing and now he is trying to do something else.

he got elected by promising to "get poor people health insurance" - all in all our health care system is amazing, the envy of the world, its hardy "broken", its great, except that its very expensive and that some people dont have it.


so obama wanted to get people health insurance, like the same way people have to have auto insurance, - so penalize them if they dont have it , etc.... and if you ask me republicans shouldnt be against and arernt against this type of thing.

so its generally agreed that poor people need some kind of help to get healthcare.


now problem 2 is the bastardly shit insurance companies do- dropping people etc.... if congress were to pass a new law requiring certain guarntees to be implicit in an insurance policy- it would eliminate this problem- and insurance comapnies (ie the FREE MARKET) could determine how much such a program should cost- they can use market forces to balance the quality with the cost and the efficiency with the cost, far better than any gov't could ever hope to do.

so thats point 2.


so basically everyone agrees about those 2 things.


but now obama lets Pelosi and the radical democrats on the left push a program that is not bipartisan but is in fact 100% political and designed to cater to the far left interest groups and not middle class americans.

first, they dont give poor people a way to get private healthcare- they are going to completely end the private healthcare system by bringing a "public health insurance" into the market- this insurance will be enforced to be adopted by all the laws a federal gov't can muster, it will bring the gov't into personal and doctor decisions, and DO ALL SORTS OF THINGS OBAMA SPECIFICALLY DECLARED HE WOULDNT DO DURING THE CAMPAIGN. in the end, it doesnt even seem likely to do the one thing that people want- ie. to get everyone to have cheap and quality healthcare.


because in the end, its not possible to have CHEAP, QUALITY healthcare- so all the talk about "savings" through "preventative medicine" etc. are quite disingenuous - they are basically arguments that will save a few dollars here and there while the costs for the vast majority of things- and the costs for new medicines and treatments will continue to rise.

the only way to force healthcare to be cheaper is to deny people things that they "might not" need (as determined by the federal beurocracy they want to create)- and to take away their options and choices-

the reason 80% of americans who have health care say they are very satistied with it is because the profit motive causes doctors and hospitals and clinics in america to want to make people feel good, and be happy. they will give them EXTRA- INEFFICIENT care if the person wants it- and people like that will willingly pay somewhat higher co-pays or insurance premiums because it makes them feel better to get better care.

so the MARKET should determine how SERVICES are DISTRIBUTED.

not the government.


the dems COULD create some type of market-system based answer to getting the 50 million poor healthcare- but they dont even mention such an idea because it will mean abandoning the far left radicals who fund them-


they should do what obama said he would do, nothing more nothing less.

Canuck Wisdom

I am not really following this thread, but when I first heard (on here) that the states is seriously talking about socialized health-care I was pretty stunned.

As much as I believe in universal health-care, on many, many levels, I don't see it happening in the USA without some majour, cataclysmic changes. Or, more realistically, progressive, very very clever and efficient changes.
Hopefully thats what Obama has.

And michael moore is a douch bag.

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-Knowitall A&P type-

Canuck Wisdom

I've never had any problems with our system. One time I cut my leg real bad and had to wait about 6 hours for stitches in Emerg, and that sucked, but whatever.

My dad, who has had numerous injuries and health problems, (relative to me) and my grandma too have both been treated well and within a decent time frame. All social.

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-Knowitall A&P type-

Being

thank you guys. i dont understand why some people refuse to accept it is possible.




false.

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R.I.P. Gov

scottishbastard

Okay. There's too much for me to remember here, so I can't respond to everything but I'll do my best.

Firstly, even if socialized healthcare IS just a pitbull puppy, puppies grow up. Socialism always winds up the same. It starts out with everyone happy and taken care of, and as the money dwindles, tax dollars raise, infastructure fails etc. it winds up fucking everyone, including the people it was designed to help.

Also keep in mind, while not vastly less - Canada has less people to take care of than us, and it's still not going so well. The U.s. population as of July 2009 was 307,018,000 and Canada's was 33,729,000, and it's a bigger country (size wise). Cuba on the other hand was 11,204,000.
My amature analysis is that socialism works best in countries that are A) impoverished and B) Not as highly populated, but I could be wrong on that.

I like Barack Obama. I think he's a good politician. My favorite quality on him is he doesn't hide his political motivations.

My major beef is 150 years ago when we didn't really use any socialist methods we were a pretty happy country. But it seems like the more we use these methods the worse we get, and then in response we fix them with the same type of methods. It's an endless circle of tax, spend, spend, spend, tax, spend, spend, spend.

And in regards to what you said about liberal and conservative...We first need to define what we mean by liberal and conservative. So let's use these terms for now:

Classical Liberal - I.e. Adam Smith
Classical Conservative - Abraham Lincoln
Neo Liberal - Barack Obama
Neo Conservative - Sarah Palin

Classical conservatism is actually quite anti war compared to others. They were against the idea of being involved in foreign matters. I think that both sides are both pretty into the whole war thing. Keep in mind Roosevelt...And Clinton's war in Kosova. And it's not like Obama is stopping the current war.

__________________


Yeah but you're going to do what you wanna do
No matter what I ask of you
You think you hold the high hand
I've got my doubts
I come from Chino where the asphalt sprouts
.....

And even if I have to go to Claremont
Well I guess I'll just have to go to Claremont
Let me go
Let me lie low

Yeah but you're going to do what you wanna do
No matter what I ask of you
And you send your dark messengers to tempt me
I come from Chino so all your threats are empty

- the mountain goats

Ego Tripping

I really don't give a shit what anybody in this thread says, including the wannabe Van Wilder that j-wonder posted, besides the actual Canadians who experience this system in their daily lives, which they seem to support their "socialistic" health care system. And Canada's Healthcare system is one of the least efficient compared to countries in Europe.

It's clear the Republicans only want political gain, not any kind of solution,which is why this thread is about is comparing 9/11 to Obama's current Admin, which is downright atrocious really.

Let the Republicans cry that it's the end of America. If their America is what we got for the past decade almost, I hope it ends, real fast at that. Luckily, it is.

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Ego Tripping

I knew someone would pick up on this. I've met some of the sweetest dogs in the world who were pitbulls and others who were ferocious...it's all in how you raise them.

__________________

Being

^?

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R.I.P. Gov

Being

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R.I.P. Gov

scottishbastard

Ok this puppy shit need to stop now hahaha. I took it too far, I admit. No more dog analogies please!

Anyways. I wouldnt say 9/11 should be compared to this healthcare shit because there's different intention behind them. With Bush it was an imperialist/totalitarian intent. With Obama it's just being to much of an idealist. If people were perfect then socialism would work well. But as long as you take into account that people are fucked up, you need to realize that this kind of policy doesn't work well.

And I think the point of this post was not to totally demonize socialized medecine, I think that it makes the point that Michael Moore is a son of a bitch who will do something like go to Cuba and tell us how much better theyre doing, even if it's only half truths. Sure they got free healthcare, but what is the quality of the care? How much beuracracy is there? How long are the waits? What are the sanitary conditions of these places?
And thats not even to mention they have a dictator as a leader.

__________________


Yeah but you're going to do what you wanna do
No matter what I ask of you
You think you hold the high hand
I've got my doubts
I come from Chino where the asphalt sprouts
.....

And even if I have to go to Claremont
Well I guess I'll just have to go to Claremont
Let me go
Let me lie low

Yeah but you're going to do what you wanna do
No matter what I ask of you
And you send your dark messengers to tempt me
I come from Chino so all your threats are empty

- the mountain goats

Being

Well, as evidenced by some of our trusted forum members, the wait times aren't life threatening. You can't tell me that wait times here aren't bad either.


My mother in law recently needed surgery that may have been life threatening, and it took a good 8 hours before the surgery. She was very close to death. Wait times will ALWAYS be an issue with such a large world population.

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R.I.P. Gov