Friday Funnies

How would a national health plan have any LESS choice than the current system? In Japan, I could walk into any hospital I wanted to. Here I can choose between a grand total of ONE facilities.

On LiveJournal, someone apparently asked someone else to write a paper for her and was shocked when it was filled with nonsense:

http://community.livejournal.com/wtf_omgz/1677200.html

Update: since I posted the link, some potentially objectionable images have been posted to the thread, so be warned.

The New Osama Collection:

Anti-Amnesty PSA (say no to two-legged walking creatures with sticks!):

How dare Republicans not have some government solution on health care, economic inequality, or private contracts... do they think government power is limited by the Constitution or something?  What whackjobs! [/sarcasm].

How dare Republicans not have a plan to end a conflict that is still in progress... do they think we should plan to achieve objectives prior to the plans to retreat?  Those weirdos! [/sarcasm].

How dare Republicans oppose widesweeping and drastic economic regulation to stop Global Warming... do they think that damaging our own economy so other nations won't have to damage there's and result in little overall benefit for saving the planet is somehow not still saving the planet?  [/sarcasm]

I tell you, it just doesn't make one lick of sense! (no sarcams this time, I'm referring to the last comment).

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Glock21 Op/Ed

On September 21st, 2007 at 10:27 AM, D. Boon said:  What is the Republican health care plan again?  Oh, that's right there is none.  Just like there is no plan to win and/or leave in Iraq, no plan to deal with Global Warming, no plan to address the growing economic inequalities in the country, no plan to deal with the mortgage crisis, no plan to ...

But there is a Republican plan.  It is called fear.  We can see it nicely illustrated in both of these partisan, biased, unfunny cartoons.  What a platform!  Run with it, fellas!

Two quick questions:  why is it the government's responsibility to rescue lending institutions who willfully agreed to lend large sums of money to people who had bad credit histories, who had no proven, reliable track record of timely payments?  Why is it the government's responsibility to rescue borrowers who willfully agreed to borrow large sums of money, even though the borrowers didn't have the means to pay for the lended money or who planned poorly to deal with ballooning, adjustable-rate mortgages?  Unless one party held a gun to the other's head, and forced them to sign the lending agreement, both parties willfully agreed to the exchange.  If they're looking for someone to blame, look in the mirror.  And don't look to my tax dollars for a "plan to deal with the mortgage crisis".

HG

In Japan you don't need a car, and your internet and phone blow away the sorry excuses for same here.  Work paid for the transit (similar to you getting help on the parking) and the transit was actually good quality.  Although, I don't have a car here either and survive just fine. I suppose my house is small, but hey, it's paid off in full. Can't really complain. I didn't take one of those crazy loans now burning on the bottom of the pot.

Sorry, I'm with Xian on this. In Japan I can just go down the street and into any clinic, and they are all available to me. It's like being in an HMO, but every doctor is on the plan.  And you can change jobs when you want (hey, labor flexibility!!) without being paranoid of losing insurance or getting stuck with the dreaded "pre-existing condition."

I will never understand why people here whine about paperwork, but they think that having 13103610968 separate forms of private paperwork is somehow more crazy evil than a single unified version of civil paperwork.  Sure, I guess if you're concerned with ideology, maybe.

Don't get me wrong, I like living here, but there's plusses and minuses to both places. Right now, health insurance in the US is definitely on the "minus" side.

"Hmmm.  So to summarize, obscene economic inequalities not seen since the Great Depression are a GOOD thing, and NOT having plans or any particularly relevant ideas on how to deal with any of the leading issues in the country today is also a good thing.

Just keeps getting stranger ..."

Yes, just because the government has no power, nor should it over economic inequality that makes economic inequality a good thing... exactly what I didn't say.  But nice strawman.  Where'd you get the hat for him?  Very classy.

Might as well say that because the government doesn't have the power to ban people from talking about political views that equates to making Nazism a "GOOD thing."

Sorry, but just because some people believe the government should not have far reaching powers that could be easily abused to limit liberty and bring us a step closer to tyranny does not mean that they support everything people happen to do with their liberty.  You seem to be fairly liberal on many issues so I find it surprising you can't understand that limiting government power and ensuring liberty doesn't trump the desire to fix everything with some sort of mega-monopoly of government regulation over our lives.  Call me crazy but you seem to be using the same arguments the social conservatives use to justify their own government intervention in our lives.

Perhaps you are in the same league as Naomi Wolf... looking at the Bush Administration as establishing fascism but being perfectly alright with FDR doing far worse.  Violating the Constitution is okay as long as it is violated to support my agenda!  Abuse of power is horrible unless it is done towards my goals!

I'm not going to give anyone slack on this, conservative or liberal.  If you don't like the current Constitutional limits on federal or State powers, amend the Constitution.  Don't pretend the limits don't exist.  If we can pretend some parts of the Constitution exist then future leaders will be able to get away with ignoring the parts you actually do care about.  It sets a horrible precedent that turns the Constitution into a guideline instead of the Supreme Law of the Land.

I'm a big proponent of State and local governments doing more to deal with poverty.  I consider it a major factor in the violence, drug use, and disparity of opportunity in our country as well as a major factor in the endless cycle of socioeconomic racial disparities.  You have somewhat of an ally in this regard with me.  Where we obviously disagree is that I believe that we can have absurdly rich people and still remedy the problem with poverty... you seem to think the communists had a good idea by forcing everyone to be socioeconomically equal... but as we saw that required authoritarianism to implement and it still didn't work.  I'd rather have liberty than attempt to force everyone to be equal through some overbearing government, which never works anyways.  We seem to disagree that the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land and should be amended if we need to implement policies that currently conflict with it... not ignore the parts we don't like.

One thing that should be obvious to both of us though is that people who believe that empowring the government to fix our problems merely empowers the government to run our lives will never be convinced that the government is the solution to various social issues.  If you can't convince them they are wrong about this basic tenent of American government then you will never get them to adopt Democratic-Socialist views on social policy.  They'll just think you're out of your mind.  As a socially conscious person though would you really want the various aspects of our lives in the hands of the majority without any Constitutional limits or safeguards?  I mean democratic influence has its advantages and all, but without restriction our country would be a really crappy place to live.

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Glock21 Op/Ed

Redistribution of wealth--"forcing everyone to be socioeconomically equal..." which is already happening in this country. I think it let's people off the hook, those that need to try to do better for themselves and those that need to learn something by helping others. I would say that there are a lot of groups that do very good work helping people locally.

As Xian has shown once again, facts have a liberal bias.

Yes, I have. But to be fair, it's not as if there aren't people from any political position making idiotic proclamations with no knowledge on the subject. It's just that this is a staunchly conservative blog so there are likely to be a plethora of right-wing folks spouting off about things they know nothing about as if their opinions were gold in themselves.

Personally, I don't welcome ignorance from any direction.

I'm just really enjoying this FDR bashing.  Fabulous stuff.  As though there were no millionaires during FDR's time, no lucartive government contracts to supply the Army with billions in supplies.  Like we've ever come even close to an equal distribution of wealth in this country.

I can only assume this is historical ignorance, which seems to be an American pass-time at the moment.  When we are talking about unequal economic distribution we are really talking about the difference of single percentage points in tax rates.  I have never heard anyone serious talk of seizing the means of production and distributing equal payments to citizens.

But, like I said, all conservatives really have is fear.  We shouldn't expect anything more than that, I guess.

Maybe it would be more fruitful to discuss the goal of economic policy.  As a liberal (I guess) I assume that the goal of economic policy should be to create a solid middle class, which allows the country to flourish.  Of course some will make more than others (billions more?  sure!), and some will make less, but overall we should remember that the economy is created to serve the citizens, not the other way around.

It sounds like conservatives believe the purpose of the economy should be to create gazillionaires.  Period.  Otherwise one would think that the fact that the money is flowing so quickly away from the middle and lower classes would cause them to pause and rethink the idea that this wealth is flowing down to the rest of us.

In other words, if trickle down isn't working, why are you all still defending it?  Unless it is working, because it is creating gazillionaires, and not much else?  One starts to wonder what it is that you all actually believe.

"It sounds like conservatives believe the purpose of the economy should be to create gazillionaires.  Period.  Otherwise one would think that the fact that the money is flowing so quickly away from the middle and lower classes would cause them to pause and rethink the idea that this wealth is flowing down to the rest of us."

Do you think you could maybe try to make your point without insutling all conservatives and without putting words into the mouths of all conservatives, as if we're some sort of monolithic block of collective stupidity that only thinks what you say we think?

Thanks.

In response to this paragraph:  this particular conservative thinks that the purpose of the government regulation of the economy (not quite the same as what you said, but close enough) should be to allow for equal opportunity to create and acquire wealth (or at least something approximating it without trampling too many rights), not the equal distribution of it (or, as I think you mean, something approximating it without trampling too many rights.)  With that in mind, I'd prefer to see less direct redistribution of wealth by the government, and more direct investment in the things that allow people to take advantage of the opportunities that they have - education, particularly higher education, infrastructure, etc.

But that's just what I think.

 Redistribution of wealth--"forcing everyone to be socioeconomically equal..." which is already happening in this country.-- My quote with Glocks words in quotes, while you may see it as my words, they are his I agree with him and changed the word to redistrbution to add to his comments.
 
 
"socio-economic" system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community [1] for the purposes of increasing social and economic equality and cooperation."--- I spoke of redistribution but I copied this from  Wikipedi. I know some of you do not like Wiki but I don't believe this is far off and proves my point I realize some would not be objective and say it says community rather then government and it doesn't say forced. You can ignore the fact that our government would put you in jail (forced) if you didn't pay your taxes if you want but most of us don't and our money is distributed to others in the community.
 

 
Mike. Do you have comment about the issues of thread or do you just like to personally attack people on Blogs?
 
 

Well, the current administration has been epic at tearing down access to higher education, and the things that lead to successful entrance and success within higher education.

xian,

I gave up voting for parties right about the same time that I started paying attention to politics.

I declined to vote for anyone on the Presidential ballot in 2004, I was so disgusted.

Rebuplicrat, Democran, one party system.  I just pick the one who seems most qualified and least likely to screw me and my family over in favor of pork.  (It's pretty rare that I'm happy with my options.)  As Douglas Adams put it, "it is a well known fact, that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."

Kem