The Huffington Slime

Damn Yankee said:
Looks like a dialogue to me:

Democrat: We want to toss out the concept of limited government, nix the Constitution and have a huge new program that your constituents can pay for and will make ours beholden to us. Can we count on your support?

Republican: No.
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The people in every democratic country have insisted their government keep their government health plan. Every single country. If the Repubs were concerned about keeping and adding to their number of constituents they would have enthusiastically participated.

Once the plan gets established I'm sure the Repubs will pay a price unless they change strategy.
 
apple0154 said:
Freer markets are great unless it means millions of people have to go without medical care. Those millions have no choice whatsoever.

As for the old model being worn out I come back to the fact not one country has a viable politician campaigning on eliminating their government medical plan. Not one politician in one democratic country.

If there was any movement or will of the people to revert to a "pay or suffer" system...well, we all know politicians. There would be no lack of candidates jumping on that wagon but there isn't one. Not one.

I don't know what better "proof" can be offered. People from all walks of life, be it political, economic and religious spanning all age groups, they all desire a government health plan ensuring everyone has access to medical care.

The only area for discussion/argument concerns the implementation, not whether one is good or bad. It's unfortunate the Republicans couldn't move past the "good or bad" stage and contribute significantly to the implementation.
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Yes you certainly have your cut and paste down well sir. You keep repeating this same talking point over and over. I do not believe it takes a rocket scientist (in fact I know it doesn't because an idiot like me understands it) to know that once such a system is set up it is extremely difficult to change whether people like it or not. For example, the 80k pages or so of the U.S. tax code. Many want it simplified but do you think those whose jobs would lost would just let that happen? Of course not. They would fight it tooth and nail. So please stop with the facile answer of they would change it like tomorrow if they wanted to because that is not the case.
 
apple0154 said:
The people in every democratic country have insisted their government keep their government health plan. Every single country. If the Repubs were concerned about keeping and adding to their number of constituents they would have enthusiastically participated.

Once the plan gets established I'm sure the Repubs will pay a price unless they change strategy.
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How is it Constitutional?
 
cawacko said:
Yes you certainly have your cut and paste down well sir. You keep repeating this same talking point over and over. I do not believe it takes a rocket scientist (in fact I know it doesn't because an idiot like me understands it) to know that once such a system is set up it is extremely difficult to change whether people like it or not. For example, the 80k pages or so of the U.S. tax code. Many want it simplified but do you think those whose jobs would lost would just let that happen? Of course not. They would fight it tooth and nail. So please stop with the facile answer of they would change it like tomorrow if they wanted to because that is not the case.
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But that is the case. Canada is the perfect example. There are moneyed interests fighting tooth and nail to open private clinics. The government is setting rules because some greedy doctors want to work in a private clinic, charging whatever they like, then when things are slow want the right to work under the government plan.

So, let's say a patient has an appointment with the doctor under the government plan. The doctor tells the patient there is a 3 - 4 month wait for a hip replacement. However :) , if the patient wants to go to the private clinic the same doctor will do the same operation next week for $15,000.

I suppose if one has a golf tournament coming up in California and it's currently -20F in January, in Canada.....well, it's nice to have the choice.

One problem overlooked is the government has to schedule the number of doctors doing hip replacement. If the necessity for hip replacement rises the government will hire more doctors. However, once the demand falls what will the doctors do? One can bet the guy who has the private clinic will be bitching about not getting enough government work as a doctor hired to replace him is now doing the operations. A pig wanting to access two troughs.

There is no shortage of people ready and willing to open clinics/operating rooms. Just think back to the day when people would tell us it's impossible to house all the homeless. How can we possibly build enough houses? Of course, the housing bubble showed us that argument was a pile of crap as houses were being build so rapidly people were buying two and three as investments. No shortage of houses.

As for fighting tooth and nail when the current Conservative government (in Canada) came to power one of the members of Parliament casually mentioned "looking at" the current health plan. That was enough to start an uproar. The other political parties told them any tampering with the plan would result in the Conservatives being thrown out of power. (In the Canadian political system any laws/regulations have to be OK'd by a majority of members, including the opposition parties, or an election is called.)

Poll after poll has shown the vast majority of people do not want the government plan discontinued. The same as poll after poll in every other democratic country. That is not a talking point. That is a fact.

Opponents of government health care can't point to one country that reverted to the "pay or suffer" system and they can't even point to any prominent politician, in any country, campaigning on eliminating government medical. No rocket scientist required to figure out what that means.
 
Damn Yankee said:
How is it Constitutional?
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It's constitutional because "The Preamble to the United States Constitution is a brief introductory statement of the Constitution's fundamental purposes and guiding principles. In general terms it states, and courts have referred to it as reliable evidence of, the Founding Fathers' intentions regarding the Constitution's meaning and what they hoped it would achieve."

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamble_to_the_United_States_Constitution"]Preamble to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:US-GreatSeal-Obverse.svg" class="image" title="Great Seal of the United States"><img alt="Great Seal of the United States" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/US-GreatSeal-Obverse.svg/125px-US-GreatSeal-Obverse.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/b/be/US-GreatSeal-Obverse.svg/125px-US-GreatSeal-Obverse.svg.png[/ame]

Would an unhealthy population insure domestic tranquility? How many ill people do you know who are calm, peaceful and serene (tranquil)?

Do you consider ensuring people have access to health care to be something against the general welfare of the country?

As for the blessings of liberty is one truly free when saddled with an illness?

Are we bestowing the blessings of liberty on our posterity when 'children' have to look after an ill parent because the parent can neither work nor afford the necessary medical treatment or they ended up spending their retirement fund on medical treatments?

How can medical care not be considered constitutional?
 
apple0154 said:
It's constitutional because "The Preamble to the United States Constitution is a brief introductory statement of the Constitution's fundamental purposes and guiding principles. In general terms it states, and courts have referred to it as reliable evidence of, the Founding Fathers' intentions regarding the Constitution's meaning and what they hoped it would achieve."

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Preamble to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Would an unhealthy population insure domestic tranquility? How many ill people do you know who are calm, peaceful and serene (tranquil)?

Do you consider ensuring people have access to health care to be something against the general welfare of the country?

As for the blessings of liberty is one truly free when saddled with an illness?

Are we bestowing the blessings of liberty on our posterity when 'children' have to look after an ill parent because the parent can neither work nor afford the necessary medical treatment or they ended up spending their retirement fund on medical treatments?

How can medical care not be considered constitutional?
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LOL Again you cite wikipedia for the Founder's intent, and I cite The Father of the Constitution, James Madison, in Federalist 41, and he directly opposes your liberal interpretation:

Quote:
It has been urged and echoed, that the power ``to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,'' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms ``to raise money for the general welfare. ''But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter. The objection here is the more extraordinary, as it appears that the language used by the convention is a copy from the articles of Confederation. The objects of the Union among the States, as described in article third, are ``their common defense, security of their liberties, and mutual and general welfare. '' The terms of article eighth are still more identical: ``All charges of war and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury,'' etc. A similar language again occurs in article ninth. Construe either of these articles by the rules which would justify the construction put on the new Constitution, and they vest in the existing Congress a power to legislate in all cases whatsoever. But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense and general welfare? I appeal to the objectors themselves, whether they would in that case have employed the same reasoning in justification of Congress as they now make use of against the convention. How difficult it is for error to escape its own condemnation!
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Damn Yankee said:
LOL Again you cite wikipedia for the Founder's intent, and I cite The Father of the Constitution, James Madison, in Federalist 41, and he directly opposes your liberal interpretation:

Quote:
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Wikipedia didn't write the Preamble so the intent has nothing to do with Wikipedia.

Preamble: 1. an introductory statement; preface; introduction.
2. the introductory part of a statute, deed, or the like, stating the reasons and intent of what follows.
(dictionary.com)

A preamble states "the reasons and intent of what follows." That is the purpose of a preamble. Any preamble. So it's logical to deduce the preamble to the Constitution is stating "the reasons and intent" of the Constitution.

Surely we don't have to debate that.

As for a liberal interpretation there was no medical "anything" considered, let alone discussed, in the late 1700s. They didn't have medication such as metoprolol, a drug to reduce blood pressure preventing heart attack and stroke.

Follow along for a moment. Let's assume the average wage today is $15.00/hr and the medication mentioned costs $1.00/pill. Two hours labor per month, thirty dollars for thirty pills, would ensure a person did not suffer a stroke/heart attack. Considering strokes/heart attacks occur around 50 years or younger it would be reasonable to say the medication adds approximately 20 years to a person's life.

Are you suggesting James Madison, the Father of Confederation, would have believed the general welfare of the country would be better served if one was left to die rather than supplied that medication? Are you suggesting James Madison, while believing in securing the Blessings of Liberty would feel giving a citizen medication worth two hours of work a month to be some liberal/socialist plot?
 
apple0154 said:
So, let's say a patient has an appointment with the doctor under the government plan. The doctor tells the patient there is a 3 - 4 month wait for a hip replacement. However :) , if the patient wants to go to the private clinic the same doctor will do the same operation next week for $15,000.
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Exactly. Conservatives supposedly want the government to run more like a business. How the hell do you think a business would treat disloyal workers like that? Goodbye, don't let the door hit you on the way out. Somehow government "privatization" just means the government going and giving out gobs of money to corporations and bending over backwards and not defending the interests of society. That's just stupidity. And it's what conservatives advocate.
 
apple0154 said:
Wikipedia didn't write the Preamble so the intent has nothing to do with Wikipedia.

Preamble: 1. an introductory statement; preface; introduction.
2. the introductory part of a statute, deed, or the like, stating the reasons and intent of what follows.
(dictionary.com)

A preamble states "the reasons and intent of what follows." That is the purpose of a preamble. Any preamble. So it's logical to deduce the preamble to the Constitution is stating "the reasons and intent" of the Constitution.

Surely we don't have to debate that.

As for a liberal interpretation there was no medical "anything" considered, let alone discussed, in the late 1700s. They didn't have medication such as metoprolol, a drug to reduce blood pressure preventing heart attack and stroke.

Follow along for a moment. Let's assume the average wage today is $15.00/hr and the medication mentioned costs $1.00/pill. Two hours labor per month, thirty dollars for thirty pills, would ensure a person did not suffer a stroke/heart attack. Considering strokes/heart attacks occur around 50 years or younger it would be reasonable to say the medication adds approximately 20 years to a person's life.

Are you suggesting James Madison, the Father of Confederation, would have believed the general welfare of the country would be better served if one was left to die rather than supplied that medication? Are you suggesting James Madison, while believing in securing the Blessings of Liberty would feel giving a citizen medication worth two hours of work a month to be some liberal/socialist plot?
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"No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction."
 
Damn Yankee said:
So now its "satire". :)

Any citations of Beck's "lying, scurrilous comments about people he disagrees with"? :pke:
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Sure, yesterday when he opened his mouth to speak. It would be more difficult to ask the opposite question. Can you provide me any citations where he actually spoke the truth other then to say "Hi I'm Glenn Beck"? That was the last (and only) truthful thing I've ever heard him say.
 
christiefan915 said:
"Glenn Beck apparently doesn't buy into the adage that all press is good press. On Friday, the conservative host described a "Good Morning America" segment on the Lincoln Memorial rally he's holding Saturday — on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" address at the same site — as a "hatchet job" and compared it to Nazi propaganda."

..."That's what Goebbels did," Beck said, referring to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister.

http://current.com/news/92635439_glenn-beck-compares-abc-report-to-nazi-propaganda.htm


Conservative radio and TV host, Glenn Beck, is known for his outrageous rants. But, now he's in some hot water after using one of the First Daughters as his bait.

The 46 year old made some very offensive comments and mocked 11 year old, Malia. This comes after President Obama's press conference, last Thursday, where he discussed the oil spill. Obama said Malia asked him "whether or not he plugged the hole yet".

Well Beck took that and ran.

At one point he even went as far as insulting Malia's intelligence saying, "That's the level of their education, that they're coming to - they're coming to Daddy and saying, 'Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?'"

http://www.39online.com/entertainme...-glenn-beck-malia-obama-story,0,2295068.story

"Fox News talk-show host Glenn Beck has outraged some Christians by asking them to leave their church if it preaches about "social justice" or "economic justice" — terms he believes could be code words for communism or Nazism.

Beck said on his March 2 TV show: "I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words."

Beck also said: "Am I advising people to leave their church? Yes! If I am going to Jeremiah Wright's church (a reference to President Barack Obama's former Chicago pastor). If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish. Go alert your bishop."

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/...ry-Glenn-Beck-comments-on-social-justice.html

"I don't want a discounted doctor. I don't want discounted wages. I don't want any of this stuff. If I wanted to live in India, I'd live in India. I want not the Indian lifestyle, I want the American lifestyle. I'm sure, no offense to India, I'm sure it's beautiful and everything. I've heard especially this time of year, especially by the - you know that one big river they have there that sounds like a disease? Come on, it does. I mean, if somebody said, 'I'm sorry, you have a really bad case of Ganges,' you'd want Cipro."

...within the span of a few minutes, Beck implied that there are no quality medical schools in India; implied that medical care in India is a shoddy imitation of real health care; implied that the entire nation is an undeveloped backwater without even so much as indoor plumbing; and compared the Ganges River, a holy body of water for one of the world's oldest and largest religions, to a disease.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/200912100015
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Yea that's the level these right wing propagandist will stoop too. I remember Rush Limbaugh making the same kind of attacks on Chelsia Clinton.

It's hillarious that Beck would bring up Goebbells. The propaganda model Fox news is based upon is almost purely the Goebell's method. The only significant difference between Rupert Murdoch and Goebells is that Murdoch is not a State organ nor does he try to supplant religion with the State but those are the only real significant differences between Goebells propaganda methods and Rupert Murdoch's.
 
cawacko said:
If justice to you is about eliminating hypocrites we wouldn't have a politician or anyone associated with politics left. And for sh*ts and giggles what if we went after everyone associated with being "compassionate" and show times when they were hypocrites for not being "compassionate"? That would be justice right?
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No. Justice would be taking away an amateur football teams national championship because they used a professional athlete. :pke:
 
cawacko said:
His Presidency has been about more than just health care reform although that's all you go to with your 'every other country does it' argument. Each thing Obama's done you think has been great along with your cheerleading pom-pom's you like to post. Many people are hacks it's not like you are the first. Just quit with the trying to call others out for what you're doing and claiming others to be hypocrites.
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Uhhhh...what country are you living in? I saw 8 years of a Bush administration where the entire right wing walked in lock step with him. I've seen less then two years of Obama spending most of his time cleaning up the messes he inherited from 8 years of right wing failed government and being savaged by both the right and the left for it. So where's the cheerleading and pom-poms?
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Uhhhh...what country are you living in? I saw 8 years of a Bush administration where the entire right wing walked in lock step with him. I've seen less then two years of Obama spending most of his time cleaning up the messes he inherited from 8 years of right wing failed government and being savaged by both the right and the left for it. So where's the cheerleading and pom-poms?
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Go read Apple's posts that's who I was referring to.

Edit: And yes poor Obama, the first President to step into a tough environment.
 
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