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Exactly when did the right wing decide to be the saviours of western culture? The culture they slowed down and hindered wherever they could in the past?
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On July 26 2017 06:35 Velr wrote:
Exactly when did the right wing decide to be the saviours of western culture? The culture they slowed down and hindered wherever they could in the past?
they've always claimed to be the defenders of some nebulous "culture" that's how being reactionary works.
also, they always need a new excuse to hide racism under, as after awhile any new code word becomes too obvious, so they need to cycle them periodically, much like how they abused "states rights" for so long under that. they need a legitimate pretext for it.
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On July 26 2017 06:06 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 05:53 mozoku wrote:
Don't something like 80% of Americans have employer-sponsored healthcare anyway?
As immeasurable as the effect can be on the other 20% (i.e. the individual market), I'm always a little amazed at how much people care about healthcare bills considering most people talking about the issue aren't even significantly affected by them.
That doesn't excuse the utter mess our healthcare system is, but Obamacare didn't do much to fix that except make the individual market less terrible.
I'm awaiting a real healthcare bill that actually tries to deal with the cost of healthcare in the US, instead of just bickering about who pays for it or about how much of it we pay for publicly. I'm not expecting it from either of the clown troupe factions in Congress though. Employer health insurance isn't special, unique or good. It's an employer provided benefit that can be great and can be awful. Literally the only thing that makes employer provided health insurance remotely good is that it has mandatory risk pools built into it which is, wait for it, SOCIALISM!!! If you get employer paid for insurance and you're young and healthy then you're getting mandatory deductions from your paycheck to help subsidize the old and sick people getting the same health insurance through your employer. Employers generally don't allow you to opt out of their health insurance and take the money instead, using that to either self insure or buy a health insurance contract customized to your needs. There's a reason for that. If they then all the people without preconditions would bail out of the risk pool, take the extra compensation as $ and then buy their own low risk individual health insurance contracts. That'd leave the employer unable to provide health insurance to the remaining uninsurables and the entire system would collapse. Effectively if you have employer provided health insurance then you're already getting all the things that people absolutely hated about the ACA. Only you're already used to it so you don't really think about it. Remote bureaucrats deciding what is and is not covered? Check. Paying for conditions you don't have? Check. Mandatory risk pooling? Check. No control over your own coverage? Check. Penalties? Check.
Except you can choose to opt out of health insurance with your employer and not pay a premium (which almost all employers still require you to pay to opt-in). You can't do that with ACA. You pay for insurance or you pay a tax penalty. They're not the same at all.
And I'm not sure if you really directed this specifically at me or not, but I've never said I preferred the old system over the ACA. I'm willing to pay some portion of my income to not have people dying on the street for lack of healthcare. In fact, as I noted above, I'm an extremely reluctant semi-supporter of single payer.
But that doesn't take away from the fact that the ACA does impose some income redistribution, and I can understand people being philosophically opposed to that.
And I definitely think in general, most people tend to err way more on the side "High earners, give me more stuff because I blame the system for my problems and that's why you're a high earner and I'm not" than caring about people getting what they're worth. It's human nature to blame others for things you're unhappy with. Thus why I can empathize with people having a natural weariness of income redistribution.
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On July 26 2017 06:35 Velr wrote:
Exactly when did the right wing decide to be the saviours of western culture? The culture they slowed down and hindered wherever they could in the past?
Are you really going to argue that conservatives have never played a role in the evolution of Western culture?
But hey, if the Left is going to abandon Western culture and, under Marxist pretenses, denounce cultural criticism as the new racism, the Right is going to hold the field by default.
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United States43538 Posts
On July 26 2017 06:43 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 06:06 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 05:53 mozoku wrote:
Don't something like 80% of Americans have employer-sponsored healthcare anyway?
As immeasurable as the effect can be on the other 20% (i.e. the individual market), I'm always a little amazed at how much people care about healthcare bills considering most people talking about the issue aren't even significantly affected by them.
That doesn't excuse the utter mess our healthcare system is, but Obamacare didn't do much to fix that except make the individual market less terrible.
I'm awaiting a real healthcare bill that actually tries to deal with the cost of healthcare in the US, instead of just bickering about who pays for it or about how much of it we pay for publicly. I'm not expecting it from either of the clown troupe factions in Congress though. Employer health insurance isn't special, unique or good. It's an employer provided benefit that can be great and can be awful. Literally the only thing that makes employer provided health insurance remotely good is that it has mandatory risk pools built into it which is, wait for it, SOCIALISM!!! If you get employer paid for insurance and you're young and healthy then you're getting mandatory deductions from your paycheck to help subsidize the old and sick people getting the same health insurance through your employer. Employers generally don't allow you to opt out of their health insurance and take the money instead, using that to either self insure or buy a health insurance contract customized to your needs. There's a reason for that. If they then all the people without preconditions would bail out of the risk pool, take the extra compensation as $ and then buy their own low risk individual health insurance contracts. That'd leave the employer unable to provide health insurance to the remaining uninsurables and the entire system would collapse. Effectively if you have employer provided health insurance then you're already getting all the things that people absolutely hated about the ACA. Only you're already used to it so you don't really think about it. Remote bureaucrats deciding what is and is not covered? Check. Paying for conditions you don't have? Check. Mandatory risk pooling? Check. No control over your own coverage? Check. Penalties? Check. Except you can choose to opt out of health insurance with your employer and not pay a premium (which almost all employers still require you to pay to opt-in). You can't do that with ACA. You pay for insurance or you pay a tax penalty. They're not the same at all. And I'm not sure if you really directed this specifically at me or not, but I've never said I preferred the old system over the ACA. I'm willing to pay some portion of my income to not have people dying on the street for lack of healthcare. In fact, as I noted above, I'm an extremely reluctant semi-supporter of single payer. But that doesn't take away from the fact that the ACA does impose some income redistribution, and I can understand people being philosophically opposed to that. And I definitely think in general, most people tend to err way more on the side "High earners, give me more stuff because I blame the system for my problems and that's why you're a high earner and I'm not" than caring about people getting what they're worth. It's human nature to blame others for things you're unhappy with. Thus why I can empathize with people having a natural weariness of income redistribution.
My employer allows me to opt out of health insurance simply by forfeiting the benefit. That's not an opt out, it's still part of my total compensation, all I can do is choose to decline taking the compensation. You're still having your wealth redistributed.
The ACA has more choice than employer health insurance. The employer takes money they would have paid you and spends it on health insurance either way, the option to buy health insurance or pay a fine is more of a choice.
The ACA is no more income redistribution than employer based health insurance.
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The new racism is just the old racism rebranded. Cultural criticism is the new benevolent racism. None of this shit is new, just the wrapper people put around it.
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On July 26 2017 06:52 Plansix wrote:
The new racism is just the old racism rebranded. Cultural criticism is the new benevolent racism. None of this shit is new, just the wrapper people put around it.
So you don't think that there are legitimate differences between and amongst Western, Arab/Muslim, and Chinese cultures, and thus no grounds on which to make qualitative judgments about each?
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On July 26 2017 06:59 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 06:52 Plansix wrote:
The new racism is just the old racism rebranded. Cultural criticism is the new benevolent racism. None of this shit is new, just the wrapper people put around it. So you don't think that there are legitimate differences between and amongst Western, Arab/Muslim, and Chinese cultures, and thus no grounds on which to make qualitative judgments about each?
I feel like the US has more in common with Muslim culture than it does with Western European culture
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On July 26 2017 06:35 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 06:23 WolfintheSheep wrote:On July 26 2017 06:09 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 05:49 Danglars wrote:On July 26 2017 05:40 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 05:25 Danglars wrote:On July 26 2017 05:03 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 05:01 Danglars wrote:On July 26 2017 04:47 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 03:24 Danglars wrote:
It should come as a welcome development for people that thought the Trump Tower meeting was absolutely unethical. Danglars appears to be stuck in some kind of loop. While "Trump" = president Print "but Hillary" Does anyone know how to restore functionality to Danglars.exe? Kwark seems to have gotten stuck on Trump-Russia hysteria. Do we have some way to restore his critical thinking on the breadth of topics, including current events from the chair of the Judiciary committee? I'm sorry, perhaps I misunderstood the content of your post. It seemed to me that you were attempting to defend Trump's Russian meetings by pointing to the DNC and claiming that what other people who aren't President do somehow impacts whether what Trump did was ethical. Was that not what you were doing? Apologies, I just rather assumed that you'd consider further investigations into malfeasance in office/campaigns to be welcome in the fight against unethical (or others would say criminal) behavior. Not that everything not TrumpRussia = distraction from Trump Russia, that it seems to me you insinuate regularly. I'm a big fan of blind justice that doesn't matter if you're named Clinton or Trump, you'll be investigated. Here you see new allegations from the chairman of the judiciary committee and his recommendations, and if you've had a chance to read them, maybe you'll comment on the literal content of my post. I'm certainly not arguing that Trump, and only Trump, should be investigated or prosecuted for wrongdoing for the next four years. If you thought that that was my stance then I'm happy to correct you. I think justice should be blind and that people who commit crimes should be prosecuted, even if they're not currently the president. I see now that you were confused and genuinely believed that the left thinks that for the next four years all the rapists and murderers etc are off the hook because only Trump matters. Obviously if that were the case it's important to remind us that other people who aren't Trump still do things wrong. However, now that you understand that nobody is saying that only Trump should be investigated, do you see the issue with your post? If not, I'll spell it out to you. 1) Claiming that Trump is being treated unfairly because other people commit crimes does not, in fact, absolve him of anything. There is no way of getting from "other people did things that were wrong" to "Trump did nothing wrong". 2) The crimes of others aren't actually being ignored. 3) There is no way of getting from "the people objecting to this are hypocrites" to "Trump did nothing wrong". 4) Even if Trump was being treated differently, that still doesn't get you to "Trump did nothing wrong". Unfair treatment by the law does not absolve sins, if it did then we'd never lock up an African American. 5) The crimes of people who are not President, while still criminal, are not as important as the crimes of people who are President. Investigating the possible compromise of the President is a more pressing matter than investigating the possible compromise of someone without that kind of influence. Hopefully you'll read this and understand that "but Hillary" will never, ever get you to "Trump did nothing wrong". Complaining that the world is unfair is the act of a child or an idiot. The argument "I shouldn't get punished because she wasn't" is not valid. The argument that "I shouldn't get punished because you're hypocrites" is not valid. To get to "Trump did nothing wrong" you have to talk about Trump and what he did. Not Hillary. Not the DNC. Now that you understand I'm more than just "but Hillary," would you mind commenting on the matter at hand. I see a lot of talk about issues I see resolved in the Mueller, House, and Senate investigations of Russian interference. My post was on new allegations from the chair of the senate judiciary committee. I saw some reason to hope people that want Trump held accountable for anything revealed from the investigations to cheer Grassley on in these new revelations. Show that the powerful are still subject to the rule of law. If you show by word that you're only interested in Trump, and I mean look at your post without a word of the two-page letter, we're at an impasse now for discussing a current event. Am I misunderstanding what you were trying to express by It should come as a welcome development for people that thought the Trump Tower meeting was absolutely unethical. because it seems an awful lot like you were trying to talk about the Trump Tower meeting? See, you thought discussions with Danglars was a loop, and got caught in his flow chart instead. You're currently at the "Discussion isn't going in the direction I want" step, which leads to the "Read better, it's your fault I'm not understood clearly" retort. How very meta of you. You're quite familiar with "ignore all that, what about this!!" But every time I think you're going to debate, I read another contrafactual "That's a...pretty dumb view of history you have there." But your claim to fame is hacking out summaries, like saying GH is "I know nothing about politics but I'm still better than all of you." Maybe one day you'll return to debating instead of wondering how you can butcher everybody's opinions and then attack the altered form of them.
If you think my statement are counterfactual, you are more than welcome to dispute them. That would be how a debate starts.
Like the bolded quote, which was questioned and responded to, and eventually reached a point of understanding, if not agreement. Almost like a discussion.
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On July 26 2017 07:05 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 06:59 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 06:52 Plansix wrote:
The new racism is just the old racism rebranded. Cultural criticism is the new benevolent racism. None of this shit is new, just the wrapper people put around it. So you don't think that there are legitimate differences between and amongst Western, Arab/Muslim, and Chinese cultures, and thus no grounds on which to make qualitative judgments about each? I feel like the US has more in common with Muslim culture than it does with Western European culture
And why is that? I suspect that with a little introspection, you are going to find that your feelings are quite unfounded.
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United States43538 Posts
The US is a huge mixing pot, which in itself is different from say aggressive French Gallicization. It's heterogeneous, the fundie LDS folks are basically the Taliban but that doesn't mean the whole US is obviously.
I'm a fan of the broad ideas of western culture, basic human rights, fundamental freedoms, separation of church and state, democracy and so forth. But those ideas certainly don't need crusaders for them. They speak for themselves, their merit is self evident. Capitalism didn't need war to beat communism, it beat communism simply by making its people happier and wealthier.
The crusaders who decide that western civilization needs saving are very often the people who are most blind to the virtues of western civilization. While they focus their fears on the idea of an external enemy is it generally western culture itself that they fear. Tolerance for immigrants, for example, is a product of humanism and the idea that all men are born equal. The self appointed crusaders of western culture are not afraid that we'll lose the idea of men being born equal, they're afraid that their own cultural superiority is under threat. Same with the conservative approaches on race, gender and so forth.
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On July 26 2017 06:59 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 06:52 Plansix wrote:
The new racism is just the old racism rebranded. Cultural criticism is the new benevolent racism. None of this shit is new, just the wrapper people put around it. So you don't think that there are legitimate differences between and amongst Western, Arab/Muslim, and Chinese cultures, and thus no grounds on which to make qualitative judgments about each?
Sure, if you are educated enough to make those judgments. If someone grew up in the west, spent their entire life studying China’s history and culture, their views would be of value and worth listening to.
But the problem is that one you get that deep into studying a culture, you realized how not qualified you are. You understand the amount of knowledge you don’t and reserve those judgments due to the understand of your own short comings and lack of information.
So basically, no one in this thread is really qualified to pass judgment on other cultures in any manner worth listening to. And those who believe they can are kidding themselves. Or they see shit they don't understand, have no context for and make judgments on that bad information.
And frankly, western culture has so many problems I don't understand why people think we have time to be critiquing other culture's issues.
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United States43538 Posts
On July 26 2017 07:07 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 07:05 Nevuk wrote:On July 26 2017 06:59 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 06:52 Plansix wrote:
The new racism is just the old racism rebranded. Cultural criticism is the new benevolent racism. None of this shit is new, just the wrapper people put around it. So you don't think that there are legitimate differences between and amongst Western, Arab/Muslim, and Chinese cultures, and thus no grounds on which to make qualitative judgments about each? I feel like the US has more in common with Muslim culture than it does with Western European culture And why is that? I suspect that with a little introspection, you are going to find that your feelings are quite unfounded.
Have you spent much time in Western Europe?
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On July 26 2017 07:07 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 07:05 Nevuk wrote:On July 26 2017 06:59 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 06:52 Plansix wrote:
The new racism is just the old racism rebranded. Cultural criticism is the new benevolent racism. None of this shit is new, just the wrapper people put around it. So you don't think that there are legitimate differences between and amongst Western, Arab/Muslim, and Chinese cultures, and thus no grounds on which to make qualitative judgments about each? I feel like the US has more in common with Muslim culture than it does with Western European culture And why is that? I suspect that with a little introspection, you are going to find that your feelings are quite unfounded.
Compare the GOP platform to Iran on issues like gun control, women's rights, religious freedoms and gay rights.
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Is "Western culture" even really a thing? The UK is largely different than the US, let alone the differences between West Virginia and New York, or New Hampshire and Scotland. It seems almost impossible to reconcile every single "Western" culture under a singe umbrella.
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On July 26 2017 07:15 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 07:07 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 07:05 Nevuk wrote:On July 26 2017 06:59 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 06:52 Plansix wrote:
The new racism is just the old racism rebranded. Cultural criticism is the new benevolent racism. None of this shit is new, just the wrapper people put around it. So you don't think that there are legitimate differences between and amongst Western, Arab/Muslim, and Chinese cultures, and thus no grounds on which to make qualitative judgments about each? I feel like the US has more in common with Muslim culture than it does with Western European culture And why is that? I suspect that with a little introspection, you are going to find that your feelings are quite unfounded. Compare the GOP platform to Iran on issues like gun control, women's rights, religious freedoms and gay rights.
Also their stances on critical thinking, education and sex ed. For a preview, the 2016 platform said critical thinking should not be taught because it leads to children questioning their parents.
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Everything becomes a lot clearer if you replace "Western" with "White".
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On July 26 2017 06:43 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 06:06 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 05:53 mozoku wrote:
Don't something like 80% of Americans have employer-sponsored healthcare anyway?
As immeasurable as the effect can be on the other 20% (i.e. the individual market), I'm always a little amazed at how much people care about healthcare bills considering most people talking about the issue aren't even significantly affected by them.
That doesn't excuse the utter mess our healthcare system is, but Obamacare didn't do much to fix that except make the individual market less terrible.
I'm awaiting a real healthcare bill that actually tries to deal with the cost of healthcare in the US, instead of just bickering about who pays for it or about how much of it we pay for publicly. I'm not expecting it from either of the clown troupe factions in Congress though. Employer health insurance isn't special, unique or good. It's an employer provided benefit that can be great and can be awful. Literally the only thing that makes employer provided health insurance remotely good is that it has mandatory risk pools built into it which is, wait for it, SOCIALISM!!! If you get employer paid for insurance and you're young and healthy then you're getting mandatory deductions from your paycheck to help subsidize the old and sick people getting the same health insurance through your employer. Employers generally don't allow you to opt out of their health insurance and take the money instead, using that to either self insure or buy a health insurance contract customized to your needs. There's a reason for that. If they then all the people without preconditions would bail out of the risk pool, take the extra compensation as $ and then buy their own low risk individual health insurance contracts. That'd leave the employer unable to provide health insurance to the remaining uninsurables and the entire system would collapse. Effectively if you have employer provided health insurance then you're already getting all the things that people absolutely hated about the ACA. Only you're already used to it so you don't really think about it. Remote bureaucrats deciding what is and is not covered? Check. Paying for conditions you don't have? Check. Mandatory risk pooling? Check. No control over your own coverage? Check. Penalties? Check. Except you can choose to opt out of health insurance with your employer and not pay a premium (which almost all employers still require you to pay to opt-in). You can't do that with ACA. You pay for insurance or you pay a tax penalty. They're not the same at all.
Conceptually wrong on this one. Your employer generally covers the majority of EE healthcare costs. Opting out saves you a little bit of money but saves your employer a lot of money. By opting out, you are forfeiting the portion of your total compensation which would normally be the employer contribution. It's kinda like paying a penalty.
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United States43538 Posts
On July 26 2017 07:19 CatharsisUT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 06:43 mozoku wrote:On July 26 2017 06:06 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 05:53 mozoku wrote:
Don't something like 80% of Americans have employer-sponsored healthcare anyway?
As immeasurable as the effect can be on the other 20% (i.e. the individual market), I'm always a little amazed at how much people care about healthcare bills considering most people talking about the issue aren't even significantly affected by them.
That doesn't excuse the utter mess our healthcare system is, but Obamacare didn't do much to fix that except make the individual market less terrible.
I'm awaiting a real healthcare bill that actually tries to deal with the cost of healthcare in the US, instead of just bickering about who pays for it or about how much of it we pay for publicly. I'm not expecting it from either of the clown troupe factions in Congress though. Employer health insurance isn't special, unique or good. It's an employer provided benefit that can be great and can be awful. Literally the only thing that makes employer provided health insurance remotely good is that it has mandatory risk pools built into it which is, wait for it, SOCIALISM!!! If you get employer paid for insurance and you're young and healthy then you're getting mandatory deductions from your paycheck to help subsidize the old and sick people getting the same health insurance through your employer. Employers generally don't allow you to opt out of their health insurance and take the money instead, using that to either self insure or buy a health insurance contract customized to your needs. There's a reason for that. If they then all the people without preconditions would bail out of the risk pool, take the extra compensation as $ and then buy their own low risk individual health insurance contracts. That'd leave the employer unable to provide health insurance to the remaining uninsurables and the entire system would collapse. Effectively if you have employer provided health insurance then you're already getting all the things that people absolutely hated about the ACA. Only you're already used to it so you don't really think about it. Remote bureaucrats deciding what is and is not covered? Check. Paying for conditions you don't have? Check. Mandatory risk pooling? Check. No control over your own coverage? Check. Penalties? Check. Except you can choose to opt out of health insurance with your employer and not pay a premium (which almost all employers still require you to pay to opt-in). You can't do that with ACA. You pay for insurance or you pay a tax penalty. They're not the same at all. Conceptually wrong on this one. Your employer generally covers the majority of EE healthcare costs. Opting out saves you a little bit of money but saves your employer a lot of money. By opting out, you are forfeiting the portion of your total compensation which would normally be the employer contribution. It's kinda like paying a penalty.
It's like opting out of taxes by still paying the taxes but not using roads anymore.
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On July 26 2017 07:15 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 07:07 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 07:05 Nevuk wrote:On July 26 2017 06:59 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2017 06:52 Plansix wrote:
The new racism is just the old racism rebranded. Cultural criticism is the new benevolent racism. None of this shit is new, just the wrapper people put around it. So you don't think that there are legitimate differences between and amongst Western, Arab/Muslim, and Chinese cultures, and thus no grounds on which to make qualitative judgments about each? I feel like the US has more in common with Muslim culture than it does with Western European culture And why is that? I suspect that with a little introspection, you are going to find that your feelings are quite unfounded. Compare the GOP platform to Iran on issues like gun control, women's rights, religious freedoms and gay rights.
That's an asinine comparison that belies zero understanding of the bases for the respective positions. Try again. Here is a hint: take a look at the broad definition that I gave for Western culture.
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