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On March 05 2012 04:45 liberal wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 04:40 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:39 Whitewing wrote:On March 05 2012 04:36 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:There are 18,000 married gay and lesbian couples in California and at least 131,000 nationwide according to the 2010 census, conducted before New York state legalized same-sex marriage in July.
Rick Santorum says he'll try to unmarry all of them if he's elected president.
Once the U.S. Constitution is amended to prohibit same-gender marriages, "their marriage would be invalid," the former Pennsylvania senator said Dec. 30 in an NBC News interview.
"We can't have 50 different marriage laws in this country," he said. "You have to have one marriage law."
The comments didn't attract nearly as much attention as Santorum's recent invocation of his Catholic faith to denounce government support for birth control, prenatal testing and resource conservation - which, in the last case, he attributed to President Obama's "phony theology."
But his declared intention to nullify past as well as future same-sex marriages has reinforced his position to the right of the other Republican contenders, even though each of them has also voiced fervent support for traditional unions. Source Santorum is a sub-human piece of shit. Some people could call that an "ad hominem", but you don't get to "unmarry" 131,000 gay couples without being worthy of major disrespect from actual humans. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman. They've simply been conditioned by their environment to feel a certain way, and they are expressing those feelings. You've experienced a different environment and so experience different emotions based on different values. It all sounds like distinctively human behavior to me.
People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman, they're merely immoral according my standard. But just the opinion is fine. However, if they're perfectly willing to fuck over people and their freedoms to further their own ideals, that is not fine with me.
This guy is going for political office and holds opinions, which is OK, but what's not OK is his intention to put them into practice. So what am I to do? Start a debate about homosexual marriage? I'd rather outright say that this man's plans are fucking archaic, and they are, to me, literally disgusting and offensive.
What would you have me do, really?
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On March 05 2012 04:54 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 04:45 liberal wrote:On March 05 2012 04:40 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:39 Whitewing wrote:On March 05 2012 04:36 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:There are 18,000 married gay and lesbian couples in California and at least 131,000 nationwide according to the 2010 census, conducted before New York state legalized same-sex marriage in July.
Rick Santorum says he'll try to unmarry all of them if he's elected president.
Once the U.S. Constitution is amended to prohibit same-gender marriages, "their marriage would be invalid," the former Pennsylvania senator said Dec. 30 in an NBC News interview.
"We can't have 50 different marriage laws in this country," he said. "You have to have one marriage law."
The comments didn't attract nearly as much attention as Santorum's recent invocation of his Catholic faith to denounce government support for birth control, prenatal testing and resource conservation - which, in the last case, he attributed to President Obama's "phony theology."
But his declared intention to nullify past as well as future same-sex marriages has reinforced his position to the right of the other Republican contenders, even though each of them has also voiced fervent support for traditional unions. Source Santorum is a sub-human piece of shit. Some people could call that an "ad hominem", but you don't get to "unmarry" 131,000 gay couples without being worthy of major disrespect from actual humans. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman. They've simply been conditioned by their environment to feel a certain way, and they are expressing those feelings. You've experienced a different environment and so experience different emotions based on different values. It all sounds like distinctively human behavior to me. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman, they're merely immoral according my standard. But just the opinion is fine. However, if they're perfectly willing to fuck over people and their freedoms to further their own ideals, that is not fine with me. This guy is going for political office and holds opinions, which is OK, but what's not OK is his intention to put them into practice. So what am I to do? Start a debate about homosexual marriage? I'd rather outright say that this man's plans are fucking archaic, and they are, to me, literally disgusting and offensive. What would you have me do, really?
I suppose you and I just have different purposes for a forum such as this one. I like to discuss ideas with people who have diverse opinions, and apparently you like to vent your emotions and frustrations and disgust around people who mostly agree with you already. I guess I shouldn't expect people to have the same motivations I have.
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On March 05 2012 04:45 liberal wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 04:40 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:39 Whitewing wrote:On March 05 2012 04:36 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:There are 18,000 married gay and lesbian couples in California and at least 131,000 nationwide according to the 2010 census, conducted before New York state legalized same-sex marriage in July.
Rick Santorum says he'll try to unmarry all of them if he's elected president.
Once the U.S. Constitution is amended to prohibit same-gender marriages, "their marriage would be invalid," the former Pennsylvania senator said Dec. 30 in an NBC News interview.
"We can't have 50 different marriage laws in this country," he said. "You have to have one marriage law."
The comments didn't attract nearly as much attention as Santorum's recent invocation of his Catholic faith to denounce government support for birth control, prenatal testing and resource conservation - which, in the last case, he attributed to President Obama's "phony theology."
But his declared intention to nullify past as well as future same-sex marriages has reinforced his position to the right of the other Republican contenders, even though each of them has also voiced fervent support for traditional unions. Source Santorum is a sub-human piece of shit. Some people could call that an "ad hominem", but you don't get to "unmarry" 131,000 gay couples without being worthy of major disrespect from actual humans. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman. They've simply been conditioned by their environment to feel a certain way, and they are expressing those feelings. You've experienced a different environment and so experience different emotions based on different values. It all sounds like distinctively human behavior to me. ^ See that's an example of an idea or an argument. It isn't me calling you stupid, or crazy, or ignorant, or subhuman. Get it?
You should seriously stop bother with pepole on the internet, they are not, on average, smarter than the average person to the extent which makes them worth of your time.
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On March 05 2012 04:58 liberal wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 04:54 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:45 liberal wrote:On March 05 2012 04:40 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:39 Whitewing wrote:On March 05 2012 04:36 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:There are 18,000 married gay and lesbian couples in California and at least 131,000 nationwide according to the 2010 census, conducted before New York state legalized same-sex marriage in July.
Rick Santorum says he'll try to unmarry all of them if he's elected president.
Once the U.S. Constitution is amended to prohibit same-gender marriages, "their marriage would be invalid," the former Pennsylvania senator said Dec. 30 in an NBC News interview.
"We can't have 50 different marriage laws in this country," he said. "You have to have one marriage law."
The comments didn't attract nearly as much attention as Santorum's recent invocation of his Catholic faith to denounce government support for birth control, prenatal testing and resource conservation - which, in the last case, he attributed to President Obama's "phony theology."
But his declared intention to nullify past as well as future same-sex marriages has reinforced his position to the right of the other Republican contenders, even though each of them has also voiced fervent support for traditional unions. Source Santorum is a sub-human piece of shit. Some people could call that an "ad hominem", but you don't get to "unmarry" 131,000 gay couples without being worthy of major disrespect from actual humans. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman. They've simply been conditioned by their environment to feel a certain way, and they are expressing those feelings. You've experienced a different environment and so experience different emotions based on different values. It all sounds like distinctively human behavior to me. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman, they're merely immoral according my standard. But just the opinion is fine. However, if they're perfectly willing to fuck over people and their freedoms to further their own ideals, that is not fine with me. This guy is going for political office and holds opinions, which is OK, but what's not OK is his intention to put them into practice. So what am I to do? Start a debate about homosexual marriage? I'd rather outright say that this man's plans are fucking archaic, and they are, to me, literally disgusting and offensive. What would you have me do, really? I suppose you and I just have different purposes for a forum such as this one. I like to discuss ideas with people who have diverse opinions, and apparently you like to vent your emotions and frustrations and disgust around people who mostly agree with you already. I guess I shouldn't expect people to have the same motivations I have.
That's just your easy way out, but frankly I think there's no way around it, the guy's as human as the next guy, but he's a god damn piece of shit. And I can't argue with "I intend to do this", I can only strongly disapprove. I'm asking this seriously - what else can I do regarding Santorum's intention to fuck with 262,000 people?
A vast majority of my posts everywhere are arguments. You don't get to latch onto one post of me venting to say "we're very different". We're not. Just a few posts ago YOU were venting about how "the left" is not nice enough for you, completely ignoring how your side is disrespectful to us too.
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On March 05 2012 04:45 liberal wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 04:40 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:39 Whitewing wrote:On March 05 2012 04:36 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:There are 18,000 married gay and lesbian couples in California and at least 131,000 nationwide according to the 2010 census, conducted before New York state legalized same-sex marriage in July.
Rick Santorum says he'll try to unmarry all of them if he's elected president.
Once the U.S. Constitution is amended to prohibit same-gender marriages, "their marriage would be invalid," the former Pennsylvania senator said Dec. 30 in an NBC News interview.
"We can't have 50 different marriage laws in this country," he said. "You have to have one marriage law."
The comments didn't attract nearly as much attention as Santorum's recent invocation of his Catholic faith to denounce government support for birth control, prenatal testing and resource conservation - which, in the last case, he attributed to President Obama's "phony theology."
But his declared intention to nullify past as well as future same-sex marriages has reinforced his position to the right of the other Republican contenders, even though each of them has also voiced fervent support for traditional unions. Source Santorum is a sub-human piece of shit. Some people could call that an "ad hominem", but you don't get to "unmarry" 131,000 gay couples without being worthy of major disrespect from actual humans. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman. They've simply been conditioned by their environment to feel a certain way, and they are expressing those feelings. You've experienced a different environment and so experience different emotions based on different values. It all sounds like distinctively human behavior to me. ^ See that's an example of an idea or an argument. It isn't me calling you stupid, or crazy, or ignorant, or subhuman. Get it?
That´s an analysis. But there are actual people, made of flesh and blood, who suffer under these discriminations. Will your words be of any use to them, will people who oppose gay marriage be glad that you call them human?
Is there a social experiment on your part going on that I am missing? Is everything relative? What are you trying to tell us?
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On March 05 2012 05:01 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 04:58 liberal wrote:On March 05 2012 04:54 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:45 liberal wrote:On March 05 2012 04:40 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:39 Whitewing wrote:On March 05 2012 04:36 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:There are 18,000 married gay and lesbian couples in California and at least 131,000 nationwide according to the 2010 census, conducted before New York state legalized same-sex marriage in July.
Rick Santorum says he'll try to unmarry all of them if he's elected president.
Once the U.S. Constitution is amended to prohibit same-gender marriages, "their marriage would be invalid," the former Pennsylvania senator said Dec. 30 in an NBC News interview.
"We can't have 50 different marriage laws in this country," he said. "You have to have one marriage law."
The comments didn't attract nearly as much attention as Santorum's recent invocation of his Catholic faith to denounce government support for birth control, prenatal testing and resource conservation - which, in the last case, he attributed to President Obama's "phony theology."
But his declared intention to nullify past as well as future same-sex marriages has reinforced his position to the right of the other Republican contenders, even though each of them has also voiced fervent support for traditional unions. Source Santorum is a sub-human piece of shit. Some people could call that an "ad hominem", but you don't get to "unmarry" 131,000 gay couples without being worthy of major disrespect from actual humans. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman. They've simply been conditioned by their environment to feel a certain way, and they are expressing those feelings. You've experienced a different environment and so experience different emotions based on different values. It all sounds like distinctively human behavior to me. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman, they're merely immoral according my standard. But just the opinion is fine. However, if they're perfectly willing to fuck over people and their freedoms to further their own ideals, that is not fine with me. This guy is going for political office and holds opinions, which is OK, but what's not OK is his intention to put them into practice. So what am I to do? Start a debate about homosexual marriage? I'd rather outright say that this man's plans are fucking archaic, and they are, to me, literally disgusting and offensive. What would you have me do, really? I suppose you and I just have different purposes for a forum such as this one. I like to discuss ideas with people who have diverse opinions, and apparently you like to vent your emotions and frustrations and disgust around people who mostly agree with you already. I guess I shouldn't expect people to have the same motivations I have. That's just your easy way out, but frankly I think there's no way around it, the guy's as human as the next guy, but he's a god damn piece of shit. And I can't argue with "I intend to do this", I can only strongly disapprove. I'm asking this seriously - what else can I do regarding Santorum's intention to fuck with 262,000 people? A vast majority of my posts everywhere are arguments. You don't get to latch onto one post of me venting to say "we're very different". We're not. Just a few posts ago YOU were venting about how "the left" is not nice enough for you, completely ignoring how your side is disrespectful to us too.
I don't have a "side." The fact that you are lumping me in with republicans already kind of reinforces my point about your over-reliance on labels as a substitute for argument.
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On March 05 2012 05:04 liberal wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 05:01 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:58 liberal wrote:On March 05 2012 04:54 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:45 liberal wrote:On March 05 2012 04:40 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:39 Whitewing wrote:On March 05 2012 04:36 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:There are 18,000 married gay and lesbian couples in California and at least 131,000 nationwide according to the 2010 census, conducted before New York state legalized same-sex marriage in July.
Rick Santorum says he'll try to unmarry all of them if he's elected president.
Once the U.S. Constitution is amended to prohibit same-gender marriages, "their marriage would be invalid," the former Pennsylvania senator said Dec. 30 in an NBC News interview.
"We can't have 50 different marriage laws in this country," he said. "You have to have one marriage law."
The comments didn't attract nearly as much attention as Santorum's recent invocation of his Catholic faith to denounce government support for birth control, prenatal testing and resource conservation - which, in the last case, he attributed to President Obama's "phony theology."
But his declared intention to nullify past as well as future same-sex marriages has reinforced his position to the right of the other Republican contenders, even though each of them has also voiced fervent support for traditional unions. Source Santorum is a sub-human piece of shit. Some people could call that an "ad hominem", but you don't get to "unmarry" 131,000 gay couples without being worthy of major disrespect from actual humans. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman. They've simply been conditioned by their environment to feel a certain way, and they are expressing those feelings. You've experienced a different environment and so experience different emotions based on different values. It all sounds like distinctively human behavior to me. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman, they're merely immoral according my standard. But just the opinion is fine. However, if they're perfectly willing to fuck over people and their freedoms to further their own ideals, that is not fine with me. This guy is going for political office and holds opinions, which is OK, but what's not OK is his intention to put them into practice. So what am I to do? Start a debate about homosexual marriage? I'd rather outright say that this man's plans are fucking archaic, and they are, to me, literally disgusting and offensive. What would you have me do, really? I suppose you and I just have different purposes for a forum such as this one. I like to discuss ideas with people who have diverse opinions, and apparently you like to vent your emotions and frustrations and disgust around people who mostly agree with you already. I guess I shouldn't expect people to have the same motivations I have. That's just your easy way out, but frankly I think there's no way around it, the guy's as human as the next guy, but he's a god damn piece of shit. And I can't argue with "I intend to do this", I can only strongly disapprove. I'm asking this seriously - what else can I do regarding Santorum's intention to fuck with 262,000 people? A vast majority of my posts everywhere are arguments. You don't get to latch onto one post of me venting to say "we're very different". We're not. Just a few posts ago YOU were venting about how "the left" is not nice enough for you, completely ignoring how your side is disrespectful to us too. I don't have a "side." The fact that you are lumping me in with republicans already kind of reinforces my point about your over-reliance on labels as a form of argument.
How'd you manage to ignore the rest of my post? Fine your "point" was reinforced. Congrats. Now how about you deal with the fact that you wrongly lumped me with the "emotional" posters based on my reaction to one news, disregarding the fact that I'm generally a very analytical person. You know who I am, presumably. We've spoken before. It's ironic that just before you were talking about logical fallacies, and you seem to try to undermine me by being disingenuous.
Frankly I think it's perfectly fine to be outraged from time to time when a politician does or intends to do something which is as damaging to society as what Santorum wants.
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On March 01 2012 11:53 Focuspants wrote:
The statement "the private sector is ALWAYS going to provide a better service at a lower cost" is inherently false. Look at your medical and health care system. Its a failure for anyone that isnt rich. Certain things, such as healthcare, should be run by the government, with 2 goals in mind, first being providing good care for EVERYONE, and second operating cost effectively (NOT FOR PROFIT). I think government and the private sector are both needed, and both are better at different things. Its not a black and white issue.
LOL. Not even close to a free market. Nobody in the US will claim we have a free market. Only socialists from Europe and CA seem to think that for some reason we have private healthcare. We have corporatism and fascism. Government rules and a government subsidized cartel.
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On March 05 2012 05:13 EternaLLegacy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2012 11:53 Focuspants wrote:
The statement "the private sector is ALWAYS going to provide a better service at a lower cost" is inherently false. Look at your medical and health care system. Its a failure for anyone that isnt rich. Certain things, such as healthcare, should be run by the government, with 2 goals in mind, first being providing good care for EVERYONE, and second operating cost effectively (NOT FOR PROFIT). I think government and the private sector are both needed, and both are better at different things. Its not a black and white issue.
LOL. Not even close to a free market. Nobody in the US will claim we have a free market. Only socialists from Europe and CA seem to think that for some reason we have private healthcare. We have corporatism and fascism. Government rules and a government subsidized cartel.
The new regulations under Obamacare are further centralizing the health care system because it is forcing medical providers (particularly doctors) to band together into groups. Private practitioners are becoming a thing of the past.
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On March 05 2012 04:58 liberal wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 04:54 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:45 liberal wrote:On March 05 2012 04:40 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:39 Whitewing wrote:On March 05 2012 04:36 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:There are 18,000 married gay and lesbian couples in California and at least 131,000 nationwide according to the 2010 census, conducted before New York state legalized same-sex marriage in July.
Rick Santorum says he'll try to unmarry all of them if he's elected president.
Once the U.S. Constitution is amended to prohibit same-gender marriages, "their marriage would be invalid," the former Pennsylvania senator said Dec. 30 in an NBC News interview.
"We can't have 50 different marriage laws in this country," he said. "You have to have one marriage law."
The comments didn't attract nearly as much attention as Santorum's recent invocation of his Catholic faith to denounce government support for birth control, prenatal testing and resource conservation - which, in the last case, he attributed to President Obama's "phony theology."
But his declared intention to nullify past as well as future same-sex marriages has reinforced his position to the right of the other Republican contenders, even though each of them has also voiced fervent support for traditional unions. Source Santorum is a sub-human piece of shit. Some people could call that an "ad hominem", but you don't get to "unmarry" 131,000 gay couples without being worthy of major disrespect from actual humans. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman. They've simply been conditioned by their environment to feel a certain way, and they are expressing those feelings. You've experienced a different environment and so experience different emotions based on different values. It all sounds like distinctively human behavior to me. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman, they're merely immoral according my standard. But just the opinion is fine. However, if they're perfectly willing to fuck over people and their freedoms to further their own ideals, that is not fine with me. This guy is going for political office and holds opinions, which is OK, but what's not OK is his intention to put them into practice. So what am I to do? Start a debate about homosexual marriage? I'd rather outright say that this man's plans are fucking archaic, and they are, to me, literally disgusting and offensive. What would you have me do, really? I suppose you and I just have different purposes for a forum such as this one. I like to discuss ideas with people who have diverse opinions, and apparently you like to vent your emotions and frustrations and disgust around people who mostly agree with you already. I guess I shouldn't expect people to have the same motivations I have.
No, you shouldn't, especially when hearing an opinion can often be as important as discussing an opinion. Some people wish to give their opinions, and some people wish to discuss opinions, and some people want to change peoples opinions. Forums are good places for all of these people, and suggesting people shouldn't voice their opinion unless they are willing to defend it, would tend more towards suppressing communication rather than encouraging it. Many good conversations start between two people discussing a third parties opinion. This is also relevant to your assumption that this forum is filled with ad hominems and baseless attacks.
If you look through the forum, you'll notice very few ad homs, most people are stating things like Santorum is crazy, but they are not saying Santorums views are wrong because he is crazy, they are saying Santorum is crazy because his views are wrong. These statements are just people expressing their opinions, you would find it preferable that they justify their opinions, but that is not really always a reasonable demand. Suggesting people cannot speak their opinions without defending them actually hinders discussion, since properly arguing a side takes a considerate investment in time and energy and not all people are as talented at defending their case as others, which just leads to the fallacy fallacy.
If you want a highly educated and unbiased debate community, you may want to look elsewhere. However, I would recommend, given that some arguments on this forum are reasonably well made, that you assign less value to the opinion of an individual, and more value to the few constructive arguments made on the forum.
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On March 05 2012 05:13 EternaLLegacy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2012 11:53 Focuspants wrote:
The statement "the private sector is ALWAYS going to provide a better service at a lower cost" is inherently false. Look at your medical and health care system. Its a failure for anyone that isnt rich. Certain things, such as healthcare, should be run by the government, with 2 goals in mind, first being providing good care for EVERYONE, and second operating cost effectively (NOT FOR PROFIT). I think government and the private sector are both needed, and both are better at different things. Its not a black and white issue.
LOL. Not even close to a free market. Nobody in the US will claim we have a free market. Only socialists from Europe and CA seem to think that for some reason we have private healthcare. We have corporatism and fascism. Government rules and a government subsidized cartel.
Why are you still here and don´t set fire unter the feet of Republicans, who are presumably the shield bearer of free markets and freedom?
Sincerely,
A Socialist from Europe.
(following your nomenclature)
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On March 05 2012 05:18 Tor wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 04:58 liberal wrote:On March 05 2012 04:54 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:45 liberal wrote:On March 05 2012 04:40 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:39 Whitewing wrote:On March 05 2012 04:36 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:There are 18,000 married gay and lesbian couples in California and at least 131,000 nationwide according to the 2010 census, conducted before New York state legalized same-sex marriage in July.
Rick Santorum says he'll try to unmarry all of them if he's elected president.
Once the U.S. Constitution is amended to prohibit same-gender marriages, "their marriage would be invalid," the former Pennsylvania senator said Dec. 30 in an NBC News interview.
"We can't have 50 different marriage laws in this country," he said. "You have to have one marriage law."
The comments didn't attract nearly as much attention as Santorum's recent invocation of his Catholic faith to denounce government support for birth control, prenatal testing and resource conservation - which, in the last case, he attributed to President Obama's "phony theology."
But his declared intention to nullify past as well as future same-sex marriages has reinforced his position to the right of the other Republican contenders, even though each of them has also voiced fervent support for traditional unions. Source Santorum is a sub-human piece of shit. Some people could call that an "ad hominem", but you don't get to "unmarry" 131,000 gay couples without being worthy of major disrespect from actual humans. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman. They've simply been conditioned by their environment to feel a certain way, and they are expressing those feelings. You've experienced a different environment and so experience different emotions based on different values. It all sounds like distinctively human behavior to me. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman, they're merely immoral according my standard. But just the opinion is fine. However, if they're perfectly willing to fuck over people and their freedoms to further their own ideals, that is not fine with me. This guy is going for political office and holds opinions, which is OK, but what's not OK is his intention to put them into practice. So what am I to do? Start a debate about homosexual marriage? I'd rather outright say that this man's plans are fucking archaic, and they are, to me, literally disgusting and offensive. What would you have me do, really? I suppose you and I just have different purposes for a forum such as this one. I like to discuss ideas with people who have diverse opinions, and apparently you like to vent your emotions and frustrations and disgust around people who mostly agree with you already. I guess I shouldn't expect people to have the same motivations I have. Suggesting people cannot speak their opinions without defending them actually hinders discussion, since properly arguing a side takes a considerate investment in time and energy and not all people are as talented at defending their case as others, which just leads to the fallacy fallacy.
Good post. I've been in big, good debates on TL before.
Right now, at least in my case, I look at Santorum's intention to break 131,000 marriages and I think "that's stupid". I don't think I have to explain why: it's my opinion, and it goes against my values. We could bring back the old gay marriage arguments, but I don't think it's the point. You all know many the arguments for gay marriage, I share that general sentiment. I don't feel like I need to elaborate until someone gives me a reason to, because so far it's a fairly basic position.
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On March 05 2012 05:13 EternaLLegacy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2012 11:53 Focuspants wrote:
The statement "the private sector is ALWAYS going to provide a better service at a lower cost" is inherently false. Look at your medical and health care system. Its a failure for anyone that isnt rich. Certain things, such as healthcare, should be run by the government, with 2 goals in mind, first being providing good care for EVERYONE, and second operating cost effectively (NOT FOR PROFIT). I think government and the private sector are both needed, and both are better at different things. Its not a black and white issue.
LOL. Not even close to a free market. Nobody in the US will claim we have a free market. Only socialists from Europe and CA seem to think that for some reason we have private healthcare. We have corporatism and fascism. Government rules and a government subsidized cartel.
This is a good point. I was recently watching a Vanguard episode on medical tourism. For anyone that hasn't seen Vanguard episodes, I highly recommend you go check it out.
Anyway, the story was about how US citizens are going to places such as India to receive their surgery, and it costs tens of thousands of dollars less to do it in India than to do it in the US. Now what are the reasons for that?
There are countless reasons, but some of the big ones are things like: excessive regulations and consumer protections. Of course it's important to have patient protections and regulations in place, but once they become so excessive that people can't afford treatment, then they aren't protections anymore. These regulations can also be used to restrict the supply of health care providers, thereby raising their wages and prices through artificial scarcity. Another reason: lawsuits. This is another form of regulation that is put on medical treatment, they have to jump through so many hoops, order unnecessary tests, etc. all because they know they can be sued for the slightest problem. The lawsuits themselves cost the medical industry billions, which again raises costs. Another major problem is the elimination of the price mechanism. Neither consumers nor suppliers have much incentive to reduce costs or to ration their treatment when nearly all the costs are paid by third party insurers. The patients incentive is to get as much care as possible, and the doctors incentive is to order as many tests as possible, supply as many prescriptions as possible, bill as many visits as possible...
My point is, there are many things the government can do to lower costs, but there are even more ways that they can raise costs. We have to go about medical reform intelligently, to assess the reasons for high costs first before attempting to rewrite the entire system. You can't use high medical costs as an argument against a market model if there are perversions to the market in place which significantly increase costs.
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Romney is all over the Map on this one.
Mitt Romney is facing a barrage of conservative attacks after it was revealed late Friday that he wrote a July 2009 op-ed in USA Today calling on President Obama to adopt an individual mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance, the provision that Republicans today despise and which Romney says he virulently opposes on a federal level.
In the piece, however, Romney urged Obama to “learn a thing or two” from his Massachusetts plan that contained the same mandate, and made the case for it. “First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance,” Romney wrote. “Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages ‘free riders’ to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others.”
Among the first to take aim at Romney was his chief Republican 2012 rival Rick Santorum. “Governor Romney has been saying throughout the course of this campaign, ‘Oh, I never recommended that they adopt my program in Massachusetts for an individual federal mandate,’” Santorum told a crowd of several hundred people Saturday in Ohio. “Oh yes, he did. In a 2009 USA Today op-ed, he recommended, he made suggestions to President Obama, including the individual mandate and taxing people who don’t buy insurance. That is the individual mandate.”
Team Romney pushed back on Santorum’s charge.
“Rick Santorum has a habit of making distortions, exaggerations and falsehoods about Mitt Romney’s record,” Romney’s spokesperson Andrea Saul told TPM. “Governor Romney has never advocated for a federal individual mandate. He believes in the Tenth Amendment and, as a result, has always said that states should be free to come up with their own health care reforms.”
Source
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So liberal... are you using that handle like classical liberalism?
On March 05 2012 04:58 liberal wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 04:54 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:45 liberal wrote:On March 05 2012 04:40 Djzapz wrote:On March 05 2012 04:39 Whitewing wrote:On March 05 2012 04:36 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:There are 18,000 married gay and lesbian couples in California and at least 131,000 nationwide according to the 2010 census, conducted before New York state legalized same-sex marriage in July.
Rick Santorum says he'll try to unmarry all of them if he's elected president.
Once the U.S. Constitution is amended to prohibit same-gender marriages, "their marriage would be invalid," the former Pennsylvania senator said Dec. 30 in an NBC News interview.
"We can't have 50 different marriage laws in this country," he said. "You have to have one marriage law."
The comments didn't attract nearly as much attention as Santorum's recent invocation of his Catholic faith to denounce government support for birth control, prenatal testing and resource conservation - which, in the last case, he attributed to President Obama's "phony theology."
But his declared intention to nullify past as well as future same-sex marriages has reinforced his position to the right of the other Republican contenders, even though each of them has also voiced fervent support for traditional unions. Source Santorum is a sub-human piece of shit. Some people could call that an "ad hominem", but you don't get to "unmarry" 131,000 gay couples without being worthy of major disrespect from actual humans. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman. They've simply been conditioned by their environment to feel a certain way, and they are expressing those feelings. You've experienced a different environment and so experience different emotions based on different values. It all sounds like distinctively human behavior to me. People who oppose gay marriage aren't inhuman, they're merely immoral according my standard. But just the opinion is fine. However, if they're perfectly willing to fuck over people and their freedoms to further their own ideals, that is not fine with me. This guy is going for political office and holds opinions, which is OK, but what's not OK is his intention to put them into practice. So what am I to do? Start a debate about homosexual marriage? I'd rather outright say that this man's plans are fucking archaic, and they are, to me, literally disgusting and offensive. What would you have me do, really? I suppose you and I just have different purposes for a forum such as this one. I like to discuss ideas with people who have diverse opinions, and apparently you like to vent your emotions and frustrations and disgust around people who mostly agree with you already. I guess I shouldn't expect people to have the same motivations I have.
I don't like the presumption that emotion is separate from logic. Yes, I am going to describe my emotions and frustrations (which ironically is what you're doing), but I can describe very clearly why and how I feel that way. All you have to do is make sure that your emotions are calibrated correctly with the real world, and your emotions can still have validity.
I don't like Santorum. He makes me pretty angry, but I can back that up with perfectly logical ideas and discussion. I name-call him a theocrat. In fact I did it before he said his tirade against the separation of church and state, because I heard some of his arguments against gay marriage from awhile ago. His arguments could be used to justify outlawing adultery and dildos. Most people don't use that kind of argument against gay marriage. That makes me emotional. That makes me angry, and it should make you angry. Emotion is an important part of arguments. Indifference is not.
And talking with xDaunt is lots of fun because we disagree! I like having a more libertarian view on things, but that's because I think the libertarian view of things actually has some merit. Unlike the "conservative" or "republican" view of things. If anything they just give the libertarians a bad name.
I also like shooting down terrible arguments from my side so I don't look bad by association.
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Romney's up to an 86% chance of winning the GOP nomination on Intrade.
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On March 05 2012 05:33 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Romney is all over the Map on this one. Show nested quote +Mitt Romney is facing a barrage of conservative attacks after it was revealed late Friday that he wrote a July 2009 op-ed in USA Today calling on President Obama to adopt an individual mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance, the provision that Republicans today despise and which Romney says he virulently opposes on a federal level.
In the piece, however, Romney urged Obama to “learn a thing or two” from his Massachusetts plan that contained the same mandate, and made the case for it. “First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance,” Romney wrote. “Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages ‘free riders’ to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others.”
Among the first to take aim at Romney was his chief Republican 2012 rival Rick Santorum. “Governor Romney has been saying throughout the course of this campaign, ‘Oh, I never recommended that they adopt my program in Massachusetts for an individual federal mandate,’” Santorum told a crowd of several hundred people Saturday in Ohio. “Oh yes, he did. In a 2009 USA Today op-ed, he recommended, he made suggestions to President Obama, including the individual mandate and taxing people who don’t buy insurance. That is the individual mandate.”
Team Romney pushed back on Santorum’s charge.
“Rick Santorum has a habit of making distortions, exaggerations and falsehoods about Mitt Romney’s record,” Romney’s spokesperson Andrea Saul told TPM. “Governor Romney has never advocated for a federal individual mandate. He believes in the Tenth Amendment and, as a result, has always said that states should be free to come up with their own health care reforms.” Source
That's pretty funny. Romney isn't allowed to be honest on this issue. Honesty would lose him the candidacy.
Not that he isn't going to lose to Obama anyway. This whole republican race feels like an inconsequential side show.
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On March 05 2012 05:40 liberal wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 05:33 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Romney is all over the Map on this one. Mitt Romney is facing a barrage of conservative attacks after it was revealed late Friday that he wrote a July 2009 op-ed in USA Today calling on President Obama to adopt an individual mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance, the provision that Republicans today despise and which Romney says he virulently opposes on a federal level.
In the piece, however, Romney urged Obama to “learn a thing or two” from his Massachusetts plan that contained the same mandate, and made the case for it. “First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance,” Romney wrote. “Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages ‘free riders’ to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others.”
Among the first to take aim at Romney was his chief Republican 2012 rival Rick Santorum. “Governor Romney has been saying throughout the course of this campaign, ‘Oh, I never recommended that they adopt my program in Massachusetts for an individual federal mandate,’” Santorum told a crowd of several hundred people Saturday in Ohio. “Oh yes, he did. In a 2009 USA Today op-ed, he recommended, he made suggestions to President Obama, including the individual mandate and taxing people who don’t buy insurance. That is the individual mandate.”
Team Romney pushed back on Santorum’s charge.
“Rick Santorum has a habit of making distortions, exaggerations and falsehoods about Mitt Romney’s record,” Romney’s spokesperson Andrea Saul told TPM. “Governor Romney has never advocated for a federal individual mandate. He believes in the Tenth Amendment and, as a result, has always said that states should be free to come up with their own health care reforms.” Source That's pretty funny. Romney isn't allowed to be honest on this issue. Honesty would lose him the candidacy. Not that he isn't going to lose to Obama anyway. This whole republican race feels like an inconsequential side show.
I don't know actually, i've read somewhere that a lot of pepole have stopped describing themselves as democratic, and are now more republican leaning, than before.
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On March 05 2012 05:33 liberal wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 05:13 EternaLLegacy wrote:On March 01 2012 11:53 Focuspants wrote:
The statement "the private sector is ALWAYS going to provide a better service at a lower cost" is inherently false. Look at your medical and health care system. Its a failure for anyone that isnt rich. Certain things, such as healthcare, should be run by the government, with 2 goals in mind, first being providing good care for EVERYONE, and second operating cost effectively (NOT FOR PROFIT). I think government and the private sector are both needed, and both are better at different things. Its not a black and white issue.
LOL. Not even close to a free market. Nobody in the US will claim we have a free market. Only socialists from Europe and CA seem to think that for some reason we have private healthcare. We have corporatism and fascism. Government rules and a government subsidized cartel. This is a good point. I was recently watching a Vanguard episode on medical tourism. For anyone that hasn't seen Vanguard episodes, I highly recommend you go check it out. Anyway, the story was about how US citizens are going to places such as India to receive their surgery, and it costs tens of thousands of dollars less to do it in India than to do it in the US. Now what are the reasons for that? There are countless reasons, but some of the big ones are things like: excessive regulations and consumer protections. Of course it's important to have patient protections and regulations in place, but once they become so excessive that people can't afford treatment, then they aren't protections anymore. These regulations can also be used to restrict the supply of health care providers, thereby raising their wages and prices through artificial scarcity. Another reason: lawsuits. This is another form of regulation that is put on medical treatment, they have to jump through so many hoops, order unnecessary tests, etc. all because they know they can be sued for the slightest problem. The lawsuits themselves cost the medical industry billions, which again raises costs. Another major problem is the elimination of the price mechanism. Neither consumers nor suppliers have much incentive to reduce costs or to ration their treatment when nearly all the costs are paid by third party insurers. The patients incentive is to get as much care as possible, and the doctors incentive is to order as many tests as possible, supply as many prescriptions as possible, bill as many visits as possible... My point is, there are many things the government can do to lower costs, but there are even more ways that they can raise costs. We have to go about medical reform intelligently, to assess the reasons for high costs first before attempting to rewrite the entire system. You can't use high medical costs as an argument against a market model if there are perversions to the market in place which significantly increase costs.
Yes your healthcare system is much more expensive than the system of India. But it is also more expensive than the healthcare system of countries like Germany, France or UK which are all state-controlled. So i dont know why the US system is so expensive but it must be more than:To many regulations and no free market.
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You know what makes me angry?
People who quote the bible...
..When they've never even read the bible.
I went to my local caucus yesterday and it was such a joke.
"raise your hand if you're voting for ___"
It felt like I was in elementary school again. Fuck this electoral system.
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EPT
