All I know is Romney will attack on Libya and Israel. For everything else, he'll say Obama is terrible while playing "America, FUCK YEAH!" in the background.
You can't really deny how anti-American Obama has been though. He's perhaps the most anti-American and unpatriotic president we've ever had. I saw an interview with him where he was asked whether or not he supports American exceptionalism, and he used a cop-out; he claimed he "wrote a paper supporting American exceptionalism in college," yet he has refused to publicly release the paper.
I do not believe Obama views America as the greatest country ever, he doesn't even view America as a fundamentally "good" country. There's not really a word in American politics to describe the foreign policy of Obama, but I think the 2016 documentary summed it up pretty well; Obama is anti-colonialist, and he views America as an "evil" colonial power.
I think the best way to be "pro-American" in the 21st century is to be anti-American imperialism/colonialism.
How so? You do realize that America is the only thing holding the world together right? If we adopt an isolationist/non-interventionist foreign policy, then our enemies will begin expanding (even more so than they currently do).
Edit: Sorry, I seem to have double posted.
When your enemies are stateless and directly use your colonialism and imperialistic nature as propaganda to recruit followers, adopting a less aggressive foreign policy will not cause enemy expansion.
I see, well we seem to agree on something then. I am opposed to useless wars like Iraq and Libya, and if by imperialism you are referring to non-sense like that, then I am opposed to it. I do however support making sure that America remains a superpower and the leader of the world; including having military bases and naval fleets around the world. However, as I mentioned earlier, I am opposed to fighting useless wars which do create stateless enemies (terrorists) like Iraq and Libya.
I think you'd find Obama agreed with you on all those counts, so I'm not sure why you'd characterize him as "anti-American." Most of his and Biden's campaign rhetoric has revolved around not appropriating more money than the military is currently requesting, not gutting it and killing off all military bases (which is constitutionally prohibited without treaty renegotiation).
He has apologized for America's greatness on numerous occasions
I'd like a source on this so I can taste how strong that Kool-Aid your drinking is. Just one source of Obama "apologizing for America's greatness".
Apologizing for the blatant travesty that was the invasion of Iraq is completely warranted. We invaded on completely false pretenses and there was really no justification for it. The same goes for other countries that we're in/have been in recently. Our presence has caused an incredible amount of trouble.
Dropping atomic bombs on Japan was one of the most heinous and evil acts that humanity has ever committed. You deserve no respect if you think that it was OK to kill that many civilians with bombs, especially since it was intentional.
And apologizing for hate speech isn't apologizing for freedom of speech. You have the most distorted vision of reality...
On October 23 2012 08:59 Souma wrote: Pro-lifers don't really care about life. If they did we'd have single-payer healthcare already.
Well since you are picking a fight...
Why is that? Are you suggesting that a single-payer system is the only system demonstrated to work well?
Because supporting personal responsibility makes you pro-death.
because funding E.R. rooms to deal with uninsured costs you more money than just helping the people to begin with, so the idea that its cheaper makes no sense.
because you privatise your health, leading to a conflict of interests, the company doesnt care about keeping you alive except so that you can pay more premiums, if your healthcare becomes too expensive they can and will cut you off.
because privatisation of healthcare increases premiums because profits dont just come from thin air.
you can try and run personal responsibility all you want, some kind of reward structure of people who dont fuck up their own lives (aka heavy taxation on alcohol or drugs) but to spite the people who have made mistakes, or hit a rough patch for no other reason than to be spiteful is idiotic. great, they havent taken responsibility, but by sticking to your principles you are just costing yourself more in taxation to fix the problem rather than the cause.
this is why americans pay twice as much per person to fund just medicare and medicaid than the british pay to fund the entire NHS. while all progressive countries are living in the real world, accepting that people will be people and working on prevention and education (because its cheaper than fixing problems after they come up) the US is happy to spite itself just so that people like you get to say 'i told you so' to the poor guy with no insurance.
Why should the poor receive ER care? Remove treating the uninsured and you have the cheapest healthcare system in the world and the best quality ever; win-win.
While my above statement may be true, I am not entirely heartless. Also, your pretty much just mentioned perhaps the greatest argument against socialist healthcare. Nope, not the quality argument, which is another major one, but the freedom argument. The government is already trying to ban "unhealthy" activities, I can only imagine how much worse it will get once the government has to pay for the healthcare of over 300 million people.
You want to play sports? BANNED! You could get hurt. You want to own a gun? BANNED! The rapist you defended yourself against still needs healthcare. You want to use tobacco? BANNED! You could get cancer. You want to drive an car? BANNED! You could get in a car accident, plus you're causing global warming.
There are many, many things- products, services etc. which are best left in a competitive marketplace where buyers and sellers compete to get the best prices.
Healthcare is not one of those things. Healthcare is whats known as an imperfect market; one where sellers have more information than the buyers.
Privatizing healthcare / turning medicare into a voucher system will not make your insurance premiums any cheaper. Adverse selection will cause insurance companies to deny people coverage and keep the overall pool of covered people smaller. This will decrease demand, which if you know your basic economics, will cause price to increase.
I don't believe that abortion is a freedom that the public should have. and as I said earlier, a debate about abortion is not really what I'm getting at here.
So people should be forced to accept your beliefs when it comes to decisions that very heavily affect their personal life and not yours?
though I feel that this is an oversimplification of my position, I won't try to dance around it. Yes. I think people should be required to accept my personal belief on the issue, as I feel that my personal belief is the correct one. normally, my own belief in the correctness of my position would not lead me to such a conclusion, that people should be required to hold themselves to it, but in this case, I believe that the price is too high to accept "dissent" from the position, whatever someone may believe or not believe.
basically: since I think it is an innocent person whose life is at stake, I am willing to suspend my normal acceptance of differing opinions and am more than willing to press the issue, using force if necessary. ideally, the populace would see the correctness of my own position and be convinced, but I am ready to accept that such a thing will not happen. in the choice between being seen as a dictator (and in engaging in some admittedly dictatorial behavior) and allowing the murder of innocents, I am inclined to choose the former.
On October 23 2012 08:59 Souma wrote: Pro-lifers don't really care about life. If they did we'd have single-payer healthcare already.
Well since you are picking a fight...
Why is that? Are you suggesting that a single-payer system is the only system demonstrated to work well?
If there's a different universal healthcare system that's as efficient, cheap and encompassing I'll go for that too.
Fantastic! Having an important goal and an open mind to solutions is a good thing.
Jonny after all this time I thought you'd realize that I have an open mind for solutions. I just generally have different goals.
On October 23 2012 09:30 BluePanther wrote: Had a discussion with someone today.
Flat Tax + Negative Income Tax.
Thoughts?
Example? I remember Jonny mentioning something like, tax a flat rate across the board, say 30%, but also subtract like $30K afterwards for each person.
On October 23 2012 09:07 [DUF]MethodMan wrote: I always wonder if US-Americans discussing sex-related issues are actually serious. Feels like a timewarp back to ancient times.
Part of the problem is that all these issues get debated at the national level. Some parts of the US are highly religious, other parts aren't and they both try to use the federal government to impose their 'superior culture' on the other.
On October 23 2012 08:59 Souma wrote: Pro-lifers don't really care about life. If they did we'd have single-payer healthcare already.
Well since you are picking a fight...
Why is that? Are you suggesting that a single-payer system is the only system demonstrated to work well?
If there's a different universal healthcare system that's as efficient, cheap and encompassing I'll go for that too.
On October 23 2012 09:10 Swazi Spring wrote:
On October 23 2012 09:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
On October 23 2012 08:59 Souma wrote: Pro-lifers don't really care about life. If they did we'd have single-payer healthcare already.
Well since you are picking a fight...
Why is that? Are you suggesting that a single-payer system is the only system demonstrated to work well?
Because supporting personal responsibility makes you pro-death.
Implying the Japanese, Germans and Finnish don't take personal responsibility while being an American who can't apologize for any mistakes we've made in the past. Laughable.
Or you know, free-market healthcare that provides high quality coverage.
Great, as long as rich people can have high-quality care EVERYTHING IS GOOD! Still not an argument for "personal responsibility" unless you wanna tell me that Japanese people are lazy leeches.
The middle class consists of entirely rich people now?
I'm not going to insult any other cultures or single-out the Japanese, but there certainly is a lack of personal responsibility when you have cradle to grave socialism.
Not necessarily, the issue is integrating personal responsibility with social opportunity. The problem with your view is that you don't appear to value social opportunity.
Please, elaborate? Are you referring to the ability of individuals to increase their net worth and move from the lower class to the middle class and/or to the upper class?
On October 23 2012 08:59 Souma wrote: Pro-lifers don't really care about life. If they did we'd have single-payer healthcare already.
Well since you are picking a fight...
Why is that? Are you suggesting that a single-payer system is the only system demonstrated to work well?
Because supporting personal responsibility makes you pro-death.
because funding E.R. rooms to deal with uninsured costs you more money than just helping the people to begin with, so the idea that its cheaper makes no sense.
because you privatise your health, leading to a conflict of interests, the company doesnt care about keeping you alive except so that you can pay more premiums, if your healthcare becomes too expensive they can and will cut you off.
because privatisation of healthcare increases premiums because profits dont just come from thin air.
you can try and run personal responsibility all you want, some kind of reward structure of people who dont fuck up their own lives (aka heavy taxation on alcohol or drugs) but to spite the people who have made mistakes, or hit a rough patch for no other reason than to be spiteful is idiotic. great, they havent taken responsibility, but by sticking to your principles you are just costing yourself more in taxation to fix the problem rather than the cause.
this is why americans pay twice as much per person to fund just medicare and medicaid than the british pay to fund the entire NHS. while all progressive countries are living in the real world, accepting that people will be people and working on prevention and education (because its cheaper than fixing problems after they come up) the US is happy to spite itself just so that people like you get to say 'i told you so' to the poor guy with no insurance.
Why should the poor receive ER care? Remove treating the uninsured and you have the cheapest healthcare system in the world and the best quality ever; win-win.
It's amazing how little you care for people once they've been born.
On October 23 2012 08:59 Souma wrote: Pro-lifers don't really care about life. If they did we'd have single-payer healthcare already.
Well since you are picking a fight...
Why is that? Are you suggesting that a single-payer system is the only system demonstrated to work well?
If there's a different universal healthcare system that's as efficient, cheap and encompassing I'll go for that too.
On October 23 2012 09:10 Swazi Spring wrote:
On October 23 2012 09:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
On October 23 2012 08:59 Souma wrote: Pro-lifers don't really care about life. If they did we'd have single-payer healthcare already.
Well since you are picking a fight...
Why is that? Are you suggesting that a single-payer system is the only system demonstrated to work well?
Because supporting personal responsibility makes you pro-death.
Implying the Japanese, Germans and Finnish don't take personal responsibility while being an American who can't apologize for any mistakes we've made in the past. Laughable.
Or you know, free-market healthcare that provides high quality coverage.
Great, as long as rich people can have high-quality care EVERYTHING IS GOOD! Still not an argument for "personal responsibility" unless you wanna tell me that Japanese people are lazy leeches.
The middle class consists of entirely rich people now?
I'm not going to insult any other cultures or single-out the Japanese, but there certainly is a lack of personal responsibility when you have cradle to grave socialism.
Not necessarily, the issue is integrating personal responsibility with social opportunity. The problem with your view is that you don't appear to value social opportunity.
Please, elaborate? Are you referring to the ability of individuals to increase their net worth and move from the lower class to the middle class and/or to the upper class?
I'm saying you're right to condemn a culture of entitlement where people are content to suckle at the government's tit. Personal responsibility is certainly important, but it's only half the picture. There needs to be reasonable assurance of opportunity available for those poor and working class who take responsibility. Currently in the U.S. there is not really, and this is particularly true with respect to healthcare.
On October 23 2012 08:59 Souma wrote: Pro-lifers don't really care about life. If they did we'd have single-payer healthcare already.
Well since you are picking a fight...
Why is that? Are you suggesting that a single-payer system is the only system demonstrated to work well?
Because supporting personal responsibility makes you pro-death.
because funding E.R. rooms to deal with uninsured costs you more money than just helping the people to begin with, so the idea that its cheaper makes no sense.
because you privatise your health, leading to a conflict of interests, the company doesnt care about keeping you alive except so that you can pay more premiums, if your healthcare becomes too expensive they can and will cut you off.
because privatisation of healthcare increases premiums because profits dont just come from thin air.
you can try and run personal responsibility all you want, some kind of reward structure of people who dont fuck up their own lives (aka heavy taxation on alcohol or drugs) but to spite the people who have made mistakes, or hit a rough patch for no other reason than to be spiteful is idiotic. great, they havent taken responsibility, but by sticking to your principles you are just costing yourself more in taxation to fix the problem rather than the cause.
this is why americans pay twice as much per person to fund just medicare and medicaid than the british pay to fund the entire NHS. while all progressive countries are living in the real world, accepting that people will be people and working on prevention and education (because its cheaper than fixing problems after they come up) the US is happy to spite itself just so that people like you get to say 'i told you so' to the poor guy with no insurance.
Why should the poor receive ER care? Remove treating the uninsured and you have the cheapest healthcare system in the world and the best quality ever; win-win.
While my above statement may be true, I am not entirely heartless. Also, your pretty much just mentioned perhaps the greatest argument against socialist healthcare. Nope, not the quality argument, which is another major one, but the freedom argument. The government is already trying to ban "unhealthy" activities, I can only imagine how much worse it will get once the government has to pay for the healthcare of over 300 million people.
You want to play sports? BANNED! You could get hurt. You want to own a gun? BANNED! The rapist you defended yourself against still needs healthcare. You want to use tobacco? BANNED! You could get cancer. You want to drive an car? BANNED! You could get in a car accident, plus you're causing global warming.
You see where I'm going with this?
they dont need to ban anything capping your freedom, and they dont need to let everyone jump infront of cars and then get fixed up by the communist government. you want personal responsibility without paying for everyone else to fuck about? we have a system to stop that! its called sales tax.
guns lead to an increased chance of being involved in gun violence? tax guns! getting too much cancer? tax cigars! its simple, and already widely used and it feels like the only reason it isnt used on things like sports equipment and guns is because of fears of big government
when you accept that the government isnt intrinsically bad, that any problem with it can be fixed rather than just destroyed, i dont see a single other argument against socialised healthcare. they dont have the same conflict of interest as a private company, they dont siphon off profits. you can change the model to however you see fit but those 2 factors alone should say enough that privatised healthcare is just a bad idea.
Honest question... how old are you/what do you do?
I just have a hard time understanding why you think these are sound arguments.
20 and a college student, who is also working part-time.
It is a sound argument, you have to look at both the positives and the negatives of everything, not just the positives.
Basically, one of your European politicians (Winston Churchill) put it best:
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
You can either have a system where the majority of the population receives amazing healthcare, but the extremely poor are left to suffer. <- Capitalism
Or you can have a system where the majority of the population receives terrible healthcare, but the poor receive slightly better healthcare. <- Socialism
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
You can either have a system where the majority of the population receives amazing healthcare, but the extremely poor are left to suffer. <- Capitalism
Or you can have a system where the majority of the population receives terrible healthcare, but the poor receive slightly better healthcare. <- Socialism
this leads us to the conclusion that there could possibly be some middle-ground here though.
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
You can either have a system where the majority of the population receives amazing healthcare, but the extremely poor are left to suffer. <- Capitalism
Or you can have a system where the majority of the population receives terrible healthcare, but the poor receive slightly better healthcare. <- Socialism
I think you need to learn more about the problems that plague healthcare, particularly at the lower levels. Despite the fact there is a dispute over the means of change, I think both sides recognize the need for change. Our system has serious problems.
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
You can either have a system where the majority of the population receives amazing healthcare, but the extremely poor are left to suffer. <- Capitalism
Or you can have a system where the majority of the population receives terrible healthcare, but the poor receive slightly better healthcare. <- Socialism
And I guess it's just a binary situation where we can choose one or the other? I'll tell you a secret that very few people on Earth appear to understand. Socialism need not be at odds with capitalism. Communism is at odds with capitalism, socialism not necessarily. And Obamacare isn't even socialism by any definition of it.
On October 23 2012 08:59 Souma wrote: Pro-lifers don't really care about life. If they did we'd have single-payer healthcare already.
Well since you are picking a fight...
Why is that? Are you suggesting that a single-payer system is the only system demonstrated to work well?
Because supporting personal responsibility makes you pro-death.
because funding E.R. rooms to deal with uninsured costs you more money than just helping the people to begin with, so the idea that its cheaper makes no sense.
because you privatise your health, leading to a conflict of interests, the company doesnt care about keeping you alive except so that you can pay more premiums, if your healthcare becomes too expensive they can and will cut you off.
because privatisation of healthcare increases premiums because profits dont just come from thin air.
you can try and run personal responsibility all you want, some kind of reward structure of people who dont fuck up their own lives (aka heavy taxation on alcohol or drugs) but to spite the people who have made mistakes, or hit a rough patch for no other reason than to be spiteful is idiotic. great, they havent taken responsibility, but by sticking to your principles you are just costing yourself more in taxation to fix the problem rather than the cause.
this is why americans pay twice as much per person to fund just medicare and medicaid than the british pay to fund the entire NHS. while all progressive countries are living in the real world, accepting that people will be people and working on prevention and education (because its cheaper than fixing problems after they come up) the US is happy to spite itself just so that people like you get to say 'i told you so' to the poor guy with no insurance.
Why should the poor receive ER care? Remove treating the uninsured and you have the cheapest healthcare system in the world and the best quality ever; win-win.
It's amazing how little you care for people once they've been born.
You misunderstand, I don't care about people before they've been born either.
On October 23 2012 09:38 turdburgler wrote: guns lead to an increased chance of being involved in gun violence? tax guns! getting too much cancer? tax cigars!
I'm sorry, but I really must point out a couple of these fallacies. Guns don't lead to violence and if anything, owning a gun decreases your chances1 of being attacked by a mugger, rapist, burglar, etc.
Also, cigars do not cause cancer. It is theoretically possible to get mouth cancer from a cigar, but it is extremely unlikely. Cigarettes would have been a much better example.
EPT
