I don't understand why the US just doesn't go and copy Australia's Medicare.
[QUOTE=teeheeV2;19095280]I don't understand why the US just doesn't go and copy Australia's Medicare.[/QUOTE]
insurance corporations not willing to give up any market shares to a gvt. run insurance system plus cranky whites that value their free-market/"you can pull yourself out of any problem without needing any help" ideology over sick people getting healthy makes that rather difficult to do
any government system where corporations, whose sole purpose is to make profit, can influence the decisions of government is a bad system
[QUOTE=Xystus234;19095077]I'm trying to advocate that leftism and rightism are both concepts which are meaningless and narrow minded. Rightism is essentially "Fuck you, you're in my way", while Leftism is essentially "Fuck you, that's not right". If anything, what I'm trying to say is that you can never have an ideal society because it just never works. Ideas are just something we make up. Once the effects of the efforts related to the ideas wear off and the reformers and idealists back away, reality starts to set in and new problems arise from the effort of the last idealism. They accomplished the goal, deregulate the economy, overthrow the Tzar and redistribute the wealth, but there was never a method of retaining it because of human nature. Even if you put all the effort in the world to accomplishing an ideal society and keeping it, eventually when people start taking it for granted, or getting used to it, or for a million other reasons it will start corroding again. Human nature corrodes societies to an equilibrium. Nietzsche called it "Nihilism", but that's more of a combination of doubt and temptation. What I'm talking about is how we're wired.
If anything, we should find a system that will be compatible with human nature and yet is stable. China had a system that worked for almost 5000 years, Western civilization however fucked it all up in the past 200.
There. Now go mad from the revelation.
[/QUOTE]
No I agree with that, but what you said before was a bit of a mind fuck because it could be interpreted lots of different ways.
[QUOTE=Sir_Theseus;19093051]
[list][*]Why we need this specific healthcare bill
Because our health care system is shitty and no decent actuaries are around anyway.
[*]Why we should stay in Afghanistan
It's been our foreign policy for the last century, get over it.
[*]Why we should keep our military forces based in any other country
To project force.
[*]Why higher taxes will help the country
Help with deficits and fund programs
[*]Why a 1000+ page long bill should be trusted.[/list]
Because people actually read this shit.
[/QUOTE]
I replied.
In my experience high taxes are kinda cool. In DK we pay about 50% taxes, and 64% is maximum or something. Or country works really well, pretty much no one is poor, and if we get sick we just go straight to the hospital for free!
[editline]02:51PM[/editline]
I remember when Oprah was in DK for some reason she interviewed some danes and what they thought of the high taxes. Maybe you can watch that.
[QUOTE=TheDKer;19097988]In my experience high taxes are kinda cool. In DK we pay about 50% taxes, and 64% is maximum or something. Or country works really well, pretty much no one is poor, and if we get sick we just go straight to the hospital for free!
[editline]02:51PM[/editline]
I remember when Oprah was in DK for some reason she interviewed some danes and what they thought of the high taxes. Maybe you can watch that.[/QUOTE]
I think the reason Denmark is seen as one of the happiest countries in the world is because of this.
And the fact that we can drink alcohol whenever we want.
[QUOTE=TheDKer;19097988]In my experience high taxes are kinda cool. In DK we pay about 50% taxes, and 64% is maximum or something. Or country works really well, pretty much no one is poor, and if we get sick we just go straight to the hospital for free!
[editline]02:51PM[/editline]
I remember when Oprah was in DK for some reason she interviewed some danes and what they thought of the high taxes. Maybe you can watch that.[/QUOTE]
Even though the program itself isn't very serious, and Oprah isn't my favourite host, she does bring up a few good points.
First part:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7s89ptz0dA[/media]
Second part:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QS8dROjKNY[/media]
Scandinavia is probably one of the best places in the world;
Free education
Free health care
Very little/no religion
High equality
High living standards
High happiness
All thanks to social democracy/universal welfare/flexicurity
1. How is no religion due to welfare
2. How is it a good thing
3. Do you just not want to go to church or something
I'm willing to bet that no more than 3 people in this thread actually know anything about politics.
[QUOTE=DuncanFrost;19095786]any government system where corporations, whose sole purpose is to make profit, can influence the decisions of government is a bad system[/QUOTE]
you focus too much on corruption that you forget that business/interest groups need a voice too
especially for capitalism n shit
[QUOTE=Sir_Theseus;19093051] Why we need this specific healthcare bill[/QUOTE]
We need health care reform in America.
This bill is better than the alternative, which is no reform at all.
[QUOTE=Sir_Theseus;19093051] Why we should stay in Afghanistan[/QUOTE]
Republicans put us there.
Republicans are making us stay there.
Ask them.
[QUOTE=Sir_Theseus;19093051] Why we should keep our military forces based in any other country[/QUOTE]
Again, ask Republicans.
Conservatives are the main ones who support military spending.
[QUOTE=Sir_Theseus;19093051] Why higher taxes will help the country[/QUOTE]
Higher taxes [i]on the rich[/i] will help the country, because the upper 10% of Americans pay a far smaller percentage of their income as tax than the bottom 90%.
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VHNXTBwj80[/url]
[QUOTE=Sir_Theseus;19093051] Why a 1000+ page long bill should be trusted.[/QUOTE]
All bills are super long these days.
Unless you have specific objections, the sheer length of a bill is not a sensible reason not to trust it.
[QUOTE=Sir_Theseus;19094645]I've read the last three, that's one of the reasons why I chose Libertarianism.[/QUOTE]
I thought Animal Farm and 1984 were actually pretty shitty, Brave New World was great though.
[QUOTE=Sir_Theseus;19094322]Sales Tax is fine by me, I'm more concerned about Income Tax... taxing a citizen's capital is utterly immoral[/QUOTE]
High sales taxes hurt the working poor.
Poor people have to spend a much higher percentage of their income every month (100% or more) and thus are taxed on their entire income.
Rich people can afford to squirrel most of their money away in banks and investments, and thus are able to evade the taxes that the poor have to pay.
[QUOTE=Warren Holzem;19105055]We need health care reform in America.
This bill is better than the alternative, which is no reform at all.
Republicans put us there.
Republicans are making us stay there.
Ask them.
Again, ask Republicans.
Conservatives are the main ones who support military spending.
Higher taxes [i]on the rich[/i] will help the country, because the upper 10% of Americans pay a far smaller percentage of their income as tax than the bottom 90%.
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VHNXTBwj80[/url]
All bills are super long these days.
Unless you have specific objections, the sheer length of a bill is not a sensible reason not to trust it.[/QUOTE]
Despite common belief, most wars were started and drawn out by [B][I]Democrats[/I][/B], like Vietnam. contrary to popular belief the true only real fuck-up of Nixon was Watergate. Everything else was called for. He was the one to pull the troops out of Vietnam while Johnson increased troops, instituted drafts and violated the "inalienable rights" of the North Vietnamese. Nixon pulled them on with "Vietnamization" which whether it worked or not, got us out of there. A couple decades later we drop our embargo and become friends with communist Vietnam.
and
[B]Again, I'm basing the mention of long bills on the fact that there were accusations that legislators were not reading the bills because of their length. If anything, it's moreso a call to dumb bills down for our Congressmen or fire the whole lot of them.[/B]
[QUOTE=Sir_Theseus;19106477]Despite common belief, most wars were started and drawn out by [B][I]Democrats[/I][/B][/QUOTE]
Who gives a shit about Nixon?
In THIS CASE both wars were started by a REPUBLICAN, and are being continued because of REPUBLICAN PRESSURE.
[QUOTE=Sir_Theseus;19106477]Again, I'm basing the mention of long bills on the fact that there were accusations that legislators were not reading the bills because of their length. If anything, it's moreso a call to dumb bills down for our Congressmen or fire the whole lot of them.[/QUOTE]
So why doubt the bill just because Congressmen are lazy?
Complicated problems require complicated solutions.
[QUOTE=Warren Holzem;19106608]Who gives a shit about Nixon?
In THIS CASE both wars were started by a REPUBLICAN, and are being continued because of REPUBLICAN PRESSURE.
So why doubt the bill just because Congressmen are lazy?
Complicated problems require complicated solutions.[/QUOTE]
I agree with the second, like getting rid of the current congress in the next Congressional elections.
[QUOTE=Warren Holzem;19105055]
Republicans put us there.
Republicans are making us stay there.
Ask them.
[/QUOTE]
Neo-con smacktards did, but we need the real republicans to get us out because the Dems don't really care either.
Too bad, you know, that our foreign policy never changes from one administration to the next.
[QUOTE=Hunt3r.j2;19107528]Neo-con smacktards did, but we need the real republicans to get us out because the Dems don't really care either.
Too bad, you know, that our foreign policy never changes from one administration to the next.[/QUOTE]
The real Rupublicans huh. Would you happen to have a list of who those are? Because that would be greeaat.
[QUOTE=Hunt3r.j2;19107528]Neo-con smacktards did, but we need the real republicans to get us out because the Dems don't really care either.
Too bad, you know, that our foreign policy never changes from one administration to the next.[/QUOTE]
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman]No true Republican[/url] likes the war in Iraq.
[QUOTE=Sir_Theseus;19094645]I've read the last three, that's one of the reasons why I chose Libertarianism.[/QUOTE]
Orwell was actually a socialist you know.
He was a weirdo though. He was a socialist who didn't believe socialism could ever work without totalitarianism.
Orwell was a gigantic douchebag with no sense of humor and anything he didn't like he would call fascist.
[editline]04:08PM[/editline]
Huxley might have been a religious freak on LSD but at least he could write a good story.
[QUOTE=Hunt3r.j2;19107528]Neo-con smacktards did, but we need the real republicans to get us out because the Dems don't really care either.[/QUOTE]
The Republican party sold its soul to Rush Limbaugh, the radical right-wing hicks, and religious fringe morons.
There are no "real Republicans" any more.
This is the face of the Republican party:
[img]http://www.youjustmademylist.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/sarah-palin-idiot.jpg[/img]
[img]http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Politics/Images/sarah-palin-dumb.jpg[/img]
[QUOTE=Warren Holzem;19109156]The Republican party sold its soul to Rush Limbaugh, the radical right-wing hicks, and religious fringe morons.
There are no "real Republicans" any more.[/QUOTE]
Its a little more complicated than that. The Republican party had a long, gradual transformation.
-Lincoln: First Republican President.
-Grant to T. Roosevelt: The Republican Party is known as the Party of Lincoln. Similar to modern day moderate Democrats, but with more rich people.
-Taft: Roosevelt's break from the Republican party brought an end to the Lincoln Republicans. For the time being the Republicans were nothing more than the party of the rich.
-Wilson (Democrat): Republicans presidential winning streak ends. Lenin starts Bolshevik Revolution. There is paranoia in the US, but neither party really tries to play on it.
-FDR (Democrat): Democrats are no longer the "Party of the south." With neither party focusing on a specific region, sectionalism begins to fade.
-Hoover: Failure to end the Great depression is a massive blow to the laizez-fare (I have no idea ho to spell that) politics.
-Truman: Truman's moderately successful civil rights campaign causes the Democrats to become the party of Civil Rights.
-Eisenhower: Joseph McCarthy plays upon fears of communism and things related to it. He develops an ideology very similar to that of modern Republicans. At the time however, his ideas were disliked by most Republicans, including Eisenhower and Nixon.
-Nixon: Realizing how valuable the South had become in terms of electoral votes, Nixon devises his "silent majority" strategy, which would help get McCarthy's ideology into the heart of the Republican party later on.
-Regan: Tremendous victory using an ideology similar to McCarthy's to win the south (and most of the rest of the country) makes the south the primary target of the Republican party. The change is complete.
-After Regan: Increasing tension. The sectionalism from the decades before the Civil war returns, only reversed.
[QUOTE=lazyguy;19104500]1. How is no religion due to welfare[/QUOTE]
Because when everyone has access to proper education, they are less likely to swallow up idiotic things, such as Christianity. Also, people are more likely to turn to God when they're desperate or down on their luck. Since no one/very few in Denmark are that poor and desperate, we have less religion.
[QUOTE=lazyguy;19104500]2. How is it a good thing[/QUOTE]
Most major monotheistic religions preach hatred and bigotry, and when they get so large/powerful that they start influencing politics, it's a major problem.
Personally I think religion is outdated, and I think mankind is better off without it.
[QUOTE=lazyguy;19104500]3. Do you just not want to go to church or something[/QUOTE]
Well, yes, I personally don't want to go to church, because I think it's a waste of time praying to a God I don't believe in.
[QUOTE=Sir_Theseus;19093051]I am a flamboyant, Texan, Libertarian who hates taxes, progressives, foreign intervention, FDR, Carter and Johnson. Evidently I don't agree with either party since both parties love foreign intervention and taxes more than sex. Though these two things seem retarded, many disagree. Obama being one of them, he believes we need to raise taxes. I don't know why. I'm someone who doesn't really follow a political ideal because of it's personality, I prefer the science of it.
So I'm going to start a [b]civil and open-minded[/b] political discussion based not on how much of a douchebag said person is, or how stupid something is. I want an elaborated answer to questions such as:
[list][*]Why we need this specific healthcare bill
[*]Why we should stay in Afghanistan
[*]Why we should keep our military forces based in any other country
[*]Why higher taxes will help the country
[*]Why a 1000+ page long bill should be trusted.[/list]
[b][i]Go.[/i][/b][/QUOTE]
1). The fact of it is that we as a nation need to stick with the modern world. A governments duty should be to protect the nation, but more importantly to give its people a better standard of living. We're not on top in terms of standards of living, and guess what, the nations that are have health care for all. See a trend? Now I'm not for the health care bill currently proposed, but we do need a /specific/ plan, as you vaguely put it.
2). Actually wait I agree with you here.
3). Ditto
4). Higher taxes = More money the government can spend helping you. Look at other countries, their tax rates are extremely high, yet their standard of living is very very nice. Taxes mean the government has leeway to do the awesome stuff that you use every day. IE, regulate industry (think sherman anti trust act), build highways, protect you, etc. Government isn't something bad, but if you starve it of money with what the TEA party wants, it'd become useless.
5). Well, since your arguement is pretty vague, I'm going to interpret it as you not liking it because it's 1000 pages. What 1000 pages means, is that it's damn thorough. What's more intelligent and in depth, Tolstoys War and Peace (Over one thousand pages), or Little Red Riding hood?
Oh, and libertarianism is sorta/kinda fucking retarded. The entire idea of laissez faire economics is just o_0. If you want a view of the time period when free market reigned, go back in time to the Gilded Age, before Teddy Roosevelt. Disparity of wealth was immense, cities were cramped, and the government didnt do anything about it because it was in the pocket of the corporations themselves. Workers couldnt unionize and were beaten by guards paid by corporations. People paid fifteen cents (essentially, a days wage these days), to sleep in a cramped hall. There was one instance where a company charged five cents to have the men sleep by draping their arms over a wire and cutting it to wake them up. Free market libertarianism fucks up everything. Companies wouldn't be able to be the benefactor of the people, after all, it's much easier to exploit them.
And how can you hate FDR?! The man is consistently rated one of the greatest presidents. What do you hate about him?
"This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy.
I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility.
After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.
At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.
Then, after spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, I drive back to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and the fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.
I then log onto the Internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on facepunch about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right. "
The taxes are needed because USA currently has a massive debt, but eventually they would have to increase it to support social security due to it's incoming lump of elderly requiring payout.
We have neither Bill O'Reily nor Glenn Beck. That should be all the reasons you need
[editline]03:30PM[/editline]
And Rush Limbaugh.
[QUOTE=Taishu;19131703]Because when everyone has access to proper education, they are less likely to swallow up idiotic things, such as Christianity. Also, people are more likely to turn to God when they're desperate or down on their luck. Since no one/very few in Denmark are that poor and desperate, we have less religion.
Most major monotheistic religions preach hatred and bigotry, and when they get so large/powerful that they start influencing politics, it's a major problem.
Personally I think religion is outdated, and I think mankind is better off without it.
Well, yes, I personally don't want to go to church, because I think it's a waste of time praying to a God I don't believe in.[/QUOTE]
:sigh:
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