tar

Ten Oz, I thought it was a good idea to invade Iraq. I thought it was a good idea to have the no fly zones and the sanctions for the years before. I think we should have followed Saddam all the way to Baghdad when we drove him out of Kuwait I think the Iraqis should have taken the opportunity to become a secular, democratic nation. I think it was proper to go after the Taliban. I think it was proper for Obama to kill Bin Laden in Pakistan. I would have liked it better if the Iraqis had voted Saddam out. I would have liked it better if Pakistan had arrested Bin Laden. At the time of the Iraq invasion even people high up in the military, like the guy in Willie71's video thought it very reasonable to think Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Our soldiers approaching Baghdad, were certain he would use gas in the defense of Baghdad. He did not. But at the time, not only was it possible, but considered by everyone as highly likely. I, at the time remember hearing of meetings of various of Saddam's people in Europe, with various of Bin Laden's people and such things. The reports of things that happened were sometimes true and sometimes false, sometimes propaganda driven and sometimes objective reporting. There was a GREAT deal of anti-Zionist propaganda at the time, and there was absolutely zero doubt that we were at war with stateless terrorists. Where they got there money, who they were talking to, who were their friends and what states were supporting them was unknown to us, then and even now. I knew exactly what Bush meant at the time, when he said, you are either with us or against us. I even ask that now. Declare yourself. Are you a friend of America or are you our enemy and do you wish to destroy us? m In the context of our recent discussion and the video I could rephrase the question as "are you with the Empire or are you against the Empire." Do you want to live under the wing of the Empire, or do you want to live under the wing of the Caliph, or the North Korean guy, or any of the people in the world that would burn the flag of the U.S.? I am saying it is unfair to say you are American but you hate America and what it stands for. That is like suing the company you own stock in for poor stock performance. You are suing yourself. If the place is run by 1 percent of us, so be it. It is still us that are in control. The 1 percent are on our side. I like to use the example of taking a jet to a global warming conference, to point out the kind of thing self hating Americans are exhibiting. You make yourself think you are saving the planet at the exact moment you are putting jet exhaust into the air. I will only take you seriously, that you are truly against the Empire, when you refuse every pleasure an d convenience bestowed upon you, by virtue of your membership, and your pledge of allegiance. Stop watching TV, stop driving cars and taking buses and trains and planes and boats. Stop eating food grown with fertilizers and insecticides and buying stuff transported from anywhere and built in any factory with any raw materials, before you say we should not be Americans. We have a way of life We have shared values we share with other nations of the world. There are a few states, like ISIS that we do not wish to coexist with. Those states we fight, or get defeated by. As Americans. Regards, TAR

So what is wrong with the rancher occupying the bird sanctuary and asking for the land back? Did nobody occupying the police station during the black lives matter occupation have a weapon?

I don't think you get to tell a Republican what he believes.

Willie71, What kind of logic is that? Maybe if you are not a whacko liberal commie drug addict you are not aligned with the democratic party? Regards, TAR

Willie71, "They use less racist/bigoted propaganda." I do not think I am either racist or bigoted. Others have put those intentions behind my actions. The spin or propaganda about me being racist is coming from the characterizations of my statements and actions as bigoted. As if, if I put up a Christmas light I must hate Jews. I received some neg reps for talking about Flint and suggesting the residents of Flint have some responsibility for the quality of their water, and for the poisoning of their children. They have more responsibility as residents of the town, than I do, sitting here in West Milford NJ, NOT using fertilizers or insecticides so other people in the state can have clean, healthy water...and I have a well that is affected by what my uphill neighbors, or at least those that live above the water table put in the ground. Nobody but me tests my water (after the CO) and I pay to replace the well pump when it goes, and ensure the proper protocol is followed to avoid bacteria getting down there and such. I am not respo6nsible for Flint water, because I am white, unless you say I am part of a racist nation that keeps black people as slaves and mistreats the slaves and gives them bad slave quarters to live in. I am pretty sure we fought a war to correct that situation, and I was part of the hippy movement in the sixties that helped bring blacks to the front of the bus and allowed girls to wear jeans to school like the boys and so on.r If there is institutional racism still in this country, part of that is acting as if white people should be the wards of black people. I believe that black people are no different than white people, but by the color of their skin and the lack of inherited wealth. I inherited no wealth, so I am on equal par with a black man in Flint. I do not owe him clean water. He needs to find it himself, with the help of his neighbors, and government. The people he votes for, run his town...well actually there was a manager that ran the town, but I don't know what that was about. It still is racist to think that blacks are not able to think for themselves and act on their own behalf. The responsibility for their water is theirs first, and my responsibility next. Regards, TAR I apologize. I actually did inherit some wealth. My wife's mom died and when her sister and her sold the house we got some money we used as a down payment on our house. I guess I did get a leg up.

and most importantly who you going to get the weapons from to fight the revolution, and who exactly do you intend to kill to defeat the Empire? my point being that it is our machine you want to turn off

Overtone, After watching Willie71's link I have a problem with your constant venom against the Republican party. The "empire" currently has a democrat and a populous democrat at the helm. Obama is the one that drew the red line in the sand, Obama is the one that signs the orders to kill ISIS leaders, standing in another sovereign nation, with highly expensive technology that minimizes blowing up innocents. The drones our president uses to do our bidding are not sent by just me or by just the republican elite, they are sent by you as well. Root out horrible stuff that the Empire does, but NEVER, if you want to make any sense to me, and have me view you as intellectually honest and of good intention, suggest that I am not just as responsible for what Obama does as for what Bush did. Same Empire. If you can not associate yourself with it, if you can not see that it is your strength and your power that is evident then you are being silly. For instance, if you don't like the way your company is doing something you say something, or you be silent. But there is no value or purpose in quitting, except to protect your pride and integrity, and say you will not be associated with such a place. And here, exactly here, is my argument in this thread. You are certain that without the Republican party the last 50 years would have gone differently and the world would be a utopia. No crime, no drugs, no misunderstandings, no distrust, no religious quarrels, no strongmen, no corruption, no whatever kind of evils you feel the Republican party has inflicted upon the world. Then Willie71 shows the video were a Republican says we have to stop the war machine and the Empire, by revolution...but that is exactly what our state department, and a democratic party controlled state department said about Syria and the red line in the sand. If the empire has created the revolution in Syria to sell more bombs, create death and destruction and kill children...then the democratic party is just as much a dupe as the followers of the Republican party. And my question stands. After the Sanders revolution, who will fill the power vacuum? Will China and Iran and England and France and Russia fight for our forests and our mines and our energy reserves and our farmland? Regards, TAR

Phi, I get it, that people die because they don't have health insurance. But some of the same people are poor. So I get it that poor people are more subject to life threatening things than rich people. But people can work for a company that provides health insurance options, and at least work to buy the insurance, or to have the money to pay the doctor. You say my choice is to pay 8000 a year or 4000 a year. But if I am to have 4000 worth of health care this year, why could not one of my choices be to save up money, pay for no insurance and jus pay the hospital the 4000 to do the operation and give me some pills? I go back to the purpose of insurance. To protect yourself from big expenses by continually paying a smaller amount, along with everybody else, so that if you should happen upon the big expense, the insurance company will pay. The risk is spread out among all the policy holders, and just one guy unfortunately gets the injury, by is covered by the premiums of the group. Many of the health care issues and mortality issues that are had in the states are a result of obesity or smoking, or gang violence or accidents or teen pregnancy or drug related injuries and bad behavior. Behavior. Things a person has control over themselves. Decisions that people make without asking me whether I think it safe or a good idea they do the thing. Driving drunk or taking angle dust, or what ever is a recipe for disaster. If a person behaves in these manners and does not have money to pay the doctor to patch him up, he is being rather irresponsible. If I am young and healthy and responsible, why must I pay huge sums to ensure irresponsible people have health care? If a person chooses to be homeless and drunk I might put a dollar in his cup, or help out at a soup kitchen or give him some can goods at thanksgiving. I do not exactly see why I need to support his chosen way of life, in the form of providing him with the best health care facilities in the world, t00hat took effort and money to build. But my current prob0lem is what happened yesterday. I had gone to a doctor to look at a weak ankle I had turned badly 4 or 5 years ago. He said my ligaments were stretched and short of surgery he prescribed physical therapy and gave me a name. I attended the place and got some excercises and some electric stimulation and on the fourth visit yesterday found I owed 40 dollar copay for each previous visit because my out of network deductible was so high. I had not checked if the gplace was in network, because the doctor that was in network had written the scriptt and given the name. My bad, but my wife's family plan does not have a copay, so I asked why the 40 dollars and for a bill and a description of what the cost of each visit was, and what they were going to get from my insurance company. I paid the 120 cash but could not determine how much the treatments had cost. She said the initial visit was probably 500 dollars!!!!! for going to a gym???? So I was concerned that I owed 1500 dollars and asked for a bill and an itemization and she said I didn't have to worry about it because they had not submitted it to the insurance company yet I would not have to pay any more than the 120??? She was using the term deductible and copay and such in a manner I could not make sense of, and I left without fully understanding why she could say that I had paid what I owed, AND that the visits had cost some undetermined amount at something around a 500 dollar a pop rate. If insurance rates are high, because people get 500 dollar gym visits 2 and 3 times a week for a weak ankle, then I understand why our system sucks. It has little to do with income inequality and more to do with people that use the system to charge rates for services way beyond what they would be if the patient was dealing directly with the provider. As in, I do not go to the place anymore. I can do the exercises with the rubber band they gave me, in the comfort of my family room, for approximately $0. Phi, Let me ask you this. Was killing Bin Laden a good idea or a bad one? Regards, TAR

I am not sure that a low number of deaths at the hands of Muslim terrorists at home, due to a war against them abroad, is an argument for not fighting the war abroad. It instead could be a strong argument to keep up our efforts.

Willie71, Well I don't agree with you characterizations. There is of course truth in what you say, but the fear mongering about Muslims so you can sell more bombs is not the only way to characterize the situation. I am not sure, in the Sanders movement, exactly how socialist you want to get. How much of industry and business should the government be taking over? And my main point in this thread, that I usually don't get a good response to, is the question of why you assume the worst possible intentions when it comes to a businessman, and the best possible intentions when it comes to a low level government employee. Are you and Phi arguing for socialized medicine and government takeover of hospitals and drug companies, or are you arguing for a non-repeal of Obamacare. Do you want insurance in this at all, like the different schedules in medicare and supplemental insurance and all the complications of in network and out of network and which procedures are contracted at which prices depending, or do you want anybody, anytime to walk into a clinic and get personalized care for free, on the government. How much of this tab do you think businesses should pick up? Will there be private businesses at all, or will the government own the means of production? Each of the nations you say are doing it right have different systems. Different wealth. Different industries and different owners of those industries. And different cultural demographic distributions. For instance Qatar has a great system for their citizens but treat their imported workers in a different manner. So what are you arguing? Obamacare is good? Or a repeal would be bad? Or we need socialized medicine? If the latter, can you spell it out a little better, as to who would be making the decisions, and who would be footing the bill? Regards, TAR for instance, about your characterization, is Sweden exiting 80 thousand refugees in order to sell more bombs? And whatever we have done in the last few years has not fixed our reliance on prescription drugs and drug abuse in general. I don't have the citations, but just listening around the abuse of prescription pain medication has caused a heroine problem in my town. The access to free drug programs might be an effect, might be a cause, or might be a cure. If Obamacare should be making the situation better, I am not sure its working. Speaking of following the numbers. If every time stricter gun control is mentioned, the sale of guns goes way up, I would think the best way to take guns off the street would be not to mention stricter gun control.

Look at the Arab Spring. We threw out the old, and corrupt and got ISIS and a power vacuum. If we have a Sanders revolution, who takes charge? Phi, You are welcome. Glad to be of service. Regards, TAR

Willie71, But think about it. If we have been doing it for the last 40 years, isn't it therefore pretty much the way we do it? That is, how can you and I ever know what goes on in the board rooms, nor can we tell which public policy was the brainchild of who, and paid for by who, and to who's advantage. Either we trust each other, or not. We can't just start now, and we can't start by throwing out the rich and powerful. Its not sensible and not workable. Regards, TAR

Enric, Well perhaps curious, but then again, what would be mundane and expected, other than this? Regards, TAR

Thread, Let me suggest here that I am in agreement that there is an elite that runs much of this country. Rich and powerful people that run the place. This is no different than any other country. I am sure there are as well secret clubs where substantial public policy is set. Some of this is done without our knowledge or approval but that does not mean automatically that it is done contrary to our wishes. The place runs, and I am rather sure it does not run because of the people in jail or on meth or in the mental institution, but runs because of the people on the street and on the farm and in the board room and in the church hall and in the clubs and organisations where people get together and apply their honor and their wealth to the forwarding of the nation and its values. Having Christian values is not against the constitution. Not keeping church and state separate IS against the constitution. It is against our principles to tell a person what to believe or to make a law that prevents them from worship or forces them to worship in a particular way. Now if a person would say that the Muslim faith works contrary to our constitution, this is not because it is not Christian, but because Caliphs wield power both political and spiritual. The separation of church and state is not compatible with the faith. I can be an atheist, and a believer in the constitution and religious freedom and still have Christian values. I was brought up Protestant and have the values of the Protestant work ethic, helping the poor and weak and forgiving my enemies and respecting everybody's humanity, whether yellow black or white, all are precious in his sight. I can have the values without hating non-Christians. But I can look down on folk that do not have the values, if I consider the values valuable, and if I consider not having the values, a deficit. Regards, TAR Willie71, Then I should add, that we are, as individuals, just as important as the collective. Meaning that if the union is "for" anybody in particular it is for each of us. If the collective takes the freedom away from one, it should not be considered a thing done for anybody's good. If the rancher burns a field, it is no different in principle from slash and burn farming in the tropics. It enriches the soil. It is not an act of arsine and the destruction of government property. Well it is the destruction of government property, but when I was in the service, getting a bad sunburn was considered destruction of government property and punishable. For an Oregon rancher, how to take care of the range, for the benefit of wildlife and stock is a thing they could do without the government taking over the land. Regards, TAR

I never suggested the republicans believe in different things than the democrats. That is Overtone's argument.

There is a backward argument underlying liberal strawman aguments, that conservatives are bigoted and bias against blacks and inhumane because they are privileged and won't share their wealth. That is the assumption that a black person could not possibly carry their own weight and be a strong link in the chain, without the help of a white person. If Flint Michigan is mostly black and has bad water, why is the first assumption that white people don't care about black lives. Why can't we hold the citizens of Flint responsible for their own water. Water filters and water testing kits have existed.

Where have I, as a republican, not paid my dues? Ten Oz, Diversity has already made us strong. It has however not made us socialist. Regards, TAR

Willie71, Your request is difficult for me to fulfill because the planks of the party platform are not set. Neither is such set for the democrats. But without citation, I would say Personal responsibility. Strong military. Christian values. Smaller Government. Private insurance. Less government interference in private business. Free market operation. The right to bear arms. Fight against Global terrorism. Private property and protection of personal wealth.

Ten Oz, Being diverse makes a difference, because you are more likely to trust the other guy or gal to have your back, if they are like you. I saw the headline today that Sweden was expelling half the refugees they allowed in from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Their hearts were bigger than their stomachs. Like the sexual assaults in Germany at New Years, there are differences, cultural differences to where the outsiders just don't get it. Tolerance and understanding is one thing, but just being a part of the human family is not enough. You have to get with the program. If our program is based on the Protestant work ethic and personal responsibility, and everybody is doing their best to be strong links and we help those that struggle, that is one thing. If on the other hand someone expects to be part of the club, without paying their dues, that is something else entirely. In a homogeneous society you know everybody is pulling their weight and playing by the rules and having your same ideals and attitude. In a diverse society, where there is an opportunity for cultural clashes and distrust, it is not as easy to cobble together a consensus of which way to pull the chain and who should provide the muscle. Regards, TAR

DrP, What in your mind makes a good neighborhood? Is it not the neighbors? What makes a good family? Is it not the family members? What makes a good school? Is it not the teachers and the students? What makes a good country? Is it not the people that make up the country? What makes a strong country? Strengthening the weakest link. Not fostering dependence. Your argument might have been good 50 years ago, and it caused us to develop welfare programs and social safety nets, and anti-discrimination laws, Pell grants and affirmative action. But you need a new argument 50 years later. There are not enough police to enforce the laws, we have to police ourselves. There are not enough houses to fit us all we have to build them ourselves, feed ourselves...fulfill all of Maslow's hierarchy of needs for ourselves and our families and the people we are teamed up with. I asked before that we stay out of the big city ghetto and talk about the hills and hollows of West Virginia when we talk about drugs and dependence and squalor and people acting inappropriately and being weak links. My nephew just made fireman after years of trying. He and my sister and brother in law support his two wonderful children. Talk about what is different between his behavior and the behavior of the meth/welfare/disability dependency that took his wife away...so that you understand what I am talking about, when I suggest that dependency is a bad thing, that does not help the recipient of the drug or the transfer payment to become a stronger link. It is not my nephew who took the drug. And his former wife is white. Regards, TAR

democrat republican independent trump supporter

Overtone​, ​​I am a republican. I don't like the idea of a wall, at all. I think personally we should simply enforce the laws we have and accept people legally into the country, consistent with our immigration policies. The border states should be supported in preventing undocumented workers from taking advantage of our good hearts. Mexico should get a better handle on their drug lords and we should not encourage children to come to the US to be protected. They have families and a country and their families and countries should have primary responsibility for their well being. I am not losing my marbles over the thing. You may feel I misread your posts, and blame you for hating republicans when you just hate the Koch brothers and the military industrial complex and Bush and Cheney and Reagan and Fox and the purchased press and lobbyists, but if I would associate with the Koch brothers and be impressed by their wealth and power or have been a soldier and part of the military industrial complex, and have voted for Bush and watched Fox and read newspapers and known people with long guns behind their front door, and known people exploring the nation for gas and oil and part of the fracking industry and such...then I am your enemy and the guy you constantly rail against for ruining the county and being the biggest problem in America. But while you are right, you are also wrong, because I am also the guy that lets you in on the highway, and stops and picks up your garbage can when it has blown into the street, made your copier work, made your fax work, made your scanner work, keep the Soviet Union from invading West Germany with tanks, lived next door to a drug addict who locked her bedroom door to keep her kids from stealing her drugs, wanted to rid Iraq of Saddam, wanted to rid the world of Bin Laden, wants to rid the world of ISIS, and would like to see people not be enabled to be leeches on my society, not be enabled to disrespect the law, and would like to more that all maintain my peaceful, beautiful house in the suburbs and live free of fear and ugliness, repression and hatred. I want to love and respect my neighbors and I want to extend a hand to anyone in trouble. I do not owe the world any more than I have been giving for the last half century. I take offense at you vilifying me and my desires, and your ideals of a better way, are not realistic. They are in your mind alone and do not take into account that the majority of Americans are not as smart as you, and it would be better for you to help them when they need it, than to construct an enemy in your mind, that in actuality are not the great satin you make us out to be. Regards, TAR

Ten Oz, I am all for yielding the world to my kids, but the underlying issue here, in terms of my place in the chain, is did I appreciate what was given to me, did I maintain it and make it better and am I leaving behind some contribution to humanity. I have not yet done that thing. Maybe I have in the sense that both my kids are honest, kind hardworking people. And perhaps my daughter, one year from a PhD in chemical research will add a little something to the world or my other daughter one mod away from medical assistant. Maybe I added a little something in my role of helping to bring the copying industry into the digital age. But we work with what we are given and put the next layer on the cake. In terms of the discussion of socialized medicine, I am still remembering when health benefits were a perk that a corporation offered to attract and keep great employees. Somewhere along the line that morphed into businesses owing healthcare to their workers and now that has morphed into healthcare being a human right. My thought here is that food is not even a human right. You have to work for your bread. We. as the U.S. owe trillions of dollars to bond holders and holders of treasury notes. Some old ladies who saved and invested all their lives, some old men that saved and invested all their lives, some rich spoiled kids that inherited the wealth from their daddies and the governments and bankers all around the world that view the credit of the U.S. as a good bet. We are borrowing for our kids to pay back. Someone needs to pay the piper. It is fine to say, "we are a rich country, we can afford universal health care", but the current system is bloated and whacky and tacking bigger numbers on to our children's tab is not fair to them. Phi's main argument is that other countries manage to do it, so the numbers will work out, we just need to give it a chance, but we are bigger and more diverse than some smaller, homogeneous nation in Europe. It well could go a foul around here, because people like me don't feel it fair to make me pay insurance premiums, and deductables and higher taxes and see the debt burden on my daughters grow, so somebody on welfare, who needs an operation, can get it for free. Plus private property is a standard idea in the U.S.. You don't walk on somebody else's lawn and you don't take fruit off their fruit trees and you don't pick flowers and tomatoes from their garden. My paycheck should get the same respect from Phi. And being that I am currently unemployed, my savings should be respected, and not taxed for the public good, as if I came upon the wealth by accident of birth. If we are privileged in this country it is because our forefathers and the people around us, build the place. Built the systems, built the infrastructure, built the internet, built the parks, built the factories, built the ports, built the hospitals. They did not just spring out of the ground, ready to go. I heard today on the radio, that millennials were demanding affordable housing within walking distance of the workplace??????????? Everybody wants prime real estate. That is why it costs so much. There is only a finite supply and a large demand. Regards, TAR . I was at Morristown Hospital last year visiting my dad in ICU and leaving, I ran into a group of obviously rich donors in the lobby that were coming through to view the art put up on the walls by some local artists, Rich people already care about supporting hospitals and helping doctors and nurses and staff bring quality care to sick and injured folk. We have already been doing this. It is not a new idea. Health care is not a thing that is being withheld from the masses by the elite. It is one of the many perks of living in a prosperous society...already. I do not think it is me who can't add. and as a follow up to the single payer medicaid example, I noted today that hearing tests and hearing aides are not covered by medicaid because a large number of older people have hearing loss, and it would cost too much to provide everybody with a hearing aide

Willie71, I don't have Koch type wealth. They did not pay me anything to have the opinions I have. I don't side with them or against them. They have wealth and power and they wield it. Nothing new in this country. When I drive on the highway I am happy that someone built it. The money it took to build it and put together the construction companies and the money it takes to do any big project is not the kind of money I deal in. There are rich and powerful families in this country. Old money, new money, people that own the studios and radio stations, people that own the sports teams, people that own the factories and the land and the mines and what ever. We have private ownership in this country. The state does not have the right, under normal circumstances to nationalize industry. As such, if we are fighting a war, like WWII, and we need to mobilize industry, we go to a few industrial leaders to get the job done. These people are not my enemy, just because they are rich. Regards, TAR

Overtone, I understand your desire to have an enemy to vilify. I believe it to be a human nature type of situation. I have in many threads based my thinking around what Pinker says about language and how we frame things such that the first person is good the second person neutral and the third person bad. As in I am exploring my sexuality, you are loose, and she is a slut. All talking about the same thing but framing it differently when it involves the self, or an addressee, or an outside party. But let's take a real example of a horrible thing, and frame it in our minds as if it is us, or a friend, or a fellow citizen who has been responsible for the thing to have happened. We were talking earlier about the occupation out West of Federal lands by Ranchers. About the guy with successful children and a gun in his lap who would rather die than live in prison. He is now dead. Did "WE" kill him? Was he a fellow citizen, to where he was one of "us"? My argument in this thread is that when you consider for whom the bell tolls you should understand it tolls for thee. Your argument is that since Reagan we have been doing it wrong, and since the Tea Party we have been doing it really wrong. But you do not allow as that "we" have bee n doing anything right during my entire adult life. Right now the country is split really badly and huge populace movements are lining up behind Trump and Sanders. Both of those individuals are not who I would like to see as president. Bernie way too socialist, talking about revolution and the destruction of the billionaire class, and Donald way too full of himself and unthoughtful, like a petulant child, who I would be very uncomfortable giving the nuclear codes to. But we put the birds over the rancher. This is our country, our world, we should take care of each other and take care of it, together. We can not do it without the rancher or the banker or the billionaire or the army. We cannot do it without you, Overtone, and we can not do it without me. Perhaps we can do without ISIS and without the KKK. But we cannot do without progressives and we cannot do without those who maintain the status quo. My most important theme over the last two years, in understanding language, and people and the objective world and subjetctive human existence in the world we are of and in, is that other people matter and that human judgement matters and other people, other than me are already doing it right. Most times, as right, if not more right, than I am doing it myself. I make a conscious effort to put myself in the other person's shoes and try to understand where they are coming from. What they are doing, and why. Where they get their "wins", and what can I do to support those things that are wins for me and wins for them too. People already do this. I am not the first to think of it...but the idea does not wash if you don't allow bankers and oil executives and all the people Hilary and Sanders and you want to defeat, to be equal citizens and fellow humans, fellow Americans who want to win just as badly as you and I do, and who already are on our side. . . Regards, TAR