Pangloss

In post #22:

No, I was accused of raising the issue as a red herring, meaning that I supposedly felt the opposite point of view to be correct. It was a statement aimed at me specifically. I stand by my response. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged No, that is in fact not my intent at all. It was solely to point out your error in saying that single-payer systems don't make people wait (to which you have subsequently agreed), nothing more.

It wasn't a red herring, because I'm not supporting the opposing point of view. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged That's what all partisans think, that they're just doing the same thing everyone else is doing, compromising their objectivity for an ideological goal. They're wrong.

What support? The religious right didn't show up in 2008. Perhaps they're trying to appeal to a new demographic. Incidentally, last Virgin Mary sighting I saw (we get them a lot down here), most of the crowd had Obama pins on their lapels.

Sure, but when it becomes a purchasable policy it will either cover abortion or it will not -- it won't be "neutral". But it's included here on this list as a "myth". I understand the technical accuracy of that statement, but I question the wisdom of using trickery and/or avoidance. Such tactics usually have consequences around election time. The architects of Obamacare should state their intentions, and if necessary write them into the bill. All questions should be answered in the full light of public disclosure and discourse.

Okay, thanks, so basically people who opt for Obamacare have to pay for their own abortions. I don't know if private care covers them either, so that may well make sense.

Again, you appear to missing the central point. This isn't about ability administer message. It's about audience size and receptivity to message, which is especially troubling when one takes a few nanoseconds to evaluate the tone and nature of those messages which are coming out of these groups which have secured such enormous viewership. No, I actually responded directly on point to bascule, who was indeed talking about distribution and outlet bias. I didn't say that anybody said that they had no access. First of all, when I respond politely to another poster, on a subject they have raised, politely rejecting their effort to misdirect people and change the subject again, that is not an insult or a digression on my part, and if it makes them want to "punch me in the throat" and "stab me in the eye" then I think that says much more about them than it does about me. One thing is for sure: I've never wanted to physically harm a member of this forum in retribution for something they simply posted. Wow. Second, you might want to take a quick look in the mirror yourself, Mr. Pot. I return your wooden nickel with interest: When you stop treating the SFN Politics subforum membership like it's an uneducated right-wing social voter by insulting dissenters and steering threads, you'll probably find these on-subject digressions less personally frustrating. But hey, thanks for the threat of physical violence. If nothing else it's a nice change of pace.

That telling people that single-payer systems don't have waiting lines is an error. That's it. I didn't say that there was one. You're making Partisan Logic Error #147: Assuming that anybody who disagrees with a point you make means that they support the opposition on the issue.

Well put. I often disagreed with his politics, but his place in history is incontrovertible. Interesting story today about political swirl regarding the appointment of a successor, which comes at a critical time due to the pending votes on health care this fall. I guess the Senate is below its 60-seat filibuster-proof majority now. http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/08/mass_governor_s.html

Thanks for amending your remarks.

Mkay, so you've backed off your unsupported assertions that the media is now owned by conservatives and that ELF is comparable to Rush Limbaugh et al. Good for you. You're certainly welcome to believe that the right has a significant advantage over the left in distributing its message through the mass media. I know many conservative partisans who believe the opposite. I don't agree with either you or them -- I think both sides are fully capable of administering their message. The real tragedy is that neither side has figured out that messages like that are the problem, not the solution.

Truth is not a "red herring", bascule. The fact that they also have to wait in America doesn't mean they aren't waiting in your beloved single-payer countries. If you don't want me to correct you then don't say something that isn't accurate.

Interesting article. There IS a cost (CBO estimates show a quarter-trillion-dollar-per-year impact by 2019), but over time the possibility is that the overall cost will be reduced (and in fact this is the only serious proposal that even makes the attempt to do so). I guess that's a fairly subtle point to educate people on, especially when the opposition is deliberately spinning it to sound as bad as possible. I'm confused about the abortion point -- why wouldn't "we" be paying for abortions, such as in the case of patients on Obamacare who need one?

Ok, I'm confused. Are the numbers "entirely arbitrary", or do they represent a difference in "overall cost, access, speed of service and quality"? I don't know about Denmark, but that's not always the case in single-payer systems. They get emergency care (as do Americans), but non-emergency (but still "needed") care is rationed, hence the waiting lists (and low costs).

No idea, that's a new one on me.

I agree that the audience size of liberal talk radio is smaller than the audience size of conservative talk radio. What I disagreed with in that quote was your comparison of ELF to conservative talk radio in terms of which one its relative constituency considers "nut jobs". Most conservatives consider abortion clinic bombers "nut jobs". Most liberals do not consider Air America "nut jobs". When you compare apples to apples, the two sides look about the same. Unless, of course, you happen to be deeply entrenched in one of them and not interested in the true picture. Or not. Oh please, Newscorp hardly owns every media outlet. Nor are the others so easily characterizable along political lines. But hey, go ahead and make your case -- maybe you can convince me that Vivendi and Viacom are conservative. I mean, everybody knows that Democrats only take campaign contributions from soccer moms and aging hippies, right? I also disagree that liberals can't make a successful media franchise. Jon Stewart has proven that you can produce successful outlets based around a premise of progressive advocacy. Air America just didn't find the right business model, IMO. As we know from presidential election results, the interest is there.

So 34th is okay, and 37th is not okay? Seems kinda arbitrary. I'm thinking 47th would be okay and 48th would not be okay if that's where Denmark and US ranked. Never let logic get in the way of message, I guess. Comparing systems directly is fine, I agree (e.g. they pay less but get better care). Nothing wrong with that. It's possible; I don't know all that much about him.

I don't know, but I agree that that seems to exist as well, and I think that point is very important to the discussion. I still am still undecided on this issue, but I have found myself gradually coming around to the idea of HR.3200/"Obamacare", especially after talking with some of my Canadian colleagues about the pitfalls of single-payer. Though I haven't entirely ruled out SP either, and I suspect that all systems have their weak points and all of them could be strengthened if we put our minds to it. But of all the proposals I've heard about, HR.3200 seems like the gutsiest. It may be the one that will need the most hard work and buy-in, but it's also the one that has the best chance of solving all of the recognized problems (including potential ones). It's like you say sometimes with regard to GW -- we should go for it. It's "what we do", right?

Can you elaborate on that opinion? Sure' date=' I feel that there are crazies all over the political map (as I'm sure we all agree). The word "leadership" is being broadly defined in this thread to include not only elected leaders but also talk radio hosts, bloggers, and every manner of demagogue. But there is a wide variety in that group, so it seems illogical to say that just because some "leaders" responds in an unfortunate way that therefore the entirety of Republican/conservative leadership is responsible for a very loosely-defined litany of conservative failures and shortcomings. Not all of it. Perhaps they didn't mean everyone, but Mokele's, bascule's and The Bear Key's point was a general argument against Republican/conservative leadership of the last two decades and more based on a very tenuous chain of reasoning which I felt was worth pointing out. I'm not defending heinous CTR behavior. I disagree. I don't think their approach is good, but I don't think they're responsible for the violent behavior of listeners SO LONG AS they don't cross the line (the one that Mokele indicated by example that they have sometimes crossed). When they keep it in their pants they're fine. I don't like what they do, but they're not responsible for what some idiot does after listening to their show. Sure, we don't actually disagree on what the two sides do. The only difference between us is that you see one side as better (or less worse) than the other, and I see them is being relatively equal in weight and causation for the current political state of the country. In my opinion ELF does not validly compare with Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and/or Michael Savage. A valid comparison would be between ELF and abortion clinic bombers. For the three entertainment hosts you mentioned, a valid comparison would be Air America and much of the liberal blogosphere. So conservative reporters are biased, and liberal ones are just revealing the truth. Got it. I don't know what I was thinking.

Padren, that was classic. Interesting article, though! Good question -- I found this article which may be of some assistance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_adoption It's just the Wikipedia, but it quotes a source so it might be good data. The article goes on to state that it's legal in 14 US states, and contains a list of what looks like all 50 states, showing which ones allow or disallow, etc. It lists some data for other countries as well.

Well I think you mean this kind of health care reform, but I agree that that's not in this bill. In my view it is a concern with regard to single-payer systems, but it's not a major concern with HR.3200/"Obamacare" as it presently stands. It's predicated on too many assumptions that don't seem to play out when looked at closely. One thing that we've talked about that is in there is a change that would increase awareness to the elderly of the costs of palliative care and other treatments that may be more effective if administered to other patients, giving them the opportunity to make choices with that additional information. But there's no discussion from any direction about making those choices mandatory. Nor it is an unwritten subtext -- as I understand it this was actually done in some city where they saw a tremendous decrease in per-patient cost as a result of the approach. If that's true then they don't have to make it mandatory in order to save a pile of money, so there's no need for a hidden agenda. (Apologies for not having a link to this, but I'll keep an eye out for it.) Of course that's just one relatively small program, but in general it feels like HR.3200/"Obamacare" is still quite a long ways from the kind of rationing that takes place under single-payer systems. My two bits anyway.

I found it surprising for the exact same reason that bascule found it surprising -- Lou Dobbs is a die-hard, stalwart conservative. Even if I disagree with him (which isn't at ALL a conclusion I've drawn at this point in time), I'd still respect his ability to look beyond his ideology.

I don't know of any examples of that specific act. I listed a number of examples of how the left can also support and promote violence, but I agree that it is a valid possibility that more examples of violence exist coming from the right. I have a different opinion about what it means about conservative/Republican leadership if true. Yes, and I don't like what partisans do with their support any more than you do. Whether it's ABO (Anybody But Obama) or ABB (Anybody But Bush), it's the same pointless, unreasoned nonsense. I am no supporter of conservative talk radio. To some extent, yes, but I think you're bootstrapping that to suggest that all leadership of any kind that is right of center advocates the most extreme beliefs and acts (e.g. violence). That's not a logical conclusion. In my opinion, conservatives listen to CTR for the following reasons: 1) Frustration with being told that their conservative values are wrong by the media and progressive left. 2) Anger over the perception that finding reasons for events equates to not supporting personal responsibility (which I agree is compounded rather than resolved by podium-pounding right-wing pundits). 3) Moral disgust over religious issues (similarly compounded on an erroneous basis). Those reasons all have a valid basis, even if the compounding isn't valid. That's why the appropriate kind of dialog is so important. That's why demanding that they recognize how wrong they've been and forcing them to change not only has failed to resolve anything, but it never will. They don't listen to CTR out of a secret desire to see slavery back and gays added to the auction block. And you folks on the left need to get clear on this, because the left's lack of understanding of what these people fear is holding us ALL back from some very good common goals. And I don't see where any of this has anything to do with the Republican party. In my opinion politicians are followers, not leaders. Really? You seem to have missed BOTH examples I posted, even though they got national news play in the past year. You only gave a few examples out of thousands of hours of air time. That is not sufficient to draw a conclusion that their purpose is to advocate violence, or even that they do so a significant portion of the time. Or that they're all the same, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Beck, etc. Focus on vitriol and hatred and misinformation, instead of demanding that they all advocate violence, and you will have something that's at least close to being substantive. I agree with that. Not necessarily. Since the mainstream media trends left of center we may be less exposed to eggregious examples of misbehavior from the left. Certainly some on the right think so. But I don't think it particularly matters one way or the other. You and Mokele haven't made the case that the most egregious, heinous examples of boisterous CTR hosts are what shape actual Republican policy decisions. Operation Rescue didn't work for Bill Kristol and PNAC, or represent their views. The fact that President Bush sympathized with abortion opponents doesn't mean he advocated bombing clinics. What I think is that presidential election results for the last 20 years suggest an evenly divided country in terms of general ideology, and that demagogues on both sides have whipped this country into a state in which it seems to believe that compromising with the other side is an impossibility. What I think is that the left shares equal blame for this sorry state of affairs. Well it's an interesting opinion, and one that's clearly predicated on a very loose definition of "extreme" when applied to the right, and a very narrow and specific definition when applied to the left. Ditto the word "mainstream". In short, a double standard. So in my view not an accurate reflection of what's happening. Folks, like it or not, conservatives are part of the makeup of this country. Worry less about making them wrong and spend more time listening to their concerns and finding common ground. You'll have a lot more success and a lot less frustration.

That is surprising.

Got it. I think we did kinda range over the map a good ways. No biggie. (chuckle) True enough. First of all' date=' the Republican Party has not "wrought" attacks on abortion clinics. It has condemned them, and not supported or elevated them in any way that I'm aware of.[/quote'] Bullshit. Everyone denies violence when it happens, but then they go right back to promoting it, right back to throwing around words like "holocaust" and "genocide" to whip their constituents up into a fury, right back to demonizing the opposition, right back to their supposely righteous fury. You cannot simultaneous demonize your opponent using the language of a holy war and then turn around and act surprised when someone acts in accordance with the views you express. Simple as that. ... Yeah, it's not like one the the currently most popular conservative pundits joked about poisoning a sitting senator. Or another popular conservative pundit with millions of viewers/reader "joked" about poisoning the liberal members of the Supreme Court specifically to get RvW overturned. I wasn't aware of those examples, so I guess sometimes they go to far -- no real surprise there. That doesn't mean the screaming left don't do things that are similar, and just don't get as much publicity because their based is smaller (e.g. Air America). It also doesn't show us a good statistical representation of typical Republican or conservative leadership. They certainly sound ludicrous, but not very serious or organized/planned as part of a vast right-wing conspiracy. More like poor choices or gaffs. I've listened to Beck and Limbaugh and others (as you suggest) and they don't promote violence. That's not their shtick. You also said that everyone is anti-violence after violence has happened, but I think it's revealing that your links are both denouncements. From Fox News. BEFORE any violence could occur. This would seem to support the notion that a broad attack on Republican/conservative leadership is overstating the case. This cuts to the heart of what is, in my opinion, one of the most heinous memes of ideological partisanship, both left and right, which is that the great unwashed masses, the uncircumcised philistines that make up the uncultured, sub-standard IQ majority of this country, are not responsible for their behavior. They have to be told how to behave. And more importantly, they have to be told what to believe. (And make no mistake about it -- progressive beliefs are no less religious that christian beliefs. Proof and evidence have nothing to do with it.) In my opinion that viewpoint is in error. And it's not one that's proven true by a sequence of straw men, whether it's a victim of sexual preference discrimination "proving" the progressive need for gay marriage, or a dead beautiful little girl "proving" the conservative need for aggressive sex offender legislation. Most people just aren't that stupid. And even when they are, who cares? We obsess way too much on random acts of violence and don't pay nearly enough attention to broad trends and general consensus, which is a lot more positive and upbeat and progressive. Again, just look at what Obama was able to tap into in this country. The red states just aren't as red as you seem to fear. I agree that that's something to be fought, just as ELF and some of the examples I listed must also be fought. I don't agree that it justifies a broad-based condemning of Republican/conservative causes. You don't hear me condemning Democrats because of ELF. Same thing. There's a difference between an act committed by someone who represents a specific group, both personally and officially, and someone who acts on their own who might have been influenced by others. I might go along with this, just for the sake of finding common ground: Perhaps. I understand what's behind this and agree that it's not entirely without merit.