US Health Care Reform DOA

[The Bear's Key]

If you want to have the opinion that the fact that they preferred the public option DOES mean that they now want socialism

We miscommunicated earlier. I had thought you meant independent voters never wanted the public option because it's a socialist idea and/or European-like. Obviously not, my apologies for the error.

 

Though if you didn't mean the public option, then I dont see where you're getting the socialism "preferences" from.

 

When you can show me polls showing that the majority of Americans want equal wages for all, an open border, and federal funding for abortion, then I will consider the possibility that Americans want socialism.

No one's even mentioned those, where do you get such an idea? And how do you consider the bolded socialism?

 

Until then I'm just going to remind you that the key bogeyman in far-left politics is the existence of the religious right. You aren't doing your friends any favors by pretending it isn't there anymore

Curious which post did that happen in? The bit of religion I mentioned had to do with an envangelist supportive of lefty causes, getting to the root of problems rather than depending mostly on force.

 

Here's a quote from the article I linked to.

 

 

Jim Wallis of the Sojourners stood in the Roosevelt Room for the introduction of Jim Towey as head of the president's faith-based and community initiative. John DiIulio, the original head, had left the job feeling that the initiative was not about ''compassionate conservatism,'' as originally promised, but rather a political giveaway to the Christian right, a way to consolidate and energize that part of the base.

.....

Wallis recalls telling Bush he was doing fine, '''but in the State of the Union address a few days before, you said that unless we devote all our energies, our focus, our resources on this war on terrorism, we're going to lose.' I said, 'Mr. President, if we don't devote our energy, our focus and our time on also overcoming global poverty and desperation, we will lose not only the war on poverty, but we'll lose the war on terrorism.'''

 

Bush replied that that was why America needed the leadership of Wallis and other members of the clergy.

 

''No, Mr. President,'' Wallis says he told Bush, ''We need your leadership on this question, and all of us will then commit to support you. Unless we drain the swamp of injustice in which the mosquitoes of terrorism breed, we'll never defeat the threat of terrorism.''

 

Bush looked quizzically at the minister, Wallis recalls. They never spoke again after that.

 

Plus I think you're wrong on several counts.

 

1. It's very helpful to my friends on the left to see religious people who are sensible. The neoconish ones would like us to believe otherwise, to create the illusion of a vast army of supposedly reason-devoid people we'd be up against.

 

2. My friends include those on the right as well (including the far spectrum, although I tend to dislike far anything).

 

3. The bogeyman isn't the religious right, it's the people who've hijacked both religion and the GOP.* It's helpful to my frinds on the right to expose that.

 

4. I wouldn't care if the Democratic Party crumbled if the Republicans and other parties left with them. I fairly much hate politics. Unfortunately, I continually find it's the left who's more open to that idea, a symptom possibly of how influenced the right is by their party's hijackers. I often ask people. Do yourself a favor and do the same: ask liberals, then conservatives individually -- would they rather all national parties simply didn't exist, or had far less power, instead of today's world situation? Keep in mind this is while Democrats are "in power", I still would bet on liberals being the one to more want the diminishing of parties, unless it's somehow different where you live.

 

Sure, okay, whatever, Dems are saints, Repubs are sinners

Well just claiming Democrats return to power and do X^2 isn't real validation, especially where I showed that Democrats have gone the reverse of what the hijacked Republicans did.** And guess what, instead of the cycle breaking, the hijacked Republican leadership just did worse on its turn next.

 

If you really want even more proof, all I can say is prepare yourself for avalanche.

 

However, that doesn't mean the Democrat leadership are saints. They might also be hijacked, I just see their power as more insignificant....for now.

 

But enlighten us as to how one party can never be far worse than another? It happened in Germany and many places. Often I wonder how: citizens tired of debating politics, or claiming none of the parties are saints. Hell, of course no party's ever a group of saints, but....

 

Europe is awesome, America sucks. You two have fun with that

It'll be difficult to, when looking over you're having such tons of fun with the straw man.

 

Let's highlight a potent fallacy among the Right. They bemoan how the U.S. is a liberal wasteland, that its government steals money from our paychecks, its government's inefficient, U.S. is full of decadence, its leadership wants our guns, its media's biased and liberal, its justice system weak vs terrorist cases, etc.

 

Yet when liberals point out the flaws of a system (corrupted by the hijacked politicians/religions/economy), of course their view must be America sucks, so why don't they go live elsewhere? So I often ask just that of conservatives who bitch and moan of the nation's state -- if only to jar their beliefs which are set in a concrete of propaganda.

 

The fallacy you've made is because we don't view it as "the U.S. sucks". Rather, its leadership has been corrupted, and often by the very same corrupters who are saying America is great.

 

Please try to understand the strategy in that.

 

If you hijack a good institution and craft a selfish plan, by getting everyone focused on the righteousness and goodness of said institution, and you mask your plan within its righteousness/goodness, blended seamlessly in -- and even maybe wielding power of law -- then you can easily make whoever tries to fight vs your schemes appear to be whatever enemy you'd like them to be.

 

The strategy is two-fold. The hijacker also wants us to believe, mistakenly, it's an insurmountable tide of people we're up against (i.e. the moral majority and the Christian Coalition). Thus instead of pinpointing the actual culprit hijacker(s), we sometimes in error blame the hijacked institution.

 

Can you look beyond that error to the heart of the issue?

 

 

* (Dems too, worry not )

 

** From now on I might use "hijacked Republican leadership/etc" to distinguish them from the valid and important conservative values that do still exist in places.

Edited January 26, 2010 by The Bear's Key
added some bits and pieces for clarification

[bascule]

The lesson here is that in attempts to compromise the bill in order to satiate conservative Democrats, it's turned into a horrible morass which is a shell of the healthcare we were originally promised.

 

The latest news is that the pre-existing condition exemption may only apply to those who are less than 19 years old:

 

Insurers could not deny coverage to children under the age of 19 on account of pre-existing medical conditions.

 

What exactly does this bill do again, besides business as usual with a huge government subsidy for the insurance companies? Yes, the net effect is more (not all) Americans end up insured, but is this really the best we can do?

[npts2020]

In my opinion a large part of the problem is the notion that every activity involving commerce has to be done for a monetary profit and anything else is "socialism", which of course every American knows is a bad thing. It seems that universal health care is only a good thing if we can make enough money off of it and seemingly enough people on both sides of our one-party system agree with this. I don't know or really care too much what kind of horse trading has gone on to water down a mediocre bill to something so odious that even many supporters of changing the system cannot support it but here we are with a health care system that is ranked below countries like San Marino and Costa Rica. Maybe a solution would be to not allow any kind of negotiation outside of public scrutiny? Kind of reminds me of certain negotiations that went on prior to crafting an energy bill a couple of years ago.

[Pangloss]

Oh really? Seems you were knocking both Europe and liberal Dems earlier:

 

How is this any different than "Moderate conservatives are saints, liberals are sinners, Europe's a bunch of hippies, America is fine the way it is"?

 

I didn't say you did anything wrong to post it, I just said I wasn't interested in arguing the point. I respect your opinion and it's just different from mine.

 

 

We miscommunicated earlier. I had thought you meant independent voters never wanted the public option because it's a socialist idea and/or European-like. Obviously not, my apologies for the error.

 

Thanks, no worries.

 

No one's even mentioned those, where do you get such an idea? And how do you consider the bolded socialism?

 

I'm aware of that, and I'm indicating what would convince me that the greater public is moving in that direction. I understand those particular items are not socialist in nature. I'm not talking about ideologies, I'm talking about observing American political behaviors (and I'm posting my opinions about those behaviors -- I'm not so foolish as to believe that my opinion is never wrong).

 

The bit of religion I mentioned had to do with an evangelist supportive of lefty causes, getting to the root of problems rather than depending mostly on force.

 

In order for Americans to move in the direction of socialism the evangelical movement would have to first either end or be essentially dismantled and reconstructed.

 

Well just claiming Democrats return to power and do X^2 isn't real validation, especially where I showed that Democrats have gone the reverse of what the hijacked Republicans did.** And guess what, instead of the cycle breaking, the hijacked Republican leadership just did worse on its turn next.

 

You haven't actually "shown" that, you've just picked singular examples that suggest it. A partisan for the right would pick different examples and try to make their side look better, and what would this accomplish in the end? This is why both sides have a media watch organization that claims to be non-partisan but in reality is just a shill for one side or the other (Media Matters for America for the left, and the Media Research Center for the right, both of which originally claimed to be non-partisan, but now have given up on that and openly admit that their purpose is to expose the bias of the opposition in the media).

 

If you recall the actual quote, I didn't say that Democrats had acted worse than Republicans -- the next phrase in that sentence had Republicans at X^4. I picked the parties at random for that sentence, and could just as easily have reversed the starters and the responders -- as far as I am concerned, they are the same -- they're BOTH responders, and that's the problem. Who is worse is irrelevant.

 

Again, that's just my opinion. You're welcome to disagree.

 

If you really want even more proof, all I can say is prepare yourself for avalanche.

 

You seem to feel that there's an "avalanche" of evidence that Democrats have behaved in a more bipartisan manner. But all I have to do is point at MRC and MMA (as mentioned above) to show that both sides have "avalanches" of examples at their disposal. Yah I know we're talking about legislative behavior, not media behavior, but I think it just demonstrates the point that there is no shortage of circumstantial, singular examples that both sides have available to throw at one another. No shortage whatsoever.

 

So by all means, you're welcome to believe that one side behaves better than the other side. You've got a supporter in bascule and others here (which of course does not mean that the three of you are correct).

 

I disagree.

 

But enlighten us as to how one party can never be far worse than another?

 

I haven't made that claim, nor do I believe that to be the case.

[The Bear's Key]

bascule wtf you probably have only so much time for enjoying yourself overseas, why spend any posting here.

 

Why, you can always jot down plenty of those experiences to share aftwerwards (lots of goodies hopefully). Unless it's not your first time in Europe.

 

Also...pictures of cool stuff! (Women too)

 

In order for Americans to move in the direction of socialism the evangelical movement would have to first either end or be essentially dismantled and reconstructed.

Who mentioned socialism? The evangelist talked about fighting the roots of poverty, nowhere did he talk about social programs. Did I miss it somewhere? And if so, would you be a kind chap and point out where?

 

 

If you recall the actual quote, I didn't say that Democrats had acted worse than Republicans -- the next phrase in that sentence had Republicans at X^4. I picked the parties at random for that sentence, and could just as easily have reversed the starters and the responders

That does create a problem of misunderstanding when no one knows you're no longer describing reality, unaware of the switch to random figures.

 

-- as far as I am concerned, they are the same -- they're BOTH responders, and that's the problem. Who is worse is irrelevant.

Ok, I got it. For purposes of your conversation and its point, who's worse is irrelevant. There's little I can disagree with in that. However, for problem solving, who's worse is very relevant. But it's not like Dems get a pass. The entire system needs overhaul and that includes both parties.

 

Also, when I said earlier they might be playing good cop / bad cop, note that like in relativity, from whichever political frame a viewer's in, their own party's going to appear to be the "good" cop. What I'm suggesting is their leadership might be partially in cahoots, the rest of the party's lawmakers unawares or only slightly aware -- more than the general public is, anyhow. I've worked setting up event tours for both presidential candidates, and behind the scenes there's hardly any difference in the two parties. Both use much of the same props, ground and lighting crew, decorations, microphones, televised setups, order catalogs (i.e. for banners, all the way down to the color schemes), etc. It's really amazing. Plus the media says nothing of what goes on backstage.

 

Again, that's just my opinion. You're welcome to disagree.

What's the point of that? Co-solutions are far more productive than disagreement.

 

 

 

You seem to feel that there's an "avalanche" of evidence that Democrats have behaved in a more bipartisan manner.

Can't help it, there is. I back it up with specific examples. And I, like you, do often acknowledge how wrong I might be. For all we know, the Democrat leadership's heads could just be playing innocent pussies who are "thwarted" by nasty Republicans at every turn.

 

I see it differently, however. The majority of both Democrat and Republican leaders are in fear of those who've highjacked the topmost Republican leadership.

 

Still, I yearn for the day both(/all) parties get exposed for what they really are. It seems politics went through globalization long before we heard about industry doing so.

 

 

But all I have to do is point at MRC and MMA (as mentioned above) to show that both sides have "avalanches" of examples at their disposal. Yah I know we're talking about legislative behavior, not media behavior, but I think it just demonstrates the point that there is no shortage of circumstantial, singular examples that both sides have available to throw at one another.

Pangloss, having a support group doesn't make a party bad. It's what the support group does that matters.

 

Yet I hardly care for the above support groups. More important than the ones you highlighted is true freedom of the press. i.e less ownwership by media conglomerates, more independent public broadcasting, transparency, and so forth. Organizations do exist for that. My question to you: are they usually seen as progressive or conservative? And more importantly, why?

Edited January 26, 2010 by The Bear's Key

[Pangloss]

Who mentioned socialism?

 

I did. I said that the fact that the people wanted a public option didn't indicate that they want that kind of reform. This was challenged. That's where that came from.

 

 

Ok, I got it. For purposes of your conversation and its point, who's worse is irrelevant. There's little I can disagree with in that. However, for problem solving, who's worse is very relevant. But it's not like Dems get a pass. The entire system needs overhaul and that includes both parties.

 

Cool.

 

 

Also, when I said earlier they might be playing good cop / bad cop, note that like in relativity, from whichever political frame a viewer's in, their own party's going to appear to be the "good" cop. What I'm suggesting is their leadership might be partially in cahoots, the rest of the party's lawmakers unawares or only slightly aware -- more than the general public is, anyhow. I've worked setting up event tours for both presidential candidates, and behind the scenes there's hardly any difference in the two parties. Both use much of the same props, ground and lighting crew, decorations, microphones, televised setups, order catalogs (i.e. for banners, all the way down to the color schemes), etc. It's really amazing. Plus the media says nothing of what goes on backstage.

 

That's interesting. The business of politics has to look pretty similar most of the time, I suppose, but I agree that it does seem to "feed the beast", in the sense of perpetuating the disconnect between politicians and what people actually need, and elevating the influence of third parties with money. It's a good point.

 

 

Can't help it, there is. I back it up with specific examples. And I, like you, do often acknowledge how wrong I might be. For all we know, the Democrat leadership's heads could just be playing innocent pussies who are "thwarted" by nasty Republicans at every turn.

 

I see it differently, however. The majority of both Democrat and Republican leaders are in fear of those who've highjacked the topmost Republican leadership.

 

Still, I yearn for the day both(/all) parties get exposed for what they really are. It seems politics went through globalization long before we heard about industry doing so.

 

That was well put.

 

 

More important than the ones you highlighted is true freedom of the press. i.e less ownwership by media conglomerates, more independent public broadcasting, transparency, and so forth. Organizations do exist for that. My question to you: are they usually seen as progressive or conservative? And more importantly, why?

 

I don't know if there are any organizations that are free of influence. Lack of "media conglomerate" ownership is certainly no guarantee. Public radio is not free from political influence, or even corporate influence. It may not be possible to have such. But that doesn't mean they're necessarily liberal or conservative. I don't think Fox News is conservative because its board of directors or ownership is conservative, I think it's conservative because it perceived a marketing niche in being so. But at other institutions it may be more of a long-term trend influenced by reporters and management, possibly without realizing it. That's what Bernard Goldberg thought about its presence at CBS, for example.