What Is Americas Biggest Problem?

[Willie71]

Tar, I suggested that not believing what the current Republican Party is saying suggests you might not be a republican anymore. You have said they are your team, and you support them. You can't have it both ways. Some of these points have been things you claimed the Republican Party stands for, and we have shown you it doesn't. It's not believing in everything. I asked about the core values. Electing trump or Cruz = carpet bombing hundreds of thousands of people. Elect them, and you are responsible for that. They made it clear this is what they would do. So yes, since you said you would vote for those guys, you are being called out. The only republicans with reasonable positions on national defense are Paul and Kasich. They aren't who you said you would vote for.

 

The fact that large corporations employ people is what? Do they pay their fair share of taxes? Do they pay a living wage? Do they leave the environment in the same condition they found it? Do they buy politicians to rig the game, removing competition?

 

You look at one criterion, and that ends the critical thinking for you. (What you described several posts ago was actually problem solving, not critical thinking btw.)

 

Anecdote: tl/dr. Irrelevant.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Willie71

[tar]

Ten Oz,

 

I did not say that this is what republicans believe and this is what democrats believe. I gave a list of 10 things I thought republicans that I know, believe in that were consistent with what I believe in to show that a conservative can have an ideological stance based on reason and facts, as in an atheist could come upon the same belief as church goer. I did not say that these positions were only ones republicans would have, nor that there are no examples where a republican did not hold the thought, nor that you could not characterize each position any way you wanted. I the 10 as a request for what I thought republicans believed in. For each one, objections were made, like what about this time the thing was not lived up to, or that is really code for bigotry, or you don't really believe that, or why do you think democrats don't do that.

 

Willie71,

 

I said I would NOT vote for Cruz or Trump but might for a more reasonable candidate, like Paul or Kasich. Its a party primary, where republican voters are looking for an acceptable candidate to forward the republican cause. It is not up to a democrat to decide who among the field is a good candidate. You, if you are a democrat are going to vote against the guy or girl anyway, because your philosophy aligns more generally with the democrats. You, poor souls only have two choices now that your only reasonable choice has lost the caucus. Paul has just dropped out on the Republican side, so I am left with Kasich to vote for on primary day. We do not even know who the Republican party is going to put up against who on the democratic side. Maybe Sanders, a socialist. Maybe Hilary, champion of the gays, and poor, and women up against a glass ceiling. But who is to represent the rest of us on the Democrat side?

 

Is there no democrat who is a homophobe? Is there no Democrat that fears walking at night in the inner city? Is there no democrats that earn over 50K a year?

 

Are there any Reagan democrats? Anybody that would vote for a non teaparty, reasonable, fact checking individual, if the republican party should find one to put up for national election?

 

This thread currently has two candidates for biggest problem with America. One put up by Overtone, is the Republican party.

 

The other, put up by me, is party line voting, and the inability of a democrat to give a republican the benefit of the doubt and the inability of a republican to give a democrat the benefit of the doubt.

 

Overtone's choice is defeated by her mere mention of it, and my choice is shown to be the actual biggest problem.

 

I have won the argument 100 times already.

 

This is not to say that we should not be ruled by sensible fact checking atheists, adept at critical thinking.

 

But when it comes to America having a problem, it can not be either party, because each party is made up of the exact same people that make up America in the first place.

 

Regards, TAR

Like Rubio said. "Yeah, Sanders would make a great president...of Sweden".

And if it would come down to Kasich and Sanders I would vote Kasich. If Sanders would win, then America wants to be a social democracy, and I would live in a social democracy and progressives would be happy. But he couldn't get a darn thing done, unless we voted in socialist house members and socialist senate members to support his agenda.

That is like having an Arab spring and not expecting any resistance from the king.

Edited February 3, 2016 by tar

[Phi for All]

But when it comes to America having a problem, it can not be either party, because each party is made up of the exact same people that make up America in the first place.

 

This is the wrongest thing I think you've EVER said. Way to go.

[Willie71]

Tar, you can't move the goalposts and be taken seriously.

 

Your questions re: democrats are confusing. Of course democrats feel fear, and many make over 50k/year. Some will be homophobes. So what? Their party isn't using those fears to push obscene policies that hurt a lot of people. Yes they are obscene, just like Germany pushed obscene fear based policies in the 1930s. This isn't Godwin's law, as the policies compared side by side are very similar.

 

If you believe you have won any argument here, you are delusional. You have not provided anything but rambling anecdotes, misrepresented others' positions, and avoided admitting where you were proven wrong.

 

Tar, I misread you on Cruz and Trump. I was wrong on that. See how easy that is? I have been corrected several times this thread. Reasonable people admit they are wrong when they get better information.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Willie71

[iNow]

I was wrong once. It was a Tuesday.

[MigL]

Are you sure ?

Could've sworn it was a Wednesday.

[tar]

Willie71,

 

I started in this thread with a suggestion that our biggest problem in America is that we don't give the other person the benefit of the doubt.

 

I move no goalposts to point out that we don't give the people who we think are causing us problems, the benefit of the doubt.

 

All the problems we face, can not all be my fault.

 

I take responsibility for driving my car and living in the suburbs, where things are not within walking distance. I drove down to Virginia to visit my daughter and uncle the other week and added a lot of carbon monoxide to the atmosphere. I am guilty. I am part of the reason why the sea levels are rising and the storms are increasing. I do some things to recycle and use less energy and keep my house a little cooler in the winter then some would like, etc. I don't deny anything. I know the seas are rising, I know the ice is melting, I know the coral is at risk and things will be worse in 100 years if we don't do something. But lets do something, not blame the other guy for ignoring the problem. If the thing you want done though, is for me to not go down and see my daughter, though, I am not sure I am onboard. There are those that deny global warming, perhaps many associated with the selling of fossil fuels. And these people are most likely rich republicans. But to demonize them at the same time as you fill up your tank or eat your vegetables trucked in from the farm, is not reasonable.

 

I knew when I was 18 that I could not breath without taking somebody else's oxygen. That never stopped me from breathing, nor did I ever feel I was therefore doing a bad thing to breath.

 

We have to share this place with billions of others. I long ago understood I should only have 2 children...replacement numbers. I stopped at 2. Do people that had three and four and five and six children owe me some consideration for hogging more than their share of resources? If my life style uses more resources than the life style of a person living in a crowded city...must I move to the city and live like them? Do I owe them a credit, for not using up resources? Do I get anything for not buying new stuff and using my father's throw aways?

 

Willie71, I am not moving the goal posts. I tell stories to make a point. My arguments in this thread are to point out we are all in this boat together and what makes America strong is when we forget our differences when it comes to maintaining the union.

 

What to do about global warming, ISIS, drugs, education, wealth distribution, racism, sexism, guns, suicide, mass murders and any other problem facing us, are arguments that I may or may not be on your side on. Those arguments I am not even interested in winning or losing in terms of this thread and my arguments are directed toward proving that what I think is the biggest problem in America, is more correct than Overtone's argument.

 

My argument has been the same, the same goal posts all along. Overtone says that the republican party has done nothing but destroy her country, and destroy the planet, and destroy America's moral standing in the world. The republican party has contributed to all those problems, but not without the help of republicans like me. And while I am guilty of many a sin, I am as well responsible for many a fix and have helped to maintain the world, and mow my grass and paint my house so the people driving by have something nice to look at, and have raised two wonderful daughters. I have lived my life with the assistance of the police and my neighbors and the military and the corporations and the government that is half maintained by the republican party. The power structure of the country is arguably mostly republican, being that the wealth and power is concentrated in the corporate board room, and the pentagon, and the country club, and the Elks club, and where ever else there is liable to be more republicans than democrats.

 

Regards, TAR

I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.

Perhaps, rather than making me prove that Sarah Palin is not an idiot (which would be an impossible task), I should make you prove that the board members of every major corporation in the country, are idiots.

Let me here apologize to the Netherlands for my contribution to global warming. I hope I can help do more to slow the trend. With the help of good corporate citizens. Perhaps someone on this thread can design a way to take some heat out of the ocean and beam it into space or deep into the earth. And the industrial complex in our country can build out the system that would get the job done.

Edited February 3, 2016 by tar

[Ten oz]

TAR, you where clearly asked the below questioned by Willie71

Can you post a list, say 10 points, outlining what you think the Republican Party stands for? Try to fact check them please. I think you are holding on to an idea of what the Republican Party is that is no longer true.

You responded with a list. You noted that it was tough but provided a list that you felt Republicans stand for.

 

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,

I did not say that this is what republicans believe and this is what democrats believe. I gave a list of 10 things I thought republicans that I know, believe in that were consistent with what I believe in to show that a conservative can have an ideological stance based on reason and facts, as in an atheist could come upon the same belief as church goer. I did not say that these positions were only ones republicans would have, nor that there are no examples where a republican did not hold the thought, nor that you could not characterize each position any way you wanted. I the 10 as a request for what I thought republicans believed in. For each one, objections were made, like what about this time the thing was not lived up to, or that is really code for bigotry, or you don't really believe that, or why do you think democrats don't do that.

WHAT?!

 

Stop it. You were asked a direct question, answered, were responded to, and now you are playing catch me if you can. Shall we start over? Back to square one;

Can you post a list, say 10 points, outlining what you think the Republican Party stands for?

[tar]

Yes. I did that already.

I saw this, just now, and think it reflects some of the issue I am talking about concerning the tendency to find fault with "them" that are not "us".

 

I cite it, because it is not America that is being xenophobic, but France.

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/6-in-10-french-people-think-jews-are-responsible-for-anti-semitism-survey-finds/ar-BBp5nSG?ocid=spartandhp?

 

while rich people are not from another country, poor people show a intense and unjustified hatred or fear of them

 

I wonder what the word for this hatred would be.

Ten Oz,

 

Well if we are to start over, can you tell me what you think America's biggest problem is, so I can make a judgement, as to whether I think it is a bigger problem than having fear and disrespect and intolerance of the other side of the aisle and thinking the other side of the aisle is the enemy to be defeated.

 

Over the last few days I have heard from several candidates for the presidency of the U.S. that they wanted to take the country back. Rubio said it. Hilary said it.

 

Take it back from who? Don't we already have it?

 

Regards, TAR

well wait

 

while I am enjoying this discussion, I am constantly feeling that I am making excellent points and nobody, or very few people are getting those points

 

instead I am being asked to defend stupid positions I don't even hold

 

while I don't mind arguing for my positions, it is impossible for me to argue for positions I do not hold

 

My wife was yelled at one day by a neighbor because the neighbor's tied up dog had barked viciously at her and my wife had yelled back at the dog, and the neighbor had yelled at my wife for yelling at the dog. Later that night the woman attempted suicide and was rescued by neighbors and police and ambulance. In the fray she told everyone she had seen me, through the garage window, abusing my daughters. How can I defend myself against such accusations? The woman was crazy and could not have ever seen such a thing, because I never did such a thing.

But just my telling the story, the mention of it, makes everybody wonder if I abused my daughters and am lying, on top of being a child molester and a bad parent.

 

My wife and daughters know the truth. I know the truth. Who knows what an enemy of mine might think is the truth.

 

Those of you who know and trust me will give me the benefit of the doubt.

 

Those of you who think I am voting for horrible people might find it easy to believe that I abused my daughters in the garage.

[overtone]

I cringed the same as any other reasonable person when Cruz said he would carpet bomb ISIS, or Trump said he would keep out Muslims until we could figure out what is going on, or Hilary answered that she is proud to be the enemy of the drug companies, the republicans and the Iranians, or when Sanders says he is going to give everybody health care and college and make the superrich pay for it through a political revolution.

With the difference being:

 

Cruz actually said that and it's an obviously horrible idea;

Trump actually said that and it's an obviously bad idea;

Hillary said something not quite like that and it's not clear whether what she did say is a bad idea;

Sanders did not say that and what he did say is probably a good idea.

 

And neither Hillary or Sanders has said anything else as stupid and horrible as Cruz, or as poorly considered and bad as Trump, there - but both Cruz and Trump have matched those quotes with others just as bad. Many others.

 

See, it's not just two sides and politics: reality is involved.

 

 

In this discussion, with overtone leading the pack, every thing wrong with America is being brought up. America, a very multifaceted place, with 318 million people, each with a mother and father, many with sisters and brothers, each with different wills, desires, intentions, capabilities, moral rules and each with various teams they belong to and rely upon. Yet overtone can think it reasonable that everything that is wrong is the result of the Republican Party.

Nothing there is true of my posting. Nowhere, anywhere, have I claimed that everything wrong with America is the fault of the dumpster fire that the Republican Party has become since Nixon. I don't even think all the bad stuff is the fault of the fascists and fundies that the Republican strategists lured from the Democratic Party and other places, and gathered into that one dumpster under the Republican tent.

 

The direction of implication is this: Republican Party -> bad. The other direction, bad -> Republican Party , is not mine.

 

 

and my company's products were energy star compliant and we designed our plastic covers to be recyclable and remanufactured equipment and had a place where we ground up old equipment and extracted the various plastics and metals and recycled them. The company cared very deeply about corporate citizenship and taking care of the environment. Already concerned, in big, meaningful ways about global warming. I even launched a product that allowed for sharing pdfs on devices during meetings so you did not have to make copies of presentations that would waste paper, and remove a carbon sequestering tree from the forest. Imagine that, a corporation, that makes copiers, designing a product, that allows you not to use paper.

Do you figure that, a republican thing or a democrat thing?

 

That's a thing opposed by the current Republican Party in almost every respect, from acknowledging the dominant human role in climate change and threats, to EPA programs and "environmental" interferences with corporate profitmaking, to international agreements governing environmental issues of energy consumption. There are Republican candidates for President - with standing, not rejected by the Party - who not only want to cut EPA funding (those bills passed the House recently), but have officially attempted to get rid of the EPA altogether.

Edited February 4, 2016 by overtone

[Ten oz]

@ TAR, why is it so difficult for you say which policies of the Republican Party you support? You are saying they are more aligned with you and the people you know but then can not provide examples of anything done by the party over the years that is consistant with what you believe. You have been provided ample clarification so it can't be that you do not understand the question. Rather you are not intellectually honest enough to speak to the truth. Republican economic policy has fail, they have flip flop nurmerous times on healthcre issues, their foriegn policy efforts literally aided AlQuada and Osama Bin Landin, their stance toward science are an affront to sanity, and so on.

 

What seems aligns you with the Republican party is their cynical, race baiting, us vs them rhetoric. No actual policies align you with them. You view yourself as an "us" and not as a "them" making you more authentic somehow. You just like Republican talking points. You enjoy hearing about welfare queens and feeling justified in not wanting muslims in your neighborhood. You have been provided many chances to dispell such an assumption on my part and just tell me which policy based reasons you support the Republican party but has refused to. You just like their gamesmanship. You just like the idea that you are more the inheriter of our history than "them".

 

Here is the actual Republican political platform of 2016:

https://www.gop.com/platform/

 

Here is the actual Democratic political platform of 2012: "What follows is our 2012 platform — a declaration of how we plan to move America forward during President Obama’s second term. Our next platform will be released in the summer of 2016."

https://www.democrats.org/party-platform

 

 

How about you review what each party is look to do and we talk about that? Enough with stories about your wife and neighbors dog. Enough with you claiming every equal and some Democrats this and some Republcans that. Just review the platforms and see what the actual positions are.

Edited February 4, 2016 by Ten oz

[tar]

Ten Oz,

 

I reviewed them, and agree with all of them...but its what each is code for, and what each of them is for and the debate behind each issue that jumps out at me.

 

I have gotten republican polls in the mail, and I never answer them, because they are framed in such a way as you can not put your rider on the thing.

 

I have the same problem reading the democratic platform. I like the title, but I might not like the plot, or the characters and the way it plays out and what it "means", in reality.

 

When I answer your questions, and tell you what I believe, in a way that qualifies what I mean by each of the terms you show me where your qualifications are not maintained by the republican party. That I must be insincere because I say what I want, and the republican party platform does not reflect it, and the republican party does not live up to their platform planks. So I point out where the democrat platform is code for this and that that I am hesitant to sign up for and you distill it down to the talking point that makes you right, and me wrong...regardless of the fact that I just explained my thinking, and it made sense.

 

Today on the news a commentator asked Santorum, who had dropped out and put his support behind Rubio, what Rubio had ever accomplished, and he could only come up with a few stances on a few things, basically not able to come up with anything, because nothing was accomplished. Then I heard Christie hammering Cruz along the same line. That he had no executive experience, and just rattled off the same speech every time he talked, and his handlers picked the questioners at his town halls, and that he could not actually do the job of president. Christie has a good point. He also might have ordered traffic problems on the GWB to embarrass a political rival.

 

 

There are ins and outs and riders and spin and code on everything. I don't have to like Palin, to like an idea she has.

 

Hillary and Sanders where arguing over who is progressive and who is moderate.

 

I am now listening to Anderson Cooper asking Hilary about taking 675,000 from Wall Street, and voting for the Iraq war.

 

Whether you give Hilary the benefit of the doubt might depend on whether you are a pacifist, or a socialist, or a libertarian or a conservative. People that support different people forgive them their sins, and look for goodness. People that do not support someone, add up all the cons and do not want to see any pros.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited February 4, 2016 by tar

[Ten oz]

Ten Oz,

 

I reviewed them, and agree with all of them...but its what each is code for, and what each of them is for and the debate behind each issue that jumps out at me.

 

I have gotten republican polls in the mail, and I never answer them, because they are framed in such a way as you can not put your rider on the thing.

 

I have the same problem reading the democratic platform. I like the title, but I might not like the plot, or the characters and the way it plays out and what it "means", in reality.

 

When I answer your questions, and tell you what I believe, in a way that qualifies what I mean by each of the terms you show me where your qualifications are not maintained by the republican party. That I must be insincere because I say what I want, and the republican party platform does not reflect it, and the republican party does not live up to their platform planks. So I point out where the democrat platform is code for this and that that I am hesitant to sign up for and you distill it down to the talking point that makes you right, and me wrong...regardless of the fact that I just explained my thinking, and it made sense.

 

Today on the news a commentator asked Santorum, who had dropped out and put his support behind Rubio, what Rubio had ever accomplished, and he could only come up with a few stances on a few things, basically not able to come up with anything, because nothing was accomplished. Then I heard Christie hammering Cruz along the same line. That he had no executive experience, and just rattled off the same speech every time he talked, and his handlers picked the questioners at his town halls, and that he could not actually do the job of president. Christie has a good point. He also might have

Zero actual policy in this post! Believe it or not TAR the politicians we elect do things. They allocate trillions of dollars, enforce law, write law, invade countries, sign treaties, and etc, etc, etc. It isn't enough for you to vaguely make comparisons between your behavior in this thread and some comment Rick Santorum recently made.

 

From the Republican platform on energy - https://www.gop.com/platform/americas-natural-resources/

-open the outer continental shelf to energy exploration

-opening the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for exploration and production of oil and natural gas

-approving the Keystone XL Pipeline

-build new nuclear power plants

- NO tax dollars spent on renewable enegry

 

Do you support those policies? If so why or why not? I started with energy because each of the above is real policy. No hidden code or framing. Easy to define and isolate policy. Nothing ambigious.

[tar]

As a person investigating the meaning behind language, and the workings of the human mind, consciousness, subjectivity and objectivity, and trying to act as middle man, between people of fact and people of faith, I lose, whether I make a good point or not.

 

In the overall scheme I have realized that I have true enemies in this world. Common enemies of America and my way of life. In this, I am on the team of EVERY American, and on the team of everybody living the American way of life.

 

If the republican platform serves to maintain America and my way of life, it is good.

If the democrat platform serves to maintain America and my way of life, it is good.

[Ten oz]

As a person investigating the meaning behind language, and the workings of the human mind, consciousness, subjectivity and objectivity, and trying to act as middle man, between people of fact and people of faith, I lose, whether I make a good point or not.

 

In the overall scheme I have realized that I have true enemies in this world. Common enemies of America and my way of life. In this, I am on the team of EVERY American, and on the team of everybody living the American way of life.

 

If the republican platform serves to maintain America and my way of life, it is good.

If the democrat platform serves to maintain America and my way of life, it is good.

Cool, can we discuss actually policy now?

[tar]

Ten Oz,

 

Yes I support them in that they reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and make it possible for us to starve ISIS of oil revenue, and keep oil prices low and weaken Russia who gets much strength from high oil prices, and gives us more leverage against the Saudis and the Iranians should we have policy or human rights differences with them. The NO tax dollars for renewable energy is not the best way to go. We should be working on renewable resources on a national scale. But we should do it in a thoughtful way. For instance just saying solar does not mean you have made a sound sustainable economic decision. It takes materials and labor to make panels. You have to dig mines and build factories and forges to build huge wind turbines marching like huge robot invaders across the landscape. Somebody is going to own these turbines. The people that built them, or the people that lease them out, will profit. I get calls almost every day, from somebody who wants me to invest in solar panels on my roof. I always hang up, because I think they have a racket going, talking about government subsidies that would help me make it happen, when I KNOW that there is some angle they have, where they will make money, and some way, where I will wind up paying for something, I won't even own.

 

So yes, we should be investing, as a nation, in renewable energy, but picking winners and losers in any government policy or program is going to happen. There is for instance no purpose in having a hybrid car, if the electricity you are charging up with, is generated by a coal fired plant.

 

I would like government money spent in new technology that would solve the problem on a big scale, to go along with what each individual and each company can voluntarily do to recycle and reduce their energy expenditures and the amount of trees they need to cut down. I don't want to lose my gas powered car, my gas powered blower, my gas powered lawnmower and my gas powered snow thrower, and my gas powered chain saw. Nor do I want to see American industry hamstrung by carbon emission regulation, and see manufacturing jobs go to Mexico and China.

 

There are unintended consequences that cascade off of any party platform. For instance the republicans probably lobbied for strip mining in W.Virgina, and the democrats probably lobbied to shut down the strip mines. Result: the coal industry and the chemical industries related to the coal in terms of power or materials is MUCH smaller than it used to be. The people that worked the mines and factories still live there, and have to go on government assistance to survive. They go on disability, get high on meth and turn into burdens on society.

 

Regards, TAR

[Phi for All]

Cool, can we discuss actually policy now?

 

That's not a wheelhouse option, I'm afraid. It seems tar likes to cherry-pick his stances so they always sound like apple pie. He's thinks his is a moderate, middle-man stance, which it isn't, and so his pickings come off like sour lemons to those of us trying to show him we need to change the way we're maintaining the orchard, to stop it from rotting.

[tar]

So, while worrying about the sea levels and violent weather and such, I also worry about the people of W. Virginia.

 

Taking care of the planet for other people is one side of the coin. One must also put food on the table for their own kids.

my middle man stance was between atheists and believers in god

 

I am more conservative than progressive at the moment. I used to be more moderate, but I am getting more status quo as I age.

Phi,

 

Let me ask you to take an objective stance, as if you were not a humanist, and a scientist and a socialist and find fault with every plank of the democrat platform, and support every plank of the republican.

 

You could easily cherry pick the required aspects to prove your debate position.

 

In politics though, you actually care about your team and agree with their arguments. And you belong to a number of teams and have a role on each. You never want to disappoint the team and you always want to take care of the team.

 

Yes I want to be right. Yes I want to validate the last 62 years of my life. Yes I want to understand life and learn how to make other people happy and find those hundred ways to feel good that are not destructive and expensive. I want that dopamine same as everybody else.

 

What I am seeing that you are not, is that everybody has their way to get their dopamine, and getting your dopamine by taking another's away, is not very kind.

 

It is better to look for the ways were everybody gets the dopamine.

What I am saying, directly, is that if it makes you feel good, to be a champion of the poor, you provide dopamine for yourself, and dopamine for the poor, but do it at the expense of the rich guy.

And it is absolute fact that rich people provide jobs and life improvements for everybody and provide loads of wins, loads of dopamine already, for millions.

Edited February 4, 2016 by tar

[Willie71]

As a person investigating the meaning behind language, and the workings of the human mind, consciousness, subjectivity and objectivity, and trying to act as middle man, between people of fact and people of faith, I lose, whether I make a good point or not.In the overall scheme I have realized that I have true enemies in this world. Common enemies of America and my way of life. In this, I am on the team of EVERY American, and on the team of everybody living the American way of life.If the republican platform serves to maintain America and my way of life, it is good.If the democrat platform serves to maintain America and my way of life, it is good.

What good point?

 

This is how this thread is going:

 

Tar: I believe....

Someone else: That isn't a republican supported policy.

Tar: Annecdote unrelated to the discussion.

Someone else: Tar, that isn't what we were talking about:

Tar: if we elect Sanders, he will take my stuff. I don't have stuff.

Someone else: Tar, that is your fear, not what Sanders says.

Tar: aren't democrats afraid of bad things too?

 

 

 

And on and on it goes.

 

Tar, I am a mental health professional. I agree that words have meaning, what you are arguing is that words are meaningless, that regardless of what people say, it's all code for something else. There is a grain of truth in that, but you rake it way too far. What republicans and democrats say cannot be boiled down to the same thing. Not by a long shot. Where the two parties are the same is the establishment candidates endorse policies that benefit their donors. The only candidate who's donors are regular people is sanders.

[Phi for All]

What I am seeing that you are not, is that everybody has their way to get their dopamine, and getting your dopamine by takisong another's away, is not very kind.

 

This is your core misunderstanding of the positions portrayed here. We've shown you how they're paid for. A government option like Medicare automatically costs us less (more taxes, but far less payroll deductions for private insurance). It would take many of the folks who currently work in private health insurance and re-employ them (it would have to, you see). You are supporting an industry that has no further function for us, and is actively blocking our path to health. Should we bring back Blockbuster too? Is that how your free market works?

 

You see it as unfair to tax income heavily past a certain amount, yet it's worked very well in the past, and NOT doing it has hurt us obviously. You can't get past this image of robbing the robber barons. You consider them above the law (regulations are laws) just because they require workers, and you seem to be slobberingly grateful for that. It's the kind of mentality that led to workhouses. When reasonable People respond that things have gone too far, you respond with "Everything is the way it should be, no need for change".

 

You preach about how great Americans are, but you have no faith in an investment in them. You don't think SOME of them are worth it, and to my mind, that makes you un-American.

[StringJunky]

 

This is your core misunderstanding of the positions portrayed here. We've shown you how they're paid for. A government option like Medicare automatically costs us less (more taxes, but far less payroll deductions for private insurance). It would take many of the folks who currently work in private health insurance and re-employ them (it would have to, you see). You are supporting an industry that has no further function for us, and is actively blocking our path to health. Should we bring back Blockbuster too? Is that how your free market works?

On the the subject of health, the free market is bankrupting the American healthcare system. Currently, the pharmaceutical companies have carte blanche to price medicines as they see fit. In some cases they will acquire an old drug that is essential and increase the price 5000%. It is not uncommon for them to annually increase them two or three-fold just to make their bottom-line look good to keep shareholders sweet. I can't get my head around why the national health care systems can't negotiate. prices but apparently this is so.

 

I've uploaded a pdf of a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform memorandum which shows some of the internal communications and thought processes of these companies.... it's rank and rotten.

 

 

According to a pair of memos released Tuesday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform--the committee conducting this week's hearing--both companies purchased the treatments with the intention to raise prices and reap profits.

 

In one email from Shkreli to Turing's chairman, the former skipper responded to news of progress toward acquiring Daraprim, a drug used by AIDS patients, with "$1bn here we come." And in another, he called the company's jack-up on the med's price--to $75,000 per bottle from just $1,700--a "handsome investment for all of us."

 

In Valeant's case, emails before the purchase of Marathon Pharmaceutical heart drugs Isuprel and Nitropress show the company indicated that any deal for the therapies "would also have to be a price play." One email from an outside consulting firm's analyst to company CEO J. Michael Pearson outlines how "select manufacturers … have pick(ed) up these types of old products and raised prices dramatically," adding that "smaller/older products … are not reviewed on formulary" and that "products have been in the system for so long that reviews are practically rubber stamped."

 

http://www.fiercepharma.com/story/turing-valeant-hiked-prices-max-profits-then-scrambled-quash-bad-pr-documen/2016-02-02

 

Memo on Turing Internal Docs.pdf

[tar]

Phi,

 

I haven't read String Junky's whole pdf but seeing who the thing is about makes me stop to make a point.

 

The guy was a smug, young criminal twerp that is guilty of extortion or holding people's life for ransom or something and does not deserve of drop of dopamine for the rest of his worthless life. We are rightly prosecuting him for his crimes.

 

But I want to point out that he raised the price of a life saving drug, from 13.50 a pill to 750 a pill because he was a greedy bastard, that broke the law. The important thing in the story is to realize that the drug company, before the creep bought it, was making a drug saving pill for 13.50. This in no way demonizes drug companies, and infact should engender pride and gratification from us all, that the people that worked to develop and test the drug, did the work. Here dopamine should be given to those folks, by praising them and being grateful to them. Not robbing them of the dopamine by associating them with the creep.

 

Regards, TAR

Phi for All,

 

I understand that if I associated with the creep, you could and should call me un-American. But you can't call the people that developed and produced the drug un-American, because they are exactly what America is about.

 

Regards, TAR

 

But you are calling me un-American for not backing universal health care...which America has not developed for itself, yet. A dream in your head, that cobbles together the best practices of the best social democracies in the world. Pretty much not done yet, here, or at least not yet done right, in a workable fashion. Brought up by first lady once, and halfway done by Obama-care, but not yet done here, right. Possible, but not yet working. A dream, but it would take a while to make it work. Obama ran on it, and finally got it half way done with all sorts of problems, The republicans fault you figure, for messing it up. Feel that way, if you like, if it makes you feel good and right and so on, but consider one of my rules for determining the difference between something working in your head, and something working in the waking world. The more things that would have to change, for you to be right, the stronger the indication that its just going to work in your head, and not in reality.

 

If we could just remove everybody blocking progress we would have a perfect world.

 

Great, you and a couple thousand reasonable people would enjoy a perfect world.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited February 4, 2016 by tar

[iNow]

I can't get my head around why the national health care systems can't negotiate. prices but apparently this is so.

Legal corruption...erm, I mean... Lobbying.

.

[Willie71]

Tar, the one point in your rambling about dopamine needs more correction than the rest. People are not trying to steal rich people's dopamine, they are trying to get their dopamine back from the corporations that have been taking it from them in larger and larger percentages since Reagan.

[Phi for All]

I can't get my head around why the national health care systems can't negotiate. prices but apparently this is so.

 

George Bush II, that bastion of fair trade, elected for the same reason the Donald is such a sweetheart, because he's a bidnessman, and his Republican Party, decided that America had too much clout when it came to buying prescription drugs. He did the equivalent of binding the feet of Medicare like a geisha, crippling our ability to buy medicine for sick people. He plainly put profit over health.

 

But you are calling me un-American for not backing universal health care...

 

No, I'm not. But I'm not surprised you misunderstood. Again. Probably purposely.

 

You behave like an idiot in these discussions, and it's frustrating because I sense you aren't. It's getting harder to find evidence in support of that, though.