On Sun, 06 Oct 2013 10:54:41 +0100, Stephen wrote:

>>>> LOL
>>>>
>>> I win. :-P
>>
>> D*mn you, I'll get you next time. ;)
>>
> I am sure that you will get your chance. :-)

I try never to miss a chance when it's important. ;)

>> When I broke my leg in the mid 90's, I was given a handicapped tag (a
>> temporary one).  It amazed me how many people parked in the spaces who
>> didn't appear to have a need
> 
> AFAIK we only give disabled stickers (handicapped has dropped out of
> use) to permanently disabled people. My wife qualifies because of her
> sight and I could use it to drive her places. But she has never applied
> for one because she is mobile and and can walk. (It seems strange to
> think of a partially sighted who cannot drive, getting a parking
> sticker.)

Most places in the US still do temporary ones AFAIK, but enforcement is 
not by law enforcement, but rather is on a voluntary basis.  That's 
probably why some people just don't care.

At a local grocery store, I even saw someone take up two spaces - they 
did have a disabled (I think that's the term we use here now as well, 
come to think of it) permit, but that still doesn't permit them to park 
like a jerk.

>> - but there are, of course, plenty of hidden causes, to - extreme
>> asthma comes to mind, and that's sadly all too common here in Utah -
> 
> Well here is another "no data" opinion. :-)
> I think that the increase in allergies, hay fever, asthma etc. Could be
> due to the amount of processed food, we eat.
> Discus. ;-)

I think there's something to that, actually.  Though I think a lot of the 
increase as well is due to better diagnosis.  I have a cat allergy, and 
have for most of my life (based on the symptoms and how long I remember 
having them before the diagnosis).  Respiratory issues also relate to air 
quality (and here in the Salt Lake Valley, especially during the winter, 
the pollution gets trapped under an inversion and stays in the valley - 
which makes for a couple very tough months for those with worse asthma 
than mine - I need to use an inhaler about two or three times a year).

>> because we often have such poor air quality, and the altitude doesn't
>> help.
>>
> I did not know about the air quality, the altitude, yes.

See "inversion" above.  There are days where the air here in the valley 
is actually a rather sickly yellow-green colour.

>>> I am reading the news stories about obamacare and I'm thinking that
>>> there must be a lot of evil selfish people over there.
>>> But I know what happens when a socialist says anything on the
>>> internet. ;-)
>>
>> It really seems there *are* a lot of selfish people here.  The really
>> odd thing (to me, anyways) is that the most selfish claim to be
>> following a guy allegedly from about 2,000 years ago who taught such
>> things as caring for the sick and the poor.  That was, in fact, one of
>> the core lessons taught.
>>
>>
> Taught but not learnt.

Clearly.  I keep trying to find the verse in the Bible that says "and 
Jesus spake unto the masses 'I got mine, Jack!'," but I keep not finding 
it. ;)

> It is funny how they pick and chose which parts of the bible they want
> to believe. And how it is mostly the old testament, they chose.
> It would make you boak. Funny how the Scots have a lot of words for
> unpleasant things. :-)

Yep, and aye. ;)

>>> I think so. Kids and much older are aping American youth culture. Just
>>> like in the 50's but not James Dean or Marlon Brando.
>>
>> Arguably, we don't have "football hooligans" over here, nor have we
>> (yet)
>> had riots like the one in London a year or two ago.  Well, at least not
>> *recently*.
> 
> Tradition, really.
> The riots are sometimes the only way to get the politician's attention.
> Hell mend the lot of them!

We do know about using riots to get the attention of the English 
overlords over here. ;)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

"Jim Henderson"  wrote in message news:52504552$1@news.povray.org...

>On Sat, 05 Oct 2013 11:37:19 +0100, Stephen wrote:
>> This may be a cultural thing. In the UK about that time, fat or over
>> weight was seen to be a sign of greed, gluttany or self/over indulgence.
>> When I reached 210 lb at 5' 10" I was shocked into going on a crash
>> diet.
>
>Well, yeah - but we also have causes that aren't due to overeating, but
>the stigma is still applied to those who have other issues.
>
>The result is that there are lots of people here who don't know enough to
>mind their own business.  Many people feel the need to comment - directly
>- to people they don't know about their weight.

We have causes that aren't due to racism that cause people to say racist 
things. Do you "mind your own business" when you hear hate speech?

-Shay

Post a reply to this message

"Jim Henderson"  wrote in message news:52509f91@news.povray.org...

> It really seems there *are* a lot of selfish people here.  The really odd
> thing (to me, anyways) is that the most selfish claim to be following a
> guy allegedly from about 2,000 years ago who taught such things as caring
> for the sick and the poor.  That was, in fact, one of the core lessons
> taught.

When I got my driver's license, my father offered to buy me a car ...

if ...

if if if ...

I told him to keep it. I was becoming a man and didn't care to replace 
childhood with another form of subjugation. There are several reasons 
besides selfishness (I'd include fear of centralized authority here, but 
I've few sympathizers in this group) a person would reject involuntary 
shared responsibility, even if he _benefits_ financially.

On religion, Thomas Jefferson said, "It does me no injury for my neighbor to 
say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks 
my leg.” I don't want /my/ lifestyle choices to pick another man's my pocket 
or break his leg. I want them to remain /my/ lifestyle choices ... and for 
your choices to remain yours.

If you'd prefer the equivalent to obligatory speed limits for diet, 
recreation, and sexuality, then continue to oblige others with the 
consequences of those choices. I'll forever object, but not out of greed.

-Shay

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 11 Oct 2013 07:38:03 -0500, Shay wrote:

> "Jim Henderson"  wrote in message news:52504552$1@news.povray.org...
> 
>>On Sat, 05 Oct 2013 11:37:19 +0100, Stephen wrote:
>>> This may be a cultural thing. In the UK about that time, fat or over
>>> weight was seen to be a sign of greed, gluttany or self/over
>>> indulgence.
>>> When I reached 210 lb at 5' 10" I was shocked into going on a crash
>>> diet.
>>
>>Well, yeah - but we also have causes that aren't due to overeating, but
>>the stigma is still applied to those who have other issues.
>>
>>The result is that there are lots of people here who don't know enough
>>to mind their own business.  Many people feel the need to comment -
>>directly - to people they don't know about their weight.
> 
> We have causes that aren't due to racism that cause people to say racist
> things. Do you "mind your own business" when you hear hate speech?

It depends on the specific circumstances.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 11 Oct 2013 08:14:23 -0500, Shay wrote:

> I don't want /my/ lifestyle choices to pick another man's my pocket
> or break his leg. I want them to remain /my/ lifestyle choices ... and
> for your choices to remain yours.

If you break your leg and have elected to not have health insurance, then 
it kinda sucks to be you.

Except that it doesn't, because here in the US, you get treated whether 
or not you have insurance.

So it seems only fair that you be mandated to carry some form of 
insurance, since you'll get the benefit from the system.

Or are you saying that hospitals should leave the sick, injured, and 
dying on the doorstep if they don't have insurance?

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 10/11/2013 12:11 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>
> Or are you saying that hospitals should leave the sick, injured, and
> dying on the doorstep if they don't have insurance?
>

The question isn't what hospitals should do, but what I would /force/ 
them to do.

Would I force a hospital to allocate resources to _preventive_ health, 
knowing this would take resources from trauma care?

Would I force a hospital to treat a diabetic, knowing this would prevent 
the purchase of a new breast-cancer-screening machine?

Would I force a hospital to hire a cancer specialist instead of a heart 
specialist?

Would I force a hospital to provide helmets at a motorcycle rally if I 
believed this would lower the necessity for expensive trauma care?

Would I force a hospital to build a mental-health wing instead of a 
pediatric wing?

The only sane answer is that I would not force a hospital to do any of 
these. I would let the hospital decide.

In the same way, I would not force my neighbor to buy a pacemaker for me 
instead of an AED for you, even though either could save a life.

In the same way, I would not force my neighbor to buy a cell phone for 
me instead of snow tires for you, even though either could save a life.

In the same way, I would not force my neighbor to buy a kick plate for 
my door instead of an alarm for your door, even though either could save 
a life.

I suppose the only non-selfish proposal is pacemakers, AEDs, cell 
phones, snow tires, kick plates, and door alarms for everyone.

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 11 Oct 2013 17:42:01 -0500, Shay wrote:

> The only sane answer is that I would not force a hospital to do any of
> these. I would let the hospital decide.

So, how would you fix the healthcare problems in the US?

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 10/11/2013 6:14 AM, Shay wrote:
> On religion, Thomas Jefferson said, "It does me no injury for my
> neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my
> pocket nor breaks my leg.”

I have always thought that, while in principle the idea sounded good, it 
implied the naive assumption that you neighbors neighbor didn't as well, 
or their neighbor, or the next one, etc. One you get "outside" of your 
own group, it not uncommon to find, in extreme cases, that someone, in 
actual fact, wants to do both, and do so in the name of their god.

Post a reply to this message

On 10/11/2013 06:30 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Oct 2013 17:42:01 -0500, Shay wrote:
>
>> The only sane answer is that I would not force a hospital to do any of
>> these. I would let the hospital decide.
>
> So, how would you fix the healthcare problems in the US?
>
> Jim
>

A typical authoritarian question.

No debate of the merits, no concept of opportunity cost, no mention of 
the /they/ that would administer "your" fixes. Just, "I've got this 
magic wand here, gau-ran-teed to make things better. Why wouldn't I wave 
it? And what could you come up with that's possibly better than a magic 
wand?"

The real question is:

How would I _attempt_ to improve the US healthcare system
1. without killing the goose that produced all the medicines and 
procedures we're so eager to universally provide?
2. while trying to keep the "powers that be" from using any new 
authority I give them in corrupt ways?

The real answer is:

I would send a few bills to kidney-disease research. But that's not the 
kind of answer you want, is it?

OK, my "magic wand" answer:

I'd improve health care by taking all the money away from the people who 
are dropping bombs on other people.

I've given you two posts of reasons why these are the best answers I can 
give you. Have a second look or continue to pointlessly attempt 
ownership of compassion.

  -Shay

Post a reply to this message

On 10/11/2013 4:30 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Oct 2013 17:42:01 -0500, Shay wrote:
>
>> The only sane answer is that I would not force a hospital to do any of
>> these. I would let the hospital decide.
>
> So, how would you fix the healthcare problems in the US?
>
> Jim
>
He wouldn't. You can't "not" force someone help others, and not have 
people die as a result. What pisses me off a whole lot, are the ones 
that will assert all the things no one should be "forced" to do, then, 
when its them in the situation, praise the same rules they think 
shouldn't exist, which resulting in them being saved.

Its also a false equivalence. Preventative care means "less" emergency 
care, since a great many cases never reach the state in which they "are" 
an emergency. Since such emergency care costs more, and has higher 
risks, liabilities, and thus... again, costs more, reducing the number 
of cases that reach that stage actually "increases" the available 
resources to deal with emergencies. If you ignore this, you get idiot 
shit like in my city, where the hospital can't handle some emergencies 
at all, so has to, as extreme expense, ship people hundreds of miles, by 
chopper, to some place that can. Basically - don't make the mistake of 
having a major heart attack, or anything else untreatable here, in the 
same 3-4 hours it takes for them to ship the last patient off, refuel, 
and come back. If you do... you're dead. Which is just insane, except.. 
they also fail, miserably, at "preventative care" as well, so... odds 
are, if you have a problem, it "will" progress to the point, eventually, 
where you need that airlift.

All of the other arguments about "forcing" people are similar idiocies. 
Its not the damn hospitals forcing people to not do care, or forcing 
them to pick between expensive, one shot, high death, "emergency care", 
instead of preventative care. Its insurance companies telling people, 
"We will pay to replace your kidney, assuming we can bloody find one in 
time, but we **won't** pay for the care needed to prevent kidney failure 
in the first place." But, I suppose, Shay thinks its "inappropriate" to 
"force" insurance companies to actually pay for procedures, which the 
doctors **would provide**, if the insurance didn't deny them?

Because, I know for a damn fact that you won't find a single competent 
doctor, unless they are some high paid idiot for the stars/certain 
politicians, or a specialist, who knows that preventative care would cut 
into the number of open heart surgeries, or the like they could charge 
people for, who thinks "preventative care" is a bad if idea, and they 
would be "forced" to give up emergency care to get it. First off, the 
people providing the emergency care are often experts "at" that kind of 
care, not the family doctors you go to, in order to get preventative 
care. Second, most emergency wards are overworked, dealing with crap 
that "should be" preventative. If you go in with a damn cold, odds are, 
instead of going to a regular doctor, or a care center that deal with 
basic prevention, you may find yourself waiting in line with someone who 
needs their arm reattached, do to some serious accident.

But, this was **never** the way it was supposed to work. It wasn't the 
way it worked before, and it only reached this point precisely because 
less and less "preventative" medicine has been practiced, leaving anyone 
from someone in needs of a damn bandaid, to people in need of major 
surgery, from a car accident, all shoved into the "emergency room". The 
one damn place that the former ***doesn't belong in the first place, 
except, they can't afford a family doctor, or find anyone working, on 
the day they need "basic care". And, given how many don't have doctors 
at all, most of these people would have never ***had to*** go to the 
emergency room, to look for even "basic care", if they had been able to 
go to/find a regular doctor, to get "preventative care", to keep their 
chest cold, for example, from progressing from something a few pills 
would have cured, to full blown pneumonia.

"Preventative care" saves costs on unneeded "basic care".
Having "basic care" handled properly by places that **just** deal with 
such non-emergencies saves money that would be better spent on 
"emergency care".
And, if you are not messing with "basic care" right along side of bloody 
"emergency care", in the same damn place, fewer people die, because 
doctors, nurses, etc. who work in the emergency rooms, are over worked, 
over stressed, and trying to deal with 500 problems an hour, instead of 50.

All of which hinges not on "doctors" being "forced" to provide such 
things, but on an unwillingness of insurance companies to pay for proper 
"preventative care", agree on the best "basic care", or, sometimes, even 
pay for "emergency care", if it falls into some category of, "Well, 
there is a cheaper, inferior, solution, which you will probably die from 
sooner, saving us, the insurance company, money." Except, because the 
insurance companies are the ones making these decisions, on what is, or 
isn't, paid for, and the "preventative care" is the one they are 
***least likely*** to pay for.. it was decided to, instead of fixing the 
fucking problem, to instead "require" any and all problems, no matter 
how trivial, which come into an emergency ward, to be "treated", for 
free. The only "forcing" being done, sadly, being done "purely" to treat 
as many people as possible, including the ones that are there 
**because** they never got preventative, or basic, care, until a minor, 
cheaply fixed, trivial, infection, or other problem, has **escalated** 
into a full blown emergency (assuming, of course, that they don't come 
in before it gets to that point, get handed a few pills, told to go to a 
regular doctor, which they don't have, to continue treatment, and thus, 
never do, leading, again, to them "eventually" actually ending up in the 
emergency room because they are not not just sick, but possibly dying.)

Yeah, I have absolutely no bloody patience with people that think fixing 
this idiot mess is a bad idea, or that someone more people will die, by 
making sure more people don't get to the point they are dying in the 
damn first place.. It shows a complete, and total, oblivious ignorance 
of what is going, on, what doctors themselves say on the subject, what 
the actual problems are, or why the fuck they got that way, in the first 
place.

Post a reply to this message

On 10/11/2013 09:45 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:

>
> Yeah, I have absolutely no bloody patience with people that think fixing
> this idiot mess is a bad idea,

The same way we fixed the idiot messes in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Viet 
Nam? Have we since tuned up our magic wand?

> or that someone more people will die, by
> making sure more people don't get to the point they are dying in the
> damn first place..

I have absolutely no bloody patience for people who go on for paragraphs 
about preventive vs. trauma care while obviously having no idea what 
trauma care is.

Too bad that guy's head went through a windshield. Maybe if we'd given 
him some antibiotics ...

> It shows a complete, and total, oblivious ignorance
> of what is going, on, what doctors themselves say on the subject, what
> the actual problems are, or why the fuck they got that way, in the first
> place.

Complete AND total? Do go on.

  -Shay

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On Fri, 11 Oct 2013 21:32:57 -0500, Shay wrote:

> A typical authoritarian question.

That pretty much tells me what I need to know, thanks.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 10/11/2013 11:26 PM, Shay wrote:
> On 10/11/2013 09:45 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>>
>> Yeah, I have absolutely no bloody patience with people that think fixing
>> this idiot mess is a bad idea,
>
> The same way we fixed the idiot messes in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Viet
> Nam? Have we since tuned up our magic wand?
>
Yeah, because that is **exactly** the same thing. And people claim I am 
bad at analogies sometimes...

>> or that someone more people will die, by
>> making sure more people don't get to the point they are dying in the
>> damn first place..
>
> I have absolutely no bloody patience for people who go on for paragraphs
> about preventive vs. trauma care while obviously having no idea what
> trauma care is.
>
> Too bad that guy's head went through a windshield. Maybe if we'd given
> him some antibiotics ...
>
WTF? No, its - lets ship this guy 50 miles to another hospital, because 
we are too busy given 10 idiots, who should have gone to a regular 
doctor, but couldn't, antibiotics, for shit that could have been treated 
with a damn bandaid three weeks earlier. But, yeah, I get that you have 
no damn clue what the problems really are, or how they got to be such a 
damn mess in the first place. Worse, you think that actually making sure 
people get the bandaid - note, not forcing doctors to hand out bandaids, 
but just making f-ing sure they can get to a primary doctor, for one, is 
"forcing" those non-specialist, non-trauma care, non-emergency room, 
doctors to do things, while somehow taking away the ability of the ones 
that "are" in those emergency care locations to deal with the real 
trauma cases, which they can't right now, because they are too busy 
dealing with crap that should have never gotten to them in the first place.

How does that make any damn sense? Next you will be telling me that 
hiring more school nurses will "take away necessary staff from, and 
further overload emergency responders, by **forcing** them to work in 
schools, instead of driving ambulances." It makes about as much damn 
sense as claiming that trauma care professionals are going to be somehow 
"forced" to hand out antibiotics to people who can, with actual fraking 
health care coverage, now see regular doctors.

Now, **if** you are claiming that there might be an increase in idiots 
showing up in places they shouldn't, **instead of** going to primary 
care physicians, then you would have a point. Not much of one though, 
since ***they are already doing that, because its the only care, without 
insurance, they can get right now***.

Post a reply to this message

On 10/12/2013 10:28 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Oct 2013 21:32:57 -0500, Shay wrote:
>
>> A typical authoritarian question.
>
> That pretty much tells me what I need to know, thanks.
>

Dismissive for a third time. No surprise there.

I contrasted my position with yours to provide an opportunity for 
understanding. I can't make you take that opportunity.

  -Shay

Post a reply to this message

On 10/12/2013 11:14 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 10/11/2013 11:26 PM, Shay wrote:

Yes, the world is full of stupidity, and, yes, maybe YOU could improve 
some of it if you had infinite, incorruptible power at your disposal. 
But this is a fantasy, and no amount of problem-pointing-out makes it 
any less of a fantasy.

  -Shay

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 12 Oct 2013 22:02:56 -0500, Shay wrote:

> On 10/12/2013 10:28 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Fri, 11 Oct 2013 21:32:57 -0500, Shay wrote:
>>
>>> A typical authoritarian question.
>>
>> That pretty much tells me what I need to know, thanks.
>>
>>
> Dismissive for a third time. No surprise there.
> 
> I contrasted my position with yours to provide an opportunity for
> understanding. I can't make you take that opportunity.

You assume that my position is an authoritarian position, and then you 
constructed a debate against that assumed position.  You also assumed 
what answer I wanted, and then "graciously" provided that answer, rather 
than actually answering the question.

I'm not going to get into a strawman debate on the issue.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 10/12/2013 10:44 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Oct 2013 22:02:56 -0500, Shay wrote:
>
>> On 10/12/2013 10:28 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Fri, 11 Oct 2013 21:32:57 -0500, Shay wrote:
>>>
>>>> A typical authoritarian question.
>>>
>>> That pretty much tells me what I need to know, thanks.
>>>
>>>
>> Dismissive for a third time. No surprise there.
>>
>> I contrasted my position with yours to provide an opportunity for
>> understanding. I can't make you take that opportunity.
>
> You assume that my position is an authoritarian position, and then you
> constructed a debate against that assumed position.  You also assumed
> what answer I wanted, and then "graciously" provided that answer, rather
> than actually answering the question.
>
> I'm not going to get into a strawman debate on the issue.
>

And here we are, right back in the middle of every argument you've ever 
had with Warp ... at the "Strawman" strawman.

If you're EVER interested in understand the case for limited government 
beyond "some people hate the poor," let me know.

  -Shay

Post a reply to this message

On Sun, 13 Oct 2013 07:31:59 -0500, Shay wrote:

>> I'm not going to get into a strawman debate on the issue.
>>
> And here we are, right back in the middle of every argument you've ever
> had with Warp ... at the "Strawman" strawman.
> 
> If you're EVER interested in understand the case for limited government
> beyond "some people hate the poor," let me know.

<shrug>

That's really just complete nonsense, that the "strawman" is itself a 
strawman.  You've decided what question I asked and answered that, rather 
than answering the question I actually asked.

You had the debate you wanted to have, answered the question you wanted 
to answer, and ignored my question.

When you're interested in having a discussion about reality rather than a 
hypothetical situation that actually isn't reflected in reality, you let 
*me* know.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 10/13/2013 03:10 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sun, 13 Oct 2013 07:31:59 -0500, Shay wrote:
>
>>> I'm not going to get into a strawman debate on the issue.
>>>
>> And here we are, right back in the middle of every argument you've ever
>> had with Warp ... at the "Strawman" strawman.
>>
>> If you're EVER interested in understand the case for limited government
>> beyond "some people hate the poor," let me know.
>
> <shrug>
>
> That's really just complete nonsense, that the "strawman" is itself a
> strawman.  You've decided what question I asked and answered that, rather
> than answering the question I actually asked.
>
> You had the debate you wanted to have, answered the question you wanted
> to answer, and ignored my question.
>
> When you're interested in having a discussion about reality rather than a
> hypothetical situation that actually isn't reflected in reality, you let
> *me* know.
>

I answered your questions, Jim. Both of them. Only after pointing out 
the inferences loaded into them, but I did answer them. You'll do 
anything to avoid actual discussion of this topic. It's transparent.

I don't know if you spend your days surrounded by children or idiots who 
fall for that kind of crap, or if you just *think* you do. But I've laid 
out my case plainly enough for anyone willing to learn from it.

  -Shay

Post a reply to this message

On Sun, 13 Oct 2013 17:21:24 -0500, Shay wrote:

> I answered your questions, Jim. Both of them. Only after pointing out
> the inferences loaded into them, but I did answer them. You'll do
> anything to avoid actual discussion of this topic. It's transparent.
> 
> I don't know if you spend your days surrounded by children or idiots who
> fall for that kind of crap, or if you just *think* you do. But I've laid
> out my case plainly enough for anyone willing to learn from it.

I'm not going to debate this with you any more, Shay.  Trying to make the 
argument now that "Jim's too stupid to understand what I'm saying" isn't 
making your case any stronger.

I'm more than happy to discuss the topic, but only in a reasonable, 
rational, and respectful manner.

So when you're ready to do that, then let me know.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 10/12/2013 8:11 PM, Shay wrote:
> On 10/12/2013 11:14 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> On 10/11/2013 11:26 PM, Shay wrote:
>
> Yes, the world is full of stupidity, and, yes, maybe YOU could improve
> some of it if you had infinite, incorruptible power at your disposal.
> But this is a fantasy, and no amount of problem-pointing-out makes it
> any less of a fantasy.
>
>   -Shay
>
And, your solution is to "not" help people that need it, because, well, 
that would "force" doctors to do something they wouldn't otherwise.

There are reason emergency rooms "must", under the law, be forced to 
provide care to anyone that comes in, and why its that way in every 
single damn civilized country. See... somewhere along the line a few 
realizations happened:

1. Its possible to not have ID, or insurance on you.

2. Its possible to be, while in the prior state, not coherent, 
conscious, or with someone who can pay.

3. Without ID, and more specifically a proven way to pay, its not 
possible to **know** if the person is recently homeless, just had a 
brush with death do to accident, but middle class, or filthy rich. Now.. 
You could always solve that one by loading everyone's picture and 
biometrics in some huge ass database, so we could identify them that 
way... Only-- that would be $%$@$#^ authoritarian and easily corrupted.

4. They might not be even local, or from the same country, and.. somehow 
people get really pissy when you treat their family, or citizens, like 
shit, just because they got injured on "your" soil, instead of their 
own. In fact, I am sure its probably even illegal to let them die, under 
international laws, without at least attempting to treat them.

5. Most people actually give a fuck about other people's lives.

Hence, it is illegal for hospitals to turn away patients who need 
critical care.

Unfortunately, it is still legal to take a mother with medical problems, 
which can kill her, as well as her child, and force her to ride in an 
ambulance, or other transportation, to some place hundreds of miles 
away, for ***immediate*** treatment, which the hospital won't give, 
because they are religious, and therefor don't have to do it, as long as 
the mother is still breathing when loading into transport, to ship her 
someplace else, where she has to **hope** some new asshole hasn't bought 
the place up, and instituted the same, "Kill the mother, even if it 
won't save the child, because otherwise Jesus might cry!", policies. 
And, that is just the most sick and evil of the things they can get by 
with choosing to ***not do*** because they have some exemption, or 
loophole, that lets them fob the job off on someone else.

So, at least your principle that they shouldn't be "forced" to do things 
counts, for some shit that ends up killing people (and hell yes, it does 
kill people).

Decades of what amounted to charnel houses and "special wards", for 
people sent/allowed to die, instead of receiving proper care, and, of 
course, is almost always the case, a lot of big name people, or their 
family members dying do to this crap, led to them passing a law that 
said, "You can't deny people help! - except in the cases listed in sub 
paragraph 14, section 5, where all the damn loopholes to the rule hide."

I have heard the same asinine argument made, over and over again, by 
"libertarians" arguing that laws prohibiting businesses from telling 
people with the wrong color skin, or political affiliation, or what ever 
other BS they use, should be a allowed, and most of them, while 
completely fucking racist, sexist, or just plain hateful of some 
category of people, never the less DO NOT RISE to being as outright 
evil, and sick, as suggesting that mandatory care, for someone entering 
an emergency room, is "wrong", because it might "force" them someone to 
provide help they wanted to deny someone.

All of which, again, misses the point, entirely, that its only a damn 
problem if half of all healthcare in a country, like the US, ends up in 
the emergency room, because half of the people in the country have no, 
or substandard, insurance, there are no where near enough free clinics 
to help, and nearly all of their funding comes from "charities", who 
just can't provide enough to even keep them open, never mind staffed, 
and with up to date equipment, and finally, a huge chunk of those people 
never set foot in a doctors office, since possible in their entire 
lives, until they got sick, and where forced to go to one (and then, not 
knowing the options, or even perhaps that they had any, they went to the 
worst place they could, for non-critical treatment).

The courts presume that its better to let one guilty person go free, 
than an innocent person to languish in jail. As faulty, and sometimes 
corrupt, as it is, it works (though, far far better in many other 
countries).

If not for the lies of people that have, even before social security 
existed, have been fighting to kill government services, the rule would 
be, "It is better that one person cheat the system, than that someone 
else die of starvation." Corrupt or not, hundreds of thousands of people 
would be dead without it.

By extension - "Better to have to treat 5 patients with minor issues, 
than have to autopsy those same 5 people, a month later, when the 
problem became life threatening." And, again, corrupt or not, hundreds 
of thousands of people would be dead, if not for that rule. Its likely 
that tens of thousands are dead anyway, but not **because of** the rule, 
but because they couldn't be treated "locally", because the hospital 
didn't want to waste money of the proper equipment, or they where women, 
with serious, at that moment not life threatening, but lethal, by the 
time they nearly bled to death being transported to some other place, 
because the hospital "doesn't offer those services", or dozens of other 
reasons that stem not from them being "forced" to treat patients, but 
due to corporate greed, combined with being **allowed** to choose not to 
help them.

And, I challenge you to show one single, tiny, scrap of evidence that, 
any time this happens, **ever** its was because it would have cost 
someone less their life, instead, or because the personnel where "tied 
up" with lesser problems, or any other reason other than prejudice, 
dogma, or greed (in the latter case because they don't get refunded 
insane, unreasonable, heavily padded, amounts of money, for doing their 
jobs, where.. someone walking in with an insurance card, will have their 
wallet surgically removed, in many of these supposedly upstanding 
hospitals, along with shrapnel, bone splinters, or what ever else might 
be otherwise threatening their lives).

All one has to do is read the real stories of the real people, who work 
in these places, to know that the law isn't the problem, its the damn 
stock holders, the church that may now own the place, the bosses insane 
ideas about "saving money", or one of a long list of other stupid shit 
that goes on, all of which is on **your side** and saying, "We shouldn't 
have to do this, instead of robbing someone healthier, and with money, 
blind instead." None of them, not one of them, blame it on "being forced 
to treat someone". This isn't a damn restaurant, where the server can 
decide, and avoid being fired, that they don't want to bring someone 
their sandwich. No one dies of the waiter decides they don't like the 
fraking customer. People do, if they misinterpret the supposedly "minor" 
problem, and it turns out to be something lethal, or contagious, or you 
otherwise refuse to treat them, and thus, actually determine if the 
bloody nose, or the sprained ankle, or what ever they came in with, is 
**actually** even the most pressing problem they suffer from.

And, again - the only solution is to get people out of the damned 
emergency room, and into regular clinics, and doctors offices, all of 
whom ***can*** refused to see patients, if they don't have insurance, or 
other means to pay (or, due to recent bullshit laws, even if you can 
pay, but still don't have insurance).

And, that has got to be the most fucked up thing of all. You could walk 
in with a suit case full of hundred dollar bills, in need of nothing 
more than a cast for a sprained ankle, and some of that "corruption" you 
are so worried about, makes it illegal, in some cases/states, to treat 
them ***at all***, without also producing an insurance card. Why? 
Because it cuts out the profits of the insurance companies, and worse, 
anyone with that kind of money must be, by definition, able to afford 
it, or, possibly a drug dealer, criminal, terrorist, or some other 
"unwanted" that doesn't, by the logic of some of the idiots out there 
(and, often the same ones apposed to universal health care, and other 
social programs), not **deserving** of help.

There is the "corruption" you need to be worrying about, not the 
mythical "freeloader" that might be using your dime to get a damn 
bandaid. Funny thing, really, in one of those super "socialist" 
countries that everyone is worried we will turn into, they have very 
good track of who freeloads. And, supposedly, there is literally **one** 
of them, in the entire country who has refused all jobs, training, or 
anything else, and is just living off the government dime. Most people 
**want** to do something, and only refuse to do so when they can't make 
enough fucking money doing it that they can live off it. Odd how, in the 
US, where like half the country is making close to $8 less than the 
estimated cost of living, per hour, and the social services have been 
intentionally handicapped and disabled, to the point where you can't get 
training, or real help to find a job, or even get the federal government 
to get off its ass and stop trying to push through pet projects, or 
legislation about aborting, to fix infrastructure (along with the jobs 
it would create), that some people actually find that sitting on their 
ass is "more profitable", than being paid to work, and.. just how many 
of them do work, on the side, anyway, because they would be bored off 
their asses, doing nothing.

Its almost as though, if we really helped people, instead of shitting 
all over them, while giving them free money, they might become 
productive citizens... Nah...

Post a reply to this message

On 10/13/2013 09:29 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 10/12/2013 8:11 PM, Shay wrote:
>> On 10/12/2013 11:14 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>> On 10/11/2013 11:26 PM, Shay wrote:
>>
>> Yes, the world is full of stupidity, and, yes, maybe YOU could improve
>> some of it if you had infinite, incorruptible power at your disposal.
>> But this is a fantasy, and no amount of problem-pointing-out makes it
>> any less of a fantasy.
>>
>>   -Shay
>>
> And, your solution is to "not" help people that need it, because, well,
> that would "force" doctors to do something they wouldn't otherwise.

Where did I say I wouldn't help? I told you how I would (and have) 
helped, both the real-life and king-for-a-day versions. I've probably 
given thousands to MS-research over the years.

> There are reason emergency rooms "must", under the law, be forced to
> provide care to anyone that comes in, and why its that way in every
> single damn civilized country.

Guess ours is not a "civilized country," because only hospitals who 
accept federal funds are "forced to provide care for anyone that comes in."

> Unfortunately, it is still legal to take a mother with medical problems,
> which can kill her, as well as her child, and force her to ride in an
> ambulance, or other transportation, to some place hundreds of miles
> away, for ***immediate*** treatment, which the hospital won't give,
> because they are religious, <snip>
>
> So, at least your principle that they shouldn't be "forced" to do things
> counts, for some shit that ends up killing people (and hell yes, it does
> kill people).

To some, a human life is a human life. This is not necessarily a 
Christian Belief. Anton LaVey was anti-abortion.

In a majority of US states, killing another person's fetus /is/ murder. 
I cannot agree with *forcing* an institution to perform this act.

Besides, there are many, many life-preserving measures we don't even 
consider forcing hospitals to take, from cell-phone provision to arms 
reduction.

> I have heard the same asinine argument made, over and over again, by
> "libertarians" arguing that laws prohibiting businesses from telling
> people with the wrong color skin, or political affiliation, or what ever
> other BS they use, should be a allowed,

It's not that these discriminations should be allowed. It's that no 
Constitutional authority exists to pass laws against them. Libertarians 
assume, and history assures, the majority (government) will capriciously 
exercise any power they are given. Minority rights *require* limitations 
on the power of the majority.

"Good laws" and "bad laws" are temporary. Authority, once given, is 
usually "forever" (or until an unfortunate, bloody revolution).

> All of which, again, misses the point, entirely, that its only a damn
> problem if <snip>
>
> If not for the lies of people that have, even before social security
> existed, have been fighting to kill government services, the rule would
> be, "It is better that one person cheat the system, than that someone
> else die of starvation." Corrupt or not, hundreds of thousands of people
> would be dead without it.

Likewise, totalitarianism is only a problem when we start housing 25% of 
the world's prison population and killing literally millions with 
high-tech weaponry and seizing property for economic health and building 
with Predator drones and ...

oh, wait.

> And, that has got to be the most fucked up thing of all. You could walk
> in with a suit case full of hundred dollar bills, in need of nothing
> more than a cast for a sprained ankle, and some of that "corruption" you
> are so worried about, makes it illegal, in some cases/states, to treat
> them ***at all***, without also producing an insurance card. Why?
> Because it cuts out the profits of the insurance companies, and worse,
> anyone with that kind of money must be, by definition, able to afford
> it, or, possibly a drug dealer, criminal, terrorist, or some other
> "unwanted" that doesn't, by the logic of some of the idiots out there
> (and, often the same ones apposed to universal health care, and other
> social programs), not **deserving** of help.

Yeah, mandating insurance is pretty fucked up. Isn't it?

>
> There is the "corruption" you need to be worrying about, not the
> mythical "freeloader" that might be using your dime to get a damn
> bandaid.

Not worried about this. Have you read *any* of my posts. Or, do you 
think I just made up the "millions of dead" thing to keep a few quarters 
in my pocket?

> Its almost as though, if we really helped people, instead of shitting
> all over them, while giving them free money, they might become
> productive citizens... Nah...

Citizenship is what I want for them, but not citizenship in a Plutocracy.

  -Shay

Post a reply to this message

On 10/14/2013 3:43 PM, Shay wrote:
> On 10/13/2013 09:29 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> On 10/12/2013 8:11 PM, Shay wrote:
>>> On 10/12/2013 11:14 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>>> On 10/11/2013 11:26 PM, Shay wrote:
>>>
>>> Yes, the world is full of stupidity, and, yes, maybe YOU could improve
>>> some of it if you had infinite, incorruptible power at your disposal.
>>> But this is a fantasy, and no amount of problem-pointing-out makes it
>>> any less of a fantasy.
>>>
>>>   -Shay
>>>
>> And, your solution is to "not" help people that need it, because, well,
>> that would "force" doctors to do something they wouldn't otherwise.
>
> Where did I say I wouldn't help? I told you how I would (and have)
> helped, both the real-life and king-for-a-day versions. I've probably
> given thousands to MS-research over the years.
>
Ah right, the "I give the charity, so.. obviously if everyone else did, 
it would be all OK", argument. Only.. its never been enough, and never 
will be, nor will everyone ever contribute. That was, kind of, the whole 
point of using tax money to do it.

>> There are reason emergency rooms "must", under the law, be forced to
>> provide care to anyone that comes in, and why its that way in every
>> single damn civilized country.
>
> Guess ours is not a "civilized country," because only hospitals who
> accept federal funds are "forced to provide care for anyone that comes in."
>
Funny. But, while, as I said, there are "specific cases", usually driven 
by religious privilege, which allows for certain things to not be done 
(and god forbid you have one of those problems and its the only 
hospital), generally, its not supposed to be possible, save lacking the 
needed equipment, or specialists to do so, to deny such help. Check the law.

>> Unfortunately, it is still legal to take a mother with medical problems,
>> which can kill her, as well as her child, and force her to ride in an
>> ambulance, or other transportation, to some place hundreds of miles
>> away, for ***immediate*** treatment, which the hospital won't give,
>> because they are religious, <snip>
>>
>> So, at least your principle that they shouldn't be "forced" to do things
>> counts, for some shit that ends up killing people (and hell yes, it does
>> kill people).
>
> To some, a human life is a human life. This is not necessarily a
> Christian Belief. Anton LaVey was anti-abortion.
>
> In a majority of US states, killing another person's fetus /is/ murder.
> I cannot agree with *forcing* an institution to perform this act.
>
Not even going to get into you with this one. I personally consider the 
definitions often used to define "human" in such context to be idiotic, 
and entirely religion driven, and all too often only seem to matter if 
its the baby that dies, and stops meaning a damn thing to the same 
people, once its born, but... otherwise.. the passing of such laws, 
based on what some people think should be true, instead of what is 
actually possible to keep alive outside the woman's own body, and 
forcing the choice on her, to keep it, or the choice of letting her die, 
when there is no possible way the baby will survive, at all, just 
because you don't want to kill a fetus.. its all bullshit.

> Besides, there are many, many life-preserving measures we don't even
> consider forcing hospitals to take, from cell-phone provision to arms
> reduction.
>
And, oddly enough, its perfectly fine in a major crisis situation to 
decide that one person can't be saved with the resources we have, but 
someone else can, unless... its a fetus involved.

>> I have heard the same asinine argument made, over and over again, by
>> "libertarians" arguing that laws prohibiting businesses from telling
>> people with the wrong color skin, or political affiliation, or what ever
>> other BS they use, should be a allowed,
>
> It's not that these discriminations should be allowed. It's that no
> Constitutional authority exists to pass laws against them. Libertarians
> assume, and history assures, the majority (government) will capriciously
> exercise any power they are given. Minority rights *require* limitations
> on the power of the majority.
>
Right.. so if there was constitutional authority, then it would be fine? 
Somehow, I think you would still be complaining. And, its precisely this 
sort of BS thinking that resulted in idiocies, during the civil war, of 
having it be "legal" to enslave, or re-enslave, free black people, as 
long as you could manage to get them across the border, to where it was 
legal to own people. Discrimination doesn't disappear just because a lot 
of people really wish they didn't exist. Sometimes, authorities have to 
step in and bloody do something to stop them. The only halfway sane 
claim I have ever seen is that, "At some point, it might make sense to 
eventually do away with such laws, because they are no longer needed.", 
only.. all someone has to do is look at the bunch of bloody idiots that 
where outside the White House the last few days, saying the insane crap 
they have, or look at some of the news in other places, or just, in the 
case of discrimination against women, just see how many rape cases the 
women's life gets turned to crap from, while the guy either gets off 
entirely free, or has a slap on the wrist, never mind the **still 
constant** job discrimination, to see that its not "now".

You, I am sure, imagine that, sort of like people looking for jobs that 
pay them shit all wages, having those laws are unnecessary, because, 
without them, we would have thousands of other options to pick from, 
instead of, as you keep saying, corruption and greed, instead, erasing 
all the options.

That is the one that gets me the most about libertarians. The 
government, is, **of course** going to be corrupt, but.. regular people, 
without someone 'unconstitutionally' making them do something will all 
just magically start acting sane, and not fall into even worse 
corruption than is already there.

People keep saying the government *IS* the problem.. Only, that just 
isn't true, really, it worked much better, before certain business 
interests, and the people they paid huge amounts of money to elect, 
pushed that narrative. Its the special interest money, and the fact that 
even SCOTUS is now in one the game of saying, "The corporations are the 
people, and the government.", that is the problem, but.. more on that in 
a bit.

>> If not for the lies of people that have, even before social security
>> existed, have been fighting to kill government services, the rule would
>> be, "It is better that one person cheat the system, than that someone
>> else die of starvation." Corrupt or not, hundreds of thousands of people
>> would be dead without it.
>
> Likewise, totalitarianism is only a problem when we start housing 25% of
> the world's prison population and killing literally millions with
> high-tech weaponry and seizing property for economic health and building
> with Predator drones and ...
>
> oh, wait.
>
We have that many people in prison, unlike so much of the rest of the 
western world, because someone took prisons out of the hands of the 
government, and ***handed them*** to private institutions, since then, 
every single person with any connection at all to those businesses, 
including politicians, have pushed for more mandatory sentences, less 
cause or reason to arrest people, the whole creation of three strikes 
laws. All of it presented to the public as a way to "end" criminal 
activity, while, in reality, every single bit of it was about making 
more criminals, to they would put more people in prisons, in order to 
make more profit off of having them in there. By contrast, how about we 
look at one of those, I assume, terribly authoritarian, socialist, 
nations handle this:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why-scandinavian-prisons-are-superior/279949/

Its almost as though the problem isn't government, but money, a failure 
to regulate, in the interests of said money, and who is f-ing running 
said government, because of that.

>> And, that has got to be the most fucked up thing of all. You could walk
>> in with a suit case full of hundred dollar bills, in need of nothing
>> more than a cast for a sprained ankle, and some of that "corruption" you
>> are so worried about, makes it illegal, in some cases/states, to treat
>> them ***at all***, without also producing an insurance card. Why?
>> Because it cuts out the profits of the insurance companies, and worse,
>> anyone with that kind of money must be, by definition, able to afford
>> it, or, possibly a drug dealer, criminal, terrorist, or some other
>> "unwanted" that doesn't, by the logic of some of the idiots out there
>> (and, often the same ones apposed to universal health care, and other
>> social programs), not **deserving** of help.
>
> Yeah, mandating insurance is pretty fucked up. Isn't it?
>
Yeah, just like mandatory driver's licenses, fishing licenses, demanding 
that parents educate their kids (which is being undermined, again, by 
attacks, of various kinds, on public schools, and the push for 
"corporate", or "religious" run ones, which can thus brainwash them to 
support what ever theory of economics, government, or religion, they 
favor), and so many other "unconstitutional" things we have, at various 
times, decided where necessary for a stable society. What sucks, is 
letting corporations dictate what medical help you can and can't get, 
while the same corporate interests also decide how much you should work, 
or get paid, to line their own pockets, instead of thinking about the 
well being of the country (they are not mutually exclusive, and whole 
swaths of time, with higher taxes, less cheating on them, and, of 
course, great prosperity at the same time, attributes to). But, yeah, it 
was not the option Obama wanted, but it was what he was stuck with, 
after your type insisted that a "government option" would be a horrible 
idea. Kind of like our government, it was the worst of all options, 
except for everything else we had previously been doing. Funny how that 
ends up being the outcome of corporate bought politicians imagining that 
we would somehow "pay" to keep the country healthy, on the backs of.. 
hmm, the vanishing middle class, which they haven't listened to for 40 
years.

>>
>> There is the "corruption" you need to be worrying about, not the
>> mythical "freeloader" that might be using your dime to get a damn
>> bandaid.
>
> Not worried about this. Have you read *any* of my posts. Or, do you
> think I just made up the "millions of dead" thing to keep a few quarters
> in my pocket?
>
No, I just think you are a very distorted, and faulty, understanding of 
why the hell it happens, and, ironically, you support the very things 
that will make it worse, because those things are being driven *by* the 
people that want to see smaller government, deregulation, and have, 
incidentally, been the ones mucking with voter laws, unions, passing 
laws to screw up the countries social programs, undermining the 
education system, and everything else, all with the core cause being to 
engineer the very failures that they then bamboozle everyone into 
thinking it someone else's fault. Or, do you really thing corporate 
money being the #1 source of funding for the campaigns of the people 
doing these things, while unions, and private sources, are the #1 
source, for their opposition, has **no** influence on the sudden rise of 
libertarian ideas among the Tea Party, or so much of all the other laws 
that have been passed in the last 20 years, or so, like "three strikes", 
or "deregulation", or even the decisions that led to people dying 
because some place didn't get proper funding, or was allowed special 
rules, or otherwise given an "out". Do you honestly think that, if some 
critical patient was given antibiotics, instead of surgery, there wasn't 
money, and specifically corporate money, behind it, and someone else 
saying, "Why should someone be allowed to force me to hire more staff, 
or provide that service?". somewhere behind it? Yeah, you probably do.

>> Its almost as though, if we really helped people, instead of shitting
>> all over them, while giving them free money, they might become
>> productive citizens... Nah...
>
> Citizenship is what I want for them, but not citizenship in a Plutocracy.
>
>   -Shay
>
Great, then we agree on something. Only.. in the US, the #1 source of 
plutocrats are the libertarians, who are absolutely for anything that 
makes them a profit, without having to think about consequences to 
anyone else, and against anything that they can pretend isn't their 
problem, because, "Its purely a result of someone else's bad choices 
that they had the problem." As though everyone was f-ing Vulcans, and we 
can, or should, expect everyone to act in their best interests, instead 
of realizing they won't, and trying to do what we can to help them 
anyway... But, yeah, like Jim, I think we are pretty much done here.

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:

> certain business interests, and the people they paid huge amounts
> of money to elect, pushed that narrative.

> every single person with any connection at all to (corporate
> prisons), including politicians, have pushed for more mandatory
> sentences, less cause or reason to arrest people, the whole
> creation of three strikes laws.

> Its almost as though the problem isn't government, but money, a
> failure to regulate, in the interests of said money, and who is
> f-ing running said government, because of that.

You're aaaaaaalllmost there. Just a few more steps!

> I think we are pretty much done here.

Yes, I've taken you as far as I can. You'll have to finish this journey on your
own. I'll see you on the other side, Patrick. Go forth!

 -Shay

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:

> certain business interests, and the people they paid huge amounts
> of money to elect, pushed that narrative.

> every single person with any connection at all to (corporate
> prisons), (>>>)including politicians(<<<) , have pushed for more
> mandatory sentences, less cause or reason to arrest people, the
> whole creation of three strikes laws.

> Its almost as though the problem isn't government, but money, a
> failure to regulate, in the interests of said money, and who is
> f-ing running said government, because of that.

You're aaaalllllmost there. Just a few more steps!!!

> I think we are pretty much done here.

Yes, I have taken you as far as I can. You must finish this journey on your own.
I'll meet you on the other side, Patrick. Release your neighbor's shackles and
free yourself.

Post a reply to this message

On 10/16/2013 5:54 AM, Shay wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>
>> certain business interests, and the people they paid huge amounts
>> of money to elect, pushed that narrative.
>
>> every single person with any connection at all to (corporate
>> prisons), including politicians, have pushed for more mandatory
>> sentences, less cause or reason to arrest people, the whole
>> creation of three strikes laws.
>
>> Its almost as though the problem isn't government, but money, a
>> failure to regulate, in the interests of said money, and who is
>> f-ing running said government, because of that.
>
> You're aaaaaaalllmost there. Just a few more steps!
>
Oh, no, I think I have gone well beyond you. You, and so many others, 
seem to think that a thing needs to be "labelled" government to be 
corruptible, but that charity, or businesses, or collections of people 
who think they are better "enlightened", somehow are not. All any of 
those are is less controllable, when they grow corrupt. Its a "who 
watches the watchmen?", problem. You can have one big watchman, which, 
if you are careful, have some sort of control over, or can regain 
control over, or you can have hundreds of little watchmen, all with 
their own personal corruptions, a tendency to band together, when they 
see a common goal, and no capacity of the public to either know what 
they are doing, or actually do anything about it, if they do know. 
Corporations "are" governments, with their own mix is dictatorships, 
armed guards to keep the populous in line, in some cases, etc. So can 
charities. The idea that people are better equipped to work out which of 
these thousands of groups are corrupt, when, according to you, its 
dangerous to have one of them, which everyone is watching, and which, in 
turn watches all the mini-governments under it... is the single most 
naive things anyone ever came up with.

But, that is exactly what the idea of normal, everyday people, without 
anyone to help them, being able to control, guide, or otherwise direct 
the market of ideas, products, or even social services, etc., by picking 
and choosing which ones to support, that **is** at the core of 
libertarianism. If even libertarians can't manage it, how the hell are 
300 million people supposed to? This is the role of a government, to be 
the watchman, which everyone else watches. The problem, of course, is 
that those thousands of "mini-governments" have managed to undermine 
this principle. And, ironically, all I ever hear from some people is, 
"Its not fixable, so lets gut it, in the hopes that, once it no longer 
has the means *to* watch anyone, it can do its job better. That it is 
now watching the wrong people, is because of people arguing that it 
should spend less time watching who, and what, its supposed to, and more 
and more time watching everyone else, while letting the "market" do damn 
near what ever the fuck it can get by with, or bribe someone to allow. 
So much for the watchman...

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:

> Its a "who watches the watchmen?", problem.

Oh, that one's simple. *We* are the watchmen and *we* watch the watchmen.

I regret to say, Patrick, that you've been a very poor watchman indeed. Instead
of watching over the rise of unfettered power, you've fallen in love with the
idea of controlling it.

In a previous post, you said:

> I personally consider the definitions often used to define "human"
> in such context (healthcare) to be idiotic

With the power of governemnt, Patrick Elliott would decide who is and is not
human.

Should government compel the sacrifice of one of your unborn subjects to save
one of your adult subjects?

Should government compel the sacrifice of one of your infertile subjects to save
one of your fertile subjects?

Should government compel the sacrifice of one of your violent subjects to save
one of your less-disruptive subjects?

Patrick Elliott would decide!

Your corruption is the seed of every army that has ever walked the Earth. Don't
believe? Tell us who would impose your definition of humanity on unwilling
subjects. Who would drag these subjects into your prisons?

_____________________

However, even given that, I accept you, along with your 300+million fellow
Americans, as the least-worst candidates for watchmen, not because we are
incorruptible, but because we are, as individuals, relatively powerless over
each other.

You _may_ succeed in building a majority to coerce the country towards your
vision of authoritarian utopia, but your fellow watchment will cast you off the
throne. Maybe not immediately, or even soon, but it will happen. We "humans"
always re-learn to fear authoritarianism.

And some time after that, your evil will crawl back out from under a rock and
rebuild the armies and the arsenals. And the cycle will repeat itself.

 -Shay

Post a reply to this message

On 10/17/2013 5:42 AM, Shay wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>
>> Its a "who watches the watchmen?", problem.
>
> Oh, that one's simple. *We* are the watchmen and *we* watch the watchmen.
>
> I regret to say, Patrick, that you've been a very poor watchman indeed. Instead
> of watching over the rise of unfettered power, you've fallen in love with the
> idea of controlling it.
>
No, you just keep insisting I have, while failing to understand anything 
either of us that have been discussing this have been saying.

Its not about "unfettered power". How the hell does hundreds, if not 
thousands, of unrelated, uncontrolled, groups, every one of them just as 
corruptable, none of which the general public has the slightest hope of 
knowing enough about to make rational choices, replacing a single 
entity, which we *have* some level of control over, help anything?

You imagine that the whole thing, to use a batman analogy, is filled 
with Max Ekharts. Some of us recognize that, while more corruption has 
gotten in, as all of those other entities have pushed their own ideas 
into the mess, there was a time that James Gordon was the norm. What we 
have, because everyone recognizes its broken, but some thing that there 
are too many of the former to fight, and others can't find more of the 
latter to elect, is a government full of bloody Harvey Dents (many, 
many, of them going in with some distorted, over zealous idea of 
justice, then getting burned and turning into someone that can't stick 
to any concept of right and wrong, randomly jumping back and forth, as 
the wind changes). The solution, we are told, is to give the watchman a 
desk job, lock the door, so he can't get out and muck things up, and 
hand the key over to some fictitious "league of enlightened self 
interest", which like an absurd scene out of Pratchett's book, "Guards! 
Guards!", is in direct competition with the "club of enlightened self 
interest", the "society of greater enlightened self interest", and an 
endless number of other, supposedly incorruptible, groups, at least one 
of which you imagine yourself a member of, even while denying it, who 
can be "trusted with the key, to let the watchman out, when he needs to 
actually do his job, as per what which ever one of those "enlightened" 
groups happens to have it at the moment thinks that actually f-ing means 
exactly.

Because, that is what you get when you forget both why all the shit 
people think its doing too much of landing in its lap in the first 
place, and it should stop, and well as the only way you will *ever* keep 
it from over stepping the line, even assuming you can manage to somehow, 
magically, fix it, without doing the hard work of bloody working out 
what is really broken, how, and why, and fixing it, instead of 
bulldozing the whole thing, and imagining that you actually have a clue 
how it got there in the first place.

And, this is part of it:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jensenko/the-brainwashing-of-my-dad-documentary

Certain groups figured out, quite well, that people are lazy, and if you 
pretty much totally take over talk radio, where people listen alone, and 
can't fact check, then you get some part of the TV news repeating it, 
then.. you can control public perception, one of the biggest lies told, 
at the start of this, at a point when the government still **was** 
working, and didn't have the massive polarization we see now, and it was 
possible to get deals across the line, etc., was, "The government is the 
problem, not the solution." Well, it certainly fucking is now, after 
decades of making it that way, and pushing the idea, to everyone that 
listens, that all the problems where caused *by* government, and not, 
instead, by people intentionally breaking it.

It did work. A lot of it still does, and would work better, if other 
elements didn't hate anything that actually tries to help people, 
sabotaging it. Everything from the damn post office (which is mandated 
in the constitution), to medicare and social security, to, now, any 
attempt to fix the mess they forced through with healthcare reform, 
after making damned sure what passed **was** broken to begin with, has 
been fought, lied about, distorted, derided, demonized, sabotaged, 
and/or defunded, when ever possible, since at least Reagan, with the 
efforts to do so only getting worse and worse.

And, people *are* waking up to it. Only.. your position isn't the one 
that they are looking at for answers. It is, rather, one of the 
ideologies **driving** all of the sabotage. Strange how similar the 
wackos in the Tea Party are to libertarians, if you just get rid of the 
religious fanaticism, and barely hidden racism, from so many of them, 
and only look at their theory of "government", "social services", 
"spending", and anything else that doesn't just happen to help them, and 
no one else. A party line pushed, even by fools that have their own 
kids, in the case of one of them, getting medical care, via medicaid, 
saying that, "Its the only logical option", while, simultaneously 
claiming it should be ended, for being socialist, dysfunctional, and 
"not proper capitalism".

You can't get corporate money and plutocracy out of government, but 
killing, or defunding, or undermining, the government. All you do is 
replace their services with ones more directly run by the plutocracy, 
and, in the process, you can watch it all you damn want, but.. then, 
there also isn't anyone left to arrest, fine, or otherwise force them, 
to stop screwing you. You just, basically, fired all the cops, corrupt 
and non-corrupt both, without fixing the problem, and locked the rest of 
them in a room, for 'everyone's safety", so they can't do anything 
"untoward", unless... someone, not you, me, or anyone else with no 
power, but.. just more of the same people that will lie to us, claim 
they are doing the right thing, then taking bribe money to decide when 
the cop gets to come out and actually do something, still in charge. 
Nay.. **more** in charge.

Post a reply to this message

Oh, and as an example of the bullshit that could be fixed, with the 
simple passage of a law that half the damn libertarians out there argue 
we should have never created - Just McDonalds alone, by itself, by 
refusing to pay a living wage, or give people hours, and without the Fed 
being willing to increase the minimum wage to something even "vaguely 
better", costs us $7 billion dollars a year, in government assistance. 
But, of course, the fact that like 80% of the companies out there, 
including some of our biggest retailers are pulling the same shit, has 
**nothing** according to any libertarian I have even seen discuss the 
issue, to do with it. People are, according to them, just too lazy to 
find better jobs.

At one time, the Republicans thought unions where the answer, of course, 
until certain elements cherry picked bad ones out of the mix, then lied 
about all of them being corrupt, or "ruining business". Just more of the 
same "the people are the problem, oh, wait.. I mean 'government', so 
lets give corporati... err, I mean the ric.. err, no.. 'individual 
entrepreneurs'.. That's it! free reign." Now, most of the the current 
generation of Republicans actually think "labor day" is about 
"capitalism, and business", and from the idiocy I saw last labor day 
from the public, even the ones old enough to know better seem to think 
its true, not "unions". When you can manage to lie so effectively that 
even your holidays, and history, gets changed to accommodate the lies...

Its not the governments side of this mess that has become lopsided, and 
the single most effective means to "cut entitlements", and the one 
single one that not one of these fucking idiots want to do, is "actually 
fucking pay people a sane wage, for their work." Hell, based on 
inflation, my own job, at the moment, and its unlikely I will find jack 
shit otherwise in this city, or can afford to move to look, especially 
right now, will *eventually* in some far future date, pay me $5 less 
than what most of the financial experts say "should be" the minimum, 
which, of course, of $8 higher than what it is now. They can all kiss my 
ass, including the people that say we shouldn't have the law that makes 
them pay me the shitty wage I already get.

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 18 Oct 2013 09:13:07 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> People are,
> according to them, just too lazy to find better jobs.

Even though many of them work two jobs or double shifts and still barely 
make ends meet.

> Just more of the
> same "the people are the problem, oh, wait.. I mean 'government', so
> lets give corporati... err, I mean the ric.. err, no.. 'individual
> entrepreneurs'..

"Job creators" is the new phrase I think you're looking for. ;)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 10/18/2013 1:35 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Oct 2013 09:13:07 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> People are,
>> according to them, just too lazy to find better jobs.
>
> Even though many of them work two jobs or double shifts and still barely
> make ends meet.
>
>> Just more of the
>> same "the people are the problem, oh, wait.. I mean 'government', so
>> lets give corporati... err, I mean the ric.. err, no.. 'individual
>> entrepreneurs'..
>
> "Job creators" is the new phrase I think you're looking for. ;)
>
> Jim
>
lol Yeah, and I get that crap even from my father, who should know 
better, and votes Democratic. "Its funny how all the poor people seem to 
think they know better how to create jobs than the business owners." 
Because those people are creating so damned many of them in the US, 
instead of someplace else. I swear, if the damned Isle of Dr. Moreau was 
real, you would probably find half the so called "Job creators" 
investing in the new sweat shop start up on it, and the other half 
talking about how "sad it is" that American jobs are being lost, but 
both halves apposing any legislation making it illegal to use transgenic 
mutants as unpaid labor.

Post a reply to this message

On 10/19/2013 09:13 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 10/18/2013 1:35 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Fri, 18 Oct 2013 09:13:07 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>>> People are,
>>> according to them, just too lazy to find better jobs.
>>
>> Even though many of them work two jobs or double shifts and still barely
>> make ends meet.
>>
>>> Just more of the
>>> same "the people are the problem, oh, wait.. I mean 'government', so
>>> lets give corporati... err, I mean the ric.. err, no.. 'individual
>>> entrepreneurs'..
>>
>> "Job creators" is the new phrase I think you're looking for. ;)
>>
>> Jim
>>
> lol Yeah, and I get that crap even from my father, who should know
> better, and votes Democratic. "Its funny how all the poor people seem to
> think they know better how to create jobs than the business owners."
> Because those people are creating so damned many of them in the US,
> instead of someplace else. I swear, if the damned Isle of Dr. Moreau was
> real, you would probably find half the so called "Job creators"
> investing in the new sweat shop start up on it, and the other half
> talking about how "sad it is" that American jobs are being lost, but
> both halves apposing any legislation making it illegal to use transgenic
> mutants as unpaid labor.

Yeah, and we all know the government spends tax money at Joe's Bait & 
Tackle. No MegaPharm or Haliburton on the receiving end of that 
arrangement, nosiree.

Post a reply to this message

On 10/21/2013 2:51 PM, Shay wrote:
> On 10/19/2013 09:13 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> On 10/18/2013 1:35 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Fri, 18 Oct 2013 09:13:07 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>>
>>>> People are,
>>>> according to them, just too lazy to find better jobs.
>>>
>>> Even though many of them work two jobs or double shifts and still barely
>>> make ends meet.
>>>
>>>> Just more of the
>>>> same "the people are the problem, oh, wait.. I mean 'government', so
>>>> lets give corporati... err, I mean the ric.. err, no.. 'individual
>>>> entrepreneurs'..
>>>
>>> "Job creators" is the new phrase I think you're looking for. ;)
>>>
>>> Jim
>>>
>> lol Yeah, and I get that crap even from my father, who should know
>> better, and votes Democratic. "Its funny how all the poor people seem to
>> think they know better how to create jobs than the business owners."
>> Because those people are creating so damned many of them in the US,
>> instead of someplace else. I swear, if the damned Isle of Dr. Moreau was
>> real, you would probably find half the so called "Job creators"
>> investing in the new sweat shop start up on it, and the other half
>> talking about how "sad it is" that American jobs are being lost, but
>> both halves apposing any legislation making it illegal to use transgenic
>> mutants as unpaid labor.
>
> Yeah, and we all know the government spends tax money at Joe's Bait &
> Tackle. No MegaPharm or Haliburton on the receiving end of that
> arrangement, nosiree.
>
Because, of course, in your universe, no one that has a government job 
goes fishing either, but.. the economy works so much better if 4 people 
who buy their bait from the Coch Bros Bait and Yachts, the same week 
they fire 1,000 people, because they figured out that they could save a 
few million by doing so, and pocket it (possibly to buy one of the 
yachts, to put the bait on, is doing us "so" much good, by contrast.

And.. just to be clear... which side has been, generally, trying to pass 
legislation that at least controls, limits, and/or requires MegaPharm, 
or Halliburton to do their own f-ing clean up, or stop selling dangerous 
products, etc., and.. which one has cut regulations, insisted on 
**keeping** subsidies for them, and then lining their pockets with the 
resulting wind fall. Hint: Most of the money that elects Democrats is 
"union", which is why huge assed energy companies, and other big money 
people, have spent insane amounts of money, to push to kill unions. And, 
most of the stock is **not** owned by Democrats, in those same companies.

Or, you want a better example of why I find your position to be BS, 
there is one single, organization, which the same organization "claims" 
is "grass roots", the organization in question **funded**, in a large 
part by the Coch brothers, who keeps busing in all the supposed 
protestors. Well, until the latest one, when they stated, 
"Unfortunately, our ride decided to cancel, but show up anyway, lets 
just hope the money being funneled in for T-shirts and professionally 
made posters, doesn't dry up too." Maybe the Halliburtons of the world 
are finally realizing that it isn't working as intended too. lol

Also, if you think, for one damn moment, that, should one of yours get 
elected, or worse, that already have (since the big lie told by everyone 
one of them, to get elected) are actually interested in cutting one 
single cent from funding to mega-corporations, energy companies, or 
anyone else, and not from, instead, the general public, via the bullshit 
of, "The public taxes are supposed to return to the public, and as such, 
social programs ***are*** what they are paying for, but we will call 
them 'entitlements' and fight to cut them, while keeping massive 
kickbacks to big-oil", then you are not just clueless about what the 
problem is, you are totally delusional about who actually gives a damn 
about *FIXING IT*.

Post a reply to this message

On 10/21/2013 11:33 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
> Because, of course, in your universe, no one that has a government job
> goes fishing either, but.. the economy works so much better if 4 people
> who buy their bait from the Coch Bros Bait and Yachts, the same week
> they fire 1,000 people, because they figured out that they could save a
> few million by doing so, and pocket it (possibly to buy one of the
> yachts, to put the bait on, is doing us "so" much good, by contrast.

In *our* universe, pushing money upwards benefits the government *and* 
the billionaires. I don't know what kind of Batman president you're 
waiting for to reverse this trend, but I haven't seen him in my lifetime.

> Hint: Most of the money that elects Democrats is
> "union",

With this kind of misinformation, it's no wonder you've got your 
political head on backwards.

> Also, if you think, for one damn moment, that, should one of yours get
> elected, or worse, that already have (since the big lie told by everyone
> one of them, to get elected) are actually interested in cutting one
> single cent from funding to mega-corporations,

One of mine? Let's see, there's Ron Paul. If you aren't familiar with 
Ron Paul's position and record on corporate welfare, look it up while 
you're clearing up that "union" thing.

Protecting the "too big to fail" is _your_ people's business.

  -Shay

Post a reply to this message

On 10/22/2013 10:26 AM, Shay wrote:
> On 10/21/2013 11:33 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>> Because, of course, in your universe, no one that has a government job
>> goes fishing either, but.. the economy works so much better if 4 people
>> who buy their bait from the Coch Bros Bait and Yachts, the same week
>> they fire 1,000 people, because they figured out that they could save a
>> few million by doing so, and pocket it (possibly to buy one of the
>> yachts, to put the bait on, is doing us "so" much good, by contrast.
>
> In *our* universe, pushing money upwards benefits the government *and*
> the billionaires. I don't know what kind of Batman president you're
> waiting for to reverse this trend, but I haven't seen him in my lifetime.
>
But, funneling the money down to cities, districts, counties, and 
states.. that will solve it. We will just ignore the fact that the 
closer you get to the town level, the more likely it is that the people 
"in" the government are the ones that own everything in sight, and have 
all the money. Which is a real big reason towns often get screwed by the 
neighboring towns, who actually see a profit in allowing new businesses. 
The one being screwed.. usually is protecting the interests of the "down 
town", which is owned, entirely, by everyone from the mayor, to the town 
council. If you go up one level, to the county.. odds are that more than 
half of the people working on that level either own big businesses, 
stock in them, or have close friends that do. The state level.. oh hell, 
that one is really fun. You know that, by the latest estimates, Texas, 
whose leaders claim "we are America", but which one seceded from the 
union, and had to be dragged back in, is likely to see insurance rates 
sky rocket, precisely because they refuse to accept the expansions to 
government programs, and they are fighting tooth and nail against 
everything else, including exchanges. Meanwhile, even with the federal 
website having suffered a meltdown, Oregon has insured 10% of the people 
they know don't have it, purely through the expanded medicaid, and 
California is making even them look like idiots.

But, we have good old fox trotting out the three dimwits as evidence of 
failure - Moe - whose business is too small to be effected, Larry - who 
refuses to look at the exchange program, "on principle", even though 
someone else did for them, and it would end up costing them less money, 
and Curley - who is from Texas, where they have refused to implement any 
of it, and thus ***all*** of the increases they see coming are due to 
the refusal to participate.

And that is just the most blatant idiocy you can see with "state level" 
government. There is a reason that some things where taking out of their 
hands. Though.. I never have understood the idiocy of letting people 
elect, without having to have qualifications, training, understanding 
of, experience in, or even the ability to pass a 6th grade history, 
math, or science, exam, run school boards, instead of setting a bloody 
federal standard for it. Its like.. we think we need central government 
for shit that *isn't* necessary, some times, or where keeping an eye on 
things, without interfering much is a better solution, we need total 
control, but things that have a direct, obvious, and critical, impact on 
people.. well, those either are not, will not be, or, are being argued, 
quite vehemently, including by people like you, we should just leave to 
get fucked up in any inventive way the "locals" see fit.

>> Hint: Most of the money that elects Democrats is
>> "union",
>
> With this kind of misinformation, it's no wonder you've got your
> political head on backwards.
>
No, its reality. Yes, they have "some" big political donations, from the 
corporate sector, but its no where near the same as the other side. The 
attack on unions all over the country 100% of it by Republicans, and Tea 
Party people, doesn't make a shit load of sense, unless their motivation 
is to cut the legs out from under their opponents. Maybe you need to do 
some research.

>> Also, if you think, for one damn moment, that, should one of yours get
>> elected, or worse, that already have (since the big lie told by everyone
>> one of them, to get elected) are actually interested in cutting one
>> single cent from funding to mega-corporations,
>
> One of mine? Let's see, there's Ron Paul. If you aren't familiar with
> Ron Paul's position and record on corporate welfare, look it up while
> you're clearing up that "union" thing.
>
Yeah, heard of the guy. He is the one that can't stop lying all the 
time, right? See, that is his problem. Even if he had new ideas, and he 
doesn't, and had a clue how the economy really works, and you won't find 
an economist on the planet that says he does, he keeps lying about 
things, ranging from his own website claiming that Egypt was some sort 
of plot by Obama, to remove their "elected" dictator, to claims that a 
company he was heavily involved with, and personally signed off on the 
pamphlets for, he had no involvement with (well, being as the pamphlets 
where racist... I can see why he would say so..), to lying about 
"increases in defense spending", which where not increases, to news 
letters claiming that, ""I uncovered the New Money plans in my last term 
in the US Congress, and I held the ugly new bills in my hands. I can 
tell you - they made my skin crawl! These totalitarian bills were tinted 
pink and blue and brown, and blighted with holograms, diffraction 
gratings, metal and plastic threads, and chemical alarms. It wasn't 
money for a free people. It was a portable inquisition, a paper 'third 
degree' to allow the feds to keep track of American cash, and American 
citizens.", in his news letters, to a long list of other things that 
range from racist, to paranoid, to delusional, to just flat out plane, 
and simply **incorrect**.

The guy is a kook. That you, or anyone else, can admit to *any* of the 
absurd things he has said, or done, over the years, and not at least 
want to see real numbers, instead of assertions, about his supposed, 
"understanding of economics and how the government should work 
(obviously.. the first thing would be to get rid of that new colored 
money, being used to secretly track the populous...)", well..

Though, having looked some of this stuff up, to see what kind of things 
I could find on him (note, the newsletter, and its contents, along with 
interviews he claims he never had, after the fact, are all talked about 
on "multiple" news sites, and, in many cases, archived on his own bloody 
website(s), so..., it leaves me with a disturbing picture of what you 
think the government really is doing, and why you fear it, or any 
solution that doesn't involve dismantling it, so badly.

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:

>>> Hint: Most of the money that elects Democrats is "union",
>>
>> With this kind of misinformation, it's no wonder you've got your political
>> head on backwards.
>>
> No, its reality.

Not yet. But if you move the keep moving the goalpost you might EVENTUALLY get
there.

> Though, having looked some of (Ron Paul's) stuff up, to see what kind of
> things I could find on him (note, the newsletter, and its contents, along
> with interviews he claims he never had, after the fact, are all talked about
> on "multiple" news sites, and, in many cases, archived on his own bloody
> website(s), so..., it leaves me with a disturbing picture of what you think
> the government really is doing, and why you fear it, or any solution that
> doesn't involve dismantling it, so badly.

Millions dead, Millions more in prison, and Trillions in corporate relief to
protect the interests of your totalitarian champions, and THIS is your criticism
of the opposition?!!

You're mad with power.

Post a reply to this message

On 10/23/2013 9:57 AM, Shay wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>
>>>> Hint: Most of the money that elects Democrats is "union",
>>>
>>> With this kind of misinformation, it's no wonder you've got your political
>>> head on backwards.
>>>
>> No, its reality.
>
> Not yet. But if you move the keep moving the goalpost you might EVENTUALLY get
> there.
>
>> Though, having looked some of (Ron Paul's) stuff up, to see what kind of
>> things I could find on him (note, the newsletter, and its contents, along
>> with interviews he claims he never had, after the fact, are all talked about
>> on "multiple" news sites, and, in many cases, archived on his own bloody
>> website(s), so..., it leaves me with a disturbing picture of what you think
>> the government really is doing, and why you fear it, or any solution that
>> doesn't involve dismantling it, so badly.
>
> Millions dead, Millions more in prison, and Trillions in corporate relief to
> protect the interests of your totalitarian champions, and THIS is your criticism
> of the opposition?!!
>
> You're mad with power.
>
And, of course, there is the lies you tell, because you can't imagine 
that someone could be apposed to any of those things themselves, yet 
still believe in government. Tell me, who do "you" trust to lie to you?

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/10/22/who-do-you-trust-to-tell-you-lies/

Apparently, you think career politicians, with insane ideas, is a good 
option. People who, if they got what they wanted, would be the ones with 
all the power, while you would still have none at all. Because, nothing 
they want to do will make you as rich as they already are. I haven't 
seen a single "libertarian" politician who wasn't at least as monied as 
the people they claimed to appose, or a follower, who wasn't doing so 
because they had next to nothing, and the promise of this delusional 
political philosophy is a Robin Hood like claim that, "The Sheriff and 
false king, are stealing all your money and freedom, and we plan to give 
it back to you." Its just too bad that these people, when you actually 
look hard enough at what they really do say, and how they do act, and 
who they do help, bare a stronger resemblance to the crazy Robin Hood in 
Time Bandits, than ... any of the others.

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:

> And, of course, there is the lies you tell, because you can't imagine that
> someone could be apposed to any of those things themselves, yet still believe
> in government.

Of course I can imagine it; I see it every day, a religion like any other. When
your god is displeased, he kills off a few-hundred-thousand people. When he's
happy, he gives alms to the poor ... or to billionaires. Mysterious are the ways
of your god.

Best not question him or you may end up in the sights of his predator drones.

Post a reply to this message

On 10/23/2013 11:57 AM, Shay wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>
>> And, of course, there is the lies you tell, because you can't imagine that
>> someone could be apposed to any of those things themselves, yet still believe
>> in government.
>
> Of course I can imagine it; I see it every day, a religion like any other. When
> your god is displeased, he kills off a few-hundred-thousand people. When he's
> happy, he gives alms to the poor ... or to billionaires. Mysterious are the ways
> of your god.
>
> Best not question him or you may end up in the sights of his predator drones.
>
Wow... Yeah, that is pretty much a conversation ender, even if the last 
post by you wasn't. Since you refuse to stop putting words in my mouth, 
claiming I support things, just because you are paranoid about them and 
can't see the difference, and insist on lying about what you "know" 
about me, and my position, based on that paranoia... yeah, the surest 
sign of a religion, since you bring that up, is an absolute, unshakable, 
certainty in your own position, to the extent that you imagine that 
everyone else who disagrees with you must support your enemies.

We are done here.

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 23 Oct 2013 19:40:22 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> On 10/23/2013 11:57 AM, Shay wrote:
>> Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>>
>>> And, of course, there is the lies you tell, because you can't imagine
>>> that someone could be apposed to any of those things themselves, yet
>>> still believe in government.
>>
>> Of course I can imagine it; I see it every day, a religion like any
>> other. When your god is displeased, he kills off a few-hundred-thousand
>> people. When he's happy, he gives alms to the poor ... or to
>> billionaires. Mysterious are the ways of your god.
>>
>> Best not question him or you may end up in the sights of his predator
>> drones.
>>
> Wow... Yeah, that is pretty much a conversation ender, even if the last
> post by you wasn't. Since you refuse to stop putting words in my mouth,
> claiming I support things, just because you are paranoid about them and
> can't see the difference, and insist on lying about what you "know"
> about me, and my position, based on that paranoia... yeah, the surest
> sign of a religion, since you bring that up, is an absolute, unshakable,
> certainty in your own position, to the extent that you imagine that
> everyone else who disagrees with you must support your enemies.
> 
> We are done here.

That's why I got out of the discussion, Patrick.  When confronted with 
extreme "either you're with me or you're with the bad guys" logic, that's 
a red flag to me that no serious discussion is going to take place.  The 
world isn't that black and white, and people who refuse to acknowledge 
that are extremists of one type or another.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

> That's why I got out of the discussion, Patrick.  When confronted with
> extreme "either you're with me or you're with the bad guys" logic, that's
> a red flag to me that no serious discussion is going to take place.

It was the extreme right nature of the posts that stopped me reading 
them all - start a new post guys please, my "subject" column width 
cannot cope!

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:

> That's why I got out of the discussion, Patrick.  When confronted with
> extreme "either you're with me or you're with the bad guys" logic, that's a
> red flag to me that no serious discussion is going to take place.  The world
> isn't that black and white, and people who refuse to acknowledge that are
> extremists of one type or another.
>
> Jim

Wasn't much of a discussion, unfortunately. You, as per usual, almost
immediately attempted to prevent discussion by feigning injury. I may not know
all the characters from Patrick's Batman analogy, but I do know a "Gambit" when
I see one.

Patrick is a better sport, but he doesn't have much to work with (see, I can be
passive aggressive too. ha). His answer for the millions slain by centralized
government? to accuse the opposition of *gasp* hyperbole when discussing a new
paper currency. Oh yes, and to levy a so-feeble accusation of "racist
association" that it could only have come from the Internet or some Dickensien
courtroom.

But this "discussion" has been a chance for the oh-so-unfashionable case for
limited government to be not only read, but vigorously studied (by, obviously,
more than just Patrick--who, I fear, may get all his information from wherever
he acquired his embarrassing "union funding" delusion). And your latest volley
of dismissive responses are yet another opportunity for me to re-state a
position in language so plain as to penetrate all but the most pugnacious
fervors of totalitarian zeal:

I am not placing you "with the bad guys."

I am placing you with the results of the near-total authority you wish to
exercise. Not with prognostications, not with asserted historical analogs, but
with the documented record of the actual animal you wish to continue feeding.

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 11:19:13 -0400, Shay wrote:

> You, as per usual, almost immediately attempted to prevent discussion by
> feigning injury.

No, I just got sick and tired of the personal attacks and assumptions 
that if I didn't agree with you, I must somehow be a bad person.

> I am not placing you "with the bad guys."
> 
> I am placing you with the results of the near-total authority you wish
> to exercise.

You consider authoritarianism to be a bad thing.  You then paint my 
position as authoritarian (even though I don't consider it to be), and 
debate that, which paints me as the "bad guy".

That's a very dirty debate tactic, and I refuse to debate someone who 
resorts to those kinds of tactics.

But thanks for playing.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 25/10/13 01:39, Jim Henderson wrote:
> But thanks for playing.
> 
> Jim
> 
This thread started 2 months ago, so please, all of you, can it.
Enough is enough.
BTW Jim this ain't personal. I tend to agree with most of what you write.

John
-- 
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 25 Oct 2013 06:52:45 +0100, Doctor John wrote:

> BTW Jim this ain't personal. I tend to agree with most of what you
> write.

Not taking it personally, either, John.  I hadn't intended to write 
anything further, but did want Patrick to know he wasn't alone.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Doctor John <j.g### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> On 25/10/13 01:39, Jim Henderson wrote:
> > But thanks for playing.
> >
> > Jim
> >
> This thread started 2 months ago, so please, all of you, can it.
> Enough is enough.
> BTW Jim this ain't personal. I tend to agree with most of what you write.
>
> John

It looks like the weather is taking a turn for the worse.
I am glad that I will be traveling on the Eurostar this Monday, not flying.

Post a reply to this message

On 10/24/2013 10:54 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Oct 2013 06:52:45 +0100, Doctor John wrote:
>
>> BTW Jim this ain't personal. I tend to agree with most of what you
>> write.
>
> Not taking it personally, either, John.  I hadn't intended to write
> anything further, but did want Patrick to know he wasn't alone.
>
> Jim
>
Unfortunately, I am of the mind that a person should be given every 
chance to try to understand another person's position, including my own. 
As such I have often been quite critical of the instant jumping on some 
people on certain blogs, when they show up and start either repeating 
the same things, over and over, as though, if said enough times, they 
might turn out to be true, or copy and pasting things from their 
favorite "this is true because I read it on the internet!", websites. 
Sometimes.. such people have simply spent so much time in an echo 
chamber of their own positions, that they have never been challenged.

Unfortunately, I am too kind, and.. there is no less kind moderator, to 
say, "Come back when you have fact, not just accusations and libel, or.. 
next time, you won't be coming back."

Post a reply to this message

On 25/10/13 07:51, Stephen wrote:
> 
> It looks like the weather is taking a turn for the worse.
> I am glad that I will be traveling on the Eurostar this Monday, not flying.
> 

Nice gambit, Steve :-)
Indeed, the forecast looks horrible. Batten down the hatches, reef the
mainsail and other nautical sayings.

John
-- 
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children

Post a reply to this message

Doctor John <j.g### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> On 25/10/13 07:51, Stephen wrote:
> >
> > It looks like the weather is taking a turn for the worse.
> > I am glad that I will be traveling on the Eurostar this Monday, not flying.
> >
>
> Nice gambit, Steve :-)
> Indeed, the forecast looks horrible. Batten down the hatches, reef the
> mainsail and other nautical sayings.
>

Splice the mainbrace, is the one that I will go for, me hearties.

Now let's see if the hint has been taken.

Post a reply to this message