Conservatism = Sociopathic Behavior

[Stone]

........................



This last paragraph sums up conservolibertarians succinctly:

No argument other than it's not an absolute any more than all socialists are like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin#Purges_and_deportations

Extremists on the right and left do seem to be sociopaths.

 

[Johnfromokc]

Really? Because earlier you said it was the failure of private sector and charity. Is it the responsibility of the "conservo-libertarian philosophy" to take care of the needy?

You DID say it was not the proper function of the government to take care of the sick, elderly and impoverished - didn't you? And the private sector, churches and charity did indeed prove to be a failure. They have failed 100% of the time to fully get the job done. I stand by that comment. Here's a reminder what life was like for the poor during the great depression, and an example of the failure of the private sectore to deal with it without government intervention:






The private sector did a real fine job didn't they?

Love that smiley. Send me the link.

Can't recall where I found it. Just right click & copy - that's what I did.

​

you misunderstand. Because the gov't is using tax dollars taken from the pockets of the hard-working citizens, the hard-working citizens figure they've paid already, so they don't need to help.

Like the wealthy citizens who didn't step up to help folks like the ones in the pictures above when there was no government intervention?

So since they're still being asked to help, the natural reaction is resentment. After all, they've already paid, haven't they? And their payment hasn't fixed the problem, has it?

Were you resentful helping out after Katrina? Look again at the pictures above. That's what zero government assistance looks like.

Yes, shut down all government assistance, especially the unconstitutional assistance (If you want the government to take your responsibility for caring for your fellow man, push through an amendment), and watch the humanity of man helping man flourish.

You mean "flourish" like we have historically demonstrated in the pictures above? Sorry, that conservo-libertarian philosophy sounds all warm & fuzzy, but in reality, that model is a proven failure. There are simply not enough chartiable human beings in the United States to get the job done. Sadly, most humans, especially the super rich humans, like to hold onto their cash and pile it up in real estate, cars, gold, jewels, bank accounts.....If they are nor required by law to participate in the betterment of the greater society, they simply will not do it voluntarily. History has repeatedly proven this.

Stop focusing all your attention on the multinational corps. They matter as much as the king of Saudi Arabia as far as us helping our neighbors are concerned. Stop trying to force others to do the work you should be doing. Just do the work. The rest will take care of itself.

Those multinationals have the economic power to do what is right, but they don't. They are sitting on TRILLIONS of $$$ right now, after tax payer bail outs. They still move manufacturing operations overseas for cheap labor and tax avoidance while receiving billions more in tax payer subsidies.

The huge drug companies use government research money to produce a drug and then charge cancer patients as much as $100,000 per month for treatment.

No - the corporate "person" serves the 51% of stockholding persons on the board and top management. The remaining 49% of stockholders through mutual funds have no say whatsoever. And they don't care about anything other than the small group that hold the 51% position. They use taxpayer funds to increase profits for the 51%, avoid taxation, lobby for low wages and weaker labor laws and against universal health care while forcing employees to pay even more of the premuims for their own health care.

Sorry Acc - the private sector is self serving and cares not about the good of the nation. Without goverment intervention, we are all high tech serfs.

And who do you think funds the propaganda machine that relentlessly pumps out the conservo-libertarian philosphy you and so many other working class Joes have embraced? Follow the money my friend.

 

[Stone]

You DID say it was not the proper function of the government to take care of the sick, elderly and impoverished - didn't you? And the private sector, churches and charity did indeed prove to be a failure. They have failed 100% of the time to fully get the job done. I stand by that comment. Here's a reminder what life was like for the poor during the great depression, and an example of the failure of the private sectore to deal with it without government intervention:






The private sector did a real fine job didn't they?



Can't recall where I found it. Just right click & copy - that's what I did.

​

Like the wealthy citizens who didn't step up to help folks like the ones in the pictures above when there was no government intervention?



Were you resentful helping out after Katrina? Look again at the pictures above. That's what zero government assistance looks like.



You mean "flourish" like we have historically demonstrated in the pictures above? Sorry, that conservo-libertarian philosophy sounds all warm & fuzzy, but in reality, that model is a proven failure. There are simply not enough chartiable human beings in the United States to get the job done. Sadly, most humans, especially the super rich humans, like to hold onto their cash and pile it up in real estate, cars, gold, jewels, bank accounts.....If they are nor required by law to participate in the betterment of the greater society, they simply will not do it voluntarily. History has repeatedly proven this.



Those multinationals have the economic power to do what is right, but they don't. They are sitting on TRILLIONS of $$$ right now, after tax payer bail outs. They still move manufacturing operations overseas for cheap labor and tax avoidance while receiving billions more in tax payer subsidies.

The huge drug companies use government research money to produce a drug and then charge cancer patients as much as $100,000 per month for treatment.

No - the corporate "person" serves the 51% of stockholding persons on the board and top management. The remaining 49% of stockholders through mutual funds have no say whatsoever. And they don't care about anything other than the small group that hold the 51% position. They use taxpayer funds to increase profits for the 51%, avoid taxation, lobby for low wages and weaker labor laws and against universal health care while forcing employees to pay even more of the premuims for their own health care.

Sorry Acc - the private sector is self serving and cares not about the good of the nation. Without goverment intervention, we are all high tech serfs.

And who do you think funds the propaganda machine that relentlessly pumps out the conservo-libertarian philosphy you and so many other working class Joes have embraced? Follow the money my friend.

[FONT=&amp]

Just pointing out some 'balance' so that your thread isn't only a one sided attack on extremism.

Consider socialism gone bad.
Since I brought up Stalin in my previous post, a small review at the dark side of socialism and absolute rule.
That would be the Black Famine in the Ukraine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

[/FONT]

Early estimates of the death toll by scholars and government officials varied greatly; anywhere from 1.8[SUP][5][/SUP] to 12 million[SUP][6][/SUP] ethnic Ukrainians were said to have been killed as a result of the famine. Recent research has since narrowed the estimates to between 2.4[SUP][7][/SUP] and 7.5[SUP][8][/SUP] million. The exact number of deaths is hard to determine, due to a lack of records,[SUP][9][/SUP][SUP][10][/SUP] but the number increases significantly when the deaths inside heavily Ukrainian-populated Kuban are included.[SUP][11][/SUP] The demographic deficit caused by unborn or unrecorded births is said to be as high as 6 million.[SUP][9][/SUP] Older estimates are still often cited in political commentary.[1

[FONT=&amp]

The time line is with in the period of our own Great Depression but before WW2
It has been argued by some that it was a 'natural' economic occurrence rather than a politically motivated assault on the Ukrainian citizenry, but the point is....it happened under socialist rule and the results were inhuman.

Since you seem to feel a picture is worth a 1000 words, here's some to consider that go beyond poverty and into the realm of survival. They are so grim, I don't feel like posting them within your thread, but rather posting a general Google Image link if you are interested in the possibilities of socialism and the extremists that support it.[/FONT]

http://www.google.com/images?q=Holo...l&client=firefox-a&oi=image_result_group&sa=X

 

[Johnfromokc]

Universal heath care, a living wage and social security for the elderly is not Socialism, nor is it even remotely comparable to Soviet Communisim. The means of production will remain in private hands with reasonable regulation in order to prevent the wealthiest and those corporate "persons" from screwing the rest of us.

 

[Stone]

Universal heath care, a living wage and social security for the elderly is not Socialism, nor is it even remotely comparable to Soviet Communisim. The means of production will remain in private hands with reasonable regulation in order to prevent the wealthiest and those corporate "persons" from screwing the rest of us.

Universal heath care, a living wage and social security for the elderly is not Socialism

All entitlements are within the realm of a socialistic structure. Doesn't mean they are inherently bad for a society until their scope becomes unproductive/unsupportable.

nor is it even remotely comparable to Soviet Communisim.

Taken to extremes, of course it is.....that's the point I'm emphasizing.

You could bring up the School of Americas and South/Central America as a concern about Conservatives...( one of many)...or the neocon PNAC....but would only highlight my issues with extremists on the right. Highlight the term 'extremist'.

 

[Alien Allen]

define reasonable regulation?

Lets use drunk driving for example. In an effort to curb drunk driving they have lowered the limit to .08 which does not take much drinking to be over that limit.

Seems like a reasonable regulation on the surface but it does nothing to address the drivers that are truly drunk and dangerous on the roads.

I was in an accident a few years ago where at 3pm a guy drunk as a skunk plowed into me. This guy was as drunk as anybody I have ever witnessed and I would guess blew a .3 or higher.

He had over 5 priors for drunk driving.

Reasonable laws did nothing to protect me from this criminal. Yet those same laws probably resulted in countless people being innocently caught in a drunk driving offense that 20 years ago they would not have.

So the problem sometimes is not reasonable regulation but reasonable enforcement. I recall reading about drinking and driving in some European countries and they have zero tolerance. It is rare in those countries to see a drunk driver. Because even a first offense will get you jail time and a 2nd offense gets you years in jail. They have designated drivers and one is looked down upon to drive when drunk.

Here it is rare for a first offense to get jail time. In fact the press had stories recently where there were complaints about a local judge who was criticized for giving first time offenders jail time as it was deemed unfair.

 

[Accountable]

You DID say it was not the proper function of the government to take care of the sick, elderly and impoverished - didn't you? And the private sector, churches and charity did indeed prove to be a failure. They have failed 100% of the time to fully get the job done. I stand by that comment.]/quote]And what of your implication that the government is successful 100% of the time? What of that?

You seem to be under the illusion that the "Great" depression happened without any action whatsoever by the federal gov't, that they were completely blindsided and absolutely without responsibility. You couldn't be more wrong. The corporatocracy (please remember to put that extra 'o' in your spelling ) had just as incestuous a relationship back then as it does today. Some of these pictures you're so chuffed to drop in these conversations are taken after Hoover and then FDR jumped in arrogantly claiming to be able to control the economy (something else that is not the proper function of the gov't). At least one of them is from the depression of 1920. I fear I have to point out yet again that gov't intervention is what made the depression of 1929 Great. Had they learned from history it very well might have been over in a couple of years like the 1920 depression was. Even though it's understandable that Hoover & FDR were trying to avoid a depression like 1920, the fact that they failed miserably should have been a lesson Bush and Obama learned, but the propaganda that put lipstick on the pig was one of the few successes of the New Deal.

Like the wealthy citizens who didn't step up to help folks like the ones in the pictures above when there was no government intervention?

Stop pointing fingers at who you think isn't doing their part. You don't know who did what. It's not productive. It turns people off.

Were you resentful helping out after Katrina? Look again at the pictures above. That's what zero government assistance looks like.

The Red Cross isn't a federal program. What we saw of government assistance caused delays, confusion, resentment, and jealousy. The paid FEMA people quickly became very bitter about having to come in every day and "deal with" these people.
Look again at the pictures above. That situation being stretched from two years to 15 is what government assistance looks like.

You mean "flourish" like we have historically demonstrated in the pictures above? Sorry, that conservo-libertarian philosophy sounds all warm & fuzzy, but in reality, that model is a proven failure. There are simply not enough chartiable human beings in the United States to get the job done. Sadly, most humans, especially the super rich humans, like to hold onto their cash and pile it up in real estate, cars, gold, jewels, bank accounts.....If they are nor required by law to participate in the betterment of the greater society, they simply will not do it voluntarily. History has repeatedly proven this.

You keep pretending you are writing to some representative of your fictional conservo-lebertarian organization. I don't represent anyone. I have my views. I express my views. They are mine and no one else's. If you can't shuck your bigotry and labels then communicating with you is useless. Your jealousy and obsession over whether others are doing what you think they should be doing is going to kill you. You've got every individual neatly tucked into your preconceived little cubbies and won't even acknowledge that individuals exist without one of us beating you over the head about it.

You don't know what the super-rich do. You don't care to find out. You know that super-rich people exist and that's enough for you. You've got your mind made up and don't care to investigate further.

Most people want to hold onto theirs. Yes they do. You do too. The most generous people are the poor. These are facts. Another thing that is fact that as long as people don't have personal experience or knowledge, they tend to resent having to pay for it. Paying taxes so that the gov't can "take care" of our problems removes us from having personal experience or knowledge. Gov't welfare programs loosen the cohesion necessary in society. They remove the poor from the rest of us. That's where the resentment comes from. "They have a gov't program taking care of things, why are they still compaining?" Removing ALL the federal welfare programs and promoting community service as part of school curriculum will give that critical personal experience and knowledge from an early age. CARING is what helps the destitute, not tax-paid programs.

Those multinationals have the economic power to do what is right, but they don't.

Right. So fuck 'em. Remove all gov't subsidies & assistance. They don't need us and we damn sure don't need them.

They are sitting on TRILLIONS of $$$ right now, after tax payer bail outs. They still move manufacturing operations overseas for cheap labor and tax avoidance while receiving billions more in tax payer subsidies.

Right. So let's cut them off. We can't force them to give any money back. They'll just leave. So let's cut our losses and help them leave.

The huge drug companies use government research money to produce a drug and then charge cancer patients as much as $100,000 per month for treatment.

Right. So let's stop giving them tax money. They can afford to do their own R&D.

No - the corporate "person" serves the 51% of stockholding persons on the board and top management. The remaining 49% of stockholders through mutual funds have no say whatsoever. And they don't care about anything other than the small group that hold the 51% position. They use taxpayer funds to increase profits for the 51%, avoid taxation, lobby for low wages and weaker labor laws and against universal health care while forcing employees to pay even more of the premuims for their own health care.

Right. So let's cut them off, as I already said.

Sorry Acc - the private sector is self serving and cares not about the good of the nation. Without goverment intervention, we are all high tech serfs.

You rant about corporatocracy then write this as if all of the private sector is Wal-mart. You couldn't be more wrong. The majority of the private sector is small & medium businesses. They're the ones that create jobs, create wealth, build communities, and make the American Dream possible. You're so obsessed over the mega corps that you're blind to the good.

 

[Accountable]

Universal heath care, a living wage and social security for the elderly is not Socialism, nor is it even remotely comparable to Soviet Communisim. The means of production will remain in private hands with reasonable regulation in order to prevent the wealthiest and those corporate "persons" from screwing the rest of us.

LOL! Of course it won't. The wealthiest and those corporate persons are sponsoring the deal. They're already screwing us and this Obamacare mess - or the crap the repubs promise to replace it with - is like Viagra for them.

 

[Johnfromokc]

You seem to be under the illusion that the "Great" depression happened without any action whatsoever by the federal gov't, that they were completely blindsided and absolutely without responsibility. You couldn't be more wrong.

Never said the government did not play a part in the GD. But Wall Street damned sure played a part too, and there were zero safety nets in place for the working class that got screwed as a result. The private sector didn't step up to assist of their own volition, now did they?

The corporatocracy (please remember to put that extra 'o' in your spelling )

The Corpratocracy (I'm gonna keep spelling it like this cuz it bugs you. )

had just as incestuous a relationship back then as it does today. Some of these pictures you're so chuffed to drop in these conversations are taken after Hoover and then FDR jumped in arrogantly claiming to be able to control the economy (something else that is not the proper function of the gov't). At least one of them is from the depression of 1920. I fear I have to point out yet again that gov't intervention is what made the depression of 1929 Great. Had they learned from history it very well might have been over in a couple of years like the 1920 depression was. Even though it's understandable that Hoover & FDR were trying to avoid a depression like 1920, the fact that they failed miserably should have been a lesson Bush and Obama learned, but the propaganda that put lipstick on the pig was one of the few successes of the New Deal.

You have no evidence that government intervention extended the GD. If that were true, how did the United States manage 40 years of massive growth and prosperity after WW2?

And explain why our economic situation worsened with each deregulation and lowering of taxes on the wealthy. Sorry, but that conservo-libertarian propaganda you keep choosing to believe despite reality is simply untrue.

I stand in awe of the otherwise intelligent people who continue to be persuaded into voting against their own best interests.

Stop pointing fingers at who you think isn't doing their part. You don't know who did what. It's not productive. It turns people off.

Talk about turning people off....You know full well who is not doing their part, yet you continue to condone the conservo-libertarian philosophy that caused the problem in the first place.

The Red Cross isn't a federal program.

Who said it was?

What we saw of government assistance caused delays, confusion, resentment, and jealousy. The paid FEMA people quickly became very bitter about having to come in every day and "deal with" these people.

Could that have had anything to do with the delayed response by the Bush administration? Some things only government can do, and when they fail to do it, situations like the aftermath of Katrina result. The right wing apologists were out en mass blaming the victims. Check out this interesting Katrina timeline:

http://thinkprogress.org/report/katrina-timeline/

Look again at the pictures above. That situation being stretched from two years to 15 is what government assistance looks like.

Repeating that statement will never make it true no matter how many times you have heard the conservo-libertarian propaganda machine say it. They have burned it into your subconcious, but it is not true, and you have produced no evidence to back that claim. Again - explain the 40 years of massive growth and prosperity after WW2 with all those government programs and regulations still in place. And then explain how things have continued to decline with deregulation and the reduction of the top tax rates.

You keep pretending you are writing to some representative of your fictional conservo-lebertarian organization. I don't represent anyone. I have my views. I express my views. They are mine and no one else's. If you can't shuck your bigotry and labels then communicating with you is useless. Your jealousy and obsession over whether others are doing what you think they should be doing is going to kill you. You've got every individual neatly tucked into your preconceived little cubbies and won't even acknowledge that individuals exist without one of us beating you over the head about it.

I'm being respectful as I possibly can, but the above paragraph is just fucking silly. How can my calling out the flaws of a working Joe championing a philosophy that is against his families best economic interests make me bigoted. Explain that please.

You don't know what the super-rich do. You don't care to find out. You know that super-rich people exist and that's enough for you. You've got your mind made up and don't care to investigate further.

In this age of the Internet and the awesome search power for readily available information, how can you make such a silly statement? What the rich do is all over the internet. You can find out who is a philanthropist, who is a hoarder, who is spending millions to lobby for laws that will gain them billions, who claims their employee's coerced charitable payroll deductions as their own, and damned near anything else you would like to know about the super rich.

I've done, and continue to do my homework - thank you very much.

Most people want to hold onto theirs. Yes they do. You do too.

Well duh! Lol.

The most generous people are the poor. These are facts.

Hence the need for required taxation to force the wealthy do what they refuse to do of their own volition, and why conservo-libertarian Trickle Down Economic Theory is a complete and utter failure.

Another thing that is fact that as long as people don't have personal experience or knowledge, they tend to resent having to pay for it. Paying taxes so that the gov't can "take care" of our problems removes us from having personal experience or knowledge. Gov't welfare programs loosen the cohesion necessary in society. They remove the poor from the rest of us. That's where the resentment comes from. "They have a gov't program taking care of things, why are they still compaining?" Removing ALL the federal welfare programs and promoting community service as part of school curriculum will give that critical personal experience and knowledge from an early age. CARING is what helps the destitute, not tax-paid programs.

I really wish this pollyanna principal were true. If it were true, there would have been no Great Depression. There were no government programs to help the poor and elderly prior to the GD, hence the sad conditions that led FDR to use his bully pulpit to force the wealthy to pay for them. The wealthy have been fighting back ever since with billions in lobbying and financing a disinformation propaganda campaign of mammoth proportions.

Right. So fuck 'em. Remove all gov't subsidies & assistance. They don't need us and we damn sure don't need them.

Right. So let's cut them off. We can't force them to give any money back. They'll just leave. So let's cut our losses and help them leave.

Right. So let's stop giving them tax money. They can afford to do their own R&D.

Right. So let's cut them off, as I already said.

Yet you still want to deregulate them and let them do as they please to the American worker and consumer? How much sense does that make?

You rant about corporatocracy then write this as if all of the private sector is Wal-mart. You couldn't be more wrong. The majority of the private sector is small & medium businesses. They're the ones that create jobs, create wealth, build communities, and make the American Dream possible. You're so obsessed over the mega corps that you're blind to the good.

Another silly statement. Have you considered asking me what I think instead of assuming?

I know the majority of the private sector - population wise - is small business. I'm a small business advocate, as well as a working class and middle class advocate. The conservo-libertarian propaganda machine has fooled millions into thinking regulating and taxing big business would harm small business. Not true. Most small business owners earn between $35,000 and $105,000. Check it out:

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/average-income-small-business-owners-5189.html

If all Americans had universal health care coverage, it would free up small business owners from having to spend small profit margins on group policies - which is a lot easier for big business to afford. Employees could quit a dead end job and go work for another small business without fear of losing health care coverage. It's a win-win for small business and the working class.

Further, creating a higher tax bracket for those with incomes (AGI) over $250,000 would have zero effect on small business and would go a long way toward repairing the infrastructure that facitilated the fortunes of the wealthy in the first place.

Sorry - Trickle Down has never worked, and it won't start working - ever.

 

[Accountable]

Never said the government did not play a part in the GD. [You absolutely implied it] But Wall Street damned sure played a part too, [as I said] and there were zero safety nets in place for the working class that got screwed as a result. The private sector didn't step up to assist of their own volition, now did they?

Yes, they did. You provided pictures.

[NOTE: I tried to paste two of your pics here but OTZ won't let me.]

The Corpratocracy (I'm gonna keep spelling it like this cuz it bugs you. )

You have no evidence that government intervention extended the GD.

The 1920 depression provides plenty of proof. You just choose to ignore it.

If that were true, how did the United States manage 40 years of massive growth and prosperity after WW2?

Extending the pain and post-war growth aren't really related.

And explain why our economic situation worsened with each deregulation and lowering of taxes on the wealthy.

Prove that it did. It's a big job, listing each deregulation and each time taxes were lowered. Of course, to show causation you'd have to show that our economic situation also improved with each increase in regulation and each tax increase.

Could that have had anything to do with the delayed response by the Bush administration?

No. I was part of the beddown after the evacuation. The Bush/Kathleen Blanco/Ray Nagin clusterfuck was old news by then.

Repeating that statement will never make it true no matter how many times you have heard the conservo-libertarian propaganda machine say it. They have burned it into your subconcious, but it is not true, and you have produced no evidence to back that claim.

The truth is the truth no matter how many time you repeat the revised history books that indoctrinated you, and no matter how many times you raise your fictional strawman.

I'm being respectful as I possibly can, but the above paragraph is just fucking silly. How can my calling out the flaws of a working Joe championing a philosophy that is against his families best economic interests make me bigoted. Explain that please.

I don't know how you can claim being respectful when you call me silly for declaring that my views are my own.
You're not "calling out flaws." You're trying to fit me into one of your labels because you seem to have trouble dealing with individuals. You try to make me into a representative of your fictional organization regardless of the fact that I don't fit the paradigm. I don't believe I've tried to label you even once; certainly not after we've gotten to know each other. If you can't deal with me as a unique individual and insist on declaring me part of your fictional conservo-libertarians, then I suggest you go find such a representative and throw your insults at him.

In this age of the Internet and the awesome search power for readily available information, how can you make such a silly statement? What the rich do is all over the internet. You can find out who is a philanthropist, who is a hoarder, who is spending millions to lobby for laws that will gain them billions, who claims their employee's coerced charitable payroll deductions as their own, and damned near anything else you would like to know about the super rich.

I've done, and continue to do my homework - thank you very much.

You certainly don't act like it. You lump ALL mega rich into the same category, despite already having acknowledged that they don't all fit. It's lazy and disingenuous.

I really wish this pollyanna principal were true. If it were true, there would have been no Great Depression.

So you mean that before the depression of '29, promoting community service was part of school curriculum?

You have no way to claim that.

There were no government programs to help the poor and elderly prior to the GD, hence the sad conditions that led FDR to use his bully pulpit to force the wealthy to pay for them. The wealthy have been fighting back ever since with billions in lobbying and financing a disinformation propaganda campaign of mammoth proportions.

Your claim would take a tremendous amount of detailed research to separate fact from schoolbook propaganda. There's a lot of evidence to indicate that FER's programs made the depression worse, and the 1920 depression indicates that it would have gotten better a decade earlier, and that maybe FDR wouldn't have had to manipulate us into a two-front war.

Yet you still want to deregulate them and let them do as they please

This is the kind of bullshit that pisses me off the most. No matter how many times I repeat myself, you've got your paradigm and be damned if you'll give it up.

Another silly statement. Have you considered asking me what I think instead of assuming?

It's no assumption. I'm going off what you've written time and again. The problem is that you generalize too much. Anybody who doesn't agree with you is a "conservobot" or this new boogeyman "conservo-libertarian." Anybody that makes a lot of money is evil. And you lumped all of the private sector into one evil pile, saying "the private sector is self serving and cares not about the good of the nation." If you're being misunderstood it's your own fault.

If all Americans had universal health care coverage, it would free up small business owners from having to spend small profit margins on group policies - which is a lot easier for big business to afford. Employees could quit a dead end job and go work for another small business without fear of losing health care coverage. It's a win-win for small business and the working class.

So get to work writing that amendment. In the meantime, lobby your state legislature to create a state healthcare program. Hell, have them use eminent domain to seize all hospitals in OK and make all the medical pros state employees if you want.

 

[Johnfromokc]

Relax Acc. I'm not attacking you personally - just your conservo-libertarian beliefs that make absolutely no sense for a person who works for a payroll check or actually operates a small business.

I'm not gonna reply point-by-point this time because we have come full circle and you are just as hard headed as you accuse me of being.

FWIW I used to believe the same thing about FDR that you do - that is until I decided to challenge my own beliefs. My own conservo-libertarian beliefs did not stand up to the evidence. That was a hard pill to swallow after more than 10 years of "knowing" liberals were idiots and the cause of all things bad in America.

Here, check out some historical tax rates, and look back on economic history and see what you learn:

http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/history-of-federal-individual-1.html

 

[Alien Allen]

Those tax rates do not paint an accurate picture

There used to be a ton of tax write offs. Which the rich benefited the most from by far.

An accurate assessment would not be tax rates but actual taxes paid. Rates mean nothing if you have a lot of write offs.

When rates were dropped in the early 80's a great deal of those write offs were removed.

I think the rich pay more than their share right now at 35%

Wealth envy is not healthy. I never get an answer as to when is enough enough.

 

[Johnfromokc]

Allen - are you wealthy?

 

[Accountable]

First, I don't have conservo-libertarian beliefs; I have my own beliefs. Second, it's good to see you admit to being hard-headed. :jk
Your link doesn't go back far enough. In fact, it starts when the damage began. 1913 is when Wilson marshaled in Progressivism & started the destruction of the Constitution. Ever ask yourself why we didn't have an income tax prior to 1913? But at least they had enough respect for the rule of law to actually push an amendment through. Unlike FDR, who tried to stack the Supreme Court when they started declaring his programs unconstitutional. Some of his programs were good and constitutional. Some of his programs did good but were unconstitutional. Social Security falls (fell) into the second category. (I say fell because it's not good anymore)

Without the rule of law we can't remain a free republic. Many would say we haven't been a free republic for nearly 100 years. Most of the things people want the government to do would be fine as state programs but not national. I don't understand why people in one state think they know best for people in a completely different state. I've lived in Oklahoma. Okies are nothing like Texans, and they're so different from Louisianians it's surprising that we share a river. There's no good reason a program has to be national when it doesn't have interstate impact.

 

[Johnfromokc]

I just finished an interesting article by P.J. O'Rourke. I would have sworn he was a libertarian at one time and recall Rush Limbaugh quoting him in years past. Hmmmm....seems lots of folks are seeing the fraud of conservo-libertarianism these days.

Check out PJ's response to a reader comment to the article:

If you're referring to "liberals" in the actual meaning of the word, I'll accept that I am a liberal. The idea that "liberals" in that sense support throwing money away is simply unsupportable drivel and as intelligent as shouting neener-neener.

I could just as easily tag libertarianism with the downside attributes of conservatism, but those sympathetic beliefs are merely a matter of convenience. Considering that conservatism in the majority sentimental meaning is a wad of garbled whining by increasingly idiotic ideologues, I'll use the word in a more accurate sense.
Conservatism, in its support of a ruling elite, has decided its true philosophy -- liberalism -- allows for political egalitarianism. So they have adopted libertarianism because it is blind, deaf and dumb to the hard truth reality of wealth equaling power. That's why they embrace right-libertarian economics, because it passively enables oligarchy.

As to the popular perceptions of both labels, libertarianism, with its pseudo-philosophical simplicity, allows for stupid people to claim a philosophy. After all, when a "philosophy" is composed as a priori claim as epistemology as conclusion, it's not hard to follow and not only doesn't require reason, it replaces it with a rule.

As far as protectionism, those with a concern for America --i.e. liberals -- reject the religious, globalist, non-American interested concept of libertarianism. The libertarian/Rand/Greenspan concept of laissez faire simply extends wealth control to non-American actors, has wrecked our economic infrastructure and surrendered our control of economic outcomes.

Protectionism is the same thing as self-defense, but to libertarians, with their cultish belief in a global kumbya brotherhood of oligarchical rule, are perfectly content to sell America and enslave Americans in the name of the most deceptively named ideology-parading-as-philosophy ever invented by reality-ignorant theorists.

The nice thing about liberalism as opposed to libertarianism is it's a far more expansive philosophy that encourages the application of reason. Libertarianism considers its simplistic, one-size-fits-all concept of complete self ownership as representing reason. A single idea, applied to every situation in every case. No need to think or consider the variables, which is why libertarianism doesn't work. Fortunately for libertarians, it's not designed to work.

You might want to consider that Reagan claimed libertarianism as the core of conservatism, so his borrow and spend tax cuts, destruction of unions, stagnation of American wages and destructive deregulation smell far more like libertarianism than liberalism.

Ronnie made libertarianism famous, and now most "conservatives" think it's all the same thing. I'm not sure which external influence did more to stupefy conservatism -- religious evangelicalism or religious libertarianism.

Here's the link to PJ's article:

http://open.salon.com/blog/paul_j_o...nservative_solution_to_conservative_solutions

Check out the graphs and tell us what you think.

 

[Johnfromokc]

In the post above, would one of you right wingers explain how all those evil socialist countries seem to have a far more efficient health care system than our private sector system?

 

[Stone]

In the post above, would one of you right wingers explain how all those evil socialist countries seem to have a far more efficient health care system than our private sector system?

Defending the current status of health care in the US is not possible, but attempting to explain it's status is a reasonable exercise and far more complex than the two graphs you posted above.

Of interest, which reenforces your imagery of costs out of control, you'll probably find this link of interest:

http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/OECD042111.cfm

But it doesn't explain the reasons.
This Wikipedia link gives a perspective of what's driving higher spending.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States#Health_care_spending

excerpts:

The Congressional Budget Office has found that "about half of all growth in health care spending in the past several decades was associated with changes in medical care made possible by advances in technology."

Other factors included higher income levels, changes in insurance coverage, and rising prices.[SUP][36][/SUP] Hospitals and physician spending take the largest share of the health care dollar, while prescription drugs take about 10%.[SUP][37][/SUP] The use of prescription drugs is increasing among adults who have drug coverage.

One analysis of international spending levels in the year 2000 found that while the U.S. spends more on health care than other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the use of health care services in the U.S. is below the OECD median by most measures

^^^ meaning that low income and uninsured are often being priced out of quality care in an inflated market.

The authors of the study concluded that the prices paid for health care services are much higher in the U.S.[SUP][39][/SUP] Economist Hans Sennholz has argued that the Medicare and Medicaid programs may be the main reason for rising health care costs in the U.S.[SUP][40][/SUP]

^^ meaning that entitlements are being expanded with too little regard for cost controls of services.


But this really stands out:

Health care spending in the United States is concentrated. An analysis of the 1996 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey found that the 1% of the population with the highest spending accounted for 27% of aggregate health care spending. The highest-spending 5% of the population accounted for more than half of all spending.

Essentially, the uninsured are competing for services with the wealthy. The very wealthy.
Expanding health coverage with universal insurance as an entitlement will only drive national health care costs up unless costs of services, and by that I mean equivalent, are reduced.

Given that ~75% of health care expense is already generated by ~6% of the population and likely to stay private, universal health care for the remaining 94% would likely drive national costs higher especially if equivalent services are considered without considerable cost reduction.

It's not as simple as claiming socialism is a better model.
And if you're going to ask me about solutions, don't bother. I don't see any simple solution or 'magic bullet'.

 

[doombug]

Good info Stone.

It's funny how some that have such polarized views like to blame all the ills of society on "the other side". While I'm not in total agreement with conservatives I don't see liberals really offering any alternative solutions that are realistic. Lately all they can do is point the finger and blame others. If they can't offer solutions they should STFU.

 

[Stone]

................

Given that ~75% of health care expense is already generated by ~6% of the population and likely to stay private, universal health care for the remaining 94% would likely drive national costs higher especially if equivalent services are considered without considerable cost reduction.

.........................

I didn't see a way to edit my post this morning.
My math was obviously off, but the point still valid.
That should be ~50% of health care expenses by 6% of the public....


I appear to be a bit older than many of the members posting......the health care system looks nothing like what I grew up with in the '50s.
My observation over the decades has been a general public that has gradually progressed from a customer pay system to one where coverage is largely by a benefits and entitlement model while technology has brought better diagnosis and treatment but at the steep costs of development.
Add to that an increase of law suits and doctor malpractice and there is also the effect of the medical industry covering itself, legally, by ordering additional testing that may or may not be necessary. But done for it's own protection in the courts.

I experienced that this summer with a two day stay in a hospital for what turned out to be mostly stress tests .....$22,000.
Coverage.......$18,000 by Medicare.

What a mess.
And I'm pretty sure the general public would find it unacceptable to go back to 1950's standards.

 

[Johnfromokc]

Essentially, the uninsured are competing for services with the wealthy. The very wealthy.
Expanding health coverage with universal insurance as an entitlement will only drive national health care costs up unless costs of services, and by that I mean equivalent, are reduced.

Now we are getting somewhere. Not only are the working class, middle class and small business class competing with the extremely wealthy for health care, the wealthy are benefitting from medical advances whose research was funded in large part by taxpayer funds.

We can also agree the very wealthy have lobbied to structure the tax system to benefit them by allowing them to classify their income as capital gains instead of earned income like the rest of us. Therefore they are benefitting out of proportion to what they are paying and forcing the costs back down upon the remaining health care consumers.

It's not as simple as claiming socialism is a better model.

Can we agree that "Social Programs" and "Socialism" are two completely different concepts?

Socialism: A political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Social Program: A detailed outline of state activity which follows and implements a specific social welfare policy. A social program outlines the funds to be spent and the purposes for which they will be spent.

Universal Health Care is not Socialism - it is a Social Program.

And if you're going to ask me about solutions, don't bother. I don't see any simple solution or 'magic bullet'.

The solutions are already being practiced in a number of countries and are working extremely well despite the propaganda being put forth by the insurance industry and others who benefit from the status quo.

Every one of those countries with universal health care are Capitalist industrialized nations with a working health care system that is far more effecient and cost effective thatn ours.

Add to that an increase of law suits and doctor malpractice and there is also the effect of the medical industry covering itself, legally, by ordering additional testing that may or may not be necessary. But done for it's own protection in the courts.

Let's get this common misconception out of the way:

COSTS OF THE CURRENT MEDICAL MALPRACTICE SYSTEM
ARE MUCH LOWER THAN PEOPLE THINK

​

Medical malpractice claims and premiums are a tiny percentage of the total costs of health care in this country.

• Medical malpractice payouts are less than one percent of total U.S. health care costs. All “losses” (verdicts, settlements, legal fees, etc.) have stayed under one percent for the last 18 years. Moreover, medical malpractice premiums are less than one percent of total U.S. health care costs as well. Dropping for nearly two decades, malpractice premiums have stayed below one percent of health care costs. Americans for Insurance Reform, “Think Malpractice is Driving Up Health Care Costs? Think Again,” http://www.insurance-reform.org/pr/AIRhealthcosts.pdf.

• The Congressional Budget Office found that “Malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of [health care] spending.” Congressional Budget Office, Limiting Tort Liability for Medical Malpractice 1, 6 (Jan. 8, 2004).

I experienced that this summer with a two day stay in a hospital for what turned out to be mostly stress tests .....$22,000.
Coverage.......$18,000 by Medicare.

Yes, it is a mess. What most American's are unaware of is that Medicare has very few enforcment officials or auditors. Congress will not allow Medicare to staff in a way that would allow a team of auditors to root out Medicare fraud by doctors, labratories and medical equipment companies.

Just a few Million $$$ spent on audits will save BILLIONS $$$$ in fraud and would bring Medicare costs down substantially. But all this fighting amongst ourselves and betweed the R's and the D's in the federal legislature prevents us from having rational discussions that would lead to workable solutions.