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Corbet posted:The discussion group for this Facebook application is full of Republican bigots:  There are people who simply cannot be helped. If this were the other way around, where some Guatemalans had done this to Americans, these people would be calling it an act of war and demanding we bomb them to the stone age.
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Oct 7, 2010 16:18
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quote:Good in the Muslim Brotherhood. Warhol is spinning in his grave. Sorry, what? Warhol would be against Halal meat in Campbell's soup? I don't know which is more insane: that some people think Warhol was a jingoistic bigot or that he's being held up as a hero of the far right.
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Oct 7, 2010 22:31
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Deuce posted:
I really need to erase that forum from my mind. I can't help but want to go there and argue with all of the idiots.
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Oct 8, 2010 00:34
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ought ten posted:Sorry, what? Warhol would be against Halal meat in Campbell's soup? I don't know which is more insane: that some people think Warhol was a jingoistic bigot or that he's being held up as a hero of the far right. The line about Warhol is what convinces me that the group's original creator was being sarcastic, and that the group just took on a life of its own after. It's much easier on my sanity to think that, anyhow. I can no longer see the person's posts since she blocked me, but I hear from other people that she's still flipping out about the issue and deleting more people over it. She's been posting things like this constantly for over a year now but has always taken criticism fairly well. Something about this soup thing has just pushed her over the edge.
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Oct 8, 2010 03:43
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I honestly wish there was a virus that instantly killed anyone who posted "friend of the family", "towelhead", "human being", etc. unironically on the Internet.
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Oct 8, 2010 05:08
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Corbet posted:JesusmotherfuckingChrist facebook poo poo Man, and here I was thinking that people posted their horribly inexcusable and offensive personal views on the internet because they can do so anonymously. Oh facebook, show me how wrong I am 
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Oct 8, 2010 19:07
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SpiderHyphenMan posted:I honestly wish there was a virus that instantly killed anyone who posted "friend of the family", "towelhead", "human being", etc. unironically on the Internet. If you said that honestly, ie. unironically, we can arrange it. 
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Oct 8, 2010 20:02
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quote:Why No Increase In Social Security for two years Now, you can argue the issues with a lack of social security but this isn't why. They did not vote for "electronic medical records for senators" nor did they vote for a 3% pay increase, or any at all. There's also something funny about telling us to kick out the clowns "we" elected. What does that say about our voting choices, this writer included?
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Oct 11, 2010 19:19
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This is a quick thing about USA stuff (I'm British) 1. Where is it mentioned about the separation of church and state, and if they are separate, why does the pledge of allegiance specifically say "one nation, under God" (was this added later? What about on your money?) 2. What is your impression of the NHS (or the "average American")? I find it incredible that people are willing to pay taxes for people like the police and fire service to protect them, but are fine with them becoming bankrupted with medical bills if they are injured in the line of duty. I've been flicking through the thread and it looks like there are well informed people in it, I am particularly interested in the answer to 2 though.
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Oct 12, 2010 15:19
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Zuriel147 posted:This is a quick thing about USA stuff (I'm British) A lot of us are for NHS, in some form or another. The problem is the right is convincing their gullible followers that it's some sort of Nazi propaganda or some poo poo. The "Under God" nonsense on Money and the Pledge came about in the '50s I think.
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Oct 12, 2010 15:24
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Zuriel147 posted:This is a quick thing about USA stuff (I'm British) The phrase "separation of church and state" resulted from a correspondence between the Danbury Baptists and Thomas Jefferson concerning religious liberties. The Baptists were concerned that the state would eventually crack down on their particular faith, but Jefferson wrote back that the first amendment, which says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus builds "a wall of separation between Church & State." A lot of pro-Christian nation folks are quick to point out that the phrase is not in the Constitution, but either don't realize or ignore that it came as context from a founding father. (they also forget that the Treaty of Tripoli explicitly states the United States is not a Christian nation  )
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Oct 12, 2010 15:55
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Western Backstroke posted:(they also forget that the Treaty of Tripoli explicitly states the United States is not a Christian nation Article 11: pro Schwarzenegger.
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Oct 12, 2010 16:01
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naptalan posted:No, it looks like they're still stunned - here's an article from the RSPCA on it. Halal definitely seems to have flexible interpretations of how an animal may be slaughtered, unlike kosher, leading to the fun situation whereby slaughtering animals for kosher meat is now banned in NZ due to animal cruelty legislation but the halal process just scraped in. I can just imagine the shitstorm that would have kicked off in the states.
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Oct 12, 2010 17:33
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Xanin posted:I'm not American but I follow what goes on over there, and I struggle to understand how you get people screaming that the media has a 'liberal bias'. Isn't Fox the most-watched news channel? The people complaining about liberal bias are the people who watch Fox, so they know it's conservative....so how can they claim the media is biased against them when their channel is the most popular one? God, "quite conservative" is a bit of an understatement. There's Amanda Platell, the immigrant who complains about immigrants (i.e. the brown ones who speak funny), and Liz Jones, who has said about the homeless, "I don't like the homeless, because they're all on drugs, scary, and they smell funny". In fact, just read any of Liz Jones' columns, they're all self-important, whiny diatribes about how poo poo her life is. There's also "Hooray for the brownshirts", but there we go.
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Oct 12, 2010 18:53
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BonoMan posted:The "Under God" nonsense on Money and the Pledge came about in the '50s I think.
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Oct 12, 2010 18:57
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Zuriel147 posted:1. Where is it mentioned about the separation of church and state, and if they are separate, why does the pledge of allegiance specifically say "one nation, under God" (was this added later? What about on your money?) "Wall of separation" was written by Jefferson in a letter. Treaty of Tripoli refers to the fact that the US government was in no way founded on the Christian religion. "Under God" was added to the pledge in the 1950s to distinguish us from the godless Communists. And "In God We Trust" was added to US currency in the 50s and 60s. Prior to that, the motto was the much cooler "E Pluribus Unum," and it's one of the reasons I love coinage from that period. Well, that and the awesome designs... quote:2. What is your impression of the NHS (or the "average American")? I find it incredible that people are willing to pay taxes for people like the police and fire service to protect them, but are fine with them becoming bankrupted with medical bills if they are injured in the line of duty. You're not going to get a non-biased answer on this forum. Most of the people who are against it don't really know why they are, except that other people told them they are because SOCIALISM / COMMUNISM / FASCISM / JISM. They're not bright enough to realize that the people telling them to hate socialized medicine will never have to worry about bankruptcy because of health concerns, and probably are fully in the pockets of the companies who would stand to lose from government involvement in health care. And a lot of those same idiots don't really think they should have to pay taxes for services like cops and fire protection, either. They seem to think government services they actually use just show up. I've been flicking through the thread and it looks like there are well informed people in it, I am particularly interested in the answer to 2 though. [/quote]
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Oct 12, 2010 18:59
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Walter posted:Stuff I wasn't expecting a non-biased answer to be honest, maybe just what the common opinion is. It seems to me that the people in charge would be having private healthcare (we have that in the UK too, obviously) in any case, and are just kicking away the ladder for people coming up beneath them. It also seems that a lot of the people against it are the people it would benefit most. Proud to the point of idiocy maybe?
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Oct 12, 2010 19:41
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As I understand it, anti-health care people (such as my dad) are against it because they believe in the idea of the free market, and that socialized medicine will stifle it. The free market, they argue, allows people to take great risks and gives them the incentive to take these risks with the promise of wealth and prestige. If people in the medical field can't innovate and make gobs of money, most will have little incentive to stay in the field. (Yeah, the genuinely altruistic people will stay, but how many of those people actually exist? And how long can they take the stress of being overworked and underfunded?) EDIT: Dad also argues that the U.S. government sucks at pretty much everything else it does, so why should we expect them to not suck at health care, too? (I should note that I disagree with my dad's fiscal conservatism, but I still respect him 'cause he's my dad and he's a smart dude.) Pththya-lyi fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Oct 12, 2010 |
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Oct 12, 2010 20:30
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Zuriel147 posted:I wasn't expecting a non-biased answer to be honest, maybe just what the common opinion is. Ok, reasons to be against single payer health care that I've heard from actual conservatives. 1. There are bad people out there who would abuse it. 2. Hey, why don't you just come over and re-wire my house for free? (why should I pay for someone else's healthcare?) 3. The government can't do anything right, it'll be rationing and horrible lines and people will die from poor service. 4. We have healthcare for the poor (except that you have to sell all your assets and have little or no income to use it) (or you go to the emergency room in reaction to a problem, rather then getting it taken care of early) 5. People in England really hate their healthcare system. Our system costs so much because we come up with all the innovation and R&D, Europe doesn't really contribute to medical advances. 6. We have to have tort reform, the reason that health care is so expensive is all the insurance doctors have to carry and all the unnecessary tests they have to perform to cover themselves. 7. Doctors won't have very good pay so no one will become a doctor.
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Oct 12, 2010 21:32
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Pththya-lyi posted:As I understand it, anti-health care people (such as my dad) are against it because they believe in the idea of the free market, and that socialized medicine will stifle it. The free market, they argue, allows people to take great risks and gives them the incentive to take these risks with the promise of wealth and prestige. If people in the medical field can't innovate and make gobs of money, most will have little incentive to stay in the field. (Yeah, the genuinely altruistic people will stay, but how many of those people actually exist? And how long can they take the stress of being overworked and underfunded?) I'm not sure how you can apply a free market policy to a kid dying of leukaemia. Doctors in this country are definitely very well paid. Not only that, they are paid by the government to train (up to a point - up until fairly recently it was very, very cheap to go to university for any student). Edit: That sounded a bit "ad homiem", it wasn't supposed to, sorry. Zuriel147 fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Oct 12, 2010 |
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Oct 12, 2010 21:33
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Pththya-lyi posted:EDIT: Dad also argues that the U.S. government sucks at pretty much everything else it does, so why should we expect them to not suck at health care, too? (Let's not derail about how the USPS is always in the red, and not strictly a government program and all that. My point was that it does things reasonably from a consumer standpoint.)
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Oct 12, 2010 21:42
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Armyman25 posted:Ok, reasons to be against single payer health care that I've heard from actual conservatives. Zuriel147 fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Oct 12, 2010 |
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Oct 12, 2010 22:52
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He's not supporting any of it and most any sane person knows its bullshit, he's just giving you what you asked for.
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Oct 12, 2010 22:59
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I was listing things that I've had told to me, not things that I agree with.
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Oct 12, 2010 23:03
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Armyman25 posted:People in England really hate their healthcare system. I love this argument. They take the complaining about the NHS to be hatred of it, not realising that if you put a Brit in the Garden of Eden they'd complain that it wasn't as green as they said it would be, and that there's too many foreigners.
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Oct 12, 2010 23:10
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Pththya-lyi posted:As I understand it, anti-health care people (such as my dad) are against it because they believe in the idea of the free market, and that socialized medicine will stifle it. The free market, they argue, allows people to take great risks and gives them the incentive to take these risks with the promise of wealth and prestige. If people in the medical field can't innovate and make gobs of money, most will have little incentive to stay in the field. (Yeah, the genuinely altruistic people will stay, but how many of those people actually exist? And how long can they take the stress of being overworked and underfunded?) The free market generally only wants to make safe investments that are most sure to return a profit, which is why every new product is a rehash of an old product, every sitcom looks the same, and every pop song sounds the same. I have a friend who works in the comic industry, and he told me how hard it is to break through. They discourage innovation unless the artist, or his product, has already proven itself to sell well. Until then you follow the rules. Secondly: most research on AIDS, cancer and other afflictions is done on government funding, simply because the free market considers it a bottomless pit with no end in sight, so not something worth investing *that much* money into.  Having said (or shown) that, no, the free market does not give people incentive to take risks with riches and prestige as a reward. Government funding gives people incentive to take risks because you don't risk financial ruination if you make wrong decisions. "Risk" is a two-edged sword. Thirdly: Money is overrated as a motivator. And fourthly: Does your dad know how much money of the US national budget is being spent on healthcare? And what that amount translates to in percentages? It's 5%. Compare that to, say, the US military which gets almost 60% of the annual budget. Think about it, sixty percent of his tax dollars are invested in killing people, whereas less than five percent goes to saving people's lives. Which is the lesser of two evils here?  (I actually don't have a pie chart for the actual budget of FY 09/10, but I have a feeling that if the numbers don't match up, the military only would've gotten more finances, not less). But, my point still stands - I just find it funny that people bring up healthcare costs if you consider the abysmal amount of cash that goes into Defense. If people get angry at (tax) cost, you'd think they would want cuts on defense spending, not every other government program that actually does something to improve American people's lives. Western Backstroke posted:The phrase "separation of church and state" resulted from a correspondence between the Danbury Baptists and Thomas Jefferson concerning religious liberties. The Baptists were concerned that the state would eventually crack down on their particular faith, but Jefferson wrote back that the first amendment, which says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus builds "a wall of separation between Church & State." Jesus 
Angry Avocado fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Oct 12, 2010 |
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Oct 12, 2010 23:36
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Armyman25 posted:I was listing things that I've had told to me, not things that I agree with. I was disagreeing with things on the list.
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Oct 12, 2010 23:40
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Angry Avocado posted:
I want to buy a half-hour of air time on every major network, and just show this pie chart. Maybe with some elevator music behind it. Nothing else.
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Oct 13, 2010 03:02
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PainterofCrap posted:I want to buy a half-hour of air time on every major network, and just show this pie chart. Maybe with some elevator music behind it. Nothing else. You know this is pretty easy with Google Ads right? We can run this on Fox. I'll make the ad  !http://www.slatev.com/video/how-i-ran-ad-fox-news/
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Oct 13, 2010 03:33
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BonoMan posted:You know this is pretty easy with Google Ads right? I'd totally chip in for this. Edit: A goon/D&D PAC would be amazing.
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Oct 13, 2010 03:45
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Nice goatse reference at around 1:18. I'd love to see goons do something like this, though personally I'd like to see us run something from this front page article during Two and a Half Men.
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Oct 13, 2010 04:46
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Zuriel147 posted:I'm not sure how you can apply a free market policy to a kid dying of leukaemia. Doctors in this country are definitely very well paid. Not only that, they are paid by the government to train (up to a point - up until fairly recently it was very, very cheap to go to university for any student). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2jijuj1ysw This is what libertarians actually believe...
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Oct 13, 2010 05:57
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Corbet posted:I'd totally chip in for this. That would be amazing..and I'm serious I do motion graphics/animation work so I'll make the ad! Now...how much would this cost?
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Oct 13, 2010 06:02
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BonoMan posted:That would be amazing..and I'm serious I do motion graphics/animation work so I'll make the ad! Now...how much would this cost? Ah the beginning of the goon project.
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Oct 13, 2010 07:16
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I feel pretty stupid for not knowing how my own healthcare system works, and I figure here is probably the best place to ask. Basically, I've seen a lot of people argue that universal healthcare is bad because if you're really sick you won't just be able to pay to go into hospital, you'll have to get 'in line' and wait for everyone in front of you to go to hospital first (to put it very, very simply). I've seen anecdotes about people's poor Canadian grandmothers having to cross the border and pay for operations in the US because they can't get into surgery at home. But... isn't that what private hospitals and insurance are for?  I always thought that, here in Australia at least, if you didn't want to wait for Medicare and for a bed in a public hospital, you could just go to a private hospital and pay out of pocket if you can afford it. Or is that not how it works?I picture hospitals working somewhat like the school system, where anyone can go to a public school for free but you have to pay to go to a private school and (presumably) get the benefits of superior education. I know it's not possible to sum up an entire nation's healthcare system in a forum post, but if someone could tell me how off-the-mark I am on the above, I'd really appreciate it.
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Oct 13, 2010 10:25
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BonoMan posted:That would be amazing..and I'm serious I do motion graphics/animation work so I'll make the ad! Now...how much would this cost? "Hi. They say (thing). Here's the actual (thing). Here's the source." You could do it with powerpoint with some soothing guitar music in the background. "Thanks for watching. A file with links to our sources is at http://yourmother.com."
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Oct 13, 2010 12:47
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naptalan posted:I feel pretty stupid for not knowing how my own healthcare system works, and I figure here is probably the best place to ask. Private insurance in these systems tend to either be for things the public service doesn't cover or to provide bennies (you get a nicer room and better meals perhaps).
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Oct 13, 2010 12:49
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Armyman25 posted:5. People in England really hate their healthcare system. Our system costs so much because we come up with all the innovation and R&D, Europe doesn't really contribute to medical advances. I loved it when some American pundit said that if Stephen Hawking had been born in the UK, he would have died, because the bureaucratic NHS death panels wouldn't have considered him worth spending money on... except that he was, in fact, born in the UK and has lived there his entire life. That was pure gold. As an Australian I absolutely loving love our healthcare system. I pay less than 1% of my annual income into ensuring that I will never ever ever have to worry about healthcare, and I literally do not understand how any ordinary citizen could not be okay with that. It's like saying 2 + 2 = 5.
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Oct 13, 2010 13:14
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naptalan posted:
Well, here in Norway at least, there can be a bit long to wait for things like knee surgery, hip replacement and so on. Urgent stuff gets taken care of straight away. My friend found out she had a 30 cm ovarian cyst, she was in surgery within a week. Thing is, I'd rather wait to get treatment for something non-life-threatening if it means everyone gets the treatment they need sooner or later. In the US, some people aren't even in line for treatment because they have no insurance. The last time I gave any thought to our healthcare system was when I gave birth. Everything was free (well, paid for with  my taxes , but free at delivery, pun intended), including prenatal and postnatal care. We got to stay 3 days in a spiffy room with a tv, and even the food was delicious! Then I read about people saving up money to pay the hospital with when their kid is born and my brain breaks a little bit. I even get paid by the evil government to stay home with my kid for a year! Funny how politicians in the US talk a lot about families and family values, while the omg socialist governments over here actually do stuff to make it easier and more desirable to have a family!
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Oct 13, 2010 13:40
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freebooter posted:I loved it when some American pundit said that if Stephen Hawking had been born in the UK, he would have died, because the bureaucratic NHS death panels wouldn't have considered him worth spending money on... except that he was, in fact, born in the UK and has lived there his entire life. That was pure gold. The biggest barrier tho this becoming a reality are the corporations who are benefitting from the status quo. Remove them and their rationalizations, and what you posted would stand on it's merits. and the public would flock to it. After they cut the defense budget by four-fifths first.
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Oct 13, 2010 22:06
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