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Dhimmitude and Healthcare
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swchandler



Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588

PostPosted: Sun Oct 17, 2010 2:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks Florian for opening the door to the book, 'Political Paranoia: The Psychopolitics of Hatred'. I spend some time reading a bit of the introduction, and it's interesting how much of what I read about paranoia neatly dovetails into the scene here. I'm more than curious how some certain folks here respond to your post.
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coboardhead



Joined: 26 Oct 2009
Posts: 4303

PostPosted: Sun Oct 17, 2010 8:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, and those in the construction industry see government employees, in general weathering the recession just fine (at least for now).

There is also the sense that nothing gets done in government.
And, then of course, when something large happens (rarely) such as health care, there is paranoia.

I really think, though, that laws and legislation have gotten so complicated that know one, including some politicians, can even read these laws. I know the health care plan is some 2000 pages. And no executive summary.

If I produced a document as difficult to read as this, I wouldn't get another feasibility study! When the general public cannot understand the law, how do you expect support?

I have almost completed a Phd in engineering and cannot understand much of the tax code! Simplify some of these laws and codes, and I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the response, even from us hicks in the construction industry.
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17736
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Sun Oct 17, 2010 8:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

no hicks in the construction industry survive. I worked as a carpenter, an electrician, and an environmental engineer. Nobody in the construction industry was responsible for the meltdown--but the speculative bubble has happened about 5 times in my 35 years of watching. To blame that on either Obama or the current deficit is just wrong.
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coboardhead



Joined: 26 Oct 2009
Posts: 4303

PostPosted: Sun Oct 17, 2010 8:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, you did not call us hicks. It is an attitude in my industry, though when dealing with politicians.

I do know that lots of blue collar folks (I deal with them everyday) are resentful, and feel that government does nothing but push them around. They want to push back. Get them out of office!

And, (can't believe I am going here), there is resentment of Obama because he is a successful, intelligent, black (I said it) man. I never heard the "n" word on a job site in 25 years until the last couple months. Then a bunch!

The answer, I believe is to somehow engage more folks in the process of law making. I think Obama was a master at this in the campaign and has tried to continue it, somewhat. I have pretty good access to state politicians and it is great! A little more access to the national politicians during law writing may help.

Blaming the deficit on Obama is a result of folks believing the mis-leading information from the Repubs running for office. Funny thing - most people in the construction industry get that it is cyclic. There is so much more blame on the government now than in the past.
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DanWeiss



Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Posts: 2296
Location: Connecticut, USA

PostPosted: Sun Oct 17, 2010 9:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Great comment on getting people involved in lawmaking. No better way to effect change or get your voice heard, at the least. Those experienced in successful bill-passing efforts know that compromise is key, as it is a by-product of woking together as a community that reflects different interests toward a common goal.

The tea party movement (along with the historically similar Libertarian ideology) offers several candidates who've stated their respective refusal to compromise or work with members of other parties toward passing laws. Those who boast of this method seem to mirror the method chosen by certain elected officials in Iraq: "We will not compromise our ideal to work with the others. The next election will see us win a majority position."

We need look back only to 1994's so-called Contract with America in order to see an example of how badly that worked for the opposition party, the GOP. Clinton was reelected by a large margin, receiving over 70% of the Electoral College votes and passed significant legislation that, for better or worse, continues its effect today.

it will be interesting to see how those elected from a tea party movement respond to the challenges facing real federal legislators. Will they simply refuse to do business with Democrats -especially President Obama? How will their constituents react when no federal funds are returned to the district?

"Throw the bums out" is nothing new. Time will tell if the present occurrence becomes supplemented by a real legislative agenda, something beyond mere rhetoric.
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coboardhead



Joined: 26 Oct 2009
Posts: 4303

PostPosted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 7:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dan, your comment regarding tea partiers being able to "bring it home" for the district may be real interesting to watch.

Of the 32 states (The tax foundation - FYI 2005) that received more dollars back from the Federal Government than put in, the vast majority are red states (small rural conservative).

New Mexico (Blue) was number one (Indian Reservations, Federal Labs, Defense Facilities). But, most of the real big winners are solidly in the red column.

It is much easier to see waste in government when you are getting more than your "share". I can also see how funding cuts can be much more devasting to the "loser" states. Colorado is one of the losers and a bit of an anomoly (purple) on the chart. Our tax reform folks may have a point!

The framer's of the constitution were wise to protect small states rights. However, I think that this protection allows abuse. Especially from the Senate. Cutting "pork" by the Tea Partiers may backfire in their faces.

Maybe the fair tax won't look so good if the funds are returned to the states by population or contribution!
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 11:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

coboardhead wrote:
1. those in the construction industry see government employees, in general weathering the recession just fine (at least for now).

2. There is also the sense that nothing gets done in government.

3. when something large happens (rarely) such as health care, there is paranoia.

4. When the general public cannot understand the law, how do you expect support?

5. I ... cannot understand much of the tax code! Simplify some of these laws and codes, and I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the response ...

6. I do know that lots of blue collar folks (I deal with them everyday) are resentful, and feel that government does nothing but push them around. They want to push back. a Get them out of office!

7. There is resentment of Obama because he is a successful, intelligent, black (I said it) man.

8. The answer, I believe is to somehow engage more folks in the process of law making.

9. I think Obama was a master at this in the campaign and has tried to continue it, somewhat. … A little more access to the national politicians during law writing may help.

10. Blaming the deficit on Obama is a result of folks believing the mis-leading information from the Repubs running for office.


1. Uh, YEAH … Obama told us during his campaign that he would grow the government by incredibly huge numbers I’ve now forgotten -- nearly a majority of the job numbers he promised -- and he’s kept that promise. That was one of EVERYone’s biggest and most justified complaints about Bush, and Obama promised to outdo even Bush, and people just ignored it. People who voted for him are getting what they deserve.

2. “I have almost completed a Phd in engineering” … then you know what a bipolar distribution is, and how aptly it describes what gets done in the government. In one spike, there are the fiascoes in which the government spends huge and irrational amounts of resources accomplishing next to nothing. The Hanford cleanup right here in River City is a prime example of DOE incompetency; it’s taken them twice the time and money (we’re talking $70B) to even come close to what the DoD, Corps of Engineers, or a competent contractor with decent oversight could have accomplished 10-20 years ago. In the other spike would be the classic cases of excess government involvement such as the IRS, farm subsidies, and many of the asinine pork barrel projects and legislation we hear about from congressional watchdogs.

I’m convinced to varying degrees that, to varying degrees, that we should greatly curtail or even abolish such abominations as the Dept of Education, HUD, the DoE, Medicare, the UN, Social Security, foreign aid, voting rights for people who can’t pass some minimal current REAL affairs knowledge quiz, $8.67 minimum wages, bribes to stay on welfare (aka prolonged unemployment benefits), illegal alien blanket amnesty, political correctness, and Al Gore.

3. Yup, but even when one strips away the paranoia (i.e., irrational fear), there’s plenty of very rational, very real fear of everything from the hard copy of Obamacare to Obama’s extremely alarming admission of almost exclusively favoring Marxist friends and philosophers throughout his childhood, college, and his present appointees. Not only does he prefer them, but he ADMITS it, as though he sees nothing wrong with it.

4. Even more telling, the more the health care law is understood, the lower its support goes in the polls, in the Democrat sides of the House and Senate, and in Democratic candidates’ campaigns, where Obamacare goes virtually unmentioned because it's an albatross.

5. IRS code: 70,000 pages that even IRS agents bungle when advising the public (YET WE ARE CRIMINALLY LIABLE FOR EVEN THEIR MISTAKEN ADVICE).
Fair Tax code:
• 134 pages a sharp high school senior can understand, including protection against its expansion and/or exclusions/loopholes.
• Shown by $22M in research by the nation’s most elite economics schools to be hands-down the best tax structure yet devised for everyone from unemployed ditch diggers to GM to the U.S. itself.
• But demonized by (an ever smaller cohort of) legislators solely because it strips the congress of its absolute power over us.

6. They’re called the TEA Party by the rightmost 70%(?) of the country, teabaggers as a deliberate insult by the leftmost 30%(?). And here’s how Rep John Dingell (D-MI) refers to them: “The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300M American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.” Hillary revealed similar intents with her inexcusable mandate, explicitly and loudly rejected by Washington state when it implemented Hillarycare under national Democratic party oversight in 1992, that choosing one’s own physician means $50,000 fines and/or a year in federal prison for both patient and physician. (That thought alone … never mind its specific codification in Hillarycare … reveals enough about her that I’d vote for Michael Vick before I’d vote for her.)

7. Of course there is. Hell, my neck of the woods (from a national perspective), is a hothouse of Aryan Nation rednecks. In the scores of times I drove across the Utah/Idaho border between NM and the Gorge, the CB radio chatter switched almost instantly from/to “There’s a Smoky at milepost 17” to/from “There’s a N.…. driving a Mercedes at Milepost 17”. Almost at the state line, bathroom wall scrawls changed between “For a good time call 555-1234” and endless racial hate speech I won’t repeat. You’d better believe that when I keyed my CB mic and told off those racist scum truckers that I made sure they couldn’t tell which vehicle I was in. But I’d be curious to see which cohort is bigger: racists, or people who think the rich -- right down to you and me (just think: I actually live in a $200,000 home and drive a car that cost me a whopping $20,000 in 2003!) -- are inherently evil.

8. How about THE OTHER SIDE OF THE AISLE, for starters? I consider it criminal that the top tier of Democrats sat behind doors closed to all Republicans and all media, STATED that they reject all of the written Republican proposals for health care legislation, wrote much of the 2,000 page health care bill with the help of the SEIU, admitted they would add several hundred pages later at their discretion, formerly announced (Pelosi) that “in order to see what’s in the bill you’ll have to vote it in”, gave not one legislator time to read it, and ordered an immediate vote. [No, I’m not going to cite references for any of that; it’s been major news for two years. Anyone who questions any of it can Google up dozens of video clips and transcripts readily verifying all of it.] Considering the permanent implications of using such egregious tactics to force this first step in Obama's STATED-ON-CAMERA goal of achieving fully socialized medicine upon this nation, I could support federal prosecution and ANY extreme penalty for the people responsible for this unilateral assault on the Constitution, on health care and research, on the seniors whose lives Berwick rates so lowly, on the full-term babies Obama and Sebelius have publicly declared disposable, and on the next generations’ medical and fiscal well-being … and that’s just the facts; the paranoia hasn’t even kicked in yet, despite what mac will parrot from MediaMatters.Soros.

9. You do know, don’t you -- EVERYone else here, on both sides of the fence, does -- that Candidate Obama promised repeatedly on camera to show the entire health care bill debate and development process live on C-SPAN, and that the administration subsequently refused C-SPAN’s pleas to carry it? Yet he allowed the outrageous scandal described in #8! (Of course, mac, et.al. will cite similar scandals under other administrations as an excuse for this one, like that matters.)

10. Come on, man! SURELY you know that by many measures and from many sources such as the CBO that Obama’s deficit spending IN JUST HIS FIRST 2O MONTHS exceeds that of all 43 predecessors COMBINED, don’t you? If not, you really MUST stop taking MediaMatters, the Huffington Post, mac, and the Denver Post at face value and find some time to do your own research.
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windoggi



Joined: 22 Feb 2002
Posts: 2743

PostPosted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 12:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

isobars wrote:
what mac will parrot from MediaMatters.Soros.


...takes a parrot to know a parrot.

_________________
/w\
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swchandler



Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588

PostPosted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 12:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

After that long rant, I have to ask, what else is new from isobars' world? He's like a broken record repeatedly broadcasting hateful thoughts picked up from the worst possible sources.
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coboardhead



Joined: 26 Oct 2009
Posts: 4303

PostPosted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 1:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The national debt increased by almost $3 trillion under GW Bush. Interest (pre Obama) costs us some $400 billion per year.

If Obama could balance HIS budget, he would still have approx. $700 billion in interest to pay on past presidents tabs in this 20 mo. period. Now, consider who these largest offenders were - Reagan and GW Bush.

It is very misleading to talk spending amounts without discussing spending and debt as a percentage of GDP. It is the sound bite "Obama has spent more than all predessors combined" that gets to me. How can we attempt to address the debt and the deficit when exaggerations (no historical context) like this are part of the dialogue?

I am no fan of deficit spending and debt accumulation. I do recognize, however, that it was necessary at this time. But, why did we go 7 years of GW Bush's term without a surplus?
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