Tea Party march on Washington / Single Payer healthcare

[Uzra]

Ayn Rand.

[Uzra]

My random 2 cents.  If 40% of the population like green, 60% of the population like yellow, there's one place to get green, and 4 places to get yellow, then the green place will have the most customers (~40%) and yellow places will only have only ~15% each.  Then, saying 'The green place has the most customers therefor green is the most popular' is sorta silly.

Notice that it doesn't have to be an exact representation of reality, it's one possibility which is enough to refute logical claims similar to 'fox has the most viewers therefor most people agree with fox'.

First- I'm not ignoring anybody.

I've asked you at least 3 times in this thread if public school is a socialist program.  I've also asked you for a definition of a legitimate government program that doesn't include looking at history or referencing anything i.e some rule that would let us know what's legitimate and what is not without asking for each and every single one (A program is socialist if it has the properties A, B, and/or C, where A,B and C are not referencing a list of programs).  Please don't tell me where you stand on school.  Instead give me the rule so that I would know for all possible programs (including school).  Thank you.

[Uzra]

This is crazy. Who do you get your information from? You say you don't watch Fox, but frankly I'm starting to doubt that claim.

Most republican blogs, videos, and articles are all inter-related; they feed off eachother's 'articles' and relative persuasive biased arguments.  That isn't to say that the ideology isn't capable of reaching the same conclusions (no matter how ridiculous) independently or using the same fallacies to reach them independently.

[Uzra]

Just a quick question...

If this healthcare bill is so good for us--

What are they afraid of?

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Congressional-leaders-fight-against-posting-bills-online-8340658-63557217.html

They won't pass the bill until there's something in there they can themselves benefit from, just like every other bill.  The only afraid people I see are the people in the town halls, and the writer of the article.  He's also clearly non-partisan as he says ' the stimulus package failed to help jobs grow' completely ignoring that it wasn't designed for that in the short term, it was designed to put a baindaid on the crumbling world economy.  And it did.

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2009/03/the_stimulus_pa.html

[various-guises]

posted by: hamster

The US is not and has never been a democracy despite what they teach in schools. It most resembles a republic (though not perfectly that either). But the common usage term is democracy so IIWII.

I pointed this out earlier, I know you said you have not read this whole thread so ill just say i never said it was   we went off on a tangent at that point lol.

My question for you is what if the "Meritocracy" you are advocating had a leader whose decided things are good for you that you found despicable? Obviously since he would smarter than you- his positions have more "merit". Would you change your opinions or disagree with him just because with no reasonable argument? (probably best to start a new thread for this than continue it here)

No. No person who can decide anything without reasonable evidence (or with the best they can get, depending on circumstances) could ever be described as intelligent. Smart maybe, but not intelligent. There is a subtle difference there. Smart people can spell, do maths or memorise ect (to give the most obvious examples), Intelligent people can collate data, see all sides of an argument and can go into any debate from any side without prejudice to come to a decision that appears to be correct from what they know after all the evidence is presented. Also most importantly can UNDERSTAND. A lot of smart people just know, they dont understand what they know.

I dont believe in perfection, Noone can always be right. All we can hope for is to get as close as we can to picking people who will choose the path they think is best not for them, but for all.

What i have wrote doesnt do what i think justice really but it conveys the point, i hope reasonably well. There is a lot missing, but i think we would need a full forum to debate such political ideas well, with all the small points to pull over

Polls are very dependent on wording. It's best to give the exact question wording so we can interpret what the responses mean.

That's what I consider a good question. No mention of Democrats, Republicans, Obama, etc. Very clear about government's involvement. Gives the concrete example of Medicare, which is familiar to many people.

I agree. Good question.

[various-guises]

Wow this thread went to hell.......thats all i have.

[Belthus]

@Evil Hamster:

The numbers are 40-40 for a different question. I oppose some of the bills proposed by the Democrats, and I support a public option. (For the most part, Democrats have abandoned the public option.) "Obama's plan" is meaningless because he doesn't have one. Asking about complex legislation for which several bills are competing is a bad approach, IMO. People will tend to revert to what they know: how much they trust a party or Obama or whoever.

Go to your own link for the Quinnipiac poll. Scroll down to Question 18. Exactly what I posted, though in more detail. 61% in favor, 34% opposed.

[Belthus]

Evil Hamster, why are you against choice and competition? Because you know that private insurance companies will lose. They are the real death panels. They have been killing people for a long time with claim denials and rescissions.

Over time, people may increasingly choose the public option, if it provides better coverage and/or cheaper premiums. Nothing wrong with that, unless you are reflexively anti-government and worship the market like a fundamentalist. On the other hand, it's possible that private insurance companies will actually improve. If that happens, fine, they will have earned the right to survive. If they continue to do what they are doing right now, they deserve to go out of business.

That clip of Robert Reich is pure sarcasm on his part. I would be curious to see a transcript of the whole speech. I have a pretty good idea of what he advocates.

[Belthus]

Evil Hamster, you are all over the place. You claim to be against mega-corporations and want even more deregulation. Sorry, but that's contradictory. When corporations started becoming mega-corps in the 19th Century, there was very little regulation. Then Teddy Roosevelt and Progressives like the Muckrakers came after them. The result was regulation. The notion that deregulation would result in a nation dominated by small businesses is absurd.

Now, it is true that mega-corps feed at the government trough and get larger as a result. That's bad. It's true that they have private profits and socialized losses. That's bad. Both parties participate in this state of affairs, and I condemn both parties for it.

I say, if a corporation is going to fail, one of two things should happen. Either (1) let it fail. Or (2) if it is so big that its failure would bring down the whole economy, nationalize it (at least temporarily). Then in the future, corporations should not be allowed to become too big to fail. Enforce anti-trust laws.

[Belthus]

Polls are very dependent on wording. It's best to give the exact question wording so we can interpret what the responses mean.

CBS News/New York Times Poll. Sept. 19-23, 2009:

Code: [Select]

"Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a
government-administered health insurance plan -- something like the Medicare
coverage that people 65 and older get -- that would compete with private health
insurance plans?"
 
    Favor Oppose Unsure  
    % % %

9/19-23/09 65 26 9That's what I consider a good question. No mention of Democrats, Republicans, Obama, etc. Very clear about government's involvement. Gives the concrete example of Medicare, which is familiar to many people.

Sorry for bringing up this old post again, but I found out that question itself is inherently biased to support obamacare and is an EXTREMELY biased question. I know I had previously said I agreed it was fair but I learned something here!

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/pollsters_push_people_to_accep.html

The question I quoted is never mentioned in that article.

The question that the article did mention has the word "responsibility." Very abstract. Easy for people to change their opinion on the abstraction without changing their opinion on particular policies. The question I quoted asked about a very particular policy.

[Daxx]

Wow, this is going to demand quite a response. I'll give it a go tomorrow, hopefully.

[Evil Hamster]

I agree they are good at crafting the words to make it seem like an un-biased question.

Kind of like how the politicians are using the poll-tested word "option" once the people started protesting.

Their goal is a single, government run healthcare system. Obama even said he knows the people won't accept it all at once and it will take steps over 15 years or so for them to grab that much power.

Heres one of Obamas advisers stating their goal:

"If your very old ... were giong to let you die"

"[use government monopoly to bring about] less innovation, less new drugs .. that means you are probably not going to live much longer than your parents"