(Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

[Mn_Mark]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

I can point to several "full refund" notes issued by Eric to that end and imagine if a similar sanction was available in the public forum we'd see more comity.

Here's some of the hyperbole and sarcasm directed my way in this thread by "Mr. Comity" :

That's quite a comforting bedtime story you've come up with, Mn. But such an eloquent defense of inequality is hardly surprising coming from the right. Nothing could be more important to the success of conservative ideology than expanding social and economic inequality. See, the right wing doesn't see extreme inequality as a problem. Conservatives love inequality and so the more of it the better.

For right wing conservatives, inequality is not a bug, it's a feature. Why? Because their destructive and deceptive ideology simply could not exist without it. How else you gonna maintain "natural aristocracies" with out inequality? Unless there is extreme social and economic inequality, how else will the mass of people who conservatives seek to rule internalize the proper psychological attitude of deference and inferiority? Without extreme inequality, how are the common people to know that the "natural" aristocrats are better people than they are? This is why it is so hard for the right wing to take a convincing stand against the bankers. It's also why they so easily piss on the backs of the ever growing number of people they identify as "the other."

Me, I find the mental acrobatics necessary for them to square the circle hilarious. So please, do tell us more.

...

I like how you keep it so simple, Mn. Black and white hides a multitude of sins, as the fashionistas are fond of saying. Looks good on you, anyway.

...

We know you don't understand, Mn. I like the way you flaunt your lack of it with such confidence.

...

MN, why don't you take an hour or so to read about the history of silicon valley and then come back and tell us how the free market was instrumental in the foundation of computer industry? There's even a movie you can watch.

...

Health stamps? Just like food stamps? How comforting. Sorry, MN, but your earnestness and certainty is almost irresistible to this old class clown. And since you are wise enough to admit your lack of expertise here, are you wise enough to put your general principles aside for the moment and see how they are not operable here?

[Forrest]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

This is the Obama "you didn't create that business" argument.

Here's the flaw in that argument: the persons who "made it" using publicly-funded roads, court systems, etc, already paid for those roads, court systems, etc, with their taxes. Paid in full. Any profits they make now with the help of those publicly-funded utilities should be theirs to keep.

Let me give you an analogy. You buy a house intending to fix it up and sell it for a profit. Part of what the house needs is a new roof. You find a roofer and come to an agreement that you will pay him $3000 to put on the roof. He puts on the new roof, and you pay him. You would surely agree that your obligations to him are finished - the contract was agreed upon and executed and you two now owe one another nothing.

Now you go to sell the house. Because of your good eye for houses and what the market wants, that improvement to roof along with the other improvements you made allows you to make a nice hefty profit on the house of, say, $50,000.

But now the roofer comes back and says, "you owe me a share of that $50,000 profit. You wouldn't have been able to earn that without my roofing services, therefore I am entitled to a share of your profits. You didn't fix that house up by yourself!"

Would you accept that argument or laugh at his chutzpah and walk off?

You are making the same flawed argument. Because we are compelled to pay for government roads, court services, education, etc, the Left argues that our use of those government services gives the Left an open-ended claim on as much profit as we make in our work in the country. "You didn't build that business," they say, smirking like Obama.

Wrong. Us productive people paid for those government services with previous or current taxes. When we use the services - which we paid for, just as you paid for that roof in the example - it does not thereby justify taking more of our profits in taxes.

Actually, to a degree it does.

As a society we chose to create infrastructure for all of us to use to better all of our lives. As a society, we also need to maintain and improve that infrastructure. This is simply part of the taxation's general expenditures, and not a special tax.

As for profit sharing, that can only go to those in a particular company wise enough to give the workers a piece of the action to ensure their best efforts, and a sense of belonging to a joint vision and purpose...it can never be a government policy, only a spur to free market growth from within the market.

[Woodsman]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

Here's some of the hyperbole and sarcasm directed my way in this thread by "Mr. Comity" :

That's quite a comforting bedtime story you've come up with, Mn. But such an eloquent defense of inequality is hardly surprising coming from the right. Nothing could be more important to the success of conservative ideology than expanding social and economic inequality. See, the right wing doesn't see extreme inequality as a problem. Conservatives love inequality and so the more of it the better.

For right wing conservatives, inequality is not a bug, it's a feature. Why? Because their destructive and deceptive ideology simply could not exist without it. How else you gonna maintain "natural aristocracies" with out inequality? Unless there is extreme social and economic inequality, how else will the mass of people who conservatives seek to rule internalize the proper psychological attitude of deference and inferiority? Without extreme inequality, how are the common people to know that the "natural" aristocrats are better people than they are? This is why it is so hard for the right wing to take a convincing stand against the bankers. It's also why they so easily piss on the backs of the ever growing number of people they identify as "the other."

Me, I find the mental acrobatics necessary for them to square the circle hilarious. So please, do tell us more.

...

I like how you keep it so simple, Mn. Black and white hides a multitude of sins, as the fashionistas are fond of saying. Looks good on you, anyway.

...

We know you don't understand, Mn. I like the way you flaunt your lack of it with such confidence.

...

MN, why don't you take an hour or so to read about the history of silicon valley and then come back and tell us how the free market was instrumental in the foundation of computer industry? There's even a movie you can watch.

...

Health stamps? Just like food stamps? How comforting. Sorry, MN, but your earnestness and certainty is almost irresistible to this old class clown. And since you are wise enough to admit your lack of expertise here, are you wise enough to put your general principles aside for the moment and see how they are not operable here?

Didn't know I was such a burr under your saddle, cowboy. Sure hope I haven't kept you up late at night or ruined a meal or anything.

[lektrode]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

Didn't know I was such a burr under your saddle, cowboy. Sure hope I haven't kept you up late at night or ruined a meal or anything.

uhhhhh... woody?
even you'd admit you can be a bit abrasive at times, eh?

and ms shiny!'s comment is so far the most appropriate in this exchange, doncha tink???

but +1 on yers about rant n rave - its also one of my faves (as you might guess ;)

[Woodsman]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

uhhhhh... woody?
even you'd admit you can be a bit abrasive at times, eh?

and ms shiny!'s comment is so far the most appropriate in this exchange, doncha tink???

but +1 on yers about rant n rave - its also one of my faves (as you might guess ;)

Sure, but don't you think it depends on your perspective? I expect the degree anyone finds my comments abrasive depend on how much they are in agreement with them. If we line up, then I'm a funny guy using humor to make a serious point. If we don't, then I'm a sarcastic jackass.

The way I see it, I have every right to express my ideas and opinion here, as I do to clarify remarks made by others I believe to be in error. I try to limit my expressions to those domains in why I have meaningful experience and knowledge. I will admit to caring more about truth and the facts of history as I understand them than I do the opinion of others and that may be perceived as aggression. But then I hail from a more pugilistic tradition of debate and have learned to temper that over the years. You won't believe it Lek, but I spend more time pulling punches than throwing them.

Okay, so I have a thing for righteous, unrepentant ignorance expressed as certainty. It used to really irritate me but in my old age I've learned to laugh about it.

[Woodsman]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

Puh-leeze. There is no one; not one person in this world who is "self made." All of us rely on the work of those who came before us. The best of us understand that we build things that we ourselves may never have the opportunity to enjoy. This was an American virtue not long ago before the radical right wing took over our politics and put the Commons up for sale. Politicians on the right have made similar communitarian appeals without controversy, but that was before the lot of them went rogue on the country.

Here's the "build that" quote in context:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me – because they want to give something back. They know they didn't – look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something – there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business – you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don't do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

Not a particularly controversial statement in context. But politics being what it is, Romney took a one second sound bite and tried to build a movement around it. Kind of lame, but then he didn't have much to work with. Too bad about the 47% video.

Say, it might be helpful to look at that quote in its full context as as sort of compare and contrast exercise:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what… These are people who pay no income tax..."[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Romney tried to blow this off as anything other than what it is - an expression of deep scorn for anyone not his kind - but the damage was done even if to this day he and people like him can't seem to figure out what the big deal was.

Recall where this event took place; at one of those $1000 a plate rubber chicken dinners where rich donors vie for favors and photo ops. His 47% remark was in response to a question by a wealthy donor who complained that too many lazy Americans won't take care of themselves. And Romney agreed with him and then doubled down by putting a number on it. From there he - a man running to be president of all the United States - then proceeded to throw up his hands and call nearly half of Americans a sunk cost and a lost cause. Interesting strategy, no?

But to your point, what possible difference could it make what I or anyone says about it? It seems to me that you've got your certainty about the way things are. So you'll understand if I don't make an effort to list all those decades of expenditures on infrastructure and basic research that benefits corporations and their bottom line. I think it would be a pointless gesture at this point. Also, I've scoured this note for any and all phraseology that might hurt your feelings. Let me know if you find anything I missed.

[lektrode]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

Puh-leeze. There is no one; not one person in this world who is "self made." All of us rely on the work of those who came before us. The best of us understand that we build things that we ourselves may never have the opportunity to enjoy. This was an American virtue not long ago before the radical right wing took over our politics and put the Commons up for sale. Politicians on the right have made similar communitarian appeals without controversy, but that was before the lot of them went rogue on the country......

oddly enuf woody,
+1
romney lost me on the 47% comment.
mostly what took him out of the running, was the absolute laser-like focus that the media kept on him - the same treatment and o'whatshisname _never_ would've made it thru the 1st time...

never mind the 2nd.

oh, and just soz ya know - i 'went rogue' in 2012 and voted for the 'other choice'
the other thing was - even tho i think he is vastly more qualified than the current occupant - is the fact that he is even moreso one of THE FIre brigade - but what really shot him down was the WASP's floatin rumors that 'he wasnt a christian'
when - again - that same treatment would've likely DQ'd the 'winner' - esp considering his 'place of worship' and the main orator - or would that be 'oracle' there? - and his littany of issues with The US

Also, I've scoured this note for any and all phraseology that might hurt your feelings. Let me know if you find anything I missed.

all in all fair enough, but perhaps just a bit aggressive woody?
butg i cant honestly argue with most of it.

[Forrest]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

Sure, but don't you think it depends on your perspective? I expect the degree anyone finds my comments abrasive depend on how much they are in agreement with them. If we line up, then I'm a funny guy using humor to make a serious point. If we don't, then I'm a sarcastic jackass.

The way I see it, I have every right to express my ideas and opinion here, as I do to clarify remarks made by others I believe to be in error. I try to limit my expressions to those domains in why I have meaningful experience and knowledge. I will admit to caring more about truth and the facts of history as I understand them than I do the opinion of others and that may be perceived as aggression. But then I hail from a more pugilistic tradition of debate and have learned to temper that over the years. You won't believe it Lek, but I spend more time pulling punches than throwing them.

Okay, so I have a thing for righteous, unrepentant ignorance expressed as certainty. It used to really irritate me but in my old age I've learned to laugh about it.

BRAVO! The only way to kill off the ear steamin' aggravation of blank ignorance, or even blatant refusal to look at the facts is to laugh...kindly.

[Woodsman]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

Aggressive. Man, if you only knew how funny that really is. But wait, you voted for Obama? And here I am Lek, thinking I was the unfathomable one!

It's pure speculation, but I think old Mitt got taken to the cleaners by the GOP insiders. I have long term relationships with people who are higher up in the Christian right and the evangelical wing of the GOP and had many conversations with them about Romney. The closed door consensus was that in no way would the folks in the pulpits ever accept Romney as a Christian. While that might not keep some from voting for the guy, the take I had was that it would never be enough to bring him home. And they communicated that well before the nomination.

I think the GOP knew Obama could not be defeated and so they brought Romney along to take as much of his cash as he could be convinced to spend. And spend he did, all to no avail.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

side note:

When Scott Prouty’s surreptitious video recording of Mitt Romney surfaced during the presidential election, the country gravitated toward his comments about 47% of Americans who, Romney said, did not pay income taxes and felt “entitled to health care, to food, to housing–you name it.” The video was universally dubbed “the 47% tape.” But as the videographer revealed, it was not Romney’s 47% remarks that motivated him to go public with the video: it was Romney’s comment about a factory in China–later identified as Global-Tech Appliances–that prompted Prouty to take action. As Romney attested in the video, Bain Capital had acquired this factory in 1998, which employed mostly young women who stayed “twelve to a room” on “three bunk beds on top of each other” in a building surrounded by “a huge fence with barbed wire and guard towers.” “I don’t know how any person with a conscience could walk in there and get a good feeling and say, ‘You know what? This is the business model I want to take. This is going to make me a couple more million dollars. And that was wonderful. Then hop on your private plane and leave,” Prouty said on The Last Word, noting that jobs were also taken from American workers in the process. “I just couldn’t believe that he would be bragging about it while he was running for president,” said Prouty.

[lektrode]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

BRAVO! The only way to kill off the ear steamin' aggravation of blank ignorance, or even blatant refusal to look at the facts is to laugh...kindly.

yep.
as i am most of the time typing round here!
believe it or not.

[lektrode]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

Aggressive. Man, if you only knew how funny that really is. But wait, you voted for Obama? And here I am Lek, thinking I was the unfathomable one!

jeeeeze woody - you mustave beat me to the end of your 3rd one last nite, if you think that ;)

no, i meant the 3rd party candidate (cant even remember his name at the moment...)

It's pure speculation, but I think old Mitt got taken to the cleaners by the GOP insiders. ....l.

thats what i meant by my comment about rumors that he 'isnt a christian' - which was what i heard from pals in NH (catholics, who did vote for him) -

another absurdity put out by the 'anybody BUT a Republican' crowd - esp when there's several million people in the intermountain west region that would strenuously argue different - they're pretty famous in that regard, considering the official/unabridged name of their group

and yes, i still think the mittster is _vastly_ more qualified/real-world experienced than the current occupant will _ever_ be - just couldnt bring myself to sign-on with the FIre brigade (now that itulip/Mr J has set me straight) - however methinks it was an 'either/or' choice tween them 2 - either the guy who was financed and PUT into office by them, OR the guy who could've financed himself into the job - thus being perhaps less beholden to certain lower manhattan influences? - and yeah, yer probably right on the Repub 'elders', aka the rightwing political-industrial complex, that feeds off the whole farce - with the ultimate 'gatekeepers' - being (most of) the media-industrial complex (aka the leftwing ind-complex), particularly the op/ed depts - a wholly-owned subsidiary of the party in power - who profits handsomely from the whole twisted/stinking festering nightmare known as US elections

but - with all that said:

A HAPPY (that we're Americans) THANKSGIVING DAY TO ALL 'tulipers today - no matter where y'all are on the spectrum

[LazyBoy]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

This is the Obama "you didn't create that business" argument.Here's the flaw in that argument: the persons who "made it" using publicly-funded roads, court systems, etc, already paid for those roads, court systems, etc, with their taxes. Paid in full. Any profits they make now with the help of those publicly-funded utilities should be theirs to keep.Let me give you an analogy. You buy a house intending to fix it up and sell it for a profit. Part of what the house needs is a new roof....You are making the same flawed argument. Because we are compelled to pay for government roads, court services, education, etc, the Left argues that our use of those government services gives the Left an open-ended claim on as much profit as we make in our work in the country. "You didn't build that business," they say, smirking like Obama. Wrong. Us productive people paid for those government services with previous or current taxes. When we use the services - which we paid for, just as you paid for that roof in the example - it does not thereby justify taking more of our profits in taxes.

In your analogy, YOU paid for your roof. In the roads scenario, WE paid for the roads. The portion of the road that YOU paid for is rather useless by itself.I am not saying this "gives the Left an open-ended claim on as much profit as we make in our work in the country". I don't know that anybody was. But whatever you're arguing, your analogy may not fit as well as you think.

[flintlock]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

How do you realistically limit the amount of money a politician can earn after leaving office? Let alone his friends and family? "Sorry Joe, your uncle was a congressman so you can only make $40,000 a year for the rest of your life".

The money follows the power. Politicians have the power to regulate everything and therefore pick winners and losers in the economy. It's only natural that the winners would reward them for picking them. The real solution has to be limiting power. But I don't know how that part happens, especially when roughly half the population disagrees it even should happen.

Not the amount, but the source of income. This is just simple old fashion graft. It has gone on for centuries and has been generally seen as unethical for just as long. The difference is we are supposedly not a dictatorship or other autocratic form of government where that stuff goes on. Sadly, today we don't even pretend to be anything but. Power and corruption go hand in hand. The same who don't want to limit power can't seem to realize you rarely have one without the other.

[Mn_Mark]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

In your analogy, YOU paid for your roof. In the roads scenario, WE paid for the roads. The portion of the road that YOU paid for is rather useless by itself.I am not saying this "gives the Left an open-ended claim on as much profit as we make in our work in the country". I don't know that anybody was. But whatever you're arguing, your analogy may not fit as well as you think.

Yes, "we" paid for the road. We paid so that a road would be built. The road was built. It is now paid for. We pay further for the maintenance of the road. The road is maintained. End of transaction. There is no further open obligation to those who paid for the road to pay even more because "we built the road therefore you shouldn't complain when we take some of your profits from using the road."

The deal was: we pay X taxes to get a road and maintain it. We pay said taxes. We get road. Period.

The deal was not: we pay X taxes plus an undetermined, open-ended cut of any profits we make by using the road, in return for getting a road. That was not the deal, though progressives want to, post-facto, make that the deal.

If progressives said right up front that the cost of their new proposed government service would be the taxes to pay for it, PLUS an undetermined, never-ending cut of the profits of anyone who used the service, they would be laughed at. So they express it very vaguely, as a sort of all-purpose obligation that you, as a productive person, incurred when you used any government service or simply live within the borders. It's not enough that you paid your part of the bill for every one of those services, and every human being who was hired by the government to provide them was paid their salary, etc. No individual is owed a thing; yet progressives invent an open-ended, undefined additional obligation, claiming that you owe more than the agreed-upon cost for the agreed-upon service.

I think it's pretty much exactly like the roofer analogy.