Are Republicans Evil?

[hobbes2702 12,846]

1 minute ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

So are you saying that if I made a list of liberal ideas or ideals that have been pushed for for the last decade plus that none of them have made any progress?

Did republicans act in any way they could as a barricade to those ideals? Yes they absolutely did. And not because Dems rammed some leftist policies down their throat. How do you not recognize that the Pubs abandoned governing years ago?

[Nivek 16,861]

GHWB spoke to us about a fake drug deal to justify the war on drugs.

[David Dennison 18,661]

10 minutes ago, Nivek said:

GHWB spoke to us about a fake drug deal to justify the war on drugs.

Lee Atwater told us everything we need to know about the political strategy of the Republican Party:

Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "N*****, n*****, n*****". By 1968 you can't say "n*****"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this", is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N*****, n*****". So, any way you look at it, race is coming on the backbone.

Fast forward to last week.

Yes, the Republican Party is, in fact, evil.

Edited July 22, 2019 by David Dennison

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4,968]

4 minutes ago, hobbes2702 said:

Dude we have evidence of Dems trying to find common ground. Look at Obamacare. Pubs don’t want to do anything. There is no equivocation between the two parties at this point in time. Wake up

They were trying so hard to find common ground they had to modify the rules of the senate to pass it when they had a supermajority and a president from their own party? Honestly, please correct me if I am wrong here, because I grew up in a republican family was probably exposed to way more fox news than was healthy back then. But it looks to me like they used up all of their political capital on a bill that was far enough left that they lost a lot of ground in purple states the next election and contributed to the current problem of the executive branch having too much power. 

I won't say that everything the ACA did was bad. It certainly helped those on the lowest end of the spectrum, but it was and still is a handicap for others. Particularly those who have a job that has good medical coverage but would like to start their own business. That's a huge detriment to potential small business creators (I think we can all agree that small business creators are good). 

[David Dennison 18,661]

1 minute ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

They were trying so hard to find common ground they had to modify the rules of the senate to pass it when they had a supermajority and a president from their own party?

What rules did they modify?

[RDCanecutter 26,282]

8 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

I might as well have told her that the sky is pink.  She's convinced that I'm not only wrong, but that I must be crazy too. 

[Celery Man 20,886]

41 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

If one party is evil and the other is not conservative, then you really haven't said anything to narrow down which party is evil. There is no conservative party left in America. Maybe the answer is both parties are evil. Voting for the lesser of two evils should never have to be requirement for someone to not be evil. In fact that seems like a bit of a contradiction. Maybe we should instead talk about how we can fix our system so we don't have to worry so much about that? 

And I'm not sure how you got the idea that I've supported putting babies in cages based on what I've posted here. For the record, my wife's parents were both born in Mexico and got amnesty under Reagan. She was born here, but spent enough time living in Mexico when she was younger (her grandfather was not doing well and they moved back down there to take care of him for a few years) that she had to repeat kindergarten when they came back because she didn't speak english well enough. My brother in law is just now supposed to be getting his green card after years of efforts that have only been exasperated by the current administration. So, yeah, I pretty much despise what the Republican party has been doing with regards to immigration. I didn't vote for any of them in the last two elections, and I voted for a couple of democrats in statewide elections last go around because the Republican party has drifted so far away from what I believe in. But I still believe in limited government and fiscal responsibility. Neither party seems to be interested in those ideals, so I probably won't support either unless something changes.

I didn't intend to give you the impression that I was describing you as supporting those things, so my apologies if I did.

I think there's a bit of difference between being engaged in something evil and abetting something evil, to your point about it shouldn't be a requirement for someone to vote against evil in order to not be evil.

[hobbes2702 12,846]

30 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

They were trying so hard to find common ground they had to modify the rules of the senate to pass it when they had a supermajority and a president from their own party? Honestly, please correct me if I am wrong here, because I grew up in a republican family was probably exposed to way more fox news than was healthy back then. But it looks to me like they used up all of their political capital on a bill that was far enough left that they lost a lot of ground in purple states the next election and contributed to the current problem of the executive branch having too much power. 

I won't say that everything the ACA did was bad. It certainly helped those on the lowest end of the spectrum, but it was and still is a handicap for others. Particularly those who have a job that has good medical coverage but would like to start their own business. That's a huge detriment to potential small business creators (I think we can all agree that small business creators are good). 

The ACA was a fucking republican plan.

[Doc Sam Beckett 5,784]

57 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Ronald Reagan has a fuck ton to do with it. He paved the way for the working class to hate self-government at the expense of their own well-being.

EMAW was whining about how the Dems used to support blue collar workers like the auto worker and longshoreman and now they represent the party of illegal immigration. Weird how the Dems, in EMAW's opinion, stopped supporting the blue collar worker that Reagan systematically destroyed... 

 

Funny thing is, even though union membership is at an all time low, tilting at that windmill continues to be one of the golden oldies for conservatives. 

[David Dennison 18,661]

Every single American who works for a wage should be unionized.

[Homercles 10,205]

Are they all evil?  No.  But I’m never voting for one in my lifetime

[Revolution512 1,480]

1 hour ago, hobbes2702 said:

Dude we have evidence of Dems trying to find common ground. Look at Obamacare. Pubs don’t want to do anything. There is no equivocation between the two parties at this point in time. Wake up

Obamacare is about the worst example one could think of

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13,547]

43 minutes ago, hobbes2702 said:

Dude we have evidence of Dems trying to find common ground. Look at Obamacare. Pubs don’t want to do anything. There is no equivocation between the two parties at this point in time. Wake up

They actually went beyond this. Had the public option remained in the bill, that could have reasonably been called a compromise where both parties got a little something that they originally had supported. Instead the GOP added 161 amendments to the bill that ultimately was almost identical to what they claimed to support in 1993, voted en masse against it, lied to their base that it was railroaded through and spent the subsequent years defunding components of the law, roiling the markets with uncertainty via threats of repeal, and rendering essential parts of the law useless through litigation and to this day still haven't revealed what their new mystery plan is for health care reform.

 

This was all before Trump came along, just as it was when Obama and his runaway executive powers couldn't even get a Senate confirmation hearing on his SC nominee. 

 

We saw it again on a smaller scale recently when one of the most left-leaning states in the country- Oregon- was trying to pass their own version of Cap and Trade (aka the official environmental doctrine of the Bush I administration). That's all it took to get militias involved.

 

It's not the radicalization of both parties that's the problem. It's the GOP.

[David Dennison 18,661]

10 minutes ago, Revolution512 said:

Obamacare is about the worst example one could think of

It's a wonderful example of Republicans refusing to work on legislation because they view its passage as a long term win for Democrats.

[HRSchenker 2,259]

9 hours ago, Zombie said:

I ask this seriously. When I was kid, GHWB was President. My parents were fairly liberal Democrats, but they said he was a good man who meant well. It could be argued that despite all the terrible shit GWB did, he also meant well. Likewise, McCain was a proponent of some bad shit, but he probably wasn't much worse than hawkish Democrats at the same time. But Trump and his voters are a whole different animal. No matter how racist, misogynist, xenophobic, and dishonest Trump is, they don't seem to care. It appears, at this moment in time, that Republicans have a total absence of decency and morality.

It really fucking disturbs me because when I was growing up I knew Republicans who I thought were decent people but just disagreed about what was a reasonable tax rate or other relatively innocuous policy disagreements. But now, every Republican I meet that supports Trump strikes me as an evil piece of shit and, I'm ashamed to admit, I fantasize about them dying a painful death for their evil and treason against Democracy and America. I'm just drunkenly writing my stream of consciousness, but I'm really disturbed by right wingers and I think we're in for some dark times because of their evilness. Maybe I'm being melodramatic. I hope so. 

What better way to bring people together and convince others that your side is on the right side of history than by calling the other side "evil pieces of shit" and bragging about your fantasies of them dying a painful death? Yeah I hope you're being melodramatic too. 

[hobbes2702 12,846]

20 minutes ago, Revolution512 said:

Obamacare is about the worst example one could think of

How’s that?

[hayden_horn 11,360]

"the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men do nothing."

see also:

that's what we see with the current republican party, and i would say that, at the very least, the supposedly good people part of the republican party doing nothing is helping to enable evil.

but we are also seeing a weird reshaping of the political reality: republicans are on the wane, and it's because they are trying to super-serve a dying demographic who traditionally were the largest cohort of voters: old white people and rural america. this is changing, as is the landscape of american demographics and voter patterns. the 2018 midterm was a very telling data point. if the trends that were displayed during that election continue into 2020, the republican party may end up digging its own grave.

and it's because of fear. old white people and rural america are scared of "losing" their country. what they do not realize is that the country isn't what they thought it was. that when reasonable people hear things like "make america great again" they hear a racist dog whistle. they look around their technology job, see successful people of all races, ethnicity, and sexuality, and shrug their shoulders and say "what isn't great about this?" then they hear more racist rhetoric, and they realize that the republican party is not courting them. at all. 

just take a look at he texas gop. major recent initiative include anti-gay/trans legislation, fear politics and bathroom bills, and a fucking "chick fil-a" bill. this is all rural and white old people shit. this is playing on fears of motivated voters to get them to the voting booths. 

but the rural and old white people vote is dying. people are moving to the cities, and are becoming more progressive as a result.

this scares the actual fuck out of old white people and the rural parts of america. shit is changing, and it's changing without their say-so. 

so they are willing to justify more evil shit. kids in cages with mylar blankets and no toothbrushes? they shouldn't have come here trying to change mah 'merica. that's the sum of any argument. justification of evil acts to preserve the "great america" that never existed, except for white people and for blue collar rural workers who manufactured america's economic rise. but that steel job ain't coming back, and neither is that coal job. your union jobs are gone, and you've left the democratic party because they could not bring them back. and now you're left justifying evil acts because the landscape of america is changing. what you don't realize is that change is inevitable, and it is actually good in most cases. 

instead of justifying evil, we should be going to the taco trucks on the corner and eating the good food there.

but the republicans do not want to do that. they are stuck in a hate/fear cycle, and that produces the evil that currently infests the white house and the entire remaining bits of the republican party. if the party apparatus does not start making real changes to the hate/fear/evil cycle, i predict that the republican party will cease to be a thing in a decade, if not sooner. the demographic upon which they are preying will die off.

and there will be fewer "good men" who do nothing. 

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3,861]

6 minutes ago, HRSchenker said:

What better way to bring people together and convince others that your side is on the right side of history than by calling the other side "evil pieces of shit" and bragging about your fantasies of them dying a painful death? Yeah I hope you're being melodramatic too. 

No one is trying to bring people together.  Pandering to morons gets Dems nothing.  When the R has broadcast its desire to not participate in any reasonable way, Dems stopped asking them to. 

[Sbbruin 21,738]

9 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

People that identified as "Republicans" a few years ago?  Very few were evil.   Today?  Many are evil.  Many, many more are just uninformed or just plain stupid. 

I have been a Republican most of my life.  But in the last election, I did not vote for a candidate for President.  There was no way I could check the box for a candidate that I was certain (and it is coming to pass) would do more harm to the fundamentals of the party than any other single person could ever do.  But of the few of us California Republicans, I know of almost no one out here who supports Trump.  The mouth-breathing window-lickers who show up to these rallies are NOT reflective of the majority of moderate Republicans.  And that's why I think he gets shallacked in the 2020 election.  No way he wins some of the critical swing states.  His base is shrinking.

[tantric superman 4,667]

[tantric superman 4,667]

7 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

I have been a Republican most of my life. 

You and fucking FCHorn.

JFC!

 

[retread 2,951]

23 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

It's a wonderful example of Republicans refusing to work on legislation because they view its passage as a long term win for Democrats.

They come within a hair of repealing it with no plan to replace it. Now, they continue trying to kick the legs out from under ACA -- again with no plan to replace it.

[Jack Straw 2,953]

4 hours ago, Celery Man said:

Currently they serve and promote evil, and are antiamerican. 40% of the country is not innately evil.  There's some sort of venn diagram of stupid, frightened, angry and immoral/evil, and most of them are some combination of the first three.  The rest also include the fourth.

I suppose if you include hatred of anyone else not like them in the second or fourth categories, or maybe some of both, this is about right.  Of course, anyone self identifying as, voting for, or supporting Republicans -  at this juncture - is a huge POS,  and these are simply the reasons why.  The reasons do not change the bottom line conclusion.  I would not have agreed with the foregoing 10 years ago at all, or even 5.  But today it’s absolutely true.  They all have the same information available to them, and the same ability to reject hatred, racism, corruption, gross incompetence, and the destruction of democracy and American values and institutions that the rest of us do, and they willingly choose not to.  Where and why they fit into those four categories isn’t really that important to me, as no one who openly embraces the GOP (and/or would consider voting for or supporting Trump right now)  - and those are the same thing - at this point needs to be completely written off IMO.  

[RomaVicta 29,794]

3 hours ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

serious misgivings with regards to the GOP and it's current trajectory.

Trajectory? You think things are about to get bad?

You're not getting off that train. It's been in the station for quite awhile.

[Ghost of LL 15,492]

3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

This.

I think that only a small percentage of Republican voters are truly evil (that percentage gets higher once you get into this actual administration, though - Stephen Miller is genuine evil, and the sycophants who enable horrific behavior for short-term career gains are evil as well).

Bull-fucking-shit.  I'm not going to identify Stephen Miller as the devil and give his acolytes a pass.

You and I both know plenty of people who vote Republican so that they can get a lousy 2% off on their taxes.  They'll put children in cages and abandon all American values for a few thousand dollars.

That kind of moral nihilism is the very heart of evil.  

I mean, say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, Brisket--at least it's an ethos.

[Revolution512 1,480]

1 hour ago, David Dennison said:

It's a wonderful example of Republicans refusing to work on legislation because they view its passage as a long term win for Democrats.

It’s among the worst laws ever written. Our system is worse than it’s ever been. It was an attempt to save Americans from shitty healthcare and higher taxes to boot.

Whats the democratic solution? Throw more government involvement at it. Despite numerous examples on the subject matter, it’s full steam ahead on one of the dumber ideas out there.

I will say Republicans attempt to shut it down without a new plan was a double down on stupidity.

[Incredulity 11,555]

16 minutes ago, Revolution512 said:

It’s among the worst laws ever written. Our system is worse than it’s ever been. It was an attempt to save Americans from shitty healthcare and higher taxes to boot.

Whats the democratic solution? Throw more government involvement at it. Despite numerous examples on the subject matter, it’s full steam ahead on one of the dumber ideas out there.

I will say Republicans attempt to shut it down without a new plan was a double down on stupidity.

Nevermind, the fact that the Obama administration kneecapped the whole law annually as well.

If the penalties are supposed to create the behavior(buying insurance), how the fuck is it supposed to work if you don't enforce the penalties?  

[Brisketexan 104,628]

31 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

Bull-fucking-shit.  I'm not going to identify Stephen Miller as the devil and give his acolytes a pass.

You and I both know plenty of people who vote Republican so that they can get a lousy 2% off on their taxes.  They'll put children in cages and abandon all American values for a few thousand dollars.

That kind of moral nihilism is the very heart of evil.  

I mean, say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, Brisket--at least it's an ethos.

And that's fair.  I'll agree that, knowing what we know of this admin, CONTINUING to support them is willing complicity and utter nihilism, at best.

23 minutes ago, Revolution512 said:

It’s among the worst laws ever written. Our system is worse than it’s ever been. It was an attempt to save Americans from shitty healthcare and higher taxes to boot.

Whats the democratic solution? Throw more government involvement at it. Despite numerous examples on the subject matter, it’s full steam ahead on one of the dumber ideas out there.

This is indeed one I love.  Those numerous examples being......literally every other western democracy?  And a shitload of other countries as well?  Almost all of which achieve at least as good if not better results as ours, for much lower costs? And many of which offer a "buy-up" option, so that those folks who want to pay for better access and higher-end treatment can do so?  THOSE examples?

Quote

• 1Africa
  • 1.1Algeria
  • 1.2Botswana
  • 1.3Burkina Faso
  • 1.4Egypt
  • 1.5Ghana
  • 1.6Mauritius
  • 1.7Morocco
  • 1.8Rwanda
  • 1.9Seychelles
  • 1.10South Africa
  • 1.11Tunisia
• 2Americas
  • 2.1Argentina
  • 2.2The Bahamas
  • 2.3Brazil
  • 2.4Canada
  • 2.5Chile
  • 2.6Colombia
  • 2.7Costa Rica
  • 2.8Cuba
  • 2.9Mexico
  • 2.10Peru
  • 2.11Trinidad and Tobago
  • 2.12United States
• 3Asia
  • 3.1Bhutan
  • 3.2Georgia
  • 3.3Hong Kong
  • 3.4India
  • 3.5Israel
  • 3.6Japan
  • 3.7Macau
  • 3.8Maldives
  • 3.9People's Republic of China
  • 3.10Singapore
  • 3.11Sri Lanka
  • 3.12Taiwan
  • 3.13Thailand
• 4Europe
  • 4.1Austria
  • 4.2Belgium
  • 4.3Croatia
  • 4.4Czech Republic
  • 4.5Denmark
  • 4.6Finland
  • 4.7France
  • 4.8Germany
  • 4.9Greece
  • 4.10Guernsey / Jersey
  • 4.11Iceland
  • 4.12Ireland
  • 4.13Isle of Man
  • 4.14Italy
  • 4.15Luxembourg
  • 4.16Netherlands
  • 4.17Norway
  • 4.18Portugal
  • 4.19Romania
  • 4.20Russia and Soviet Union
  • 4.21Serbia
  • 4.22Spain
  • 4.23Sweden
  • 4.24Switzerland
  • 4.25United Kingdom
    • 4.25.1England
    • 4.25.2Northern Ireland
    • 4.25.3Scotland
    • 4.25.4Wales
• 5Oceania
  • 5.1Australia
  • 5.2New Zealand

What I don't get is the continued "conservative" attachment to ideas and theories that are proven failures.  Including ideas that I used to agree with.

The War on Drugs

The Laffer curve

Private insurance-funded healthcare

We've done all of these things.  In terms of results and costs, they are fucking DISASTERS.  This is not hypothetical -- this is the actual evidence, in the real world.  I don't understand why so many folks cling with religious fervor to ideas that are proven failures?  And I'll give you a bit of Anastasis in that I certainly see it to some degree on "both sides."  There are a few che guevera-shirt wearing idiots who think that collectivization etc. will still work, "we just haven't done it right yet."  When you find yourself arguing "we just haven't done it right yet" for something that has been rolled out for decades (see the things I just listed above), you're going down a stupid road.

[RomaVicta 29,794]

1 hour ago, retread said:

They come within a hair of repealing it with no plan to replace it. Now, they continue trying to kick the legs out from under ACA -- again with no plan to replace it.

That can't possibly be true! They keep calling it Repeal and Replace, so you must be lying! They never lie or deceive!

[Brisketexan 104,628]

1 minute ago, RomaVicta said:

That can't possibly be true! They keep calling it Repeal and Replace, so you must be lying! They never lie or deceive!

This approach is captured perfectly by Rand Paul's "I'll approve a trillion dollar blow to our income without demanding any spending cuts in return, but later, I'll totally fight a pointless 'fight' against some random spending proposal so that I can maintain a facade of being a fiscal conservative" approach.

You get slashed revenue....you never get slashed spending.

You'll get a repealed ACA, and things like pre-existing condition coverage....but you'll never get a replacement.

The GOP is a work crew that gets you to sign a contact to demo your house and build a new, better one on the lot.  Then they immediately demo the house.....and disappear with your money, never to be seen again.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,356]

15 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

 I don't understand why so many folks cling with religious fervor to ideas that are proven failures? 

I understand.  Active measures.  The 0.01% have been running that shit on this population for decades, especially when it comes to healthcare, guns, drugs, immigration, and regulations on anything. 

Almost all the arguments against a single payer system are based on bad faith propaganda and scare tactics and they work. 

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3,861]

3 hours ago, HRSchenker said:

What better way to bring people together and convince others that your side is on the right side of history than by calling the other side "evil pieces of shit" and bragging about your fantasies of them dying a painful death? Yeah I hope you're being melodramatic too. 

 

[hayden_horn 11,360]

3 minutes ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

 

 

[hobbes2702 12,846]

1 hour ago, Revolution512 said:

It’s among the worst laws ever written. Our system is worse than it’s ever been. It was an attempt to save Americans from shitty healthcare and higher taxes to boot.

Whats the democratic solution? Throw more government involvement at it. Despite numerous examples on the subject matter, it’s full steam ahead on one of the dumber ideas out there.

I will say Republicans attempt to shut it down without a new plan was a double down on stupidity.

This is monumentally uninformed opinion. Maybe look at the healthcare markets in the rest of world before you come back.

[retread 2,951]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

 What I don't get is the continued "conservative" attachment to ideas and theories that are proven failures.  Including ideas that I used to agree with.

 The Laffer curve

Private insurance-funded healthcare

Don't forget Across State Lines and Competition as major selling points of the nonexistent R healthcare plan.

I mean, name one major policy of the Rs in the last 30 years that was intended to serve average Americans that was actually implemented. It's not easy.

[RDCanecutter 26,282]

3 minutes ago, retread said:

Don't forget Across State Lines and Competition as major selling points of the nonexistent R healthcare plan.

I mean, name one major policy of the Rs in the last 30 years that was intended to serve average Americans that was actually implemented. It's not easy.

There's the Autobahn.

[Revolution512 1,480]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

And that's fair.  I'll agree that, knowing what we know of this admin, CONTINUING to support them is willing complicity and utter nihilism, at best.

This is indeed one I love.  Those numerous examples being......literally every other western democracy?  And a shitload of other countries as well?  Almost all of which achieve at least as good if not better results as ours, for much lower costs? And many of which offer a "buy-up" option, so that those folks who want to pay for better access and higher-end treatment can do so?  THOSE examples?

What I don't get is the continued "conservative" attachment to ideas and theories that are proven failures.  Including ideas that I used to agree with.

The War on Drugs

The Laffer curve

Private insurance-funded healthcare

We've done all of these things.  In terms of results and costs, they are fucking DISASTERS.  This is not hypothetical -- this is the actual evidence, in the real world.  I don't understand why so many folks cling with religious fervor to ideas that are proven failures?  And I'll give you a bit of Anastasis in that I certainly see it to some degree on "both sides."  There are a few che guevera-shirt wearing idiots who think that collectivization etc. will still work, "we just haven't done it right yet."  When you find yourself arguing "we just haven't done it right yet" for something that has been rolled out for decades (see the things I just listed above), you're going down a stupid road.

We can discuss those countries often brought up on here if you’d like. The socialist Nordic countries are actually moving toward private healthcare now. At the very least it has to supplement.

But I was more pointing to our own issues. Take the VA for instance. Bureaucrats are known for fucking things up in this country. From healthcare to a fucking gas can. They fuck it up, give you something worse and throw more taxpayer money at it. 

[Brisketexan 104,628]

Just now, Revolution512 said:

We can discuss those countries often brought up on here if you’d like. The socialist Nordic countries are actually moving toward private healthcare now. At the very least it has to supplement.

But I was more pointing to our own issues. Take the VA for instance. Bureaucrats are known for fucking things up in this country. From healthcare to a fucking gas can. They fuck it up, give you something worse and throw more taxpayer money at it. 

Yes. Whereas the private sector is infallible, and has done nothing but serve the interests of the public.....cough cough the healthcare insurers, Worldcom, Enron, Bear Stearns, AIG, Citibank, Wells Fargo, etc. etc. What a load of tripe.

"Bureaucrats" also brought you public water and sewer systems that are (by and large) the envy of the world.  So much so that when a Flint happens, it's a huge story.  They've brought you an interstate highway system.  They managed to build a dominant military, cooperatively with private industry, in a short period of time to help win WWII.  They set up a public school system that (until recently) was the envy of much of the world (not all of it, but much of it).  Etc. etc.

It's so fucking lazy to go "government bad, private industry good." But you regurgitate that in EXACTLY the form it was fed to you.  Neither one is the problem or the solution.  Each of them - so long as it is well-regulated by people who are paying fucking attention - can be an effective and efficient actor.  Government and private legal action regulate the private sector.  And we the people regulate the government.  It would help if we paid fucking attention.

And YES, the single-payer system can be compatible with private insurance supplementation.  In fact, that may be the optimum approach.  But nope, not here.  Can't have any balance or rational thought.  Private insurance funded healthcare is the ONLY way to go, because FREEDOM AND EAGLES AND AMERICA (and proven bad results, at by far the highest costs in the world). 

[bolverk 29,403]

9 minutes ago, Revolution512 said:

We can discuss those countries often brought up on here if you’d like. The socialist Nordic countries are actually moving toward private healthcare now. At the very least it has to supplement.

But I was more pointing to our own issues. Take the VA for instance. Bureaucrats are known for fucking things up in this country. From healthcare to a fucking gas can. They fuck it up, give you something worse and throw more taxpayer money at it. 

As the Vietnam-era veterans go to their final resting place, the veteran population is expected to drop about 2% a year. The Veterans Affairs Department projects the total number of veterans will fall 40% by 2045.

Yet something entirely unexpected has happened at the VA’s health system in recent years. The number of vets turning to the government-run healthcare system has gone up steadily due to rising demand for its specialized care. Giving them access to private-sector care has not reversed the trend.

Last year, over 6.1 million veterans visited one of the VA’s 172 hospitals and 2,000-plus outpatient facilities for care. That’s up 15% from a decade ago despite a 16% decline in the total number of veterans.


It’s especially surprising because over the past five years, the VA, which employs over 300,000 healthcare workers and traces its roots to the final days of the Civil War, has been rocked by scandal. The 2014 “wait-time” crisis led to a number of resignations, including VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.

Passage the same year of the Veterans Choice Act allowed vets to visit private-sector physicians and hospitals if they had to wait more than 30 days for care or if they lived more than 40 miles from the nearest VA facility. A proposed rule implementing the 2018 Mission Act, which is slated to be finalized this week, will cut that to 20 days or a 30-minute drive.

For Koch brothers-funded groups like Concerned Veterans of America, the scandal provided the perfect excuse for pushing greater privatization of VA services. A large majority of comments on the proposed rule echoed the group’s main talking point: “For too long veterans have been forced to endure substandard care at VA facilities.”

That assertion simply isn’t true. A study published last January in JAMA found that in 2017 wait times at VA facilities had shown marked improvement since 2014 and now are shorter than private-sector wait times. In announcing the proposed rule, VA Secretary Robert Wilkie confirmed the VA “generally delivers higher-quality care than other health providers” and “outperforms non-VA hospitals in most healthcare markets.”

https://www.modernhealthcare.com/opinion-editorial/editorial-surprise-demand-healthcare-rising-va

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,356]

11 minutes ago, Revolution512 said:

Bureaucrats are known for fucking things up in this country. From healthcare to a fucking gas can. They fuck it up, give you something worse and throw more taxpayer money at it. 

I dunno, our military is the most effective killing machine known to man.  Our government seems really good at that. The post office is pretty good too.  Along with the interstate system and the national weather service.  And wasn’t it a government project to land on the moon?  Lol private sector, where were you on that one?  How about the internet? Where did that come from?  An inefficient government program?  

Edited July 22, 2019 by Hugo Stiglitz

[David Dennison 18,661]

12 minutes ago, Revolution512 said:

We can discuss those countries often brought up on here if you’d like. The socialist Nordic countries are actually moving toward private healthcare now. At the very least it has to supplement.

But I was more pointing to our own issues. Take the VA for instance. Bureaucrats are known for fucking things up in this country. From healthcare to a fucking gas can. They fuck it up, give you something worse and throw more taxpayer money at it. 

Corporate bureaucrats can fuck things up even worse. The VA and Medicare are more popular than anything the private sector has come up with.

[Fozzz 152]

This seems pretty evil.

 

 

[Nivek 16,861]

FREEDOM AND EAGLES AND AMERICA (and proven bad results, at by far the highest costs in the world). 

Ben Franklin was almost right. Our national animal symbol should have been a turkey. Just the dumbest one.

[Brisketexan 104,628]

Just now, Nivek said:

Ben Franklin was almost right. Our national animal symbol should have been a turkey. Just the dumbest one.

Our national symbol should be the dung beetle, because we the people will happily eat the shit we're fed.

[Nivek 16,861]

Our national symbol should be the dung beetle, because we the people will happily eat the shit we're fed.

Dung beetles are too industrious. They move a huge pile of elephant shit relative to their size. We prefer to shit in our bed like a bird.

[Turkleton 145]

7 hours ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

At this point I think most true conservatives who actually care about other people have serious misgivings with regards to the GOP and it's current trajectory. While many (like myself) have disassociated themselves with the Republican party, there really isn't anywhere for them to go. There are probably many more who would leave in a heartbeat if there was a realistic alternative that had any semblance of embodying the principles of fiscal responsibility and limited government. Instead we have a Democratic party that keeps getting pushed further left (without really any acknowledgment that some conservative principles have merit, like limiting the powers of the executive branch which have become so eroded that we are in the situation we are in today) all the while saying that if you don't vote for them you are evil. The whole two party system has left us in a terrible place where a large portion of the country is left with making the choice between voting against their beliefs on either side of the spectrum.

We've become stuck in a terrible negative feedback loop. It seems that both parties have decided that when it comes to negotiating it makes sense to move to the extreme so that any compromise will be further to their side. Except that when both parties move to the extreme compromise is impossible because you have to have some sort of common ground to work with. Let's talk extremes. Pretend that Democrats want to outlaw all private gun ownership and Republicans want it to be legal to buy machine guns and antiaircraft missiles without any kind of paperwork or governmental interference. What kind of compromise is there between the two? Certainly nothing that either side will agree to. So we've been left with expanding the power of the executive branch, which hasn't worked out too well for us lately. 

So how can we fix this system? I legitimately want an answer, because neither party seems to care about the interests or opinions of large majority of Americans. Instead they go about polarizing themselves to the detriment of us all.

This is a good post, but you are putting it on a very far left board. You want get acceptance here....

[Hank Scorpio 17,723]

Let me ask you this, was Abraham Lincoln evil? Checkmate libtards. 

[Fozzz 152]

The only kind of "conservatism" that I would regard as compassionate and genuinely caring for the welfare of the average American would be the socially conservative leftism of someone like Christopher Lasch.  However, I would refrain from scolding the great mass of lumpens out there who don't know better and haven't been presented with a left that don't they perceive as hostile to their identity.  

Edited July 22, 2019 by Fozzz

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13,547]

2 hours ago, Revolution512 said:

It’s among the worst laws ever written. Our system is worse than it’s ever been. 

Historically, "socialism" as well as capitalism has been part of the fabric of the United States. One of the first powers written into the Constitution by the Founding Fathers was the power of the federal government to tax in exchange for services that would to one degree or another "promote the general welfare". "Taxation Is Theft" is literally un-American. It's right there, spelled out in the Constitution. The almost religious/patriotic opposition to any solution involving any democratic government involvement is a bill of goods sold to you by con men.

 

Ever been conned before? I have. I imagine most everyone has. It sucks and is embarrassing to boot!

 

The ACA was a salve to a chronic, persistent problem in this country- that every economic and social issue is always best addressed with a solution comprised more of a dominant free market component than democratic government component. Sometimes that's true. Sometimes it's not.

 

Even in this framework, the best available data that we have is when the ACA increased the democratic government component to our country's dealing with healthcare:

 

1) Millions of more Americans were covered by health insurance

2) The percentage of uninsured Americans dropped- moreso in states that expanded Medicare under the law's provision.

3) The rate of national health care costs decreased

4) And last, but certainly not least, medical bankruptcies were slashed in half.

 

That's far and away from one of the worse laws ever written, produced by a rather tepid increase of government involvement, fought tooth and nail by Republicans who previously were advocates, and whose subsequent sabotage, according to the latest CBO projections will result in millions of more ininsured Americans.

 

 

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13,547]

...and I cannot stress this enough, no matter how tedious- that's not theoretically what will happen. That's what DID happen. Here. In this country.