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Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Convicted Felon in the White House
Remember the party crashers? Well, everyone seems to be ignoring this guy, a felon who was also at the state dinner. This guy, who is married to a congresswoman wrote a sweet little progressive book about how to restructure the country. "We must create a national consciences that health care is a right not a commodity." He says.
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18 comments:
What about Oliver North...or Scooter Libby and let's not forget Newt Gingrich.
He is absolutely correct. Health care should be the right in any developed country.
WRONG - The general welfare is a right. Healthcare is something COMPLETELY different. Please, you can find your way to Canada or the UK whenever you wish. These "rights" that everyone wants to jump on are little more than the wants of the lazy. It is not your "right" to own a cell phone, however now through the governemt (ie: the working man's dollar) you too are ENTITLED to one (you know so you can look for a JOB - yeah right- ). Socialism has never worked anywhere it has been attempted. What looks good on paper does not translate when those who actually work for what they need STOP working to stand in line with their hands out like the rest of the population. EVERYTHING STOPS. Who is paying you people to spew this stuff, because I KNOW you are smarter than that.
you know what will settle this; a breakdown of the number of people who rely on government aid according to 1.how many are recently laid off/can't work due to illness 2. are currently in school/training, fighting to get ahead and need temp. assistance 3. people who just sit on their butt.
My instinct says that the vast majority fall into 1 and 2, but if I am wrong, then I'm willing to support the stance of 11:30
Health care is not a right...What has happenned to rugged individualism in this country. This country was founded by people who beleived that they were responsible to provide for themselves. What has happened? You have a right to buy health care and you should also have the right not to. This is about freedom. I should be burdened(taxed) to pay for fat,lazy,2 pack a day dumba$$. We have really lost our way. You are responsible for providing for yourself, no one else is. You are also responsible for the your family and if you have the means, your friends and neighbors. The government produces nothing. The way you get health care is by the government stealing money from someone who actually earned it and giving it to some dumba$$ who couldn't pour piss out of a boot with directions on the heel. I have no problem helping support the helpless but i am done supporting the clueless and lazy.
an automobile is MY RIGHT!!!!!!
Obma should buy me a car
A house is a right in any developed country!
I should haven't to pay for my house it's a right!!!!
Where do people like 1104 work?
WHO ARE THESE people??
This is what public education has created, lazy morons too stupid to live that are basically tax cattle, moooing for more free services as they suck hungrily off of the government teat.
What happens to cows in the field when they get too fat?
Where do these people come from?
many conservatives have the same mantra as 11:50 and 11:53. That is until they become drastically ill, lose that job and the coverage associated with it, can't afford private coverage because they are too ill to work, all while they are miserably sick and the bills pile up. I'm not saying I am for "free healthcare", but lets stop all the hatred and get to the root of the problem.
Why does everyone seem to miss the simple point that Congress is railroading Heath INSURANCE down our throats? Everyone who goes into an ER *will* get health care and many, many illegals do just that.
I agree that everybody has a right to healthcare. I just think they should have to pay for it themselves. All the liberal do gooders can set up a fund with their own money to help those that can't afford it. I'm sure Soros will be glad to contribute. And so would most of Hollywood, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, John Kerry, the Kennedy's, problem solved!
Another post from 11:50...I would not call it a mantra, I would call it confidence that I have the tools to take care of myself and my family and the burden that is going to be put on me with this health care bill will be to much for me and my small business to bear. There is an all out assault on the producers in this society. We must find ways to empower the weak without destroying the successful. I don't wish to be all equally miserable. I am not rich and definetly have worked for what i have. I have had set backs in my life and obstacles to overcome but I have never been on welfare or unemployment. I have not needed to because I stayed in school, lived in a stable home, and developed marketable skills. Everyone in this great country of ours has the same opportunity. Unfortunately, some people want equal outcome not just equal opprtunity. Something that is not earned is not appreciated. We continue to allow excuses for people who find themselves in bad spots mostly due to their own poor judgement. There are successful people all around you and very few of them didn't have to work hard to get there.Vince Lombardi once said "Dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price."
From what I can tell, all that Mr. Beck is doing is pissing and whining about Democrats. In his defense, the primary thing that Pelosi and other Democrats do is piss and whine about Republicans. Either one is completly useless and serves as nothing more than a distraction from the fact that people who have inordinate amounts of money, continue to do as they please at the expense of others. If the debate is over whether public health care is any better than private health care, I can't imagine that it will be worse for doctors or patients. It will only be a difference in who's pocket the money ultimately ends up in. The problem with our health care, at this point, is that it has gone from being a service (where the primary concern is the health of the patients), to becoming a revenue generating industry (where the primary concern is making money regardless of how it's done). What has destroyed our health care is exactly what is busy destroying our jobs. Lawyers. They have convinced so many people that they should sue health care providers that insurance has gone through the roof, both for doctors and patients. At this point, most of the cost of health care goes to attorneys and clerical personel. The legal system has become a swollen tick that is sucking the life out of us as a society. The reason no company wants to retain enough employees to maintain a healthy work environment, is partially greed but is partially because of the amount of liability there is in employing us. A company should NOT be obligated to provide health insurance and they should not have to pay into any of the other ridiculous social programs that they are legally obliged to pay into. Someone earlier said something to the effect that socialism has never worked. I will point out that capitalism hasn't either. We are in the process of tanking at this very moment. The simple fact is that no form of government has been succesful for more than a finite amount of time. Reason being, there has yet to be a model of government that effectively deals with human nature. Specifically the nature of the masses to blindly follow until it's too late and the nature of the greedy and corrupt to weasle their way into a position of power. Throwing money at our economy does absolutely nothing to affect our longevity as a society. It only enables the greedy to continue making as much money as they want with no incentive to stop mismanaging the government, health care, large business and anything else you can imagine. Untill we get rid of a significant number of ridiculous liability laws and impose laws that make it illegal for C.E.O.'s and people in other positions of power to give themselves multi-million dollar bonuses ever, let alone while they're busy running a company into the dirt, nothing in this country will improve. As long as the working class in this country continues to pay more attention to what label (ex. democrat, republican, black, white, whatever) a person is given, than the attention they give to wheather the person is saying or doing something that actually makes any sense, we are screwed.
Russ, you are right with some of the things that you say but to say capitolism hasn't worked is just plain crazy. In just 230 we have gone from a bunch of political and religous outcasts to the greatest country on earth due to two things. Our forfathers forsight in writing the Constitution and captitolism. If government intrusion was completely eliminated, capitolism would never fail. Market competition would eliminate all of the problems that we have now. If AIG had been allowed to fail, would we be complaining about million dollar bonuses? We have allowed government to become to involved with business to the point that it is difficult to tell them apart. We have allowed entrenched special interest to dictate legistlation for political favors. Barrack Obama's administration is attempting to make government bigger and bigger so that power can be retained. Republicans have been equally to blame in allowing this incremental shift. How can we stand for a government that when revenue(taxes) to the govenment is down 48% yet it increases spending by 12%. The whole system is out of control but capitolism has nothing to do with it. Cooruption is ruling the day now
In an ideal Capitalistic Free Enterprise system, there must be a government entity who prevents monopolization of any particular market or sector. The government must also prevent collusive behavior between competitors. It is a economic system that works better on paper than in practice. Once the powerful corporations bought out their competitors and eliminated competition, the remaining economy soon becomes a facist dictatorship of the economic "winners". The forming of alliances and anti-competitive agreements destroys Capitalistic Free Enterprise Systems quickly.
America has been corporately conquered. A few very powerful families sit on multiple boards of international corporations. These families inter-marry and continue the exact same kind of economic dominance over the world that existed 100's or even thousands of years ago.
This is why such groups as The Builderberg Group, The Council on Foreign Relations, and Skull and Bones become so important. The process of educating one's self about these groups can be very enlightening - no pun intended.
N. Weeds
health care is currently a right in this country. You are guaranteed to receive health care regardless of insurance, citizenship, etc... Payment for this health care is the issue. The way it is set up now is under a capitalistic model where corportations are running the system on a profit based motive, not patient based. Anyone who thinks there insurance company cares about them is crazy and they will cut costs/coverage anything to make profits. Hospitals are also run based on profits (even the non-profit ones) and that is why we see so many television ads in the hope that they can profit on your illness. The system is broken no matter what side of the aisle you sit on. Doctors as well are caught in the profit motive as well. Specialist are paid by the number of procedures they do and therefore will likley try to perform as many procedures as possible. Their reimbursement rate for procedures is quite high in comparison to payment to primary care doctors. With the imbalance in pay to primary care doctors, fewer and fewer american trained physicians are heading to primary care and we are now relying on foreign medical graduates to perform the bulk of primary care. This entire debacle is due to capitalism running health care. There are some things in this country that should not be run for profit and I believe that health care is one of them. I work in the industry and have seen so many terrible stories about insurance companies not delivering for their customers. Patients are being left bankrupt or not seeking appropriate preventive care due to high copayments and deductibles. Denials of claims cost your doctors incredible amounts of time, money, and energy leaving them with less time to see and spend time with their patients Medicare, while flawed, at least is reliable in paying claims.
Times are much tougher these days than before. In the 1950's the tax rate was incredibly high on the wealthy (well above 70%) and during that time the middle class was thriving. A family could survive on a single wage earners salary. Today, this is not the case. The cost of living has well out paced wages and families can't provide basic needs on one, two, or even three salaries. Through in ridiculously high health care premiums and you can see the problems. I don't think the uninsured issue is simply about "lazy" people -- sure there are some, but the majority of uninsured people do work, just can't make enough to survive and have health care. So again, this is a failure of capitalism where the middle class in evaporating. The few rich in this country are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is becoming the low class. This is not the capitalist vision our forefathers dreamed of.
4:29, it wasn't my intent to say that capitalism has never done anything good. I'm saying that it's failing right now, in the U.S. I agree that we've done pretty well for ourselves since we left Europe but we're getting to the point where we are re-living our past. Judging the current situation by past success is equivelent to claiming that Soviet communism was brilliant because they were the first to put a satellite and then a dog into space. That's all great, but what good does it do them now? The point I guess that I'm trying to make about our current situation is that labels are useless and undermine our need to pay attention to what's really happening. You say that capitalism only needs a complete lack of government intervention in order to succeed. I am not attempting to be offensive towards you, but I don't think you actually mean what you say (I certainly may be wrong). Pure capitalism would be a cut-throat, dog eat dog society where companies would give their workers a little bit of rice, water and bunk to sleep in outside of the 16 hours a day, seven days a week that we would be working. The only reason we get money in return for working is becuase the government makes them. I think it's similar to the NFL (if you're familiar with it). Yes, the referees are absolutely destroying the game with way too many pointless calls. However, with no referee, everyone just runs amuck and it's too chaotic to be enjoyable. I do agree that the government has interveined too much with the amount of fees, taxes and enforcement of obviously abused EEO laws, but at the same time they don't get involved when the owner or CEO is busy destrying people's lives by laying them off because they claim that they don't have any money and then turning around and giving themselves mult-million dollar bonuses.
The ideal version of American capitalism was a hybrid of capitalism and socialism, and it was good. We should look out for each other, as a society. Everyone needs help at some time or another. I do agree that the 'let's all help each other' idea has been increadibly abused. No one should need constant, never ending help, as in life-time welfare recipients who are not physically or mentally incapable of working/contributing to society. However, I don't agree that lazy people are the primary source of blame for it. Again, the ones who have suckered everyone into thinking that it makes sense to be terrified of offending someone who has a financial incentive to be offended, are lawyers. They've made a boat load of money by suckering us into believing that we have a social issue based on race. The issue in this day and age isn't black/white nearly as much as it is money/no money. Again we're all busy paying attention to the part of it that doesn't matter. I am white and I am male. I have never owned another person, or treated someone in a way that was inhumane or unkind unless they left me no choice or just proved themselves unworthy of any kind of courtesy. You can divide people up any way you like, based on gender, skin tone, what name we give to God or anything else, and any group is going to have it's fair share of violently stupid, self-absorbed morons. Yes, you should not treat someone poorly just because of what they look like. However, you should not be courteous to someone who's some form of jerk or sociopath simply because they do look a certain way. As far as the "black/white" issue goes. People like Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson have also made themselves wealthy by convincing under educated black people that the world owes them something. I can promise you it's not true. The world owes absolutely nothing to any one of us and the sooner you stop worrying about being african-americans and decide to just be plain old americans like the rest of us, I don't want to hear any more of this crap about not being accepted.
I only use that as an example because whites and blacks are the highest percentage of the population. I'm not claiming we're the only ones who generate any kind of friction between ourselves. Back to the original point, while we're all worried about what color we are, lawyers and false "human rights activists" are busy making a fortune off of both sides. I'm not claiming that all lawyers are bad and I'm not claiming that there aren't any true human rights activists or that there's never been a need for them. However, it is absolutely true that the mechanisms that were originally put in place to legitimately protect people who needed it are now routinely being abused as money conduits to the unethical, and it's destroying our society. Health care is just the latest vehicle to be discovered by the greedy.
As a side note, the tax system is the first one. There is absolutely no need for a tax system to be so complicated that it creates it's own profession just to interpret it. It's manufactured job security. Equivilent to playing a game with a child and everytime you lose because there was some rule that you didn't know about.
The health care system has become just as inefficient. There is no reason at all for anyone to be involved in health care besides doctors, nurses, patients and someone to police the system in order to avoid it becoming exactly what it has. Corrupt and all but useless.
So anyway, I agree that capitalism has been good, but communism and socialism have been just as succesfull for brief amounts of time. It doesn't matter what name you give to your government. They are all great until they have been in place long enough to become so corrupt that the society eats itself from the inside out. I see way too many similarities between ourselves and the Romans & Soviets. I love my home and I don't want to see it fall apart just because each of us is busy comming up with excuses why we should have more than someone else.
Russ:
I was a little confused about your angle in the first post. Beck obviously is pointing out that Obama has some really scary people in his admin. These czars like Van Jones,Cas Sustein, Kevin Jennings, and many more are scary people. David Axelrods parents were writers for communist publications. He has surrounded himself with William Ayer and reverend Wright type people. People who don't seem to like America very much. They think we are deeply flawed and somehow this isn't the best country offering all better opportunity. The role of government needs to be so limited in capitolism. The idea that we would be working 16 hour days for rice is not accurate. In a free society, you can decide to work there or not. Do you remember why employer based healthcare was started? Employers want to entice better employees and therefore were encouraged to offer better benefits to hire and retain better employees. The idea that we only get paid because the government makes them is not true. The govenment has wrecked part time lower paying summer jobs by raising the minimum wage. If someone was going to offer you a job making $1.00 per hour and another job offered $2.00 per hour which one would you take. The $1.00 hour would have to raise the cost of the goods they produce so they could afford to pay more or they would have no workers. The govenment is now to involved in business. I also think your idea that medical care can't get much worse is misguided. Now if a doctor tells you that you need a kidney transplant that cost $50,000 and your insurance company says that they will not pay for it, you can do other things(loans,401K,family gift) to pay for it. In the future under obama care, if the government says no, it will be against the law for the doctor to perform the surgery on you even if you are willing to pay out of pocket. The doctor will also be compensated from the government and that compensation will be based on outcomes and dollars saved(ie, less tests,medication, ) We are better off finding solutions to make insurance companies more competitive and forced to lower premiums than to let the governmetn in, that has never run one progam efficiently let alone 20% of our economy. Russ- I actually think we believe a lot of the same things even the stuff about race.
Hello 4:42 person. I suppose that the simplified version of what I was saying about Glenn Beck is that he is not much different than Obama in the sense that he is more concerned with his own agenda than actually making the country work better. Yes, I agree that the current president scares the life out of me. However, I think it's too common for us to think, "If I don't agree with the President and Glenn Beck doesn't agree with the president, then Glenn Beck is good and wants what I want". The reality is that Glenn Beck pedals out the same mixture of lies, truth and distorted truth the the President does. The Republicans are no better in the sense that the middle class (the one that actually puts forth the effort to make tangible things)is equally screwed when they are in office. We have always financially supported the wealthy and the poor in exchange for being preyed upon by the government and criminals because we are perpetually dooped into blaming the poor and criminal elements, who the government does absolutely nothing to rid society of. Do you really think that there is any local police department who doesn't know exactly who the problem people are and where to find them? When democrats are in power, we support the under class more aggressively. When Republicans are in office, we support the affluent more aggressively. I don't see one as being any better than the other and it's frustrating that the 80% or so, of the population that mostly wants to work and otherwise be left alone is getting steam rolled by the remaining 20%.
As for the 'pure capitalism' discussion, I agree that companies are great to work for when they are competing for employees. As they were in the late 70's and 80's. The problem now is that I don't believe that's the case any longer. In a similar $1 vs. $2 example, if a company has 30 people desperate for one position they would certainly take the $1 person over the $2 person and eventually would bargain everyone down to just giving them something to eat. Just so you don't think that I'm claiming that the sky is falling, I admit that the 'work forever for a bowl of rice' scenario is extreme and I want to say that I'm enjoying the conversation as opposed to ranting and claiming that I know everything. Anyway, the simplified point with employment compensation is that in a pure capitalist environment, even if an employer is giving you financial compensation, it's certainly not because they have any desire to. Pure Capitalism promotes self focused behavior (anti-social) and pure Socialism promotes society focused behavior (similar to the social organization of ants). Neither one is an overly desireable way to live. A hybrid is better.
I feel like the wealthy use the violent as a tool to shelter themselves and we are getting to the point where they have just about destroyed the working class altogether. The primary reasons for working are to have food and a home. If the government not only does nothing when someones home is violated and actually punishes the homeowner for any attempt to protect their home themselves, then what's the point of working? The level of stupidity is infuriating. It's similar to being stranded on an island that has enough food growing to last forever, but you die because your such a pig that you eat the fruit, the plants, the seeds and everything.
Anyway, good to talk and absolutely, let me know what you think if you want.
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