Ron Paul and Jessie Ventura?

[BobCox2]

I'm Faith Hilling This thread

Southpark last night.

[jmervyn]

I'm Faith Hilling This thread

See, I always tell my son that just because his FRIENDS enjoy random comedy, and HE thinks it's funny, that the joke really doesn't work unless it's grounded in a common experience.

Me? I like trains.

[Stevinator]

Stevinator:
But isn’t that the definition of a pre-existing condition: that the person applying for insurance is already sick?

currently, insuance companies can deny claims because you had a pre-existing condition, with obama care they'll either just deny the insurance completely or avoid markets where they'd lose money.

Can you point to an example of when the Government has fixed a broken market? The Government is useful in situations where a market is non-existent due to the good being an economic public good; but, if a market already exists, the Government can do nothing but muck things up.

this seems like it'll be another rabbits hole, but I'll try.

the market breaks for several reasons. I talked about healthcare, but another example of a broken market is when a consumer has imperfect information. the government is pretty selective about when they want to step in and fix this, often times fixing small problems but completely ignoring the big ones. example: planned obsolescence. if consumers had better information regarding the total cost of a good, we wouldn't just buy the cheapest one on the shelf. we'd buy the one with the lowest cost of ownership. you could build a better mousetrap, but if people don't get that your product will last as long, they won't buy it. Light bulbs come to mind. people often buy the cheapy incandescent lightbulbs when more efficient incandescents and CFLs and now even LEDs are available. Sure CFLs have some scary health risks--they're filled with mercury, but why didn't people buy the longer lasting incandescents when they were there? it took a terrible government law to "fix" that market. now I'm not going to say that the government stepped in and all is well--that's clearly not the case, but why did the crappy inefficient incandescents sell so well in the "free" market?

well because we either couldn't do the math at the store, or we just didn't believe the marketing hype that the efficient ones were in fact better or maybe we realized the more expensive ones might be better, but the labelling was designed to confuse us and we didn't realize there was any difference at all. we can't all be light bulb experts, and really, if it weren't fo the recent law, would any of us really paid much attention to our light bulb buying habits? we didn't even know we were making a bad choice until the law shed light (sorry for the pun) on the subject. Currently, i couldn't even tell you what the difference between the efficient ones and the inefficient ones are (other than that two types exist), without looking it up. And i think i'm generally well informed about stuff.

So that example is not perfect. they didn't make a law that just magically fixed everything, but the fact that they tried to address it and generated a lot of press and basically banned the bad ones means more people will either risk the CFLs or pop for the LEDs, or at the very least, buy the older more efficient incandescents. so the market will probably be improved, but we still are unlikely to buy the best light bulb available in terms of health risk and ownership cost. I'm not even sure which is better, the more efficient incandescents or the LEDs. I recently bought the new incandescents, simply because i thought the price of ALL the light bulbs were too high, so i was cheap and didn't get the LEDs (which i assume have a lower enough operating cost and last long enough that they're now the best choice, but still, i don't know for sure).

Another example of a broken market from a lack of information is labels. nutrition labels, where something was made, warning labels (possibly the "organic" label before they figured out how to game it)...none of these magically fixed the market, but they put more information in front of the customer that they didn't have before. more information is helpful if it's not being gamed. i know those serving sizes are shrunk down to nothing on junk food, so that system isn't "fixed" either, but isn't it better to know that your soup has way too much salt? hasn't that really forced soup makers to reduce the salt content in their soups? again, "fixed" is a stronger word than i like, but I'll take improved, even if only marginally.

How so? Unless you agree with one of the proponents’ arguments for ObamaCare; that since we have to pay for the medical costs of uninsured people anyways, forcing everyone to have health insurance will make such care cheaper.

Again, we're diving into a fuzzy area. I don't know whether everyone having health insurance will change demand. the goal isn't to make it less expensive in the efficiency sense, but less expensive for society in the % of GDP sense. The most important parts of Obamacare don't seem to do that. they replace the current ad-hoc system with one where everyone has a policy with specific minimum coverage. In my opinion that doesn't reduce the amount of health care demanded at all, so in that sense obamacare will fail.

It will however spread the total cost differently over the population. I certainly can't say that that is more "fair" than charging $25 for a a tylennol to make up for the other losses, but it might be more transparent. It certainly sounds better at first, but then you realize, you can't squeeze blood from a turnip. the health insurance you're making the poor get anyway, is being paid for by the middle class anyhow. shaking up where the money ultimately comes from doesn't fix the problem.

Since RomneyCare is a close approximation of ObamaCare, we can check to see if the anticipated costs savings occurred. History shows that the costs savings never happened. In fact, the evidence, both direct (amount spent on health care in the State) and indirect (the number of emergency room visits), shows that opposite result was achieved: higher costs and worse service.

Interesting, but it doesn't really say which part of the plan causes it.

Two other points: (1) why argue for more Government involvement to fix a situation that it created in the first place? Wouldn’t the logical answer be to get the Government out of the medical care business and see what the Free Market could do on its own? (2) Again, you seem to fall back on the justification of Government restriction of personal freedom when it’s for the good of Society as a whole.

because taking the government completely out of healthcare is both not feasible and still doesn't fix our problem. as long as those who can't afford care are receiving it, someone will be paying for it. that might be higher prices, or some type of tax, or through medicaid, or maybe it'll just drive all the hospitals out of business, but the problem doesn't go away. Takes why i have really struggled to put up my own solution here. everything you hear about is little more than a shuffling of costs.

[Stevinator]

You're right, there's no way in Hell I'd agree to a statement as ludicrous as that. Blago hasn't tried and isn't actively trying to snuff U.S. citizens, unlike the Chinese (unless you imagine he's a part of the whole "Obama killed his queer lovers" conspiracy theory). Your claim is so false that it far exceeds simple confusion of the "slander=libel" sort. Even though I hate playing the "Internet Definition" game, it's worth doing in this case (from Google): Corruption is dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery. Treason is the crime of betraying one's country, esp. by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government.

I think this has played out. you can twist it however you want but giving corporations the ability to donate unlimited funds to elections is bad. I'm not going to play ranking games and say one party is worse than the other when they are both dependent on a few large donors, that they don't necessarily have to disclose to finance their elections. this is bad. the reasoning that unions were able to do this before does not make it okay.

also, treason is more than an attempt to assasination or overthrow a government. Treason can be more mundane.

Yes, that's been part of the dialogue for a while; Maher spouts filth from a position of relative safety - however, he's definitely been feeling the heat rather than reveling in his infallibility. One suspects the Progressive power structure isn't very happy about their blatant, reeking misogynistic hypocrisy being shown as so obvious using Maher and Letterman (and others like Andrew Sullivan).

I think it'll blow over for both of them. I wouldn't be surprised if Rush's sponsors come quietly back when they think it's safe.

Slippery slope <> false. There was already a three-way marriage in Holland several years back, as well as other 'distortions'. Once you eliminate the primary, dogmatic definition of marriage, you can effectively call anything a marriage by way of the secondary, literary definition.

I don't think you're going to see a lot of support for the man marries dog movement. Entirely different than consenting adults. As for polygamy, it's not super popular either. all those mental images of cultists marrying the young girls freaks us out. in the case where you truly have three consenting adults, and they want to try to make that work, I wouldn't stop them. I think three would be vastly more difficult than two--because in every disagreement someone gets ganged up on, so that's asking for trouble. I wouldn't care if Marriage wasn't so worked up into the tax code and other places. If we ever do separate marriage and government, there wouldn't be any reason not to allow it.

I'm always suspicious about this sort of thing; I don't take it as any more credible than the claim that over half of liberals are holocaust deniers. Sample size was barely over 1000, and it wasn't clear where it was drawn from (U.S. plus Brit. Columbia is a pretty large area); the 30% of literal claims are in direct conflict with a majority of dogma so I'd want to know more about that too.

In the link they say the measurement has remained stable for decades, only dropping slightly. below is from gallup, a company that has been doing polling and surveys for a very long time.

The percentage of Americans taking a literal view of the Bible has declined over time, from an average of 38% from 1976-1984 to an average of 31% since. However, highly religious Americans -- particularly those of Protestant faiths -- still commonly believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Scroll to the bottom and review their methodology if you'd like.. there's a link to a PDF.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/148427/sa...literally.aspx

Also, that's the 50 states plus the "District of Colombia", which is our nation's capital. British Colombia would be in Canada.

That's why I reject your previous assertion via Gallup - there's whole Christian sects that accept Jesus' divinity but reject Pauline doctrine (I forget the specifics).

There are sects that believe all sorts of silly things, but it's the big churches that have the most undue political influence.

My entire point. It's not much different from any other socialized issue - when a single approach has both Gov't backing and lucrative rewards for the practitioners, it should come as no surprise that a web of bureaucracy and influence coalesces in order to restrict any other possible choices.

you can't just say you agree then restate the opposite of what i said. An abortion is an elective procedure.

If you were truly concerned about the amount of pressure placed on a woman to have the procedure you wouldn't be asking for that subsidy for other options to be removed, you'd say it should be increased because the subsidy for adoptions aren't high enough to affect PP.

Sure, but in this case the approach to both infanticide and birth is anything but Capitialistic; it's Socialist bordering on Fascism. Decrease the 'penalty' for being 'punished with a baby' to a sufficient degree, and why expect anything but what we have as a result? Einstein's quip about insanity springs to mind...

So demanding that the woman carry an unwanted child to term against her wishes is somehow less fascist? come now, that's a stretch.

Hardly. Your past views have noted anger, distaste, and open hostility to both Christians and Christian belief, whereas my views on women and homosexuals are weak sauce in comparison. My views on atheists might come under a different heading, because the credo I find so offensive is that you espoused and then claim to not espouse in the above statement. It's because atheists love to be inconsistent - they will come out with militant Atheist statements as you have previously, and then claim mere agnosticism when challenged as you are now - whereas Christians can't legitimately deny the belief of Christ's divinity, and the subsequent moral imperatives (women & homosexuals, natch).

Do i think it unfair when people think that their religion should dictate how i live my life? Do i think it hypercritical to take a vow of poverty and then drape yourself in gold and dwell in a palace? Is it maddening that those that claim christianity don't understand the basic tenets of their own book? Isn't it supposed to be all about tolerance and forgiveness? Didn't JC himself befriend the prostitutes, and the sick? but it's the religious right who want to call women sluts, to shame them when they can't keep their child, to outlaw homosexual sex, or worse blame katrina on *** marriage. Why is that?

I will admit that many things that organized churches do, do upset me. And many of their positions and practices ARE distasteful. That's why I make it a point to tell people about what is going on. but having issues with the organization that mis-espouses its religion is much different than hating all things spiritual. That's not inconsistency. While you equate homosexuals to pedophiles (something I could do to priests but haven't), I preach that the bible is being interpreted badly and that the church is more a political tool than a place of worship and am told that my thoughts are more hateful? That's silliness. Finding fault in christianity does not make me a hater, but the coarse language you've used here does show your true colors.

I don't, the answer would obviously be 'no' - however, many queers would then want to start snuggling just to be 'in yo face' which is exactly WHY the Scouts have to make the rule.

speaking of hatred. what a double standard there. i doubt a straight couple "snuggling" in the same manner would have them removed.

I think it sucks, because I learned "<>" and never "!=" so it doesn't read well to me. You're grotesquely wrong in any event, and you really ought to have that examined by another professional if you won't take my word for it.

I think it picked that up here. i don't recall from whom.

Hit too close to home?

I'm not sure what you're accusing me of there, but I think your colorful language and your personal attacks, and your constant mislabeling belies your inability to defend your views without deflection or obfuscation. Your grammar/punctuation is better than mine though. you'll always have that.

Actually, it was a reference to other somewhat current policies and the Progressive agenda.
The facetiousness is that Progressives want the Gov't IN womens's wombs, moreover IN every part of everyone's anatomies, and yet cling to infanticide as somehow being sacrosanct in that regard. A Nanny State to dictate your every act, with the end result likely being mandatory abortion as seen in other totalitarian locales.

Please let me know where I have supported a nanny state. i'm intrigued.

No, I'll continue to blame you for the purposes of illustration since you're playing Progressive Sock Puppet for this thread.

is that why you keep telling me what it is that I think about things (inaccurately)?

Because the 'person' definition is a mis-classification which we've already come to agree needs to be clarified. So a woman's person doesn't encompass another person any more than a husband's person should encompass his wife's, or a manager's person should encompass their employees'/slaves'.

It's already clarified by viability. Look, you can say you don't like the law, and that's fine. In your world, abortion is murder and should be illegal. early term, even any birth control that might cause a post conception death, be it zygote, embryo or fetus (or infant--it was hard to resist) should be illegal. You'd prefer that each state did this individually, but this is the end result you'd like to see. Is that correct? If it is correct, then fine. it's okay to disagree with me. you can plainly state your position, and not spend page after page trying to re-define the language.

You cite a despicable commie yellowsheet, the article supposedly written by the eugenicist Sanger herself 43 years after she dies, and expect me to consider your view seriously?

it was the first one on google, and there were direct quotes with the author saying why he disagrees. I don't think I need a source for the pope being anti-abortion and anti-birth control, as most people just know that.

how about this:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=the+catholic+po...+birth+control

If you wanted to actually conjure up some sort of claim of what the "policy" is beyond what the official site I've already provided is, you'd probably have to sift through this.

Oh great. looks like the birth control bit is at section 14. look at that. they don't like it.

Viability is a crap claim, or if you prefer, "was based on inaccurate history and was mostly unsupported by legal precedent. Medical advances since Roe have conclusively demonstrated that an unborn child is a unique human being at every stage of development." A large number of children wouldn't survive after birth, so it's still pseudo-medical judgement. Again, that's why the PP butchers are so desperate to prevent the issue from being anywhere near a review - it was a bad decision and will likely be overturned, thus drying up the revenue stream.

that sounds more like opinion than fact. yes the unique dna occurs at conception, but I never said it doesn't. I say the line that matters is viability.

I doubt she could do better than me, but besides that, aren't you the one who's all about the invalidity of religious concepts? That being the case, <why> would she have a right not to be raped? That's obviously a view based on archaic superstition and not at all reasonable under sensible Progressive atheism such as found in North Korea, the USSR, and China.

Please stop trying to conflate me and the various evils you're trying to connect me with. I clearly do not share a philosophy with any of these groups. is this really all you have left? misrepresentations and conflating me with various enemies?

Do you want a deeper statement of my philosophical platform? has the first 30 pages here not clarified it? We spent 2 pages defining "skeptic", and then you blatantly ignored the disscussion when it suited you. Are you truly so dense that you can't comprehend the difference between a skeptic and a statist? do you really live in such fear of the other?

Stop being silly. there are many many types of atheists. Ayn Rand, Thomas Edison, Mark Twain...they were all famous atheists, and certainly not communists. On top of which, I don't even consider myself an atheist. Why do you insist on being obtuse?

Unlike you and your Progressive pals, to be sure.

The difference is I argue for freedom, while the theocrats try to impose their values on everyone else.

Sure, until one stops swilling the Hatorade and recognizes that your beloved Progressive totalitarian beliefs are responsible for magnitudes greater bloodshed throughout all recorded history, on precisely the grounds you're claiming to be religious in nature. Religion is a tool of society, nothing more, and I am absolutely unsurprised that you cannot recognize your own "religion".

First, I don't have any totalitarian beliefs. those are words you've put in my mouth. Second, it's not a religion if you don't have faith. my thoughts have changed over time, as i discover new things and as i read more. I seek truth, but I go around telling people I have it. what I do have is things that don't make sense or are inconsistent that I reject. knowing that a handful of things seem wrong, or are inconsistent is not a system of beliefs themselves.

People without any indoctrinated sense of morality and responsibility to their fellow man would go about the business of dehumanizing and brutalizing their fellow man, correct. We've got plentiful examples of what the atheist belief system does once separated from the host organism transforms into - most notably in those areas I've already mentioned in an effort to destroy religion, but the list of atheist genocides reads like a "Who's Who" of totalitarian regimes. The death toll of atheism outweighs that of religion to a staggering degree, and once atheists such as yourself try to equivocate and avoid taking the blame for Pol Pot and the gang, the case can only be made by dishonestly continuing to hold religion responsible as a direct cause of bloodshed, while excusing atheism's far more patent motivation for the same.

there are atheists who favor human rights. in fact, when i googled it, i found they had a newsletter. who knew?
http://atheistsforhumanrights.org/

It's not the belief in god that makes people inherently good or bad. god is irrelevant in that. what matters is that we value some basic principles of freedom and liberty--things that don't naturally stem from religious organizations. People irrespective of their thoughts on god had to decide to take us that direction. People did. If anything, organized religion has slowed our progress. Why do you hate so much the bureaucratic government, but place so much faith in the churches? Don't you see they are essentially the same?

Point being, I'm not the one off my meds - the evidence of a "vast left wing conspiracy" is well established, while that of a "vast right wing conspiracy" is circumstantial.

I'm just going to let that hang in the air.

[KillerAim]

Stevinator:

currently, insuance companies can deny claims because you had a pre-existing condition, with obama care they'll either just deny the insurance completely or avoid markets where they'd lose money.

Not quite accurate. Currently, for pre-existing conditions, insurance companies can do one of the following:
• Deny coverage entirely
• Give you coverage for everything except expenses related to the pre-existing condition
• Exclude coverage expenses related to the pre-existing condition for a set amount of time, usually 6 to 18 months (pre-existing condition exclusion)
• Give you full coverage

They are also required to cover pre-existing conditions if you have “credible coverage” when you applied for the insurance (i.e. you have medical insurance coverage with some limitations: no break in coverage of 63 days or more, coverage period must be greater than the exclusion period to complete eliminate the exclusion, etc.)

ObamaCare requires that, if you’re in a specific market, you cover all pre-existing condition with no exclusion periods, no limits on normal coverage, and no premium increases. You will not be allowed to “deny the insurance completely”.

I talked about healthcare, but another example of a broken market is when a consumer has imperfect information. the government is pretty selective about when they want to step in and fix this, often times fixing small problems but completely ignoring the big ones. example: planned obsolescence. if consumers had better information regarding the total cost of a good, we wouldn't just buy the cheapest one on the shelf. we'd buy the one with the lowest cost of ownership…..

Light bulbs come to mind….

Another example of a broken market from a lack of information is labels. nutrition labels, where something was made, warning labels (possibly the "organic" label before they figured out how to game it)...none of these magically fixed the market, but they put more information in front of the customer that they didn't have before.

I combined these all together because they can be addressed as a whole. Information comes at a cost, and while more information brings benefits to a party in any transaction, the benefits of the information must be compared to the costs of getting the information. If it costs more to obtain the information than its value, then the buyer/seller is better off without it. Since, like most buying decisions, this cost/benefit analysis is different for each buyer/seller, it is better that that decision is made by the buyer and the seller rather than by a Government agency with its usual “one-size-fits-all” approach.

So you like the fact that products come with nutritional labels and warning labels? So do I. But I’m betting that the fact that there are enough people like us would have given a competitive advantage to any company that did this labeling on their own. The other companies in the industry would have followed suit without any need for governmental force. If the company’s decision to add labels turned out to be wrong, then the company that added the labeling would have incurred additional cost with no additional market revenue, and their margin would have gone down.

The trouble is that, with the government making the decision for us, we have no idea which was better for the Market as a whole; the addition of labels at an increased cost, or the decreased cost of products without labels.

we can't all be light bulb experts, and really, if it weren't for the recent law, would any of us really paid much attention to our light bulb buying habits?

I don’t need a nanny Government making decisions for me because they believe I’m too stupid or lazy to make those decisions on my own. This is just another situation where you seem to justify government interference with personal freedom if the Government believes that its interference will benefit Society as a whole.

As to the “we can't all be light bulb experts” statement; that is a very common argument brought up when Free Marketers argue that the Market will do a better job than the Government in getting information about products and product safety to the public. People argue, “We need the Government to do this function since no one person can be an expert on all of the products that he will need to buy.”

But no person has to be an expert on everything; he just needs access to an expert. If I do not know enough about computers to know if a Microsoft Computer would be better than an Apple Computer for my needs, I can just go on the internet as find thousands of comparison articles by experts in the field. If I want to buy a car that will best fits my needs, I can subscribe to Consumer Reports or view any number of magazines or on-line articles that will give me the information I need to make a decision.

And, if the Free Market cannot provide an expert to give the information I need to make a good decision, it’s a certainty that The Government will not have the expertise I need, either.

because taking the government completely out of healthcare is both not feasible and still doesn't fix our problem. as long as those who can't afford care are receiving it, someone will be paying for it. that might be higher prices, or some type of tax, or through medicaid, or maybe it'll just drive all the hospitals out of business, but the problem doesn't go away.

I will accept the idea that the Government has a responsibility to help (hopefully, temporarily) people who cannot afford healthcare. But, as in any case where the Government involves itself it the Market, it should help people get into the Market rather than take over the Market itself. Three simple things to do would be; (1) allow the Industry to cross state lines, (2) attach the medical insurance tax deduction to the person rather than to the employer, and (3) eliminate coverage mandates.

Also, the estimated percentage of people in the United States without health insurance is around 17%. Ignoring the fact that this estimate includes a significant amount of people who could afford insurance but elected not to purchase it, that leaves over 80% of the population with health care coverage. Why change the entire health care industry to fix a problem that affects only 17% of the people?

I would suggest an approach that integrates the 17% into the Market. Make “health stamps” that would act similar to food stamps. The Government did not build government food stores, nor does it put many restrictions (other than for non-food items, etc.) or requirements on what you can buy with foods stamps. It doesn’t tell the stores that this food item must be in a basket of goods purchased before it reimburses the store. The food stamp user is not restricted to a certain store or to a certain location.

If the food stamp user can find a store that sells the food items he needs for less, he can shop at that store and get ‘more bang for the buck’ for his food stamps. Thus, the stores have an incentive to keep their prices low enough to keep their customers. This doesn’t happen in our health care system. I get no benefit from finding a doctor that charges only $50 dollars for a treatment for which my insurance company is willing to pay $100.

[Stevinator]

Stevinator:

Not quite accurate. Currently, for pre-existing conditions, insurance companies can do one of the following:
• Deny coverage entirely
• Give you coverage for everything except expenses related to the pre-existing condition
• Exclude coverage expenses related to the pre-existing condition for a set amount of time, usually 6 to 18 months (pre-existing condition exclusion)
• Give you full coverage

They are also required to cover pre-existing conditions if you have “credible coverage” when you applied for the insurance (i.e. you have medical insurance coverage with some limitations: no break in coverage of 63 days or more, coverage period must be greater than the exclusion period to complete eliminate the exclusion, etc.)

ObamaCare requires that, if you’re in a specific market, you cover all pre-existing condition with no exclusion periods, no limits on normal coverage, and no premium increases. You will not be allowed to “deny the insurance completely”.

That's a really good clarification. I totally glossed over the pre-existing thing.

if they can't deny it completely they'll either not offer it at all in the market or just raise premiums (on everyone) to compensate. My guess is they'll go with the latter, because if having insurance is compulsory, then it'll be tough to not be able to make some money in the market.

The insurance comanies want to insure people who are unlikely to file claims. that's where the profit is at. This adds a whole lot of people younger than me to the mix. I haven't been to a doctor since high school (save vision and dental which wouldn't be covered) they'd love to get those 20 somethings insured. I wouldn't worry that the market will suddenly disappear.

I combined these all together because they can be addressed as a whole. Information comes at a cost, and while more information brings benefits to a party in any transaction, the benefits of the information must be compared to the costs of getting the information. If it costs more to obtain the information than its value, then the buyer/seller is better off without it. Since, like most buying decisions, this cost/benefit analysis is different for each buyer/seller, it is better that that decision is made by the buyer and the seller rather than by a Government agency with its usual “one-size-fits-all” approach.

So you like the fact that products come with nutritional labels and warning labels? So do I. But I’m betting that the fact that there are enough people like us would have given a competitive advantage to any company that did this labeling on their own. The other companies in the industry would have followed suit without any need for governmental force. If the company’s decision to add labels turned out to be wrong, then the company that added the labeling would have incurred additional cost with no additional market revenue, and their margin would have gone down.

The trouble is that, with the government making the decision for us, we have no idea which was better for the Market as a whole; the addition of labels at an increased cost, or the decreased cost of products without labels.


I don’t need a nanny Government making decisions for me because they believe I’m too stupid or lazy to make those decisions on my own. This is just another situation where you seem to justify government interference with personal freedom if the Government believes that its interference will benefit Society as a whole.

As to the “we can't all be light bulb experts” statement; that is a very common argument brought up when Free Marketers argue that the Market will do a better job than the Government in getting information about products and product safety to the public. People argue, “We need the Government to do this function since no one person can be an expert on all of the products that he will need to buy.”

But no person has to be an expert on everything; he just needs access to an expert. If I do not know enough about computers to know if a Microsoft Computer would be better than an Apple Computer for my needs, I can just go on the internet as find thousands of comparison articles by experts in the field. If I want to buy a car that will best fits my needs, I can subscribe to Consumer Reports or view any number of magazines or on-line articles that will give me the information I need to make a decision.

that's a well written piece that broaches age old arguments in the field of economics. And I appreciate your opinion, but science--including social sciences have to make their theories fit with the data at hand. As far as light bulbs go, people consistently made the decision to buy the cheapest bulb, over and over again, even though the cost of ownership of the cheaper bulbs is markedly higher than the more efficient ones. Now that LED bulbs are out and we can avoid the health concerns of the CFLs, people still buy the cheapest bulbs available. And this is something simple, like light bulbs.

There is a difference between a nanny government telling you this is the best kind, and a thorough regulator saying look, it's a free country and you can bring that to market but you have to put X on the label to let people know what they're getting. For light bulb that might be how many hours their bulbs burned in testing. It might be some type of efficiency rating. It's probably a mix of a few things. Allowing people to make more informed decisions is not evil socialism, it's making the market fairer and more efficient.

Now as to the "the companies would do the labeling on their own", i don't think that's true. sure they'd do it if they thought their product was healthy, or purported to be, but then they'd only highlight the good points. Look at breakfast cereal. take those labels off the side and you'll probably get nothing regarding the health of a cereal other than 8 essential vitamins and minerals. Another kind might say, 10 essential vitamins and minerals. you'd have to presume that the second is healthier, but there's not a lot to go on there is there? If i'm making a product I'm only putting on the label what i think will make it sell better and what the government makes me put on it. That's common sense. If my cereal has a ton of sugar in it, I'm NOT talking about sugar. I'm talking about it's mutiple grains, or the grain's wholeness, or that kids love it or whatever.

I will accept the idea that the Government has a responsibility to help (hopefully, temporarily) people who cannot afford healthcare. But, as in any case where the Government involves itself it the Market, it should help people get into the Market rather than take over the Market itself. Three simple things to do would be; (1) allow the Industry to cross state lines, (2) attach the medical insurance tax deduction to the person rather than to the employer, and (3) eliminate coverage mandates.

I like 1 & 2, though now that we expect our employers to provide insurance it'll take some time before we adjust culturally to having individual insurance. that's a long term solution that at least addresses some of the pricing issues.

As far as 3 goes, are you talking about requiring each individual to have coverage, or requiring what that coverage should be. i don't like being told I HAVE to have coverage, though i doubt it will affect me much. If you're talking about mandating what that coverage should be, I'll agree that undoubtably the government won't choose a wise policy, and whatever coverage they choose likely won't be suitable for most of the people that end up having to have it.

Also, the estimated percentage of people in the United States without health insurance is around 17%. Ignoring the fact that this estimate includes a significant amount of people who could afford insurance but elected not to purchase it, that leaves over 80% of the population with health care coverage. Why change the entire health care industry to fix a problem that affects only 17% of the people?

Because it doesn't only affect those 17%. At some point in your life you're going to get hurt or sick or at least have a check up. when that happens, you'll see tylennols going for $25 a pill, doctors selling you on tests and therapies that you don't need. it's like getting your oil changed at jiffy lube, except the guy telling you that you need a new air filter is wearing a very authoritive white coat and using words with 8 syllables.

I would suggest an approach that integrates the 17% into the Market. Make “health stamps” that would act similar to food stamps. The Government did not build government food stores, nor does it put many restrictions (other than for non-food items, etc.) or requirements on what you can buy with foods stamps. It doesn’t tell the stores that this food item must be in a basket of goods purchased before it reimburses the store. The food stamp user is not restricted to a certain store or to a certain location.

If the food stamp user can find a store that sells the food items he needs for less, he can shop at that store and get ‘more bang for the buck’ for his food stamps. Thus, the stores have an incentive to keep their prices low enough to keep their customers. This doesn’t happen in our health care system. I get no benefit from finding a doctor that charges only $50 dollars for a treatment for which my insurance company is willing to pay $100.

We can call it, medicaid! Yes this already exists. the government tells the hospitals that they will pay X for a given procedure. that makes one of two things happen. either the price it higher enough that the hospital can make money, or it's not. if it is, they push that service and bill for it. if it's not they only do it if they have to. the best part is, you can go to almost any doctor (some don't take medicaid, but most do). correction here, I looked this up and it's about half
http://www.hschange.com/CONTENT/866/

It is true that people don't shop around much for health care. I think that's part of why the market is broken. it's not just that they don't shop around, they're incented not to. the insurance company might not cover a visit out of network, especially without a referral. worse, much of the time the amount the insurance covers is all or nearly all of the price of the service.

Jmerv brought up the point that most of us don't even need coverage on little things like contraception. that's a good point. the problem is, the little stuff is how we often judge our insurance. if you sell them a policy that doesn't cover things like that, you get complaints that it "doesn't cover anything". i had a customer like that. We had an hour long discussion about why she shouldn't buy doctor visits. the amount it added to the premium was more than the maxed out benefit. well, 4 months later she called to yell at me. why isn't this covered. people have that expectation. we are by our nature, irrational actors.

[BobCox2]

Spoiler

April Fools

[jmervyn]

I'm not going to play ranking games and say one party is worse than the other when they are both dependent on a few large donors, that they don't necessarily have to disclose to finance their elections. this is bad. the reasoning that unions were able to do this before does not make it okay.

That's fine, I'll do it since you have so much trouble with the concept. The Democrats are the dominant party and have been so for several decades, they believe in fascist-like incorporation of Gov't policy into the market, and the reason they do so is that the opportunity for kickback becomes several magnitudes greater once the force of law is on the side of the corporation. That's not to say that the Republicans are pikers when it comes to corruption, just that the Democrats don't even pay lip service to the rationale for small Gov't any longer.

also, treason is more than an attempt to assasination or overthrow a government. Treason can be more mundane.

Sure, but I hold that it remains far worse than corruption; in fact, I would venture that corruption is a subset of treasonous behavior rather than a separate entity.

I think it'll blow over for both of them. I wouldn't be surprised if Rush's sponsors come quietly back when they think it's safe.

Turns out it was Media Matters hyperbole & falsification for the most part, and they were humiliated (again) when this was publicized. Plus, Team Obama doesn't really want the Media Matters mutants drawing attention to the obvious hypocrisy, like a Lefty radio host (there's a few) accusing the Lt. Gov. of Wisconsin of group sex and mass fellatio.

As for polygamy, it's not super popular either. all those mental images of cultists marrying the young girls freaks us out.

News flash: not only are polygamous marriages far more legitimate in {ahem} some religions, there's FAR more people freaked out by the "Adam & Steve" version. To quote one of my favorite modern humorists (if you hadn't seen it) -

So throughout the Western world, when parents object to kindergartners' being taught about the joys of same-sex marriage, they're told by the school board: Tough. That's just the way it is. You uptight squares need to get with the beat.
Except: There is one conspicuous holdout against the secularist enforcers. When Muslim parents in Bristol, England, raised a fuss about their grade-schoolers' being fed *** marriage in the curriculum, a panicked administration yanked the books in nothing flat. If it's a choice between Heather Has Two Mommies and Heather Has Four Mommies and a Big Bearded Daddy Who Wants to Marry Her Off to a Cousin Back in Pakistan, bet on the latter.

in the case where you truly have three consenting adults, and they want to try to make that work, I wouldn't stop them. I think three would be vastly more difficult than two--because in every disagreement someone gets ganged up on, so that's asking for trouble.

Actually, you would and you have, since your anti-Christian hatred is in full bloom against the current issue but you didn't have any qualms when the traditional polygamous relationship (found amongst Mormons, for example) was obliterated, nor in the hypocritical attitude applied by America recognizing and enforcing polygamous Muslim relationships that are tantamount to sex slavery.

Also, that's the 50 states plus the "District of Colombia", which is our nation's capital. British Colombia would be in Canada.

Guilty; I don't know how I saw "British Columbia" in there. Still, I don't like the boilerplate qualifier, "Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and phone status (cell phone only/landline only/both, having an unlisted landline number, and being cell phone mostly). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2010 Current Population Survey figures for the age 18+ non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design." Like I said, there are polls that show all sorts of crazy things, like that 60% of the U.S. denies the Holocaust.

There are sects that believe all sorts of silly things, but it's the big churches that have the most undue political influence.

Worth your consideration, really, since it's the big churches that are the most Progressive/Liberal in their approach while the nebulous televangelist-minded "cafeteria Christians" are those you claim are most likely to be kicking down your door in the middle of the night and dragging you in chains to a Bible study.

you can't just say you agree then restate the opposite of what i said. An abortion is an elective procedure.

No, I stated that I do not agree with the concept that there is real freedom of choice for the woman when PP is involved, just as your choices become limited under any other Gov't-sponsored entity.

If you were truly concerned about the amount of pressure placed on a woman to have the procedure you wouldn't be asking for that subsidy for other options to be removed, you'd say it should be increased because the subsidy for adoptions aren't high enough to affect PP.

This is where you show how late you are to the "I'm a Libertarian" claim - Not only should that subsidy be removed, but it should be demolished as favoritism for PP and instead bid as a standard Gov't contract, like every other one. The fact that Progressive corruption factories like ACORN, FNMA/FMAC, and PP are basically wholly-owned Progressive Democrat funding operations is exactly the sort of thing you claim to be against yet are patently in full-throated support of.

So demanding that the woman carry an unwanted child to term against her wishes is somehow less fascist? come now, that's a stretch.

When a woman has to bear the consequences if she does not comply with the Gov't policy in support of infanticide, yes, it's far less fascist. When Gov't interferes with the private sector in the name of the people, it is a hallmark of fascism.

Why is that?

Why are you so filled with hatred about people you despise saying things you think are grotesquely stupid? PLEASE show me one legitimate example where a Christian had ANY influence over your actions. I'm far more concerned with you and your pals demanding I be silenced, fined, or arrested (and in some cases, slaughtered) because you find my freedom of speech SO offensive.

I will admit that many things that organized churches do, do upset me.

So WTF business is it of yours? Really? Why do you hate me so much? Do you really think I have time or interest in kicking down your door and proselytizing to you? If you had more than a gnat's perspective on religion, you'd realize just HOW secular and HOW anti-religious America has become, and you would be quite impressed at the way the Founders conceptualized the whole deal. Instead, what you really want is to oppress and threaten the religious because you hate and despise their viewpoints, since you stated previously that you had a bad experience with religion at some point in your youth.

While you equate homosexuals to pedophiles (something I could do to priests but haven't),

Good thing you don't bother yourself with accuracy or truth in this discussion. I said that pedophiles are frequently homosexual, not that the groups are synonymous. Besides, if you went for priests then I'd bring up public school teachers, another one of your likely sacred cattle.

Finding fault in christianity does not make me a hater, but the coarse language you've used here does show your true colors.

So? I'm using colorful turns of phrase, and that makes me somehow the bad guy? But wait, since only Stupid Xians are concerned about that sort of silly morality, aren't you being hypocritical even by claiming this? Because I'm calling you out as a hater for wanting to snuff religious expression if not the religious themselves, while you're saying I'm far worse because I call homosexuals a term which a percentage of them want to now consider pejorative. Or women who behave in a particular fashion... what they are.

speaking of hatred. what a double standard there.

Come again? How the hell are you coming up with that claim?

i doubt a straight couple "snuggling" in the same manner would have them removed.

Yeah, pretty much; a heavy petting session would be certain cause for being kicked out. Scouting isn't supposed to be sex exploration.

I think it picked that up here. i don't recall from whom.

I'll avoid the obvious jokes about transmissible diseases.

I think your colorful language and your personal attacks, and your constant mislabeling belies your inability to defend your views without deflection or obfuscation.

Of course, I'm making the same accusation of personal attack and mislabeling from your direction, just that you're oblivious to it. But I'm admittedly more of a compositional artisan than you.

Please let me know where I have supported a nanny state. i'm intrigued.

For starters, I already mentioned above where you want religious believers punished and oppressed, PP funded and dissidents quelled. I'm sure I could provide more examples, though I really don't have interest in it.

is that why you keep telling me what it is that I think about things (inaccurately)?

In part. You are far more Progressive than I, despite claiming a newfound Libertarian outlook, so when you attempt to defend Progressive policy I use your adherence to Progressive concepts as a punching bag. I'm ignoring that you may not believe in the full-bore fascist tendency that modern Progressive Liberals curently desire.
[QUOTE=Stevinator;8250471]early term, even any birth control that might cause a post conception death, be it zygote, embryo or fetus (or infant--it was hard to resist) should be illegal.[/qutoe]There you go again, trying to conflate and falsely characterize the issues as well as my own beliefs.

Is that correct? If it is correct, then fine.

No, and that's what's got me kind of pissy with you. The states should have the right to make the call, is the baseline - the opinions of the citizens should be the primary factor. That's where these false comparisons with civil rights tick me off as well; California rejected queer marriage bills numerous times, so the advocates went to the courts to trump the will of the people.

it was the first one on google, and there were direct quotes with the author saying why he disagrees. I don't think I need a source for the pope being anti-abortion and anti-birth control, as most people just know that.

Is it okay if I just call you "fallacy boy" from now on? As for your Google script, that's cute but it still shows nothing in support of your false claim.

Oh great. looks like the birth control bit is at section 14. look at that. they don't like it.

Duh. Again, you repeatedly make the false assertion that the Church's objections to abortion are the self-same objections to contraception. Prove it. Put up or shut up. I'm kind of sick of this, since you're going back to your deep well of bias yet again and apparently ignoring all the proof I've provided.

I say the line that matters is viability.

Then prove beyond any doubt that your claim of viability is a one-size fits all concept? Otherwise, we might as well consider all death sentences to be legitimate because the chances of killing an innocent is so remote as to be negligible for purposes of the justice system.

Please stop trying to conflate me and the various evils you're trying to connect me with. I clearly do not share a philosophy with any of these groups. is this really all you have left? misrepresentations and conflating me with various enemies?

I'm sorry you don't like the company you keep, but they're the poster children for Gov't Atheism.

Are you truly so dense that you can't comprehend the difference between a skeptic and a statist? do you really live in such fear of the other?

What's probably worse from your point of view is that I know how the one leads to the other, and subsequently leads to pogroms.

Why do you insist on being obtuse?

Probably because you keep running back to claims of creeping Papacy and my supposed belief that contraception is murder.

The difference is I argue for freedom, while the theocrats try to impose their values on everyone else.

You are being a hypocrite. You argue that the religious cannot espouse their values lest you feel like they're imposing on you. What's next? You want them to stop breathing lest you catch relgious belief? As the trite saying which you obviously can't stand goes, freedom of religion is not freedom from religion.

I seek truth, but I go around telling people I have it.

I suppose I should shout, "Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!" ?

there are atheists who favor human rights. in fact, when i googled it, i found they had a newsletter. who knew?

Of course they do, because it isn't part of their expected belief system. I already alluded to what the collective beliefs of Atheists look like when applied to real-world environments, so it' hardly surprising they need to make one hell of a spin control effort.

what matters is that we value some basic principles of freedom and liberty--things that don't naturally stem from religious organizations.

Given what I've shown, as well as the fact that our concepts of freedom and liberty spring directly from Judeo-Christian belief and the historical effect it has had on Western Society, you'll pardon me if I simply dismiss anything further you have to say as laughably ignorant?

If anything, organized religion has slowed our progress. Why do you hate so much the bureaucratic government, but place so much faith in the churches? Don't you see they are essentially the same?

I don't place any faith in churches, as I happen to consider them bureaucratic as well. Your argument is unthinking because you fail to recognize that the bureacuracy is what causes the retardation, not the religious belief.

I'm just going to let that hang in the air.

Well, if you ever feel like clearing the Leftist shyte from your eyes, you can use Google to look up the term "Shadow Party".

[Stevinator]

That's fine, I'll do it since you have so much trouble with the concept. The Democrats are the dominant party and have been so for several decades, they believe in fascist-like incorporation of Gov't policy into the market, and the reason they do so is that the opportunity for kickback becomes several magnitudes greater once the force of law is on the side of the corporation. That's not to say that the Republicans are pikers when it comes to corruption, just that the Democrats don't even pay lip service to the rationale for small Gov't any longer.

oh boy. we couldn't just leave it at corruption and treason are both bad?

Sure, but I hold that it remains far worse than corruption; in fact, I would venture that corruption is a subset of treasonous behavior rather than a separate entity.

You agree in a disagreeable tone. :/

Turns out it was Media Matters hyperbole & falsification for the most part, and they were humiliated (again) when this was publicized. Plus, Team Obama doesn't really want the Media Matters mutants drawing attention to the obvious hypocrisy, like a Lefty radio host (there's a few) accusing the Lt. Gov. of Wisconsin of group sex and mass fellatio.

Mass fellatio? forget it. I don't want to know.

I'm glad things worked out for Rush. I find him amusing. He's got great delivery, digs deep into the news he's ranting about, and he's open and honest about his bias, which makes him in some ways more trustworthy. It's easier to cut through the BS when you know where they're coming from, I think.

News flash: not only are polygamous marriages far more legitimate in {ahem} some religions, there's FAR more people freaked out by the "Adam & Steve" version. To quote one of my favorite modern humorists (if you hadn't seen it) - Actually, you would and you have, since your anti-Christian hatred is in full bloom against the current issue but you didn't have any qualms when the traditional polygamous relationship (found amongst Mormons, for example) was obliterated, nor in the hypocritical attitude applied by America recognizing and enforcing polygamous Muslim relationships that are tantamount to sex slavery.

I think the key word here is consenting adults. 12 year olds and sex slaves are not consenting. I don't really care if a Morman wants to have two or three or more wives, but the stereotype is the cult that marries them super young. that's creepy.

Also, you're now recycling your links. that same one is back like 10 pages. and you made almost the same argument. I'm concerned that you might be some type of AI programmed to pass a turing test about politics. Praise be to your creator.

Guilty; I don't know how I saw "British Columbia" in there. Still, I don't like the boilerplate qualifier, "Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and phone status (cell phone only/landline only/both, having an unlisted landline number, and being cell phone mostly). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2010 Current Population Survey figures for the age 18+ non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design." Like I said, there are polls that show all sorts of crazy things, like that 60% of the U.S. denies the Holocaust.

i didn't see that poll, but generally gallup is pretty good with theirs. plus that they've been measuring it for decades should lend some credence. When i googled it, I actually thought the result was going to be over 40%.

Worth your consideration, really, since it's the big churches that are the most Progressive/Liberal in their approach while the nebulous televangelist-minded "cafeteria Christians" are those you claim are most likely to be kicking down your door in the middle of the night and dragging you in chains to a Bible study.

In my experience they don't use such overt tactics, but they will guilt you to death.

No, I stated that I do not agree with the concept that there is real freedom of choice for the woman when PP is involved, just as your choices become limited under any other Gov't-sponsored entity.

This is where you show how late you are to the "I'm a Libertarian" claim - Not only should that subsidy be removed, but it should be demolished as favoritism for PP and instead bid as a standard Gov't contract, like every other one. The fact that Progressive corruption factories like ACORN, FNMA/FMAC, and PP are basically wholly-owned Progressive Democrat funding operations is exactly the sort of thing you claim to be against yet are patently in full-throated support of.

I don't recall weighing in on ACORN or Fannie/Freddie, especially not in favor (since I think i posted a lot about how fannie and freddie should go away--but that might have been the other place). I only recall supporting PP's efforts to ensure availability of sexual education/information and yes, birth control and abortions.

And as for the "libertarian" claim, I said i wasn't a "pure" libertarian, but that my positions fiscally conservative, socially liberal, views would put me in that category. I think i even said i didn't like labels in that same paragraph...

Are you purposefully misquoting me or is it a reading comprehension issue?

When a woman has to bear the consequences if she does not comply with the Gov't policy in support of infanticide, yes, it's far less fascist. When Gov't interferes with the private sector in the name of the people, it is a hallmark of fascism.

isn't banning things interfering? What's more private than a woman's womb?

Why are you so filled with hatred about people you despise saying things you think are grotesquely stupid? PLEASE show me one legitimate example where a Christian had ANY influence over your actions. I'm far more concerned with you and your pals demanding I be silenced, fined, or arrested (and in some cases, slaughtered) because you find my freedom of speech SO offensive.
So WTF business is it of yours? Really? Why do you hate me so much? Do you really think I have time or interest in kicking down your door and proselytizing to you? If you had more than a gnat's perspective on religion, you'd realize just HOW secular and HOW anti-religious America has become, and you would be quite impressed at the way the Founders conceptualized the whole deal. Instead, what you really want is to oppress and threaten the religious because you hate and despise their viewpoints, since you stated previously that you had a bad experience with religion at some point in your youth.

Instead of personalizing this, let's just list the two very examples I gave previously. A woman seeking an abortion, but was unable to because some religious nutbars said they know better, or the *** couples that can't get married in <insert red state>. Those were the two examples i have continued to bring up.

I want to make it clear though, there's a difference between a religious organization that exist more for political might or for profit than for spirituality. I don't have a problem with spirituality, i have a problem with the organizations that grossly misrepresent themselves. Sure I've mentioned the catholic church and their inconsistencies and their political demands, but many catholics blow that off. that's not how they are. i know there was some statistical shenanigans with that survey that said 98% of catholic women have used birth control, but surely it's >50%. It's not all religious people I get concerned about, it's the fervent ones that scare me. The types that are suspicious of scientific discoveries, that support things like sneaking "under god" into the pledge, or state sponsored nativity scenes, the ones that claim we were founded on christian ideals. Bullpucky. Deist ideals perhaps, since the declaration does mention a creator. but the point was that there wouldn't be a state sponsored church. Several of the founders considered themselves "freethinkers".

you BTW never did answer the question.

I've never advocated fining, jailing or slaughtering you (in either the personal or general sense), and the reason i find you offensive is because you had a few positions which i think are awful. Shaming women who have abortions? Have some sensitivity. your friend (sister? whoever...) who went through that, i'm sure it was tough on her. I for one have nothing but sympathy for her.

As far as my perspective, i do understand that we've come a long ways since the mccarthy era. some of us (you specifically) still equate a lack of organized faith as supporting communism, but much of the rest of the country have progressed beyond that. We're seeing more headlines like this:
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/...lf-719642.html

instead of these (from that ebil right wing CNN)
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-06-03/l...d?_s=PM:LIVING

Good thing you don't bother yourself with accuracy or truth in this discussion. I said that pedophiles are frequently homosexual, not that the groups are synonymous. Besides, if you went for priests then I'd bring up public school teachers, another one of your likely sacred cattle.

You said that there was a known link, and then refused to acknowledge that that comment was in anyway out of line (and it is). I tried to find it, but this conversation is seemingly endless.

I don't know what the school teacher crack is all about (well i do, but i'm not going there), nor why you continue to deflect the conversation. I think you're trying to paint me as something I'm clearly not, and it's rather annoying that every response i have to tell you to knock it off, redefine my position. you can't claim a victory if you're not arguing against me but some imaginary punching bag. BTW, you might search my positions on education reform, I know I've posted about it here, probably somewhere in this endless thread.

So? I'm using colorful turns of phrase, and that makes me somehow the bad guy? But wait, since only Stupid Xians are concerned about that sort of silly morality, aren't you being hypocritical even by claiming this? Because I'm calling you out as a hater for wanting to snuff religious expression if not the religious themselves, while you're saying I'm far worse because I call homosexuals a term which a percentage of them want to now consider pejorative. Or women who behave in a particular fashion... what they are.

when did i say i wanted to kill anyone? i wanted to weaken the hold on politics that religious institutions have. how is removing unfair tax breaks the equivalent to "snuffing people out"?

As far as your language, it's not that I'm offended by what you say (I've heard much worse), but more that you direct the coarsest language towards people totally undeserving of your remarks. Having sex does not make you a slut. to call a woman who accidently gets pregnant a slut is out of line.

When i say catholic dogma doesn't align with the catholic church's actions, and hence is hypocritical, that's not equivalent to calling women sluts.

Come again? How the hell are you coming up with that claim?

that straight couples would abstain from "snuggling" but homosexuals, by their evil nature would naturally snuggle, not out of love but out of spite for the heterosexuals. That's just silliness.

For starters, I already mentioned above where you want religious believers punished and oppressed, PP funded and dissidents quelled. I'm sure I could provide more examples, though I really don't have interest in it.

LOL, so you know I never said that, specifically said the opposite (repeatedly), and then you're pinning it back to me anyway...

I'm not sure why you even need me to post at all. you could just start a thread and rant by yourself

In part. You are far more Progressive than I, despite claiming a newfound Libertarian outlook, so when you attempt to defend Progressive policy I use your adherence to Progressive concepts as a punching bag. I'm ignoring that you may not believe in the full-bore fascist tendency that modern Progressive Liberals curently desire.

well at least you admit it. you couldn't defend yourself against a moderate, so you painted me as something I'm not so you could use your tired old arguments. This isn't just a Jmerv problem, this is why it's so hard to vote republican these days. The party is moving farther and farther away from the center, and it less likely to work on real solutions. I'd switch sides, but they're doing the same thing on the left. How do the sane vote when there's no moderates left? how can we solve the problems we face when positions are becoming more and more polarized?

There you go again, trying to conflate and falsely characterize the issues as well as my own beliefs.

um that was me stating my position.

No, and that's what's got me kind of pissy with you. The states should have the right to make the call, is the baseline - the opinions of the citizens should be the primary factor. That's where these false comparisons with civil rights tick me off as well; California rejected queer marriage bills numerous times, so the advocates went to the courts to trump the will of the people.

okay, we almost have a position statement! so the states make the call, but what if a state legalizes abortion? Would you be okay with that? I mean you use terms like murder and infantcide, so I inferred that you would not be okay with that. Are you telling me i inferred incorrectly? I'm not sure what the "no" in your post means.

Then prove beyond any doubt that your claim of viability is a one-size fits all concept? Otherwise, we might as well consider all death sentences to be legitimate because the chances of killing an innocent is so remote as to be negligible for purposes of the justice system.

i don't know what the death penalty has to do with anything, i didn't bring that up at all, and I don't think it's relevant as that's a completely different argument.

Wikipedia says currently we use 28 weeks legally, but most abortions occur well before 25 weeks, and no fetus has survived younger than 21 weeks 6 days. That's plenty of time.

I'm sorry you don't like the company you keep, but they're the poster children for Gov't Atheism.

groan.

What's probably worse from your point of view is that I know how the one leads to the other, and subsequently leads to pogroms.

My not going to church because i think the incense and candle are dumb is not going to magically turn me into a communist.

Probably because you keep running back to claims of creeping Papacy and my supposed belief that contraception is murder.

If the pill prevents a pregnancy after conception, then the church sees that as murder, because to the church (per your link) life begins at conception. I have tried to hazard some guesses at what you think (without putting words in your mouth--notice how I always ask it as a question), but stemming from your "infantcide" comment, and your refusal to accept viability as the best place to put the line, and because you keep siting different DNA as part of your argument, I'm inferring that you see conception as the point where the line should be drawn. If I'm off base, please, enlighten me.

You are being a hypocrite. You argue that the religious cannot espouse their values lest you feel like they're imposing on you. What's next? You want them to stop breathing lest you catch relgious belief? As the trite saying which you obviously can't stand goes, freedom of religion is not freedom from religion.

If a religious woman does not want to have an abortion, I'm certainly not going to make her....Likewise, if a religious person does not want to marry someone of the same sex, I'm not going to make them either. However, the religious right doesn't want to stop there. they want to make both of these activities illegal. I know your positions are a bit more nuanced, so I'm discluding you on the *** marriage thing.

Of course they do, because it isn't part of their expected belief system. I already alluded to what the collective beliefs of Atheists look like when applied to real-world environments, so it' hardly surprising they need to make one hell of a spin control effort.

Are you really accusing Ayn Rand of being a communist? There was a list of famous atheists in here somewhere, i can't find it, but many names are obviously not communists.

Given what I've shown, as well as the fact that our concepts of freedom and liberty spring directly from Judeo-Christian belief and the historical effect it has had on Western Society, you'll pardon me if I simply dismiss anything further you have to say as laughably ignorant?

There have been many great thinkers who did not believe in any god at all, and many more who were only nominally religious. The idea that the church has been the only source of morality over the course of human history is simply not supported by facts. I'll grant that the church did have significant influence, but since this thread has gone on for many many pages about how we differ, surely you can grant that there may have been other influences in my life. Or do i give your sense of fairness too much credit?

I don't place any faith in churches, as I happen to consider them bureaucratic as well. Your argument is unthinking because you fail to recognize that the bureacuracy is what causes the retardation, not the religious belief.

OMG, 30+ pages later he says this. okay, there are two general types of complaints i have with the catholic church--and it applies to many other churches too. The first is that they teach one thing, but then are blatantly hypocritical in many regards. I'm not going over that again, but I'm referring to purposeless rites, ostentatiousness, etc.

the second concern i have is very much separate. Declaring that one must suspend reason to behold the creator is wrongminded in my opinion. I don't think rationality is necessarily separate from spirituality. There are many forms of possible gods/superior beings, that don't defy reason. We don't have much/any evidence of their existence, but when we do develop a deeper understanding of the universe, I think we'll find whatever god may be HAS to be compatible with reality. We should not tell ourselves to dispell reason and believe in something on faith.

The first concern is not contrary to christianity, merely some of the organizations that claim to practice it. Second IS contraditory to christianity, but not necessarily to all spirituality. You can mock that line of thinking if you want, but to claim that somehow this makes me a communist is silly.

Well, if you ever feel like clearing the Leftist shyte from your eyes, you can use Google to look up the term "Shadow Party".

Jmerv, that's hyperbole. it's the same thing the left claims the koch brothers are. In fact, it's just the inevitable effect of bad campaign finance laws.

[BobCox2]

that's creepy.

Also, you're now recycling your links. that same one is back like 10 pages. and you made almost the same argument. I'm concerned that you might be some type of AI programmed to pass a turing test about politics. Praise be to your creator.

The test is still on-going But I'm pretty sure He's Human.