OT: US President (US Dom Players only)

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by PyroStock

Citation Needed.

Wait, out of all of this bickering, you want to vet this statement?

The claim is anecdotal. That is to say, it is only an observation gleaned from my own trials. Don't believe me? I don't really care if you do or not. I'm the one that made the phone calls - the list was provided by my hospital. I am afraid that I did not record the phone calls, nor publish an article about my experience, that I can then reference here.

But, thank you for caring about veracity, hopefully at some point you can find something even more meaningful to contribute to the discussion.

Originally Posted by NTJedi

The difference here is that if my employer hires someone incompetent or messed up in some other way then its the company which suffers and may eventually die to competition. Now in regards to government we don't have any second, third, tenth, etc., option which will take over. You cannot compare companies to government... apples & rocks.

I guess maybe what I was trying to say, is that perhaps our best option now is to create that second option - to give ourselves the choice between a barely functioning old workhorse, or a newer model, with more torque, that maybe has a few kinks to work out.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by quantum_mechani

All I can say is I am slightly boggled by this point of view. Is it really worth letting innocent but unlucky people go without health care just because a few people abuse the system? I mean, abuse of the system is unfortunate but a little more taxes won't kill anyone, as opposed to the alternative. And it's not like the vast majority of people that can't afford health care don't work, either.

It's not simple to understand, but the fastest explanation is we have to look at long term solutions and not the short term solutions. The united states is a huge country with millions of homeless and its not just the homeless that are currently without healthcare. A universal healthcare would not only be more costly, but it would introduce several new problems.

First and probably least important would be everyone paying higher taxes. As I've written before our government has problems with existing departments and giving them a new responsibility would only bring new problems.

Second our doctors would be changed to a fixed government income, currently many of the best doctors from Canada move to America because of much higher pay which is the result of competition from doctor offices and specialized treatment centers. What do you think will happen within the USA to doctors once they're told the government is now the source of their future fixed income. As mentioned in other forums they will be moving out of the country to setup their offices and treatment centers.

Third and quite serious would be massively longer waiting times when going to the hospitals and offices. Currently the waiting period is 3hours at the hospitals for Urgent Care, yet this will drastically increase. There's plenty of reports describing how Europeans travel to other countries for healthcare because the waiting times are unreasonably long. The next time I have a kidney stone I don't want to discover the average waiting time is now 24hours.

Fourth is the government will never release healthcare responsibility once started, because its another source for taking money from the people. This means IF the universal healthcare changes everyones healthcare into a nightmare we will be permanently stuck under government control. The people won't be able to say, "WAIT... change it back because I didn't expect X and Y to be one of the side effects."


I believe that someday... it's possible for our government to be wise enough and experienced enough to handle a great responsiblity such as universal healthcare. Without a doubt our government cannot handle such a responsibility today and it would be a mistake.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

I guess maybe what I was trying to say, is that perhaps our best option now is to create that second option - to give ourselves the choice between a barely functioning old workhorse, or a newer model, with more torque, that maybe has a few kinks to work out.

I agree the healthcare system needs to be improved, but it has to be researched and approached cautiously. We don't want to crack a the walls of a dam so our farms receive more water and then discover the end result was the dam breaking and destroying a village.
Ideally we should hold a brainstorming session with the smartest minds in America to organize a list of options which include government and non-government. Then these options should each be tested within small parts of america. Problems and abuses can be identified and either fixed or re-examined. Upon success each option expands into more towns and eventually a city. Upon sucess the option is adopted into the entire state and continues to gradually expand into the rest of America.

Our government taking control of healthcare right now is way too risky.

[coobe]

im not an American, but damn any vote for Palin =)

[Ballbarian]

My vote be damned then.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Mithras

A moral argumant about Robin Hood!
I think the idea is it's ok to steal from a theif especially if the theif is greedy grabbing and power hungry.
Lets think a modern day parralel:
To rashly generalise one of the most religious american states (read texas)also backs the death penalty, so its ok to kill a killer (also one of the ten comandments incase you were wandering, thou shalt not kill) is perfectly ok but stealing from a theif is just wrong?

In the story Robin Hood was returning the money to the now large groups of poor people from the government which was overtaxing its people. Let's hope this does not happen in the USA. The death penalty is another different ball of wax and I'm sure there's two dozen other major topics to discuss as well, but we don't want this thread splitting in too many directions.

Originally Posted by Mithras

Robin Hood is a great myth. Why? Because he believed in equality. He saw rich landlords and took them down a peg to feed some starving peasants (and yes I'm aware its fiction) Are you saying its wrong to steal to save the life of another?

As I wrote earlier Robin Hood was stealing from the government... not hardworking farmers who had extra food. And in regards to your question... would it be wrong for a starving homeless individual to break into your home so he has the nourishment to continue living? Because you weren't home when he knocked on the door and to him you are rich.

Originally Posted by Mithras

Now on to taxes yes graduated taxes... so lets make sure I'm getting this, Bill Gates gives out 8% of his income ie small change for him, while the single working mother who just happens to live in extreme povert (lets say $2 a day) gives up 20 cents of that a day which could mean the differance betweeen say the existance of the next meal? Ok extreme example but is that what your getting at, lowest income still pay taxes but its a smaller percentage? No exceptions, what if I earn $200 a week but have 10 children to support?

LOL... if you earn $200 a week paying $2 for that week in taxes won't be changing anything. Second I never said EVERYONE would be paying taxes... nice jump of wild assumptions.

Originally Posted by Mithras

Oh and stop blaming the civil servants! Pay the elected representatives less, and make the presidental candidates donate their campaign money instead of throwing it at the voters. Never mind wastage in govenrment any elected represntative of the people is forced to wastefull... I prefer the argumant over Robin Hood, its hard to argue over government efficiency because making something like that more efficient would require genocide

Unfortunately none of these suggestions will occur because elected representatives will never vote for a pay decrease, presidential candidates won't donate their money lottery ticket for the presidency, and tossing more money at the government has not worked in the past and won't work in the future. Finally Robin Hood stole from the government and returned the money to the poor.

[PyroStock]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

Wait, out of all of this bickering, you want to vet this statement?

The claim is anecdotal. That is to say, it is only an observation gleaned from my own trials. Don't believe me?

Why so defensive??? I never said I didn't believe you saw it happen somewhere. I make a harmless request and you roll your eyes?

My mistake, I thought actually were trying to form a solid argument with sound reasoning, but it's more just an opinion based on anecdotal emotions and logical fallacies. Your statement(s?) is not much different than someone saying a certain race, gender, religion is far more discriminatory (with the needy) because of their individual experience with "those people". Thanks for sharing....

I am afraid that I did not record the phone calls, nor publish an article about my experience, that I can then reference here.

Which would still be anecdotal evidence and be just as useless... perhaps you're trying to make me laugh. The next time someone calls BS on your negative sweeping generalizations try a different response.

But, thank you for caring about veracity, hopefully at some point you can find something even more meaningful to contribute to the discussion.

Perhaps you could contribute something meaningful to the discussion?

[rdonj]

Pyrostock - I maintain a sincere belief that anecdotal experiences are often underrated, that giving answers that are truthful is a good thing, and that as this is a gaming forum rather than a forum for political debate, we can relax the standards for what's acceptable for a person to post here just a little.

And meanwhile, before you go attacking others, why don't you go and contribute something meaningful to the conversation yourself? Currently jimmorrison's smileys are adding more to the conversation than you are. Thank you and have a nice day.

[Mithras]

Originally Posted by NTJedi

LOL... if you earn $200 a week paying $2 for that week in taxes won't be changing anything. Second I never said EVERYONE would be paying taxes... nice jump of wild assumptions.

Hmm sorry I guess I shouldn't have taken this at face value, so you propose something more like 0%-8%? Anf 200 dollor a week thing was more of an example of tax exemptions, but I must say the lower your income is the more every penny of your money is worth, its an inversely exponentol relation ship (I think) therefore the rate of increase in taxation should increase in higher incomes. I think its whats happening now?

Originally Posted by NTJedi

Well the flat tax should first be tested in two small sections of America. Then any problems/imbalances can be identified and adjusted and gradually expand into the rest of America. I've heard the flat tax has worked terrific for the Russian government. The purpose of the flat tax is so when someone like Bill Gates earns 12.8 billion in a year he would pay a solid flat tax... even an 8% tax means 1 billion dallors. In my opinion the flat tax should gradually increase depending on income, thus the single mom would pay 1%.

Originally Posted by NTJedi;650130[QUOTE=Mithras

Oh and stop blaming the civil servants! Pay the elected representatives less, and make the presidental candidates donate their campaign money instead of throwing it at the voters. Never mind wastage in govenrment any elected represntative of the people is forced to wastefull... I prefer the argumant over Robin Hood, its hard to argue over government efficiency because making something like that more efficient would require genocide

Unfortunately none of these suggestions will occur because elected representatives will never vote for a pay decrease, presidential candidates won't donate their money lottery ticket for the presidency, and tossing more money at the government has not worked in the past and won't work in the future. Finally Robin Hood stole from the government and returned the money to the poor.[/quote]
I hope people saw that at a joke, just in case I am not promoting the murder of civil servants. BTW I was just saying I'd rather argue over the morality of Robin Hood as apposed to what type of taxing system we should use. Seeing as I knownothing about taxation and any fool who's read half the Bible (or other holy book) or in fact lived in society can argbue about morality. And before you say anything I wont stop because what I lack in expertise I make up for in having a slightly differant pointof view.
I noticed you used the word returned, there may be hope for you yet .

Originally Posted by NTJedi

As I wrote earlier Robin Hood was stealing from the government... not hardworking farmers who had extra food. And in regards to your question... would it be wrong for a starving homeless individual to break into your home so he has the nourishment to continue living? Because you weren't home when he knocked on the door and to him you are rich.

Hard working farmers? I said landlords i.e. the people given the authority to tax the peasants, and abusing it.
And to answer the question it would be right if said farmer was directly responsable for the starvation of said thief. Thats the thingabout old Hood, he didn't take from any old rich people, just rich people who'd abused the poor people in the first place.

Oh and because the tax row is boring me, a summery of my stance.
Any current system of taxation leaves someone unhappy (rich, poor, government, or all of them) any other system of taxation would be costly to change to and cause at least one of the above groups unhappy. There will always be ineffiency and to a lesser degree corruption.
As long as people who could reasonalbly be saved aren't dying(this means no over taxation of the poor, a decent police service, free/affordable universal healthcar etc) Then the tax systems ok for me. But as I said I neither pay taxes nor vote, so take it all with the boring spice of your choice

[Omnirizon]

personal experience is the only means of knowing something, but nobody is privy to the interpretations of their personal experience.

for example, according to an article by Arthur C. Brooks, statistically the religious donate more than the secular. Brooks doesn't make his data available or even display his statistical models; and Policy Review, the journal he published in, is unapologetically conservative.

because he doesn't even display his models, Brooks is unceremoniously ignored; and rightly so. Less absolutely conservatively biased studies do display their models and indicate that Brooks is correct: even when controlling for as many relevant social factors as possible, the religious donate more. However, Brooks doesn't bother to explore the effects of social networking. The more insular a social network, the less its members donate. Ironically, religious networks are the most insular. This means that it is actually the very liberal, cosmopolitan, non-conservative, postmodern religious individual who is doing all the charity and donating; and not actual christian conservatives as Brooks implied. All Brooks did was compare a strawman atheist to a christian conservative, and showed that his conservative donates more only when aggregated with all religious individuals; the large majority of whom are not the anecdotal "christian conservative".

......
hmm....

that wasn't a very good example of experience was it?
but it still goes to show that even statistics are never objective and no one has the rights to final interpretation, not even of themselves. what separates conservatives from the rest of the world is that conservatives have not yet risen to the level of consciousness where they are able to possess this kind of irony.