Health Care

[KaskadskyjKozak]

What you propose would require Master Segal, Prole, et al to take on a greater degree of responsibility for their own lives. Clearly it is easier for them to give up yet more freedom in exchange for an additional modicum of security--compliments of a presently benevolent government.

 

It's all about the culture of self-entitlement. They DESERVE to be paid for ... by someone else.

[StevenSeagal]

What you propose would require Master Segal, Prole, et al to take on a greater degree of responsibility for their own lives. Clearly it is easier for them to give up yet more freedom in exchange for an additional modicum of security--compliments of a presently benevolent government.

 

It's all about the culture of self-entitlement. They DESERVE to be paid for ... by someone else.

 

What you propose would require Master Segal, Prole, et al to take on a degree of responsibility for their own lives. Clearly it is easier for them to give up yet more freedom in exchange for an additional modicum of security--compliments of a presently benevolent government.

 

Thanks for the pep talk, but I actually got my responsibilities well under control, thank you. 900 FICO score, beyotches. Funny how you two resort to unsubstantiated personal attacks when you have nothing else to run on.

 

I feel like I have it pretty good compared to most, and I'm not rich. But I work hard, pay my bills on time, and buy only what I can afford. I have crash coverage which I can afford, but it almost seems not worth it when I look at what would happen if disaster strikes.. I can't imagine what people with less opportunity than I've enjoyed do to afford any thing resembling good health coverage much less absorb a major incident. Jay's suggestion for long term disability are a decent proposal. I may look into it. Thanks for an attempt at a coherent reply.

 

As for you two-

[StevenSeagal]

 

It's all about the culture of self-entitlement. They DESERVE to be paid for ... by someone else.

 

the funniest part of this statement is, if I actually make more money than you (I DO work, sorry to take that away from your comeback), chances are I'd be paying for YOU more than the other way around. And to know that the well being of the country was where it was going...I would be happy with that. Which is where we differ, apparently.

[StevenSeagal]

Hey does anyone here know how I can ensure that 100% of my tax dollars go only to things that benefit me personally, and no one else? I'm tired of lazy people driving on my roads, using my emergency rooms, shitting in my sewers, and sleeping on my sidewalks that I paid for with my blood and the blood of other patriots.

[Stonehead]

I'm not sure that would be such a bad thing. In the age of the 12-hour news cycle, we tend to forget that as a nation we've seen all this before. We should not let the threat of terrorism deter us from creating a more just, more democratic society. We have much to learn from the folks who had the courage to continue the march in the face of police dogs, firebombs, lynchings, and beatings from the teabaggers of yesteryear.

There are a lot of ignorant tools in the teabagger movement and there are those who joined thinking the teabaggers provide convenient cover for their bigotry. However, for those who hold the assumption that Libertarianism is only a philosophy allied with the Right:

 

Freedom is not a conservative idea. It is not a prop for corporate power and the political-economic statist quo. Libertarianism is, in fact, a revolutionary doctrine, which would undermine and overthrow every form of state coercion and authoritarian control. If we want liberty in our lifetimes, the realities of our politics need to live up to the promise of our principles — we should be radicals, not reformists; anarchists, not smaller-governmentalists; defenders of real freed markets and private property, not apologists for corporate capitalism, halfway privatization or existing concentrations of wealth. Libertarianism should be a people’s movement and a liberation movement, and we should take our cues not from what’s politically polite, but from what works for a revolutionary people-power movement.

http://radgeek.com/gt/2010/03/23/the-revolution-will-be-on-youtube/

President Obama is fond of quoting Mahatma Gandhi’s line that “we should be the change we want to see.” But Gandhi also said that “civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless and corrupt.”

Non-violent resistance to ObamaCare

Those supporting freedom should learn a lesson from the French Revolution. In “The First Leftist” (1951), Dean Russell, a former FEE employee and expert on the French liberalism, described what went wrong in the French Revolution.

 

According to Russell, “the first leftist” were members of the National Constituent Assembly who wanted to abolish government controls over the market. They briefly held a slim majority and successfully limited the central powers of government. But sadly, a small minority among the group, the revolutionary Jacobins, grasped power. The Jacobins differed in that they wanted power in the hands of the “people” , rather than the local and constitutionally-limited government the first leftists had backed. The result was terror and tyranny.

 

So what lessons, particularly in regards to freedom and economics, should we take from this today? In a sense the lessons for freedom and economics are the same. The issues of why a decentralized power structure is important for freedom are directly tied to the economics of knowledge.

 

F.A. Hayek points to these exact dangers of the centralization of power in the Road to Serfdom. Giving centralized power to the government in ‘the name of the people’ is just as much a slippery slope as any despot. The French experience aptly illustrates this. Given Russell’s article, what parallels do you see with our current political climate? What are the differences? Could we be heading down a similar road?

http://fee.org/from-the-archives/lessons-from-the-french-revolution/

I often begin my political science courses with a brief introduction to the idea of "the state." The state is the entity that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, force and coercion. If an individual travels to another country and kills its citizens, we call it terrorism. If the state does it, we call it war. If a man kills his neighbor it is murder; if the state does it is the death penalty. If an individual takes his neighbor's money, it is theft; if the state does it, it is taxation.

 

Maria Harris-Lacewell is a professor at Princeton University, as so subtly alluded to in the above excerpt from her latest drivel for The Nation, and she's concerned about the "legitimacy" of the state -- a legitimacy she assumes but doesn't explain -- which she notes some backwards reactionaries have had the temerity to challenge in the age of Democratic government. Now, considering that U.S. government imprisons more of its own citizens than any other in the history, with 25 percent of the world's prisoners; that it has more military bases in more countries than any previous empire in history, and has killed millions of people from Iraq to Vietnam; and that its current head, Barack Obama, is openly targeting for extrajudicial killing Americans and foreigners alike, one might ask: why is a liberal magazine so concerned about this state's legitimacy?

 

Because of the Tea Party movement, you see, whose flashes of racism and disrespect toward politicians is of more concern to Ivy League academics than the "legitimate" state violence they applaud. Tea Partiers, by accusing the current administration of "various forms of totalitarianism . . . are arguing that this government has no right to levy taxes or make policy," the professor writes, apparently under the mistaken belief that most taxes the state levies go to gumdrop bridges and fairy dust health clinics, rather than less wholesome things like aircraft carriers and daisy cutters. Rather than focusing on what the state actually does, though, Harris-Lacewell, like most liberals, would prefer we focus on their shining, abstract ideal of what it could be, while sanctimoniously dismissing those who see no distinction between state-sponsored and private sector murder, an approach befitting the wait-until-you're-called merit-class liberal mentality that dominates the Democratic Party and the progressive press.

 

As The Nation's house political scientist explains it, adopting an argument that one could never imagine being applied to the left, "When protesters spit on and scream at duly elected representatives of the United States government it is more than act of racism. It is an act of sedition."

 

Put another way: offenses against the state are inherently more despicable than any offense one could commit against some poor schmuck civilian. An overstatement? Well, no, as Harris-Lacewell herself demonstrates in writing about Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), who "is no longer just a brave American fighting for the soul of his country- he is an elected official. He is an embodiment of the state." Yeah, you know, before Lewis just marched in the streets against racism and state-enforced segregation as a (ho-hum) private citizen, but now he chairs a subcommittee -- show him some respect!

 

Hooping and hollering at an elected official -- sorry, "an embodiment of the state" -- might give liberals at The Nation the vapors, and right-wing protesters who cheered on the Bush administration's abuses of power may not be my cup of tea, but color me unimpressed with the argument that I have more to fear from the talk radio right than I do the incarcerating-and-assassinating state. Now while there's little chance you'll catch me marching against compact fluorescent light-bulbs or Obamacare anytime soon -- though I promise nothing -- I just don't fear a rollback of the Reconstruction period "and the descent of a vicious new Jim Crow terrorism" as much as I fear and abhor the actual, happening-right-now terrorism carried out by my esteemed public officials with the tacit approval of the humanitarian progressives too busy lecturing the rabble on the need to pay taxes and pledge allegiance to their betters in Washington than to challenge their leader's wars. In addition to the hundreds killed without so much as a show trial by hellfire missiles since the glorious advent of The Liberal Ascendancy, agents of the U.S. government have been implicated in several headline-grabbing atrocities, the latest of which involved the pre-dawn slaying of a pair of pregnant women and a teenage girl. That female civilians are being killed at a level on par with Afghan males is no doubt being hailed in the halls of Brookings as a feminist triumph, but it's more troubling to me than the idea of some people questioning the legitimacy of the perpetrators' employer.

 

Perhaps they shouldn't just be ignored, but until Glenn Beck's followers kill two dozen people in a remote village, I'm going to spend most of my time focusing on those with control over the tanks and nuclear weapons. And rather than seeking to bolster the state and reinforce the idea of some mythical, mystical social contract, I just might seek to undermine this government, so far as I can, for as long as it continues enriching a politically connected corporate elite while imprisoning and enlisting the rest of its population, no matter how "duly elected" our politicians might be as a result of the sham two-party electoral system. When political leaders are engaged in senseless war and widespread human rights abuses -- and the occupation of Afghanistan and the U.S. prison system at home and abroad qualify -- the person of conscience's duty is not to the state but to justice, which usually means opposing the state and questioning its presumed legitimacy.

 

The proper attitude toward a criminal government is not deference and respect, however much some at The Nation might love a smooth-talking Democrat, but defiance and rebellion -- of the non-violent variety.

Liberals with guns: scarier than Tea Partiers

The ever odious Rutland Herald newspaper recently published an op-ed piece submitted by a Ms. Claire Walker of Proctorsville, Vermont, that was in reaction to a statement by Governor Jim Douglas in which he said that he didn’t “know of any other law” that mandated the purchase of something like health insurance. Ms. Walker’s response to this was thus:

 

“Aren’t we required to purchase car insurance in order to register a vehicle in Vermont? Aren’t we required to pay for a yearly state inspection of our vehicle, even if there is nothing wrong with it, In order to drive legally in Vermont? Aren’t we required to pay the full real estate tax on our property even though we have no children in the school system? Health insurance for all is no less a responsibility than educating our children and keeping our citizens as safe as possible on our highways.”

 

Apparently, Ms. Walker believes that paying what amounts to automobile taxes at government gunpoint somehow makes us all “as safe as possible” – especially while on “our” highways. And, that they’re all universally “our” children in “our” school system. Further, that health insurance for everyone is “our” collective “responsibility.”

 

It’s an utterly deluded mindset that is reminiscent of another newspaper piece – this one written by David Brooks and published on March 24 in the New York Times and elsewhere, titled “The Democrats Rejoice” (something that reminds me of those old photos of Hitler dancing a jig after the fall of France in 1940). In the article, Brooks writes:

“Obama and Pelosi both possess the political tenaciousness that you only get if you live for government and believe ruthlessly in its possibilities.”

 

Which, in plain spoken English spoken by a sane and rational human being who respects the life, liberty, and property of others, translates into: “Obama and Pelosi both possess the psychopathic and sociopathic lust for control and domination of others’ lives and property that you only get if you live for government power, and believe ruthlessly in threatening people with fewer guns at their command than you with property seizure, arrest and imprisonment, or outright death, in order to advance your own vision and agenda of just How the World Ought to Be.”

 

People like Ms. Walker are some of the greatest threats to the achievement of liberty that free-market anarchist philosophy must overcome. They can only see things in terms of collectivist dimensions; a Government is God theory that is tantamount to being a flat-earther. It shocks and angers them that there are actually people who believe in being left alone to enjoy their own life, liberty, and property their way, without interference from anyone else, nor by interfering with anyone else’s. They cannot conceive of the concept of self-ownership, and must always speak and act as if they possessed some kind of sick, symbiotic attachment to the State – one which, if even slightly threatened, will send humanity spiralling down a dark whirlpool into utter chaos and bloodshed; Hobbes’s “war of every man against every other man.”

 

That this is utterly Orwellian backwards mindspeak and preposterous fearmongering, libertarian anarchists already know. It’s waking up the rest of society that, at present, represents the difficult part. This is the primary task of the Center for a Stateless Society. We warmly invite you to join us in exposing the truth, and accomplishing nothing less than true liberty, true sovereignty, in our lifetimes.

Crushing Collectivtist Thought

 

[Yeah, all that stuff is kind of thrown together but it's to get a point across that even those on the Left oppose the statist tendencies of the dominant powers.

 

BTW, I don’t support the commonly held view of the anarchist as balaclava wearing, black clad, rock throwing vandal or 19th century bomb tossing caped nihilist villain.

 

Despite occasionally displaying communal instincts, wasn't the hippy primarily a libertarian?]

[Fairweather]

 

Thanks for the pep talk, but I actually got my responsibilities well under control, thank you. 900 FICO score, beyotches.

 

This is absolutely priceless. Thanks!

[StevenSeagal]

 

Thanks for the pep talk, but I actually got my responsibilities well under control, thank you. 900 FICO score, beyotches.

 

This is absolutely priceless. Thanks!

 

You're welcome.

I figured you'd appreciate it.

[Fairweather]

You see, the deal is, the maximum FICO score possible is 850. Why you makin' shit up?

[Fairweather]

I guess makin' shit up is what libs do these days...

[StevenSeagal]

You see, the deal is, the maximum FICO score possible is 850. Why you makin' shit up?

 

Yeah, I know that. Last year when I checked my credit score it was 794. When I checked it again for this year- last month- Experian came back with "888". I didn't want to pay for the scores from the other two so I don't know what they were.

 

I'm not making this up, but I did think it was strange. So it must be the libtards at Experian.

[StevenSeagal]

Ok, so I rounded up by 12. Sue me.

[j_b]

Isn't social security "tax" an individual mandate?

 

Seems like it's hard to answer anything but "yes" to the above. Ditto for the levies imposed to fund Medicare. In one case your money will be funneled into a series of highly regulated, nominally private cartels and in the other it's going into a marginally solvent public-monopoly/intergenerational ponzi apparatus.

 

LOL In case nobody noticed, calling major social programs "ponzi schemes" to incite intergenerational strife is the latest regressive frame. I mean, their entire ideological contruct collapsed along with the markets and your retirement benefits but they'll pretend the Social security fund they stole from for decades to finance their wars are ponzi schemes, when in fact there isn't a Social Security crisis.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

It's all about the culture of self-entitlement. They DESERVE to be paid for ... by someone else.

 

the funniest part of this statement is, if I actually make more money than you (I DO work, sorry to take that away from your comeback), chances are I'd be paying for YOU more than the other way around. And to know that the well being of the country was where it was going...I would be happy with that. Which is where we differ, apparently.

 

Actually, I was thinking more in terms of Prole (hey, I shouldn't have to pay back my student loans) and a few other CC-comers. Not sure where you thought I was talking about YOU.

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Hey does anyone here know how I can ensure that 100% of my other people's tax dollars go only to things that benefit me personally, and no one else?

 

Correct that for ya, a la liberal style!

[StevenSeagal]

 

It's all about the culture of self-entitlement. They DESERVE to be paid for ... by someone else.

 

the funniest part of this statement is, if I actually make more money than you (I DO work, sorry to take that away from your comeback), chances are I'd be paying for YOU more than the other way around. And to know that the well being of the country was where it was going...I would be happy with that. Which is where we differ, apparently.

 

Actually, I was thinking more in terms of Prole (hey, I shouldn't have to pay back my student loans) and a few other CC-comers. Not sure where you thought I was talking about YOU.

 

What ever was I thinking?!?

[StevenSeagal]

Hey does anyone here know how I can ensure that 100% of my other people's tax dollars go only to things that benefit me personally, and no one else?

 

Correct that for ya, a la liberal style!

 

Wow! Fair, AND balanced!!

[prole]

Clearly it is easier for them to give up yet more freedom in exchange for an additional modicum of security--compliments of a presently benevolent government.

 

Apart from the patent absurdity of this statement coming from you, I would like to see you elaborate on this. This should be an easy one: Which freedom(s) were you referring to specifically?

[G-spotter]

Betcha Fairweather can't reply cause he's too busy deleting emails he swapped with these guys

 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/29/michigan.arrests/?hpt=T1

[prole]

Now we can add Cop Killer Conspriacists to the list with IRS Kamakazis, Pentagon Pistol Packing Suiciders, Holocaust Museum Rampagers, Abortion Doctor Shooter Uppers, Olympic Celebration Bombers, Oklahoma Tree Waterers, Klu Kluxers and the rest. I'm sure you'll forgive me, I know I missed some. It's getting hard to keep up.

[rob]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/29/michigan.arrests/?hpt=T1

 

Onward, Christian solders? I don't think that's what that song is supposed to be about....

Edited March 29, 2010 by rob

[prole]

 

and another...

Man arrested for threatening Rep. Eric Cantor

 

2 hrs 5 mins ago

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. authorities have arrested and charged a man with threatening to kill the No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, Eric Cantor, and his family, according to court documents filed on Monday.

Norman Leboon, 38, was accused of making the threat in a video on YouTube in which he said, "You receive my bullets in your office, remember they will be placed in your heads," according to an FBI affidavit accompanying the charge.

A bullet was fired through a window at Cantor's Richmond, Virginia, campaign office last week, but police said it had been shot into the air and struck the window in a downward direction, suggesting it was a stray bullet.

Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Congress have been trading accusations that each side was encouraging threats that have been made against lawmakers in the wake of the new healthcare law that Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed last week.

Authorities tracked Leboon to an address in Philadelphia where there was a state warrant pending in connection with other threats, according to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent with the two-count complaint.

Leboon was arrested on Saturday and during an interview with the FBI, he said he had made the video with his cell phone and submitted it to YouTube, the FBI affidavit said. Leboon said he had made more than 2,000 videos with threats, it said.

Describing himself as the "son of the god of Enoch," Leboon called Cantor as "pure evil" and that the lawmaker's family was "suffering because of his father's wrath," the affidavit said.

The Virginia lawmaker, who serves as chief Republican vote counter in the House of Representatives, was told of the threat over the weekend and subsequently of the arrest, his spokesman, Brad Dayspring, said in a statement.

If convicted, Leboon could face up to 15 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

 

Devolution is abrewin'!

 

 

 

[Fairweather]

Let's wrap this thread up with a few observations:

 

Choadaboy breaks out the N-word--again.

 

Philonious accuses me of lying about his messiah--until I show him the video--rendering him conspicuously silent. (For a change.)

 

Feck condemns the "unjust" health care system that covered almost $4 million dollars worth of his personal expenses--his lack of insurance notwithstanding.

 

Prole/j_b blabber unintelligible things--hysterically and in unison as usual.

 

MattP tries to lure yet another member into a situation where he can "out" them--name and address and all.

 

Hugh Conway uses homophobic slurs to illustrate his point--despite not having one.

 

Steven Segal changes the subject to boast about his fictitious credit score.

 

Wow! What a sad, pathetic, teat-suckling bunch of leftist tools you all are.

 

--Fairweather

 

[prole]

When's your Manifesto coming out?

 

Shouldn't you be watering the Tree of Liberty?

 

Have you seen any of Sarah Palin's new shows?

 

Illegal wiretapping, not such a good idea now?

 

If she's not your governor, who is?

 

Shouldn't it really be called "Romneycare"?

 

Which freedoms are we losing again?

 

Where can I get a tri-cornered hat?

 

How dreamy is John Thune?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[StevenSeagal]

Let's wrap this thread up with a few observations:

 

Choadaboy breaks out the N-word--again.

 

Philonious accuses me of lying about his messiah--until I show him the video--rendering him conspicuously silent. (For a change.)

 

Feck condemns the "unjust" health cÔare system that covered almost $4 million dollars worth of his personal expenses--his lack of insurance notwithstanding.

 

Prole/j_b blabber unintelligible things--hysterically and in unison as usual.

 

MattP tries to lure yet another member into a situation where he can "out" them--name and address and all.

 

Hugh Conway uses homophobic slurs to illustrate his point--despite not having one.

 

Steven Segal changes the subject to boast about his fictitious credit score.

 

Wow! What a sad, pathetic, teat-suckling bunch of leftist tools you all are.

 

--Fairweather

 

All the while, as always you conspicuously ignore and evade every serious question directed at you, instead cherry picking irrelevant sections of posts from which to launch personal attacks and adjective-laden name calling.

 

I changed the subject?!? Only so far as you did, in claiming that my support for health care reform has something to do with my lack of personal responsibility, as though you know something about it. Cutting away all the deliberate sarcasm I like to throw around here, I actually prefer and tend to assume the best in people, including you, despite how much and how often we disagree.

[rob]

I would totally wear a tri-cornered hat to the office. Where can I find one?