I am from the other school. Instead of thinking something is wrong with Atheists, I think there is something seriously wrong with Christians. In my world, the stigma is against those who claim to be Christians. Know how to tell a Christian Values Voter? He’s the one checking out who is in the restroom stalls and then tapping his foot and waving his hand under the stall. He’s the one on Meth purchasing a blow job.Okay, those are only individual bad Christians. And they are not even the really disgusting Christians. The truly disgusting Christians are the ones who voted for majority representation in the House and Senate and then elected a President who came into office and vetoed all health care for little children in America. The Christian Values Voters are totally to blame for this shame in our country. The Christian Value Voters are disgusting, barbarian, immoral lowlifes.Now comes a book prepared by a California Christian that provides data on how young people in the United States agree that these people who claim to be the Christian Value Voters are not really very Christian at all. Check out the link in the title to this posting.So don’t worry so much about the negativity of being an Atheist. Just remember, it is still better than being one of those lowlife Christians who go around vetoing child care for little babies in America. I wouldn’t be one of those people no matter what you called me.Peter Nuhn
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TXatheist,
atomic,
FYI, I’m not a Democrat.
It seems to me you’re painting with too wide a brush.
No one’s forcing you to wear a shoe if it doesn’t fit.
atomic,
Yes, but I choose to find a way to make my vote most effective. I know the last 2 people who ran up against my local House Representative, John Carter, and they were much more educated and knowledgable about the issues and Carter won by a landslide because he has an R next to his name in the voting booth. Bush would win again in Texas if he could run a third time. That’s the way it is no matter how much I try to talk to people. You think you are smarter because you a computer programmer? Get real. You got lucky. I know one person that is an engineer that didn’t get his job with a degree and he’s 65 and they allowed people to get in that way back then. My point was you don’t work hard. Man, your body must be exhausted after typing on keyboards all day. Wow, that is just back-breaking work and I’m so glad you are able to wake up everyday and go into that office and do that. That is way harder than construction or ditch digging cause that’s not real hard work like you do. Oh, and when you pass the CPA exam let me know cause I guarantee you ain’t that smart. And do you think I got a car? Nope. Do you think I joined the Navy to use the GI Bill which only 1% of vets actually acquire their 4 year degree that way? Yes.
Yes, you have to be willing to work but I”m talking about kids not having healthcare. Through no fault of their own they can’t always get the medical attention that they may need. That has nothing to do with your story of hard work or mine.
I see you are libertarian and I just wanted to hear you out.
I would so much like to live in that fantasy land where everyone has the same opportunity to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and work to achieve enough wealth to afford health care; where everyone is born with the same intellectual capabilities.
To hell with those who find themselves in situations where they are forced into low paying jobs or those idiots who chose nursing or teaching or art or music or acting. If they are dumb enough to follow their talent, tough.
Thank God for the Cato Institute. Otherwise far right research would never see the light of day. Sure there is a bias, but they make so much sense and fit neatly into my myopic sense of how the world works.
TXatheist,
I didn’t say what I did to demean you or to imply that I have a higher opinion of myself. I said what I did to illustrate that through working one can provide for themselves and their family.
I worked in a restaurant out of high school. I saved my money, bought a car and moved out of the house all of my own accord. My point is that nothing was provided for me, I was born with no “silver spoon” in my mouth. I went through the same school system as an awful lot of people and I did well with what I learned.
Yeah, apply the meaning of hard work only to those that swing a hammer for a living instead of using their brains. Ok, how’s this for ya?
I didn’t have continuous employment in software development. When the economy turned sour for my line of work I worked as a security guard in a local hospital for a couple of years. I stayed up on graveyard shifts on Christmas to watch an empty parking lot over night freezing my ass off in a little booth. I sat on patient watches and saw people do things in my presence that I won’t repeat here. I ran across the entire hospital very frequently from where I was locking doors to deal with belligerant drunks in the emergency room, often muscling them down onto a bed and putting them in medical restraints until they could act in a civilized manner. I walked so much that my feet, ankles and leg muscles were perpetually sore, I was always exhausted coming home from work and I had to buy new shoes every three months or so (I wore the treads completely flat on several occasions). My weight dropped rapidly merely from the 8-16 hour days (I frequently pulled double shifts even though I should not have had to). The hospitals I worked in were no cake-walk either. The first was a very busy trauma center and the second was in a downtown major metropolitan area. Have you ever had to lift someone’s obese body off of a hospital bed and move them to the morgue only to have to lift them again to get them into the freezer? Or how about helping the flight crew move some equally heavy person off of a helicopter? I’ve done it on too many occasions to count.
Having worked in a hospital I’ve seen the people I’m talking about on a daily basis – the patients that don’t have anything medically wrong with them but they take up a bed anyway. The very same people the staff know on sight by name because they’d seen them almost every day. I’ve seen the expensive abuses of government programs like Medicare first-hand.
The more socialized our medical system becomes the more prevalent these kinds of abuses will become. Socialized medicine is no utopia. People rarely abuse a system they have to pay for.
I worked in a low-wage job and provided for my family when the economy turned tough for me. Read the above. Most of the people I worked with were not terribly intelligent but they certainly weren’t poverty stricken (nor was I, I pinched my pennies and still had money to save). But we all know security guards are rich.
Nobody forces anyone to work at any job unless you believe slavery still exists in America. Nobody makes you live where you do or work for who you do. If you don’t like the economic situation where you are, move and get into a better one or stay and improve the economic situation where you are.
No, they’re only idiots if they don’t follow through and make something of themselves doing it. Nursing isn’t a poor wage job – many areas are experiencing a nursing shortage and hospitals are trying all kinds of incentives to lure people to do those jobs. The more educated a nurse and the more they work at it the more they can make – a trauma nurse in an E.R. makes more than a regular nurse with less training. Acting/music/art/etc. are all high-risk jobs. You take a risk in the endeavor, a high risk that you’ll fail. But the rewards are equally great when you succeed. What is your point?
Right, just how your myopic view prevents you from discrediting anything they’ve said and instead attacking them because you don’t agree with them. This is called an “ad hominem” and it roughly means that if you can’t argue against the point being made you attack the person(or people) making the point. Way to support your argument.
atomic
Socialized fire services seem to work pretty well. The truth is that privatization works well for some things and not so well for others. Health care is an example that actually works best with a mixture of the two.
This is incorrect, at least in my experience. Medical visits are not free but come at a standard cost – a deductible if you will, that is the same for all citizens. Hospitalization, I think, is free, but is based on need rather than desire (or wealth).
Neither system is free, it just depends on how you want to spread the cost and apportion the benefits. As for waiting lists, I posit that effectively denying access to a large minority of the population is an obscene method to minimize waiting lists.
Health care should be available to those that need it.
Or work to educate my fellow citizens that socialization is not always a bad thing. There are no panaceas, but you have had this message rammed down your throat for so long that you seem unable to rationally assess the situation.
Right, because I couldn’t possibly have done a little research on my own and decided based on the facts.
I blindly check “D” or “R” when I go to the voting booth too, because my parents voted one way and that is how I should vote too, right?
It’s not whether socialization is a bad thing or it isn’t. I’m not debating the morality of one political system or another. Our government mismanages entitlement programs. It doesn’t appear as if Britain or Canada does any better. This leads me to the conclusion that the government shouldn’t be involved. This particular bill alone should give you a clue – the Republicans don’t really want it (but they still voted for it when it was small and now won’t allow it because it no longer wants to be small) and the Libertarians sure as hell don’t want it. They play politics with it and it will end up another broken and worthless program. The best solution is to not give them the power to do it to begin with.
Nobody ever stopped anyone from creating a charity or asking people to donate to it. I don’t have a choice or a right to stop paying taxes so in effect it is your belief that the force of law should be used to make me pay for something I do not agree with.
And this is relevant how exactly? I can only assume that you are suggesting that charities should form to offer health care to those that the current system fails to cover. In my opinion this would represent an abject failure of the government to serve and protect its constituents. If a society is willing but unable to care for its population, that represents a shortcoming of that society, if it able but unwilling to do so, that represents a callous and cruel society.
That is how society works. I disagree with waging a war of aggression, but still my taxes are used to fund this abomination. As a functioning society we do not get to pick and choose where our taxation contributions are spent or squandered.
Access to reasonable health care is a responsibility society has to its members. Government, at least in theory, represents society’s members more than for profit corporations.
Again, I’d stress that there is a place for private health care – just not a monopolized place.
I wish that were true. They better represent special interests and anything that will get them voted back into office on the next term, not what is best for their constituents.
And a major special interest group is the medical insurance industry. Do you think the insurers have the interests of society at heart? At least we the people get a say in who represents us in our govt, we get no say in what goes on behind the doors of the corporations.
atomictesting,
Actually my little snark was not specifically directed at you. It was just the expression of an opinion; one that I have arrived at over many years of contemplation, observation and critical reasoning. From what you have written I am now convinced that your opinion is predicated on emotion, and your research seems to go only far enough to support your beliefs. It seems that you are unaware that the US already pays more per capita on health care than Canada or that the US is ranked 37 in quality of health care.
I have no interest in arguing with you since I have about as much chance of changing your mind as I do phreedm’s. My reason for writing was to express my disgust at the appalling selfishness exhibited by every Libertarian I encounter. The, if I can do it so can others, attitude indicates a lack of understanding when it comes to human behaviour and development. I prefer to live in a society rather than amongst a group of individuals.
Sure you do. Don’t pay for their products and services and you’ll find that has a profound effect on how they behave.
Right, lest we forget that we live in the “I can’t” society now. Land of opportunity, my ass. The land of “opportunity to live on everyone else’s dime” is more like it.
We are Borg. Resistance is futile. We will socialize you.
And by the way, Obeah, you’re the one behaving as Phreedm is right now. I’ve not seen you link one study, back up one claim, or refute one statement I’ve made.
You jump in, hurl a couple insults about how “selfish” Libertarians are and then vanish again. Isn’t that exactly how a troll behaves?
Refute my claims with contrary evidence instead of vague “this has been my experience” statements. That’s the same thing the xians say – they base their “facts” purely off of anecdotal evidence – biased personal experience. I’ve given all of you links to facts, evidence, and have even resorted to including my own anecdotes since I was pressed to give them. I didn’t put any weight in them, but I provided what I was asked for.
As far as being snarky is concerned, I give it right back just as it was received.
Atomictesting, you also have to pay for the cost of the firebrigade, police, civil service, homeland security, schools,etc….
Do you agree with those and if so why or why not? Wouldn’t it be better if those were also regulated by unadulterated capatalism.
You wrote:”Nobody forces anyone to work at any job unless you believe slavery still exists in America.”
Ah yes I see where this is going. In other words if the economy is bad and you can’t find work you should use the money that you don’t have to travel to another city, state, country. Or you can always use the money that you don’t have to get better educated. Even if you do find a low paying job it’s only your own fault that you don’t get promoted to CEO of the company because we all know that the truly hardworking and bright people always rise to the top. *yep, sarcsm*
Which explains why so many hardworking people can barely make ends meet.
You wrote :”Don’t pay for their products and services and you’ll find that has a profound effect on how they (the companies)behave.”
BS, because you assume that there is an actual choice. There isn’t it. The only choice there is if you want to be fleeced by company A or fleeced by company B.
The only thing the health insurrence companies are interested in is the stockholders opinion. The stockholders are only interested in how much profit was made. There for you get a system that isn’t meant to actually help but a system that is meant to increase it’s profits in what ever way it can.
There are private run prisons in the US. Do they provide a better and cheaper service then the normal run prisons? NO. Are they institutions to help the perp back into society and give him skills to get a proper job? NO. Are they drugs free? NO. Are they gang violence free? NO.
Do they make lots of profit? Hell yes.
Anecdotal evidence is just that, anecdotal. This doesn’t however mean that it is per definition untrue nor does it mean that it is conclusive evidence. It is what it is. If however the overall majority of anecdotal evidence points a certain way then chances are that it points to a valid conclusion. Or in other words, if the people of Europe and Canada are spending less on healthcare and live longer, are happier with their system then the average Joe in the US is of his and if not only M. Moore but also a lot of other people complain about the system in the States then it would explain why the US has such a bad result in statistics.
atomictesting,
blockquote>And by the way, Obeah, you’re the one behaving as Phreedm is right now. I’ve not seen you link one study, back up one claim, or refute one statement I’ve made.
I really don?t see the need to find the research that you ought have done. You?re a computer guy, look it up. Compare those pinko countries with the land of the free. (Actually phreedm provides plenty of links, all as valuable as yours.)
Well, I do believe that it is a selfish position. When did I vanish? I went to bed and I am ?working hard? to provide for those lazy ass retards who won?t find a better job or jobs and are sucking society dry.
I guess we ALL base our opinions on personal experience.
As is your right, but it seems that is all you are willing to give.
You are angry so I won?t take this as evidence of stupidity.
Atomic
I think what you mean is to not use their products and services (health care), as merely not paying for them will incur the wrath of the financial services industry.
So to exert influence over a health care corporation, I am expected to forgo (sacrifice) my health? Are you nuts? They know they have you and I in a no choice, no representation squeeze.
And let’s not forget that there are some 35 million Americans that “choose” not to use the products and services of the health care industry. Perhaps you could explain how this “profound effect” is improving their representation in said industry? Hmmm, thought not.
atomic,
I’m assuming(I know, I know, ass-u-me)you’re talking about the “health care” INSURANCE companies here:
The effect I see by doing that is more folks who,(should they actually need care) would be sacrificing their health or lives to try to make a point to corporations that don’t give a shit in the first place.
Many of the folks that need help don’t have the money to afford insurance to begin with (and more and more companies are cutting back insurance benefits or eliminating them altogether by using tactics such as hiring temps or part-timers w/o benefits). How are they supposed to have any effect on how the insurance corporations behave?
What percentage of wages do you think one should pay towards health insurance?
You seem to have done alright for yourself, but I would postulate you grew up with folks that provided for you until such a time as you felt you could fend for yourself. Believe it or not, there are many that haven’t had that opportunity.
The reality is that keeping a poor lower class is to the benefit of a rich upper class. I’ll acknowledge that complete elimination of poverty is pretty near impossible, but upholding systems in which only a rare example can get out is a form of slavery.
These are the type of conditions that history has shown us to cause (dare I say) revolutions.
A civilized society ought to consider the welfare of children as they can’t fend for themselves and are indeed the foundation of the future.
Call me crazy, I just think we can do better.
There are several different hospital systems where I live, including three hospitals that are literally each on three different street corners. If I don’t like the service one of them provides I need only go across the street. Literally.
There are hospitals all over the place and I have a choice which one I use (in non-emergency care, anyway), and in the case I’m unconscious I’ll end up wherever the ambulance takes me. If it’s a matter of saving my life I’m hardly going to care what the price tag is and any one of them has to treat me anyway regardless of whether I can pay.
The program exists currently and the Democrats want to expand it. Have any of you been reading what I’m saying? It’s not that the program is getting the veto, it’s that the expansion of the program is getting the veto. Pull your heads out of the sand and look around. If the program gets cancelled it is because the Democrats are trying to force the President to dump more money into this program – one that isn’t covering the children it was intended to cover as it is. If they want to expand it they have to get 95% of the poor children it’s intended to cover under the program. They haven’t done that, and in New Jersey they’re abusing the program and even going so fars as to enroll adults in it.
For the first time (too little, too late, but we’ve got to start somewhere) the President is actually trying to be fiscally responsible. This is a traditional plank of the Republican party and all the screaming you do about this program being “for the children” doesn’t change the fact that the President won’t veto it if the Democrats don’t ask for too much more than they already are. 6.6 million children are covered by this program, the President wants to fund it for even more but the Democrats are trying to use it to force socialized medicine on an unwilling public and the President won’t stand for it.
atomictesting is just wrong, “Socialized medicine ends up costing more because everyone decides to go to the doctor at every paper cut because “hell, it’s free, right?” No, it’s not free. It costs us all money.”.
The U.S. spends 50% more per capita on health care than the most expensive European country’s program. Compared to some countries, it is double.
Libertarianism may not be a dirty word, but it is a delusion. As has been mentioned before, fire protection and police protection are “socia list” programs. In fact, they are health care programs. People in prison get “socia lized” health care.
I’m not sure where atomic got the no out-of-state insurance info from, but I’m from PA and I’ve bought health “insurance” from TX. It ended up that I nad to pay premiums, AND cover medical costs (my “insurance” denied payment for everything). It was about $400 a month(seven years ago); I figured that the premium money was better spent going straight to the health care providers.
Hey, we could always say to the poor and/or underpaid, “Let them eat cake,” and be done with the whole annoying (to the the rich and/or insured) situation.
If you’re a grocery store clerk, bartender, fast-food worker, bus driver, farmer, writer, ditch-digger etc. we really don’t need you. Well, we need you, but we’d rather not be bothered with your winey-ass problems!
Back that number up or I’ll assume you made it up on the spot.
I provided links. Read them. We get better health care for the price we pay for it – unless you don’t mind the over 50% mortality rate for prostate cancer in England. I’ve said it once and I’ll asy it again, I’ll take the 20% we get here.
Since all of you are dead set on spouting off numbers, not backing them up with any links to credible sources and are more prepared to sling mud in favor of your beloved ideals than argue any actual points, I’m out. I’m through with this conversation. It’s “shit or get off the pot” time. No more anecdotes, no more mud slinging. If you want to continue talking to me about it, back up your claims (and I’d say the same damn thing to Phreedm).
atomic,
I did a quick search back through the thread and found but one reference from you, and many claims that were not referenced. I’m okay with that, but it seems a bit rich that you take objection to your opponents doing the same (less the occasional reference).
On a lighter note I’d like to point out the following:
I think you’ll find that chance of death in both instances is actually 100% (messiahs not withstanding).
**smile**
Incidentally a very quick talk with Mr Google tends to support cry4T’s cost critique.
http://dll.umaine.edu/ble/U.S.%20HCweb.pdf
There’s even a pretty graph that spells it out.
I also liked another point in the paper
For shame South Africa!
I think we are roughly equal on the number of references now.
The first thing they try and tackle in the report you linked is the cost of health care. It’s something addressed by John Goodman in the link I gave you. Our hospitals keep up-to-date on technology. Britain and Canada are continuing to use old and aging technologies. We spend and get more from health care. Here’s a quote:
Also addressed was the “Equal Access” argument. Apparently Britain hasn’t been keeping up on their reporting they but the last two times they released data it showed that they hadn’t really improved access to health care at all and in fact it got worse in the thirty years since the NHS was started. Worse. It got even worse 10 years later, and the government apparently fell silent about it for their most recent expected report.
It also seems that our elderly get better care here, so our access to healthcare for that group is actually quite a bit better than other countries.
They talk about life expectancy in the report to which my linked paper says:
The infant mortality rates have changed from when this report was published:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate_%282005%29
The U.S. was only second in improvement in infant mortality since the time of the report you linked (improving by 0.9 and trailing only two other countries – the U.K. and Italy).
Assuming that the Democrats don’t force Bush to veto this program and never manage to settle on it then it ceases to be a problem, doesn’t it? It should have eliminated this disparity in fairness, and SCHIP was passed in 1997 (three years before the WHO’s report that is cited here). It sure seems like it should have put us up to par with the other countries that are ahead of us in infant mortality, but it didn’t. Why not? Are we to assume that this means the SCHIP program has failed to do anything to improve our IMR?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality
That’s just one example they list (read the link for more) about why these numbers are very difficult to compare – nobody is using the same criteria. They also provide cited examples. Read them over and judge for yourself whether these numbers are clear-cut and easy to determine.
Do you see where this is going? The link I gave has almost point-for-point refutations of the statements made by the University of Maine and even points out some misleading statements like the one in the summarized suggestion at the bottom making the claim that:
Which John Goodman has this to say about:
Aha! So the government merely passes the administration costs on to the hospitals/doctors to deal with so that their administrative overhead looks better. How considerate of them!
I’d have gone through point-for-point but the link I provided pretty much does that anyway. It would seem that many of the claims made by the linked report you gave are cherry picking the data from the WHO report to support their findings. Mr. Goodman’s book has far more cited references (which he hints at in the bottom of the letter). It would seem he’s done a far more in-depth look at the data than the University of Maine and yet he comes to the opposite conclusions.
My apologies if the formatting looks screwed up, the site’s filters stopped me from posting and my data was lost when I clicked “Back” on my browser. I had to capture the data from the submitted page through an external program and manually fixed the HTML encoding.
I really hate that this filter is so inflexible that I can’t put the word “sociali$t” (a legitimate word that has nothing to do with spammers) in there yet it doesn’t stop someone from putting ciali$ in anyway.
listen up atomictesting, “Back that number up or I’ll assume you made it up on the spot.”
Look it up yourself, it is easy to find. I am tired of spoon feeding basket cases like you who are too lazy to do any research themselves.
Heathen-thanks for attributing that quote to me, but it was bernarda
Apologies to Cry4T for the mix up in attribution.
Atomic,
You asked for a reference to show that Bernada was not making this up. You have a reference – there are plenty more.
I’m not in the least surprised that you can find references that show an opposite point of view. After all there’s a huge industry invested in maintaining the status quo.
You also said that you were done with the discussion. I know I have no desire to push it any further. I am happy to agree to disagree. I doubt anything I can say will change your position and like wise with you opinions on my position.
Can we just agree to differ?
I don’t know all the details of health care in the United States and other countries but, it certainly seems that the system in the United States should be better.
Also, I could be wrong but aren’t SCHIP and Medicare government supported programs?
And if health care costs in the United States which doesn’t provide health care for all the citizen are compared to the health care costs of countries that do provide health care for all the citizens, wouldn’t the comparison naturally favor the nation that doesn’t incur costs for all citizens?
Also, there have been MANY U.S. citizens going to other countries for health care and medicine. Which country picks up the administrative and miscellaneous expenses for those services?
Also, if the “don’t get any health care” are averaged with the “get all the best health care”, that is the people in each of those groups, doesn’t that put the United States lower on the scale of services provided?
And if the people that “don’t get any health care” could somehow afford to be covered, wouldn’t that increase the costs in the United States? Well, unless those people’s out of pocket expense was greater than the cost of service. In that case they could provide some funding for the people that are getting the best health care. Funny how things like that work in the United States.
Negative. If you make a statement it is on you to back it up with facts. The xians tell us there is a God and that the onus is on us to prove that there is not. How is this any different than what they do? If you want to be indignant because your feelings were in some way hurt, that’s your prerogative. Looking at a problem emotionally is no way to solve it. I have, of course, been accused of being emotional about this but TXatheist was the most accurate in his choice of word “passionate.”
I am one human being and if many others get me to do all their research for them I’ll be wasting significant time. If everyone wants to contribute equally to a discussion they bring their own facts to the door. The assumption will always be that a non-corroborated statement will be fictitious and made up to advance someone’s point entirely.
No, I said I was through with the conversation if people were not going to play fair. Slinging mud, dropping non-corroborated statements as “facts,” putting all the onus of backing up one’s claims upon one individual, etc. are all tactics used to annoy or exhaust the individual that you don’t agree with so that they will go away rather than confronting the argument you disagree with using reason.
As far as those of you feeling comfortable in your belief regardless of actual supporting facts, realize that we as atheists are also of a minority belief. Do not take comfort in the fact that many believe as you do and often come to the wrong conclusions. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink as an example.
If you no longer believe that a civil discussion based upon the rules of debate can continue then we probably have little choice.
atomic,
Kinds putting words into my mouth there bucko. All I’m trying to get across is that we both have entrenched positions for which we can provide supporting documentation. I’m in favour of a mix of private and public health care. You seem to be of the opinion that public health care is universally a bad thing.
Why does every word I say have to be seen as disparagement to the intended recipient of my words?
I give up.
atomic
I think you exagerate claiming “every word”, but since you ask, in this case it’s because you’re telling me what I believe. Assigning me a position of your own choosing.
At least do me the courtesy of allowing me to state me own beliefs in this regard.
For the record I am all for structured, polite debates, despite your implicit affirmation to the contrary.
Incidentally, i have given some thought to your (Atomic’s) comment about having three hospitals on three corners of an intersection. While I agree that this is good for consumers who want choice, it seems to my mind set to be a crazy way of serving the health needs of a population.
I think this probably underscores the fundamental difference in our positions. Yours, I think – and please correct me if i an mistaken, is that health care is a business and the market forces will work to offer the best bang for buck.
Mine is that health care is a service that should reach all citizens regardless of their actual or potential contributions to society and without a view to profit.
Neither system is perfect by a long stretch, but I struggle to see past the inherent capriciousness of a society based solely on the former.
I don’t mean to be condescending, but I think that perhaps being brought up with the latter and introduced to the former gives me a perspective shared by few in the US.
The middle ground, I think, is to use the two models judiciously to provide the best of both worlds.
Alex, I know your experience is similar to mine and yet you have (I think) an opposite point of view to me. Maybe you’d care to share an opinion.
Wrong. I am saying to take a step back, analyze the situation as if you were a third party observer and make a judgement call whether this dialog has further merit. By using the term “debate” I implied that there were multiple participants and that it is clearly not a private discussion and that many wanted to “sound off” so-to-speak.
I believe my statement clearly said “do you believe that this discussion can return to a civil track and that we’re actually learning anything debating it?” I implied nothing of my opinion of your position and quite candidly asked what your (the general “you” as in the readers of my comments) motivation was in continuing debating it. My requirements were civility and baking up ones claims. My motivation was seeking understanding of your (again, the general “you”) point of view through a more scientific (using evidence to advance a position) rather than academic/philosophical means.
I observe what is “preached” and present evidence (and opinion) that what is “practiced” is far from attaining the lofty goal.
Several of you seek to find “hidden meaning” to my words. It’s simply not there. I try to be concise because I’ve a tendency toward verbosity and suspect that in my editorial consolidation I probably lose meaning somewhere that eventually someone picks up on and misinterprets. Compound it with the fact that the written word loses so much that nonverbal cues serve to supply (they buttress verbal inadequacies) and we’ve got a recipe for communications breakdown.
And “I give up.” means precisely what it says it means.
I’ll leave the interpretation of the emoticon to you (general sense)… Did I mean it to be snarky, insulting, humorous, or does the little bastard hide deeper meaning?
People in prisons, the military, congress, the White House, various state offices, etc. get socialized medicine and health care. So why shouldn’t everyone else have it?
Bernada,
don’t bother…atomictesting can’t be bothered to debate with people that actually have been dealing with “soc1alised healthcare” their entire life.
As you may have noticed, he didn’t once bother to address anyone else but Celebrant Prince, Peter, TXatheist, 666 and HeatheNZ.
Or in other words he avoids debate with those that have lived their entire live with “soc1alist healthcare”.
The only time he even bothered to acknowledge your writings was when you mentioned a statistic that so went against everything he believes that he pounced on you.
Debating with him about healthcare is just like debating with a gun nut about the sillyness of the right to bear arms up to and included a AK-47 with silencer and infra-red scope.
I am that “gun nut” and am proud to be so. The Second Amendment is the protection for “We The People” against our government. We should not be more poorly armed than our government just because a few people are uncomfortable with the idea.
Don’t bother with the slippery slope argument to personal nuclear devices. That’s where this line of argument always goes and I’m sick and tired of it.
And for the record, I don’t tend to respond to anecdotes. This is why you didn’t get a response. Anecdotes are a favorite bastion of scoundrels with a point of view to push.
For the clueless here, this veto was a deliberate political campaign to make Bushco look bad. He doesn’t need it.
This SCHIP expansion plan was to include children of the already affluent. Even from the perspective of a socia1ist it’s a bad idea, because the funding for this expansion was to come from if I remember correctly something like a 26 cent increase in taxes on cigarettes.
Why is this stupid? First of all, a raise in the already bloated cigarette tax (cigarettes are already the most taxed product in the USA) would discourage people from smoking, or encourage them to purchase from other areas, and the tax would never be collected. Second, smokers are already considered part of the lower class. Tax a guy who already has poor health himself due to habitual smoking and is already in the lower income bracket in order to pay for an upper-class child? Insane!
What I find even more ridiculous is that when I bring this up the socia1ist typically responds that the smoker “deserves it” because of his disgusting habit and he takes responsibility for it.
But I thought people weren’t responsible for their own choices, and some just got caught up in unfortunate situations? Oh that’s right, you only care if it’s a “victimized” group. Where’s your compassion now? It’s blood money, plain and simple and not only are you uninformed, but you are steeped in knee-jerk (maybe even unintended) hipocrisy. Quite simply, your party is playing you like a fiddle.
Here’s an idea. You soc1alists constantly complain about how the world doesn’t care enough. Well if you comprise even a small percentage of the USA, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is, get together and pay for it out of your own pockets? Be a force for good instead of forcing your goodness. Nothing’s stopping you from doing that save for your incessantly running mouths.
Like AtomicTesting, I too was not handed everything on a silver platter. For several years of my life my primary daily meal was a dollar burger in a 14% unemployment area of town. I got a job, saved up and left.
Unlike AtomicTesting, unfortunately I also picked up the habit of smoking. Even when I was coughing up blood and passing out, I knew it was my own damn fault. Even when I was living in a 10×12 shed 32 miles from the nearest town with no amenities, I knew it was my own damn fault.
I had every reason to be socia1ist, but instead I chose to accept responsibility for what happens to me on principle. This is my life, not yours. And they’re my children, not yours. I’m responsible for them. You are responsible for yours. If I can’t hack it, then I should give them to someone who can, because I don’t deserve things I take no responsibility for.
As far as medical care is concerned, the uninsured figures are bloated beyond reason by unscrupulous individuals. A large chunk of the figure of “uninsured” are the so- called “immortals”, people in their twenties who can actually afford insurance, but instead choose not to pay in lieu of spending their hard-earned cash on entertainment and expensive dining. I’m not kidding, people spend more per month on trivial stuff like this than they do or would on health insurance.
America’s health insurance industry is not that bad. The problem is more related to the attitude of Americans in general. They are, quite simply put, irresponsible. They don’t save like the people of other nations do; they put themselves in debt to support their ability to live well beyond their means, and they should take responsibility for it on a personal level just like I do.
From what I can see this thread has gotten a little off subject “Unchristian”.
As a follower of Jesus and former “unchristian” I have to say that what I have read on this post about how Christan’s act is true.
I wrote my own ;ost on this subject at my blog TroyDooly.com titled “Confession of a Pompous Christain.”
John 3:17 states it best, Jesus spoke these words “I did not come to condemn the world, but to save the world.”
So, I am not sure why Christians find it so important to condemn everyone or everything we don’t understand. It is sure not what Jesus did or taught.
troy,
Were you there when the alleged jesus allegedly said anything?
To date there is NO contemporary evidence of the existence of this mythical figure!
Compare your myth to this one:
which predates yours by 600 or so years.
666,
Thanks for the short comment.
Since you used the words “contemporary evidence” I am sure you already know that very little if anything has been found that was written specifically by JESUS,or that has been dated as written directly to events as they happened.
However, if we go to the father of logic Aristotle and apply “First principles” I am sure we would be able to come to a logical conclusion on the evidence (if any) of a historical Jesus.
My comment was completely aimed at the context of the original post
Quote from above – “I am from the other school. Instead of thinking something is wrong with Atheists, I think there is something seriously wrong with Christians.”
In which I used the words of Jesus as recorded down through history in the Bible.
I made it clear when I joined this blog, my intention at being here is not to push my personal beliefs down anyones throat.
If would be very rude of me as a guest to change my intentions.
I am here to learn and understand why you and others do not believe the way I do, not to change your beliefs.
I will be reviewing the link above to learn more.
I can say this. In your parting comment “Predates your by 600 years.” That may be a little off base. Christianity is based on the ancient Hebrew people, which were founded by Abraham around 2000bc.
The religion known as christianity is based on christ. Hence the name. The ancient hebrew religion is called judaism.
I think that if you start calling jews christians and vice versa, you may be opening up a can of worms you may wish you hadn’t.
Regardless, they’re both based on mythology, ignorance and lies.
You are using “hearsay evidence” in regards to what a presumed (on your part)person said. Try using the word “alleged” when referring to such statements. It’s a little more honest.
Thank you for commenting on what I wrote.
I do have one question based on the few things you have written.
Can you prove without a shadow of a doubt using contemporary eveidence that there is no God, or that the historical figure known as Jesus never existed.
This would help me to better understand where you are coming from.
Based on your last comments, I can see that either you left out some of your knowledge or you just do not know the history of Judaism and Christianity.
This will help me to better understand your last post.
I’m your God idea. I command you, to go away ugly troll. Will you disobey the order of your god idea?
Look out the holy spooky ghost is watching you!
Do you have the guts to shame your God idea?
troy,
At first glance, I have to assume that you are unaware as to the meaning of the word atheist (of which I am one example).
I was going to use the word ignorant but, I know some people attach a negative stigma to that word unnecessarily. For example: I am personally ignorant in regards to how to perform neurosurgery. Yet, if I were going to discuss that topic intelligently, I would take it upon myself to become better educated on the subject before bringing it up.
If, after becoming well informed on the facts regarding the subject, I chose to ignore said facts (in favor of having already made up my mind instead), I could legitimately be called “willfully ignorant”. That term does have a negative stigma attached as well it should.
One display of regular ignorance is in what you are implying in the text of the blockquote below.
One can be atheist in regard to many things. It indicates “a” (“lack of” or “without”)and “theist” (“believer”). There are some who would go so far as to assert “I believe there is no god.” but, that is not the same statement as “I don’t believe there is/are [a] god/s.”
As I don’t know the level of your education, I hope you won’t take offense when I tell you this is a distinction which most people should have learned before graduating “high school”.
All the above is in order to analyse what you wrote here
You are displaying your ignorance again in the use of logical fallacies.
The first one is called a “Strawman”, in which you imply someone said something (which they actually did not) and move to destroy that (non-existent) argument in order to try to make yourself look smarter.
The second is called “Shifting the Burden of Proof”. The person making an assertion (in this case as to the existence of a god(s) is the one that has to back up their statement with evidence. If I say I have an invisible dragon in my garage, you have every right to say “I don’t/won’t believe you until you provide the evidence. I would be stupid for me to require you to prove that such a creature doesn’t exist.
I think I have been patient and have spent far more time on this than I had intended. If you are indeed sincere about educating yourself on these matters, I suggest you do a little homework on your own beforehand. You might even try some of the resources listed on the right hand side of the main page.
Failure to make an effort on your part will indicate that you’re merely here to be pissy. If that’s the case, you ought to cease behaving like a sneak in posting on a subject which had ended a week previously and which the average poster here would not see or respond to.
Troy:
I’ll 1 up you on this.
I believe in a little pink teapot circling the earth. Can you prove beyond a ’shadow of a doubt’ that it doesn’t?
(Russel’s teapot, if you’re curious as to the analogy)
666,
Thank you for the genuine reply. I am very ignorant to all that atheists believe.
As I wrote in my first post I am here to learn, not to debate what I believe.
I know both of the authors of unChristian and after reading it, I realized how much I did not know.
You are correct I should have focused on the date of the post, when I first wrote.
I will take your advice go through the links and educate myself deeper.
Again, thank you for being patient. I think all my responses show I am not here to be pissy or to change how anyone else believes.
Troy,
Although I can’t/don’t speak for anyone else other than myself, if you respond in the manner which you have in your last post, you may find that there are many folks here that will respond politely in kind.
One of the posters here goes by the screen name of “spanders”, and for the most part, is welcome here. He has shown that he accepts the caveat:
Since you mentioned looking at the links, one that I particularly like is:
http://www.whywontgodhealamputees.com
The quality of the presentation may not be perfect, but it raises some very interesting points.
There are others on this site from whom you might gain different perspectives by introducing yourself in a current posting. Sure, some will mock,etc., but if you are sincere and don’t start preaching, there are many insights available.
Good luck.