Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
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GasBandit
Staff member
To quote my parents, and every boss I've had, "If you don't show you can be trusted with the smaller stuff, how can we trust you with the big stuff?"
Of course, some of us also suspect that the ACA was designed to fail. Collateral damage from its collapse will also kill the private insurance agency industry, and then "Welp, looks like we've got no choice! Single payer it is! A-hyuk!"
You guys don't "survive" cancer any better. You just know sooner. It doesn't make you more likely to "beat" cancer. Understand the difference between Survival Rate and Mortality Rate. The second is much much more important when comparing health care systems. As the video says, Survival Rate is really only useful for the individual patient for "what can I expect from here" and not which system is better.
I want to discuss this but since I'm trying to come at it with a fresh perspective, I started to look into figures and I don't have the time to go through all the related information such as when was each statistic calculated, other figures such as children mortality rates, life expectancy, healthy life expectancy, survival rates vs GDP vs GDP% spent on healthcare, etc.
Doesn't seem fair. But really, that's priorities. The US could probably convice Europe/NATO countries to up their defense budgets a bit, contribute more to 'world policing' or whatever but of course, that could have the unintended consequence of losing hegemony.
Fair point. Although a USA state ~ a European state in population
Also, when I said 'countries that have single payer already' I really meant 'countries that have universal healthcare/public healthcare systems'. Very different things, don't know what I was thinking.
Interesting, but isn't it a bit simplistic?
Mortality rates lump together the 'goodness' of the healthcare system with other causes of mortality such as lifestyle choices or environmental effects that may impact cancer incidence. Or even the distribution of diagnosis (is it better or worse to have everyone screened every 3 years than 50% of people each year and 50% of people every 10 years?)
On the other hand, while comparing same year survival rates may be useless, you could in principle compare the whole survival rate curve (1-year, 3-year, 10-year...) and get some info from that.
It's possible it's a bit flawed, but not by much. The only reason it would be lower for any cancer would be "you die of something else before you get cancer, or during that time" So other factors make your country look BETTER on that measure, not worse. Failed states where the majority don't live past their 20s may have an insanely LOW cancer mortality rate, because they're dying of everything else (starvation, war, infectious disease), but when talking about 1st-world countries, mortality rate is much much better than survival rate for any one or group of causes, for the reasons outlined in the video.
GasBandit
Staff member
So remember when President Obama met with the Pope? Afterwards, he was asked what they discussed, and he said they talked about income inequality and helping the poor (Isn't socialism wonderful, your Eminence?), and when pressed on it, said that religious freedom/Obamacare's contraception mandate "never came up."
Yeah, well, seems the pontiff has a different story. The vatican says they focused on the issue of religious freedom, abortion and contraception.
Who does that? Who goes to see the pope and then lies about what they discussed, publicly, on TV? Pathological. I suppose it comes as no surprise that he lied to the Pope himself as well as about what they talked about, later.
How did he not expect to get called on this one? Did he just hope that nobody would say anything? And moreover, what in the heck did he hope to possibly accomplish/gain from it?
Yeah, well, seems the pontiff has a different story. The vatican says they focused on the issue of religious freedom, abortion and contraception.
Who does that? Who goes to see the pope and then lies about what they discussed, publicly, on TV? Pathological. I suppose it comes as no surprise that he lied to the Pope himself as well as about what they talked about, later.
How did he not expect to get called on this one? Did he just hope that nobody would say anything? And moreover, what in the heck did he hope to possibly accomplish/gain from it?
GasBandit
Staff member
Furthermore, they've been crowing about how now Obamacare's got 6 million (alleged) signups, so VERY close to their 7-million-and-change goal for March 31st... But didn't the whole "crisis" that precipitated this entire health care upheaval over 6 years ago spring from the assertion that we had 40 million uninsured? Even if we don't count people who have lost their existing coverage due to the ACA, that's still a paltry 15% at the point where it is now illegal to be uninsured (except of course that now there's an extension that isn't an extension because they swore up and down that there would be NO extension so this extension can't possibly be an extension). This is supposed to be a success?
), it's safe to say that the people who have purchased insurance and paid premiums on plans from the site is lower.
GasBandit
Staff member
Yeah, a few rednecks with guns never gave an overreaching federal agency any kind of pause at all. Nope, never. Certainly not.
GasBandit
Staff member
The whole point is for them to realize "acting tyrannical" is not going to work/not in their interest.
Well, fortunately these people were out in the open, and not holed up in a flammable compound. Took the "burn them out and blame it on them" option off the table.
What's going to happen is a few weeks from now, when this has all died down, they will simply issue a lien on his property for the amount he owes. The same day the local cops will show up to evict him and seize the property. At that point, if he doesn't comply he is fighting local cops just doing their job, not fighting off the EBIL GUVMENT HORDE of BLM. When he opens fire on cops, no one is going to look twice when he's gunned down for being a fucking idiot.
You want to talk about welfare? Our tax dollars have been subsidizing this scumbag since 1993 and in the meantime his herd has been fucking with the wildlife, harming endangered species, and destroying native sites... and HE claims to be the victim here. He should be in jail.
... why did I read the comments?
GasBandit
Staff member
Yes, no hunting in the king's forest. Quite.
It's more like "No grazing on The People's land unless you pay for the right... like everyone else does." He claims that his family has been grazing there since 1870 and therefore has rights to it predating it's inclusion into the United States... except Nevada became a state in 1864 and the land belonged to Mexico before that. He also hasn't provided any evidence of his family's so called roots there prior to US statehood.
So what I'm saying isn't that people don't have the right to protect their property or to public land use... I'm saying THIS PARTICULAR GUY is a liar and a thief. He was a free rider all his life and his actions have damaged the land that others pay for the right to use... money which is then used to protect and restore the land that is being used. He needs to pay his fair share, even if doing so would destroy his livelihood.
GasBandit
Staff member
He may not pre-date the state, but he predates the BLM - which was established in 1946.
The entire pretense for the BLM's control of the area is that it is the home of an endangered tortoise, apparently so "endangered" that it's now overflowing its habitat and having to be euthanised in droves. But that pretense is only that - pretense. The tortoise wasn’t of concern when Senator Harry Reid got the BLM (which is headed by his former senior advisor) to literally change the boundaries of the tortoise’s habitat to accommodate the development of his top donor, Harvey Whittemore (who is now convicted of illegal campaign donations to Reid). BLM "owns" 84% of Nevada, and its concerns for the habitats of the animals is highly situational - they've waived their rules for wind and solar development. The feds say the cattle were trespassing on the land illegally, but hey, if those cattle were people, the feds would have been selling them guns, giving them debit cards and cell phones.
The entire pretense for the BLM's control of the area is that it is the home of an endangered tortoise, apparently so "endangered" that it's now overflowing its habitat and having to be euthanised in droves. But that pretense is only that - pretense. The tortoise wasn’t of concern when Senator Harry Reid got the BLM (which is headed by his former senior advisor) to literally change the boundaries of the tortoise’s habitat to accommodate the development of his top donor, Harvey Whittemore (who is now convicted of illegal campaign donations to Reid). BLM "owns" 84% of Nevada, and its concerns for the habitats of the animals is highly situational - they've waived their rules for wind and solar development. The feds say the cattle were trespassing on the land illegally, but hey, if those cattle were people, the feds would have been selling them guns, giving them debit cards and cell phones.
That land still belonged to government even then. The whole point of the Homestead Acts were to give people a legal means to acquire unappropriated federal lands. If his ancestors thought that grazing land was so primo, they should have fucking bought it. It wouldn't have even taken much to get it back then.
This is true, horrible, and stupid... but that doesn't change the fact that it wasn't his land.
While you're right, I think the whole "everyone is watching you" thing is what stopped them, not the weapons the guy had. As you said before, no one wanted another Waco or Ruby Ridge, especially with the local news on hand. Personally, I'd have just confiscated the herd but apparently they even gave that back too.
That said, he still owes the money. If he doesn't give it them, he'd better be prepared to shot SOMEONE next time... because I assure you, a debt collecting company gives no fucks about publicity.
Yeah I'm going to laugh everytime you try and make a point about the US being a tyrannical government stopped by civilians with guns. It never stops being a funny tin foil hat conspirtist theory.
GasBandit
Staff member
at everything, full stop.
Well since you don't listen to anything but an echo chamber in your head anyway (when it comes to these topics)
GasBandit
Staff member
Oh, it isn't tyrannical yet, but it's sure been testing the waters lately. Dipping a toe, so to speak. Let's hope they find it a little too hot for their liking. But I suspect that AshburnerX is right and they'll find some less overt way of driving Cliven Bundy out of business to complete their land grab, as they did with his 50 neighbors.
The cost of their little excursion with armed federal officers and vehicles and helicopters et cetera cost barely shy of a million dollars... which is what they say he owes. Obviously it wasn't about the money, it was about power, and trying to demonstrate forcefully that the peasantry don't get to tell the elite "no."
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http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...violence-erupted-in-ranch-showdown-with-feds/
What a bunch of heroes.
GasBandit
Staff member
How reprehensible that they burst into homes, dragged women out to this place, forced a gun in their hands, and then...
Hrm, wait a minute... could it be that maybe there's more to this story than the slant put on it by think progress?
Direct quote from the guy. Even Glenn Beck's news thinks it's gross.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...up-at-the-front-during-bundy-ranch-standoff/#
GasBandit
Staff member
FTFY.
In any case, context is everything.
"We were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front. If they're gonna start shooting, it's gonna be women televised getting shot etc"
Does that mean the women are being held in front of men like human shields, or does it mean they're at the front with the men? Shoulder to shoulder? "We were actually"... does that mean the plan was for them to be there all along and then they found out about the snipers, or that they learned about the snipers and then moved the women from somewhere else? And as I (apparently too subtly) pointed out in my previous post, these women were there voluntarily, yes? What was stopping any one of these women from leaving if she didn't want to be where she was?
You're being sold this narrative -
When, for all you or I or anyone else knows, the truth may be closer to this
(* photo of 1945 italian civilian resistance fighters)
Man, so both sides seem to have a legal argument and I can't find anything that isn't severely biased either direction to explain the legal realities of the situation, because either these guys truly are the last stand against the evil socialist nazi fascist anti-christ regime or they are a bunch of dumbass hicks who don't understand the law.
I have a feeling it's possibly somewhere in the middle there.
I have a feeling it's possibly somewhere in the middle there.
Middle ground? In America? That's crazy talk!
Oh don't worry, the middle ground can also easily (and often) fall into the Golden Mean Fallacy.
xkcd sums it up well:
