Funny (political, religious) pictures
- Thread starter strawman
- Start date
figmentPez
Staff member
Probably "I wish the Humpbacks accepted their cylindrical friend's offer to cleanse the land."
figmentPez
Staff member
figmentPez
Staff member
GasBandit
Staff member
Well, I can see why, honestly... the first four are basically anathema. "Medicare for all" = single player health care. Housing is not a human right any more than healthcare, or for that matter, food is. A "federal jobs guarantee" sounds a lot like the wage controls that got us into this mess in the first place. Gun control/AW ban? Non-starter. Throw in "higher education for all," and you've basically got a pie-in-the-sky welfare state socialist. I can see why she won - like Romney said, it's hard to campaign against Santa Claus. But good for her in dethroning a 10-term career politician, all the same. At least she, like her role model Bernie, is straight up and open about what she wants rather than couching it in dog whistles.
You've said in another thread that you'd never visit another country that didn't have universal health care because those countries are all awful.
GasBandit
Staff member
... are you sure that was me? Because I don't remember saying anything like that.
You said the only countries you'd go to are Canada or in Europe and if you go anywhere else, you should expect bad things to happen to you. Those countries have Universal Health Care.
GasBandit
Staff member
If I did say that, and I'm still not sure I remember doing so, I don't think it was an argument for universal health care, but rather commentary on the stability of non-western civilization. This sounds more like something I'd have said in a thread where somebody went somewhere like Dubai and got into trouble.
Besides, I doubt I'd have deliberately excluded non-anglosphere places I'd like to see at some point... Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand. (I know the latter two ARE anglosphere but they're not Europe or Canada).
Point is, it sounds like you're twisting a statement and putting it in a false context.
I'm just saying that every country you deem stable and ok seems to have universal health care. Besides the US I guess.
He's taking a quote you made and drawing unsupported inferred conclusions from it, is what he's doing.
"You ate a carrot? You must be vegetarian."
"Drive a gasoline-powered car? You must support war in the Middle East."
"Live in the South? You must love fried green tomatoes."
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
I know an argument I *have* made on numerous occasions is that those other countries have benefited from the medical advances that are spurred by America's capitalist approach. Especially Canada, with its famous waiting times and historically woefully low MRI-to-patient ratio. When they get really overwhelmed, they start sending patients across the lake.
Sort of how like people like to point out that America spends more on defense than our 10 most powerful allies put together... but what they don't say is that it is BECAUSE we do that our allies can rely on us to defend them (well, pre-trump perhaps) so they have the LUXURY of diverting funds from defense to socialism.
I'm just going to point out - once again - that many European countries have everything on her list. None of these are located on pies in the sky. None are heavenly utopias either, mind.
Also, again, universal health care die not necessarily mean single payer.
That these politics are completely unrealistic in an American setting I'll gladly agree on.
Also, again, universal health care die not necessarily mean single payer.
That these politics are completely unrealistic in an American setting I'll gladly agree on.
GasBandit
Staff member
In this particular case, it does. Medicare sets prices and any doctor who takes Medicare has to charge those prices (and fill out a metric shit-ton of paperwork to get paid). So, Medicare-for-all becomes de facto single payer.
They have to also fill out a metric shit-ton of paperwork to get paid by the private insurance companies.
Fun fact: if you have money, you can just go to a private clinic, be it in Canada or South Ossetia.
Now, obviously, you'd likely get the best doctors in the US because the best doctors know that's the place to go to make the most money, on account of the whole "runaway healthcare costs" thing.
And denying you coverage = more profits.
Which, by capitalist standards means the best insurance company is the one giving the least amount of help to people in medical need.
GasBandit
Staff member
Not as much. I know this information because I, for years, had to watch my stepmother deal with the paperwork for her private practice with no office staff to help her with it. As an internal medicine specialist, she pretty much had to take medicare (because 90% of patients referred to internal medicine specialists are the elderly), but getting paid by Medicare was 10 times the work for her as getting paid by private insurance.
Nah, see that's impossible in the US, because usaians are actually all mutated wolverines, that just look human, so you can't ask them to do the same things other, regular, humans can...
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Well, they have too make sure no one undeserving gets any help...
If housing and food were already recognized human rights then it wouldn't need to be a platform issue. Why would she put "the right to free speech" on her agenda? That one is covered.
GasBandit
Staff member
It's covered because it actually is a right. My point was not that housing/food/healthcare were rights going unrecognized, but rather that they are not rights. Plus, just because you have a right to something does not mean it requires someone else to PAY for it for you, which is what she means by a right to housing. I have a right to free speech, and a right to keep and bear arms, but that does not mean the government pays to publish my words nor buys me a gun.
I understand your position, but it needn't be an inalienable right. It can be a right guaranteed by the government, set by the lawmakers. I know that goes against your own ideologies but it needn't be inconsistent with the laws of nature or anything.
figmentPez
Staff member
I'm confused how housing, food, and healthcare can be excluded as rights, if we have a right to life. Housing (or at least shelter), food, and healthcare are necessary to life. If life is a right, then what's necessary for life would also be a right.