Polite Politics

[Rubus Leucodermis]

5 hours ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

That’s actually far closer to me than most of the stuff you post about the Left.

If you want to get all political science-y about it, I am both a socialist and anarchist, but I don’t use those labels very much because Middle America has generally negative connotations for both, and why choose a terminology that you have to struggle against? Labeling is part of propaganda and the purpose of propaganda is to win converts, after all.

Lefties make fun of Trump for being “stupid” but at least Trump has enough smarts to not call what he wants “fascism” (even though it very much is). Because, again, Middle America does not like that term (and rightfully so, in this case).

Is it all pandering? Of course it is! Political propaganda often involves pandering. Show me someone who does not pander, and I will show you someone who is either: a) a liar, b) ineffectual, or c) not interested in politics.

[Iceresistance]

1 hour ago, roadtonowhere08 said:

If you cannot confirm it and have no links, then why bother?

This is the link, but I don't trust the site, which is why it's not 100% confirmed to me.

Horowitz: Australia bears witness to vaccine deaths - Conservative Review

[Anti Marine Layer]

3 hours ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

I'm impressed by your thoroughness.  I'm still not sure if a lot of your posts are just copy/paste from other sites though....

Not from a website, but from Mike Pence, in a survey he sent.

Plus, many of your posts are from other sites, mainly Washington Post.

 

[Anti Marine Layer]

7 hours ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Some of it may be accurate but some of it is just right-wing garbage.

Like the assertion that "many or most" Democrat leaders in Congress are socialists.

There actually was a socialist running in the Democratic Party primary in 2020. He lost. And he lost because many or most Democratic Party leaders united against him, by endorsing Biden and encouraging the other non-Sanders candidates to drop out of the primary. (This successful bit of electoral political strategizing seriously upset quite a few socialists.)

Try prioritizing a commitment to factual accuracy and you might find that those who disagree with your politics have more respect for what you post.

Well they do say that 36% of millennials would be OK with communism in that one Bill Maher video and more than 50% prefer socialism over capitalism, so just maybe 10 more years and someone like Bernie or AOC will win and there will be no more Aetna and BlueShield and Kaiser Permanente, just AOCCare as the only available option with people have to wait 10 times as long for medical procedures, rationing of health care, and no other choice of doctors if you don't like the ones you have.

Maybe Bill Maher has also become gullible to right-wing propaganda.

 

 

 

 

[Iceresistance]

12 minutes ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

Well they do say that 36% of millennials would be OK with communism in that one Bill Maher video and more than 50% prefer socialism over capitalism, so just maybe 10 more years and someone like Bernie or AOC will win and there will be no more Aetna and BlueShield and Kaiser Permanente, just AOCCare with people have to wait 10 times as long for medical procedures, rationing of health care, and no other choice of doctors if you don't like the ones you have.

Maybe Bill Maher has become gullible to right-wing propaganda.

 

 

 

 

They don't know that Communism is MUCH deadlier than Capitalism, look at the Great Russian Famine and the one in China caused by Mao's Great Leap Forward! All caused by Communism!

[Rubus Leucodermis]

10 minutes ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

Well they do say that 36% of millennials would be OK with communism in that one Bill Maher video and more than 50% prefer socialism over capitalism, so just maybe 10 more years and someone like Bernie or AOC will win and there will be no more Aetna and BlueShield and Kaiser Permanente, just AOCCare with people have to wait 10 times as long for medical procedures, rationing of health care, and no other choice of doctors if you don't like the ones you have.

Maybe Bill Maher has become gullible to right-wing propaganda.

Whatever that means. Communism can mean a lot of things besides what went on in the ex-USSR. Plus even if millennials mean USSR-style communism, chances are they don't really, they are just misinformed about what it really was like.

There have been flat-out openly communist governments in places like Cyprus and Nepal, and they have not created USSR-style tyranny. They did some pretty standard lefty party things when in power then like most all parties in power eventually lost an election, left office peacefully, and let the new government take control. And the Indian state of Kerala has had communist governments for most of the time since independence (again, no tyranny).

Communist parties that take power in democratic elections in open societies tend, in other words, to act very differently in practice than those that take power via armed revolution in closed societies, even though they might share symbolism and rhetoric with their authoritarian counterparts.

And speaking as someone who lives someplace with universal public health insurance, it's hardly the horror story you paint it out to be. In fact, Canada does significantly better than the USA on the vast preponderance of health statistics.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

4 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

They don't know that Communism is MUCH deadlier than Capitalism, look at the Great Russian Famine and the one in China caused by Mao's Great Leap Forward! All caused by Communism!

Maybe deadlier, but not by much.

I would suspect some here might be ignorant of the various genocidal outcomes of capitalist imperialism.

Literally many millions killed in Ireland, Egypt, India, and Africa as the result of deliberate colonial policies by the nice friendly capitalist countries of Europe when they were playing imperialist. Five to ten million in Leopold II’s so-called “Congo Free State” alone.

This is one of the ways the educational system indoctrinates people. Not by lying, but by being selective with the truth. In history, one must be selective, because the whole story is too big to tell. But if the sampling is ideologically biased, then one can have history classes that go into great detail about what the USSR did in Ukraine, are completely silent about what Belgium did in the Congo, and mention the Irish potato famine in passing without how connected it was to the profit-driven policies of British imperialism.

[Iceresistance]

1 minute ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Maybe deadlier, but not by much.

I would suspect some here might be ignorant of the various genocidal outcomes of capitalist imperialism.

Literally many millions killed in Ireland, Egypt, India, and Africa as the result of deliberate colonial policies by the nice friendly capitalist countries of Europe when they were playing imperialist. Five to ten million in Leopold II’s so-called “Congo Free State” alone.

This is one of the ways the educational system indoctrinates people. Not by lying, but by being selective with the truth. In history, one must be selective, because the whole story is too big to tell. But if the sampling is ideologically biased, then one can have history classes that go into great detail about what the USSR did in Ukraine, are completely silent about what Belgium did in the Congo, and mention the Irish potato famine in passing without how connected it was to the profit-driven policies of British imperialism.

I forgot about Imperialism, I was talking about more modern times, like back to at least the 1920s.

[roadtonowhere08]

31 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

I forgot about Imperialism, I was talking about more modern times, like back to at least the 1920s.

Then you forgot much of the circumstances that brought a lot of the mess the world is dealing with currently worldwide.  From the 1920's until now is a very incomplete picture.

[roadtonowhere08]

2 hours ago, Iceresistance said:

This is the link, but I don't trust the site, which is why it's not 100% confirmed to me.

Horowitz: Australia bears witness to vaccine deaths - Conservative Review

"Despite everything we know about the deadly and ineffective nature of the COVID shots..."

I stopped reading after that.

[Anti Marine Layer]

1 hour ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Whatever that means. Communism can mean a lot of things besides what went on in the ex-USSR. Plus even if millennials mean USSR-style communism, chances are they don't really, they are just misinformed about what it really was like.

There have been flat-out openly communist governments in places like Cyprus and Nepal, and they have not created USSR-style tyranny. They did some pretty standard lefty party things when in power then like most all parties in power eventually lost an election, left office peacefully, and let the new government take control. And the Indian state of Kerala has had communist governments for most of the time since independence (again, no tyranny).

Communist parties that take power in democratic elections in open societies tend, in other words, to act very differently in practice than those that take power via armed revolution in closed societies, even though they might share symbolism and rhetoric with their authoritarian counterparts.

And speaking as someone who lives someplace with universal public health insurance, it's hardly the horror story you paint it out to be. In fact, Canada does significantly better than the USA on the vast preponderance of health statistics.

 

I've heard a few stories of people in Canada having really long waits for something like an MRI or a cancer screening test and actually going to the United States because they could get it done much faster.

My brother, while he was in Berlin, before moving to Sweden, partially due to less COVID-19 restrictions there, actually went to Switzerland to find a good dentist there.

Also, part of the reason U.S. has lower life expectancies has to do with bad diet. 

[Anti Marine Layer]

[Rubus Leucodermis]

5 hours ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

I've heard a few stories of people in Canada having really long waits for something like an MRI or a cancer screening test and actually going to the United States because they could get it done much faster.

If you have money or good private insurance, it can be a way to avoid the wait.

But it cuts both ways. Canadian provinces have had to increase the security of their health care ID cards, because counterfeiters have sold phony ones to Americans who can't afford health care in the USA. And for a while at least some bus charter companies were doing a nice business busing loads of seniors from Seattle or Vancouver so they could benefit from price controls on pharmaceuticals in Canada.

[Anti Marine Layer]

5 hours ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

If you have money or good private insurance, it can be a way to avoid the wait.

But it cuts both ways. Canadian provinces have had to increase the security of their health care ID cards, because counterfeiters have sold phony ones to Americans who can't afford health care in the USA. And for a while at least some bus charter companies were doing a nice business busing loads of seniors from Seattle or Vancouver so they could benefit from price controls on pharmaceuticals in Canada.

At least they do have private insurance if you want it. Bernie was talking about abolishing all private insurance, but I'm sure there would be lawsuits if that happened. 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

1 hour ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

At least they do have private insurance if you want it. Bernie was talking about abolishing all private insurance, but I'm sure there would be lawsuits if that happened. 

My feeling is that would have been negotiated away somewhere in the process of going from bill to law. This is for the simple reason that most places with universal health care have at least a few gaps in the system where private health care and private insurance come in. That the USA could go seamlessly from being one of the least-public systems to one of the most-public just strains credibility.

In Canada, the rule is that basic healthcare covered by the universal health insurance systems in each province can only be covered by the universal system. Health care that is not covered by that system (which includes dental care, and health care while travelling outside of Canada) can be covered under private insurance policies. Most employers offer their employees private health insurance that covers many of the gaps in the public system, so being covered by a private policy is very common.

[SnarkyGoblin]

15 hours ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

Not from a website, but from Mike Pence, in a survey he sent.

Plus, many of your posts are from other sites, mainly Washington Post.

 

Ok.  So did you take pictures, crop, etc?  It takes some dedication.

Re this, me posting a link to a newspaper with a small blurb or commentary is not quite the same as calling out forum users, cropping obscure, printed text, and asking really dumb questions to the entire forum is not exactly the same thing.

[MossMan]

On 3/31/2023 at 8:48 PM, roadtonowhere08 said:

At this point, I would take Hillary in a thong over Trump.  Let that image burn your retinas for a while.

Compared to what?  Biden?  That's some serious rationalization, right there.

It's all irrelevant.  We are going to get four more years of Biden.  You can thank Trump for that.

I have a feeling Biden will be in a nursing home with a wander guard around his ankle within the next two years…won’t matter though since we will most likely be getting nuked by a crazy Russian, a crazy Chinese, or a crazy North Korean in next year anyway.

[Anti Marine Layer]

2 hours ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

Ok.  So did you take pictures, crop, etc?  It takes some dedication.

Re this, me posting a link to a newspaper with a small blurb or commentary is not quite the same as calling out forum users, cropping obscure, printed text, and asking really dumb questions to the entire forum is not exactly the same thing.

Well, yes, I did take pictures. It was from a survey sent to me. The actual questions were worded a little differently, though. 

I also must admit I am a little too obsessed with politics, but it's kind of hard to avoid when everything including the news, sports and entertainment is becoming politicized. 

Ten years ago, however, people were not tearing down statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and even Abraham Lincoln and Obama had positive things to say about the Founding Fathers. 

Also, I know I quote PragerU a little too much and it's "not a university" but some of their videos are actually made by conservative college professors, which are a rarity today. They may not be 100% accurate, but neither are WaPo and CNN. 

So I may be a little too negative and judgmental, but so are some of the trainings taking place in some companies today telling white people that they are the problem and must do something to reform society. You seem to think I'm making it all up though. 

At least @Rubus Leucodermis actually responds to my posts though rather than just complaining about them.

[Chewbacca Defense]

10 hours ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

My feeling is that would have been negotiated away somewhere in the process of going from bill to law. This is for the simple reason that most places with universal health care have at least a few gaps in the system where private health care and private insurance come in. That the USA could go seamlessly from being one of the least-public systems to one of the most-public just strains credibility.

In Canada, the rule is that basic healthcare covered by the universal health insurance systems in each province can only be covered by the universal system. Health care that is not covered by that system (which includes dental care, and health care while travelling outside of Canada) can be covered under private insurance policies. Most employers offer their employees private health insurance that covers many of the gaps in the public system, so being covered by a private policy is very common.

I have several friends/former fellow coworkers who are British and it is the same way there.  You have free healthcare for all, but you can get private insurance for a higher level of care. 

 

Doesn't sounds like all that bad of a system if you ask me. 

I am admittedly a bit salty about our current healthcare system after being straddled with some pretty hefty medical bills from my wife's cancer scare, and we have good insurance.

[Chewbacca Defense]

9 hours ago, MossMan said:

I have a feeling Biden will be in a nursing home with a wander guard around his ankle within the next two years…won’t matter though since we will most likely be getting nuked by a crazy Russian, a crazy Chinese, or a crazy North Korean in next year anyway.

Man I'll bet you are an absolute HOOT at parties!

[MossMan]

43 minutes ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

Man I'll bet you are an absolute HOOT at parties!

What the hell is a party? Haven’t been to one of those since the kids came around lol! 

[Andie]

4 hours ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

I have several friends/former fellow coworkers who are British and it is the same way there.  You have free healthcare for all, but you can get private insurance for a higher level of care. 

 

Doesn't sounds like all that bad of a system if you ask me. 

I am admittedly a bit salty about our current healthcare system after being straddled with some pretty hefty medical bills from my wife's cancer scare, and we have good insurance.

My husband has insurance through the City he works for.   Talk about lousy.  The head of HR negotiated the healthcare contract and it isn’t worth the powder to blow it up!  I let him know it stunk over the phone one day. He was taken aback big time.   
How dare I speak truth to power?!
Medicare is looking D**n good right now.  

[Iceresistance]

The NY AG may be trying to gag Trump, but right now, please take this with a grain of salt as it's not confirmed.

[Chewbacca Defense]

7 hours ago, Andie said:

My husband has insurance through the City he works for.   Talk about lousy.  The head of HR negotiated the healthcare contract and it isn’t worth the powder to blow it up!  I let him know it stunk over the phone one day. He was taken aback big time.   
How dare I speak truth to power?!
Medicare is looking D**n good right now.  

When I briefly worked in the oil and gas industry, we had absolutely horrible healthcare, in fact I negotiated a much higher starting salary because of it (I told them what I had at my previous job was).  The previous job I had in aerospace paid about $400 a month for $30 doctor co-pays and $15-20 prescription co-pays for my family.  I think the deductible was $1,000 and the out of pocket max was $4,000 for the family.  The Oil and gas had the same payroll deduction, but it was for a high deductible plan.  We jumped over to my wife's plan.

Back in Aerospace now, and on a good health plan. 

Just thinking back to what health insurance looked like when I was younger...I think we probably paid $60/month for the family.  When we had our kids in the mid-90's we paid a $20-50 co-pay and that covered everything....all of the doctor's visits, tests, all of the expenses related to the actual childbirth.  Not sure if it is that way now, I would be surprised if that was the case.

 

 

[roadtonowhere08]

23 hours ago, MossMan said:

I have a feeling Biden will be in a nursing home with a wander guard around his ankle within the next two years…won’t matter though since we will most likely be getting nuked by a crazy Russian, a crazy Chinese, or a crazy North Korean in next year anyway.

Both are too old and mentally incapable of running a shoe store much less the U.S. 

I'm tired of the "ageist" garbage.  @Mr Marine Layer Bill Maher started beating that drum a while ago.  He's really starting to act like an old curmudgeon.

[Chewbacca Defense]

5 hours ago, Iceresistance said:

The NY AG may be trying to gag Trump, but right now, please take this with a grain of salt as it's not confirmed.

The ironic thing is that it would be very much in Trump's best interest to get this gag order, he is his own worst enemy.  That said he has plenty of mouthpieces to spew his nonsense.

 

Just saw a video of the NY mayor called out MTG by name and asked her to behave herself. 

As I am typing this, it just occurred to me that the whole point of her trip there may very well be to get herself arrested and thus make herself a "martyr" 

[SnarkyGoblin]

On 4/2/2023 at 11:40 AM, Mr Marine Layer said:

So I may be a little too negative and judgmental, but so are some of the trainings taking place in some companies today telling white people that they are the problem and must do something to reform society. You seem to think I'm making it all up though. 

The biggest problem I have with you is how you take small nuggets of truth and create entire narratives about some crazy far left people. Constantly arguing about stuff no one on this forum is saying, and the vast majority of the population, is not saying.

Whatever the actual truth is for your pseudo stories, you have some weird stuff to be concerned about - such as trainings at a *private* company.

But you do you, I guess.

[SnarkyGoblin]

13 hours ago, Andie said:

My husband has insurance through the City he works for.   Talk about lousy.  The head of HR negotiated the healthcare contract and it isn’t worth the powder to blow it up!  I let him know it stunk over the phone one day. He was taken aback big time.   
How dare I speak truth to power?!
Medicare is looking D**n good right now.  

You may know this already, but if you're like my dad and saved a bunch in his 401k, his tax rates has increased and ends up paying quite a bit of medicare premium. He also has a supplemental insurance.  I think his out of pocket premiums just for him was like $900/month.

 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

5 hours ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

When I briefly worked in the oil and gas industry, we had absolutely horrible healthcare, in fact I negotiated a much higher starting salary because of it (I told them what I had at my previous job was).  The previous job I had in aerospace paid about $400 a month for $30 doctor co-pays and $15-20 prescription co-pays for my family.  I think the deductible was $1,000 and the out of pocket max was $4,000 for the family.  The Oil and gas had the same payroll deduction, but it was for a high deductible plan.  We jumped over to my wife's plan.

Back in Aerospace now, and on a good health plan. 

Just thinking back to what health insurance looked like when I was younger...I think we probably paid $60/month for the family.  When we had our kids in the mid-90's we paid a $20-50 co-pay and that covered everything....all of the doctor's visits, tests, all of the expenses related to the actual childbirth.  Not sure if it is that way now, I would be surprised if that was the case.

When I moved to Canada, my new employer was all hyper-apologetic about how MSP (BC's implementation of Canadian universal health insurance) does not kick in for three months and therefore I would have to pay out of pocket for private health insurance and it would cost me CDN $150. The following approximate conversation ensued:

“$150? Per week? It’s priced per week in Canada?”

“No, $150/month. $150/week would be obscene, what gave you that idea?”

“I pay nearly USD $1000/month right now.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No, I’m not.”

“Wow, I’ve always heard the US system is a mess and is super-expensive, I never realized it was that bad.”

[Iceresistance]

1 hour ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

The ironic thing is that it would be very much in Trump's best interest to get this gag order, he is his own worst enemy.  That said he has plenty of mouthpieces to spew his nonsense.

 

Just saw a video of the NY mayor called out MTG by name and asked her to behave herself. 

As I am typing this, it just occurred to me that the whole point of her trip there may very well be to get herself arrested and thus make herself a "martyr" 

Well, Trump has just traveled to NYC to his New York home...

[Chewbacca Defense]

34 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

Well, Trump has just traveled to NYC to his New York home...

Just saw that, also saw that he is planning a speech/press conference tomorrow night after he gets back to Mar a Lago...

 

Might be hard to do if they hit him with that order....it's going to be an interesting couple of days...

 

 

[Anti Marine Layer]

3 hours ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

The biggest problem I have with you is how you take small nuggets of truth and create entire narratives about some crazy far left people. Constantly arguing about stuff no one on this forum is saying, and the vast majority of the population, is not saying.

Whatever the actual truth is for your pseudo stories, you have some weird stuff to be concerned about - such as trainings at a *private* company.

But you do you, I guess.

Well you did seem to make a comment at one time that the Founding Fathers were white supremacists, if I remember correctly. My view, is that while they were far from perfect, they at least had the right ideas, e.g. "All men are created equal" but they failed to live up to them. Also they had intentions to abolish slavery, but it could not be done overnight, and even if they were slave owners, it does not necessarily mean they mistreated them. 

And many people did come to America from all around the world looking for freedom, including my mother. 

As for being concerned about trainings in private companies, it's actually the public schools I'm more concerned about, but Disney, Coca Cola, and Verizon all had some pretty crazy ones and they're all losing customers. Some Disney employees fought back. They're also requiring Kendi's books in military training now.

Even if racism is a much bigger problem than I realize, I don't think the methods the left are using to address it are helping anything. It's just stirring up more negativity and resentment and making things worse. That's my opinion though. 

But anyway, I've been reading way too much stuff, and changing the minds of a few people in a weather forum won't do anything, so I'll try to stop posting crazy stuff. 

[Iceresistance]

1 hour ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

Just saw that, also saw that he is planning a speech/press conference tomorrow night after he gets back to Mar a Lago...

 

Might be hard to do if they hit him with that order....it's going to be an interesting couple of days...

 

 

I've read that gag orders are not uncommon for a case like this one where it features someone that is very high profile.

[Andie]

5 hours ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

You may know this already, but if you're like my dad and saved a bunch in his 401k, his tax rates has increased and ends up paying quite a bit of medicare premium. He also has a supplemental insurance.  I think his out of pocket premiums just for him was like $900/month.

 

We’re lucky.  My husband went to work the last year they offered a classical pension.  The next year they went 401k.  
Between that and other benefits we’re coming out like it’s 1989!  Which was pretty good by todays standards. Add other cash payouts and we’re better off retired than working.  Crazy.  

[SnarkyGoblin]

14 hours ago, Andie said:

We’re lucky.  My husband went to work the last year they offered a classical pension.  The next year they went 401k.  
Between that and other benefits we’re coming out like it’s 1989!  Which was pretty good by todays standards. Add other cash payouts and we’re better off retired than working.  Crazy.  

Yep my father was the same.  One of the last to be able to get money for *just* working there (Weyerhaeuser) for an extended period of time.  He got a 401k matching, too!

Those were the days.

[SnarkyGoblin]

16 hours ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

Well you did seem to make a comment at one time that the Founding Fathers were white supremacists, if I remember correctly. My view, is that while they were far from perfect, they at least had the right ideas, e.g. "All men are created equal" but they failed to live up to them. Also they had intentions to abolish slavery, but it could not be done overnight, and even if they were slave owners, it does not necessarily mean they mistreated them. 

And many people did come to America from all around the world looking for freedom, including my mother. 

As for being concerned about trainings in private companies, it's actually the public schools I'm more concerned about, but Disney, Coca Cola, and Verizon all had some pretty crazy ones and they're all losing customers. Some Disney employees fought back. They're also requiring Kendi's books in military training now.

Even if racism is a much bigger problem than I realize, I don't think the methods the left are using to address it are helping anything. It's just stirring up more negativity and resentment and making things worse. That's my opinion though. 

But anyway, I've been reading way too much stuff, and changing the minds of a few people in a weather forum won't do anything, so I'll try to stop posting crazy stuff. 

I think you would do yourself and the people on this forum a service if you, at the very least, tried to keep your posts shorter.  The long essays/snippets/links are hard to digest, especially given the content. 

Also, maybe don't say these kinds of things.  Think about what you're saying.  There's a reason those well-treated slaves who were forced to work and never leave were still all black.

[Iceresistance]

Trump has not arrived at the courthouse, and the people's blood is already boiling.

[roadtonowhere08]

47 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

Trump has not arrived at the courthouse, and the people's blood is already boiling.

"The People's Blood"

[Iceresistance]

1 minute ago, roadtonowhere08 said:

"The People's Blood"

I could not come up with that part properly!

 

But yes, the blood boiling from the protestors, which got physical...

[Iceresistance]

Since when Trump has had 34 Felony Counts? Were the charges intentionally trumped (no pun intended) to try to prove that Trump is a criminal??