Kadiz, if you recall my statement "are considered". What don't you understand about a poll asking people their opinion? Obviously they "are considered" unethical and dishonest according to a poll of a group of people. You of all people ought to understand that a poll is designed to elicit an opinion from a group of people. Just because you disagree with the poll does not change opinion. Words mean things. If a poll is taken that says Obama is the greatest president the US has ever seen, would you still dispute it because it would only be the opinion of a group? My guess is you would be right on board citing it as factual to validate your own opinions.
In the interest of abiding by the moderator's .. how to say it nicely... selective sensitivities....I'd like to apologize here and now for my last post; for countering Viator's blithering ignorance with an actual factual and logical analysis of what he said, as opposed to speculating that he's an angry person, doesn't care about anyone in his community, or lives a wretched existence. And especially for finding his insanely ridiculous and dishonest effort amusing.
My bad!! ;-D
I will try to refrain from succeeding with actual debate techniques, from attacking what people *say* in the future, and instead make more of an effort to engage in the apparently appropriate and typical (here) sniping, phallus wagging, derision, labeling, and attacking people personally when they question or challenge my notions.
Working together, I'm sure we can thwart out those who brandish cognitive arguments and facts, and we can make these discussion far less mean and intimidating to those who have no interest in mature dialogue.
Oh MY God!!!! Kadizzle, do you mean to tell me that there just isn't 13 inches in a foot? Next you will tell me that a pound has 14 oz. or 18 oz.----depending on whether you are a buyer or a seller. Please leave my myths alone---what else do I have? I think you are just reading too many books. I recall seeing some photos and film footage from some European country--don't remember which one, burning books---people were standing around cheering the uniformed men who were doing the burning. Do you think that was genetic or mass hysteria? Did it increase freedom and liberty? Was it contagious and if so has it reached our shores? Is there a vaccine for prevention? And don't give me that nonsense about the truth setting you free.
i can't believe I missed this ideologically retardation....
"For example: with a median age of 16, is it any surprise that so many Arab countries have a lot of young men with time on their hands?"
ROFLOL
Given their median age, is it any surprise that so many arabic countries have a lot of sand.
For a second there, I thought the example was going to be regarding the CIA fact-book's results.
It takes a special kind of stupid to suggest, as though it's self-evident, that there's a "context" link between median age and free time in order to somehow imply that we can't really know the stat (their median age).
LOL
"But without context, they are misleading."
ROFLOL... yes... someone might think the Arabs don't have time on their hands because of median age.
"For example,..."
LOL Oh goody!!!
"...a study was once done to ascertain the fitness habits of the population of a military base.... The “study” was junk."
Hence all studies are junk.
Once again, we seem to have ample evidence of the vocabulary-challenged Becktards, confusing "representative" with "context". The inter-related conditions that affect the finding do not make the finding itself false. Merely, they are not representative findings if the inter-related conditions that affect the finding are not representative.
"Many of the facts in the CIA World Factbook similarly lack context that allows meaningful comparisons—especially any scientific comparison."
For example??
LOL
That's what I thought.
"Let’s pause to recall that scientific method prescribes changing only a single variable at a time,"
Apparently someone's too ignorant to know the difference between experimental science and observational science. ::pondering the god-like abilities required for astronomy to adhere to this ignorant description of the scientific method::
LOL
"So if we are to compare the data between countries, we have to control for a large number of factors—far more than can generate a TRUE factual account."
This is a classic argument employed by intelligent design proponents in which several fallacies are nested in one another. Foremost, it an argument from ignorance fallacy, in which something is true/false because it has not been proven false/true. But nested within that fallacy is also a burden of proof fallacy in which the level of rigour necessary to prove something sufficiently to a moronic ideological git preferring willful ignorance is never satisfactory.
Ultimately, Viator, like his confusion about observational science, illustrates an abject ignorance of science yet again with an apparent omission of how we do in fact know whether or not such observational methods are sufficiently rigorous: reproducibility.
It's not just the CIA fact book. These findings are consistently duplicated with numerous independent efforts.
Put another way, the idiots and liars in this debate are the ones who can neither identify the methodological errors they so moronically allude to, nor provide an alternative study which finds otherwise.
This is a true Hooplehead story. About a week ago I asked a hoople to post a notice on the community bulletin board on our local access channel. The Hooples told me my notice could not be posted because it had my opinions on it. My notice only had information reported by the North Dakota Insurance commissioner, and statistics from the Washington Post. Apparently our local hooples are just like the rest of the hooples. If you give them facts they don't like they label them opinion. After showing the City Council the law regarding public access television, which they were trying to censor, which is popular here, they capitulated and agreed to post the notice. The fellow Cynical on here is a classic example with his notion that if you take a poll the results can reveal factual information. If the majority of people in a poll thought there were 13 inches in a foot, then it is so.
"The trouble with you is you're so ideologically blind that you have no reasoning skills left."
LOL
When someone declares another is ideologically blind, it means they are unaware of or dismissive of facts and/or reason that are not in harmony with their ideology.
However, whenever we ask the Becktards here for facts or reason, we only get more ideology. Whenever we supply facts and reason, it's dismissed or ignored.
We point to actual statistical studies, and in response you all dismiss the studies with tought terminating cliches and humorously and ignorantly questioning the methodology... what was that last one the other day??? Figures lie?
LOL
I have yet to see any Becktard here provide an actual argument with premises. Just bare assertions.
The problem is that the Becktards don't even seem to know what the words they use mean.... and in the end have nothing to offer but vapid indictments of anyone who does not agree with their ideology. The Becktards here, can't so much have a normal conversation about anything, without resorting to nothing but partisan sniping.
So...
If liberals here are ideologically blind... by all means, what facts or reason are we dismissing?
Best of luck!!!
Once again, however, I suspect you all cannot support the assertion.
Bop a Hoople, save the planet. Now that has potential as a bumpersticker. It goes with my favorite one: The Christian Right, they are neither" or "How did our oil get under their sand". It also fits with the Pat Robertson web page new item before the editors took it down warning us to not let our kids eat Halloween candy as it had been cursed by wickens and worlocks and the additional warning to not have sex on Halloween as it is an opportunity for demons to enter your body---you just can't make this stuff up---unless you are Beck or Hannity or Rush. I suggest that someone keep track of this and find out how many of the thumpers/Hoopleheads are not having any babies on the corresponding date. Beam me up Scotty.
Cynical I would love to take the test challenge. Of course as I predicted you could not answer any of the questions because the answers would clearly indicate your problem. No one with an ounce of sense, except perhaps a Republican would think you can determine a fact by conducting a poll. How simple minded could you be to refer me to a poll as proof attorneys are more dishonest than the population as a whole? Think of all the wonderful things you could prove if all you had to do was take a poll. Hooplehead logic is amazing. Bop a Hoople save the planet.
Kadiz, I'll put my ACT and GPA up against yours or an attorney's anytime. The trouble with you is you're so ideologically blind that you have no reasoning skills left. Your mantra of the left is wonderful and anyone other than left is a lesser person is quite trite. I believe you are a Carvellite as at least the Mooreheads have a little civility. By the way, here is your poll. Guess the attorneys are rated at almost the top of the worst for honesty and ethics. LOL
Deb, you must not be serious. That Willie Horton ad simply said Dukakis was soft on crime, and here's the proof of his bad judgment on crime.
Watch it for yourself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io9KMSSEZ0Y
People like you are precisely the reason no meaningful discussion on race can exist. The words used in the discussion simply have lost all meaning. When everything's racist, nothing is racist. I wouldn't be surprised if all this race card crap from you Lefties ended up making race relations worse and increase the number of race-related crimes.
Classic "when did you stop beating your wife" reasoning from the Left....
Kadizzle: I am replying to you, because unlike POPZ, you show an inkling of your intellect above your animosity, and the ability to make a case. POPZ has taken an indefinite leave of absence from his sense of civility and propriety—in addition to his other senses. Like everyone should, I have downloaded the CIA world factbook and examined a lot of the key rankings of countries, because demographics tell you a lot. For example: with a median age of 16, is it any surprise that so many Arab countries have a lot of young men with time on their hands? Numbers are important, because they are the language of empiricism. But without context, they are misleading. For example, a study was once done to ascertain the fitness habits of the population of a military base. Over a hundred people were interviewed, and the fitness habits reported to the base commanding officer. Some time later, the senior officer was surprised by the number of fitness test failures, given the good fitness habits the study reported. Unfortunately, it was discovered that the survey had been done in front of the base gym. So only those who were entering or leaving the gym were interviewed. The “study” was junk. Many of the facts in the CIA World Factbook similarly lack context that allows meaningful comparisons—especially any scientific comparison. Let’s pause to recall that scientific method prescribes changing only a single variable at a time, while all others are “controlled” to observe the effects. More advanced experiment designs can add two or three factors, but rarely more than that. So if we are to compare the data between countries, we have to control for a large number of factors—far more than can generate a TRUE factual account. Let’s say we want to compare life expectancies across countries A and B. In country A, there is no contraception available, and healthcare is terrible. In country B, healthcare is better and contraception is widely available. Would there be any surprise then that country A shows an average life expectancy? No. But is it the absence of contraception or the poor healthcare that caused it? In what proportion? We cannot know. How could we ever meaningfully apply the scientific method to any healthcare statistic from the Fact Book? Think of the overwhelming number of control factors: genetics, diet, environment, birth rate, abortion rate, immunization rate, cultural factors, etc. While numbers are important, without knowing the context, we can only assign limited meaning to them.
...already happening: the end of the two party system.
The conservatives have fractured... the moderates are democrats, some remain loyal to the republicans, and the fringe extremists are embracing The Conservative party.... the later having its roots in the modern era version of the KKK (Council of Conservative Citizens).
You've got to give the hoopleheads credit where it is due... while liberals are whining about democrats not being any different than republicans, the extreme right wing has stopped whining about republicans bait-n-switch routine, and have just started a new party.
Now liberals need to follow course.
Next, we need to get rid of the winner take all electoral system, and get on with some power sharing arrangements.
this is how the U.S. will, for the first time in history, really be a representative as opposed to a aristocratic plutocracy.
The best hope for all of us is if the right wing just implodes. In that regard Sara Palin is a ray of hope. If she could get nominated she would be the one to lead them over the cliff. Palin is capable of saying the kind of idiocy these people love. The trick would be to get her nominated and then let the Hooples follow her. There are enough simple minded to get her nominated, but not enough to get her elected. If she were nominated the implosion would be assured. As she campaigned she would make such a fool of herself that she would not stand a chance. Everyone on the left should prop her up as she walks to the scaffold with confidence. The worst of the right wing wants to move as far to the right now as possible. This is the time to encourage them. The cliff is on the far right, and the far left. They are way closer to theirs than we could ever have hoped. If a few more Glenn Beck types pop up it can only be a good thing. The lemmings need someone to point them in the right direction. Does anyone know what happened to the great ammunition shortage? It was only a couple months ago the crazies were creating a self fulfilling prophecy about the ammunition shortage. With hunting season on and ammunition plentiful, didn't the Hooples realize they have been had by the gun manufacturers and ammunition makers. Now, that they have all the supplies for the revolution, if it does not happen will this not depress gun prices? Common Hooples invent another scare so we can sell some more guns to you.
I'm with you Kadizzle---just how many beatings can the Hoopleheads take. It is just amazing--like the eveready bunny--they just keep going and going. If you have't already, I would suggest a trip to Barnes and Noble. Get a paperback copy of T. Franks "What's the matter with Kansas?. He is really describing ND with some moderate exceptions--a good read. Although, it hasn't given me any ideas of just how to help move us in a different direction. Maybe the Hoopleheads, Beckerheads, whatever O'Reilly nuts are called, dittoheads will just continue over the cliff with the lemings. One can only hope.
Edward, please answer these questions. 1. Do you think Glenn Beck has any credibility 2. Did you vote for Sara Palin? 3. Do you think Fox News is a reliable source of information? 4. Do you think Dick Cheney is a liar? My guess is you will not answer any of these questions, but they will define you in a way that any thinking person will be able to know if you are lost in the wilderness of right wing thinking.
I agree with kadiz, hoopleheads like Kieth Olbermann, Rachael Maddow, and Ed Schultz keep popping up with dumber and dumber comments for kadiz and popz to covet.
This is like a game, these Hooples pop up, you bop them on the head, then they pop up in another hole. Don't their heads get sore, or are their heads so thick the bopping just makes a ringing sound. It is easy to see why the Republican love them, you can rob them over and over and they just keep coming back for another dose of Glenn, or Bill O the clown. I firmly believe analysis would show 28% of the country is so dumb you could sell them just about anything. Unfortunately the Republican party has figured this out and targets them. What the Republicans have figured out is that these people will believe things normal people would not consider, like the birther nonsense. A normal person would say "No one would believe this lie", but the Republican say "Ah ha, you can get these people to believe anything", and they are correct. Only the immoral would exploit the stupid, but only the immoral would ask for tax breaks when the country is at war, that what being a Republican is about. Exploit the ignorant, and feather your own nest.
Holy shot-gun-n-kitchen-sink drivel boy wonder!!!!
"...success if you define success as ...A friend of mine in Canada...it's about the value of human life... it's about the role of government...about responsibility...about fairness... about your concept vs. mine... it's personal... it isn’t a public good... it isn't public.... it's private...."
Jesus!! What's the "bottom line"??
ROFLOL
Redefining the vocabulary, the issues, employing anecdotal evidence, and equivocating confidentiality with who's paying for it?
This is your idea of "concise"??
LOL
Geez... I shudder to think how long it would be if you actually had relevant facts and details.
This is not concise. It's an amalgam of insipid ideologically loaded rhetoric that provides no actual facts or cognitive reasoning. It's inane. It's insane. It's wilful ignorance. It's dishonest. It's desperate. It's pathetic....
Wait... here's an example of concise for you...
It's Orwellian.
LOL
You're not just drinking the kool-aid. I think you're employing a beer bong to see how much can be stomached. Seriously... how many vapid talking points, bare-assertions, cherry-picked non-facts, redherrings, and emotionally loaded appeals can you cramb into one post?
If you'd wanted to be concise, you should've just said there isn't *really* any problem, and it is in fact a down-home american value to profit from the sick and the dying.
Bottom line: we have the worst health care in the industrialized world, by most measures and we're paying more than anyone else is for it.
Bottom Line: our current system is, by every account, both failing us and unsustainable.
Would you like to try again? You know... start with some premises that are actually universal/acceptable, and arrive at a conclusion...as opposed to your blithering inanity, stating the asinine conclusions you can't arrive at?
For example, you say: "We all know we simply cannot afford it. Period."
Support your moronic claim: that cutting costs is going to cost us too much.
Cynical, just like every Hoople you need a little logic lesson. You say or imply all or the majority of Attorneys are dishonest. Is there any proof for that? No, you simply say "are considered". Perhaps you never heard of this concept, but Colleges give test which enable some people to be accepted, and others to be rejected. Law schools do the same thing. The test sift out the simple minded. Therefore it would be a reasonable assumption, and an actual provable fact that the people who graduate from law school have higher ACT test scores, and IQ scores than the population as a whole. This is how real reasoning works. If you go to the coffee shop and take a poll and consider the results scientific, you are using Glenn Beck, Fox News logic, which is just a fancy form of lying.
Viator, here we go again, back to Hooplehead logic 101. First tell some scary stories about Canada, and England. So let me tell you just a couple U.S. scary stories. A friend just had to fly home from their winter home in Phoenix, because they could not see a doctor there for 8 months. A young girl in our home town is bankrupt because she has no health insurance. For every foreign scary story I can tell you ten U.S. scary stories. How about the 44,ooo people in this country that die from lack of health insurance every year, is that a scary story. It doesn't happen in any other civilized country. However, even though you have been told, like every Hooplehead you refuse to cite any statistics that prove your point. You never will for one simple reason, there are none. The CIA Fact Book ranks the United States very poorly based on facts not scary stories. The World Healht Organization ranks the United States very poorly based on facts not scary stories. If you use numbers, the United States does very poorly against Canada, and Great Britain. Please, PLease explain how the life expectancy in the United States ranks far below the life expectancy in both Canada, and Great Britain. Just saying something doesn't make it so. If you say one board is longer than another and don't measure, the guy who uses the measuring tape wins. You Hooples just don't get the concept of how numbers work. The is this stuff called data, it is compiled from statistics. The statistics are numbers, the numbers don't lie. The numbers say by far the United States has the worst outcome for any industrialized country rated by cost or results. Please show me data (facts) that refute this. Where do I find them? Scary stories don't mean diddly. My dog was bitten by a snake. When we were in Canada he was not snake bitten. Canada has better snake protection than the United States. A friend had a wreck in Canada, he never had a wreck in the United States, our country is much safer.
Kadiz, perhaps we should review your past posts. Was it not you who stated that you had quite a few attorneys in your family and boasted of their intelligence? If I recall you considered it quite an accomplishment to become an attorney. You do know that attorneys are considered just a step above used car salesman when it comes to honesty don't you? But I forgot, you are a Dem and the truth makes little difference to you as long as you are looking through your rose colored glasses.
This just in: Brits undertake a measure to allow people to get private insurance when their crappy public system takes longer than 18 weeks to get the care:
For Popz and others I will try to make this very concise.
Socialized medicine can be considered a success if you define success as the percentage of people covered. Of course, a thinking person asks the additional question: “covered by what?”
But looking at the UK and Canada, however,, you can see it is a failure if success is defined as promptness of care, quality of care, and overall cost. British breast cancer patients have to wait in some cases over a year to get treated. Some have died waiting for care.
A friend of mine who is Canadian tells me unequivocally that American care is better than in Saskatchewan. He’s had knee replacements, massive infections, and a lot of sports injuries (and a couple massive wrecks). Even when his infection was approaching life-threatening, he was waiting to be seen. His advice to me: Canadian care isn’t like a 3rd world country, but still worse than American care—and he pays considerably out of his modest income to get American care when something is serious or urgent.
Let’s cut the crap and get to the bottom of this: the healthcare debate isn’t about healthcare per se. It’s about the value of human life. It’s about whether or not someone else should have to pay when I get sick. It’s about the role of Government in our country. It’s about your concept of “fairness” versus mine. It’s about how much responsibility we will shoulder to be free. That’s why this is a complicated issue—because it’s personal. Healthcare isn’t a public good. It is not a road and not a school. Public good have general usage in common: it doesn’t matter if the tire going down the road is bolted to a Lexus or a Yugo—the road only sees the tire. Now there are really high traction tires and crappy tires, but the road treats them all the same. Just as public schools have bright kids and kids destined to become Democrats (sorry, little joke), the school treats them all the same. But healthcare is unique to each person. While the road gives each tire the same response, some people will need only a couple dollars in healthcare a year and others will accrue hundreds of thousands of dollars in care with specialized tests and advisors around every corner. No—healthcare is not public, it is private—and intensely so. I oppose adding healthcare as yet another entitlement to the American citizen, for many reasons. We all know we simply cannot afford it. Period. Anyone who believes a government undertaking of this kind can *save* money, but ignore all of what history teaches to maintain that faith. Another reason is that it hurts our productivity. We in America have become a little spoiled and the more we get from someone else’s sweat, the less respect we give it. Bad enough we can’t save up money ourselves to pay for something (instead taking on debt) but rather we are now even demanding that SOMEONE ELSE take on debt on our behalf. How rude! We need a little fear to preserve that survival instinct. Another reason is that is guarantees more consumption of healthcare, which, in turn, raises costs. After all, if a trip to the doctor costs nothing, you’ll go for every sniffle, owie, boo-boo, cut and scrape. Just ask anyone currently working in a California ER. Illegals come in for their free healthcare for every sniffle. They clog the system and make it harder for real emergencies to get addressed. Another reason is that those higher costs are not being born by those who use them. Ever wonder if a rental car gets usage as gentle as your personal car? No—we all know that rental cars get thrashed. Why? Because we won’t have to pay the consequences if abuse. It’s the same reason that hotels are often trashed by drunk partygoers. It’s a different story if your own house gets trashed! So why be healthy? Why not smoke or weigh 300 pounds too much if you would never get lung cancer or type 2 diabetes? No consequences, no accountability. So why would a person give any respect to healthcare they didn’t pay for? What kind of moral ethic taxes a worker with a young family to provide for the healthcare of someone whose children are grown? It used to be that we sacrificed for our children, that we wanted them to have better lives than we had, with more comfort, more prosperity. Now we have the HCAN crowd essentially telling us that they reject this idea. Instead, the young now OWE the old a debt, so they must overpay for their mandatory insurance so that the main consumers of healthcare can underpay for theirs. For these and even more reasons, mandatory health insurance for all is a bad idea certain to increase cost, reduce our freedom, and enslave the coming generations that will have to foot the bill for the profligate spending.
Little children love to be scared. If you watch Fox, or Listen to Rush you know their stock in trade is scaring people. Always some disaster lurks around the corner, and is caused by liberals and intellectuals. No other nation has TV evangelist, another group that specializes in scaring idiots. It is embarrassing when people from Europe come to this country and we have to admit we have a whole flock of people mesmerized by the likes of Pat Robertson. Look at our advertising industry and the fact that they can sell electric heaters made by the Amish. What qualifies the Amish to build electric heaters? Someone puts a couple heat lamps in a box with a nice wood finish, and claims the Amish have invented a new more efficient heater. Makes perfect sense to those who failed science and history. These are the people that insist we cannot socialize health care when every country that has cut cost by two thirds. Again it defies logic, but they will vote in Republicans over and over that tell them we can afford tax cuts for the rich, but health care is just too expensive. Anything that might lead to the actual improvement in their state of existence leads to guess what, get ready for scary, socialism.
I have always asserted that if we could tax stupidity it would help pay off the national debt. There is no more perfect tax on stupidity than gambling. The dumber you are the more you pay. With the current finical crises many states have adopted my plan and instituted lotteries. The Hooples line up to get taxed. Palin was a classic example of how badly the mental state of the country has become. After McCain himself abandoned her for hopeless the Hooples still would line up to vote for her. Our own dear Bismarck Tribune endorsed the "Death Panel" inventor. The fact that North Dakota voted Republican is a sad comment on our intellectual state of affairs. Beulah put us on the map with people who banned a book they did not even read. As my dear neighbor who possessed not a high school education, but was elected over and over by the Hooples often said " Education just confuses people". The minds of the peasants are clear.
Maybe. Although, this problem seems to be distinctly American, and the rest of the world's population does not have such a large percentage of people who apparently both lack the ability to fathom the working parts of a brick and also embracing wilful ignorance, like it's a virtue, in order to facilitate so many inanely absolutist notions.
To Popz and Kadizzle, I had a passing thought and thought I might pass it on. Some years back my mentor suggested via a lot of empirical evidence that mental acuity was declining, special needs children were increasing in numbers and it could not be explained away via cultural or educational reasons. Also the incidence of gender confusion(increasing numbers of homosexuals) could very well be related to another family of chemicals. He also suggested that we may not no the answers to the questions for 100-150 years. We are still finding after affects of DDT in cancer clusters. He and many others held that we were ingesting some many chemcals, mostly through our diets, that this trend would continue. They also suggested that an increase in breast,ovarian and testicular cancers would dramatically increase in the mid-nineties and beyond. A relatively new family a ag chemicals were being introduced and these fatty organs would be where they would end up in. As we do not have any concrete evidence at this time, it is a point to ponder. The explanations that the movement of far too many to Fox news, Palin, Rush, etc. is merely cultural is inadequate. Nor is it likely to be caused by being thumped by the bible. Some form of mass delusion is taking place.
"Not one of your [Hal's] claims about the depression have any basis in fact."
In Hal's defense, one of the key causes of the 1921 depression is that the Federal Reserve Bank raised interest rates when the economy was in a deflationary tail spin. The FRB was only a few years old though, and hadn't a clue yet how much influence they had on the economy. Learning from that mistake, the government has since used interest rates to head-off inflation by raising interest rates in response to inflation, slowing-down economic growth, and avoiding that pie-in-sky house o' cards sort of market growth, and also lowering interest rates when the economy is in trouble.
Unfortunately, Bush's FRB discarded that lesson in favor of repeating Harding's Laissez Fair mistake, deciding that the government had no business slowing economic growth. Lowering the interest rates directly stimulated the economy in 2001, and by the end of 2002 we were back to inflationary growth... and interest rates should have been inched-up accordingly. They weren't. The feds were pretty much ordered to not only keep interest rates low, but to actually continue to lower them, bottoming-out at 1% by 2004. This directly facilitated the housing bubble as well as the whole suicidal leveraging of derivatives.
So in a way, a kool-aid drinking absolutist anti-Government idiot could sort of blame it all on government, yet again... but it was really business meddling in government, bankers screaming bloody murder, pointing at the dot.com bubble bursting in response to Greenspan raising interest rates in 2000, and screaming at the feds..."LOWER...LOWER....LOWER". And why not? They were getting filthy rich with leverage.
"Harding took the approach of letting the free market and free enterprise take their financial hits--some went bankrupt as they should have."
And Bush ... what? Bailed them out in 2001?
LOL
"The Harding problem per historians was not a cause or lead-up to the Great Depression. The feds had their fingers in..."
Translation: "nuh uh"
If you want to stop looking like such a kool-aid drinking fool, you need refute one of the following assertions I made: that there was a lot of cash available to the wealthy, a stock market bubble grew, then burst.
You have neither refuted anything I've said, and proved it wrong, nor have you suppled any alternative explaination of things.... asid from just making things up (e.g. government meddling caused the market bubble or the bubble to burst??)
Hal, the notion that you have to live through something to understand it is classic Hooplehead logic. Numerous events in history were much better understood long after they happened. Religion is a good example. Many people used to believe all that nonsense, including creationism. Now we know it is just fantasy. Disease and plague are understood much better now by people who did not live through one. The whole notion is ridiculous.
Below is a quote from Walt Kelly---cartoonist---the founder of Pogo. If any of the Hoopleheads really can read, this might stir up a little curiosity. Pogo should be revived for today. I know, Kadizzle and popz, I am expecting far too much. It is not winning that is at issue here---it is a level of understanding. Do not fear, knowledge does not hurt--although egos do get damaged in the process of acknowledging being wrong. To learn something new everyday is an incredible blessing. We are now burdened with genetic throwbacks to the "know-nothings".
Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle. There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blast on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.
Kadizzle, how about we enter into an agreement that to engage these mental dwarfs is just not worth anything. I am not sure that they can read but they sure don't have books with pages with print. Some years ago, a group of progressive farmers---ones who understood that the system of subsidy was a method of destroying family agriculture, had 5000 books printed. Paperback. Titled "Everything that Ronald Reagan knows about Agriculture". When opened--the pages were blank. A wonderful conversation piece. The application for today is endless.
Big Jake, I will revise my comments on education and intelligence. Indeed there are a lot of intelligent people without formal credentials. Most of the intelligent people I know who had no college education, had an open mind, a skeptical mind, and they made an effort to inform themselves by reading well written material. I can understand some old goat who never made it through high school, but now any one who does not have the drive to at least get a GED, has a problem. On the other hand you can go into a lot of households and see nothing but Readers Digest, The Bismarck Tribune, and a few free farm journals. Any well read person should have a couple of unbiased magazines, and at least one real newspaper coming to their house. There is absolutely no excuse for the number of misinformed, or poorly informed Hoopleheads. Another requirement is to have an understanding of research and data. So many of the Hoople have no concept of how you would conduct research, or prove a point. Many Hooples confuse memory with intelligence. A lot of people can remember a lot of things, but for them to put a coherent train of thought together is a serious problem. Last but not least is the test of credibility. Anyone who would consider Rush or Fox News credible has no understanding of how to discern fact from fiction.
The domination of ignorance is just overwhelming. Who the hell wants lawyers to run the world? Where would anyone find such nonsense. As to Hal, I must presume that the economic history books also have blank pages to color on. Not one of your claims about the depression have any basis in fact. I am now increasing my order for Flat Earth Society awards. And to Kadizzle, back off on this education thing--W had a degree or two---that should certainly prove that IQ and education do not always correlate. As to our ND legislators---I just don't think it is their education or lack of it that is the problem. It is cultural. At least since Nixon created the law and order nonsense to stir up the troops, we have continued on the path that Rush and Co have refined into a science. It works---mostly because no one had the guts to take them on. Little glimmers of hope are out there now. Oh, I forgot, Lincoln never went to school---not law school either. What is wrong here I don't think is IQ, but the simple act of letting someone else think for you. The hoopleheads just can't be as dumb as they appear.
Dear Mr. Cynical, I don't recall advocating attorneys'. There does seem to be some correlation between intelligence, success, and level of education. You might note that our recent esteemed legislators eliminated all requirements for home schooling, while they added twelve hours of required training for message therapist. You might also note the preponderance of right wingers in our legislature. Does all this give you a clue about the problem?
Ya Kadiz we know. You would much rather have the world run by attorneys than regular joes. Oh wait, if I'm not mistaken most of those liars and thieves in congress are attorneys. LOL
On an aside... back then, they called it the Great Depression... because it affected everyone negatively.
This time around, we call it the Credit Crisis. Never mind that millions of Americans are loosing their homes, the financial industry's having a hissy because they can't do the suicidal leverage thing with credit anymore.
It's interesting that we've named it based on how it affects those who are least affected.
Dearest Viater you are a classic hooplehead. Where did you come up with the idea socialized medicine does not work? It is probably the scary story scenario. However, all the statistics collected by organizations including the CIA indicate socialized medicine out performs our system. The United States ranks number 13 in cost and outcome among the industrialized countries of the world. You are just like McCarthy. Just make it up or use coffee shop wisdom, but the whole concept of looking up facts and using logic goes right over your head.
"...who wants to implement the socialized medicine that has failed everywhere it's been tried?"
Holy absurd assertions!!!
Clearly you're too impervious to reason to even begin any argument. Back here in the world of normal people... we first establish acceptable premises, then arrive at a conclusion.
Would you like to try again?
Here...I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, that you can in fact argue like a person of normal intelligence and emotional development... and show you how to do it.
Harding has a recession on his hands early in his presidency. Bush has a recession on his hands early in his presidency.
Harding responds by cutting taxes for the wealthy, deregulating/laissez fair government, kowtowing to financial industry's demand for lower interest rates and freeing-up credit. Bush responds by cutting taxes for the wealthy, deregulating/laissez fair government, kowtowing to financial industry's demands for lower interest rates and freeing-up credit.
1920s: abundant credit and cash send the wealthy to market place like so many gamblers to a casino. 2000s: abundant credit and cash send the wealthy to the market place like so many gamblers to a casino
1920s: House of cards market bubble grows. Then bursts, sending the market into a crash. 2000s: House of cards market bubble grows. Then bursts, sending the market into a crash
The only difference here is that the recent bubble popped a little faster than the Harding's.
Ironic that POPs accuses conservatives of revising history and repeating mistakes. Tell me again who wants to implement the socialized medicine that has failed everywhere it's been tried? Tell me again who's supplicating to bad guys in hopes the will stop picking on us? (Russia, Iran). Tell me again who's letting an evil country get away with claiming peaceful nuclear ambitions while they develop nuclear weapons (as Clinton let N. Korea)?
Three example of failed liberal Democrat policies now attempting to be repeated.
Cite your examples. Or quit wagging your chin-- your call.
Twenty years ago, the Willie Horton thing was about being tough on crime, not race. The race card wasn't played the same, like it is now in politics. The Horton ad was bringing to light Dukakis's furlough program for convicted felons. Horton was on such a furlough, and commit more heinous crimes. It wasn't about race, but lack of a stance on crime. Too many contributors are bringing an issue of race into everything.
The next time I'm at a restaurant and there is bad service, maybe I can blame it on my race, or maybe the server's race. Sometimes bad service, behavior, and different ideas or ideals are just what they are, different, and race doesn't have to creep up into it.
Enough Drivel Deb. The add did not even have a black person in it, only showed white actors going thru a turnstile. Only a race baiter would read racism into it.
It doesn't matter who paid for the ad, Hal, the point was clear: if you don't elect the white, conservative guy, this black man will come to your home, kill you and rape your daughter.
It says a lot about the people who would silently condone such a thing and it says even more about Americans who fell for it.
I used to say the same thing, but I've since changed my tune some. He's a flame-baiter, and like the needy yappy-kicking-dog conservative feed-back junkies here, will indefinitely continue to blither inanely. I think we should oblige them.
We need to put a spot-light on the freak-show and keep it there as long as possible....make sure everyone sees what it really is.
Attention is what they want, but they're not your screaming toddler in the grocery store who should be ignored. They're full-grown adults whose psychotic foolishness should be the subject of much needed dialogue. they represent a social crisis that should not be ignored, but castigated, ridiculed, and otherwise pilloried, repeatedly, for their childish antics.
It is a sad state of affairs, but the hoopleheads are the main victims of the right wing. The saddest part is the hooples read nothing of merit, listen to Rush, and repeat the mantra of Glenn Beck. The net result is the hooples spread the very mythology so successfully used to exploit them. The hooples admire those on the top, and think someday they will be there, so they buy the story lock stock and barrel. The simple minded hooples support tax breaks for the rich while they deprive themselves of health insurance. Every hoople thinks he is going to win the lottery or hit it big, so he lives his life not as who he is, but as who he wants to be.
As I recall, it was not George H.W. Bush that ran the Willie Horton ad; it was a separate and independent group. The good thing is that it may have helped keep the incompetent Dukakis out of the White House. You all remember the helmet-headed Dukakis riding in an Army tank playing George C. Scott playing General Patton. That was so funny! Almost as ridiculous as seeing the Community Organizer in Chief saluting the people in the military!
Nickel: to ignore the racial overtones in the Willie Horton ad is to be completely blind to the situation. It was a classic scare tactic - "black is bad" "white people: if you elect Dukakis, this black man will be in your neighborhood" - it was pathetic and disgusting and it totally worked to get Bush elected.
From the founding fathers, to the civil war, to FDR, to the Credit Crisis, the only thing the pathetic remnant dregs of the conservative party can do is stand the facts of history on their heads, or deny it all happened.
It's one thing to have a different interpretation, but to employ lies entirely contrary to reality is some sort of kool-aid gone off the deep end of sanity.
The letter writer is correct... when so many moronic idiots want nothing more than to revise history, and so inanely frame it all as a binary partisan association fallacy, it detracts, if not overturns, what the most important lessons were, and trivializes atrocities and mistakes, setting us up to repeat them.
If there's any singularly partisan thing we can take from history, it's that the conservatives did, can, and will continue to make the same mistakes over and over again because of their revisionist history.
Charlie, you are a little late to join the party. Enough already!!!! McCarthy just doesn't merit our time. I would suggest that we take up a collection and find a tin foil hat that is small enough for him. He does bring out the hoopleheads---today, somebody thinks that the Willie Horton ad was in good taste. Legal--for sure. OK for the hoopleheads--apparently. Check that---2 tin foil hats please.
I don't recall that the 1988 Willie Horton ad was considered racist. It was a "tough on crime" issue if I recall, with Bush using this example of a gentleman (Horton) who was released in Dukakis' home state, and then went on a crime spree. Yes, Horton was an African American, but that wasn't the issue. I dislike it when people play the race card every chance they get -- classic Red Herring.
One sad fact about the North Dakota legislature is the number of poorly educated people that sit there. North Dakota ranks near the bottom for the educational level attained by our legislators. Mr. McCarty's style of scholarship reflects this problem. In my district for years the Hoopleheads sent an elderly gentleman to the legislature that did not even complete high school. At noon he fell asleep listening to Rush Limbaugh every day. His most famous quote was "Education just confuses people", McCarty would say "Facts just confuse people". Thanks Mr. Linderman for pointing out the shortcomings of the man trying to restart the McCarthy era in our state. McCarthy does perform one public service. If the Republicans continue to implode, it will be his philosophy that drives away all but the leftovers from the depression.
While its never easy to say who actually "started" something. I think it is incorrect to state that this Nazi name dropping did not come from the democrats. I listen to a lot of talk radio and the first time I recall hearing this nonsense was from Nancy Pelosi. Of course Rush made fun of her and then he was accused of starting it. It really doesnt matter and I agree that it takes away from the evil that the Nazi's did and should not be used in the way it is. Also whether all things Nazi are far left or right could be debated from both sides, so be careful with that.
Well stated. Let's pause to remember that a lot of the overheated rhetoric was on display when GWB was President, and it was just as objectionable for the Kos and MoveOn crowd (i.e. the kook fringe) to refer to that President as it is now for the other kook fringe to refer to President Obama in such inflammatory terms. I fear this rhetoric become the new norm under GWB. Republicans need to be better than that and hold themselves and each other to higher standards.
My bad!! ;-D
I will try to refrain from succeeding with actual debate techniques, from attacking what people *say* in the future, and instead make more of an effort to engage in the apparently appropriate and typical (here) sniping, phallus wagging, derision, labeling, and attacking people personally when they question or challenge my notions.
Working together, I'm sure we can thwart out those who brandish cognitive arguments and facts, and we can make these discussion far less mean and intimidating to those who have no interest in mature dialogue.
i can't believe I missed this ideologically retardation....
"For example: with a median age of 16, is it any surprise that so many Arab countries have a lot of young men with time on their hands?"
ROFLOL
Given their median age, is it any surprise that so many arabic countries have a lot of sand.
For a second there, I thought the example was going to be regarding the CIA fact-book's results.
It takes a special kind of stupid to suggest, as though it's self-evident, that there's a "context" link between median age and free time in order to somehow imply that we can't really know the stat (their median age).
LOL
"But without context, they are misleading."
ROFLOL... yes... someone might think the Arabs don't have time on their hands because of median age.
"For example,..."
LOL Oh goody!!!
"...a study was once done to ascertain the fitness habits of the population of a military base.... The “study” was junk."
Hence all studies are junk.
Once again, we seem to have ample evidence of the vocabulary-challenged Becktards, confusing "representative" with "context". The inter-related conditions that affect the finding do not make the finding itself false. Merely, they are not representative findings if the inter-related conditions that affect the finding are not representative.
"Many of the facts in the CIA World Factbook similarly lack context that allows meaningful comparisons—especially any scientific comparison."
For example??
LOL
That's what I thought.
"Let’s pause to recall that scientific method prescribes changing only a single variable at a time,"
Apparently someone's too ignorant to know the difference between experimental science and observational science. ::pondering the god-like abilities required for astronomy to adhere to this ignorant description of the scientific method::
LOL
"So if we are to compare the data between countries, we have to control for a large number of factors—far more than can generate a TRUE factual account."
This is a classic argument employed by intelligent design proponents in which several fallacies are nested in one another. Foremost, it an argument from ignorance fallacy, in which something is true/false because it has not been proven false/true. But nested within that fallacy is also a burden of proof fallacy in which the level of rigour necessary to prove something sufficiently to a moronic ideological git preferring willful ignorance is never satisfactory.
Ultimately, Viator, like his confusion about observational science, illustrates an abject ignorance of science yet again with an apparent omission of how we do in fact know whether or not such observational methods are sufficiently rigorous: reproducibility.
It's not just the CIA fact book. These findings are consistently duplicated with numerous independent efforts.
Put another way, the idiots and liars in this debate are the ones who can neither identify the methodological errors they so moronically allude to, nor provide an alternative study which finds otherwise.
LOL
When someone declares another is ideologically blind, it means they are unaware of or dismissive of facts and/or reason that are not in harmony with their ideology.
However, whenever we ask the Becktards here for facts or reason, we only get more ideology. Whenever we supply facts and reason, it's dismissed or ignored.
We point to actual statistical studies, and in response you all dismiss the studies with tought terminating cliches and humorously and ignorantly questioning the methodology... what was that last one the other day??? Figures lie?
LOL
I have yet to see any Becktard here provide an actual argument with premises. Just bare assertions.
The problem is that the Becktards don't even seem to know what the words they use mean.... and in the end have nothing to offer but vapid indictments of anyone who does not agree with their ideology. The Becktards here, can't so much have a normal conversation about anything, without resorting to nothing but partisan sniping.
So...
If liberals here are ideologically blind... by all means, what facts or reason are we dismissing?
Best of luck!!!
Once again, however, I suspect you all cannot support the assertion.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/112264/Nurses-Shine-While-Bankers-Slump-Ethics-Ratings.aspx
Watch it for yourself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io9KMSSEZ0Y
People like you are precisely the reason no meaningful discussion on race can exist. The words used in the discussion simply have lost all meaning. When everything's racist, nothing is racist. I wouldn't be surprised if all this race card crap from you Lefties ended up making race relations worse and increase the number of race-related crimes.
Classic "when did you stop beating your wife" reasoning from the Left....
Like everyone should, I have downloaded the CIA world factbook and examined a lot of the key rankings of countries, because demographics tell you a lot. For example: with a median age of 16, is it any surprise that so many Arab countries have a lot of young men with time on their hands?
Numbers are important, because they are the language of empiricism. But without context, they are misleading. For example, a study was once done to ascertain the fitness habits of the population of a military base. Over a hundred people were interviewed, and the fitness habits reported to the base commanding officer. Some time later, the senior officer was surprised by the number of fitness test failures, given the good fitness habits the study reported.
Unfortunately, it was discovered that the survey had been done in front of the base gym. So only those who were entering or leaving the gym were interviewed. The “study” was junk.
Many of the facts in the CIA World Factbook similarly lack context that allows meaningful comparisons—especially any scientific comparison. Let’s pause to recall that scientific method prescribes changing only a single variable at a time, while all others are “controlled” to observe the effects. More advanced experiment designs can add two or three factors, but rarely more than that.
So if we are to compare the data between countries, we have to control for a large number of factors—far more than can generate a TRUE factual account.
Let’s say we want to compare life expectancies across countries A and B. In country A, there is no contraception available, and healthcare is terrible. In country B, healthcare is better and contraception is widely available. Would there be any surprise then that country A shows an average life expectancy? No. But is it the absence of contraception or the poor healthcare that caused it? In what proportion? We cannot know.
How could we ever meaningfully apply the scientific method to any healthcare statistic from the Fact Book? Think of the overwhelming number of control factors: genetics, diet, environment, birth rate, abortion rate, immunization rate, cultural factors, etc.
While numbers are important, without knowing the context, we can only assign limited meaning to them.
Put another way: figures lie, and liars figure.
...already happening: the end of the two party system.
The conservatives have fractured... the moderates are democrats, some remain loyal to the republicans, and the fringe extremists are embracing The Conservative party.... the later having its roots in the modern era version of the KKK (Council of Conservative Citizens).
You've got to give the hoopleheads credit where it is due... while liberals are whining about democrats not being any different than republicans, the extreme right wing has stopped whining about republicans bait-n-switch routine, and have just started a new party.
Now liberals need to follow course.
Next, we need to get rid of the winner take all electoral system, and get on with some power sharing arrangements.
this is how the U.S. will, for the first time in history, really be a representative as opposed to a aristocratic plutocracy.
I think confederacies of dunces have been an ever present reality throughout humanity.
1. Do you think Glenn Beck has any credibility
2. Did you vote for Sara Palin?
3. Do you think Fox News is a reliable source of information?
4. Do you think Dick Cheney is a liar?
My guess is you will not answer any of these questions, but they will define you in a way that any thinking person will be able to know if you are lost in the wilderness of right wing thinking.
There's not *really* any problem and our health care system rocks.
It will cost almost as much as we've spent on Iraq, so we can't afford it.
Unlike the rest of the world, americans can't fix this problem.
I think it was Maher who compared them to a co-ed after four long-island ice teas..."you can talk them in or out of anything."
Holy shot-gun-n-kitchen-sink drivel boy wonder!!!!
"...success if you define success as ...A friend of mine in Canada...it's about the value of human life... it's about the role of government...about responsibility...about fairness... about your concept vs. mine... it's personal... it isn’t a public good... it isn't public.... it's private...."
Jesus!! What's the "bottom line"??
ROFLOL
Redefining the vocabulary, the issues, employing anecdotal evidence, and equivocating confidentiality with who's paying for it?
This is your idea of "concise"??
LOL
Geez... I shudder to think how long it would be if you actually had relevant facts and details.
This is not concise. It's an amalgam of insipid ideologically loaded rhetoric that provides no actual facts or cognitive reasoning. It's inane. It's insane. It's wilful ignorance. It's dishonest. It's desperate. It's pathetic....
Wait... here's an example of concise for you...
It's Orwellian.
LOL
You're not just drinking the kool-aid. I think you're employing a beer bong to see how much can be stomached. Seriously... how many vapid talking points, bare-assertions, cherry-picked non-facts, redherrings, and emotionally loaded appeals can you cramb into one post?
If you'd wanted to be concise, you should've just said there isn't *really* any problem, and it is in fact a down-home american value to profit from the sick and the dying.
Bottom line: we have the worst health care in the industrialized world, by most measures and we're paying more than anyone else is for it.
Bottom Line: our current system is, by every account, both failing us and unsustainable.
Would you like to try again? You know... start with some premises that are actually universal/acceptable, and arrive at a conclusion...as opposed to your blithering inanity, stating the asinine conclusions you can't arrive at?
For example, you say: "We all know we simply cannot afford it. Period."
Support your moronic claim: that cutting costs is going to cost us too much.
Best of luck with that one.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6897569.ece
For Popz and others I will try to make this very concise.
Socialized medicine can be considered a success if you define success as the percentage of people covered. Of course, a thinking person asks the additional question: “covered by what?”
But looking at the UK and Canada, however,, you can see it is a failure if success is defined as promptness of care, quality of care, and overall cost. British breast cancer patients have to wait in some cases over a year to get treated. Some have died waiting for care.
A friend of mine who is Canadian tells me unequivocally that American care is better than in Saskatchewan. He’s had knee replacements, massive infections, and a lot of sports injuries (and a couple massive wrecks). Even when his infection was approaching life-threatening, he was waiting to be seen. His advice to me: Canadian care isn’t like a 3rd world country, but still worse than American care—and he pays considerably out of his modest income to get American care when something is serious or urgent.
Let’s cut the crap and get to the bottom of this: the healthcare debate isn’t about healthcare per se. It’s about the value of human life. It’s about whether or not someone else should have to pay when I get sick. It’s about the role of Government in our country. It’s about your concept of “fairness” versus mine. It’s about how much responsibility we will shoulder to be free. That’s why this is a complicated issue—because it’s personal.
Healthcare isn’t a public good. It is not a road and not a school. Public good have general usage in common: it doesn’t matter if the tire going down the road is bolted to a Lexus or a Yugo—the road only sees the tire. Now there are really high traction tires and crappy tires, but the road treats them all the same. Just as public schools have bright kids and kids destined to become Democrats (sorry, little joke), the school treats them all the same.
But healthcare is unique to each person. While the road gives each tire the same response, some people will need only a couple dollars in healthcare a year and others will accrue hundreds of thousands of dollars in care with specialized tests and advisors around every corner. No—healthcare is not public, it is private—and intensely so.
I oppose adding healthcare as yet another entitlement to the American citizen, for many reasons. We all know we simply cannot afford it. Period. Anyone who believes a government undertaking of this kind can *save* money, but ignore all of what history teaches to maintain that faith.
Another reason is that it hurts our productivity. We in America have become a little spoiled and the more we get from someone else’s sweat, the less respect we give it. Bad enough we can’t save up money ourselves to pay for something (instead taking on debt) but rather we are now even demanding that SOMEONE ELSE take on debt on our behalf. How rude! We need a little fear to preserve that survival instinct.
Another reason is that is guarantees more consumption of healthcare, which, in turn, raises costs. After all, if a trip to the doctor costs nothing, you’ll go for every sniffle, owie, boo-boo, cut and scrape. Just ask anyone currently working in a California ER. Illegals come in for their free healthcare for every sniffle. They clog the system and make it harder for real emergencies to get addressed.
Another reason is that those higher costs are not being born by those who use them. Ever wonder if a rental car gets usage as gentle as your personal car? No—we all know that rental cars get thrashed. Why? Because we won’t have to pay the consequences if abuse. It’s the same reason that hotels are often trashed by drunk partygoers. It’s a different story if your own house gets trashed!
So why be healthy? Why not smoke or weigh 300 pounds too much if you would never get lung cancer or type 2 diabetes? No consequences, no accountability.
So why would a person give any respect to healthcare they didn’t pay for? What kind of moral ethic taxes a worker with a young family to provide for the healthcare of someone whose children are grown?
It used to be that we sacrificed for our children, that we wanted them to have better lives than we had, with more comfort, more prosperity. Now we have the HCAN crowd essentially telling us that they reject this idea. Instead, the young now OWE the old a debt, so they must overpay for their mandatory insurance so that the main consumers of healthcare can underpay for theirs.
For these and even more reasons, mandatory health insurance for all is a bad idea certain to increase cost, reduce our freedom, and enslave the coming generations that will have to foot the bill for the profligate spending.
Chemicals??
Maybe. Although, this problem seems to be distinctly American, and the rest of the world's population does not have such a large percentage of people who apparently both lack the ability to fathom the working parts of a brick and also embracing wilful ignorance, like it's a virtue, in order to facilitate so many inanely absolutist notions.
"Not one of your [Hal's] claims about the depression have any basis in fact."
In Hal's defense, one of the key causes of the 1921 depression is that the Federal Reserve Bank raised interest rates when the economy was in a deflationary tail spin. The FRB was only a few years old though, and hadn't a clue yet how much influence they had on the economy. Learning from that mistake, the government has since used interest rates to head-off inflation by raising interest rates in response to inflation, slowing-down economic growth, and avoiding that pie-in-sky house o' cards sort of market growth, and also lowering interest rates when the economy is in trouble.
Unfortunately, Bush's FRB discarded that lesson in favor of repeating Harding's Laissez Fair mistake, deciding that the government had no business slowing economic growth. Lowering the interest rates directly stimulated the economy in 2001, and by the end of 2002 we were back to inflationary growth... and interest rates should have been inched-up accordingly. They weren't. The feds were pretty much ordered to not only keep interest rates low, but to actually continue to lower them, bottoming-out at 1% by 2004. This directly facilitated the housing bubble as well as the whole suicidal leveraging of derivatives.
So in a way, a kool-aid drinking absolutist anti-Government idiot could sort of blame it all on government, yet again... but it was really business meddling in government, bankers screaming bloody murder, pointing at the dot.com bubble bursting in response to Greenspan raising interest rates in 2000, and screaming at the feds..."LOWER...LOWER....LOWER". And why not? They were getting filthy rich with leverage.
"Harding took the approach of letting the free market and free enterprise take their financial hits--some went bankrupt as they should have."
And Bush ... what? Bailed them out in 2001?
LOL
"The Harding problem per historians was not a cause or lead-up to the Great Depression. The feds had their fingers in..."
Translation: "nuh uh"
If you want to stop looking like such a kool-aid drinking fool, you need refute one of the following assertions I made: that there was a lot of cash available to the wealthy, a stock market bubble grew, then burst.
You have neither refuted anything I've said, and proved it wrong, nor have you suppled any alternative explaination of things.... asid from just making things up (e.g. government meddling caused the market bubble or the bubble to burst??)
Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle.
There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blast on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.
Forward!
”
—Walt Kelly, June 1953
ROFLOL
This time around, we call it the Credit Crisis. Never mind that millions of Americans are loosing their homes, the financial industry's having a hissy because they can't do the suicidal leverage thing with credit anymore.
It's interesting that we've named it based on how it affects those who are least affected.
"...who wants to implement the socialized medicine that has failed everywhere it's been tried?"
Holy absurd assertions!!!
Clearly you're too impervious to reason to even begin any argument. Back here in the world of normal people... we first establish acceptable premises, then arrive at a conclusion.
Would you like to try again?
Here...I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, that you can in fact argue like a person of normal intelligence and emotional development... and show you how to do it.
Harding has a recession on his hands early in his presidency.
Bush has a recession on his hands early in his presidency.
Harding responds by cutting taxes for the wealthy, deregulating/laissez fair government, kowtowing to financial industry's demand for lower interest rates and freeing-up credit.
Bush responds by cutting taxes for the wealthy, deregulating/laissez fair government, kowtowing to financial industry's demands for lower interest rates and freeing-up credit.
1920s: abundant credit and cash send the wealthy to market place like so many gamblers to a casino.
2000s: abundant credit and cash send the wealthy to the market place like so many gamblers to a casino
1920s: House of cards market bubble grows. Then bursts, sending the market into a crash.
2000s: House of cards market bubble grows. Then bursts, sending the market into a crash
The only difference here is that the recent bubble popped a little faster than the Harding's.
Three example of failed liberal Democrat policies now attempting to be repeated.
Cite your examples. Or quit wagging your chin-- your call.
The next time I'm at a restaurant and there is bad service, maybe I can blame it on my race, or maybe the server's race. Sometimes bad service, behavior, and different ideas or ideals are just what they are, different, and race doesn't have to creep up into it.
It says a lot about the people who would silently condone such a thing and it says even more about Americans who fell for it.
LOL
I used to say the same thing, but I've since changed my tune some. He's a flame-baiter, and like the needy yappy-kicking-dog conservative feed-back junkies here, will indefinitely continue to blither inanely. I think we should oblige them.
We need to put a spot-light on the freak-show and keep it there as long as possible....make sure everyone sees what it really is.
Attention is what they want, but they're not your screaming toddler in the grocery store who should be ignored. They're full-grown adults whose psychotic foolishness should be the subject of much needed dialogue. they represent a social crisis that should not be ignored, but castigated, ridiculed, and otherwise pilloried, repeatedly, for their childish antics.
You all remember the helmet-headed Dukakis riding in an Army tank playing George C. Scott playing General Patton. That was so funny! Almost as ridiculous as seeing the Community Organizer in Chief saluting the people in the military!
It's one thing to have a different interpretation, but to employ lies entirely contrary to reality is some sort of kool-aid gone off the deep end of sanity.
The letter writer is correct... when so many moronic idiots want nothing more than to revise history, and so inanely frame it all as a binary partisan association fallacy, it detracts, if not overturns, what the most important lessons were, and trivializes atrocities and mistakes, setting us up to repeat them.
If there's any singularly partisan thing we can take from history, it's that the conservatives did, can, and will continue to make the same mistakes over and over again because of their revisionist history.