Originally posted by ChemBot
I’m sure there’s plenty of racist southerners that would disagree with your comment on whether or not black people deserve to be called by that name.
I’m glad that they’re racist southerners rather than just racists… who’s being derogatory now?
Also, just because I disagree with alot of conservative policies doesn’t mean I automatically throw arround terms like right-winger, frothing convervative, or even nutty conservative. Stuff like that used in a derogatory way doesn’t add any points to your argument, it only makes you look bad.
Dude, it isn’t just because I disagree with them because I feel like it. It’s that I don’t see any good reason to think that people who believe some of these things are sane or rational.
Oh it’s entirely possible, just more difficult since you need to think about what you’re going to say before you say it. You couldn’t very well sling back an argument at those nutty left-wing hippies right back if you have to think out your argument first, now could you?
Way to argue for your contention… By the way, I still think you’re wrong. Being impartial/objective would require you not to be a person, not to have desires, emotions, reactions, or an environment. When you can somehow get outside of everything that makes you who you are, then you can talk to me about impartiality.
Well gee, if you know a guy that’s doing “just fine”, well that sure convinces me. Come now, how old are you? You can’t be that much older than me, in which case “just fine” won’t cut it when you decide you want to buy a house in California and raise a family. The cost of living is high and most jobs that pay well require a college education. Sure, I could do well selling Amway and working a part-time job at a book store, but pretty much any career has a college education as a minimum requirement.
When I say “just fine,” I don’t mean just surviving. My cousin and her new husband (neither college-educated) just bought a house. They have good jobs and enough money to be happy. If the cost of living is too high in California, then move.
Also, your stepmother went to medical school to become a nurse. Tell her she could have done just fine without medical school and see what kind of reaction she gives you.
First of all, no she didn’t. Nurses don’t go to med school - they go to nursing school. It’s different. Second, I wasn’t counting her as one of my parents because I don’t live with her. My mother and stepfather are not college-educated, and I have a house and cats and dogs and food and videogames and satellite TV and all those things a boy could want.
The state does pay for college for alot of people already.
First, not me. Second, still ludicrous.
They’re called scolarships.
Usually, they’re called “grants” and are based on the fact that you don’t have any money, which is the ludicrous part. Though they’re justifiable in the sense that I’m fully prepared to allow (morally) people to accept an amount up to the amount they (or their parents) pay in income taxes. They’re owed that much.
Now I also could have gotten student loans like you and gotten myself into lots and lots of debt, but I sure don’t fancy the idea of having such debt. That’s why I don’t have any credit cards, because I know I’d just buy nice things that I can’t afford and bury myself with debt. To me, debt is bad. I’d rather not owe anyone anything if I can help it. Maybe when I get my GE out of the way I’ll transfer to a University, get student loans, and graduate as soon as I can. Untill I do that though, I better watch out for cars and SARS cuz I’m not covered for nothin’.
Again, all of this looks like a choice and you still haven’t convinced me that the state needs to bail you out of a choice you made all by yourself.
Where are you getting thise gunpoint analogy from? That’s just, well, wacky.
The state has guns, which it uses to enforce its laws.
In the earlier parts of last centery health care was minimal at best, even for those who could pay for it. But you’re right, there was little regulation or competition since there was little innovation in the medical industry. When it improved and thus became more complicated, federal regulation became necessary to prevent greedy people from trying to scam patients.
I’m glad we can just state that federal regulation became necessary without really looking at the alternatives… which I’d like to do seeing as how federal regulation has so totally fucked the system up.
I mean, look at the California power system for how self regulation can go wrong. It was all fine and good with government regulation, then they decided self regulation was better. $9 billion later, we’re still trying to sue the power companies for shutting off power plants to artificially inflates prices when demand was high.
This is misguided, though I’m not sure I can explain why. T told me all about it once (something to do with deregulating in CA but not the suppliers and bottlenecks and all that) - hopefully he’ll come through here and clear this up.
While I agree that a lot of policies in medical regulation are not good for patients, government policies can change for the better if enough people want them to.
Given democracy, I agree… but I’m not sure why you feel the need to try to convince me of that.
Of course Republicans tend to lean towards business over consumer when it comes time to make such laws, so maybe liberals aren’t so bad?
Actually, Republicans just don’t tend to take such a poor view of consumers as Democrats (I’m using these party designations sweepingly and unfairly) do. For the most part, the idea of Democratic regulation implicitly seems to involve the notion that consumers are either too stupid or too lazy to make reasonable choices on their own. In many cases, I’d even go so far as to say it’s moral - a lot of “liberals” don’t seem to think that people should be held responsible for their decisions - hence, abortion. I think (because this is my point of view) that Republicans tend to assume that consumers aren’t just a bunch of ninnies who need a benevolent dictator keeping them in line. The reason they tend to favor businesses (though what I think is more accurate is that they just oppose special privileges for consumers - similar to the way their opposition to things like affirmative action is entirely negative) is that they trust the market to make things okay, which it usually does.