Place Your Midterm Election Bets.

We may have had the best healthcare available at one time, but we objectively do not right now. We have decent healthcare at top shelf prices.


Except most people don't really care about having a Ferrari, they want food and a place to live. Extravagance is a luxury, existence isn't.


While I agree that services have value, especially when they are offered privately, certain things are never argued against. Roads and airwaves, public works like water and sewer, basic laws, protection of personal property (legal documentation and enforcement, not guns or guard dogs), etc. Those things are never argued against. So the primary issue I have with the way entitlements are spoken about on both sides is that they aren't really opposing views. Similar to the thought exercises that start with acquisition.

You ask a cute girl on the street if she'd take money for sex. She says no. You say, what if it was a million dollars. She says for a million, sure.

What you've established is that she is willing to take money for sex, the issue is the price.

Even the most conservative people out there would have to think hard about giving up fire departments and municipal water, and I can't believe anyone would give up property protection. So, the sticking point isn't whether we all should pay for things, it's about what things and who should get them. Approach the issue with what you have in common, not what you disagree on, and the results will always be better.

What other conclusion could be reached? Why would 2/3 of the people choose not to take 15 minutes out of their day to make their voice heard? Care to offer some kind of explanation besides using it as an excuse to throw more BS at Obama or make juvenile torts at me?

Basic services I think we can all agree on that the government(s) should fund.

Fire Department, Police, Hospitals, Roads, Utilities, etc. isn't the question or the issue.

It's when the government panders to a specific group of people for votes, that is the issue.

When you have political ads that state that <insert candidate> will vote against your welfare check and will cut your retirement benefits if elected, especially when there is either no basis for such accusations, and then goes around and allows fraud and waste to occur with such services, and doesn't prosecute, that's the real issue at hand.

I don't think I've ever seen a political ad that said a candidate was going to take away your welfare check, lol. I have seen them saying candidates wanted to defund things, but never anything like that.

I also don't think I've ever seen a documented case that people who were confirmed to have defrauded assistance programs weren't held responsible intentionally. The system sucks, in a lot of ways, but you accuse the system and the people of intentional misuse that you have provided no evidence of.

I'd rather have a well than city water and sewer, I'm pretty sure I can manage my own supply better than the city can manage it for me (and thousands of other residents). I have the choice on that, choice is good.

Fire and police get into that zone of hey I can't quite manage this for myself so the state needs to provide this to me. However one doesn't need to look far to see instances of public abuse by the state in police and fire departments. Regardless, you can't really compare the local services like police and fire with a nationalized health care. Everyone who lives in the town pays for local services through their property taxes and in some instances (this is wrong) through state subsidies via their tax sates. The universe is much much more local than something on a national scale.

I can just as easily replace "Ferrari" with "getting from point A to B". There are many ways to do this, I can walk, run, bike, take mass transit, take public transit, or drive myself there in my own car. If I cannot afford to drive myself there I take public transit. I still get there, it just might not be as extravagant as other options. No one owes me the extravagance in transportation just as no one owes me the extravagance in healthcare. That doesn't mean the extravagance is not available to me.

I already gave you a conclusion (see bolded above).

Why bother holding a vote at all? The people in power know what's up right?

That's not really the same thing. People could have voted for many things that weren't strictly partisan. Lots of states had referendums and initiatives. I could hate both candidates but still want to decriminalize marijuana. Why would I NOT vote in that case?


I think you missed the point... ACA also isn't national healthcare, it establishes standards of care and requires you buy insurance and that they provide the service you are buying.

Also, not really on point, but having a well isn't absolving you of taking from the whole. Where do you think the water in your well comes from? It's part of a shared water table. How would you feel if your neighbor was allowed to leech chemicals into the ground water and pollute your well? There needs to be some control over potable water, it's not exactly an unlimited resource.

and therein lies the rub...

You tell me the water on my property isn't really mine and I'm not smart enough to manage it myself...

so I have to pay the government to hire someone that knows absolutely nothing about water to manage it for me and of course they need a modern office and a car to drive around in and heck let's make a whole department filled with your family members and people that donated to the mayor's campaign....

/sigh

the whole problem with liberalism is this belief that a whole room full of idiots is somehow smarter and better than one singular idiot.

Even in jest, this is very much true. It's just necessary to remove direct control over things that necessarily impact others. It's not that they say your water isn't yours, it's that they are protecting you from everyone else as well. I'm sure people's opinion of these kinds of issues would be affected if they had ever been the one on the losing end of unregulated perils.

Here's one

And another

And another

And yes, these are all supporting Republican viewpoints. Just because I'm a Republican doesn't mean that I support everything they do.

But it's never that simple, it's not about protecting idiots from you or you from idiots, it's making decisions for you that you are perfectly capable of making yourself. Actually its about the arrogance that a bunch of idiots know whats better for you than you know for yourself.

But no control issues, can't have that, can we?

Eh, if you want to phrase it that way for effect, have at it, but more often than not, they are protecting you from idiots. You may be capable of making those decisions, but you would also begrudge them for allowing some other person from making decisions that hurt you. Certain things have the power to do more harm than good in the hands of individuals. We, as a collective, have to decide what things we will and won't put in the hands of individuals. That's the primary reason for having a republic, not a democracy.

Here ya go.

This Coburn's Senate page on the issue...


One connected judge was implicated in a federal lawsuit, but none of the accused have been criminally charged. The evidence against them appears to be circumstantial.

The whole thing seems fishy, that's for sure. Still, a single example where nobody has been charged with a crime and evidence is minute is far from the rampant abuse you claimed.

Sure, after the story went out in public.

Didn't you ask why nothing was being done prior to the investigation? Why this was allowed to happen? Why nothing was done to prevent it?

The lack of action speaks volumes more than any one prosecution can do in cases like this.

It definitely does, but it doesn't say what you think it says. Inaction means they don't have enough evidence to prosecute them. That doesn't mean the evidence doesn't exist or that they're protecting them, it means what it means. You're dipping into tinfoil territory.

You are missing the point.

Somebody had to have either lied on their application to receive fraudulent funds, lied on the processing, or falsified records to the doctor/administration. Somebody is responsible, and the fact that it occurs more and more per year, either shows a lack of prosecution, or lack of changing of controls, both of which is the fault of the administration.

Did you read any of the articles on the subject? They investigated and found a statistically questionable approval rate. None of the recipients were found to have received funds they weren't entitled to, the issue is how medical proof of disability was acquired and how little scrutiny they were given.

You're assuming that because a lot of people are receiving benefits that they must not be entitled to them. No evidence of that was found.

The article even offered the possibility that the shift in the age of recipients corisponded with more baby boomers reaching specific eligibility ages.

Name a corporation who evaded taxes illegally (which is the only definition associated with it).

Please, enlighten us what laws were broken and by who. I'm going to guess your first answer is Apple, so I'll save you the trouble in that if you wish.

Liberals and a lot of conservatives aren't upset that companies are breaking the law, they're upset that those tactics are legal.

By the time laws catch up, they're already on to a new scheme.

Tax attornees wouldn't exist if there wasn't a demand, obviously. But, a certain amount of these tactics have been available for a very long time and laws only get addressed when the public gets mad about them. Politicians owe a good amount of their political capital to the good graces of large businesses thanks to PACs.

Separation of business and state?

One of the many reasons I support public campaign finance, term limits, and independent review.