We are not sitting in your home enjoying wine together in a PRIVATE discussion, Karen. If we were that would be a completely different story. Of course you realize that ANYONE can come across this post ALONE and not read the rest of the blog? That it can be forwarded by anyone to anyone?
Bob Vanceon March 26, 2013 at 6:45 am
“Since 2009, there has been an urban myth that Obama created a program to provide free phones to low-income Americans at taxpayer expense. There is, in fact, a government program that will provide low-income people with a free or low cost cell phone. It was started in 2008 under George W. Bush.
The idea of providing low-income individuals with subsidized phone service was originated in the Reagan administration following the break-up of AT&T in 1984. (It was expanded and formalized by the Telecommunications Act of 1996.) The program is paid for by telecommunications companies through an independent non-profit, not through tax revenue.”
I’m sure you are smart enough to know how communication works?? How the intention of a message HAS NO IMPACT on how it is received?
This meme is talking about FOOD STAMPS & MEDICAID for crying out loud, and it’s not proposing any alternative … the only purpose this can possibly serve is to harden the hearts of one human being towards another & inflict SHAME on the poor.
We don’t question whether or not there should be a safety net. Of course there should be! The question is only how high or low the safety net should be. Honorable, and caring people can disagree.
This blogs view is that the safety net is so deep that it is breeding dependence. It also allows people to say “the government will take care of it” allowing people to not take any personal responsibility for taking care of each other.
And finally, this country is going bankrupt, which will mean the ranks of the poor is only going to grow. Just take a look at Detroit, which has been 100 percent run by Democrats for over 50 years, to see where those policies lead. California is heading into deep trouble as well.
I don’t think that the poor in Detroit are feeling like all is well.
So, as a Christian, why would you want it to make it your life’s mission (seemingly) to be so vehemently capitalist & republican?
My mother is the same way, and I will tell you what I tell her. I tell her she’s full of it — that she’s so deep into her own hypocrisy that she can’t even see it — she’s allowed her beliefs to choose her, and no amount of prayers or donations to charity will ever justify her way of life.
I am not primarily a capitalist republican. I am first and foremost a disciple of Christ. I vote Republican these days because it aligns more closely with my beliefs. (these days are the operative words)
But clearly you care more. And it is obvious by the way you treat your mother what a nice guy and upstanding citizen you are.
No. We will talk about what we want to talk about. And it is nice to know that you are not biting and sarcastic..and really the one who cares the most. Good man.
Demonize those who disagree with you. Now THAT is a way to civil discourse and serious conversation.
I don’t know what that was a “no” to, but I would categorize this post as making fun of poor people. It might be intended for democrats or for your republican buds to have a laugh, but this is the very type of thing which causes one human being to RESENT another human being using food stamps in the grocery line.
It IS possible to disagree with someone without accusations.
Honest and caring people can disagree about how to best care for the poor and the best political solutions. We disagree with many of our friends and love to have vibrant discussions. None of them have called us loud and obnoxious because of our views, or accused us of trying to inflict shame on the poor, or not doing anything for people in need. And none of them have accused us of being stupid.
Regarding your last comment, read the blog if you still think no proposals have ever been proposed.
But you are still making assumptions about me without knowing anything about me. We have a regular reader and commentator, Bob Vance, who sometimes disagrees vehemently, but is able to do it in a much less accusatory tone and with zero nastiness.
The fact that this is public makes it more important to be civil. Everything we do matters.
Good for Bob Vance. He’s being too nice, and I’m guessing he is either personally associated with you OR has something to gain by being nice in the face of this nonsense? Even if that gain is just maintaining his public persona.
You seem to be missing the fact that you have posted an obnoxious meme. There is nothing objective nor insightful about this meme. You have every right to be obnoxious. You have every right to cause a fuss — but don’t be in denial about the content.
I intentionally post obnoxious stuff all the time with a specific purpose, and I welcome anyone to come and tell me I’m going to hell for it.
“Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense.”
— Mark Twain
Now quit being a baby and own up to what you have done. You have posted a meme which MOCKS POOR PEOPLE.
Just a quick note to state what really should be obvious: You state that you “intentionally post obnoxious stuff all the time.” I ask this seriously: Who the heck are YOU, then, to insist that OTHERS not do the same thing?
Frankly, you’re wrong. The cartoon mocks the policies that lock the poor into the straitjacket of poverty. Poverty that’s bought and paid for by your and my tax dollars — and the Democrat Party. Along with that poverty come lots and lots and lots of votes — bought and paid for by your and my tax dollars — and the Democrat Party.
Sorry: this is so howlingly obviously true, that if you disagree you show yourself not to be a serious analyst, observer, thinker or interlocutor.
It’s looks a LOT more as though YOU need to “quit being a baby and own up” to the fact that (1) you misunderstood the cartoon, and (2) it IS, after all, pretty much right on the mark.
Eye Gye and Zande — your eyes plainly aren’t EAGLE eyes…the cartoon obviously mocks not the poor, but the cynicism and corruption of the Democrat Party’s modus operandi which, does indeed, produce automatic votes.
I noticed that in all your high dudgeon, you never questioned the ACTUAL premise of the cartoon! Your concession of the cartoon’s point speaks more eloquently than your ummm…shall we say “forced” outrage on behalf of the poor.
It’s equally possible to read into the cartoon a genuine sympathy for the poor, or at least for a large segment of the poor who, faced with a society filled with perverse incentives and constrained financial mobility, feeling trapped, do, indeed, vote automatically for the selfsame Democrat party that has trapped them!
Let’s face it: The Democrat Party is the only one with nearly automatic constituencies. Blacks, Hispanics, urban dwellers, even Jews! all vote with huge majorities for the Democrat Party. Such a cartoon targeting Republicans just wouldn’t be possible. The reader would be left scratching his head, saying, “Whuuuh? That makes no sense!” Everyone knows there are no automatic Republican voting blocs. This is by itself prima facie proof that Republican voters are mostly thinking voters, while, by contrast at least SOME Democrat voters — and a significant portion — ARE automatic Democrat voters.
I’m sorry, there’s just no way that the Democrat message is THAT obviously superior to the Republican message in election after election, year after year. Obviously something else is at work.
Eye guy and Zande…your tacit admission that the cartoon is correct indicates that YOU believe also that the “other thing at work” here is the “free stuff” mentioned in the cartoon. You just got all in a huff about the, shall we say, less than delicately chiding tone of the cartoon. If people were to get EQUALLY huffy about ALL “less than delicate” tones in cartoons, there wouldn’t be a lefty cartoonist working out there today.
Methinks your thin skin is a put-on! 🙂
I especially liked the “even after he’s dead” kicker at the end! Nice touch. That SPECIFICALLY targets the well-known propensity of Democrat voters to vote long after they have shuffled off this mortal coil…
Eye guy, you ARE aware of the half-dozen or so precincts that — in defiance of astonishing odds — went 100% for Obama in the past election, aren’t you? In any election, a certain surprisingly high percentage of people on both sides vote by ACCIDENT for the candidate for whom they DID NOT intend to vote. Yet, mirabile dictu, these urban precincts, oddly enough in the crucial swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio went 100% for Obama!
Ummm…probably not. Much more likely there was voter fraud and corruption involved in getting that highly improbably result.
Third world dictators, throwing blatantly sham elections don’t get 100% of the vote! I’m thinking that a LOT of lucky dead people were wandering the earth last election and voting, LONG after their demise theoretically would have rendered them ineligible …and they were voting Democrat. The 2012 election DID teach us an important lesson: Zombies are ALSO, apparently, a key Democrat constituency.
So, you may not like the tone of the cartoon, though your outrage seems forced to me, but the cartoon IS right on the nose, and it IS funny.
Easy joke at expense of Republicans:
[Jesus]: It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God
[Wealthy person in fancy car coming back from church, en route to gated neighbourhood]: God wants me to vote Republican!
[Poor person dying on the street]: If only someone had taught me to fish, I’d have a roof over my head and medical insurance, and wouldn’t be in this mess.
Violet: your out-o’-touchness is showing here. You easy joke is at the expense of Democrats and the American left. Nowadays the greedy rich vote mostly Democrat. Their modus operandi is to use the government to try to regulate away competition.
The REAL rich, who got there by understanding how free enterprise actually works, who spent their time and effort “building that” — THEIR efforts end up spreading wealth and opportunity. Oh, and by the way, they get a considerable amount of it back too. These are the working rich…not the lever pullers. These rich tend to vote Republican.
However, the REAL fat cats..the ones who don’t ACTUALLY work, but just pull levers so that other little people work harder for them? They’re Democrats. The guy on the way to the gated community? Democrat voter (look it up). The “Millionaire Next Door?” …only you just never knew he was rich, ’cause it didn’t affect who, how and what he was — just a decent guy working hard for a living for his family? Him? He’s a Republican voter.
As for your poor person dying in the street, that’s just a big, ignorant, dumb, red herring, irrelevant to today’s circumstances. Before government came along and starved out the HUGE amounts of private assistance there were — generally church-based — poor people had ample resources available for REAL assistance — ie: assistance at finding work; combatting addictions; learning trades…REAL assistance. Not just handouts. The important thing to remember: these church-based organizations had REAL success. People KICKED alcoholism, and drug addictions, and went on to successful private lives. People FOUND productive work. People LEARNED new and useful and marketable skills. People came into these organizations needing help, and left with REAL help. They came back, usually, only as volunteers to help others.
You should read up on some of these turn-of-the-20th-century organizations — phenomenal success rates at rendering REAL assistance to people.
Then the government took over, and made that cartoon that has so got under your skin…true.
xPraetorius: I think you might find that you need investigate some of the viral email content that you’re merrily spouting there.
“oddly enough in the crucial swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio went 100% for Obama!” Did they? You’re not even correctly repeating the lies that you’re ignorantly soaking up. Wood County is the place in Ohio that you’re referring to – please check their election board website to see that Obama got 51.21%. And the 100% in Pennsylvania relates to a subsection of 3% of the city vote – the correct figure is 85.21%.
“Zombies are ALSO, apparently, a key Democrat constituency.” This is from the same email – do your homework, seriously. It’s embarrassing to repeat obvious lies like this.
A 2009 Harvard Medical Study demonstrated that over 40,000 US citizens die each year because they lack health insurance. I don’t think political jokes about ‘reliance’ on Medicare and free medicine make sense with a death toll like that. The USA is the only developed country in the world that doesn’t provide universal free healthcare, it’s the richest country in the world, and most of its population are so brainwashed about perceive ‘socialism’ that they can’t see basic human rights being swept under the carpet on a daily basis.
YOU should read up about the rest of the world functions, and try and go beyond the lying, viral emails that pop into your inbox from similar-minded, gullible people.
Violet: You could at LEAST quote me correctly. I never said that the states went 100% for Obama…just a half-dozen or so PRECINCTS in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Sorry, it’s true. They did. Again, in defiance of HUGE odds.
Obviously, no entire COUNTY went 100% for Obama. And, just as obviously, I never said any county did. 🙂
Ummmmm…I’m assuming you didn’t take SERIOUSLY the zombie comment? PLEASE tell me you didn’t take seriously the zombie comment! First: it was FUNNY! And second: for the record: there’s no such thing as zombies. But, if there were, they’d be Democrat voters for sure! (<– that was a funny, Violet) 🙂
And, for the record, no one ever on the face of the earth EVER died from a lack of health insurance. From a lack of health CARE, maybe…in fact they DO die from a lack of health CARE — all the time — in Great Britain, the land of the NHS, where they deny health CARE to patients all the time due to rationing from their "free" health care system.
As regards the alleged Harvard study. Sorry…I'm calling hogwash on you. The law of the land in the U.S. has been — for a LONG time — that no one can ACTUALLY be denied health CARE. Trust me I know…from a LOT of different perspectives…even those without health insurance could ALWAYS obtain health CARE.
The Harvard study is a bunch of hooey. Yes, in America, there were uninsured people. But, they were always able to get ACTUAL health CARE. And GOOD health care. The REALLY sad thing: where the populations are all, allegedly, 100% insured, they can't GET actual health care, due to the inevitable rationing that always accompanies "free" health care.
The economic basket cases known as "Europe" have long been trying to back out of the hoax that is "free health care."
Also, for the record, there's no such thing as "free health care" or "free medicine" anywhere. Never has been, never will be…someone pays for it sometime, somewhere. You use those obviously nonsense terms, and you call OTHERS brainwashed?!? 🙂
You said: "YOU should read up about the rest of the world functions, and try and go beyond the lying, viral emails that pop into your inbox from similar-minded, gullible people."
REALLY?!?! Are you REALLY trying to tell ME where I get my information?!? You who use the terms "free health care?" and "free medicine?" Seriously?!? 🙂
Tell you what: I'LL tell YOU where I get my information. K? If you have arrogated to yourself the right to tell me where I get my information, then you have to concede to ME the right to tell you where YOU get your information. You obviously get your information beamed to you and your deep cover Soviet agent friends — who haven't yet learned in their caves in the Philippines that the Cold War is over — from the mother ship on the other side of the moon. It ends up under moss-covered rocks in the forest, and you find it because only YOU know where those rocks are.
It AIN’T funny to me, because I don’t agree with what it is getting at.
You are correct in sensing that my tone is a bit forced. Karen tends to bring feewlings into this, but replies to a satire on a public comment thread should not be meek. I would be considerably more rude, if I thought she would approve it to go public.
What need is there EVER to be rude? Why don’t you address the point of the cartoon? If you’re REALLY trying to pretend that there are NOT automatic votes for Democrats among the groups that I mentioned above, then you have quite an uphill battle. If you feel you have to resort to rudeness, then you concede the weakness of your argument.
So what if Karen brings feelings into it? Your PURELY emotional response was superior to that? Nope.
The cartoon makes several obvious points, but one of those is simply: if you apply some kind of economic pressure on any group of people, they will respond to that pressure in some way. This is, of course, stating the obvious.
In urban areas, Democrats — who have owned American urban areas for more than 50 years — have constantly flogged the following messages:
1) Elect us and we’ll never let you go below a certain level of subsistence. You probably won’t be able to climb ABOVE that level, as your marketable skills recede into the past, but you’ll never go below.
2) Elect the other party, and you might have to fend for yourself. However, you might fail.
3) If you’re black or a woman or hispanic or some other favored group, the deck is stacked against you so that, if left to your own devices, you PROBABLY will fail, so you’d BETTER elect us.
Eye guy, I’m going to say this as delicately as I can, because you seem to be easily offended. Are you TRULY trying to tell me that a certain HIGH percentage of each of those groups is NOT going to become automatic Democrat voters? If so, then ummmm…you’re either (1) a thoroughly dishonest observer, or (2) a pretty bad observer.
As to your finding that the cartoon is not funny, I hope you will condemn every bit as vociferously all the truly vile attacks on us Conservatives that produce such gales of laughter from you on the left. Are you that rare leftist who does NOT heap Conservatives with scorn? I find it hard to believe. Why? Because I’ve never met one yet. Looking forward to it though.
You’ve already admitted that the offense you took was largely put on…so why, if you’re not truly offended, take offense then? I’m not trying to be snarky…I mean it seriously. You DO admit that the premise of the cartoon is correct; just that you don’t like it. So, then, are you REALLY a serious observer, or the usual drive-by lefty who tosses bombs, feels good about himself, and leaves?
I mean THAT seriously too…whenever I have a debate with a leftist, I always have a side bet with someone else as to when he’ll call me a racist or sexist or the usual litany of name-calling that indicates that he can’t stay with me. They typically don’t last long before conceding they haven’t got the ammunition to make a serious argument of it. So out come the names…
“just a half-dozen or so PRECINCTS in Ohio and Pennsylvania.” – Yes, doesn’t quite have the same punch, does it? Can you point me to where in Ohio? I think you’ll find you can’t. And the numbers in Pennsylvania? Just under 20,000. Not impossible in area where the overall support was at nearly 90%. And backing out of your allegation stemming from that same ridiculous email that there was voter fraud in terms of using deceased names, is really rather pathetic.
You’re very keen on SHOUTING about LOTS of things you NOTHING about. It doesn’t make it true. If you don’t know anyone who has died because they didn’t have healthcare insurance then I expect that’s because you live in a bubble. I understand when people challenge the detail of studies, but do dismiss the number out of hand and claim that NO-ONE has died because they didn’t have health insurance, shows you are not willing to engage with logic. Which isn’t a surprise.
I cannot account for the fact that you don’t understand that ‘free’ healthcare means ‘free at the point of delivery’, which is what EVERYONE else in the world knows. ‘free medicine’ is taken directly from the silly cartoon. But if that is best you can quibble about, while throwing around more lies from your viral email chains about healthcare in Britain and Europe, I would have ask you, have you ever actually been abroad? Do you know anything of the world? It’s like conversing with someone who’s never been anywhere, and never read anything other than viral emails. Apologies if that sounds rude, I’m sure you’re doing your best with the experience of life you’ve had.
Violet: your post IS rude — you lefties are rarely able to refrain from this most transparent proof that you’ve given up the argument — but more importantly it’s really just silly and pouty. The obvious dumbnesses are many, and I can help you with them.
• First: The capitalization is for emphasis…this particular text box doesn’t permit bolding or italicizing, my preferred form of emphasis. One does make do with the tools at hand…
• Next, you presume to tell me where I’ve lived or haven’t, what I think and know, or don’t know, all without knowing me in the slightest. This is one of the many REALLY idiotic conceits of the left: that they can read minds and hearts, and divine vast things about people, based ONLY on policy positions. “Oh, yeah?” you so often say, “you don’t support THIS program, so you’re a racist!”
The left is so myopic and their reasoning so lazy (and you’re falling right into the same trap, dear Violet) that they simply don’t bother to make the effort to imagine the possibility that opposition to their positions just MIGHT be valid or principled. It’s just so much EASIER to call someone uneducated or inexperienced or racist or whatever comes most easily to mind, than to do the work of ACTUALLY taking on the opposing point-of-view. Plus, such tacit capitulations avoid the possibility that one’s position might not carry the day.
In this day of huge quantities of readily available information, nothing could be less relevant than where I have or haven’t lived, but I will tell you Violet, that my sources of information, like myself and my past residences, are from all around the world. And I will put MY life experiences up against yours ANY day of the week (and twice on Sunday). You REALLY don’t want to start comparing life experiences with me, trust me. 🙂
• Then: “just a half-dozen or so PRECINCTS in Ohio and Pennsylvania.” has EXACTLY the amount of punch that I wanted it to have before you so wildly misquoted me. Uhhhh…duh!
Again, as I ORIGINALLY wrote it: there were PRECINCTS in Ohio and Pennsylvania that reported — against astronomical odds — a 100% vote count for Obama. Nevertheless, your objection only makes my point for me. Going back to my original post, I pointed to the 100% figure as evidence of voter fraud. However, the ORIGINAL topic — all the way at the top — was “automatic votes.” You pointed to a figure of 90%…I’m even MORE pleased to use YOUR figure, as it very neatly proves my original premise that some populations are automatic Democrat votes…this, by the way, is also the premise of the cartoon that has so flummoxed you.
• Violet: BY DEFINITION, no one has died because of a lack of insurance. Insurance is an abstract. The most desirable interaction we can have with “insurance” is to go our entire life — having paid thousands and thousands of dollars — without ever seeing, touching, feeling, or using any object or thing we can call “insurance.” And yet people pay and pay for for what they TRULY hope will be just an idea. No one ever died from an idea. People DO die from the CONSEQUENCES of ideas all the time. For example: one consequence of “free” healthcare in Great Britain is healthcare rationing. Rationing means that some people get it and some don’t. Those who don’t get it sometimes die. They die from having ACTUALLY HAD INSURANCE in a place where they couldn’t ACTUALLY get CARE.
I point you to the following link: http://www.historyextra.com/feature/painful-truth-about-rationing-nhs. It walks you through what anyone who bothered to think about it just a bit would have understood way before having put the population through the pain. It tells of the rationing that came about in Great Britain with the arrival of so-called “free” medicine. This article comes from the BBC, hardly a bastion of right-wing opposition to anything.
Here’s just a sampling of more headlines resulting from my having googled the phrase: “nhs rationing health care” —
• NHS rationing ‘forcing patients to go private’ – Telegraph
• Cataracts, hips, knees and tonsils: NHS begins rationing operations
• Article > MPs “concerned at NHS rationing of treatments”
The BBC article traces rationing from 1947 to today, but the other pieces tell of people dying TODAY due to “free” health care in Great Britain.
Go ahead…you can try it too, Violet. Go to http://www.google.com, type “nhs rationing health care” in the little box and hit hte ENTER key.
One quick conclusion, Violet: Any “free” thing that you SIMPLY CANNOT GET, because there isn’t any left, is worth exactly what you paid for it — nothing.
Violet: try a little exercise with me. Let’s just say that I own a car dealership, and one day as a marketing strategy, I decide to offer 1,000 “free” cars to the public. First: how long do you think that supply of cars will last, before there aren’t any left? Second: do you think that EVERYONE will get a free car? Third: Let’s just say that I start that “free” car giveaway at 10:00 am, and the cars are gone at noon. At 1:00pm how much are my “free” cars worth to those who want them, but didn’t get there when they were available? Fourth: were those cars REALLY free? They certainly were “at the point of delivery,” I’ll concede. But, were they really free? Of course, not…I paid for them! Even more importantly, and read this well, the people who didn’t get them paid for them! Yep. If each “free” car cost $10,000 on average, then I just gave away 10 million dollars worth or automobiles, right? Wrong. I built that 10 million dollars into the price of the OTHER cars I was selling! So, irony or ironies: not only did the latecomers NOT get a “free” car, they also PAID for the early birds’ free cars!
The healthcare system works exactly the same way. Yes, it might be free at the point of delivery, but that’s because someone else ACTUALLY paid for it! It was — most decidedly — not free. And now, in England, it’s most decidedly NOT available…but it IS “free.” 🙂 It should go on tombstones all over Great Britain: “My health care was free.”
• The following snippet that you wrote is meaningless: “And backing out of your allegation stemming from that same ridiculous email that there was voter fraud in terms of using deceased names, is really rather pathetic.” I can try to guess what this incoherent mess means, so I will. I THINK you’re trying to say that I received an e-mail telling me of voter fraud using the names of deceased people. You seem to accuse me of trying to “back out of it.” To the contrary, I stand by it completely. “Dead voters” are a well-known phenomenon in American electoral history, and one can say with as near total certainty as it is possible to have: “The dead vote Democrat.” I stand by my original assertion: if there were zombies, they would be reliable Democrat voters. 🙂
Violet: this obsession you seem to have with my e-mail is odd…why on EARTH would I need to rely on “viral e-mails” (not even sure what that MEANS!) for information, when the whole internet is out there for the perusing? That would be truly bizarre. Now, as I said before, I’LL tell YOU where I get my information from, not the other way around…ok? You get yourself in enough hot water throwing out unprovable and unknowable conclusions about me based merely on these short correspondences.
If you continue to presume to invent things about me that you couldn’t possibly know, I’ll start revealing to people your, shall we say … disconcerting… predilections concerning small farm animals and tropical fruits.
“I’ll start revealing to people your, shall we say … disconcerting… predilections concerning small farm animals and tropical fruits.”
Seriously? I should stop wasting my time here. But this is a serious issue, I’m still not laughing about poverty and discrimination.
I’ve lived in the UK and the USA and I know about the shortcomings and advantages of both systems first hand. I have a friend in the US who died of treatable cancer because they didn’t have healthcare insurance, a friend who ended up on the street because of his mental health problem. In the UK, everyone I know with any illness has received quality care that is free at the point of delivery – our press holds the government accountable for continuing this high quality healthcare, hence lives “at risk” are taken very seriously and DEALT with … not swept under the carpet or denied, like in the USA.
I assume you believe that universal access to free education isn’t a “socialist” nightmare or the sad invention of me and my Soviet friends in Europe. Or do we have to quibble about whether that is ‘free’ too? Same principle. Most people working and paying taxes are happy to provide for education and healthcare to give the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in society an equal footing in at least the basics of life. If you haven’t experienced it, I recommend spending some time in a country with free healthcare and observing the what a positive difference to all lives it makes.
Actually, Violet, you make a good point about the mentally ill. Back in the 70s, the ACLU and their liberal allies used the courts to release the institutionalized mentally ill, because they had been committed against their will, a violation of their civil liberties, in their view. Once released, many had no where to go, and ended up living on the streets, resulting in the spike in homelessness in the 80s.
Violet: It IS a serious issue…yet you refuse to post anything serious about it.
I did the “small farm animals” thing because you pointedly decided to tell everyone some wacky things about MY sources of information being “viral e-mails,” or whatever. I called you on the fact that you were drawing conclusions that you have no right whatsoever to draw, and that you were wrong to do that. Buuuuut, I told you, if you continued to insist on doing it, I was going to make up stuff about you too. Why not? YOU chose to. What… YOU can draw ridiculous conclusions about someone, but I can’t? Heck no!
In addition, you drew sarcastic, disparaging conclusions about my level of education, my experience, where I’ve lived and haven’t, and what I know and don’t…all based on a few hundred words batted back and forth regarding a very focused issue!
Violet: Either (1) you’re a houdini-esque magician who can read minds from afar, or (2) you’ve engaged in that tired, worn out, old lefty tactic of making wild, defamatory accusations based merely on policy differences. I suspect that #2 is the most likely. That’s just ridiculous on your part. Stop it. Otherwise you’re wasting EVERYBODY’s time, not just your own.
However, 🙂 since you HAVE indeed decided that YOU can draw wild, insulting conclusions about ME, then THAT means that I can do the same to you. Sorry…you can’t just throw out ridiculous insults and not expect to get called on it. Read on for the details about your disconcerting predilections concerning small farm animals and tropical fruit.
As to the rest of your post. It’s nothing more than the very WORST rhetorical trick there is: the personal anecdote. Your friend Eye Guy, then enthusiastically piggy-backed onto this cheapest of tricks, by chiding another poster for addressing your personal anecdotes. Go look it up: the FIRST sign that someone is losing the argument is when she starts calling her opponents names, or questioning and insulting their opponents motives, education and experience. Check, check and check on your part. The SECOND sign that one is out of steam in an argument is when someone is reduced to telling stories about his mother’s or grandmothers’s or brother’s or friend’s wrenching experience. The point is that in theory the interlocutor will then UNDERSTAND the logic of your viewpoint.
Look: there’s just nothing remotely dispositive, or even vaguely meaningful, in personal anecdotes.
Violet: did you even READ the links I put in this blog? Your beloved British press is apparently holding the government accountable LONG after the horse has left the barn, ie LONG after patients have ALREADY DIED due to “free” (ie non-existent, rationed) health care. Your friend got health care in Great Britain, but, apparently, OTHERS ARE NOT getting it! Wake up, Vi! If 95% of people are getting GREAT health care in Great Britain, then two things are true: (1) the VAST majority of people are getting GREAT health care, and (2) it’s a HORRIBLE system. If 95% of people are getting excellent health care, then there are LOTS of people like you with all sorts of personal anecdotes…and it’s STILL a HORRIBLE system.
You talk about “universal access to free health care.” I sent you actual documentary proof of rationing in the UK — Vi, you DO know what “rationing” means, don’t you? It means that some are being DENIED health care! Again, google “nhs rationing health care” ad you’ll find PLENTY of links telling about people who, though insured — read it well — could NOT get health care! Violet…I read your blog, in which you said something to the effect that you “don’t do in-depth research because you don’t have the time or inclination, but you’ll count on others to call you on it when you say something incorrect.” Apparently you meant the “no in-depth research” thing, but were NOT serious about being called on your incorrect statements.
You DID say one correct thing: “lives ‘at risk’ are taken very seriously and DEALT with.” Yep…with rationing the health care system DOES “deal” with “at risk” lives. They can’t be “at risk” if they’re dead, now can they?
Violet: did you know that people who die because the NHS denies them health care are NOT counted among the “quality assessment” statistics in Great Britain? It’s true. The NHS made the very common sense decision that if someone dies for NOT having received health care, they CAN’T be considered casualties of poor health care…of course! They didn’t RECEIVE poor health care? They received NO health care. And they died. Where did I find that out? Actual research. One of the places you can find out a lot about the disaster that is the British health care system is the BBC itself. Again, hardly a bastion of right-wing ANYTHING!
Back to your silly insistence that I go live in a place with “free” health care. There are LOTS of reasons people are FLEEING from such places…why on EARTH would I want to go TO such a place?!? Violet…it’s time to stop using Europe — and especially Great Britain — as an example of ANYTHING to emulate. Again, Violet, where I’ve lived and when is (1) none of your business, and (2) perfectly irrelevant, so I won’t bother to detail it for you. ‘Sides it would probably quadruple the length of this post! 🙂
Violet: do us all a favor and DO the research. You’ve been making me bat back arguments that wouldn’t pass muster in a third-grade civics class. (Thank goodness I had my badminton racket with me! 🙂 ) Avoid the personal anecdotes, stop the insults and disparaging remarks about my — or anyone else’s — personal life; stop speculating about things you have no possibility of knowing — like my sources of information — and stick to substantive arguments. Your protestations about “not wasting your time,” are REALLY saying that you’re out of ammunition and going to do that OTHER time-honored lefty tactic: go away with a snarky parting shot questioning everyone ELSE’s seriousness and intelligence.
I’m sure you’ll notice that I’ve NEVER done anything like ANY of that to you or to Eye Guy…I’ve called you on, or challenged, what you said, or what you did. I’ve upbraided your tactics, your rhetoric and your conclusions, but nothing more. Ever. I’ve NEVER questioned or cast aspersions on your intelligence, your experience, your knowledge, your education, or ANYTHING ELSE about you personally. I don’t need such cheap and dirty tricks. Why don’t YOU try that?
Oh, I changed my mind, I’m not going to divulge your disconcerting predilections concerning small farm animals and tropical fruit. Not TODAY, that is… But, you DID read the WHOLE post, now didn’t you? 🙂
– The UK spends less per head on healthcare but has a higher life expectancy than the US.
– The World Health Organisation ranks Britain’s healthcare as 18th in the world, while the US is in 37th place.
I know this is a political game in the USA. I hope people can get past the lies and see the facts.
Yes, the UK spends less on healthcare per person, because, as I showed you above, the U.K. RATIONS healthcare (see the links). Why? The system’s broken AND broke. If the rationing board decides NOT to allow someone to have healthcare, then that person doesn’t get healthcare, and he is then outside the system.
And, again, when that dude dies — because, while covered, he CAN’T get health care — he’s NOT counted against Britain’s healthcare quality rating. Why? Because he DOESN’T GET health care due to rationing.
It’s perfect: the NHS system ACTUALLY kills REAL people by denying them health care. Those people then DON’T count against the NHS’ quality assessments because they didn’t get health care! I covered this ground a long time ago too.
In the U.S., people might not have had insurance, but they DID have health CARE…the only thing that ever REALLY counted anyway! That’s why we spend more on healthcare in the U.S. That’s also why our health care quality ratings were lower…because people weren’t actually denied health care. When THEY died, they did so IN the system, so they counted AGAINST the system’s quality rating.
Now — mirabile dictu! (I love that phrase!) — in the ULTIMATE political game, Obamacare will inevitably bring rationing, people will be denied healthcare, they’ll go outside the system and die, their deaths, of course, won’t count against the U.S. health care system, and as our health care quality and availability plummet, our quality ratings go up! Everyone’s happy! Except the dead people…and their families…and anyone who ever needs health care.
It’s a political game EVERYWHERE, but it’s REAL people who die because of rationing in Great Britain due to “free” health care. Coming to a once great country near you too!
Violet: You are engaging in the predictable lefty tactic of calling everyone who disagrees with you a liar. It’s infantile, immature, babyish and stupid. Stop it.
And now you’re just bringing up again and again the same sillinesses I covered long ago. That’s the THIRD sign you’re out of ammunition (after the insults and the personal anedotes). Time for you to man up (or woman up, if you’re one of those silly, hyper-sensitive ones), and admit you’re done. There’s no shame in defeat. We can all hope that you will ACTUALLY do the research you SHOULD do in order to be a serious contributor to future discussions.
Me? I’m predicting you’ll call me some name, accuse me of some horrible thing, and announce you’re not going to have any more involvement with a big, mean, ol’ dummy like me. Why? ’cause you’re a leftist…they ALL do that.
I’ll stop calling you a liar when you stop lying. You have made the following statements more than once, even after I corrected them:
“these urban precincts, oddly enough in the crucial swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio went 100% for Obama!”
Ohio – LIE – see Wood County results or quote the Ohio county where this happened
Pennsylvania – MISLEADING – in precincts that make up only 3% of the overall vote, less than 20,000 people. Stastically possible given the Democrat voting trends you cite. LIE – “against astronomical odds”.
““Dead voters” are a well-known phenomenon in American electoral history, and one can say with as near total certainty as it is possible to have: “The dead vote Democrat.” ” LIE – tell me where.
“the NHS system ACTUALLY kills REAL people by denying them health care.” LIE – You’ve given me links to people talking about ‘risk’ and ‘rationing’. You go on about healthcare ‘rationing’ like it means something – but healthcare insurance rations for most people in terms of the available treatment and coverage. All healthcare HAS to be rationed at some point in relation to price. You dismiss out of a hand a study that demonstrated that around 40,000 US citizens die each year because they cannot access healthcare, and invent a deathtoll from the NHS based on nothing.
Try and be succinct in any reply you can muster. I suspect most people disengage from debating issues with you because your sermons are unnecessarily long, largely meaningless and truly tiresome.
Well, Violet,I was partially right: you DID do the immature insult thing. 🙂
Violet: How in the world do you KNOW I’m lying? Do you even understand how stupid the name-calling sounds? Heck, if I’m wrong, couldn’t I just be mistaken? This is one of the most egregious crimes of you on the left. No one can disagree with you without being a lying scumbag of some sort.
Are you REALLY that myopic, is your thinking REALLY that limited that you can’t even imagine the POSSIBILITY that someone might be simply mistaken, and not rubbing his hands together plotting how next to lie to you? Wow! I hope not! Your OUT-OF-THE-BOX PRESUMPTION that someone, whom you don’t even know a TINY bit, is lying, is REALLY disturbing. It’s actually kind of sick. However, I’m going to assume that you simply need to grow up. REALLY need to grow up.
Tell you what: Let’s dispel this right away, shall we? I have not lied to you once. Not once. There. Since you have NO WAY UNDER THE SUN to know whether that is true or not, why don’t you try to give me the benefit of the doubt that AT LEAST I think what I’m saying is true.
So, this is a test of your ability to rise above the tone of your posts, Violet. It’s also kind of an intelligence test for you. Since you can’t POSSIBLY know whether I’m lying, then for you to state unequivocally that I am, is profoundly stupid.
By the way…you’ll notice that I never, ever, ever, not once, not ever…called you a name, or questioned your character, or impugned your motives, or cast aspersions on your experience…the sentence above is the first time I even FLIRTED with questioning your intelligence. Why didn’t YOU stay above the pettiness?
Don’t flunk this test, Violet.
Vi: You never “corrected” anything I wrote. You simply denied it was true…even when I posted supporting links from Great Britain’s dominant media — all supporters of “free” health care, I might add, expressing alarm that it just wasn’t working. I really don’t have to prove anything anymore…As you said, I have said some things several times…I don’t need to say them again…I’ve backed them all up with links, statistics, logic, explanations and rationales — to which you’ve responded with the logical equivalent of “Is not! You’re wrong and stupid and a liar! Nanny nanny boo boo!”
However, just ’cause I like you…how about them dead voters! 🙂 John F. Kennedy was extremely grateful for dead voters. Where do you think that the phrase “Vote early and often” originated?!? In the 1960 election, Kennedy received, ummmm…shall we say, an “improbable” amount of votes in Cook County, (home of Chicago and the Richard Daley machine) Illinois. Everyone knew there was widespread voter fraud, and that it had all benefited Kennedy. If Illinois had gone for Nixon, Kennedy would have lost the election. Moreover, EVERYONE knew that KENNEDY knew that he owed his election to the less than savory activities of the Daley machine. Kennedy knew that he owed his presidency to dead voters….who, by the way, voted Democrat. Violet: this is not under debate.
Quick fast forward to Bridgeport, CT, where more voters voted in the 2012 election than were registered to vote. That’s a matter of record. Do you think that there might have been some dead people’s names checked off on the voters’ roles that night? Surprise, surprise! Turned out there were! Of course, Bridgeport is heavily Democrat registration (proving, by the way, the “automatic voter” premise of the cartoon that touched all this off in the first place). This is a common phenomenon across the country…and always in urban areas controlled by long-entrenched Democrat machines. Hmmmm…
The precincts (not counties, Violet) that voted 100% for Obama are a matter of record. I took the time to be informed enough to be aware of them. You’ve already confessed that you don’t do in-depth research. Well, then. maybe it’s time to start doing your research. Or else don’t get in the pond with people who are informed about the topic at hand.
About the 20,000 — getting them to vote ALL the same way – no mistakes? Odds against that are many trillions to one. NO LIE! 🙂
Violet: How ’bout if I give YOU a homework assignment. YOU go find the locations of the precincts that voted 100% for Obama in the 2012 election. There were about a half-dozen of them, and they were in big cities in Ohio and Pennsylvania. However, please try to remember: “Voter fraud” is NOT the primary topic of this back-and-forth. I’d be VERY happy to have THAT argument with you too…’cause you’d lose that one BADLY. 🙂 The primary topic here is the “automatic votes” premise of the above cartoon. If you find out that I’m wrong, that’ll be just fine with me, because I GUARANTEE you will find precincts that voted WELL above 90% for Obama — and LOTS more than half-a-dozen of ’em! — thereby proving my, and the cartoon’s, REAL point about the “automatic voters.” So, have at it, Violet. Either way, I win. Just a hunch…you’re NOT going to do that research, and my “voter fraud” point will remain unchallenged except for a “You’re wrong! And you’re stupid! And you’re a liar!”. heh heh heh 🙂
Violet: You’re simply wrong about rationing. NO health care needs to be rationed if supply equals or exceeds demand. EVER. No product or service EVER needs to be rationed if supply equals or exceeds demand. EVER. This is SUPER basic economics.
If, however, you put in place conditions in which demand will exceed supply — “free” healthcare, for example — you establish the conditions wherein PEOPLE ARE DENIED HEALTH CARE. (** sigh ** Please refer to my “auto dealership” example in this selfsame blog post.) Sometimes those people die. Are you REALLY trying to make the argument to me that people who are denied health care DON’T DIE? REALY?!? Again, you’re trying to force me to bat back arguments that wouldn’t pass third-grade civics.
You said: “You go on about healthcare ‘rationing’ like it means something”. Violet — YOU go try to get health care and get denied, and THEN tell me again that “rationing” doesn’t mean anything.
Go home, Violet…read up. DO make sure to expose yourself to opposing points of view — as I obviously do — stop calling names, grow up, stop with the vituperation, no personal anecdotes, stop repeating things I already knocked down, learn to admit when you’re wrong. These are all things that mature adults do. I have no idea of your age, but your arguments, as I might have mentioned before, wouldn’t pass muster in a third-grade civics class. Time to grow up, Violet.
Your posts are the logical equivalent of “You’re wrong and stupid and a liar! Nanny nanny boo boo!”
Oh, if you won’t respond to my appeals to what I hope is your better nature, then how about this: the more you call me wrong and stupid and inexperienced and a liar, the more you expose to the world that you’re getting your sorry backside whupped by someone who’s wrong and inexperienced and stupid and a liar. 🙂
I have been surfing online more than 3 hours today, yet I
never found any interesting article like yours. It’s pretty
worth enough for me. Personally, if all site owners and bloggers made good
content as you did, the net will be much more useful than ever before.
I don’t even know how I ended up here, but
I thought this post was great. I don’t know who you are but definitely you’re going
to a famous blogger if you aren’t already 😉 Cheers!
Having read this I thought it was extremely enlightening.
I appreciate you finding the time and energy to put this information together.
I once again find myself spending waay too much time both reading and commenting.
Lovely cartoon version of politics. The beauty of cartoons is that they allow you to enter a magical and fictional world as an escape from reality.
No, Robert, this is a sophisticated commentary on public policy.
There you go again.
We are not sitting in your home enjoying wine together in a PRIVATE discussion, Karen. If we were that would be a completely different story. Of course you realize that ANYONE can come across this post ALONE and not read the rest of the blog? That it can be forwarded by anyone to anyone?
“Since 2009, there has been an urban myth that Obama created a program to provide free phones to low-income Americans at taxpayer expense. There is, in fact, a government program that will provide low-income people with a free or low cost cell phone. It was started in 2008 under George W. Bush.
The idea of providing low-income individuals with subsidized phone service was originated in the Reagan administration following the break-up of AT&T in 1984. (It was expanded and formalized by the Telecommunications Act of 1996.) The program is paid for by telecommunications companies through an independent non-profit, not through tax revenue.”
Yes, but Obama used it as a campaign promise, prompting thousands of people to go get a phone who already had one.
Read here:
http://www.examiner.com/article/inside-obama-s-free-cell-phone-program
I am not demonizing you. That’s ridiculous. If what I am doing is demonizing, then we would have to say that this meme is demonizing democrats.
If I encountered you on the street, I would be civil & polite to you. If you were in need, I would help you.
But, this is a loud, obnoxious & PUBLIC blog which I disagree with, and being polite about it simply won’t get the job done.
WHO posts something like this, and doesn’t expect an equally obnoxious reaction, Karen?
I’m sure you are smart enough to know how communication works?? How the intention of a message HAS NO IMPACT on how it is received?
This meme is talking about FOOD STAMPS & MEDICAID for crying out loud, and it’s not proposing any alternative … the only purpose this can possibly serve is to harden the hearts of one human being towards another & inflict SHAME on the poor.
So … how does posting something like this align itself with Jesus’s teachings …?
We don’t question whether or not there should be a safety net. Of course there should be! The question is only how high or low the safety net should be. Honorable, and caring people can disagree.
This blogs view is that the safety net is so deep that it is breeding dependence. It also allows people to say “the government will take care of it” allowing people to not take any personal responsibility for taking care of each other.
And finally, this country is going bankrupt, which will mean the ranks of the poor is only going to grow. Just take a look at Detroit, which has been 100 percent run by Democrats for over 50 years, to see where those policies lead. California is heading into deep trouble as well.
I don’t think that the poor in Detroit are feeling like all is well.
So you HONESTLY think that Jesus would be a capitalist Republican? Think about everything he taught.
Nope, I never said that.
Jesus would not be affiliated with a political party.
So, as a Christian, why would you want it to make it your life’s mission (seemingly) to be so vehemently capitalist & republican?
My mother is the same way, and I will tell you what I tell her. I tell her she’s full of it — that she’s so deep into her own hypocrisy that she can’t even see it — she’s allowed her beliefs to choose her, and no amount of prayers or donations to charity will ever justify her way of life.
I am not primarily a capitalist republican. I am first and foremost a disciple of Christ. I vote Republican these days because it aligns more closely with my beliefs. (these days are the operative words)
But clearly you care more. And it is obvious by the way you treat your mother what a nice guy and upstanding citizen you are.
She is one lucky woman.
We have an arrangement. She’s allowed to tell me to talk to angels.
Seriously though, could y’all at least stick to defending the unborn? Is it necessary to spread biting, sarcastic memes about the poor?
No. We will talk about what we want to talk about. And it is nice to know that you are not biting and sarcastic..and really the one who cares the most. Good man.
Demonize those who disagree with you. Now THAT is a way to civil discourse and serious conversation.
I don’t know what that was a “no” to, but I would categorize this post as making fun of poor people. It might be intended for democrats or for your republican buds to have a laugh, but this is the very type of thing which causes one human being to RESENT another human being using food stamps in the grocery line.
It is not making fun of poor people, but a commentary on the policies that are no real help to poor people.
It IS possible to disagree with someone without accusations.
Honest and caring people can disagree about how to best care for the poor and the best political solutions. We disagree with many of our friends and love to have vibrant discussions. None of them have called us loud and obnoxious because of our views, or accused us of trying to inflict shame on the poor, or not doing anything for people in need. And none of them have accused us of being stupid.
Regarding your last comment, read the blog if you still think no proposals have ever been proposed.
But you are still making assumptions about me without knowing anything about me. We have a regular reader and commentator, Bob Vance, who sometimes disagrees vehemently, but is able to do it in a much less accusatory tone and with zero nastiness.
The fact that this is public makes it more important to be civil. Everything we do matters.
Good for Bob Vance. He’s being too nice, and I’m guessing he is either personally associated with you OR has something to gain by being nice in the face of this nonsense? Even if that gain is just maintaining his public persona.
You seem to be missing the fact that you have posted an obnoxious meme. There is nothing objective nor insightful about this meme. You have every right to be obnoxious. You have every right to cause a fuss — but don’t be in denial about the content.
I intentionally post obnoxious stuff all the time with a specific purpose, and I welcome anyone to come and tell me I’m going to hell for it.
“Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense.”
— Mark Twain
Now quit being a baby and own up to what you have done. You have posted a meme which MOCKS POOR PEOPLE.
Just a quick note to state what really should be obvious: You state that you “intentionally post obnoxious stuff all the time.” I ask this seriously: Who the heck are YOU, then, to insist that OTHERS not do the same thing?
Frankly, you’re wrong. The cartoon mocks the policies that lock the poor into the straitjacket of poverty. Poverty that’s bought and paid for by your and my tax dollars — and the Democrat Party. Along with that poverty come lots and lots and lots of votes — bought and paid for by your and my tax dollars — and the Democrat Party.
Sorry: this is so howlingly obviously true, that if you disagree you show yourself not to be a serious analyst, observer, thinker or interlocutor.
It’s looks a LOT more as though YOU need to “quit being a baby and own up” to the fact that (1) you misunderstood the cartoon, and (2) it IS, after all, pretty much right on the mark.
My question to you – what would Pope Francis say? (seeing as you don’t seem to want to consider what Jesus would say)
Karen, I really don’t think Jesus would like you one bit. You appear to be acting in the COMPLETE opposite of what he taught.
Eye Gye and Zande — your eyes plainly aren’t EAGLE eyes…the cartoon obviously mocks not the poor, but the cynicism and corruption of the Democrat Party’s modus operandi which, does indeed, produce automatic votes.
I noticed that in all your high dudgeon, you never questioned the ACTUAL premise of the cartoon! Your concession of the cartoon’s point speaks more eloquently than your ummm…shall we say “forced” outrage on behalf of the poor.
It’s equally possible to read into the cartoon a genuine sympathy for the poor, or at least for a large segment of the poor who, faced with a society filled with perverse incentives and constrained financial mobility, feeling trapped, do, indeed, vote automatically for the selfsame Democrat party that has trapped them!
Let’s face it: The Democrat Party is the only one with nearly automatic constituencies. Blacks, Hispanics, urban dwellers, even Jews! all vote with huge majorities for the Democrat Party. Such a cartoon targeting Republicans just wouldn’t be possible. The reader would be left scratching his head, saying, “Whuuuh? That makes no sense!” Everyone knows there are no automatic Republican voting blocs. This is by itself prima facie proof that Republican voters are mostly thinking voters, while, by contrast at least SOME Democrat voters — and a significant portion — ARE automatic Democrat voters.
I’m sorry, there’s just no way that the Democrat message is THAT obviously superior to the Republican message in election after election, year after year. Obviously something else is at work.
Eye guy and Zande…your tacit admission that the cartoon is correct indicates that YOU believe also that the “other thing at work” here is the “free stuff” mentioned in the cartoon. You just got all in a huff about the, shall we say, less than delicately chiding tone of the cartoon. If people were to get EQUALLY huffy about ALL “less than delicate” tones in cartoons, there wouldn’t be a lefty cartoonist working out there today.
Methinks your thin skin is a put-on! 🙂
I especially liked the “even after he’s dead” kicker at the end! Nice touch. That SPECIFICALLY targets the well-known propensity of Democrat voters to vote long after they have shuffled off this mortal coil…
Eye guy, you ARE aware of the half-dozen or so precincts that — in defiance of astonishing odds — went 100% for Obama in the past election, aren’t you? In any election, a certain surprisingly high percentage of people on both sides vote by ACCIDENT for the candidate for whom they DID NOT intend to vote. Yet, mirabile dictu, these urban precincts, oddly enough in the crucial swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio went 100% for Obama!
Ummm…probably not. Much more likely there was voter fraud and corruption involved in getting that highly improbably result.
Third world dictators, throwing blatantly sham elections don’t get 100% of the vote! I’m thinking that a LOT of lucky dead people were wandering the earth last election and voting, LONG after their demise theoretically would have rendered them ineligible …and they were voting Democrat. The 2012 election DID teach us an important lesson: Zombies are ALSO, apparently, a key Democrat constituency.
So, you may not like the tone of the cartoon, though your outrage seems forced to me, but the cartoon IS right on the nose, and it IS funny.
— xPraetorius
Easy joke at expense of Republicans:
[Jesus]: It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God
[Wealthy person in fancy car coming back from church, en route to gated neighbourhood]: God wants me to vote Republican!
[Poor person dying on the street]: If only someone had taught me to fish, I’d have a roof over my head and medical insurance, and wouldn’t be in this mess.
Violet: your out-o’-touchness is showing here. You easy joke is at the expense of Democrats and the American left. Nowadays the greedy rich vote mostly Democrat. Their modus operandi is to use the government to try to regulate away competition.
The REAL rich, who got there by understanding how free enterprise actually works, who spent their time and effort “building that” — THEIR efforts end up spreading wealth and opportunity. Oh, and by the way, they get a considerable amount of it back too. These are the working rich…not the lever pullers. These rich tend to vote Republican.
However, the REAL fat cats..the ones who don’t ACTUALLY work, but just pull levers so that other little people work harder for them? They’re Democrats. The guy on the way to the gated community? Democrat voter (look it up). The “Millionaire Next Door?” …only you just never knew he was rich, ’cause it didn’t affect who, how and what he was — just a decent guy working hard for a living for his family? Him? He’s a Republican voter.
As for your poor person dying in the street, that’s just a big, ignorant, dumb, red herring, irrelevant to today’s circumstances. Before government came along and starved out the HUGE amounts of private assistance there were — generally church-based — poor people had ample resources available for REAL assistance — ie: assistance at finding work; combatting addictions; learning trades…REAL assistance. Not just handouts. The important thing to remember: these church-based organizations had REAL success. People KICKED alcoholism, and drug addictions, and went on to successful private lives. People FOUND productive work. People LEARNED new and useful and marketable skills. People came into these organizations needing help, and left with REAL help. They came back, usually, only as volunteers to help others.
You should read up on some of these turn-of-the-20th-century organizations — phenomenal success rates at rendering REAL assistance to people.
Then the government took over, and made that cartoon that has so got under your skin…true.
Whatever you racist scum. Hahahaha :p
xPraetorius: I think you might find that you need investigate some of the viral email content that you’re merrily spouting there.
“oddly enough in the crucial swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio went 100% for Obama!” Did they? You’re not even correctly repeating the lies that you’re ignorantly soaking up. Wood County is the place in Ohio that you’re referring to – please check their election board website to see that Obama got 51.21%. And the 100% in Pennsylvania relates to a subsection of 3% of the city vote – the correct figure is 85.21%.
“Zombies are ALSO, apparently, a key Democrat constituency.” This is from the same email – do your homework, seriously. It’s embarrassing to repeat obvious lies like this.
A 2009 Harvard Medical Study demonstrated that over 40,000 US citizens die each year because they lack health insurance. I don’t think political jokes about ‘reliance’ on Medicare and free medicine make sense with a death toll like that. The USA is the only developed country in the world that doesn’t provide universal free healthcare, it’s the richest country in the world, and most of its population are so brainwashed about perceive ‘socialism’ that they can’t see basic human rights being swept under the carpet on a daily basis.
YOU should read up about the rest of the world functions, and try and go beyond the lying, viral emails that pop into your inbox from similar-minded, gullible people.
Violet: You could at LEAST quote me correctly. I never said that the states went 100% for Obama…just a half-dozen or so PRECINCTS in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Sorry, it’s true. They did. Again, in defiance of HUGE odds.
Obviously, no entire COUNTY went 100% for Obama. And, just as obviously, I never said any county did. 🙂
Ummmmm…I’m assuming you didn’t take SERIOUSLY the zombie comment? PLEASE tell me you didn’t take seriously the zombie comment! First: it was FUNNY! And second: for the record: there’s no such thing as zombies. But, if there were, they’d be Democrat voters for sure! (<– that was a funny, Violet) 🙂
And, for the record, no one ever on the face of the earth EVER died from a lack of health insurance. From a lack of health CARE, maybe…in fact they DO die from a lack of health CARE — all the time — in Great Britain, the land of the NHS, where they deny health CARE to patients all the time due to rationing from their "free" health care system.
As regards the alleged Harvard study. Sorry…I'm calling hogwash on you. The law of the land in the U.S. has been — for a LONG time — that no one can ACTUALLY be denied health CARE. Trust me I know…from a LOT of different perspectives…even those without health insurance could ALWAYS obtain health CARE.
The Harvard study is a bunch of hooey. Yes, in America, there were uninsured people. But, they were always able to get ACTUAL health CARE. And GOOD health care. The REALLY sad thing: where the populations are all, allegedly, 100% insured, they can't GET actual health care, due to the inevitable rationing that always accompanies "free" health care.
The economic basket cases known as "Europe" have long been trying to back out of the hoax that is "free health care."
Also, for the record, there's no such thing as "free health care" or "free medicine" anywhere. Never has been, never will be…someone pays for it sometime, somewhere. You use those obviously nonsense terms, and you call OTHERS brainwashed?!? 🙂
You said: "YOU should read up about the rest of the world functions, and try and go beyond the lying, viral emails that pop into your inbox from similar-minded, gullible people."
REALLY?!?! Are you REALLY trying to tell ME where I get my information?!? You who use the terms "free health care?" and "free medicine?" Seriously?!? 🙂
Tell you what: I'LL tell YOU where I get my information. K? If you have arrogated to yourself the right to tell me where I get my information, then you have to concede to ME the right to tell you where YOU get your information. You obviously get your information beamed to you and your deep cover Soviet agent friends — who haven't yet learned in their caves in the Philippines that the Cold War is over — from the mother ship on the other side of the moon. It ends up under moss-covered rocks in the forest, and you find it because only YOU know where those rocks are.
See how silly you sounded? Stop it.
— xPraetorius
xPraetorious, I see zombies on television all the time. They’ve got to be real!
Holy moly. I am actually going to have to agree with Tom, here. Have you seen Walking Dead? They couldn’t fake that, no way.
-xPraetorius
It AIN’T funny to me, because I don’t agree with what it is getting at.
You are correct in sensing that my tone is a bit forced. Karen tends to bring feewlings into this, but replies to a satire on a public comment thread should not be meek. I would be considerably more rude, if I thought she would approve it to go public.
What need is there EVER to be rude? Why don’t you address the point of the cartoon? If you’re REALLY trying to pretend that there are NOT automatic votes for Democrats among the groups that I mentioned above, then you have quite an uphill battle. If you feel you have to resort to rudeness, then you concede the weakness of your argument.
So what if Karen brings feelings into it? Your PURELY emotional response was superior to that? Nope.
The cartoon makes several obvious points, but one of those is simply: if you apply some kind of economic pressure on any group of people, they will respond to that pressure in some way. This is, of course, stating the obvious.
In urban areas, Democrats — who have owned American urban areas for more than 50 years — have constantly flogged the following messages:
1) Elect us and we’ll never let you go below a certain level of subsistence. You probably won’t be able to climb ABOVE that level, as your marketable skills recede into the past, but you’ll never go below.
2) Elect the other party, and you might have to fend for yourself. However, you might fail.
3) If you’re black or a woman or hispanic or some other favored group, the deck is stacked against you so that, if left to your own devices, you PROBABLY will fail, so you’d BETTER elect us.
Eye guy, I’m going to say this as delicately as I can, because you seem to be easily offended. Are you TRULY trying to tell me that a certain HIGH percentage of each of those groups is NOT going to become automatic Democrat voters? If so, then ummmm…you’re either (1) a thoroughly dishonest observer, or (2) a pretty bad observer.
As to your finding that the cartoon is not funny, I hope you will condemn every bit as vociferously all the truly vile attacks on us Conservatives that produce such gales of laughter from you on the left. Are you that rare leftist who does NOT heap Conservatives with scorn? I find it hard to believe. Why? Because I’ve never met one yet. Looking forward to it though.
You’ve already admitted that the offense you took was largely put on…so why, if you’re not truly offended, take offense then? I’m not trying to be snarky…I mean it seriously. You DO admit that the premise of the cartoon is correct; just that you don’t like it. So, then, are you REALLY a serious observer, or the usual drive-by lefty who tosses bombs, feels good about himself, and leaves?
I mean THAT seriously too…whenever I have a debate with a leftist, I always have a side bet with someone else as to when he’ll call me a racist or sexist or the usual litany of name-calling that indicates that he can’t stay with me. They typically don’t last long before conceding they haven’t got the ammunition to make a serious argument of it. So out come the names…
— xPraetorius
“just a half-dozen or so PRECINCTS in Ohio and Pennsylvania.” – Yes, doesn’t quite have the same punch, does it? Can you point me to where in Ohio? I think you’ll find you can’t. And the numbers in Pennsylvania? Just under 20,000. Not impossible in area where the overall support was at nearly 90%. And backing out of your allegation stemming from that same ridiculous email that there was voter fraud in terms of using deceased names, is really rather pathetic.
You’re very keen on SHOUTING about LOTS of things you NOTHING about. It doesn’t make it true. If you don’t know anyone who has died because they didn’t have healthcare insurance then I expect that’s because you live in a bubble. I understand when people challenge the detail of studies, but do dismiss the number out of hand and claim that NO-ONE has died because they didn’t have health insurance, shows you are not willing to engage with logic. Which isn’t a surprise.
I cannot account for the fact that you don’t understand that ‘free’ healthcare means ‘free at the point of delivery’, which is what EVERYONE else in the world knows. ‘free medicine’ is taken directly from the silly cartoon. But if that is best you can quibble about, while throwing around more lies from your viral email chains about healthcare in Britain and Europe, I would have ask you, have you ever actually been abroad? Do you know anything of the world? It’s like conversing with someone who’s never been anywhere, and never read anything other than viral emails. Apologies if that sounds rude, I’m sure you’re doing your best with the experience of life you’ve had.
Violet: your post IS rude — you lefties are rarely able to refrain from this most transparent proof that you’ve given up the argument — but more importantly it’s really just silly and pouty. The obvious dumbnesses are many, and I can help you with them.
• First: The capitalization is for emphasis…this particular text box doesn’t permit bolding or italicizing, my preferred form of emphasis. One does make do with the tools at hand…
• Next, you presume to tell me where I’ve lived or haven’t, what I think and know, or don’t know, all without knowing me in the slightest. This is one of the many REALLY idiotic conceits of the left: that they can read minds and hearts, and divine vast things about people, based ONLY on policy positions. “Oh, yeah?” you so often say, “you don’t support THIS program, so you’re a racist!”
The left is so myopic and their reasoning so lazy (and you’re falling right into the same trap, dear Violet) that they simply don’t bother to make the effort to imagine the possibility that opposition to their positions just MIGHT be valid or principled. It’s just so much EASIER to call someone uneducated or inexperienced or racist or whatever comes most easily to mind, than to do the work of ACTUALLY taking on the opposing point-of-view. Plus, such tacit capitulations avoid the possibility that one’s position might not carry the day.
In this day of huge quantities of readily available information, nothing could be less relevant than where I have or haven’t lived, but I will tell you Violet, that my sources of information, like myself and my past residences, are from all around the world. And I will put MY life experiences up against yours ANY day of the week (and twice on Sunday). You REALLY don’t want to start comparing life experiences with me, trust me. 🙂
• Then: “just a half-dozen or so PRECINCTS in Ohio and Pennsylvania.” has EXACTLY the amount of punch that I wanted it to have before you so wildly misquoted me. Uhhhh…duh!
Again, as I ORIGINALLY wrote it: there were PRECINCTS in Ohio and Pennsylvania that reported — against astronomical odds — a 100% vote count for Obama. Nevertheless, your objection only makes my point for me. Going back to my original post, I pointed to the 100% figure as evidence of voter fraud. However, the ORIGINAL topic — all the way at the top — was “automatic votes.” You pointed to a figure of 90%…I’m even MORE pleased to use YOUR figure, as it very neatly proves my original premise that some populations are automatic Democrat votes…this, by the way, is also the premise of the cartoon that has so flummoxed you.
• Violet: BY DEFINITION, no one has died because of a lack of insurance. Insurance is an abstract. The most desirable interaction we can have with “insurance” is to go our entire life — having paid thousands and thousands of dollars — without ever seeing, touching, feeling, or using any object or thing we can call “insurance.” And yet people pay and pay for for what they TRULY hope will be just an idea. No one ever died from an idea. People DO die from the CONSEQUENCES of ideas all the time. For example: one consequence of “free” healthcare in Great Britain is healthcare rationing. Rationing means that some people get it and some don’t. Those who don’t get it sometimes die. They die from having ACTUALLY HAD INSURANCE in a place where they couldn’t ACTUALLY get CARE.
I point you to the following link: http://www.historyextra.com/feature/painful-truth-about-rationing-nhs. It walks you through what anyone who bothered to think about it just a bit would have understood way before having put the population through the pain. It tells of the rationing that came about in Great Britain with the arrival of so-called “free” medicine. This article comes from the BBC, hardly a bastion of right-wing opposition to anything.
Then there’s this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/aug/31/nhs-rationing-risking-lives-doctors-leader from the guardian. The headline: “NHS rationing is putting health at risk, says doctors’ leader…Mark Porter, the new British Medical Association’s chair of council, says cuts and rationing of drugs may harm patients” Hmmmm…ya think?
Here’s just a sampling of more headlines resulting from my having googled the phrase: “nhs rationing health care” —
• NHS rationing ‘forcing patients to go private’ – Telegraph
• Cataracts, hips, knees and tonsils: NHS begins rationing operations
• Article > MPs “concerned at NHS rationing of treatments”
The BBC article traces rationing from 1947 to today, but the other pieces tell of people dying TODAY due to “free” health care in Great Britain.
Go ahead…you can try it too, Violet. Go to http://www.google.com, type “nhs rationing health care” in the little box and hit hte ENTER key.
One quick conclusion, Violet: Any “free” thing that you SIMPLY CANNOT GET, because there isn’t any left, is worth exactly what you paid for it — nothing.
Violet: try a little exercise with me. Let’s just say that I own a car dealership, and one day as a marketing strategy, I decide to offer 1,000 “free” cars to the public. First: how long do you think that supply of cars will last, before there aren’t any left? Second: do you think that EVERYONE will get a free car? Third: Let’s just say that I start that “free” car giveaway at 10:00 am, and the cars are gone at noon. At 1:00pm how much are my “free” cars worth to those who want them, but didn’t get there when they were available? Fourth: were those cars REALLY free? They certainly were “at the point of delivery,” I’ll concede. But, were they really free? Of course, not…I paid for them! Even more importantly, and read this well, the people who didn’t get them paid for them! Yep. If each “free” car cost $10,000 on average, then I just gave away 10 million dollars worth or automobiles, right? Wrong. I built that 10 million dollars into the price of the OTHER cars I was selling! So, irony or ironies: not only did the latecomers NOT get a “free” car, they also PAID for the early birds’ free cars!
The healthcare system works exactly the same way. Yes, it might be free at the point of delivery, but that’s because someone else ACTUALLY paid for it! It was — most decidedly — not free. And now, in England, it’s most decidedly NOT available…but it IS “free.” 🙂 It should go on tombstones all over Great Britain: “My health care was free.”
• The following snippet that you wrote is meaningless: “And backing out of your allegation stemming from that same ridiculous email that there was voter fraud in terms of using deceased names, is really rather pathetic.” I can try to guess what this incoherent mess means, so I will. I THINK you’re trying to say that I received an e-mail telling me of voter fraud using the names of deceased people. You seem to accuse me of trying to “back out of it.” To the contrary, I stand by it completely. “Dead voters” are a well-known phenomenon in American electoral history, and one can say with as near total certainty as it is possible to have: “The dead vote Democrat.” I stand by my original assertion: if there were zombies, they would be reliable Democrat voters. 🙂
Violet: this obsession you seem to have with my e-mail is odd…why on EARTH would I need to rely on “viral e-mails” (not even sure what that MEANS!) for information, when the whole internet is out there for the perusing? That would be truly bizarre. Now, as I said before, I’LL tell YOU where I get my information from, not the other way around…ok? You get yourself in enough hot water throwing out unprovable and unknowable conclusions about me based merely on these short correspondences.
If you continue to presume to invent things about me that you couldn’t possibly know, I’ll start revealing to people your, shall we say … disconcerting… predilections concerning small farm animals and tropical fruits.
— xPraetorius
“I’ll start revealing to people your, shall we say … disconcerting… predilections concerning small farm animals and tropical fruits.”
Seriously? I should stop wasting my time here. But this is a serious issue, I’m still not laughing about poverty and discrimination.
I’ve lived in the UK and the USA and I know about the shortcomings and advantages of both systems first hand. I have a friend in the US who died of treatable cancer because they didn’t have healthcare insurance, a friend who ended up on the street because of his mental health problem. In the UK, everyone I know with any illness has received quality care that is free at the point of delivery – our press holds the government accountable for continuing this high quality healthcare, hence lives “at risk” are taken very seriously and DEALT with … not swept under the carpet or denied, like in the USA.
I assume you believe that universal access to free education isn’t a “socialist” nightmare or the sad invention of me and my Soviet friends in Europe. Or do we have to quibble about whether that is ‘free’ too? Same principle. Most people working and paying taxes are happy to provide for education and healthcare to give the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in society an equal footing in at least the basics of life. If you haven’t experienced it, I recommend spending some time in a country with free healthcare and observing the what a positive difference to all lives it makes.
Actually, Violet, you make a good point about the mentally ill. Back in the 70s, the ACLU and their liberal allies used the courts to release the institutionalized mentally ill, because they had been committed against their will, a violation of their civil liberties, in their view. Once released, many had no where to go, and ended up living on the streets, resulting in the spike in homelessness in the 80s.
Come on , Tom, violet is bringing up personal stuff and you’re gonna respond with some ACLU crap from the 70s? Poor form, rich guy, poor form.
Violet: It IS a serious issue…yet you refuse to post anything serious about it.
I did the “small farm animals” thing because you pointedly decided to tell everyone some wacky things about MY sources of information being “viral e-mails,” or whatever. I called you on the fact that you were drawing conclusions that you have no right whatsoever to draw, and that you were wrong to do that. Buuuuut, I told you, if you continued to insist on doing it, I was going to make up stuff about you too. Why not? YOU chose to. What… YOU can draw ridiculous conclusions about someone, but I can’t? Heck no!
In addition, you drew sarcastic, disparaging conclusions about my level of education, my experience, where I’ve lived and haven’t, and what I know and don’t…all based on a few hundred words batted back and forth regarding a very focused issue!
Violet: Either (1) you’re a houdini-esque magician who can read minds from afar, or (2) you’ve engaged in that tired, worn out, old lefty tactic of making wild, defamatory accusations based merely on policy differences. I suspect that #2 is the most likely. That’s just ridiculous on your part. Stop it. Otherwise you’re wasting EVERYBODY’s time, not just your own.
However, 🙂 since you HAVE indeed decided that YOU can draw wild, insulting conclusions about ME, then THAT means that I can do the same to you. Sorry…you can’t just throw out ridiculous insults and not expect to get called on it. Read on for the details about your disconcerting predilections concerning small farm animals and tropical fruit.
As to the rest of your post. It’s nothing more than the very WORST rhetorical trick there is: the personal anecdote. Your friend Eye Guy, then enthusiastically piggy-backed onto this cheapest of tricks, by chiding another poster for addressing your personal anecdotes. Go look it up: the FIRST sign that someone is losing the argument is when she starts calling her opponents names, or questioning and insulting their opponents motives, education and experience. Check, check and check on your part. The SECOND sign that one is out of steam in an argument is when someone is reduced to telling stories about his mother’s or grandmothers’s or brother’s or friend’s wrenching experience. The point is that in theory the interlocutor will then UNDERSTAND the logic of your viewpoint.
Look: there’s just nothing remotely dispositive, or even vaguely meaningful, in personal anecdotes.
Violet: did you even READ the links I put in this blog? Your beloved British press is apparently holding the government accountable LONG after the horse has left the barn, ie LONG after patients have ALREADY DIED due to “free” (ie non-existent, rationed) health care. Your friend got health care in Great Britain, but, apparently, OTHERS ARE NOT getting it! Wake up, Vi! If 95% of people are getting GREAT health care in Great Britain, then two things are true: (1) the VAST majority of people are getting GREAT health care, and (2) it’s a HORRIBLE system. If 95% of people are getting excellent health care, then there are LOTS of people like you with all sorts of personal anecdotes…and it’s STILL a HORRIBLE system.
You talk about “universal access to free health care.” I sent you actual documentary proof of rationing in the UK — Vi, you DO know what “rationing” means, don’t you? It means that some are being DENIED health care! Again, google “nhs rationing health care” ad you’ll find PLENTY of links telling about people who, though insured — read it well — could NOT get health care! Violet…I read your blog, in which you said something to the effect that you “don’t do in-depth research because you don’t have the time or inclination, but you’ll count on others to call you on it when you say something incorrect.” Apparently you meant the “no in-depth research” thing, but were NOT serious about being called on your incorrect statements.
You DID say one correct thing: “lives ‘at risk’ are taken very seriously and DEALT with.” Yep…with rationing the health care system DOES “deal” with “at risk” lives. They can’t be “at risk” if they’re dead, now can they?
Violet: did you know that people who die because the NHS denies them health care are NOT counted among the “quality assessment” statistics in Great Britain? It’s true. The NHS made the very common sense decision that if someone dies for NOT having received health care, they CAN’T be considered casualties of poor health care…of course! They didn’t RECEIVE poor health care? They received NO health care. And they died. Where did I find that out? Actual research. One of the places you can find out a lot about the disaster that is the British health care system is the BBC itself. Again, hardly a bastion of right-wing ANYTHING!
Back to your silly insistence that I go live in a place with “free” health care. There are LOTS of reasons people are FLEEING from such places…why on EARTH would I want to go TO such a place?!? Violet…it’s time to stop using Europe — and especially Great Britain — as an example of ANYTHING to emulate. Again, Violet, where I’ve lived and when is (1) none of your business, and (2) perfectly irrelevant, so I won’t bother to detail it for you. ‘Sides it would probably quadruple the length of this post! 🙂
Violet: do us all a favor and DO the research. You’ve been making me bat back arguments that wouldn’t pass muster in a third-grade civics class. (Thank goodness I had my badminton racket with me! 🙂 ) Avoid the personal anecdotes, stop the insults and disparaging remarks about my — or anyone else’s — personal life; stop speculating about things you have no possibility of knowing — like my sources of information — and stick to substantive arguments. Your protestations about “not wasting your time,” are REALLY saying that you’re out of ammunition and going to do that OTHER time-honored lefty tactic: go away with a snarky parting shot questioning everyone ELSE’s seriousness and intelligence.
I’m sure you’ll notice that I’ve NEVER done anything like ANY of that to you or to Eye Guy…I’ve called you on, or challenged, what you said, or what you did. I’ve upbraided your tactics, your rhetoric and your conclusions, but nothing more. Ever. I’ve NEVER questioned or cast aspersions on your intelligence, your experience, your knowledge, your education, or ANYTHING ELSE about you personally. I don’t need such cheap and dirty tricks. Why don’t YOU try that?
Oh, I changed my mind, I’m not going to divulge your disconcerting predilections concerning small farm animals and tropical fruit. Not TODAY, that is… But, you DID read the WHOLE post, now didn’t you? 🙂
— xPraetorius
Violet: one more quick thing…you said, “I’m still not laughing about poverty and discrimination.”
Of course you aren’t! The policies YOU support CAUSE poverty and discrimination.
I wouldn’t laugh about it either, if I were causing it.
— xPraetorius
Wait a second, is this Rush Limbaugh???
– The UK spends less per head on healthcare but has a higher life expectancy than the US.
– The World Health Organisation ranks Britain’s healthcare as 18th in the world, while the US is in 37th place.
I know this is a political game in the USA. I hope people can get past the lies and see the facts.
Violet: I covered ALL this ground before.
Yes, the UK spends less on healthcare per person, because, as I showed you above, the U.K. RATIONS healthcare (see the links). Why? The system’s broken AND broke. If the rationing board decides NOT to allow someone to have healthcare, then that person doesn’t get healthcare, and he is then outside the system.
And, again, when that dude dies — because, while covered, he CAN’T get health care — he’s NOT counted against Britain’s healthcare quality rating. Why? Because he DOESN’T GET health care due to rationing.
It’s perfect: the NHS system ACTUALLY kills REAL people by denying them health care. Those people then DON’T count against the NHS’ quality assessments because they didn’t get health care! I covered this ground a long time ago too.
In the U.S., people might not have had insurance, but they DID have health CARE…the only thing that ever REALLY counted anyway! That’s why we spend more on healthcare in the U.S. That’s also why our health care quality ratings were lower…because people weren’t actually denied health care. When THEY died, they did so IN the system, so they counted AGAINST the system’s quality rating.
Now — mirabile dictu! (I love that phrase!) — in the ULTIMATE political game, Obamacare will inevitably bring rationing, people will be denied healthcare, they’ll go outside the system and die, their deaths, of course, won’t count against the U.S. health care system, and as our health care quality and availability plummet, our quality ratings go up! Everyone’s happy! Except the dead people…and their families…and anyone who ever needs health care.
It’s a political game EVERYWHERE, but it’s REAL people who die because of rationing in Great Britain due to “free” health care. Coming to a once great country near you too!
Violet: You are engaging in the predictable lefty tactic of calling everyone who disagrees with you a liar. It’s infantile, immature, babyish and stupid. Stop it.
And now you’re just bringing up again and again the same sillinesses I covered long ago. That’s the THIRD sign you’re out of ammunition (after the insults and the personal anedotes). Time for you to man up (or woman up, if you’re one of those silly, hyper-sensitive ones), and admit you’re done. There’s no shame in defeat. We can all hope that you will ACTUALLY do the research you SHOULD do in order to be a serious contributor to future discussions.
Me? I’m predicting you’ll call me some name, accuse me of some horrible thing, and announce you’re not going to have any more involvement with a big, mean, ol’ dummy like me. Why? ’cause you’re a leftist…they ALL do that.
— xPraetorius
I’ll stop calling you a liar when you stop lying. You have made the following statements more than once, even after I corrected them:
“these urban precincts, oddly enough in the crucial swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio went 100% for Obama!”
Ohio – LIE – see Wood County results or quote the Ohio county where this happened
Pennsylvania – MISLEADING – in precincts that make up only 3% of the overall vote, less than 20,000 people. Stastically possible given the Democrat voting trends you cite. LIE – “against astronomical odds”.
““Dead voters” are a well-known phenomenon in American electoral history, and one can say with as near total certainty as it is possible to have: “The dead vote Democrat.” ” LIE – tell me where.
“the NHS system ACTUALLY kills REAL people by denying them health care.” LIE – You’ve given me links to people talking about ‘risk’ and ‘rationing’. You go on about healthcare ‘rationing’ like it means something – but healthcare insurance rations for most people in terms of the available treatment and coverage. All healthcare HAS to be rationed at some point in relation to price. You dismiss out of a hand a study that demonstrated that around 40,000 US citizens die each year because they cannot access healthcare, and invent a deathtoll from the NHS based on nothing.
Try and be succinct in any reply you can muster. I suspect most people disengage from debating issues with you because your sermons are unnecessarily long, largely meaningless and truly tiresome.
Well, Violet,I was partially right: you DID do the immature insult thing. 🙂
Violet: How in the world do you KNOW I’m lying? Do you even understand how stupid the name-calling sounds? Heck, if I’m wrong, couldn’t I just be mistaken? This is one of the most egregious crimes of you on the left. No one can disagree with you without being a lying scumbag of some sort.
Are you REALLY that myopic, is your thinking REALLY that limited that you can’t even imagine the POSSIBILITY that someone might be simply mistaken, and not rubbing his hands together plotting how next to lie to you? Wow! I hope not! Your OUT-OF-THE-BOX PRESUMPTION that someone, whom you don’t even know a TINY bit, is lying, is REALLY disturbing. It’s actually kind of sick. However, I’m going to assume that you simply need to grow up. REALLY need to grow up.
Tell you what: Let’s dispel this right away, shall we? I have not lied to you once. Not once. There. Since you have NO WAY UNDER THE SUN to know whether that is true or not, why don’t you try to give me the benefit of the doubt that AT LEAST I think what I’m saying is true.
So, this is a test of your ability to rise above the tone of your posts, Violet. It’s also kind of an intelligence test for you. Since you can’t POSSIBLY know whether I’m lying, then for you to state unequivocally that I am, is profoundly stupid.
By the way…you’ll notice that I never, ever, ever, not once, not ever…called you a name, or questioned your character, or impugned your motives, or cast aspersions on your experience…the sentence above is the first time I even FLIRTED with questioning your intelligence. Why didn’t YOU stay above the pettiness?
Don’t flunk this test, Violet.
Vi: You never “corrected” anything I wrote. You simply denied it was true…even when I posted supporting links from Great Britain’s dominant media — all supporters of “free” health care, I might add, expressing alarm that it just wasn’t working. I really don’t have to prove anything anymore…As you said, I have said some things several times…I don’t need to say them again…I’ve backed them all up with links, statistics, logic, explanations and rationales — to which you’ve responded with the logical equivalent of “Is not! You’re wrong and stupid and a liar! Nanny nanny boo boo!”
However, just ’cause I like you…how about them dead voters! 🙂 John F. Kennedy was extremely grateful for dead voters. Where do you think that the phrase “Vote early and often” originated?!? In the 1960 election, Kennedy received, ummmm…shall we say, an “improbable” amount of votes in Cook County, (home of Chicago and the Richard Daley machine) Illinois. Everyone knew there was widespread voter fraud, and that it had all benefited Kennedy. If Illinois had gone for Nixon, Kennedy would have lost the election. Moreover, EVERYONE knew that KENNEDY knew that he owed his election to the less than savory activities of the Daley machine. Kennedy knew that he owed his presidency to dead voters….who, by the way, voted Democrat. Violet: this is not under debate.
Quick fast forward to Bridgeport, CT, where more voters voted in the 2012 election than were registered to vote. That’s a matter of record. Do you think that there might have been some dead people’s names checked off on the voters’ roles that night? Surprise, surprise! Turned out there were! Of course, Bridgeport is heavily Democrat registration (proving, by the way, the “automatic voter” premise of the cartoon that touched all this off in the first place). This is a common phenomenon across the country…and always in urban areas controlled by long-entrenched Democrat machines. Hmmmm…
The precincts (not counties, Violet) that voted 100% for Obama are a matter of record. I took the time to be informed enough to be aware of them. You’ve already confessed that you don’t do in-depth research. Well, then. maybe it’s time to start doing your research. Or else don’t get in the pond with people who are informed about the topic at hand.
About the 20,000 — getting them to vote ALL the same way – no mistakes? Odds against that are many trillions to one. NO LIE! 🙂
Violet: How ’bout if I give YOU a homework assignment. YOU go find the locations of the precincts that voted 100% for Obama in the 2012 election. There were about a half-dozen of them, and they were in big cities in Ohio and Pennsylvania. However, please try to remember: “Voter fraud” is NOT the primary topic of this back-and-forth. I’d be VERY happy to have THAT argument with you too…’cause you’d lose that one BADLY. 🙂 The primary topic here is the “automatic votes” premise of the above cartoon. If you find out that I’m wrong, that’ll be just fine with me, because I GUARANTEE you will find precincts that voted WELL above 90% for Obama — and LOTS more than half-a-dozen of ’em! — thereby proving my, and the cartoon’s, REAL point about the “automatic voters.” So, have at it, Violet. Either way, I win. Just a hunch…you’re NOT going to do that research, and my “voter fraud” point will remain unchallenged except for a “You’re wrong! And you’re stupid! And you’re a liar!”. heh heh heh 🙂
Violet: You’re simply wrong about rationing. NO health care needs to be rationed if supply equals or exceeds demand. EVER. No product or service EVER needs to be rationed if supply equals or exceeds demand. EVER. This is SUPER basic economics.
If, however, you put in place conditions in which demand will exceed supply — “free” healthcare, for example — you establish the conditions wherein PEOPLE ARE DENIED HEALTH CARE. (** sigh ** Please refer to my “auto dealership” example in this selfsame blog post.) Sometimes those people die. Are you REALLY trying to make the argument to me that people who are denied health care DON’T DIE? REALY?!? Again, you’re trying to force me to bat back arguments that wouldn’t pass third-grade civics.
You said: “You go on about healthcare ‘rationing’ like it means something”. Violet — YOU go try to get health care and get denied, and THEN tell me again that “rationing” doesn’t mean anything.
Go home, Violet…read up. DO make sure to expose yourself to opposing points of view — as I obviously do — stop calling names, grow up, stop with the vituperation, no personal anecdotes, stop repeating things I already knocked down, learn to admit when you’re wrong. These are all things that mature adults do. I have no idea of your age, but your arguments, as I might have mentioned before, wouldn’t pass muster in a third-grade civics class. Time to grow up, Violet.
Your posts are the logical equivalent of “You’re wrong and stupid and a liar! Nanny nanny boo boo!”
Oh, if you won’t respond to my appeals to what I hope is your better nature, then how about this: the more you call me wrong and stupid and inexperienced and a liar, the more you expose to the world that you’re getting your sorry backside whupped by someone who’s wrong and inexperienced and stupid and a liar. 🙂
— xPraetorius
I have been surfing online more than 3 hours today, yet I
never found any interesting article like yours. It’s pretty
worth enough for me. Personally, if all site owners and bloggers made good
content as you did, the net will be much more useful than ever before.
Thanks for the kind words. Come again!
I don’t even know how I ended up here, but
I thought this post was great. I don’t know who you are but definitely you’re going
to a famous blogger if you aren’t already 😉 Cheers!
Thanks for the kind words. Come again.
Having read this I thought it was extremely enlightening.
I appreciate you finding the time and energy to put this information together.
I once again find myself spending waay too much time both reading and commenting.
But so what, it was still worthwhile!
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