Once again, NO NO NO NO NO! We do not have a fucking democracy. We have a fucking Constitutionally Limited Government. Why bother having a bill of rights if 51% of the population can force the other 49% to do whatever they want. Read the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers. They talk about this shit. Our founders weren't stupid, people who think democracy is even close to a good idea are stupid.
Social Security is a DISASTER. It covers people equally more than they paid in. And you and I are on the hook for it. It is a Ponzi scheme, plain and system and will collapse eventually.
Also, in regards to your sig, in real capitalism, the government has no powers that corporations can control.
So we are going to keep piling on more rules, more regulations, and have more people buy health insurance. And we are going to have the government manage it all. And prices are still going to increase? So what is the idea here? Just to get a supreme court ruling to say congress can do whatever the hell it wants?
My point is, taxes were originally only collected on imported goods. This would be plenty of money to run a small government as outlined in the Constitution. We didn't need income taxes until we started fighting wars with ourselves and the rest of the world. I think we'd all be richer if we stopped killing people and destroying property. Doesn't that make much more sense?
And as you stated, no taxation without representation. The only politician who represents me currently is Ron Paul. And I don't pay my taxes to him. And there are plenty of people with representation who pay no taxation. I am aware that my tax dollars pay for services I receive. What I am arguing is that that tax money would be better spent if I bought the services I needed directly without a huge, inefficient bureaucracy where the only motive is to get re-elected providing services for me and taking as much money as they want by force.
The problem is you assume we Americans were fine with firing up the war machine. Most of us were not. If you haven't noticed, the government is doing all kinds of shit that the majority of people don't want. See the approval rating of Congress: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html
like tax dollars are used to keep roads paved. We spend huge amounts of tax money funding paramilitary police forces and keeping millions of people incarcerated (more prisoners than any other country by orders of magnitude); how about we take the money out of those programs and use it to pay for health care?
I'd be all for that. But this ain't it. This is "let's spend more on healthcare AND on keeping people incarcerated." I'd be all for government if they had to remove one useless program to start another one. In fact, I'd even be happier if they could come up with a BUDGET for their expenses. And even happier still if the budget balanced once a blue moon.
So let's look at this 10 years down the line and see if healthcare gets cheaper... How much are you putting up? I'll wager 10 grand (probably be worth 100 grand in 10 years with inflation factored in).
It's been ruled constitutional by 9 people elected by congress and approved by a president. That is hardly proof. In fact, any idiot can read the Constitution and see that this is a blatant violation of everything the Constitution stands for. Or have you not read the arguments presented in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers? Our founders are rolling in their graves.
I have no desire to make laws more democratically. I have a desire to not make laws that are outside of the scope of government.
And they'd be better than government provided schools, better than government police protection, better than government fire protection, and better than government roads. Sounds like a great plan, let's try it out!
[Citation needed] If everybody didn't pay taxes, do you have evidence that his lifestyle would be worse? Or is that just the assumption you have in your world-view? I like to think that the lifestyle of Americans improved after they won independence from the king (and his taxes).
Bullshit... Healthcare didn't exist 200 years ago. Back then the doctor sawed off your leg and you prayed you weren't dead in the morning. I'm sure you can find someone glad to do that for a few bucks. Healthcare is about quality and length of life. In no way do you need healthcare to live.
Gasoline is taxed because it is a voluntary activity. You can avoid the gasoline tax by not driving. More to the point it is a road use tax, it is just based on gasoline as it was the simplest method of charging it.
I guess you could consider being alive as a voluntary activity. But charging someone a tax because they are alive in order to keep others alive longer seems pretty dumb to me. The GP was exactly correct when they suggested ERs not be required to treat someone who won't pay. Then they can make a value decision if the care needed is really urgent or if the person coming in just has a minor medical problem that the ER shouldn't be handling.
Charity is one thing, the government... that's something completely different. If you are poor you need charity, not government. I like to consider myself charitable. I would gladly donate money to help people in need. However, I see that there is a huge difference between that and FORCING others to pay for charity.
No, no, no, no, no! Read the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. They aren't long.
The government does not exist on the simple idea that it should provide things we don't want to pay for individually. Nowhere in there does it say anything about that. The government exists for ONE reason. To preserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And no, providing healthcare is not the government preserving life. That is the government FORCING others to preserve your life. The government is there to enforce simple laws: Don't kill, don't enslave, don't steal. Having fire protection is nice to have, but can just as easily be provided by private insurance. Or will the next government mandate be for car insurance, home insurance, eating vegetables, riding public transit, etc?
The power to take someone's livelihood for any reason whatsoever is just a few percentage points of taxes away from slavery.
Doesn't stop them from taking a console game with say 20 buttons and porting it to a PC with 90 buttons but only having you use 4... *COUGH*MASSEFFECT3*COUGH*.
Osmium is probably the most expensive since it is the rarest, and you have to dissolve platinum and then do a bunch of other chemistry to separate it from iridium and rhodium.
No, what I'm trying to say is the shitting in your bed analogy is more like this:
There are 10 people shitting in a bed. One of them goes, hey, we should stop shitting in the bed. 7 of them say, nope, I'mma going to keep on shitting. 2 of them say ok we'll stop, and then shit anyway. And the one who suggested it in the first place is contemplating starving themselves in the hope that they won't shit anymore.
Humans produce shit. We'd better start learning to live with it.
Well on a geologic perspective, life has been most widespread and most diverse in the warmest periods of earth's history. In fact, it's only the warming since the last ice age that has allowed Humans to flourish. Some short term pain is inevitable. We should spend the resources now adapting rather than trying to stop the change. Change is always difficult, but always inevitable. Those who start adapting early have the easiest time. Those who try to keep things they way they are are fighting a losing battle and will have the most pain. That is the way of nature.
I obviously DID read them and they prove my point. There is not as much academic research into the benefits of warming as there are for the costs. I mean really, there isn't a weighting factor on this? The linked article seems to compare the number of research papers on each side, and that's what you call confirmation bias. If we see more research on the negatives, then the net result must be negative right?
"Encroachment of shrubs into grasslands, rendering rangeland unsuitable for domestic livestock grazing (Morgan 2007)" appears to cancel out "Improved agriculture in some high latitude regions (Mendelsohn 2006)"
Let me reiterate that "high latitude regions" comprise a HUGE area of this planet. Siberia, Canada, Alaska, Greenland... These are landmasses that make encroachment of shrubs seem laughable. Yet the article gives them the same credibility.
My point was that billions of people die either way. What I am looking for is not the short term deaths, nor the long term deaths, but the effect of warming on long term length and quality of life averages. I tend to think that they will improve with global warming. I have no doubt that there will be consequences, but climate is going to change someday whether we control it or not. Maybe we should start letting it get warmer now.
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Once again, NO NO NO NO NO! We do not have a fucking democracy. We have a fucking Constitutionally Limited Government. Why bother having a bill of rights if 51% of the population can force the other 49% to do whatever they want. Read the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers. They talk about this shit. Our founders weren't stupid, people who think democracy is even close to a good idea are stupid.
And I agree, you can't have infinite freedom. Allow me to explain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTDbH_Ruojw
You still have the freedom to pursue happiness. You don't have a right to happiness.
Social Security is a DISASTER. It covers people equally more than they paid in. And you and I are on the hook for it. It is a Ponzi scheme, plain and system and will collapse eventually.
Also, in regards to your sig, in real capitalism, the government has no powers that corporations can control.
So we are going to keep piling on more rules, more regulations, and have more people buy health insurance. And we are going to have the government manage it all. And prices are still going to increase? So what is the idea here? Just to get a supreme court ruling to say congress can do whatever the hell it wants?
My point is, taxes were originally only collected on imported goods. This would be plenty of money to run a small government as outlined in the Constitution. We didn't need income taxes until we started fighting wars with ourselves and the rest of the world. I think we'd all be richer if we stopped killing people and destroying property. Doesn't that make much more sense?
And as you stated, no taxation without representation. The only politician who represents me currently is Ron Paul. And I don't pay my taxes to him. And there are plenty of people with representation who pay no taxation. I am aware that my tax dollars pay for services I receive. What I am arguing is that that tax money would be better spent if I bought the services I needed directly without a huge, inefficient bureaucracy where the only motive is to get re-elected providing services for me and taking as much money as they want by force.
The problem is you assume we Americans were fine with firing up the war machine. Most of us were not. If you haven't noticed, the government is doing all kinds of shit that the majority of people don't want. See the approval rating of Congress: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html
like tax dollars are used to keep roads paved. We spend huge amounts of tax money funding paramilitary police forces and keeping millions of people incarcerated (more prisoners than any other country by orders of magnitude); how about we take the money out of those programs and use it to pay for health care?
I'd be all for that. But this ain't it. This is "let's spend more on healthcare AND on keeping people incarcerated." I'd be all for government if they had to remove one useless program to start another one. In fact, I'd even be happier if they could come up with a BUDGET for their expenses. And even happier still if the budget balanced once a blue moon.
So let's look at this 10 years down the line and see if healthcare gets cheaper... How much are you putting up? I'll wager 10 grand (probably be worth 100 grand in 10 years with inflation factored in).
It's been ruled constitutional by 9 people elected by congress and approved by a president. That is hardly proof. In fact, any idiot can read the Constitution and see that this is a blatant violation of everything the Constitution stands for. Or have you not read the arguments presented in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers? Our founders are rolling in their graves.
I have no desire to make laws more democratically. I have a desire to not make laws that are outside of the scope of government.
Bravo sir. You just explained liberty.
And they'd be better than government provided schools, better than government police protection, better than government fire protection, and better than government roads. Sounds like a great plan, let's try it out!
[Citation needed] If everybody didn't pay taxes, do you have evidence that his lifestyle would be worse? Or is that just the assumption you have in your world-view? I like to think that the lifestyle of Americans improved after they won independence from the king (and his taxes).
Bullshit... Healthcare didn't exist 200 years ago. Back then the doctor sawed off your leg and you prayed you weren't dead in the morning. I'm sure you can find someone glad to do that for a few bucks. Healthcare is about quality and length of life. In no way do you need healthcare to live.
Speak for yourself... I voted libertarian.
Only if you have a Y chromosome and are over 18...
Gasoline is taxed because it is a voluntary activity. You can avoid the gasoline tax by not driving. More to the point it is a road use tax, it is just based on gasoline as it was the simplest method of charging it.
I guess you could consider being alive as a voluntary activity. But charging someone a tax because they are alive in order to keep others alive longer seems pretty dumb to me. The GP was exactly correct when they suggested ERs not be required to treat someone who won't pay. Then they can make a value decision if the care needed is really urgent or if the person coming in just has a minor medical problem that the ER shouldn't be handling.
Charity is one thing, the government... that's something completely different. If you are poor you need charity, not government. I like to consider myself charitable. I would gladly donate money to help people in need. However, I see that there is a huge difference between that and FORCING others to pay for charity.
No, no, no, no, no! Read the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. They aren't long.
The government does not exist on the simple idea that it should provide things we don't want to pay for individually. Nowhere in there does it say anything about that. The government exists for ONE reason. To preserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And no, providing healthcare is not the government preserving life. That is the government FORCING others to preserve your life. The government is there to enforce simple laws: Don't kill, don't enslave, don't steal. Having fire protection is nice to have, but can just as easily be provided by private insurance. Or will the next government mandate be for car insurance, home insurance, eating vegetables, riding public transit, etc?
The power to take someone's livelihood for any reason whatsoever is just a few percentage points of taxes away from slavery.
Yes, that worked so well for AMTRAK...
It has been awhile. I think you mean geology, not geography...
Doesn't stop them from taking a console game with say 20 buttons and porting it to a PC with 90 buttons but only having you use 4... *COUGH*MASSEFFECT3*COUGH*.
Osmium is probably the most expensive since it is the rarest, and you have to dissolve platinum and then do a bunch of other chemistry to separate it from iridium and rhodium.
No, what I'm trying to say is the shitting in your bed analogy is more like this:
There are 10 people shitting in a bed. One of them goes, hey, we should stop shitting in the bed. 7 of them say, nope, I'mma going to keep on shitting. 2 of them say ok we'll stop, and then shit anyway. And the one who suggested it in the first place is contemplating starving themselves in the hope that they won't shit anymore.
Humans produce shit. We'd better start learning to live with it.
Well on a geologic perspective, life has been most widespread and most diverse in the warmest periods of earth's history. In fact, it's only the warming since the last ice age that has allowed Humans to flourish. Some short term pain is inevitable. We should spend the resources now adapting rather than trying to stop the change. Change is always difficult, but always inevitable. Those who start adapting early have the easiest time. Those who try to keep things they way they are are fighting a losing battle and will have the most pain. That is the way of nature.
I obviously DID read them and they prove my point. There is not as much academic research into the benefits of warming as there are for the costs. I mean really, there isn't a weighting factor on this? The linked article seems to compare the number of research papers on each side, and that's what you call confirmation bias. If we see more research on the negatives, then the net result must be negative right?
"Encroachment of shrubs into grasslands, rendering rangeland unsuitable for domestic livestock grazing (Morgan 2007)" appears to cancel out "Improved agriculture in some high latitude regions (Mendelsohn 2006)"
Let me reiterate that "high latitude regions" comprise a HUGE area of this planet. Siberia, Canada, Alaska, Greenland... These are landmasses that make encroachment of shrubs seem laughable. Yet the article gives them the same credibility.
My point was that billions of people die either way. What I am looking for is not the short term deaths, nor the long term deaths, but the effect of warming on long term length and quality of life averages. I tend to think that they will improve with global warming. I have no doubt that there will be consequences, but climate is going to change someday whether we control it or not. Maybe we should start letting it get warmer now.