>I agree with you! Let's change that. Which do you think will be easier and faster to change, state or federal law? Some states did outlaw it... so you're saying the people in the state next door don't deserve the same protection? Republicans hate making things like this against teh law by the way. They call it "cumbersome regulation that make it harder to run a business". You may have noticed that the majority of states currently have republican governors. So the majority of Americans are kind of screwed here now...
>I am sure their lobby efforts will be more effective by a lawmaker that is disconnected from the affected voters. IOW, congress. IOW, it should be easier to change the state law to outlaw that practice. Too bad too many people like you fixate on the federal government and ignore their state government So learn one thing from Sanders and finally reform campaign finance systems and lobbying money systems. Get rid of the one dollar one vote problem in Washington. Solve the actual problem - don't let half your fellow citizens wallow in despair because a national problem is too hard to fix if you're not the rich one.
>Really? That's it? Economics don't count for anything? On this question ? No, it counts for nothing. Because there is an entirely globe full of countries consistently proving that saving everyone we can save is the CHEAPEST option. Letting people die ends up costing (a lot) more - and that's without even factoring int their future contributions to the economy which have been lost. When you factor that in - universal healthcare is a PROFIT MAKING INVESTMENT for the government. It will cost you NOTHING, in fact it will MAKE money. Go back to what I told you about how to calculate cost. Medicaid for all has NEGATIVE cost. It's a profitable investment. Pretty soon we'll all pay a LOT less taxes if we do that.
Increase the damn funding then - you can take it from reducing the excessive funding for the military.
A drop of over 50% in survival rates -is not an acceptable outcome here, how can you argue it is ? Those people aren't dying because of economics - they are being murdered for profit.
And in case it's unclear why it's related. Consider this: why is it not legal for me to take out fire insurance on your home ? Well obviously - because if people could do that, they would have a huge incentive to burn your house down - and some of them would act on it.
Of course corporations don't want to stop poor people dying young - when we allow them to profit from those deaths. When we allow them to take out life insurance on their poorest worker's lives that pay out to the company - and make millions when they die (while their families have to make debts to pay for a funeral and struggle to survive), then of course they will lobby like mad to stop anything that may allow them to survive when they get easily (but not cheaply) curable illnesses.
The circumstances where a death is acceptable is very simple: when science lacks the means to prevent it. Everything else is cold blooded fucking murder. And those who want you to allow those murders to go on, are the people who are making a fortune out of killing them. You're literally letting the assassins write the law.
And you are just going to ignore the difference in survival rates ? A measure of price without consideration for quality is meaningless. Sure the for profit ones are cheaper: bevause they cut corners that kill more than half their patients ! That is not an acceptable outcome.
And millions of people dying for no good reason (cost is a terrible reason) is genocide. Do you think their families care if the discrimination that killed them was on class rather than race ? I promise you they do not. Instead America is the land of dead peasants insurance. Where the deaths of the poor are merely one nore thing for the rich to profit from.
The government repealed the ACA's pre-existing condition protextions. Directly endangering the lives of his family.
Failure to save a life is murder. You will not convince me otherwise.
Its not a debate what the cheapest way to provide the best quality healthcare is. There is absolutely overwhelming evidence.
What the US did before Obamacare absolutely was genocide. I have zero doubt on this. With Obamacare its better. Nothing short of medicare for all will end it though.
And get rid of profit seeking healthcare while you are at it. The US has one bit of true universal healthcare. Dialysis is fully covered by federal funding for anybody who needs it. The evidence, once more, is unequivocal: 5 year survival rates at for profit clinics is less than half what it is at non profit clinics.
I do not wish to enlarge government. I just do not fear doing so. I could never care about anything less than I care about its size. I care what it does. If its not tyranical and saving lives I will defend it. When either is not true I will protest it. Its size will never be a consideration at all. It could be a massive one world govetnmemt. It could be a true anarcy (largest government ever since we are all part of it) or it could be three people in total with a 5 dollar budget. I will not give a damn. Size in this case truly does not matter. Its just nowhere on the list of concerns.
Because he is not asking for anything to be done..he is asking for something the feds did to be undone - and explaining how that action harms him and his family.
Removing anybody's access to healthcare is murder: and that my friend justifies homocide in defense of self. Repealing Obamacare is an act of genocide. As is, coincidentally, not accepting every refugee the world is sending your way - doubly so since American policy more than any other factor caused the existence of those refugees.
I can never side with anybody who can ever justify letting any innocent die on any grounds. I do not care if the governmwnt has to become the size of the galactic bloody empire. If it saves a single innocent life and respects individual liberties it will be worth it.
>no, you're just an idiot. No. You flat-out lied about what I said. As if I couldn't remember what I said, or just scroll up and read it.
>when is that for healthcare? I won't pretend to know. But I won't pretend it's 'never' either. Contrary to your fevered imaginings, this is not a simple issue- NONE of these issues are EVER simple.
>if a doctor refuses to give you healthcare and you think it is a right, then what? If it's a case of you're going to die if you don't get it- the law already requires him to give it to you - AS DOES HIS OATH ! It would make a helluva lot of sense to pay him to do so BEFORE you arrive at the E.R. and it costs ten times as much to solve the problem though. You know, do the thing that, overall actually makes the country money instead of the thing that has the USA paying more than any other country for the worst healthcare in the entire industrialized world.
>other rights do not force others to do something. Bullshit. ALL rights force others to do things. A subset of the right (especially libertarians) like to pretend that's not true but their pretense is idiotic. All rights confer both privileges and obligations. If you have a right to life, it forces me NOT to kill you. If you have a right to privacy - it forces me to not peek into your windows. If you have a right to property, it forces me to walk AROUND your property - even if it means I walk further, it also forces us to run public roads around your property, which forces me as a taxpayer to pay more for the road which is taking a longer way around. The nice thing about healthcare however is that establishing it as a right puts no obligations on any healthcare providers. It merely puts an obligation on all of us to help pay for each other's healthcare needs. And luckily there is overwhelming proof that it is CHEAPER for all of us to pay each other's care than for any of us NOT to pay for everybody's care.
>The only time the feds should do it is if it is universally accepted by the states No. The whole point of HAVING a federal government is to enforce things which are NOT universally accepted by the states but OUGHT to be. *Abolition was definitely not universally accepted by the states- it was up to the federal government to drive it. *Voting rights were not universally accepted by the states - it required the federal government to enforce it.
The role of the federal government is to enforce those things the states SHOULD NOT HAVE THE RIGHT to deny !
And even if you HAD been right, I'm not sure you'r right that it is NOT universally accepted by the populations of ALL the state. The vast majority of Trump voters have been pretty vocal that taking away their medical care was something they were sure Trump would not actually do - and if they had believed him when he said it they would not have voted for him at all ! In fact, many probably only voted for him because he promised universal healthcare.
>if people can't agree the government shouldn't do anything. inaction is feature not bug. Right... so I suppose you protested against EVERY WAR AMERICA HAS HAD for 70 years ? Because the last time America had a war that didn't have masses of people protesting against it (likely a majority in most cases) was world war 2. Every war since then the people definitely did NOT agree on. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Did you hold this same standard then ? That the government can't go to war because the people don't universally agree with the war ?
Also, by your standard, America should still have slavery. I mean a whole crapload of states were SO in favor of slavery they committed treason against the united states and tried to form a new country rather than accept government freeing their slaves ! There has never been a federal government action before or since that was that far removed from 'universal support' (no other measure ignited a civil war) - so by your standard the government should have done nothing. And half the country would still own slaves. Anybody w
Apparently the alt-right hipsters prefer Tiki-torches. At least thats what Spencer and crowd brought to a protest last week. Apparently statues of traitors really matter to those guys.
Now you're lying about what I said was a dishonest debate tactic.
It is a human right. It is worth dying for. It is worth fighting for. It is worth killing for.
But all those things, for ALL rights are the LAST resort.
You don't kill people while you have a chance to defend your rights without spilling blood. You do it, only when you have no other options.
But then - your arguments are filled with fallacies so I don't expect honest debate from you anymore. Like "millions of people dissagree with you" (appeal to popularity fallacy, and what's worse - it's complete bullshit. Go ask republican politicians in red counties about their townhalls these past few months just how many people REALLY think government should NOT help people get healthcare).
In fact, now that people are seeing what "repeal" really means for themselves - there's damn near nobody left who agrees ! Its as if they only EVER agreed because they had been lied to.
The shadow had guns, that's why the early Bat-man did as well. It was straight knock-off of the character with literally JUST enough changed not to get sued.
>Yes. I saw that movie. was meh and if memory serves he never intended to kill anyone. Yes, even justified violence should be the absolute last resort.
>Who exactly are you killing and for what? Cuba and North Korea have universal healthcare.. Cuba's is great, we have no idea what NRK has - let alone if it's any good. Canada is better than either. And I'm not killing anybody. You asked if the right was worth killing for, I said it could be justifiable homocide. That doesn't mean I intend to kill anybody, it doesn't mean that killing is a practical way to achieve the right - it does not even mean I think we SHOULD kill for it. Frankly - it is not a practical way to achieve this right. It would be justified but that wouldn't make it smart.
>and yet you have the same rhetoric and justifications for the "greater good" as any mass murdering genocidal maniac No, that's your twisting strawman. I never advocated for killing anybody. I advocated that a proper judicial process should try certain politicians and, upon conviction, they should potentially face the death penalty. I never once said the words "greater good" - and I sure as hell didn't advocate violence to achieve it. And no, I see violence as the absolute LAST resort - even when justified only the bare minimum force you can possibly use is justified. I actually believe if you come at me with a gun and I can put you down with a baseball bat then I DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO BRING MY OWN GUN. Lethal force only if there is no non-lethal option EVEN for justified force.
You are a dishonest debater who uses leading questions and don't actually offer a 'right answer'. If I said " I won't kill for healthcare" you would have said "if you won't kill for it, it is not a real human right", when I said it would be justified homicide - you go and pretend I'm not a mass murderer. Nice rhetorical flourish but a completely fallacious style of argumentation - combining both a strawman and a leading question.
He never called for a registry of refugees - he called to end refugees entirely because he believed the utterly moronic idea that terrorists would sneak in using a systen that takes at least 6 years.
He also called for a registry of Muslims in America. These two calls had nothing to do with each other. They were completely different policies.
Muslims in America are citizens. NBC asked him how his registry differed from the Nuremberg Jewish registry. He had no answer.
>What's the difference if voters want stronger immigration enforcement and a politician adopting that platform?
By itself ? Nothing ! Obama was the most anti-immigrant president in since Eisenhower, he deported more than any other president in 80 years - very few democrats or liberals complained. When you market that platform by playing on stereotypes and prejudices about immigrants - then it becomes evil. Politicians are supposed to fight AGAINST negative stereotypes and prejudices as these harm everybody and you end up with shit like the Garden City Bombing attempt - those terrorists have specifically cited Trump's speeches in their defence ! They believed those refugees were a threat to their lives because Trump said so.
>the constitution gives the federal government to do only one. The constitution gives the federal government the specific DUTY to be responsible for the general welfare of the citizens. And there is absolutely no doubt that this has historically been read to include the SAME 'welfare' concepts as today. Adam Smith argued for social security centuries before it existed - and cited that clause. Brigham-Young couldn't get statehood for Utah until the president was satisfied that he had established an adequate welfare program. The implementations have changed but the concept has always been recognised.
>The argument really is; why should the federal government do it? The answer to everything that the federal government SHOULD do is the same: because it is something that EVERYBODY has a right to, or that would be harmful if anybody was deprived it. States rights have, historically, almost NEVER been invoked except to justify an atrocity which the rest of the country has decided was an atrocity and demanded an end to. Suddenly some states would claim the right to practise it locally - as if the human right in question does not apply to all THEIR citizens as well. Healthcare is a basic human right - it's part of the right to life. A right every government has no right to suppress and an obligation to protect.
> Just like education. NY is doing free college, good on them because they are not forcing Nevadans to pay for it. They never COULD have in the first place. You can never force somebody to pay for something that has a negative cost. At most they could have forced Nevadans to MAKE money and pay less taxes. And if an education is a right - then frankly, why the fuck is it NOT a right if you're poor and were born in Nevada ?!?!?
>Are Syrian refugees American citizens? Are Somli immigrants American citizens? Are Yemini refugees American citizens? You are being disingenuous. 1) Yes - refugees once accepted are full citizens. Learn the law 2) He didn't make a speech about a registry for refugees -he made speeches about a registry for muslim AMERICAN CITIZENS. You can't conflate his different insane ideas and make a mixture and say that mixture is okay - you have to look at them individually and determine if they are. Oh and the US constitution says, and the supreme court has upheld that, that it applies to ANYBODY in America, citizen or not. But in this case - yes he was talking about citizens. That's not worse (all constitutional violations are equally evil) - but you may think it is.
>Except not. Like punishing gun manufactures for how their products are used. That's like saying a reasonable anti-DUI law is fining the car manufacturer for when you drink, drive, and get into accident. That is not common sense, intelligent or responsible.
No - it's like punishing the car company if their seatbelts don't work and kill people - which is all those things.
>Yes, it has been done before but there is a trend to achieve political goals through the courtroom when you can't win elections. No, it's never NOT been done. George Washington did it. Every president will ALWAYS think the judges who agree with him are the smarter ones. That's human nature. If the founding fathers had a problem with this - they wouldn't have let it work t
> As it is now, what you and Lessig describe is exactly what we have right now No. What Lessig is proposing is making the Maine and Nebraska systems applicable in all states.
>"or corruption" Yet the winner now was far more corrupt than she could ever hope to be. She was accused, and no evidence was ever presented, of a pay-for-play scandal in her foundation. Trump used HIS foundation - and we have actual PROOF - to bribe not one but TWO state attorney generals not to prosecute him for fraud ! Lots of whispers do not a case make. Now I personally don't think Clinton's hands were really clean -few career politicians are, but compared to Trump they are sparkling bloody diamonds of righteousness ! It's really quite amazing just how much grime Trump managed to get on such tiny little hands.
> She demonized half the electorate No - she didn't. She really didn't. The "basket of deplorables" statement was idiotic- but it was also quoted completely out of context to pretend it meant something entirely different to what she actually said. She NEVER accused Trump voters of being that basket - she said SOME OF THEM were. If anything she grossly underestimated how many.
>She chastised the Bernie supporters Mostly, actualy, that was one small subset of her supporters, she didn't do that. And frankly a small subset of Bernie's supporters DESERVED that -as evidenced by the fact that Bernie ALSO chastised them. His exact words were: "I neither need nor want your votes".
>She played into peoples fears and prejudices to get them to support her. No - that would be Trump. Unless you count their fear of an autoritarian demagogue who sucked up to racists - in which case those are actually LEGITIMATE fears which it was the duty of EVERY politicians to warn and guard against. Still is actually.
> She made it clear that she would reward corruption on her behalf Example please ? You do KNOW that pizzagate never happened right ?
>She played into the desire the same way Sanders did by promising everything they wanted That's a bullshit misrepresentation of what either of them said, AND she only adopted those liberal policies because HIS success proved that a huge swath of the democrat voters WANT those policies. If anything her fault was NOT really believing in them. And the greatest misrepresentation of those positions is the claim that they would cost too much - which is a flagrant lie based on hoping you don't know how 'cost' is calculated. The cost of something is NOT equal to the price you pay for it. It's equal to the price - value. Costs come in free varieties: If price = value: then the item costs nothing, and the only loss is the opportunity cost (you lose the opportunity to buy something else instead) - and it's an individual calculation if it's worth it everytime and NO answer is always right. If price > value: then it's a dumbfuckish purchase and only an idiot would make it. Spending more money on what is already the most overspent military in the world would be a great example of that - Trump and the republicans love that though. If price Trump did not campaign on the abolishment of constitutional rights for any American citizen The proposed Muslim registry DEFINITELY would abolish a constitutional right (the 4th amendment) for American citizens based on their religion (so it ALSO violates the 1st). His current immigration proposals ALSO violate the fourth (like the idea that you can use somebody's skintone or language as probable cause to ask for proof of citizenship). That was just one of many proposals of his that did EXACTLY what you just said he didn't do.
>Clinton was very anti-gun, did you not see the primaries? Nobody said otherwise, I said she was never coming to 'take your guns' - just like Obama didn't in 8 years of republicans promising he would do it next week. In fact, Obama's ONLY gun actions actually REDUCED gun control in the USA. What Clinton DID say she stood for was common sense, intelligent gun regulatio
I think the flaw in your thinking is a case of false equivalency - while Clinton was a very flawed candidate ( and a terrible campaigner) she did not represent the threat of a demagogue, she did not spend her time on the campaign trail promising to frankly abolish constitutional rights for huge swaths of Americans (though she was accused of that in one instance "taking your guns" it wasn't true and there has never been any truth to that accusation - personally I wish there was but there wasn't). The Muslim registry idea on the other hand - that was straight out of the Nuremberg laws (as was a half dozen other things Trump said). He was practically quoting Mein Kampf on the podium over and over.
Now it's also true that Trump has not ceased absolute power - at this stage, I am more inclined to put that down to having his authoritarianism tempered by his own incompetence than to any lack of trying. The only American institution that still seems to be somewhat functional in it's checks-and-ballances duties is the court system.
But even within a fully functional America a bad president can cause incredible harm. It's not a surprise that Trump's professed role-model for the presidency is Andrew "Trail of Tears" Jackson. When enough people are convinced that some people are subhuman that you can get the people who think that into powerful parts of the governing apparatus - then the checks and balances fail because the people doing the checking don't want to restrain the abuses.
You are half right in one instance - the E.C, has become very democratic - but that's the problem. The check on democracy was never meant to be democratic. Now if it had been FULLY democratic - and the winner of the vote simply won the white house, then perhaps it would be okay (Trump certainly could not muster enough Americans to vote for him to win the popular vote and probably never could - almost certainly every able bodied American who would ever WANT to vote for him DID - while a lot of presumptive Clinton voters stayed home). So I would be in favour of Larry Lessig's proposal for an E.C. reform - forcing the E.C. electors to follow the popular vote in their STATES - rather than on a county/by-county system as it stands now. Such a system would be far more robust against gerrymandering, would be more democratic than the way it works now - and retain much of the supposed benefits of the current system in keeping low-population rural areas from being overlooked by washington.
I am not much of a fan of the latter, the low-pop areas complain they "shouldn't be told how to live by a bunch of liberals in San Francisco" but fail to see that, that is a two-edged sword -since they now get to tell those San Franciscans how to live, in fact about a third of America's population gets to tell the other two thirds who live in the liberal, coastal cities how to live. This isn't democracy fine but it's not a republic either, it's just a broken system at this point.
The answer to failures of democracy though, is not to do away with democracy - it's to strengthen it, there are better systems than the American one. Every system has it's pros and cons and in many occasions your best outcome is actually a a mix-and-match. Pure party-list representation has the problem that your governing politicians don't feel accountable to the voters. Pure by-region systems like America has the problem that they ONLY care about the place that elected them - and tend to screw up things for everybody else. I think one should mix it - with about half the representatives elected by the local population and the other half appointed by the parties in accordance with their share of the national vote (in the US perhaps one could divide it up so the house is regionally elected like today but the Senate becomes a proportional representation). That would prevent the current situation where one party controls both the entire executive and the entire legislative branches from happening so easily - that's not a good thing. A lot of democrats will scowl at
There are more than a few problems with the benevolent dictators:
1) People do, actually, have a right to govern themselves or at the very least choose who they allow to govern them - a dictator no matter how benevolent - can never be a legitimate government. 2) The succession problem. Plato suggested the philosopher-king (another form of 'benevolent dictator') was a better choice than democracy because of democracy's vulnerability to demagogues, but the problem with both is - what happens when he or she kicks the bucket. There is no good way to ensure the next person in line will not be an evil and authoritarian dictator. In fact the lesson of history is that this seems inevitable, you go from 'one of the great kings who led his people from strengths to strength and raised standards of living for all" to "bastard king who ultimately deserved the beheading he got" in a generation, in fact you then tend to get between 5 and 10 more of the bastards before you get another smart one (usually one who had no expectation of being in the succession at all). 3) Corrupting influence of power - the longer somebody is in charge, the less honest they tend to be come and the more likely to commit gross abuses of power. FDR is about the closest thing to a real exception there is - and even he ended up doing those Japanese Internment Camps near the end. Democracy lets you institute term limits, so the good guys who get in charge can be kicked out before they BECOME bad guys. Failure to have term limits tend to be a grave mistake. In the 1980s a people's leader led his oppressed countrymen to freedom and independence. He became president - praised and cheered the world over as a true bastion of human rights, liberties and justice - and ultimately as a peacemaker and under his rule the country became the largest food exporter on the continent. Today that EXACT SAME PERSON is known as one of the most brutal dictators on the continent, the country is constantly starving and they've been through numerous waves of hyperinflation. Robert Mugabe is the evidence of the problem: good guys become evil if you they stay in power for too long - and what's worse the dirtier their hands get the more desperate they become to cling to power, after all, losing power will likely mean spending the rest of his life in jail.
So no, the benevolent dictator is a bad idea. That said, democracy is not perfect either. Plato was correct in identifying the real risk that a demagogue could replace democracy with tyranny, the US founding fathers knew their Plato and greatly feared that - as they abandoned the monarchism Plato had inspired throughout Europe - they would risk the same in the new country they were founding. Their answer was numerous checks and balances - including one on the electoral process itself. This 'electoral college' served one key purpose: to ensure that, even if a demagogue wins the vote, he would not get to be president. Unfortunately the E.C. ultimately became so watered down that - when an actual demagogue ran - not only did it fail to prevent him from becoming president, it actually ENABLED him in an election he had absolutely lost. That was the exact opposite of what the founding fathers had in mind. And the ultimate argument for undoing the E.C. is that it didn't do the job it was created for (and in fact didn't just fail but actually ACHIEVED the very thing it exists to prevent). Perhaps reforming it would be better than scrapping it, I am not sold either way - but the key point stands. Checks and balances, a leader subservient to a constitution with numerous institutions empowered to prevent him doing things he isn't empowered to do - those are the things that make democracy viable.
Well since the law requires the president to appoint at least 2 commissioners from the party he does not belong to - Obama didn't have much choice in the matter. Pai was a requirement under the law that created the FCC. Unfortunately when the republicans gave him the list of possible candidates for their seats it was pretty much Pai or "Our dark lord, Lucifer". Obama tried to choose the lesser of two evils (so instead of Lucifer we got the antichrist). Then Lucifer became president and Pai went "annoying commissioner who keeps saying stupid shit" to "idiot in charge of the agency". Something that makes about as much sense as creating a "Privacy Protection Agency" with the mandate of monitoring inteligence agencies and ensuring they do not exceed their 4th amendment authority in surveillance - and then putting the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover in charge of it.
I am not using species backup as THE reason for colonization - it's just one of the MANY reasons. Sure it's the most important one, but they don't have to agree with me on that, they just have to find *A* reason they like.
Its interesting that the last three presidents have insisted we fund Martian exploration - the latest one wants to put a man there, I don't remember any of them giving a speech about the need to build asteroid-survival bunkers.
By the way - you don't know that Mars does NOT have life. From what we've been seeing, there is no such thing as an environment life cannot exist in except *maybe* the actual heart of teh sun. We've found life in the places on earth that are far WORSE than the typical conditions on Mars.
And yes, Venus is your ELE model - it's a scientifically verified example of a planet that was as habitable as earth and now is NOT habitable anymore. So if an ELE makes Earth no longer habitable - you have to base your planning on the worst known example of that happening, that would be Venus today.
And you are overestimating costs by assuming we have to launch everything. That's now how I would do it. I would launch a few robots to build everything on the other side out of local materials. A second launch will only happen AFTER verification that a resources is not available, and there is no viable substitute. And in this context - "resource" just means "atoms". It could take them a few years, hell it could take them decades to scrounge up enough to build a greenhouse they can plant seeds in... but what if it takes 50 years to get to the point where humans can go. So what ? You've still done it in two or three launches, during which your rocket tech has improved.
You say I cannot use past migrations as precedent - but you can't use ANYTHING in the past OR EVEN THE PRESENT as precedent- an ELE means conditions that are unknown, unknowable and unplannable. The only thing we KNOW can work against is is offworld colonies - that can work for everything short of a solar-system-wide gamma-ray-burster. In the latter scenario - sorry but we're fucked, nothing can protect us against that - including any bunker.
Slashdot Mirror
>I agree with you! Let's change that. Which do you think will be easier and faster to change, state or federal law?
Some states did outlaw it... so you're saying the people in the state next door don't deserve the same protection? Republicans hate making things like this against teh law by the way. They call it "cumbersome regulation that make it harder to run a business". You may have noticed that the majority of states currently have republican governors. So the majority of Americans are kind of screwed here now...
>I am sure their lobby efforts will be more effective by a lawmaker that is disconnected from the affected voters. IOW, congress. IOW, it should be easier to change the state law to outlaw that practice. Too bad too many people like you fixate on the federal government and ignore their state government
So learn one thing from Sanders and finally reform campaign finance systems and lobbying money systems. Get rid of the one dollar one vote problem in Washington. Solve the actual problem - don't let half your fellow citizens wallow in despair because a national problem is too hard to fix if you're not the rich one.
>Really? That's it? Economics don't count for anything?
On this question ? No, it counts for nothing. Because there is an entirely globe full of countries consistently proving that saving everyone we can save is the CHEAPEST option. Letting people die ends up costing (a lot) more - and that's without even factoring int their future contributions to the economy which have been lost. When you factor that in - universal healthcare is a PROFIT MAKING INVESTMENT for the government. It will cost you NOTHING, in fact it will MAKE money.
Go back to what I told you about how to calculate cost. Medicaid for all has NEGATIVE cost. It's a profitable investment. Pretty soon we'll all pay a LOT less taxes if we do that.
Increase the damn funding then - you can take it from reducing the excessive funding for the military.
A drop of over 50% in survival rates -is not an acceptable outcome here, how can you argue it is ? Those people aren't dying because of economics - they are being murdered for profit.
And in case it's unclear why it's related. Consider this: why is it not legal for me to take out fire insurance on your home ?
Well obviously - because if people could do that, they would have a huge incentive to burn your house down - and some of them would act on it.
Of course corporations don't want to stop poor people dying young - when we allow them to profit from those deaths. When we allow them to take out life insurance on their poorest worker's lives that pay out to the company - and make millions when they die (while their families have to make debts to pay for a funeral and struggle to survive), then of course they will lobby like mad to stop anything that may allow them to survive when they get easily (but not cheaply) curable illnesses.
The circumstances where a death is acceptable is very simple: when science lacks the means to prevent it.
Everything else is cold blooded fucking murder. And those who want you to allow those murders to go on, are the people who are making a fortune out of killing them. You're literally letting the assassins write the law.
And you are just going to ignore the difference in survival rates ? A measure of price without consideration for quality is meaningless.
Sure the for profit ones are cheaper: bevause they cut corners that kill more than half their patients !
That is not an acceptable outcome.
And millions of people dying for no good reason (cost is a terrible reason) is genocide. Do you think their families care if the discrimination that killed them was on class rather than race ?
I promise you they do not. Instead America is the land of dead peasants insurance.
Where the deaths of the poor are merely one nore thing for the rich to profit from.
The government repealed the ACA's pre-existing condition protextions. Directly endangering the lives of his family.
Failure to save a life is murder. You will not convince me otherwise.
Its not a debate what the cheapest way to provide the best quality healthcare is. There is absolutely overwhelming evidence.
What the US did before Obamacare absolutely was genocide. I have zero doubt on this. With Obamacare its better. Nothing short of medicare for all will end it though.
And get rid of profit seeking healthcare while you are at it. The US has one bit of true universal healthcare. Dialysis is fully covered by federal funding for anybody who needs it. The evidence, once more, is unequivocal: 5 year survival rates at for profit clinics is less than half what it is at non profit clinics.
I do not wish to enlarge government. I just do not fear doing so. I could never care about anything less than I care about its size. I care what it does. If its not tyranical and saving lives I will defend it. When either is not true I will protest it. Its size will never be a consideration at all. It could be a massive one world govetnmemt. It could be a true anarcy (largest government ever since we are all part of it) or it could be three people in total with a 5 dollar budget. I will not give a damn. Size in this case truly does not matter. Its just nowhere on the list of concerns.
Because he is not asking for anything to be done..he is asking for something the feds did to be undone - and explaining how that action harms him and his family.
Removing anybody's access to healthcare is murder: and that my friend justifies homocide in defense of self. Repealing Obamacare is an act of genocide. As is, coincidentally, not accepting every refugee the world is sending your way - doubly so since American policy more than any other factor caused the existence of those refugees.
I can never side with anybody who can ever justify letting any innocent die on any grounds. I do not care if the governmwnt has to become the size of the galactic bloody empire. If it saves a single innocent life and respects individual liberties it will be worth it.
https://m.facebook.com/story.p...
Hear his words.
>no, you're just an idiot.
No. You flat-out lied about what I said. As if I couldn't remember what I said, or just scroll up and read it.
>when is that for healthcare?
I won't pretend to know. But I won't pretend it's 'never' either. Contrary to your fevered imaginings, this is not a simple issue- NONE of these issues are EVER simple.
>if a doctor refuses to give you healthcare and you think it is a right, then what?
If it's a case of you're going to die if you don't get it- the law already requires him to give it to you - AS DOES HIS OATH ! It would make a helluva lot of sense to pay him to do so BEFORE you arrive at the E.R. and it costs ten times as much to solve the problem though. You know, do the thing that, overall actually makes the country money instead of the thing that has the USA paying more than any other country for the worst healthcare in the entire industrialized world.
>other rights do not force others to do something.
Bullshit. ALL rights force others to do things. A subset of the right (especially libertarians) like to pretend that's not true but their pretense is idiotic. All rights confer both privileges and obligations. If you have a right to life, it forces me NOT to kill you. If you have a right to privacy - it forces me to not peek into your windows. If you have a right to property, it forces me to walk AROUND your property - even if it means I walk further, it also forces us to run public roads around your property, which forces me as a taxpayer to pay more for the road which is taking a longer way around.
The nice thing about healthcare however is that establishing it as a right puts no obligations on any healthcare providers. It merely puts an obligation on all of us to help pay for each other's healthcare needs. And luckily there is overwhelming proof that it is CHEAPER for all of us to pay each other's care than for any of us NOT to pay for everybody's care.
>The only time the feds should do it is if it is universally accepted by the states
No. The whole point of HAVING a federal government is to enforce things which are NOT universally accepted by the states but OUGHT to be.
*Abolition was definitely not universally accepted by the states- it was up to the federal government to drive it.
*Voting rights were not universally accepted by the states - it required the federal government to enforce it.
The role of the federal government is to enforce those things the states SHOULD NOT HAVE THE RIGHT to deny !
And even if you HAD been right, I'm not sure you'r right that it is NOT universally accepted by the populations of ALL the state. The vast majority of Trump voters have been pretty vocal that taking away their medical care was something they were sure Trump would not actually do - and if they had believed him when he said it they would not have voted for him at all ! In fact, many probably only voted for him because he promised universal healthcare.
>if people can't agree the government shouldn't do anything. inaction is feature not bug.
Right... so I suppose you protested against EVERY WAR AMERICA HAS HAD for 70 years ? Because the last time America had a war that didn't have masses of people protesting against it (likely a majority in most cases) was world war 2. Every war since then the people definitely did NOT agree on. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.
Did you hold this same standard then ? That the government can't go to war because the people don't universally agree with the war ?
Also, by your standard, America should still have slavery. I mean a whole crapload of states were SO in favor of slavery they committed treason against the united states and tried to form a new country rather than accept government freeing their slaves ! There has never been a federal government action before or since that was that far removed from 'universal support' (no other measure ignited a civil war) - so by your standard the government should have done nothing. And half the country would still own slaves. Anybody w
Apparently the alt-right hipsters prefer Tiki-torches. At least thats what Spencer and crowd brought to a protest last week. Apparently statues of traitors really matter to those guys.
Now you're lying about what I said was a dishonest debate tactic.
It is a human right. It is worth dying for. It is worth fighting for. It is worth killing for.
But all those things, for ALL rights are the LAST resort.
You don't kill people while you have a chance to defend your rights without spilling blood. You do it, only when you have no other options.
But then - your arguments are filled with fallacies so I don't expect honest debate from you anymore. Like "millions of people dissagree with you" (appeal to popularity fallacy, and what's worse - it's complete bullshit. Go ask republican politicians in red counties about their townhalls these past few months just how many people REALLY think government should NOT help people get healthcare).
In fact, now that people are seeing what "repeal" really means for themselves - there's damn near nobody left who agrees ! Its as if they only EVER agreed because they had been lied to.
The shadow had guns, that's why the early Bat-man did as well. It was straight knock-off of the character with literally JUST enough changed not to get sued.
>Yes. I saw that movie. was meh and if memory serves he never intended to kill anyone.
Yes, even justified violence should be the absolute last resort.
>Who exactly are you killing and for what? Cuba and North Korea have universal healthcare..
Cuba's is great, we have no idea what NRK has - let alone if it's any good. Canada is better than either. And I'm not killing anybody. You asked if the right was worth killing for, I said it could be justifiable homocide. That doesn't mean I intend to kill anybody, it doesn't mean that killing is a practical way to achieve the right - it does not even mean I think we SHOULD kill for it. Frankly - it is not a practical way to achieve this right. It would be justified but that wouldn't make it smart.
>and yet you have the same rhetoric and justifications for the "greater good" as any mass murdering genocidal maniac
No, that's your twisting strawman. I never advocated for killing anybody. I advocated that a proper judicial process should try certain politicians and, upon conviction, they should potentially face the death penalty. I never once said the words "greater good" - and I sure as hell didn't advocate violence to achieve it. And no, I see violence as the absolute LAST resort - even when justified only the bare minimum force you can possibly use is justified. I actually believe if you come at me with a gun and I can put you down with a baseball bat then I DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO BRING MY OWN GUN. Lethal force only if there is no non-lethal option EVEN for justified force.
You are a dishonest debater who uses leading questions and don't actually offer a 'right answer'. If I said " I won't kill for healthcare" you would have said "if you won't kill for it, it is not a real human right", when I said it would be justified homicide - you go and pretend I'm not a mass murderer. Nice rhetorical flourish but a completely fallacious style of argumentation - combining both a strawman and a leading question.
Justified violence should STILL be a last resort.
Watch the movie John Q for your answer.
Killing to save lives is justifiable homocide. Always has been.
He never called for a registry of refugees - he called to end refugees entirely because he believed the utterly moronic idea that terrorists would sneak in using a systen that takes at least 6 years.
He also called for a registry of Muslims in America. These two calls had nothing to do with each other. They were completely different policies.
Muslims in America are citizens. NBC asked him how his registry differed from the Nuremberg Jewish registry. He had no answer.
Try a little more variety in your news diet.
>What's the difference if voters want stronger immigration enforcement and a politician adopting that platform?
By itself ? Nothing ! Obama was the most anti-immigrant president in since Eisenhower, he deported more than any other president in 80 years - very few democrats or liberals complained. When you market that platform by playing on stereotypes and prejudices about immigrants - then it becomes evil. Politicians are supposed to fight AGAINST negative stereotypes and prejudices as these harm everybody and you end up with shit like the Garden City Bombing attempt - those terrorists have specifically cited Trump's speeches in their defence ! They believed those refugees were a threat to their lives because Trump said so.
>the constitution gives the federal government to do only one.
The constitution gives the federal government the specific DUTY to be responsible for the general welfare of the citizens. And there is absolutely no doubt that this has historically been read to include the SAME 'welfare' concepts as today. Adam Smith argued for social security centuries before it existed - and cited that clause. Brigham-Young couldn't get statehood for Utah until the president was satisfied that he had established an adequate welfare program. The implementations have changed but the concept has always been recognised.
>The argument really is; why should the federal government do it?
The answer to everything that the federal government SHOULD do is the same: because it is something that EVERYBODY has a right to, or that would be harmful if anybody was deprived it. States rights have, historically, almost NEVER been invoked except to justify an atrocity which the rest of the country has decided was an atrocity and demanded an end to. Suddenly some states would claim the right to practise it locally - as if the human right in question does not apply to all THEIR citizens as well. Healthcare is a basic human right - it's part of the right to life. A right every government has no right to suppress and an obligation to protect.
> Just like education. NY is doing free college, good on them because they are not forcing Nevadans to pay for it.
They never COULD have in the first place. You can never force somebody to pay for something that has a negative cost. At most they could have forced Nevadans to MAKE money and pay less taxes. And if an education is a right - then frankly, why the fuck is it NOT a right if you're poor and were born in Nevada ?!?!?
>Are Syrian refugees American citizens? Are Somli immigrants American citizens? Are Yemini refugees American citizens? You are being disingenuous.
1) Yes - refugees once accepted are full citizens. Learn the law
2) He didn't make a speech about a registry for refugees -he made speeches about a registry for muslim AMERICAN CITIZENS. You can't conflate his different insane ideas and make a mixture and say that mixture is okay - you have to look at them individually and determine if they are. Oh and the US constitution says, and the supreme court has upheld that, that it applies to ANYBODY in America, citizen or not. But in this case - yes he was talking about citizens. That's not worse (all constitutional violations are equally evil) - but you may think it is.
>Except not. Like punishing gun manufactures for how their products are used. That's like saying a reasonable anti-DUI law is fining the car manufacturer for when you drink, drive, and get into accident. That is not common sense, intelligent or responsible.
No - it's like punishing the car company if their seatbelts don't work and kill people - which is all those things.
>Yes, it has been done before but there is a trend to achieve political goals through the courtroom when you can't win elections.
No, it's never NOT been done. George Washington did it. Every president will ALWAYS think the judges who agree with him are the smarter ones. That's human nature. If the founding fathers had a problem with this - they wouldn't have let it work t
> As it is now, what you and Lessig describe is exactly what we have right now
No. What Lessig is proposing is making the Maine and Nebraska systems applicable in all states.
>"or corruption"
Yet the winner now was far more corrupt than she could ever hope to be. She was accused, and no evidence was ever presented, of a pay-for-play scandal in her foundation. Trump used HIS foundation - and we have actual PROOF - to bribe not one but TWO state attorney generals not to prosecute him for fraud ! Lots of whispers do not a case make.
Now I personally don't think Clinton's hands were really clean -few career politicians are, but compared to Trump they are sparkling bloody diamonds of righteousness ! It's really quite amazing just how much grime Trump managed to get on such tiny little hands.
> She demonized half the electorate
No - she didn't. She really didn't. The "basket of deplorables" statement was idiotic- but it was also quoted completely out of context to pretend it meant something entirely different to what she actually said. She NEVER accused Trump voters of being that basket - she said SOME OF THEM were. If anything she grossly underestimated how many.
>She chastised the Bernie supporters
Mostly, actualy, that was one small subset of her supporters, she didn't do that. And frankly a small subset of Bernie's supporters DESERVED that -as evidenced by the fact that Bernie ALSO chastised them. His exact words were: "I neither need nor want your votes".
>She played into peoples fears and prejudices to get them to support her.
No - that would be Trump. Unless you count their fear of an autoritarian demagogue who sucked up to racists - in which case those are actually LEGITIMATE fears which it was the duty of EVERY politicians to warn and guard against. Still is actually.
> She made it clear that she would reward corruption on her behalf
Example please ? You do KNOW that pizzagate never happened right ?
>She played into the desire the same way Sanders did by promising everything they wanted
That's a bullshit misrepresentation of what either of them said, AND she only adopted those liberal policies because HIS success proved that a huge swath of the democrat voters WANT those policies. If anything her fault was NOT really believing in them. And the greatest misrepresentation of those positions is the claim that they would cost too much - which is a flagrant lie based on hoping you don't know how 'cost' is calculated. The cost of something is NOT equal to the price you pay for it. It's equal to the price - value. Costs come in free varieties:
If price = value: then the item costs nothing, and the only loss is the opportunity cost (you lose the opportunity to buy something else instead) - and it's an individual calculation if it's worth it everytime and NO answer is always right.
If price > value: then it's a dumbfuckish purchase and only an idiot would make it. Spending more money on what is already the most overspent military in the world would be a great example of that - Trump and the republicans love that though.
If price Trump did not campaign on the abolishment of constitutional rights for any American citizen
The proposed Muslim registry DEFINITELY would abolish a constitutional right (the 4th amendment) for American citizens based on their religion (so it ALSO violates the 1st). His current immigration proposals ALSO violate the fourth (like the idea that you can use somebody's skintone or language as probable cause to ask for proof of citizenship). That was just one of many proposals of his that did EXACTLY what you just said he didn't do.
>Clinton was very anti-gun, did you not see the primaries?
Nobody said otherwise, I said she was never coming to 'take your guns' - just like Obama didn't in 8 years of republicans promising he would do it next week. In fact, Obama's ONLY gun actions actually REDUCED gun control in the USA. What Clinton DID say she stood for was common sense, intelligent gun regulatio
I think the flaw in your thinking is a case of false equivalency - while Clinton was a very flawed candidate ( and a terrible campaigner) she did not represent the threat of a demagogue, she did not spend her time on the campaign trail promising to frankly abolish constitutional rights for huge swaths of Americans (though she was accused of that in one instance "taking your guns" it wasn't true and there has never been any truth to that accusation - personally I wish there was but there wasn't).
The Muslim registry idea on the other hand - that was straight out of the Nuremberg laws (as was a half dozen other things Trump said). He was practically quoting Mein Kampf on the podium over and over.
Now it's also true that Trump has not ceased absolute power - at this stage, I am more inclined to put that down to having his authoritarianism tempered by his own incompetence than to any lack of trying. The only American institution that still seems to be somewhat functional in it's checks-and-ballances duties is the court system.
But even within a fully functional America a bad president can cause incredible harm. It's not a surprise that Trump's professed role-model for the presidency is Andrew "Trail of Tears" Jackson. When enough people are convinced that some people are subhuman that you can get the people who think that into powerful parts of the governing apparatus - then the checks and balances fail because the people doing the checking don't want to restrain the abuses.
You are half right in one instance - the E.C, has become very democratic - but that's the problem. The check on democracy was never meant to be democratic. Now if it had been FULLY democratic - and the winner of the vote simply won the white house, then perhaps it would be okay (Trump certainly could not muster enough Americans to vote for him to win the popular vote and probably never could - almost certainly every able bodied American who would ever WANT to vote for him DID - while a lot of presumptive Clinton voters stayed home).
So I would be in favour of Larry Lessig's proposal for an E.C. reform - forcing the E.C. electors to follow the popular vote in their STATES - rather than on a county/by-county system as it stands now. Such a system would be far more robust against gerrymandering, would be more democratic than the way it works now - and retain much of the supposed benefits of the current system in keeping low-population rural areas from being overlooked by washington.
I am not much of a fan of the latter, the low-pop areas complain they "shouldn't be told how to live by a bunch of liberals in San Francisco" but fail to see that, that is a two-edged sword -since they now get to tell those San Franciscans how to live, in fact about a third of America's population gets to tell the other two thirds who live in the liberal, coastal cities how to live. This isn't democracy fine but it's not a republic either, it's just a broken system at this point.
The answer to failures of democracy though, is not to do away with democracy - it's to strengthen it, there are better systems than the American one. Every system has it's pros and cons and in many occasions your best outcome is actually a a mix-and-match. Pure party-list representation has the problem that your governing politicians don't feel accountable to the voters. Pure by-region systems like America has the problem that they ONLY care about the place that elected them - and tend to screw up things for everybody else. I think one should mix it - with about half the representatives elected by the local population and the other half appointed by the parties in accordance with their share of the national vote (in the US perhaps one could divide it up so the house is regionally elected like today but the Senate becomes a proportional representation). That would prevent the current situation where one party controls both the entire executive and the entire legislative branches from happening so easily - that's not a good thing. A lot of democrats will scowl at
Pre golden-age Bat-man was just a third rate rip-off of the Shadow. Complete with guns. Not the same character.
Much like Silver age dark knight is a much lonelier character than golden age caped crusader.
There are more than a few problems with the benevolent dictators:
1) People do, actually, have a right to govern themselves or at the very least choose who they allow to govern them - a dictator no matter how benevolent - can never be a legitimate government.
2) The succession problem. Plato suggested the philosopher-king (another form of 'benevolent dictator') was a better choice than democracy because of democracy's vulnerability to demagogues, but the problem with both is - what happens when he or she kicks the bucket. There is no good way to ensure the next person in line will not be an evil and authoritarian dictator. In fact the lesson of history is that this seems inevitable, you go from 'one of the great kings who led his people from strengths to strength and raised standards of living for all" to "bastard king who ultimately deserved the beheading he got" in a generation, in fact you then tend to get between 5 and 10 more of the bastards before you get another smart one (usually one who had no expectation of being in the succession at all).
3) Corrupting influence of power - the longer somebody is in charge, the less honest they tend to be come and the more likely to commit gross abuses of power. FDR is about the closest thing to a real exception there is - and even he ended up doing those Japanese Internment Camps near the end. Democracy lets you institute term limits, so the good guys who get in charge can be kicked out before they BECOME bad guys. Failure to have term limits tend to be a grave mistake. In the 1980s a people's leader led his oppressed countrymen to freedom and independence. He became president - praised and cheered the world over as a true bastion of human rights, liberties and justice - and ultimately as a peacemaker and under his rule the country became the largest food exporter on the continent. Today that EXACT SAME PERSON is known as one of the most brutal dictators on the continent, the country is constantly starving and they've been through numerous waves of hyperinflation. Robert Mugabe is the evidence of the problem: good guys become evil if you they stay in power for too long - and what's worse the dirtier their hands get the more desperate they become to cling to power, after all, losing power will likely mean spending the rest of his life in jail.
So no, the benevolent dictator is a bad idea. That said, democracy is not perfect either. Plato was correct in identifying the real risk that a demagogue could replace democracy with tyranny, the US founding fathers knew their Plato and greatly feared that - as they abandoned the monarchism Plato had inspired throughout Europe - they would risk the same in the new country they were founding. Their answer was numerous checks and balances - including one on the electoral process itself. This 'electoral college' served one key purpose: to ensure that, even if a demagogue wins the vote, he would not get to be president.
Unfortunately the E.C. ultimately became so watered down that - when an actual demagogue ran - not only did it fail to prevent him from becoming president, it actually ENABLED him in an election he had absolutely lost. That was the exact opposite of what the founding fathers had in mind. And the ultimate argument for undoing the E.C. is that it didn't do the job it was created for (and in fact didn't just fail but actually ACHIEVED the very thing it exists to prevent). Perhaps reforming it would be better than scrapping it, I am not sold either way - but the key point stands. Checks and balances, a leader subservient to a constitution with numerous institutions empowered to prevent him doing things he isn't empowered to do - those are the things that make democracy viable.
Well since the law requires the president to appoint at least 2 commissioners from the party he does not belong to - Obama didn't have much choice in the matter. Pai was a requirement under the law that created the FCC. Unfortunately when the republicans gave him the list of possible candidates for their seats it was pretty much Pai or "Our dark lord, Lucifer". Obama tried to choose the lesser of two evils (so instead of Lucifer we got the antichrist).
Then Lucifer became president and Pai went "annoying commissioner who keeps saying stupid shit" to "idiot in charge of the agency". Something that makes about as much sense as creating a "Privacy Protection Agency" with the mandate of monitoring inteligence agencies and ensuring they do not exceed their 4th amendment authority in surveillance - and then putting the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover in charge of it.
Wait... since when is Batman hyphenated !??!?!
I would suggest unmixing your metaphors, replace the second one with one more inline with the first one.
"Get out of the cheap hotel room if you can't take the carpet burns, asshole".
Aah yes, the republican's favorite argument (they made it about their healthcare bill too) "If it's smaller it must be better".
I can only assume they spend a great deal of time practicing this argument while their wives and mistresses try not to laugh.
I am not using species backup as THE reason for colonization - it's just one of the MANY reasons. Sure it's the most important one, but they don't have to agree with me on that, they just have to find *A* reason they like.
Its interesting that the last three presidents have insisted we fund Martian exploration - the latest one wants to put a man there, I don't remember any of them giving a speech about the need to build asteroid-survival bunkers.
By the way - you don't know that Mars does NOT have life. From what we've been seeing, there is no such thing as an environment life cannot exist in except *maybe* the actual heart of teh sun. We've found life in the places on earth that are far WORSE than the typical conditions on Mars.
And yes, Venus is your ELE model - it's a scientifically verified example of a planet that was as habitable as earth and now is NOT habitable anymore. So if an ELE makes Earth no longer habitable - you have to base your planning on the worst known example of that happening, that would be Venus today.
And you are overestimating costs by assuming we have to launch everything. That's now how I would do it. I would launch a few robots to build everything on the other side out of local materials. A second launch will only happen AFTER verification that a resources is not available, and there is no viable substitute. And in this context - "resource" just means "atoms". It could take them a few years, hell it could take them decades to scrounge up enough to build a greenhouse they can plant seeds in... but what if it takes 50 years to get to the point where humans can go. So what ? You've still done it in two or three launches, during which your rocket tech has improved.
You say I cannot use past migrations as precedent - but you can't use ANYTHING in the past OR EVEN THE PRESENT as precedent- an ELE means conditions that are unknown, unknowable and unplannable. The only thing we KNOW can work against is is offworld colonies - that can work for everything short of a solar-system-wide gamma-ray-burster. In the latter scenario - sorry but we're fucked, nothing can protect us against that - including any bunker.
Of course Mars is not immune to asteroids - but what IS incredibly unlikely is that a planet killer wil hit BOTH planets at the SAME TIME.