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or conquer another country and steal all their stuff (sorry channeling Caesar again)
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
2009/07/24 19:11:58
Subject: Re:"Free" health care... some good videos.
I have watched a few of his videos and they are great. I will keep an eye out for more, you don't need to agree to listen; he does make a fair amount of good points though, and some of his skits are pretty funny.
Wrexasaur wrote:I have watched a few of his videos and they are great. I will keep an eye out for more, you don't need to agree to listen; he does make a fair amount of good points though, and some of his skits are pretty funny.
yes, i dont aggree with everything he says... but most of his videos had me ROFLMAO.
Okay, so first up, people found that funny? When you hit the third bottle of red and someone brings up politics we all end up sounding like that guy, tilt in the voice and the sarcasm laid on thick and we all think we're being hilarious... but we sober up in the morning and are quite embarressed about acting like jackasses. But this guy seemed stone cold sober, and was putting it out on the internet. People actually think that guy was funny?
Second up, I can't believe he spent the time to book the flight to Canada, travel to Canada, spend time moving around Canada but never spent one second actually figuring out the substance of his argument. Figuring out the substance of the debate isn't hard, he just didn't do it because he's a smartass with little interest in debate or discussion. Instead he makes lazy talking points to rebut a system that no-one is trying to implement, while defending the merits of a system you don't have.
His attacks were lazy and pointless because no-one is attempting to install the Canadian system into the US. A brief look at the Canadian system and a comparison to the healthcare plans that are actually being suggested would show few similarities. So why is he attacking the Canadian system, as though its problems have any relation to the proposed US systems. The argument is DOA, before you consider the anecdotal nature of his arguments (anecdotes that aren't supported by healthcare metrics).
He was defending the merits of a system you don't have, because he kept talking about the merits of a free market... when your system has no free market where it most counts - consumer choice. Right now coverage in the US is provided by the employer, who will choose a scheme based on his own priorities, only one of which is going to be the healthcare coverage desired by the employee (and only based on his perception of the employee's desired coverage). In comparison, if you look a country with horrible, horrible 'socialised' healthcare like Australia, here you're free to choose from a variety of private insurers yourself. And to because they have to make themselves attractive to individual consumers they offer a wide range of schemes depending on the extent and nature of coverage you want, so you can increase your excess to lower monthly payments, for instance. It's actually a consumer driven model, gaining the benefits of free market competition.
He was also talking about the benefits of the free market in developing new drugs, something that wouldn't go away in a system with universal coverage. Right now in countries with that horrible, horrible 'socialised' medicine there is free market research into drugs purely to make profit from new discoveries. There is nothing stopping a company investing just as much money into the system to gain just as much profit.
Lastly, the guy offers no alternate plan. He just ignores the idea that the US system might have systemic problems that result in people being denied care and denying. It never even enters his head that there might be a problem that people are bankrupted from being diagnosed with cancer while they're between jobs. No, he just thought it was enough to tell anecdotes about Canadian healthcare, talk up the benefits of the free market system you don't have and make some really old Soviet Russia jokes.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
All I know is that our healthcare system has needed reform for almost two decades. It is way too expensive, in part because doctors have a profit incentive to order all sorts of tests and procedures that don't need to be done. Whenever someone without insurance is treated, it costs the taxpayers money. The idea that in a nation of 550 million people there is no sort of functional, national healthcare system is ridiculous.
I don't see how anyone can be against the idea of every American having access to health care. If you're someone who doesn't like the idea of paying more taxes, chances are you're rich and boo-hoo, if you don't like it move somewhere else...oh, what's that? Even if you pay higher taxes you're still living in the most enviable nation on the planet? Guess you get one less vacation home or one less sportscar from your fleet...
People don't understand that the Americans who truly face higher taxes to pay for plans like this are SO rich that they're segregated from the rest of us and we really have nothing in common with them. You see blue collar Republicans eating up the schmegma of Party talking points when the people running the Party are laughing themselves stupid at watching poor Americans screwing themselves and not even noticing how badly they're bleeding.
That's pretty much the only reason to oppose this plan, paying higher taxes...but nobody here on this forum or their parents would pay another time in Federal taxes if the Congress passes the right health care reform legislation.
What I love are the people who say that Obama is moving too quickly on this...moving too quickly? This is a decades-old problem! Obama's just trying to finally push for SOMETHING to be done, because all the Congress has previously been able to do is a big, fat zero.
Honestly, the problem here is Congress. Every single one of these jerkoffs need to be voted out of office. We desperately need term limits and salary drops for every member of the House and Senate such that the job becomes entirely unattractive for anyone who wants to use the position as a power-base. Make the job truly about public service, and perhaps a better class of citizen will start running for office and you'll see stuff get done.
People with intelligence, conscience, and real moral fiber don't bother running for National political office because they know better than to think they can get anything done.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2009/07/26 22:37:47
"Success is moving from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." - Cliff Bleszinski
http://www.punchingsnakes.com
2009/07/26 22:56:46
Subject: Re:"Free" health care... some good videos.
Cairnius wrote:
Make the job truly about public service, and perhaps a better class of citizen will start running for office and you'll see stuff get done.
In general, political agility and democracy are inversely proportional.
Cairnius wrote:
People with intelligence, conscience, and real moral fiber don't bother running for National political office because they know better than to think they can get anything done.
It isn't so much that national politicians are stupid, or immoral, but that our system is designed to inhibit political change. Whether or not you think that's a good thing depends on your own convictions.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
I don't think that's a general statement, re: political agility and democracy. I think it all depends on the nature and class of the citizenry. I believe that Franklin said that democracy depends on the "education and participation of the citizenry." In America we have a decidedly anti-intellectual society, and our voter turnout rates are never that high...which explains a lot.
I firmly believe that the better educated someone else, the less they are held to political Parties and set ideologies. The best definition of "intellectual" I ever heard came from Penn Jillette: "Someone who, in the face of superior face, is able to change their minds."
If we were a sort of people who sought to remove the bias and b.s. and get down to the brass tacks of what actually IS, if we had a plurality of citizens who were less concerned with ideology and more concerned with empiricism, I believe that we would get things done. We wouldn't have half the problems we have, and change wouldn't take nearly as long to come about as it would just make sense to get rid of old systems when they ceased to function.
I don't think our system is designed to inhibit political change...that wasn't necessarily a goal of the Founders; and I don't have any inherent preference for change or not depending on the system we're talking about. If and when a society comes up with a system that seems to work for everyone, then there's no reason to change it...but we don't live in that society, so WE happen to need change, and much faster change than we get.
This is what people don't seem to understand...change is the only constant, and the more complex and technologically-advanced a society becomes, the speed of change increases exponentially...if we cannot evolve our political system to the point where the basic underpinning of conservative political thought, i.e. resisting change to the death and trying to maintain the status quo, I don't see how America can possibly survive in the long run. The fact that health care is actually an issue is a joke...all that seems to matter is which side of the class lines you fall behind and that's what decides whether you're for reform or not.
That's the other thing Americans don't understand...we're truly divided politically by class, not race or religion or gender, but there's such a resistance to class-based thought in America that people get easily distracted...
"Success is moving from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." - Cliff Bleszinski
Cairnius wrote:I don't think that's a general statement, re: political agility and democracy. I think it all depends on the nature and class of the citizenry. I believe that Franklin said that democracy depends on the "education and participation of the citizenry." In America we have a decidedly anti-intellectual society, and our voter turnout rates are never that high...which explains a lot.
Once you reach a certain point it doesn't really matter how well educated the citizenry is. So long as the electorate is sufficiently large and diverse the sheer variety of intellectual convictions will serve to impede change, and thereby lower voter turnout due to apathy. Essentially, as size and access increase overall engagement and agility decrease. The US, the EU, and India are all prime examples of this trend when compared to the individual European democracies (Germany, France, and Britain especially).
Cairnius wrote:
I firmly believe that the better educated someone else, the less they are held to political Parties and set ideologies. The best definition of "intellectual" I ever heard came from Penn Jillette: "Someone who, in the face of superior face, is able to change their minds."
In my experience its less a matter of general education, and more an issue of how one approaches a specific set of knowledge. I know plenty of med, law, and engineering students with infantile political opinions.
Cairnius wrote:
I don't think our system is designed to inhibit political change...that wasn't necessarily a goal of the Founders; and I don't have any inherent preference for change or not depending on the system we're talking about. If and when a society comes up with a system that seems to work for everyone, then there's no reason to change it...but we don't live in that society, so WE happen to need change, and much faster change than we get.
The goal of the founders was to restrict the power of the state, which is functionally tacit to the inhibition of political change.
Cairnius wrote:
This is what people don't seem to understand...change is the only constant, and the more complex and technologically-advanced a society becomes, the speed of change increases exponentially...if we cannot evolve our political system to the point where the basic underpinning of conservative political thought, i.e. resisting change to the death and trying to maintain the status quo, I don't see how America can possibly survive in the long run. The fact that health care is actually an issue is a joke...all that seems to matter is which side of the class lines you fall behind and that's what decides whether you're for reform or not.
I find it interesting that you openly attack ideological thinking while consistently referring back to 'class' as the primary determiner of one's political slant.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2009/07/26 23:49:07
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
If you take this guy seriously you should be watching less Fox News, matter of fact you should see this guy ON Faux News, he actually mentioned that they should be looking at REAL news... I commend him for that at the very least.
He makes some good points, but he is obviously RA!RA!RA!.
I do agree with Sebster about him spending the money to go to Canada, and not taking the time to fully research what he is talking about... wait, he is a "serious" reporter on YouTube that needs to look deeply into everything he says? Have you been on YouTube recently??? Matter of fact have you watched the news in general recently? Fair and unbiased as ever I take it...
After reading Dogma's post I was actually surprised to agree with most if not all of what he has said. Usually I skip those dissection posts, and read ones that get to the point with the least amount of fuss. Let's face it we are not changing anything drastic by talking about it on DakkaDakka, on the other hand what does create drastic change? In short I will try to take the time to read Dogma's posts in the future, mainly because he seems to make a damn lot of sense.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2009/07/27 00:36:05
2009/07/27 03:47:22
Subject: Re:"Free" health care... some good videos.
dogma wrote:Once you reach a certain point it doesn't really matter how well educated the citizenry is. So long as the electorate is sufficiently large and diverse the sheer variety of intellectual convictions will serve to impede change, and thereby lower voter turnout due to apathy. Essentially, as size and access increase overall engagement and agility decrease. The US, the EU, and India are all prime examples of this trend when compared to the individual European democracies (Germany, France, and Britain especially).
I would argue that in a truly intelligent society things like cultural and ideological differences would begin to fade. This is an entirely theoretical proposition as I don't think humanity has yet to see a truly intelligent society...
In the real world, harsh realities do tend to break down former divides between human beings...we tend to cooperate in the face of disaster (the existence of human civilization at all is largely due to the requirement of cooperation to deal with the flooding among the Tigris and Euphrates, and the Yangste Rivers) or when the need to act in concert arises (wars of self-defense)...consider those realities "facts" and one can imagine that in an intelligent society the barriers between people might start to break down...
I believed that enlightened human beings can see to this sort of mentality outside of an absolute need for it...hence the "education" of the citizenry.
dogma wrote:In my experience its less a matter of general education, and more an issue of how one approaches a specific set of knowledge. I know plenty of med, law, and engineering students with infantile political opinions.
I suppose when I say "educated" I mean "liberal education" in the classic sense, i.e. before university transformed into glorified trade schools. I would argue that medicine, law, and engineering are all technical skills that require memorization of large amounts of information in order to first gain the expertise needed, and then this begins to fade into specialization and some loss of the general knowledge once possessed; but I have known too many people in all three of these fields who were pretty much idiots otherwise to universally declare them all "educated" in the classic sense.
dogma wrote:The goal of the founders was to restrict the power of the state, which is functionally tacit to the inhibition of political change.
I am not sure I agree. If power rests in the hands of the people, and not the state, then change is never inhibited inasmuch as the people decide to enact it at a fast speed. I think it would be more accurate to say that the goal of the founders was to restrict the ability of the state to become independent in will, and separate from the governed.
That doesn't seem to have worked out so well...and that's about when the founders would be in favor of extremely fast, radical change, i.e. revolution.
dogma wrote:I find it interesting that you openly attack ideological thinking while consistently referring back to 'class' as the primary determiner of one's political slant.
I don't think observation of reality is an ideology. Class exists. To argue otherwise is silly. One doesn't have to be a Marxist to observe that wealthy people have an entirely different set of conditions that define their everyday reality than the very poor; and it's not a Marxist leap to suggest that those conditions would lead to different perspectives which, in turn, would influence one's political bent.
It's actually this sort of confusion between observations of the reality of class structure and Marxism which makes it particularly difficult to discuss class in the United States in an intelligent manner. Marxism is the philosophy that class differences will lead to revolution - this is an argument for which the existence of class is the lynchpin, but the existence of class has nothing to do with this philosophy; yet the moment one begins talking about class, clearly that person has to be making the observation from an ideological perspective, right?
"Success is moving from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." - Cliff Bleszinski
http://www.punchingsnakes.com
2009/07/27 04:00:12
Subject: Re:"Free" health care... some good videos.
Cairnius wrote: If you're someone who doesn't like the idea of paying more taxes, chances are you're rich and boo-hoo, if you don't like it move somewhere else...oh, what's that? Even if you pay higher taxes you're still living in the most enviable nation on the planet?
Yes because a teacher that make 35000 a year definatly wants more taxes on his income with about 1000 being take of already.
SHUT THE feth UP.
-to many points to bother to count.
mattyrm wrote:i like the idea of a woman with a lobster claw for a hand touching my nuts. :-)
Wrexasaur wrote:I do agree with Sebster about him spending the money to go to Canada, and not taking the time to fully research what he is talking about... wait, he is a "serious" reporter on YouTube that needs to look deeply into everything he says? Have you been on YouTube recently??? Matter of fact have you watched the news in general recently? Fair and unbiased as ever I take it...
Well this guy can be taken two ways. He could be taken as a serious reporter, in which case he should be criticised for failing to understand the healthcare debate as much as he does. Or he can be taken as just some other guy on youtube, with as much insight into healthcare policy as the 'leave Britney alone guy', in which case I'd ask why anyone, anywhere cares one bit about what he's saying.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
The problem with that is no one else thinks their ideology isn't the reality of things as well. Marx observed economic classes and he determined that their situation would lead to revolution; he wasn't making stuff up for his own amusement. His "ideology" was his perception of the world.
Also, people cooperate all of the time. How many people are required to manufacture a pencil? If they don't have a common goal, I can't see a good reason for them to be working together.
You seem to dislike people who only specialize in one trade yourself, so how would a society where everyone is a cog in one machine be ideal? I think people often have good reasons to not work together, to be honest, not the least of which being independence.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2009/07/27 04:11:18
Anuvver fing - when they do sumfing, they try to make it look like somfink else to confuse everybody. When one of them wants to lord it over the uvvers, 'e says "I'm very speshul so'z you gotta worship me", or "I know summink wot you lot don't know, so yer better lissen good". Da funny fing is, arf of 'em believe it and da over arf don't, so 'e 'as to hit 'em all anyway or run fer it.
2009/07/27 04:17:41
Subject: Re:"Free" health care... some good videos.
That's pretty much the only reason to oppose this plan, paying higher taxes...but nobody here on this forum or their parents would pay another time in Federal taxes if the Congress passes the right health care reform legislation.
Do you mean dime?
-to many points to bother to count.
mattyrm wrote:i like the idea of a woman with a lobster claw for a hand touching my nuts. :-)
Wrexasaur wrote:I do agree with Sebster about him spending the money to go to Canada, and not taking the time to fully research what he is talking about... wait, he is a "serious" reporter on YouTube that needs to look deeply into everything he says? Have you been on YouTube recently??? Matter of fact have you watched the news in general recently? Fair and unbiased as ever I take it...
Well this guy can be taken two ways. He could be taken as a serious reporter, in which case he should be criticised for failing to understand the healthcare debate as much as he does. Or he can be taken as just some other guy on youtube, with as much insight into healthcare policy as the 'leave Britney alone guy', in which case I'd ask why anyone, anywhere cares one bit about what he's saying.
2009/07/27 06:22:18
Subject: Re:"Free" health care... some good videos.
Cairnius wrote:
I would argue that in a truly intelligent society things like cultural and ideological differences would begin to fade. This is an entirely theoretical proposition as I don't think humanity has yet to see a truly intelligent society...
So, you think that a truly intelligent society is one which possess a 1::1 question/answer ratio? How do you reconcile that position with your obvious disdain for specialization?
Cairnius wrote:
In the real world, harsh realities do tend to break down former divides between human beings...we tend to cooperate in the face of disaster (the existence of human civilization at all is largely due to the requirement of cooperation to deal with the flooding among the Tigris and Euphrates, and the Yangste Rivers) or when the need to act in concert arises (wars of self-defense)...consider those realities "facts" and one can imagine that in an intelligent society the barriers between people might start to break down...
I believed that enlightened human beings can see to this sort of mentality outside of an absolute need for it...hence the "education" of the citizenry.
Why would barriers between people begin to break down? Are you postulating some kind of transcendence of our physical form?
Also, our tendency to cooperate in times of adversity is offset by our tendency to make war in times of scarcity. Note most of the African continent.
Cairnius wrote:
I don't think observation of reality is an ideology. Class exists. To argue otherwise is silly. One doesn't have to be a Marxist to observe that wealthy people have an entirely different set of conditions that define their everyday reality than the very poor; and it's not a Marxist leap to suggest that those conditions would lead to different perspectives which, in turn, would influence one's political bent.
No, but it is Marxist to suppose that one's economic capabilities are the sole governor of his political beliefs.
Cairnius wrote:
It's actually this sort of confusion between observations of the reality of class structure and Marxism which makes it particularly difficult to discuss class in the United States in an intelligent manner. Marxism is the philosophy that class differences will lead to revolution - this is an argument for which the existence of class is the lynchpin, but the existence of class has nothing to do with this philosophy; yet the moment one begins talking about class, clearly that person has to be making the observation from an ideological perspective, right?
It wasn't your discussion of class which spurred my comment about ideological thinking. It was your discussion of class in the context of a general rejection of all other social barriers which spurred my comment about ideological thinking.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
2009/07/27 07:49:49
Subject: Re:"Free" health care... some good videos.
Cairnius wrote: If you're someone who doesn't like the idea of paying more taxes, chances are you're rich and boo-hoo, if you don't like it move somewhere else...oh, what's that? Even if you pay higher taxes you're still living in the most enviable nation on the planet?
Yes because a teacher that make 35000 a year definatly wants more taxes on his income with about 1000 being take of already.
SHUT THE feth UP.
Thank you for your eloquent, well-argued contribution.
One of the problems in the US system is that it is so expensive. Thorough reform should lead to a reduction of costs by about 30%, bringing it into line with European levels.
All Americans who have jobs, are paying for a national health system through either their taxes or deferred pay (because their employers have to pay such high insurance.)
dogma wrote:So, you think that a truly intelligent society is one which possess a 1::1 question/answer ratio? How do you reconcile that position with your obvious disdain for specialization?
Don't make the common mistake of reading tone online where there is none. Take me strictly at my written word and ask me first if you think I mean one thing or another, to wit this ridiculous notion that I have disdain for specialization. I like my doctors just fine, and it's nice to have a lawyer in the family...I generally hold disdain for little that I have personal need or use for...
I believe that the more intelligent a society is, the greater the number of 1:1 question/answer propositions there are because that society understands more. Why does an object fall down when we throw it into the air? Gravity. A thousand years ago there could have been a bunch of potential answers for that question, but now we understand how gravity works so it's reduced to 1:1.
I'd like to think that a truly intelligent society would have near-universal appreciation for the scientific method and the value of knowledge, all kinds of knowledge, for its own sake so communally that society would start coming up with more answers to questions exponentially faster than we do at the moment. Would there always be unanswered questions? Sure; but that society would be making more of a concerted effort to figure them out.
Right now, modern humanity is still very much in its scientific infancy.
dogma wrote:Why would barriers between people begin to break down? Are you postulating some kind of transcendence of our physical form?
Also, our tendency to cooperate in times of adversity is offset by our tendency to make war in times of scarcity. Note most of the African continent.
Barriers between humans tend to break down in times of crisis because very often it's mutual existence which is at stake. Crises present common threats which then eclipse private, petty divisions. At least until the crisis is gone.
Two neighbors may despise each other in normal circumstances, but if there's a fire down the street which is threatening to spread to the whole neighborhood and someone makes it clear to them that if they cooperate along with other people they can put the fire out, those two neighbors will work together for the duration of the crisis.
I say that enlightened minds can see the need for this cooperative spirit outside immediate crisis because I think that part of being enlightened is realizing that everyone is part of the same, closed circle. We all effect one another whether we realize it or not, we all effect everyone's quality of life whether we realize it or not...but if everyone were to understand this, wouldn't they have a motivation to stop fighting with each other so much and start working together on a regular, daily basis?
Our course, now we're solidly in either Roddenberry land or listening to the Buddha...i.e. this is something we may get to, MAYBE, in a thousand years or more...
On your latter point, it's a very narrow view to suggest that war is representative of most kinds of adversity that humans find themselves in...and the African continent can only speak to the African continent, not the whole of humanity. Also, much of what is going on in Africa has absolutely nothing to do with scarcity of resources, but rather with very old tribal and cultural conflicts which are just easier to carry out now with modern technology.
dogma wrote:No, but it is Marxist to suppose that one's economic capabilities are the sole governor of his political beliefs.
Economic realities, not capabilities; and again, don't read into things. If I didn't say "sole" then I didn't say "sole" and you're responding to your own interjection, not anything I said.
dogma wrote:It wasn't your discussion of class which spurred my comment about ideological thinking. It was your discussion of class in the context of a general rejection of all other social barriers which spurred my comment about ideological thinking.
Again, I didn't reject all other barriers. If I had to rephrase I would say that class in America is the more important division of our people than anything else, and also the most unnoticed. Americans who are part of the economic lower classes often have divisions of culture and race between them, but if they only realized that they have much more in common politically than they have differences from all other perspectives then you might see some of the cultural and racial barriers weakening as the lower classes realize that, working together, they can exercise the political will to improve their standards of living.
Because we find it very difficult to discuss class in America, these sorts of ideas rarely get discussed in the mainstream. When the Republican party talks about "class warfare" whenever liberals talk about increasing taxes on the wealthy I always laugh, because the wealthy have effectively been fighting class warfare against the poor for centuries, and not just in America but everywhere. Class-based politics are responsible for pretty much every system of government humanity has ever seen, whether it is either the actuality of who holds the power or the reality of who actually has access to it.
Take America, for example...politics, by and large, is a game for the wealthy, or those in very selective fields. Obama may not have been born into wealth, but he did go to Harvard and get into the very small club of elite practitioners of law. No doubt that is what got eyes on him when he moved back to Chicago and began working in the community, which led to his being championed by a local politician, then election to State Senate, and then on to where he is today. By going to Harvard and becoming a lawyer he moved into the upper class and thus political power was within his reach.
Exceptions do not make the rule...anyone could throw out some examples of people earning political office who aren't lawyers, or businesspeople, or other privileged classes, but by and large politics in America is a game for a very select group of people who have access, and that select group of people are established by economic class.
"Success is moving from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." - Cliff Bleszinski
http://www.punchingsnakes.com
2009/07/27 19:21:41
Subject: Re:"Free" health care... some good videos.
Cairnius wrote:
Don't make the common mistake of reading tone online where there is none. Take me strictly at my written word and ask me first if you think I mean one thing or another, to wit this ridiculous notion that I have disdain for specialization. I like my doctors just fine, and it's nice to have a lawyer in the family...I generally hold disdain for little that I have personal need or use for...
In the context of this conversation I think the word disdain is quite appropriate. Especially as I didn't use it in the context of any particular discipline, but specialization as a general concept.
Cairnius wrote:
I'd like to think that a truly intelligent society would have near-universal appreciation for the scientific method and the value of knowledge, all kinds of knowledge, for its own sake so communally that society would start coming up with more answers to questions exponentially faster than we do at the moment. Would there always be unanswered questions? Sure; but that society would be making more of a concerted effort to figure them out.
Right now, modern humanity is still very much in its scientific infancy.
You're falling into the trap of assuming that all questions have a scientific answer. Disciplines like political science do not possess any kind such certainty because they are intrinsically tied to aesthetic principles via human emotion regarding the various semantic distinctions which we bind ourselves to. This element is further complicated by the fact that the majority of issues dealt with at the societal level are intrinsically forward slanted; being required to account for eventualities that do not yet exist.
Cairnius wrote:
Barriers between humans tend to break down in times of crisis because very often it's mutual existence which is at stake. Crises present common threats which then eclipse private, petty divisions. At least until the crisis is gone.
Somalia exists in a state of perpetual crisis, yet there appears to be little sign that cooperation has overcome the instinct to survive.
Cairnius wrote:
Two neighbors may despise each other in normal circumstances, but if there's a fire down the street which is threatening to spread to the whole neighborhood and someone makes it clear to them that if they cooperate along with other people they can put the fire out, those two neighbors will work together for the duration of the crisis.
And yet natural disasters are frequently accompanied by mass crime and looting.
Cairnius wrote:
I say that enlightened minds can see the need for this cooperative spirit outside immediate crisis because I think that part of being enlightened is realizing that everyone is part of the same, closed circle. We all effect one another whether we realize it or not, we all effect everyone's quality of life whether we realize it or not...but if everyone were to understand this, wouldn't they have a motivation to stop fighting with each other so much and start working together on a regular, daily basis?
No. In fact, that realization is often the motivation for fighting in the first place. Its the ever popular "The Jews are destroying Germany" argument.
Cairnius wrote:
On your latter point, it's a very narrow view to suggest that war is representative of most kinds of adversity that humans find themselves in...and the African continent can only speak to the African continent, not the whole of humanity.
The African continent, like the other 5 inhabited continents, is dominated by humanity. You don't get to cut an entire segment of humanity out of the picture when discussing the species as a whole; especially when you're claiming that "we're all part of the same closed circle".
Cairnius wrote:
Also, much of what is going on in Africa has absolutely nothing to do with scarcity of resources, but rather with very old tribal and cultural conflicts which are just easier to carry out now with modern technology.
Really? Because I could have sworn that the massive incidences of famine, drought, and general lack profitable commodities was a significant factor in bringing those tribal divisions to the forefront.
dogma wrote:
Economic realities, not capabilities; and again, don't read into things. If I didn't say "sole" then I didn't say "sole" and you're responding to your own interjection, not anything I said.
No, capabilities. When discussing economic reality the overall intent is to remove agency from the question through the assumption of rational action. Economic capability is inclusive of the human element which is otherwise disregarded.
Cairnius wrote:
Again, I didn't reject all other barriers. If I had to rephrase I would say that class in America is the more important division of our people than anything else, and also the most unnoticed. Americans who are part of the economic lower classes often have divisions of culture and race between them, but if they only realized that they have much more in common politically than they have differences from all other perspectives then you might see some of the cultural and racial barriers weakening as the lower classes realize that, working together, they can exercise the political will to improve their standards of living.
Because we find it very difficult to discuss class in America, these sorts of ideas rarely get discussed in the mainstream. When the Republican party talks about "class warfare" whenever liberals talk about increasing taxes on the wealthy I always laugh, because the wealthy have effectively been fighting class warfare against the poor for centuries, and not just in America but everywhere. Class-based politics are responsible for pretty much every system of government humanity has ever seen, whether it is either the actuality of who holds the power or the reality of who actually has access to it.
See, there's a difference between reading intent and summarizing a position. Based on what you've written here my description of your beliefs vis a vis class was not inaccurate. Just because you say that something isn't 'X' it does not follow that it isn't actually 'X'.
Incidentally, class warfare is not a new concept in America, nor is it something which is difficult to discuss. Unless the last 50 years fall into the same "doesn't count" bin as Africa.
Cairnius wrote:
Take America, for example...politics, by and large, is a game for the wealthy, or those in very selective fields. Obama may not have been born into wealth, but he did go to Harvard and get into the very small club of elite practitioners of law. No doubt that is what got eyes on him when he moved back to Chicago and began working in the community, which led to his being championed by a local politician, then election to State Senate, and then on to where he is today. By going to Harvard and becoming a lawyer he moved into the upper class and thus political power was within his reach.
Exceptions do not make the rule...anyone could throw out some examples of people earning political office who aren't lawyers, or businesspeople, or other privileged classes, but by and large politics in America is a game for a very select group of people who have access, and that select group of people are established by economic class.
That's a really poor example because its fully possible to read it as a tale of class mobility, not class heredity.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
2009/07/27 20:35:46
Subject: Re:"Free" health care... some good videos.
If we keep quoting this is going to become a short novel.
1) Disdain is not an appropriate word. It was neither intended nor felt, so you can drop this line of questioning. You have been given a direct response.
2) I do believe that all questions have a scientific answer. Even moral questions, but defending this idea is far beyond the scope of this conversation. See Robert A. Heinlein.
3) Somalia is an inappropriate example because the crisis is of human construction, therefore the cooperative efforts that I am speaking of don't arise...note the context in which I attempted to place them (natural disasters, attack by a foreign nation) which are clearly an "us versus something" scenario. That's when people cooperate...but an internal "us versus us" crisis is precisely a crisis of lack of cooperation, and a result of "othering" in the meaning of the word as implied by cultural studies theorists.
4) Natural disasters are also frequented by cooperation in much larger measure historically-speaking. Again, we owe the existence of human civilization to cooperative efforts to tame nature. Never forget how important that historical fact is and how much it speaks to the basic nature of humanity, hailing as it does from a time when our identities and communication were not as fragmented as they are today.
5) If you think that realizations of unity are ever motivations for fighting, then either I didn't make myself clear or I did and you just didn't understand, but in either case that discussion also brings us way outside the boundaries of this conversation.
6) You missed the point about war not being representative of most kinds of adversity humans find themselves in, which was the point. You're very focused on war, but perhaps that's natural this being a wargaming forum...I think that's a very narrow view but I'm not going to attempt to convince you of that.
7) In Africa the tribal and cultural divides are what form the lines by which fighting over the resources takes place, whereas if they had any kind of communal identity they'd work together to address their problems. You're more concerned with the spurs to conflict than the root causes, IMHO. I'm more interested in what we get to when we drill down as deep as we can get, which is the tribal and cultural conflicts. You only go to war with someone who is othered from you.
8) If you want to insist on capabilities so be it, but then we're not speaking to the same point and quite frankly I'm not interested in taking up a debate about the influence of action upon economic class ignoring potential based on the conditions of birth.
9) You're still not getting my points about class, so looks like we'll agree to disagree yet again.
10) Class mobility/class heredity is irrelevant. The story was given as example of political power only being open to certain segments of the population by and large, mostly based on class inclusion. If you don't believe that, then yet again we agree to disagree as I'm not willing to debate the point. I'm quite secure in my beliefs and the backing of history. Perhaps things will change, but not in our lifetimes.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2009/07/27 20:37:23
"Success is moving from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." - Cliff Bleszinski
-to many points to bother to count.
