The USA Political Thread

.X. said:

I am not sure it is so much the insurance for healthcare as much as it is the healthcare itself that people are pissed off about. The indigent population has grown to epic levels in the US, we haven't cured a f*cking thing in decades, big pharma has put the squeeze on people being able to treat illness.

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I think the opposite of that. I actually think we have great doctors/hospitals and such, just the system isn't working. We still have people today that won't go see a doctor because they fear the bills they might get. It's a choice of paying the rent, light bill or going to see the doctor for some. You can thank Trump for helping push it in that direction, to the point, again, even Republicans are on board. Instead of tweaking Obamacare, something most Americans favored, he wants to completely shut it down. So eventually we'll get single payer, Medicare for all, something like that. Scandinavian system that Scandinavians, AOC, mr-x, a lot of people like.

So we do have some things to thank Trump for:

Future Scandinavian healthcare system

Record number of women, minorities, people of different backgrounds, religions getting into politics, some of the same people Trump supporters constantly complain about in this thread. Thank Trump for scaring decent people enough to get active in politics.

JB Lions said:

I think the opposite of that. I actually think we have great doctors/hospitals and such, just the system isn't working. We still have people today that won't go see a doctor because they fear the bills they might get. It's a choice of paying the rent, light bill or going to see the doctor for some. You can thank Trump for helping push it in that direction, to the point, again, even Republicans are on board. Instead of tweaking Obamacare, something most Americans favored, he wants to completely shut it down.

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I will take free healthcare , No prob, I do have decent insuarance that i have to pay a $30 co-pay for, it covers prescriptions at $4 a prescription. It covers all major medical 100% after i pay my deductable of $1,200 , I have had this insuarance for 10 years , the cost is $192 a mo, I have seen far more shitty doctors than my healthcare plan.

I work and pay my monthly rate, i cover my co-pay, i will cover my deductable if neccessary, that being if i have to work much overtime to do it.

The ederly and disabled i feel need far more help with their healthcare, and that should be addressed and as quickly as possible.

offthehandle said:

A person with 86 IQ can make such a decision to abort in less than 90 days.

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Fact or Opinion?

I'll assume opinion as that seems like a hard stat to back up.

Regardless

How does this 86 IQ person fair when you cut the 90-day timeline in half to say 42 days (or six weeks)?

offthehandle said:

Abortion isn’t a form of state subsidized birth control for stupid people.

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Is your issue here the abortion being funded by the state?

If so, wouldn't poor or less fortunate be a better adjective than stupid?

Or

If you did indeed mean stupid

Is your stance that abortion as a form of birth control is stupid. Thus, anyone who gets an abortion is stupid?

I don't mean to twist your words. I'm just trying to see how stupid is the proper adjective.

Because if your issue is with the funding, then would it be wrong for me to say you take the stance of, "If you can't afford an abortion, than don't have sex?"

Regardless,

what happens to the hospital bill?

Is the woman responsible, since, well, it's in her body and can't deny it?

Is the man responsible? If daytime television taught us nothing else, it's that America has no shortage of men taking paternity tests to prove or disprove the paternal legitimacy. Though, maybe they could do a DNA test on the embryo? In which case, any time a woman accuses another man of getting her pregnant, will he be forced to hand over DNA to test against the embryo to determine if he's financially responsible for the abortion?

offthehandle said:

Many abortions are done by irresponsible, dumb people.

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Ok so now many abortions are done by irresponsible, dumb people?

Putting aside the dump people characterization,

are you saying it's irresponsible to get an abortion?

Or

That the act of getting pregnant when you are unwilling to bring a child into this world with the partner whomever got you pregnant, or vice versa, is an irresponsible act? Because as you say, abortion is not birth control.

offthehandle said:

Prison populations might be smaller too if welfare benefits were not increased based on number of fatherless ghetto born children as in the past.

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Ok,

So don't base the amount of financial assistance the single mother living in the ghetto should receive based on the amount of children she has?

And don't assist the mother by paying for an abortion?

Thus, forcing her to decide between providing for her existing children that month, or pay for an abortion? It might not be this callous. And something is likely in place such as the woman doesn't pay up front, but carries a large hospital bill. Which will ding her credit?

Alternatively, she has the child. And the other children suffer due to the added child diluting their welfare benefits that's not based on the number of fatherless ghetto born children?

Though, I think you'll say the best option is for the mother to have the child, which rightfully will be state subsidized, and give her child up for adoption as to not make the other children suffer the dilution of their welfare benefits, and allow the new child a chance with a new family?

Lastly, if welfare benefits were not based on the number of fatherless ghetto born children, what would it be based off of?

offthehandle said:

Some Republicans are simply not interested in the state paying for abortions period due to strict religious values, you should respect that at least no matter what political affiliation.

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You must respect mixing church with state no matter what political affiliation?

Then who's responsible for paying the hospital abortion bill?

Man or woman?

Does woman still have to pay if she alleges rape?

Or is that one of the few conditions that she won't have to pay?

In which case, would you say that gives her motive to allege rape? Granted a false rape allegation is a heinous act, emotional pregnant woman can act erratic and out of character, especially if the man who fathered the child refuses to accept responsibility as the father. Or any financial obligations that may follow. Such as an abortion.

More important than the bill, what about abortions that are backed by jail time?

If rape abortions is the exception, and get out of jail free card, does that give her motive to allege rape so she is legally allowed the abortion without fear of jail time?

offthehandle said:

Most of Latin America has zero to little freebies. People are poor but happy living even in corrugated metal shacks, outdoor plumbing and even some with dirt floors. No financial incentive to have more kids based on increased welfare benefits, kids are considered “social security”, the older ones watch and care for younger.

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So is this what you recommend for the single mother living in the ghetto?

To be happy living in corrugated metal shacks, outdoor plumbing, and dirt floors?

.X. said:

Socialism

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Is it the label that concerns you or are there specific POLICIES the CANDIDATES are talking about that concern you?

A few of the new squeaky wheels make a lot of noise but are not running for president. Their constituents voted them in, and if they don’t produce they will vote them out. The dem party allows free speech, but it didn’t put them there any more than the rep party did some of the far right senate members.

There are always going to be opposing viewpoints in gov. If someone puts forth something you don’t like, call your representatives and push back.

Right now we have a president who dishonors the country and the office he holds every day with his lies and his disregard for the people of the country he was elected to serve.

Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water, so to speak.

I hope you realize how lucky you are with the insurance you have. As a self employed person, I pay over $8500 / year for health insurance, with a 3k deductible

offthehandle said:

And of course, Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote her most famous statement and most disgusting:

"The age of consent for sexual acts must be lowered to 12 years old.

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Fake news bro.

Did she write those words?

Yes.

Are you grossly misrepresenting something again?

Yes. Very much so.

Explained:

It appears that Ginsburg was first accusedof wanting to lower the age of consent to 12 shortly before she was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1993. This accusation reemerged in 2005 after John Roberts was nominated. Both Senator Lindsey Grahamand Fox News host Sean Hannity, for instance, used this line to argue that Ginsburg was “very left-wing” and immoral:

HANNITY: I guess where I am on this, if you look at Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I mean, she — the Ginsburg rule, she doesn’t have to answer specific questions, clearly pro-choice going in, thinks there may even be a constitutional right to polygamy, has a controversial view we should lower the age of consent to 12, supports legalized prostitution, very left-wing.

GRAHAM: Well, there are all kind of hearts. There are bleeding hearts and there are hard hearts. And if I wanted to judge Justice Ginsburg on her heart, I might take a hard-hearted view of her and say she’s a bleeding heart. She represents the ACLU. She wants the age of consent to be 12. She believes there’s a constitutional right to prostitution. What kind of heart is that?

However, Ginsburg never actually said that the age of consent should be lowered to 12.

Ginsburg’s report was about changing gendered language, not the age of consent, in our existing laws. In the quoted passage, she was not arguing for or against lowering the age of consent; rather, she was quoting a proposed Senate bill as an example of how appropriate gender-neutral pronouns should be used. Ginsburg wrote that she used this bill because it “conform(ed) to the equality principle,” not because she agreed with the presented age of consent.

Furthermore, Ginsburg mentioned another section of the penal code a few paragraphs earlier which referenced a different age of consent: 16. In both cases, Ginsburg’s focus was on the gender of the victim, rather than the age, as her report was specifically concerned with gendered-language in U.S. law

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But hey! You're not alone. Leave it to Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Fox's Sean Hannity to misrepresent her writing about gender-neutral pronouns, and spread the disinformation that she wanted the age of consent to be 12, and has a controversial view that we should lower the age of consent to 12.

When you watch fox news as much as Trump, I guess you forget to fact check. Or, you just think anything that contradicts what the fox says, is fake news.

What does the fox say?

offthehandle said:

You are good at searching. Do a “pro choice” word search of my name in the forum here, and you will see like 7 instances. In your spare time, Do a search at any subject on Political Thread topics on me, and then challenge my spewing

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You have over 2,600 posts in the break room.

Over 200 posts in this thread since the end of March 2019.

With such a volume of posts, I could also highlight points I'd either agree with, or respect with or without prejudice.

Though, I'd probably go off the handle sifting through all the spewage. It's like searching for a piece of high quality bacon wrapped in poop. You know there's high quality bacon in there because you trust the person that told you. But it's wrapped in poop, and you can't get past that part.

This is in part why I singled you out as being one of the lead snakes in this pit.

I wish to keep my stay here short. As I don't believe I hold the patience of the likes of @JB Lions or @enlytend to go round for round with you on a daily basis.

But if you can, no more wrapping informative nuggets of things I didn't know, that I wish I did know, in political poop. So much poop. So little bacon.

Challenge yourself to find the right words. (Poop and Bacon probably weren't the best words. But it's late. And I thought maybe something more light hearted was in order)

You (or I) might not agree with being politically correct, but especially in text, words matter. We have discussed this previously regarding different topics. I'm guilty of incorrectly using words myself. If I re-read everything I said 100 times, I could probably find improvement almost every time. Except I don't want to read what I wrote 100 times. If somebody else reads what I wrote, and challenges me on the wording, I appreciate them taking the time ro break it down, and I should be grateful for their time, not bitter. Though, admittedly, that criticism is sometimes hard to accept with grace and humility.

But when able to put the ego aside, I accept when somebody challenges me to think harder and find the right words, rather than using the rough draft that first comes to mind. Fact checking, and proper descriptive words are appreciated. Evolve.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

Grilled said:

So is this what you recommend for the single mother living in the ghetto?So is this what you recommend for the single mother living in the ghetto?
To be happy living in corrugated metal shacks, outdoor plumbing, and dirt floors?

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As opposed to mothers in rat infested steel and concrete projects where the government has replaced family and social ties, leaving violent gangs and drugs to rule?

I spent this month in some similar steel shacks on the other side of the world. If you think the people in US ghettos are better off because they have plumbing and electricity, you are being deluded.

JB Lions said:

Even @mr-x supports it:

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No I don't. I support state rights to provide and experiment to find the best solution.

To put that quote in context. He was saying Dems support a Canadian/UK single payer model, not a Scandinavian one, which he would support.

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Scandinavia is a free market, I specifically rejected medicare for all which is just another word for single payer.

AOC supports the same model mr-x likes:

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Not the dumbest thing you've said this month but close.

"Ocasio-Cortez has likened her view of democratic socialism to Scandinavian social democracy. The congresswoman's progressive platform consists of a single-payer health care system that covers all forms of health care."

AOC/mr-x = the same

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We have a new hall monitor.

Grilled said:

You have over 2,600 posts in the break room.

Over 200 posts in this thread since the end of March 2019.

With such a volume of posts, I could also highlight points I'd either agree with, or respect with or without prejudice.

Though, I'd probably go off the handle sifting through all the spewage. It's like searching for a piece of high quality bacon wrapped in poop. You know there's high quality bacon in there because you trust the person that told you. But it's wrapped in poop, and you can't get past that part.

This is in part why I singled you out as being one of the lead snakes in this pit.

I wish to keep my stay here short. As I don't believe I hold the patience of the likes of @JB Lions or @enlytend to go round for round with you on a daily basis.

But if you can, no more wrapping informative nuggets of things I didn't know, that I wish I did know, in political poop. So much poop. So little bacon.

Challenge yourself to find the right words. (Poop and Bacon probably weren't the best words. But it's late. And I thought maybe something more light hearted was in order)

You (or I) might not agree with being politically correct, but especially in text, words matter. We have discussed this previously regarding different topics. I'm guilty of incorrectly using words myself. If I re-read everything I said 100 times, I could probably find improvement almost every time. Except I don't want to read what I wrote 100 times. If somebody else reads what I wrote, and challenges me on the wording, I appreciate them taking the time ro break it down, and I should be grateful for their time, not bitter. Though, admittedly, that criticism is sometimes hard to accept with grace and humility.

But when able to put the ego aside, I accept when somebody challenges me to think harder and find the right words, rather than using the rough draft that first comes to mind. Fact checking, and proper descriptive words are appreciated. Evolve.

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Looks like my nagging is paying off... you didn't slink back to edit your previous post.

JB Lions said:

Double down on stupid. Where in the world did I backtrack on anything? Quote it. I said he was a nut, I didn't say his account should be banned, I literally said the opposite.

Go see a doctor tomorrow.

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enlytend said:

A self referential document doesn't constitute proof. It's like Nixon saying he wasn't a crook. Or tRUmp saying he's a genius ...

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Irony.

That guy called darwin did some work on that, as have many anthropologists and biologists. Look for some research papers.

Shorter experiment but fascinating demo of mutation of a species - https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...tten-russian-experiment-in-fox-domestication/ - the original paper is probably online somewhere.

Selection for genetic traits changes more than the selection criteria. This was an interesting experiment on domestication of foxes. One of the most striking takeaways was that as the behavioral traits they were selecting for changed, so did the phenotype.

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What you're describing is adaptation through selection. Not evolution. When you find a fox or any animal that has evolved into something other than what it is, let us all know.

Wolves won't pair with a litter mate. Thy will bread with a dog but only dog breeds that are closely related to wolves.

You can breed a donkey and horse to get a mule or a zebra and a donkey... but their offspring are usually sterile. You can't breed a canine and a feline. You can't breed different species.

Every liberal in this forum will accept and defend the the theory of evolution without question despite the lack of any evidence that species do anything more than adapt to changing conditions.

Natural selection is the key mechanism od evolution lol

Everything is related and have a common ancestor if you go back far enough, long long time scales

But people like Monster would rather believe dinosaurs lived with humans or something

Thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of years of fossil record mean nothing, God is duping people for fun lol
How people think they can wave away all the evidence, and make dumb counters because they don't even understand the basic processes
So the counterargument is smething like YOU CAN't BREED RANDOM SPECIES TOGETHER DUH lol
As if anyone said that this is all about species combining to make new types species
Yeah yeah true, people are always arguing that random species fucked each other and created new ones, that is what evolution is about hahah
Just shows people won't even go read the basics but expect libruls to explain it piece by piece

mr-x said:

What you're describing is adaptation through selection. Not evolution.

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Evolution = natural selection.

The closest living animal today to the dinosaur is the bird - birds are believed to have evolved from dinosaurs. This article walks through it

I don't know why I'm bothering to post this because you're going to pooh-pooh it from the first sentence, if you read that, but maybe someone else will find it interesting...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-dinosaurs-shrank-and-became-birds/

@GOPChairwoman
Republicans and @realDonaldTrump are delivering for Americans:

*6M new jobs

*Unemployment at 3.6%, the lowest since 1969.

Meanwhile, Democrats are fantasizing over baseless impeachment, government-run health care, and the socialist Green New Deal

Evolution is the idea a fish can crawl out of the water, grow legs and become a reptile or mammal, a new distinct thing.

Natural selection is adaptation, not evolution. Evolution doesn't exist in the fossil record. If it did, it wouldn't be a theory.

enlytend said:

Evolution = natural selection.

The closest living animal today to the dinosaur is the bird - birds are believed to have evolved from dinosaurs. This article walks through it

I don't know why I'm bothering to post this because you're going to pooh-pooh it from the first sentence, if you read that, but maybe someone else will find it interesting...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-dinosaurs-shrank-and-became-birds/

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Dinosaurs becoming birds isn't even a theory. It's a hypothesis. There is evidence some dinosaurs may have had bird like qualities but no proof they became birds.

Fossil records are not complete and animals are abstracted from fragments. Scientist were still arguing about how a T-Rex stood / walked just a decade ago.

Same people who insist evolution is real, will in the next breath tell you some women have penises and men can get pregnant. Then get upset when you explain gender-dysphoria is a mental condition.

NameLlama said:

Natural selection is the key mechanism od evolution lol

Everything is related and have a common ancestor if you go back far enough, long long time scales

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This is not true. Nothing in the fossil record supports this claim. You talk like science is a settled, certain thing but the first rule is, question everything.

Huge gaps between reptiles and mammals. No evidence the first became the second.

** edit: Observing natural selection in the fossil record and in nature only proves that species can adapt to environmental changes. Species that fail to adapt go extinct.

Reptiles can learn to swim and eat seaweed but they are still reptiles. They don't grow gills and fins and give birth to fish.

Coverage Of Valerie Plame’s Run For Congress Ignores Her Anti-Semitism
Apparently yet another anti-Semite is running for Congress and it’s not ‘all of the news that’s fit to print’ so long as the anti-Semite is a Democrat.

mr-x said:

Evolution doesn't exist in the fossil record.

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mr-x said:

If it did, it wouldn't be a theory.

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Omfg jhow many times does someone have to say go look up the defintiion of a scientific theory