↪Thanatos Sand The argument against single payer is that government just skims off the c top, as it consumes more and more of the economy.
7 of the 12 richest counties in the U.S. circle Washington D.C. as government gets fatter and fatter off if the hard labor of the working class.
People are pretty tired of being slaves for the Bureaucracy. It's really quite out of control.
Not according to WHO. Cancer can be quite predictable: e.g. cigarette smoking, excess drinking, environmental hazards, obesity, food toxins, etc.
We do know that taking prescription opioids is definitely a no-no, but physicians keep prescribing and killing. Go figure.
↪Thanatos Sand People need to learn to lead healthier lives and how to take care of themselves. Other countries pay half as much per capita with better results. U.S. is absolutely in last place when it comes to life expectancy in developed countries and last year, for the first time in decades, life expectancy actually went down.
↪Thanatos Sand People need to learn to lead healthier lives and how to take care of themselves. Other countries pay half as much per capita with better results. U.S. is absolutely in last place when it comes to life expectancy in developed countries and last year, for the first time in decades, life expectancy actually went down.
Single payer, such as Social Security and Medicare had been around for some time. However , for good reason, citizens feel that all of this is becoming its own private industry where government keeps growing for its own benefit.
2) To pay for this largesse, Obamacare forced everyone to buy insurance called the government mandate. A substantial portion of the population considers this gross government overreach.
Politics is simply the authoritative allocation of resources.
Economics is supposedly the non-authoritative allocation of resources, but some people will probably tell you that it is another form of politics.
Either way it is about resources and their allocation, not the moral lives of people.
The best way to deal with resources, not a good life, is what politics is concerned with.
"Politics is who gets what, when, and how" -- Harold Lasswell.
With this said, given that the basis for a political philosophy lies in establishing moral claims about how individuals should behave, and given that we have no utterly precise system of morality to establish ethical truths reliably, there is no way to determine a correct political philosophy. ]
There are several contributors here who represent an attitude that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the DNC, are the root of all evil in US politics, and possibly the world . They will sometimes grudgingly acknowledge that Trump is an embarrassment and a buffoon, on account of him being impossible to defend, but such an acknowledgement is always followed by an immediate...'but the real villain is...' It's not a hard pattern to spot.
Meanwhile, today's Post-Truth news is the infamous Boy Scout speech. Notwithstanding the fact that the head of the Scouts sent a written apology to the entire membership for the egregious and self-aggrandizing stump speech that Trump gave at what was supposed to be a ceremonial occasion (including having the assembled scouts boo the previous President), Trump now claims that it was 'the greatest ever speech' given to the Scouts.
This is in line with the 'biggest ever inauguration crowd' delusion, which has lead to a completely unnecessary enquiry into fraudulent voting in the USA, purely in service of Trump's narcissism.
You think so? I think one can do evil without awareness, but would that cease to be evil just because they don't perceive it as evil? What if someone has good intentions, but through their actions and ignorance actually cause a lot of evil? Are they not responsible? :s
— Agustino
Natural events cause evil, and animals cause evil. We can say those natural events are responsible, but not morally responsible, for the evil they cause.
Well, for one thing, the fact that Skepticism (the metaphysics that I propose) explains it.
Man, your reading and reasoning skills are really poor. I brought Hillary's crimes up as a relevant comparison (and it is), not as a source of exculpation. I'm not surprised you missed that.
— Thanatos Sand
What you actually said was "And it is entirely relevant since the same people that are rightly jumping on Trump for possibly breaking the law--and wrongly prematurely screaming "collusion"--were the same ones who defended the Clintons' collusions to the hilt.".
So you think it relevant because... people are hypocrites?
And you also said "it's a vulgar platitude meant to preclude relevant mention of contradiction, just as you tried to do to me above". But I fail to see how Clinton's crimes contradict my claims regarding Trump Jr. having committed a crime.
I never said it did, so you now are more absurd and have even more face to save.
— Thanatos Sand
If you're not claiming that Hillary's crimes determine whether or not Trump Jr. committed a crime then your accusations against Hillary are irrelevant to my argument with Agustini over whether or not Trump Jr. committed a crime.
If you can't see how Clintons' crimes have great bearing on whether or not Trump Jr. committed a crime, then you have serious reasoning (and other) issues.
— Thanatos Sand
You're absurd, and your attempts to save face are comical. You were in the wrong. Accept it and move on.
Trump and Hillary are tied together by the contexts of Washington politics and, more specifically, the 2016 election.
Whether or not Trump Jr. committed a crime in meeting with that lawyer doesn't depend on whether or not Hillary committed a similar or different crime. This is a ridiculous claim.
If I'm arguing that John murdered someone and Agustino is arguing that he didn't, and you respond by saying that Jane murdered someone, then your response is irrelevant to my discussion with Agustino.
If you can't see how Clinton's crimes have no bearing on whether or not Trump Jr. committed a crime then you have serious reasoning issues.
And I don't care if you care; I care, and I showed why Clinton's crimes are relevant.
— Thanatos Sand
Relevant to my argument with Agustino over whether or not Trump Jr. committed a crime? No, they're not relevant. So if you want to bring up Clinton's crimes, it makes no sense to do so in response to me.
"You did not prove your point, since I showed you why even the non-election examples are relevant to the discussion."
You brought up non-election issues in response to my claims regarding an election law. So, yes, they're irrelevant.
Firstly, no educated person should use the banal term "whataboutism;" it's a banal platitude meant to preclude relevant mention of contradiction, just as you did to me above. And it is entirely relevant since the same people that are rightly jumping on Trump for possibly breaking the law--and wrongly prematurely screaming "collusion"--were the same ones who defended the Clintons' collusions to the hilt.
— Thanatos Sand
I don't care if Clinton or anyone else also committed a crime. I'm arguing that there's a case that Trump Jr. did.
If only some of them involved elections then some of them didn't, proving my point that some of your examples are wrong as they have nothing to do with the law I'm talking about.
↪Thanatos Sand OK? I'm arguing that there's a case for Trump Jr. having committed a crime in meeting with the Russian lawyer. I'm not claiming that nobody else has ever committed a crime. So I don't see the relevance of your whataboutism.
Besides, some of your examples seem completely wrong anyway. The law I'm referring to is in relation to elections.
Sure, but the law always needs to be interpreted in application. The spirit of the law isn't to prevent any kind of discussion with foreign nationals, but rather to prevent a foreign national influencing or controlling a candidate. I do believe you perceive this.
— Agustino
It doesn't intend to prevent any kind of discussion with foreign nationals. It intends to prevent receiving money or other things of value from foreign nationals. A no strings attached donation is illegal.
The truth conditions of a statement of thought/belief do not include the speaker's belief, but the existential conditions do.
The burden of proof for accusing another of lying isn't determined by me. I'm just wondering if you know what it is?
Again, a simple yes or no question...
Fearful to commit? It's a simple yes or no question. I'm asking you what you think/believe. That's part of having a conversation... and an integral one, at that.
What does talking about the "ethical" and the "strict real/metaphysical" level add to the understanding of what telling the truth consists of?
I find no value in naming levels although I may...
There's another aspect to consider here...
It has not always been the case that publicly elected officials say things that are known to be false, despite that being pointed out. Continue the narrative...
If enough people say "X", and they say "X" enough, then some people will start believing "X"...
Telling the truth...
On your view, what is the criterion which when satisfied counts as telling the truth?
It doesn't follow from the fact that many and/or most politicians misrepresent their own thought/belief that truth doesn't matter or that we live in a 'non-truth world'. If everyone lied, truth would still be operative in this world. Without truth there can be no such thing as a lie.
If one doesn't understand that, they do not understand the role that truth plays in all thought/belief. A collective misunderstanding results in a nation of people not knowing the difference between lying, making a true statement, and/or stating a falsehood. In a nation that has a majority of it's people who place absolute trust - unshakable certainty - in the truthfulness of demonstrable falsehoods, you'll find an inherently compromised collective mindset.
Those people wouldn't know a post-truth world if they lived in one.
It is quite simply not the case that every politician throughout American history has been the same with regard to lying, and the reasons for doing so. There were(and still are) people who realize the crucial role that trust and truth play in the success and sustainability of a nation like the US. Some of those people were once in government, some of those people still are, and the effects/affects of their input helped craft legislation that once assured the success of the majority. If that were not the case, anti-trust laws would not have ever existed.
Yet a lot in our "post-truth" times comes also from disinformation and the new ways that propaganda has developed from the old ways of the 19th and 20th Centuries when there were Limited number of media outlets and ways to get information.
First thing is to get people to be distrustful of what you earlier could trust, basically argument of "mainstream media being fake news". Then have them believe the "alternate media", which has the "real facts" hidden otherwise from the masses.
The 'Russia Collusion' story - it has now been documented that Trump Jnr and other senior campaign officials met with Russian agents in the hope that they would obtain material damaging to Trump's adversary. This is what 'collusion' means, and it is now beyond doubt that this occurred.
Nevertheless, up until the actual email trail was leaked a couple of weeks ago, both Trumps denied that such a meeting ever took place; in other words, they lied about it. Now that it is impossible to lie about it, they're trying to downplay it, saying that the meeting was 'only' about the issue of adoption of Russian infants. Another lie! Covering up lies with lies. But what is really disturbing, is that the fact of these lies, and the initial fact of actual collusion, are no source of shame for Trump, apparently. According to today's reports:
But then, this was quoted in the context of Trump interfering with Jnr's prepared statement about the 'Russia meeting'. So more confusion - even though there's nothing to hide, Trump acts like he is trying to hide something. I suppose there is no telling the truth to those who deceive themselves.
There are so many big issues that Trump clearly doesn't grasp. And he doesn't have any idea that these are things he doesn't know. It's like when he promises to 'fix the healthcare system', and then the GOP tries (and fails) to pass a bill which will in effect abolish healthcare for tens of millions of people. Trump himself doesn't understand what they're trying to do, or what his position on it is. He simply waves his arms around, and says 'Obamacare is a disaster', without any understanding of what it means. Even his assistants acknowledge that he doesn't understand healthcare.
That's where 'post truth' originated. And still, 80% of 'republicans' think Trump is doing great. They, like him, can't distinguish fact from fiction, or truth from wishful thinking.
Thanatos was habitually insisting that I didn't show a conclusion that I set out to demonstrate.
But, when invited him to specify a particular statement or conclusion in my posts that contains that error or fallacy, he said, "No, you just didn't show it." But, if I claimed to show something, then there'd be a fallacy or false statement somewhere on the way to that conclusion, in my posts.
The answer, of course, is that, if someone says, "You didn't show it", and says that the burden isn't on him to show what's wrong with where you claimed to show it, then there's no way to answer that vague charge.
That's a common, definitive, troll-tactic. Repetition without any verification or justification.
As someone else pointed out, there are only two possibilities:
1. Thanatos is a typical, incredibly-sloppy &/or dishonest troll.
2. Thanatos is sincere and honest, but he's quite delusional....delusional to a degree that's problematic to the decorum, order and integrity of the forum.
Either way, he's a detriment and a liability to the forum..
Certainly the "rights revolutions" have been embedded in the education system to a large extent, but unfortunately progress in rights has not been matched by progress in economic emancipation and social equality.
The education system has tended to deliver "success" to some but "failure" to others.
The result is large scale disaffection amongst whole halves of populations, as witnessed by the election of Trump in the US, Brexit and other nationalist leaning movements in Europe.
The rights revolutions are actually under a degree of threat because at half the population have been overlooked while the other half has prospered. — Jake Tarragon
Chucking money at education is the old progressive way. Surely it's time to rethink education lock stock and barrel?
You're either a troll or a fuckwit, dude, and I'm not at all skeptical about that. — John
Thanatos Sand is both of those things. I'd bet that even the most skeptical of the Greek Skeptics would unequivocally assert that. — Michael Ossipoff
Thanatos thinks that there's something lacking or incorrect in what I said in that discussion, but he can't quite say what it is.
So he's huffing, puffing, hissing, and making other angry-noises.
The forum guidelines say that trolls will be banned. Thanatos Sand is the most typical, standard, obvious and consistent textbook example of a troll.