Russ wrote @ January 8, 2008 at 7:28 pm

Yeah, that 12th comment made me chuckle.

Personally, I grew up in a conservative household. I still lean that way.

I think some of the “ideals” that the left wants America to think they have are truly the ideals that the Church should have always had. A lot of the “social” issues that the left claim as their own, are Biblical and belong to the Church, NOT the government.

I like Obama as a person. I think he’s charismatic and has gumption. BUT taking his record/political experience into account I’m not so sure he’s the best bet for the presidency.

Who is? I have no clue. Let’s hope this campaign season finds us armed with the right info to make wise choices!

  Tom3 wrote @ January 8, 2008 at 11:15 pm

Jessica-

You are right about what you have said. Although when I say I am a constitutionalist I mean, the original. Yes there are updates that needed to be made. Yet I believe if we would have stuck to the original intent we wouldn’t have a lot of the problems we have today. James Madison would be outraged at the size and power our government has grown to. His vision for a republic is not what we see today. His view on federal and state power is not what was envisioned in the constitution. Also, you are correct on this right people have to speak their mind. I’m not trying to stop people, nor do I have the power to do so. The point of my annoyance is this “ROCK THE VOTE” mentality. Honestly if you don’t know about the issues or where people stand on them, I urge you NOT to vote. My point is this, that in anything nobody likes hearing from somebody who hasn’t clue on a subject rant and rave like they are some expert. It is frustrating to hear folks who supposedly don’t care and don’t even know who is even in office, make statements that they don’t even have a clue on. Can they or do they have the right, sure! I just wish they wouldn’t, but who am I?

  Mike wrote @ January 9, 2008 at 9:08 am

I’m having a hard time understanding how someone can “cherish life”, but still oppose universal health care. A study released this month ranks the United States last among 19 industrialized nations when it comes to deaths that could have been prevented by access to timely and effective medical treatment. If we were among the top three (France, Japan, Australia), there would be 101,000 fewer deaths per year in the United States. That’s 101,000 living, breathing people who leave behind heartbroken families and friends. It takes some serious contorting to justify denying 47 million people access to health care while still saying you “cherish life”.

  Tom3 wrote @ January 9, 2008 at 11:19 am

Mike,

It is very simple. Have you ever read the book “Age of Turbulence” by Alan Greenspan. He talks more on the economic view of happenings in the world. One part he did point out was this, whenever government is involved in central planning (socialism or communism) you find poverty. With free markets you will find that living conditions will improve. You can look to the fall of the Berlin wall for that example. Everybody thought that East Germany under communism was keeping up with their brothers in West Germany who took hold of free markets. The truth was staggering. The condition of living was much worse than anybody could have realized. The fact is the government isn’t in business to provide healthcare. That is my point! Can we improve on our healthcare, SURE! Yet the solution is NOT more government involvement.

  Brandon wrote @ January 9, 2008 at 11:43 am

I’d like to use this well written, well read blog a sa podium to declare MY bid for President of the United States! My official stance on the issues that matter to you:

Healthcare: we aren’t designed to live this long so its way too expensive to try

Taxes: you’re going to be taxed with money or taxed with a crappier country.

Jobs Oversees: unless you want to work for $2 an hour or pay $600 for an iPod, I think its time you learn to love China

Immigration: Indians have the right to talk about a border fence, everyone else needs to shut up

Abortion: Please don’t

Religion: Atheism never started a war, but it never gave people much hope either.

Iraq: Step one is admitting you have a problem

The economy: credit card debt is ten times worse than a slow Christmas season. You can’t grow forever, and we will ruin ourselves trying.

Oil: Is the country that mobilized every man woman and child to win freedom for the world 70 years ago going to tell me it CAN’T figure out how to go without oil?

The Environment: maybe we won’t drown in rising oceans or be choked by pollution. But polar bears are going extinct and that’s just plain sad.

I hope I can count on your vote. My research pollsters tell me I’m aligned with roughly .03% of the people in this great nation. I’m excited about growing those number in the coming months.

  Mike wrote @ January 9, 2008 at 1:54 pm

Tom, you need to spend some time dabbling in a more moderate marketplace of ideas. Your fundamentalism and extremism might play well in certain circles, but you are grossly out of step with the rational world. You’re probably comfortable ranting from the margins, but that’s not a constructive place to be.

The cornerstone of fundamentalism is the inability to change one’s mind, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Here we are, with an expensive behemoth of a private health care system, lagging behind the rest of the world in just about every metric. Instead of considering the virtues of other models, you stubbornly turn to the Book of Conservatism, which says we should take what we’ve got and remove all oversight and control. If you think that’s going to fix anything, you’re delusional.

Your example of East Germany is naive. The fall of communism hasn’t been entirely about sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. Anecdotally, some friends of mine recently returned after 27 months in Kazakhstan. They said a great many people there were happier under Soviet rule. The trend is evident in Moscow, where authoritarianism is being propelled back into prominence by Russians disillusioned by 20 years of insecurity. Of course, this is oversimplifying. My point is that cherry picking is an ineffective means of supporting an argument.

I strongly believe capitalism is the superior economic system. I also believe there are certain functions for which capitalism and standard economics are not well suited. Health care is one of those functions. Our private health care industry is to blame for one preventable death every 5 minutes. Anyone who truly cherishes life can see it’s time to fix that. (And I don’t mean by handing it over to CIGNA, UnitedHealth and Aetna.)

  Bruce B wrote @ January 10, 2008 at 9:51 am

Hi Mud,
You might find this site interesting. It allows you to choose issues that you find important and matches up the candidates to your concerns. Let me know what you think. Annie forwarded this to me the other day.

http://www.dehp.net/candidate/

  Mike wrote @ January 11, 2008 at 8:39 pm

(The Cato Institute is hardly an impartial source.) If Massachusetts’ program is failing disastrously, it’s not because the goal of universal coverage is flawed. It’s because the program itself is flawed.

Is lack of competition really the problem? There is no shortage of insurance companies. BCBS, Aetna, UnitedHealth, Humana, HAP, Celtic, Assurant, Unicare, Golden Rule, Priority, and countless others. And what about service providers? There are two major [competing] hospitals near me, and a half dozen more within 90 minutes of home. That’s to say nothing of the countless small offices and clinics. Robust competition, but health care is still expensive. Go figure.

We should look to *successful* programs as a model. France* spends $2,981 per capita, and everyone is covered. We spend $5,711 per capita, but we leave 47 million people out of the system. If we had France’s system, we could give everyone a choice** on how to spend that extra $2,730 (instead of just shoveling it into the gaping mouths of the greedy, bloated for-profit health care industry).

–
* I should add that I don’t know much about France’s health care system. Substitute any of the other leading nations — whichever is best. They’re inevitably paying far less than us, so the same principle applies.

** Even the choice to supplement the national coverage with that of a private provider if that’s what you want.

  Mike wrote @ January 11, 2008 at 10:02 pm

There is a substantial amount of competition in the marketplace, but that has failed to reduce cost. Removing regulation from a broken system will not fix it.

Check out this editorial describing France’s system.

And yes, I read the whole Cato article. The bias is pretty clear. Cato is not an impartial resource. It is a libertarian think tank (and a very well funded one at that).