kenjiharima Posts

Qrast the part of the quote I put in bold is for people who post too little content in a post. Most people simply quote it and add it to the post to bypass it.

Side note: I love how people claim we should kill bush plus all the horrible names they called him and his administration during his time in office. Yet, if you criticize Obama you're a racist, a bigot, etc. I guess that's the way it is, Republicans are fair game for all criticism, death threats, name calling and Democrats are entitled to endangered species protections. Can't even so much as criticize the tie that Obama is wearing.

Section 15 Canadian Charter

Here is the Canadian equivalent of what TMS was quoting.

Forgot about that memo that was mentioned. Oh well, we all make mistakes.

If what I understand from Canadian/American law it's perfectly legal. They aren't discriminating again people based on gender, religion, race, etc. As long as they aren't discrimination against people based on gender, religion, sexual orientation or race.

Edit: Forgot about the memo in OP.

I agree it's a stupid business plan but, it's their business and their decision.



Can't say I have, except for the dating site that boots ugly people.

I'm generally apathetic towards vaccines and the people who choose to ignore the coverage. If they believe the side effects are greater than the benefit of the vaccine then they will be the ones who get infected with polio, small pox, rubella,etc. Their choice, and rationally they can only hold themselves responsible.

What do you expect from the McCarthy crowd when you see things like this?

What's wrong with the teabaggers? Something wrong with wanting the government to spend less than it takes in?

The rest of the stuff is up for debate. Like their tax ideology; lower taxes means more employment which means more taxable revenue down the road. Don't even get me started on the annoying "birthers".

Who wouldn't be pissed off by having their money squandered on vote buying and wasteful projects instead of funding productive social programs?

C-SPAN is like porn. Have you watched Kirsten Gillibrand read legislation? Oh and especially when she chairs the Subcommittee on Domestic and Foreign Marketing.

Hey! C-SPAN isn't boring.... Oh..wait...

Okay I admit that I do watch C-SPAN from time to time. Only late at night when all the infomercials are on.

America isn't the mother of the world. The government of America has taken an interventionist foreign policy mentality. Neoconservatives support this ideology because to them, democratic countries rarely declare war on one another.



John McGowan once stated (paraphrased) that Neoconservatives are actively trying to build an American Empire but, not an overt one like the United Kingdom of years past. This Empire would be more subtle or more of an economic empire.

Edit:For those unaware the Neoconservatives are considered "false conservatives" by the rest of the conservative movement ranging from some right leaning Libertarians(Ron Paul, Bob Barr, Alan Greenspan) to Paleo-conservatives (Alex Jones). Neocons tend to support abortion,the "welfare state" and support Free markets in rhetoric only. Look up "Bush Doctrine" if you want more information.

Is the United nations doing it's job? No, the United Nations is a miasma of corruption and impotence. The U.N. can't come to an agreement on anything. Iran and North Korea's Nuclear programs are a couple recent examples of how the U.N. (more specifically the security council) can't come to any strong agreements. America has been trying to push for sanctions on Iran for months if not years and we essentially have no results. With countries such as Russia and China using their veto power to prevent any sanctions that would endanger their interests in Iran (or North Korea). If we expand our outlook we can see that nearly all U.N. resolutions are optional with only the U.S. willing to take up the role of enforcing these resolutions but, only if the resolutions benefit America.

The corruption in the bureaucracy also prevents the U.N. from acting as an effective mediator. Money earmarked for the Haitian relief effort went missing

List of U.N. corruption I came across

Legalize. Regulate. Tax.

Legalize:

So what criteria would people use? Would you have to provide proof of income before you have a child? Screen the baby for potential health problems? Have to take a mental examination before a woman would be permitted to have a child? What about political alignment or religion? Some Atheists could make the case that Muslim and Christian families promote homophobia, sexism, racism, extremism,etc We certainly don't want racists or homophobes running around. The whole idea leads to a huge complicated mess because everybody has different definitions of who would be an acceptable parent.

Abortion facts.

For the second half of your post. I'm not promoting limiting the number of children someone can have as it leads to gross child imbalance such as with earlier China(not to mention it's a gross overstepping of the Governments powers by the constitution). Limiting the number of Children in western countries won't do much to curb the overpopulation problem. Mandatory "population controls" would have to be implemented in countries such as India and China. Most western countries have been on the decline in population by birth and only see their numbers rising because of immigration.

Eight percent of women who have abortions have never used a method of birth control; nonuse is greatest among those who are young, poor, black, Hispanic or less educated

Jones RK, Darroch JE and Henshaw SK, Contraceptive use among U.S. women having abortions in 2000–2001, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2002, 34(6):294–303.




You forget about Child support. Abortion is the easy way out for the guy since he won't have to hand over 1/3rd or 1/2 of his income to the woman to support the child.

Here is more information for the pro-choice crowd

The whole abortion argument in a nutshell.

I don't care what side anybody is on. Just don't argue from the standpoint of emotions.

I was well aware the larger companies paid nothing or next to nothing in taxes. America's economy is 70% small businesses. Taxing these companies would spell misfortune for America as they don't have enough income to pay these taxes. A reason for this is the business taxes are so awful that the owners of these companies file the company income as personal income and pay taxes on it that way. Which they get hit by the high income tax. By the time they pay all the taxes the owner can take home maybe 30 or 40k (average income for a private practice/non-hospital doctor).

Though, I never thought about an import tax. A lot of the exporters would frown on that. An import tax would anger China, severely hurt Haiti (their biggest exporters are T-shirts to the U.S.) along with a lot of other countries who depend on our "black hole" status to keep their countries afloat.

What about altering the tax code as a whole? Flat tax or a consumption tax (such as FairTax) could lessen the overall tax burden on smaller businesses and individuals*. This freeing up more income for the smaller businesses to buy insurance plans for employees.

*Recent statistics revealed that more than half of Americans do NOT pay any Federal Income taxes whatsoever. Taxation isn't about who can afford what but, about the collective responsibility of supporting the government and by extension society as a whole.

After learning a little more about the German, Swiss and Dutch systems. I can see a way to strongly encourage purchasing private insurance while not mandating it. Why not offer a tax deduction for a certain percentage or the entire cost of insurance premiums? If plans are cheap, even healthy people will buy them simply because it's worth the investment. Most healthy Americans forgo insurance because it is too expensive.

Every person in America regardless if they are legal citizen, illegal alien or an unlucky visitor can receive health care. If you can't pay for the treatment then everyone else is forced to pay the tab. This leads to an increase in cost of running hospitals as medicine isn't free, neither are emergency rooms or the staff. So these costs are passed onto everyone else. Another side effect of this "free" health care is waiting times in hospitals E.R.'s has increased. We should be looking at cost reduction methods to bring about affordable health care.

I continue to stand against Government mandated insurance. As I said earlier, Americans who are already saddled with crippling levels of debt simply can't afford to spend this money. Unless you qualify for an exemption you're screwed and won't get a subsidy or any similar benefit. So we're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Force Americans into ruin or force the country to saddle even more debt which will result in decreased entitlement benefits and higher taxes. Increased personal or business taxes will stall any economic recovery.

The Massachusetts health care is the basic foundation to the current bill and it's crippling the state's economy. this article explains it better.

I really need access to data on Germany's health care system or any other country that has mandatory insurance and how they managed to get it to work.

Side note; At least we somewhat agree on the issue. We differ on the delivery.

Edit: why healthcare costs so much.

I'm going to go ahead and include your replies to nash into this.

I can see how that would go over in Africa and the rest of the world. "Civilized America and Europe imposing their view of what is right on the savage mud races". If we weren't imperialist or fascist before, we sure as hell would be then. To think, some asshole from another country comes and forces women in your country to have an abortion if they don't fit what he deems acceptable.

Also, who would we use for this? The U.N.? or would the U.S. and Europe just go in and do it?



This brings up the question of who gets to decide who get to have a child and who doesn't. Who gets the power to violate the rights of women? The pro-choice crowd is always pushing it's a woman's right to choose. Yet, you promote taking that choice out of some hands. Also what criteria would you use to select who is can have birth or not? What's next, aborting a fetus if it shows any sign of defect? The idea you and Ramsus promote sounds a lot like Action T4.



Spanish Proverb: “A wise man changes his mind, a fool never”.

On topic: I don't lean one way or another on the topic. Pro-choice doesn't define at what point a "lump of cells" become entitled to the same rights as everyone else while pro-life gets you labeled a right wing nutcase and vilified as the devil incarnate by the other side. For the sake of my sanity I won't pick a side.

I would prefer that we do away with insurance all together (except catastrophic care) but, that's not practical at this point in time. I would prefer transparency of the industry across the whole spectrum. I remember a gentlemen explaining how we could change the market to a more individual specific model but, I'm not even going to begin to try to pull that from memory as I'll just butcher it and push people away from the idea. The bullet points are putting the insurer in charge of the money so they'll look for the best bang for the buck. He compared three clinics and a hospital in a large city in Florida and compared the prices. One of the clinics charged 1/3rd of the price for the same procedure as a hospital. The only difference is the hospital had a shinier machine. Further in his speech he gave an example of how an uninsured patient can actually get a cheaper rate than a insured person. The trick was you save the doctor the hassle of jumping through all the hoops for medicare or insurance paper work so they'll knock off 10+% for it.

The problem of getting more people into the market isn't something I have found a solution to.

What you pointed out is exactly why I support the idea of reform. We certainly needed it but, HR 7248 wasn't the way to go.



Lets be clear, I don't think there is any "Good" monopoly. Monopolies are generally bad and should be done away with. Some exceptions occur like power companies since it's impractical to have power lines for two dozen power companies running everywhere.

The rest is stuff I am already aware of and are reasons I'm not too fond of wal-mart. I was simply applauding how wal-mart created free/cheap check up clinics and made the entire industry adopt the same strategy. They also made huge impact on the prescription drug industry with their dirt cheap generics which really helps the poor and elderly.

Their hiring and wage practices are something you and I could write a book on.



Next time you find yourself in America, we should meet up for a beer or something. I know a few good places. Anyways, I'm finding myself shifting towards Ordoliberal..istic point of view when it comes to the economy and regulation but, I don't trust the pack of monkey's we currently have in office with the power of regulation. I am somewhere between laissez faire and Ordoliberal. Let the market work on it's own which means no subsidies or tax breaks to "encourage" certain behavior and the governments role in regulation is to make sure companies adhere to the market principles and to protect consumers from unfair practices (while leaving room for people to make stupid decisions).

How can you trust someone who votes for a bill they don't even read?*

*I find this Hilarious, the congressmen didn't read the health care bill and accidentally removed themselves from their cushy health care plan. Apparently there is a god and he has a fabulous sense of humor.

Edit:

Hot Air.com

New york times.

It doesn't fit with their idea of what is right and wrong. Like most people, they find something offensive and think it should be outlawed.

I owe you a rep for being young and interested in politics.



That line sets you apart from what I call the "average American".

Side note; You can blame the current "capitalism" on some people trying to push a "godless" capitalism or a capitalism without a basic underlying morality.

Charity or extortion. Hmmm, Charity gives people choice. I'm going to go with Charity. The government is using its power of incarceration to force people to hand money over to a third party. Money these citizens can't afford. Before you draw a comparison between this and a social program like road or food stamps just skip it to save us time. You won't win that argument unless you have a very convincing argument to justify state sanctioned extortion.

I'm sure you'd be irate if your government suddenly demanded that you had to hand over 8+% of your gross income over to ExxonMobil, AIG, Citigroup,etc for a service that you may or may not use. Especially, when they have been shafting the entire population of your country with state sanctioned monopolies.



Frankly, your "view" has no scientific merit. Yes, economics are complex and generally drive toward oligo or monopolistic structures which is what we currently have. Status quo won't affect those monopolies in a negative fashion. Adding legitimate competitors like for example Wal-mart. Yes, just about everyone hates wal-mart but, nobody can argue against the fact that they are the driving force behind the low cost of generic prescriptions and the addition of cheap clinic for the poor in America. Our current system of regulations preserves these monopolies and preserves the exploitation of the American citizens. Government monopoly is no better than a corporate monopoly. Forcing citizens to hand money over to these companies won't stop the monopoly but, actually encourage it since the regulatory aspect of this bill is so weak that flaccid counts as a compliment.





So what if it costs us 21% now? We were predicted to go in the hole with S.S. in 2016 and yet here we are and we're in the hole six years early. In less than a decade it'll cost us 50-80% of our entire GDP. Leaving the rest of the federal programs up to the "charity" of other countries. So having nearly the entire gdp taken up by a single entitlement program forcing the government to take out extreme amounts of debt is getting away cheaply. Don't even get me started on Medicaid and how soon it'll go broke which will add additional drag onto the economy. It's time to leave Wonderland, Alice.

The American government can not handle a budget. Handing something as important as the health of the entire nation into their hands is asking for trouble.


So several European countries and china have decided to stop or reduce the amount of our debt they wish to buy. How long should the world prop up the American Government? How long should America be able to black mail the rest of the world into funding our fiscal irresponsibility?

I'll agree that some levels of debt are fine but, a country shouldn't be habitually in debt but, that's just "libertarian voodoo".




I know right? Criticizing "free medicine" I mean, c'mon what am I thinking That's all just propaganda pushed by the U.K. media in order to trick those stupid Americans into only hurting themselves in the long run. Lol those were just isolated incidents amirite?

Oh wait. Those incidents weren't isolated. There is a mountain of evidence that supports that N.H.S. isn't a good medical system and is in fact harming the British population and dragging down their economy. Socialized medicine is perfect, so any criticism is obviously a lie perpetrated by ultra-right wing lunatics. I mean who cares about that pesky notion of *evidence* right?






I'm sorry about that. I forgot that conservative is an offensive word to some people. Should I link you to a source from your side of the political aisle? Would you feel better if I provided a reputable Liberal source that proves the same thing? What about a Canadian or American government study? How about we just skip the partisan politics and deal with the facts. In 2008 wait times for Canadians were above acceptable time constraints. As it currently stands the average wait time is 4 weeks. Let me run that by you again the AVERAGE to begin treatment is 4 weeks.

You've got to hand it to the Canadians, they socialized their medicine and it didn't result in an abomination like the N.H.S. and they didn't drop their level of quality too much and only extended the wait times for an average of 4 weeks. At least it's fre...oh wait...




Our level of Care is superior to the U.k's system and we have higher success rates for treatments such as Cancer than the Canadians. Depending on the particular illness the differences can be anywhere from 2 to 20%. The only thing their systems have done "better" is get more people covered. This can be achieved in the American system by finding a way to drive the cost down. One way I suggested was increased competition such as Wal-mart with their $4 prescriptions and 10$ prescription drug plans for 90days of medication. A simple price change from wal-mart caused the entire pharmacy industry ranging from wal-greens, Rite-Aid,etc to reduce their prices which helped millions of Americans where required prescription drugs.

Side note: I can't compare the Germany, Australian or other systems because I can't find any information on them.



How is there a master in this scenario? I'm the one in control. I can choose where I buy my insurance and the government is in the role of protecting me. In your system, the government is your master, they control your health. My system puts me in control of my health even if I have to use the tool of government to maintain that companies adhere to market principles.

Personally I'm in favor of what the FCC was trying to accomplish but, I don't think their quite the right agency to use this but, for the life of me I can't recall another agency off the top of my head (like shaggwell I have been up for a while as well).

I think the idea of limiting the internet is a dangerous idea. First it's the competitors, then they would limit access to political websites. The end result is outright blackmail. The companies can force web hosts or website owners to pay unregulated sums of money (one month it can be ten bucks, next month it's $10,000). That is made worse by the fact that comcast and similar regional cable monopolies don't have much competition to keep them legit. Imagine if your local monopoly electric company sent you a letter saying that it'll cost you 10k on top of your normal bill in order to use their electrical grid.

I believe the internet to be the equivalent to the newspaper in the 17 and 1800's. The idea of allowing a company to control the information we can see would have unprecedented impacts on our society. Not to mention that we can end up with a heavily regulated and fire walled system like China with just a few crooked dealings between companies and politicians.

The internet holds too much information to let someone with something to gain control the throttle.