Is "hard work" a virtue?

[Shadow Wolf]

Anyway, here's my question - how can you possibly imagine that "the rich" "allow" the poor to smoke and drink themselves to death? What ever happened to personal responsibility?

"Let them eat cake" rings a bell.

 

[yossarian22]

Your post strongly implies many erroneous ideas -I'll just point out a few of the most glaring though:

1. If you're poor, you aren't a right wing conservative. False - just drive through any small southern town in the US and you will find plenty of poor, hard working conservatives.

Rephrase that to "nobody poor should be a right wing conservative."
Economic liberalism (free market ideology) has done nothing but benefit the upper 10% and hose the bottom 50%.

2. Rich people don't care if the poor die. False - first of all, last time I checked, the death rate for all people stood at 100% - so guess what - the poor are going to die and so are the rich. Secondly - the wealthy in the US contribute the lion's share of our society's contributions to charitable organizations.

And the rich are going to die much later than the poor are because of poor healthcare coverage. Yet these same people yell about class warfare when we are just letting tax cuts expire. So yes, I would say rich people don't care about poor people dying when they are vehemently opposed to losing an addition 2% of their income for universal healthcare.

As for your second point, they have the majority of the wealth. Do you really think the 10% owned by the bottom 50% can compete with the 90% from the top 10% of the nation? Nevermind that most of their donations to charity are probably for tax purposes.

Buddy, you've got it all wrong. Right wing conservatives support taking responsibility for one's own actions.

The concept of personal responsibility is perhaps the biggest piece of crap ever given to the American public.

 

[twinmama]

Right wing conservatives support taking responsibility for one's own actions.

Why only conservatives? Here we have multiple party system and all political parties support 100% of taking responsibility of one's own actions.

Another issue that puzzles me is the misconception that somehow goverment controls your every move here. Regards smoking, it's quite heavily taxed here but it is also heavily taxed in USA. Smoking is limited here in areas where there could be minors - like movie theaters, restaurants.

I have religious freedom, freedom of expression and as long as I don't commit crime goverment does not put it's nose to my business.

 

[Magic Man]

Why only conservatives? Here we have multiple party system and all political parties support 100% of taking responsibility of one's own actions.

It's not only conservatives. Most of them just want you to believe they're the only ones who advocate personal responsibility because it sounds good.

Another issue that puzzles me is the misconception that somehow goverment controls your every move here. Regards smoking, it's quite heavily taxed here but it is also heavily taxed in USA. Smoking is limited here in areas where there could be minors - like movie theaters, restaurants.

Are there any public places you can smoke there? Just curious.

 

[Kathryn]

"Let them eat cake" rings a bell.

Do you even know the historical setting of this quote?

Regardless of the historical setting and legitimacy of this often-quoted phrase, I am going to go with the usual meaning given to this quote - that the wealthy are so flippant about the plight of the poor that when they are told the poor cannot even afford bread, they laugh and say, "Well, then, let them eat cake."

This has absolutely nothing to do with the rich "letting" the poor drink and smoke, thereby hastening their deaths - which was the "point" that I was debating.

Let them eat cake

 

[twinmama]

Are there any public places you can smoke there? Just curious.

Very few. Nightclubs that are strickly nightclubs, and even those have smoke free areas.
You can't buy cigarettes or alcohol until you are 18 years old. Also advertising cigarettes is forbidden.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Do you even know the historical setting of this quote?

Yes, I am very aware that Marie Antionette said this, and it wasn't well recieved by the citizens of France.

 

[Mr Cheese]

This has got to be the MOST ridiculous of all the ridiculous posts I've read on this thread so far.

"They are poor, let them smoke, drink...their death is unimportant..." What is THAT supposed to mean? Do you honestly believe that conservatives in the US HOPE that the poor smoke and drink themselves to death? Maybe conservatives actually secretly funnel alcohol and cigarettes to them...give me a break!

I suggest you learn some sociology....

again that is what is at teh heart of what makes right wing right wing....

the poor are superflous...it matters little if they die

The fact you don't understand this, is simply more fuel for my theory that most rigth wing voters aren't even aware of what they support

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

--George Orwell (1984)

 

[yossarian22]

You are using the quote incorrectly. Hell, its not even a quote. Its a fabricated bit of propaganda started and spread by French revolutionaries. It does not mean that the rich don't care so much as it means that the rich are a bunch of idiots who can't grasp the concept of famine and other issues the poor face.

That said, it does fit the right wing because every single counter argument against welfare and universal healthcare shows how the right wing fails to understand basic sociology.

 

[Reverend Rick]

That said, it does fit the right wing because every single counter argument against welfare and universal health care shows how the right wing fails to understand basic sociology.

What I understand is, the working poor want to recieve what our senior citizens have earned. The rich look upon the poor as nothing more than cattle. The poor want more and in many instances, deserve more.

There is a battle for health services right now. Next year, there is a finite amount of knee replacements or bypass surgeries. The question is, who should recieve the limited services, the younger working poor or the elderly. No matter what, there is a shortage of services available.

Currently the rich dictate who receives the services. If we employ a single payer system, then the government will treat us all like cattle and make the decisions about who will recieve certain limited health services.

We have one group of cattle who wants everyone else to be treated as they are.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Currently the rich dictate who receives the services. If we employ a single payer system, then the government will treat us all like cattle and make the decisions about who will recieve certain limited health services.

There is a way to test this hypothesis, you know. We could examine the dozens and dozens of countries around the globe which have single-payer, or something similar -- which is most of the wealthy ones.

Is everyone "treated like cattle" in Germany, France, Luxembourg, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and so on, where the infant mortality is lower, life expectancy is higher, people are more satisfied with the system, it's more fair, it's more affordable, and everyone gets coverage? Well gee, a person from Finland and a person from Sweden are here, on this thread, right now. Maybe we should listen to them. Moo.

*edit: You may be interested in this article: http://freyvsfrey.blogspot.com/

 

[Reverend Rick]

There is a way to test this hypothesis, you know. We could examine the dozens and dozens of countries around the globe which have single-payer, or something similar -- which is most of the wealthy ones.

Is everyone "treated like cattle" in Germany, France, Luxembourg, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and so on, where the infant mortality is lower, life expectancy is higher, people are more satisfied with the system, it's more fair, it's more affordable, and everyone gets coverage? Well gee, a person from Finland and a person from Sweden are here, on this thread, right now. Maybe we should listen to them. Moo.

*edit: You may be interested in this article: Frey vs. Frey

It is unfair to compare some tiny countries with productive well educated citizens to the cluster truck we call America. :sorry1:

Canada would make a better comparison. :yes:

You are kidding yourself if you do not understand that people are denied limited services based on their worth to society. There are so many more options and treatments available in the U.S.A.that are not even on the menu in some countries.

My biggest question is, who ever told you that life was fair? They did you a large injustice.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

You are kidding yourself if you do not understand that people are denied limited services based on their worth to society. There are so many more options and treatments available in the U.S.A.that are not even on the menu in some countries.

But people don't want "more options and treatments" that they can't afford, they want affordable, effective treatment. Rich people worry about having lots of options and bells and whistles, most people would rather have one good option than a million bad ones. The miracle drug that cures restless leg syndrome probably rakes in a tidy profit, same with the artificial heart that occasionally works, but very few people need or want those things and the ones that do are usually financially ruined anyway. The real way you cure those things for most people is with basic, affordable, long-term preventative treatment -- the kind of treatment that doesn't yield big profit margins for the drug and bio-tech industries, or surgeons for that matter. If we had to make choices (and I don't think we do) between, say, having slightly higher fatality rates for brain cancer VS. having better overall quality of life, longer life expectancy and clawing our way up from last place in infant mortality rates .... yes me and most people would choose the latter. Not many people get brain cancer but everyone has to be born, and most women go through child birth. If you've ever been born (raise your hands) you were better off being born in many former Soviet satellite states than in the U.S., the richest country on Earth. Incredible.

My biggest question is, who ever told you that life was fair? They did you a large injustice.

Life isn't fair. I wish conservatives would learn this and stop throwing tantrums about taxes and terrorists and "redistributing wealth" because they lost an election.

 

[Reverend Rick]

The real way you cure those things for most people is with basic, affordable, long-term preventative treatment --

So...... They go to the doctor and she tells them to quit smoking, quit eating junk and poison and get some exercise. She informs them if they don't quit abusing drugs and alcohol their liver will be in jeopardy.

Six months later, the same sermon again. :faint:

 

[blackout]

Let them eat cheap bleached flour, refined sugar cr*p cakes filled and covered with lard,
so they can get diabetes and clogged arteries and heart disease and die young.

They're only poor people after all.

 

[blackout]

Does processed/boxed maccaroni and cheese actually contain any real/actual cheese?
(you know, those neon orange powder packets)

Just wondering.

 

[blackout]

Only rich people can actually afford "health food".


(you connect the dots yourself.....)

 

[twinmama]

Thought...what if USA started to treat all the kids with same value. No matter who or what their parents were kids would get equal chances for good education. What if all kids would get free, hot meals in school, pens, good books, free health and deantal services? What if kids could choose their upper education without chasing after scholarships or dad's money? What if trade schools were valued as much as colleges?
What if goverment arranged good daycare systems throughout the country? System that would be affordable for even poor single moms so when they worked some money would be left for living too?
This is possible no matter if the country is big or small. If wealth is divided equally and goverment makes it number one thing.
How would USA look in 50 years?

The sad thing is that most wealthy countries don't function without illegal immigrants - or legal slavework(middle east). Who would clean or pick oranges?

My dad was diagnosed 3 weeks ago with lungcancer. He is 61. He was truckdriver all his life, now in pension. He has been running in tests these 3 weeks and he will meet the surgeon tomorrow and he will be operated next week(thank goodness his lungs and heart are in very good shape otherwise and cancer has not spread). All this in July when basicly all Finland is on vacation.
What I don't understand is when some people claim that in countries like mine the goverment decides who gets treated. Where on earth does that idea come from? My dad did not see any goverment agents - he and his doctors decided together what was going to happen, my dad was given bunch of options.
Same thing when my back was operated 5 years ago(I got some cool titanium plates on my lower back). *I* was the one making the final decisions from the options doctors gave me.
When my tooth hurts or it is my yearly check up it is I who make the reservation to dentist, I don't have to ask permission anywhere.

 

[Alceste]

My dad was diagnosed 3 weeks ago with lungcancer. He is 61. He was truckdriver all his life, now in pension. He has been running in tests these 3 weeks and he will meet the surgeon tomorrow and he will be operated next week(thank goodness his lungs and heart are in very good shape otherwise and cancer has not spread). All this in July when basicly all Finland is on vacation.
What I don't understand is when some people claim that in countries like mine the goverment decides who gets treated. Where on earth does that idea come from? My dad did not see any goverment agents - he and his doctors decided together what was going to happen, my dad was given bunch of options.
Same thing when my back was operated 5 years ago(I got some cool titanium plates on my lower back). *I* was the one making the final decisions from the options doctors gave me.
When my tooth hurts or it is my yearly check up it is I who make the reservation to dentist, I don't have to ask permission anywhere.

Sorry to hear about your dad, twinmama - I hope he pulls through.

As for "where does that idea come from", well, the US is infested with free market propagandists, and they just make it up. Then they get their media outlets like Fox News to propagate it, and their political representatives - the Republicans and a few Democrats - to repeat it in speeches. Then before you know it, ordinary Americans believe it's the gospel truth: single payer, universal, tax-funded health insurance puts "the government" "between" you and your doctor. Is it bull ****? Of course! Do they care? Not if it makes them feel patriotic - and a little bull **** goes a long way when it comes to patriotic feelings. Patriotism is like crack to American conservatives. Will they ever look into it to try to learn the truth? Probably not.

 

[yossarian22]

So...... They go to the doctor and she tells them to quit smoking, quit eating junk and poison and get some exercise. She informs them if they don't quit abusing drugs and alcohol their liver will be in jeopardy.

Six months later, the same sermon again. :faint:

That is a rather warped view of preventative medicine. Preventative medicine is going to the dentist when you have a toothache rather than waiting in an attempt to save cash until the infection nearly kills you. Or going to the doctor when you have a slight headache so that tumor in your brain can be removed before it gets too big.

Yes, eating healthy and exercising are examples of how to prevent disease, but they are luxuries to people living paycheck to paycheck.

Stop pretending that healthcare reform demands a single payer option

Also "life isn't fair" isn't an argument. Its admitting that the system sucks and that we should just deal with it. But we don't have to deal with it and we won't. The US is also has horrible healthcare unless you want to compare us to some 3rd world African country.