... Brains.
Nicely worded phrases, idealism packaged in words, cliches all - how do we transfer to automatons, some degree of intellect simply because they regurgitate stock phrases.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico:
"Our nation faces a daunting number of critical challenges: reasserting America's leadership in the world, meeting our needs for energy independence, addressing global warming, making healthcare accessible and affordable, positioning our economy to effectively compete globally, and extricating ourselves from the war in Iraq, to name a few ... To make progress, we must rise above the partisanship and the issues that divide us to find common ground. We must move the country in a dramatically new direction."
This was his endorsement speech of Barrack H. Obama.
So, let us consider his statement, word for word, phrase for phrase as we all do every time Bush speaks. Goose and Gander.
- Our nation faces a daunting number of critical challenges
* This one is a good start. No one doubts this to be true. Take a truism and then blend in opinion to lend credibility to your assertion.
- reasserting America's leadership in the world
* Do we not lead today. Are we not holding sway today. Have I not heard Democratic leaders say - If Bush told the Sauds to lower oil prices they would. Do we not have the strongest alliances with France, Germany, Russia, Britain, Australia, Italy, Canada ... yes, we do. Our relationship with those countries today is stronger than at any time during the Clinton administration. So what is this idea of reasserting America's leadership ... ???
-meeting our needs for energy independence
* Allow drilling in Anwar. Allow oil exploration off California's coast, the same coastal areas where other countries currently seek oil. Allow oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico ... in areas where other countries are currently exploring. Provide tax breaks for companies to dig for oil in the shale rock of the Rocky mountains. The untold trillions of barrels available became financially feasible at around $75 a barrel. Provide tax incentives to purchasers of any car that gets higher than 35 mpg. Provide rebate for people to sell their old cars. DO THIS and we will not need Middle Eastern oil. We will be independent within 7 years.
- addressing global warming
* It's been addressed. Thank you. The scientific consensus isn't. We will continue to use our technology to develop more efficient methods and in doing so we will reduce emissions without taxes or rate increases, without any UN agency, without any government involvement. Unless government will offer rebates to get rid of old a/c and old water heaters, fridges, and other electrical equipment as an incentive to the consumer and to help defray costs. DO THIS AND WE WILL REDUCE EMISSIONS LOWER THAN KYOTO WITHOUT SIGNING A RESTRICTIVE AND DESTRUCTIVE KYOTO.
-making healthcare accessible and affordable
* This issue is one of the most complicated and misunderstood issues, even more misunderstood than Iraq, as it began long before Iraq.
First, we should sort out a few points before explicating the statements further. I will pose a couple questions and you imagine the first words that come to mind: desert, rum, airline.
Now, without my knowing you picked sand or heat for desert - why didn't you pick cool water or freezing temperatures. For rum why didn't you pick sugar. For airline why didn't you pick Brasilia. Do you think if I set you and four friends in a room and commanded you to research airlines you would ever mention Eastern Airlines or Pan Am? Why not.
When considering health care options we can only consider those options within our world of knowing - so we can look at British models, French models, Canadian models, Swedish models ... we cannot conceive of a plan that does not exist because we as mere mortal beings do not have the mind to conceive of that which cannot and has not ever existed.
The British and French, Canadian, German, Swedish models (with a few minor variations) - the government divides the country into regions or provinces or counties and each REG/PRO/COU gets a certain amount of money BASED upon certain criteria: population, average patient cost X avg pop. That money became the base for the PRO/COU/REG. It works for ONE fiscal year. Assume each province gets $1,000,000,000. That is divided up between hospitals and regional medical centers out of which doctors would work. You want to go and see an Ears Nose and Throat doctor. You call them up, they say, call your family doctor first. You tell your family doctor you would like to see the Ears Nose and Throat doctor. He says he needs to see you first. Come in next week. You make an appt to see your family doctor and go in. he checks you out and says you don't need to see the EN&T doctor, you just need some medicine. You go home, have the same problem. You call the family doctor, he tells you to wait three days for the meds to work and let him know. The third day is Friday. He doesn't work Sat or Sun. You call him Monday. He agrees to see you again, you go in, he checks you and decides that yes, there is an issue and writes out a referral to the EN&T doctor. You call the EN&T doctor and they tell you your appointment will be in two weeks. If you cannot wait, you can go in to the hospital.
You wait two weeks. The EN&T doctor sees you and determines that you have an inner ear infection and you have lost 5% of your hearing. Recourse: NONE. Assume you didn't lose any hearing - it has now been three weeks you have suffered and will be another 2-3 days before the new meds can provide relief.
Now, imagine you go in for open heart surgery. It is October 30. Surgery costs $150,000 plus ancillary costs of another $75,000 for the first six months after surgery including room, meds, care. Another $10,000 in costs for the following two years. You go in October 30. You are 67 years old. What do you think they will tell you? Here is a hint. EVERY BLOODY SILLY PENNY THAT YOU THINK COSTS TOO MUCH AT THIS BLOODY MOMENT WILL COST THE SAME BLOODY AMOUNT IN SWEDEN, BRITAIN, CANADA ... SAME. The difference is the amount is deducted from the total available amount for the province/county/region. They say they can get you in for surgery on November 20. The problem, many people will need care between November and December 31. Many people who are younger and more productive. It is likely they will put you off until January 2. How likely. In Canada: 100% certain they would. In Britain: 98% certain they would. In Germany: 80% certain. Pretty certain.
Why? because models such as those require INPUT to provide OUTPUT. It is a cost benefit analysis. You are 67, no longer paying taxes on income and not as beneficial to society as you were at 50, whereas 40 year olds are more productive and need help. Why spend $400,000 on you when they can spend $400,000 and three people in their twenties and get more taxes out of them! AND THAT IS HOW THEIR SYSTEMS WORK. When older British citizens need real medical care, they come here. When Canadians need real care, they come here.
Well, what about the right of people to care? NO ONE IN THE UNITED STATES can be denied health care for lack of money. NO ONE, NEVER, NOT HERE. You may not get to go to UCLA or to the PPO doctor down the street, but you cannot be denied emergency health care in this country now or ever. Not legal and not illegal - everyone gets the care. If you have no money and are pregnant, you go to county hospital, apply, fill out forms, wait, are seen by a doctor, they provide you with meds and whatever else you need all FREE* or at low cost depending upon how much you make and can pay. THAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE CASE. Now, some people do not like the lines and waiting and the cattle mentality of those places. AND YOU THINK what is being suggested by Obama and Clinton would make the rooms any less CATTLE LIKE? Silly you. You have no clue.
That is all the time I have to spend on this issue which has been discussed and explicated so many times at greater length and in more detail elsewhere.
* NOTHING is FREE. if you get a box of pampers from the hospital, the charge of $40 will be deducted from the funds provided by the government raised through taxes, paid by people who pay taxes.
- positioning our economy to effectively compete globally
* what in the heck does this mean. Bill Clinton positioned us to compete globally and the giant sucking sound followed. You cannot create industrial jobs in the US. Steel is gone. you cannot restart steel, especially if you want to save the environment. You cannot bring back the auto industry with workers paid salaries that make lawyers fees in Europe comparable. This is one of those cliches that means little but sounds good. What will you do? Put more people to work? 2/3 of ALL jobs in the US are in the small business sector - not counted by the national unemployment figures. Yet taxes raised on people who make $300,000 would place small business owners in jeopardy for they would count as the extreme wealthy even while they employee a few workers and pay them living wages. Raise the taxes on the rich says Hillary - but a person who makes $500,000 and owns a small business pays taxes on the $500,000 and cannot hire new people, must lay off one person, cannot expand their business ... to satisfy the greed of some.You hurt the economy more. You are more destructive. Set off a nuclear bomb and do less damage.
- extricating ourselves from the war in Iraq
* Neither Obama nor Clinton would remove EVERY military person from Iraq. NEITHER. NEVER. Not in any way shape form, not now or ever. Whatever YOU think they have promised, THEY WILL NOT. WHAT will happen is, if god-forbid either wins, a MASSIVE media spectacle of a few troops changing chairs, but it will sure look like they are leaving and whichever will be standing out front telling us they kept the promise ... and those troops will end up back in Iraq at a later date under an agreement signed with the US that can only be terminated by the Iraqi government for a very long duration of US protection.
The above isn't an opinion. It has been stated several hundred times in different ways on different forums. For ANYONE to believe otherwise is a sign of mental stupidity and retardation of the most severe order. Then, when everything does not transpire as your delusional minds believe it should based upon promises made, you will go in to meltdown and blame Bush. Silly fools. I am telling you now - have your meltdown now and save the time later. By the way, the idiot Senator Bingaman, he knows all this as well. He is pandering and the people of New Mexico do not deserve a pandering fool in the US Senate.
- To make progress, we must rise above the partisanship and the issues that divide us to find common ground.
* So calling republicans names helps heal a division? telling 30% of this country that their strong view on US security is foolish and wrong - that will heal anything? Telling over 50% of the country that we need to apologize to the world when it is the other way around, that is insulting to us and that will NEVER heal anything. This is the most asinine of his statements. What is the general complaint people have about voting - there is no difference. Well, partisanship is what makes the difference. One side believes that we, the United States, have the unilateral right to protect ourselves and our interests without consulting anyone. The other side do not accept that premise. That is the simplest way to decide which side you are on. Common ground: we all are human, we all breathe, we all like children and puppies, we want to live in peace, we value human life, we want all people on earth to live in peace and without death looming over them ... that is where our common ground ends. Versus the rest of the world who may or may not believe that premise.
- We must move the country in a dramatically new direction.
* We were in one direction under Clinton. At the end of his term - the economy tanked. The stock market dropped like a meteor. China used our technology to develop ICBM technology. North Korea developed nuclear weapons. That was the Clinton path. So Mr Bingaman, what path is it you wish us to take? Should we consult the UN more? The Useless Nations of the world are useless on everything but Unicef and WHO. They are an impediment to peace. You want us to consult our allies more - which ones - Germany, Italy, France, Australia, Britain, Canada, Russia. All of them are better friends with the US at this moment than during the 1990s.
Hyperbole and cliches are all Bingaman and the losercrats have in their bag of tricks. Unfortunately they are matched up against the retardicans who couldn't get a hole in one if they were in the hole, holding the ball.
We all lose.
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