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May 11, 2008 at 3:35 am #623093
AnonymousInactiveLBG – PLEASE stop by more often!
May 11, 2008 at 3:55 am #623094
JanSParticipantLBG…a question…re: your quote “I am having a hard time voting for McCain in this election.” So then, why vote for him? Honestly, I am still trying to figure out why he became the nominee? There was NO ONE that the Republicans put forward that you felt better about? Yes, I’m a Dem…but I truly am trying to understand the mindset that overwhelmingly made this man your nominee? Was the crowd of people trying to get the Republican nomination that weak? Honestly, I didn’t see much there, but as I said I’m a Dem…you probably don’t see much in our choices…so I’m asking to just get some knowledge, some thought on your part about it.
Also..re: gun “control”…do you favor registration of the arms that you get to bear, or not? and if you do, do you favor a waiting period for perhaps a background check? As in anything, from school bus drivers, to teachers, to day care workes, to nursing home employees, we see every day almost that background checks don’t always work, but..if there is gun registration are you for or agin the background checks?
and..what about automatic rifle/assault type weapons.. the ones that were basically made to kill, not to hunt, etc…we hear of collectors wanting heavy duty artillery, bazookas, that kind of thing…should they be available to everyone? do they meet your idea of “the right to bear arms” according to what the constitution says? or are they overkill? (ohh, bad pun – sorry)
Thanks in advance for your answers…
May 11, 2008 at 4:29 am #623095
rs261MemberLBG, you say, “Lastly, here is an idea on how to regulate the mortgage and credit card industry. If you can’t afford a mortgage, don’t get one. If you can’t make payments on a credit card, don’t get any. If enough people choose not to do this guess what happens? The cost of a mortgage would go down and credit card rates would go down allowing more people to jump in. Look what is happening to the housing market. Prices are going down because more houses are on the market. Isn’t it amazing how that works?
“
Thats actually not how this works, mortgage rates are closely tied to the EuroDollar and Ten Year Bill, it has nothing to do with the number of mortgages. Although it does have to do with your ability to pay the mortgage. Also, if inflation is high, mortgages will be high, as it would drive up the Ten Year Bill rate. Same thing with credit cards, the interest you pay is usually Prime + xxx amount, where the prime rate is set by the feds. The amount of demand for these items does nothing. Although, a flood of houses would obviously effect the price of homes, it would do nothing for the cost of a mortgage.
In general lower inflation = lower mortgage rates, better economy = higher credit card rates. We’re in kind of a wierd period right now that has relativly higher inflation (but nothing like the 1970’s) and a crappy economy, but the ten year note is still relativly low yield for the rate of inflation. These values always go up for people who have bad credit ratings though.
As far as your murder/gun statistics, you might want to look at how the economy was fairing at those times, as its well known that violent crimes increase during bad economic times. The amount of people in the city obviously has a huge impact as well…stating murders increased 20% doesnt mean much if population more then doubled (not saying it did, just would mean more to me if I knew more about the statistics)
May 11, 2008 at 12:16 pm #623096
KayleighMemberLBG, people aren’t coming here in droves to get health care. Americans are now going to THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES to get surgeries, because they are far cheaper and they feel the quality is comparable enough. I wouldn’t do it, but many people are.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/125/medical-leave.html
Do you have statistics that show that the cost of an MRI or a CT has gone down in Seattle as the number of labs has increased? Do you have evidence that shows that an MRI or CT is cheaper here than in Canada or Europe? Or are you just stating your conservative viewpoint?
The problem is, you worship the free market as though it were a magical god that makes everthing fair and good. It’s not.
I already can choose which doctor I go to (within my employer’s plan, which is the best you can buy in this state). Most of us with insurance and without insurance can do that and have done so for years, so why haven’t doctors’ fees gone down? Maybe because they are professionals who want to be paid reasonably for their hard work, because they have high insurance costs, because they have med school to pay for, because they have hours and hours of (needless) overhead involved with paperwork.
I can choose from several hospitals here in Seattle to have a surgery (Swedish, Northwest, Highline, Harborview, VM, UW.) Do you honestly believe the costs are significantly different among them?
What’s a farce is our current health care system. We’re the laughing stock of the free world on that issue. (and on many other things, thanks to the Bushies.)
Conservatives have been so consistently wrong on socials issue in the last 30 years (women’s rights, civil rights, gay equality, global warming, and now health care reform.) You hold the rest of us back. But you’re going to lose on the health care issue, because we have powerful people fighting in our corner and people are fed up with the clowns running the circus.
May 11, 2008 at 12:49 pm #623097
KayleighMemberAdding: even if competition put downward pressure on prices, if someone gets brain cancer and needs brain surgery in a week, are they supposed to wait a couple months till Swedish offers a $49.95 chemo/surgery special?
In other words: do you honestly believe that prices will lower on the very expensive and complicated technologies and procedures to the point where a poor, working class, or even middle class person can afford them?
You are missing the fundamental difference between health care and widgets: we can choose not to buy a widget. When you’re sick, you *need* health care and you need it *when* you need it. If I break my leg, I can’t drive from hospital to hospital looking for who will fix me the best and fastest and cheapest, and then decide to wait three weeks till somebody has a sale.
May 11, 2008 at 3:27 pm #623098
JoBParticipantNewResident..
“Also, JoB, as a woman, you might want to think about not always looking to the government to make things easier for you. Because, let’s face it, the more the government bends over backwards to find equality for every single woman in this country (because that is what you would like), we are no longer equal. That goes with every single minority in this country.”
Women were never equal in this country until the government stepped in started passing laws making discrimination illegal… and those laws are being gutted by our current court system.
In fact, we were so unequal that we were essentially considered the property of our husbands well into my young adulthood.
Since you think women are equal under the law, you might be surprised to learn that although the equal right’s amendment was first proposed in 1923, it is still not ratified by all of the states… and therefore is not law.
This is the law.. complete with all of it’s provisions…
Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.[1][2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment
If our government bends over backward to find equality for every single woman in this country.. can you explain why a law that gives no preference to women.. that simply states we are equal… is still not the law of this land?
You do realize don’t you that until this amendment is ratified…
any state can pass any law discriminating against women and enforce it…
better yet, they can simply draft policies which discriminate.. without involving those pesky women voters at all…
Now that’s something to think about.
May 11, 2008 at 3:41 pm #623099
KayleighMemberJo, aren’t you glad you’re not a Republican? I am. It must really suck to see policies and programs that are designed to improve the common good as personal insults to your own self-sufficiency. I say this seriously, not snarkily.
My mother and grandmother would have had very different lives if they had had the opportunities I do. My grandmother was forced to give up her job after the war, in order to make room for the men.
May 11, 2008 at 3:55 pm #623100
JoBParticipantLBG
If the US Health care system is doing so well…
Why are we doing so poorly at preventing deaths from treatable disease?
http://www.medhumanities.org/2008/01/on-preventable.html
This article discusses the issue and has a link to the study…
Now.. i am going to go back and not post until i have read the latest postings on the thread…
YES Kayleigh…
i am truly grateful to have escaped my Republican upbringing… and i wish my brothers and sister had as well.
I don’t know why you said that as i haven’t read yet.. but i am still grateful.. and i assume i will be more so once i finish reading:)
May 11, 2008 at 4:25 pm #623101
AnonymousInactive*Aren’t you glad you’re not a Republican?* *Yes,I am truly grateful to have escaped my Republican upbringing.* After you guys are done patting each other on the back, how is being a liberal snob better than being a smug conservative?
Substitute any other word, aren’t you glad you’re not black,gay,female? You two especially, would have a fit if someone said that. Why is it OK to treat half the country as evil? You don’t change minds this way.
May 11, 2008 at 4:30 pm #623102
JoBParticipantOk..
this has been some ride…
LBG…
I get that you think personal stories have no place in “debate”… in fact, i got that when you mentioned it the first time.
BTW…today is a very tacky day to have so little respect for women and the value they bring to conversation in the United States by their “stories”. Go be nice to your mom.
But, your attitude is a very good example of why the Equal Rights Amendment is so important.
It isn’t just about equal pay.. it is also about having an equal voice and being allowed to speak that voice in any manner we choose.
by controlling the conversation.. you control the content.. and that eliminates the pesky outcome of all of those policies… the impact on human beings.
Except.. it doesn’t really.. it just eliminates your need to talk about them.
A good example…
I just finished reading an article in one of the right wing publications that explains away all that medical data on longevity and infant mortality…
let’s concentrate on the infant mortality rates…
their argument was that the difference in infant mortality rates (that’s babies dieing after birth) between the US and Canada.. let’s just stipulate their numbers are significantly better than ours… wasn’t due to poor health care at all.
It was due to the large number of teens in the US.. specifically black teens… who gave birth to low weight babies… if you took those teens out of the statistics.. we were doing as well as the Canadians…
Of course, the number of black teens giving birth in the United Sates is a direct reflection of the failure of abstinence only education and the lack of availability of reliable birth control for those without insurance…
Low birth weights can be tied to nutrition.. and since we no longer provide supplemental nutrition for low income pregnant women (i think that was Bush.. the father) … that may have an effect as well.
Low birth rates can be tied to lack of prenatal care… unless a teen mother is already on subsidized medical care through her parent.. being pregnant does not qualify her for medical care.. birth does. So a lack of prenatatal care may contribute as well.
Since black teens giving birth are far more likely to be included in poverty statistics and therefore less likely to have access to birth control, to proper nutrition when pregnant and less likely to have access to prenatal care.. it is likely that those policies contribute to the low birth weight of infants in that population in the United States…
Aside from the undeniable fact that most of these factors could be alleviated with preventative health care… which brings us right back to health care… it would seem that the largest factor determining the increase in infant mortality in the United States is the policies of right wing conservative republicans:)
and i can’t resist.. brings us to the slogan…
the right to life begins at conception and ends at birth…
You know.. i enjoyed that..
simple logic.. and no stories ;->
sputter away LBG..
i am going to go do something worthwhile with my day.
May 11, 2008 at 4:49 pm #623103
KayleighMemberJT, you don’t choose whether or not you are black, gay, a woman, etc. You CHOOSE your political beliefs, and the Republicans have chosen to drive this country into the ditch. It’s my country, too, not just theirs.
Labeling me a snob and defending/excusing the crappy behavior and policies of the Repubs won’t get you anywhere either. At least not with me. You are almost as quick to jump on me personally as NewRes is. Peace.
PS Jo, I said that because so many Republicans step up to defend their personal honor at the mention of “socialism” or really any social program that might effect. I know what my strengths and weaknesses are; I know what I’ve achieved my my own merit and what ways I’ve been helped by my skin color, upbringing, etc.
I think all our lives are combinations of internal and external forces.
May 11, 2008 at 4:55 pm #623104
JoBParticipantJT..
i am glad i am not a republican because of the differences between the two political philosophies rapidly being exposed in this thread…
Regardless of what i label myself politically…
and i have clearly chosen to label myself democrat…
i believe people are more important than policies…
i believe people are more important than corporations… and should have more rights.
i believe people are more important than property… and that having control over people does not make them property.
i believe the welfare of it’s people is a more important measure of a country’s economic health than the welfare of it’s corporations.
And right now.. none of those beliefs would allow me to be a member of the Republican party.
So yes, i am glad that i am not a Republican.
I am not a Republican by choice.
As for the other two discriminatory options i think you mentioned..
i am glad to be white and heterosexual…
only because i don’t believe either is a choice…
and in our society it is so much easier to be white and heterosexual.
Paradoxically, i am glad to be a woman.. which is not so much easier in our society…
So that leads me to believe that had i been born black and anything other than heterosexual..
i would be glad that i was not white and heterosexual.. regardless of the obvious benefits.
None of us any choice about who we are…
we do have a choice about what we choose to become based on who we are…
I am glad my choices politically are so clearly defined by my sense of personal priorities…
May 11, 2008 at 5:06 pm #623105
JoBParticipantLBG..
one final thought..
you talk about the right to bear arms as though it was analogous with free speech…
i am not so naive as to say that speech never hurt anyone… because bigotry in all it’s forms has definately incited violence that killed people…
but.. equating the right to easily obtain any kind of gun with the right to free speech is ignoring the fact that some guns have no purpose other than to efficiently kill large numbers of people…
you agree that we should keep such weapons out of the hands of the mentally deranged… that can’t be accomplished without gun control of some kind.
Yet, i don’t hear you supporting the ban of automatic assault weapons.
Armor piercing bullets have no purpose other than to efficiently kill those who have put themselves at risk and wear body armor as protection… in our society that would typically be the military and the police.
Do you support a ban on those bullets?
If not.. why not?
Because until those weapons are no longer readily available.. those who are mentally deranged will always have access to them… and ordinary citizens will always be at increased risk because of them.
May 11, 2008 at 6:17 pm #623106
JoBParticipantNewResident…
i would only be elitist if i thought that illustrating a point through parables was the only was to do so and refused to validate any other form of argument.
and that is clearly not the case. i haven’t made fun of anyone because they don’t use stories to illustrate their points… or said their argument wasn’t viable because it was not illustrated by personal stories..
i ask only for equal opportunity to state my case my way without being made the brunt of sarcastic jokes…
that doesn’t require any special privileges.. no matter what some would lead you to believe…
Those personal stories shouldn’t prevent anyone from making a logical case…
The problem is with those who think the existance of those stories gives them the right to denigrate the people in those stories. and that is not ok.
You have done so yourself.. labeling me and my personal stories as victim mentality…
Yet, i have taken great pains not to label myself as a victim…
but you have.. which by the way is the most victimizing aspect of personal misfortune.
Bad things happen to good people… no one is safe from life’s accidents.
you are more likely to have bad things happen to you if the circumstances of your birth are less economically or racially favorable. Everyone doesn’t get the same opportunities…
And blaming people for not getting those opportunities is the real victimization…
May 11, 2008 at 6:58 pm #623107
charlabobParticipantI am glad I am neither a republican nor a democrat because of the lack of differences in philosophies expressed in these threads. That’s why I’ve stopped posting on the political threads.
Gardening? Helping others? Knitting? The Viaduct? Stop signs? Eating? Getting together? I’m there! National politics — nah. Not good for my mental or physical health.
I realized I’ve been defending what to me are “well, it’s better than nothing” points of view. I will vote for Obama, or Clinton, if she manages to convince racist white men that she’s their only hope. But I’m sure as hell not going to pontificate about them — my heart isn’t in it. :-)
Meantime, I urge you all, left right and center, to listen to and read a lot of stuff that isn’t written here, or linked to here.
And, if anyone wants to show up at BPP, a bunch or few of us will be there at 2 today. :-)
May 11, 2008 at 7:04 pm #623108
AnonymousInactiveI am posting this link in regards to the quote, “aren’t you glad you’re not a Republican? I am.”
http://mvdg.wordpress.com/2007/12/01/be-happy-be-a-republican/
May 11, 2008 at 11:18 pm #623109
beachdrivegirlParticipanthttp://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004406277_evangvote11m.html
Very interesting reading (and actually front page on the Huffingtonpost.)
May 11, 2008 at 11:21 pm #623110
beachdrivegirlParticipantAnd just in case some don’t follow the link ( which is about how more 18-29 year olds do not identify with either party and are looking at the pros and cons of the canidate) I do have to ask you McCain supporters out how you feel about McCain’s support of federally funded embryonic stem-cell research
May 11, 2008 at 11:59 pm #623111
LBGMemberJanS…I really can’t tell you why McCain got the nod. I am actually very frustrated with the nomination. I had hoped for a complete shake-up of the party.
As far as gun control is concerned, my position is that once you begin to regulate, where does it end? I believe I used the term slippery slope. I also contended that the focus of gun control is in the wrong place.
I hope all is well with you JanS with what you are going through…
rs261…are you related to R2D2 or C3PO?(my terrible attempt at humor)
I apologize for not clarifying my statement. As far as the cost of a mortgage going down was related to my follow up of the number of houses on the market driving the cost down for buyers. This in turn would drive the cost of a mortgage down as a whole because you would pay less for the house. I didn’t say mortgage rates in my post. No need for regulation, the market will correct itself as we are now seeing. Another point to be made is that some homeowners are actually acting as the lender and crating their own terms in order to entice buyers. People have even began to house swap…interesting solutions.
I was using this this same line of thinking in regards to CC. If a majority of people didn’t get credit cards and took personal responsibility to manage their money and credit status wisely, lenders would be forced to incentivise CC i.e. lock people in at a low, low interest rate.
Kayleigh….I am just not going to agree with your position on health care just as I assume that you will not agree with mine. I don’t think free market is the end all but I do believe it is far more effective than socialistic programs.
2 things to note:
1. I have never been demeaning to women in any of my posts as has been suggested. I have nothing but the utmost respect for women and hold them in the highest regard.
2. To clarify the last paragraph of my last post, I wasn’t talking about all subsequent posts to my last post. I meant that I was aware that I began addressing people’s post at 145 and that I knew their were 4 others that came up before mine posted at 150. I was of the belief that my post covered the contet of those 4 other posts so I did not list them.
JoB…three words for you….Happy Mother’s Day! It is obvious from your stories that you are a very strong, affectionate, proud mother. You deserve every well wish that you are given today and every day of the year for being the mother you are to your daughter.
NewRes…Happy Mother’s Day to you! I have noticed in threads that you are a mother as well and the well wishes that I gave to JoB, I would also like to extend to you! Keep on keepin’ on NewRes..
Finally…thanks WSB for the wild ride…it has been quite interesting. I have thoroughly enjoyed the debates across the threads, however, I must defer to my wife’s wishes when she suggests that this blog has begun to take up too much of my time.
C-YA….
May 12, 2008 at 2:53 am #623112
JoBParticipantMay 12, 2008 at 4:14 am #623113
AnonymousInactiveNo, JoB, THANK you for the laugh!!!!
May 12, 2008 at 5:13 pm #623114
walfredoMemberOne thing that is very exciting about the general election that is about to begin, is that the really is a debate about substantive issues that will play out.
I don’t put much stake in the current polling, that saying half of Hillary’s supporters won’t vote for Obama, but in spite of that the head to head matchup w/ McCain is still tied.
It is a very strong position this election cycle to be the candidate of change. To be against an illegal and unjust war that is bankrupting us, to be against the only tax decrease during war time for top 1% in the history of civilization, to be against the status quo for the healthcare industry… These are and will continue to be very popular opinions. And this time around, the dems have a clear and articulate spokesperson to relay these messages. The divisiveness within the party won’t go away over night, but it will for the most part, go away…
It will be fun to see these two start squaring off, I don’t think you could find a more substantive debate between two mostly honorable people, with completely different ideas about this country.
May 12, 2008 at 6:22 pm #623115
AnonymousInactivewalfredo – I definitely agree with you on that note! I’m anxious for this to begin.
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