tw3k @ 168

The Left believes that the best way to universal health care is government run health care.

Government intervention in the health care business will accomplish the following:

(1) chase health care providers out of the profession by restricting a fair return for services provided.

(2) reduce significantly the development of life saving technologies, drugs, and procedures developed by free market initiatives motivated by those in the industry seeking profit.

(3) reduce or eliminate costs to the consumer thereby dramatically increase the use of health care services for trivial problems while at the same time health care providers are living the industry because of forced reduction in wages (note that if the government raises health care costs to retain health care providers, the system will bankrupt the nation.)

Most Americans know that anything run by the government is doomed to fail.

These are ideological arguments reduced down to, in reference to your opening and closing sentence, a consumer society versus a society of citizens. Are these facts or a view of the world from a particular perspective.

This post is in response to just one part of tw3k’s post — more will be forthcoming after I do my part to boost the US economy this Black Friday.

It is great to live in a nation that thrives on constructive debate. I stated in an earlier post that I thought liberal Americans were emboldening religious extremists abroad by criticizing US actions in Iraq — I believe that to be true. Note how significant a story it would be if al Zawahiri stated that the war in Iraq was lost! However, It is not un-patriotic to voice disapproval of the President’s policies, on the contrary it is patriotic and the duty of the opposition party, especially those in Congress. Nonetheless, sadly it is misguided and beneficial to the enemy.

I hope you all have a safe and prosperous Thanksgiving holiday.

I am amused that my views are so contrary to yours that I can’t even enter into your line of reasoning. We use the same words but speak a different language.

At least we share the view that constructive debate is good for the nation and that that is the life blood of a healthy democracy. For that I am thankful.

Rev deb

F/Y/I the Palm Beach County ballot was created by the Democrat Election officials and APPROVED by the County Democrat and Republican parties before the election, so it was qute obvious that no one thought that there was a problem with the butterfly ballot.

…

The so-called Democrat in charge of designing the ballot, Madame Butterfly, was in reality a Republican who only changed parties to get on the board and muck things up. About a year or so later she switched back to being Republican.

Not everybody knows ALL the details of every scandal and this one has not gotten a lot of publicity.

Similarly, in Ohio there were several so-called Democratic BOE members who were simply bought and paid for by the SoS. When asked about their duties, they just said, ‘We do what they tell us.’ (referring to their Repub overlords.

This is one place our Democratic Party leadership and state officials really let us down. Maybe the state officials were all bought off or just asleep.

Beerfart Liberal @ 127

So you got 2. The clean one they gave you and the one you lifted, right? Sell one on e-bay.

Busted.

For some people it’s a sickness.

For some people it might be frugality.

For Winona Ryder it was ‘training’.

What, pray tell, was the motivation for our Lady of the Lake to swipe an extra mug?

The Press is still so defensive.
Afraid to justify its past behavior because it knows that it was overpowered by this moneyed power-obsessed cabal that has NO LINE which it will not cross but one: Loyalty to the clan that installed the Bush regime.

The Press was overpowered, outplayed and outspun.

It is important that WE understand that the Press was attacked every bit as much as the DOJ, the Armed Forces, etc.

The DoJ and Armed Forces take orders. What excuse is there for the press kowtowing to Bushies?

It is absurd to protect US national security via the framework of either the UN or the IAEA whether they are objective or not. Both organizations are not accountable to the American people, as a result I place my faith in America and the US Constitution. As for your assertion that Iran is 10 years from completing the bomb, the US INtel community has been notoriously wrong when predicting WMD development abroad (India, NOrth Korea, and Pakistan as examples)

Nonetheless, I think all rational humans can agree that we don’t want the religious extremist dictatorship in Iran to have the Bomb. In addition, we all agree that diplomacy is the preferable path to disarmament and non-proliferation.

However….

With respect to Iraq — we have not won. To paraphrase Churchill “this is not the beginning of the end, it is the end of the beginning”

We have a long road toward a stable, peaceful, and prosperous Iraq. It takes years for a formerly despotic nations to develop the democratic institutions needed for real lasting reform. In the meantime, it is essential that the US maintain a military presence to balance opposing factions in the region. Even the Democratic front runner Clinton believes this! That places the angry, unyielding, and vocal Leftists who disagree with this assessment on the extremist fringe of American thought.

Note that for the first time in its bloody history Europe is peaceful thanks to forward deployment of US forces.

Note also that wherever the US holds sway (Western Hemisphere, Asian Pacific Rim, and Europe) peace, freedom, prosperity, and stability prevail — where our enemies hold sway or where America has failed to establish hegemony despotism, poverty, violence, and instability are the norm.

1. Iran.
The IAIA has said Iran is, in layman’s terms, nothing to worry about. They were correct in appraising the threat from Iraq (nonexistent), so do they have any credibility with you on that basis? The question is rhetorical; I assume they have none and that you consider El Baradei, along with Blix, as part of some Arabo-Scandinavian “far Left” conspiracy. So forget them: You’re disregarding our own national intelligence estimate which, as of either two or three years ago estimated they wouldn’t have a weapon for ten years, if ever. What’s the rush here? To me the rush betrays bad faith on the part of this administration, which has amply demonstrated it before in lying about WMD to invade Iraq. As an American I have a problem with taking Israeli “intelligence” at face value while disregarding our own intelligence agencies, or outright retaliating against them for their honest estimates. You don’t have that problem; you’ll swing at Curveball every time (if you’re even sincere in this appalling credulity — I can’t figure yet if you’re a dupe or a shill).

2. Iraq.
Now that we’ve won, can we bring our army back? Or are we merely “winning”? And what is the definition of victory? Other than that your analysis of what has been going on in Iraq is either harebrained lack of skepticism or artless lying: “This proves the insurgency in Iraq is not a “Civil War” rather outside groups fomenting violence to promote religious extremist goals.” What are you suggesting here: forget “Al Quaeda in Iraq” and the Sunni resistance — are you saying that it was Iranian funded and backed Shiites who have been doing all this ethnic cleansing?

Isn’t it time the media stopped covering stories about this President pardoning a turkey and started demanding an end to this lawless regime?

Sure it is time, except that the media is part of the lawless regime, so that would mean it was asking for an end to itself.

tw3k @ 169

lol, I hit submit instead of preview.

No problem, I have done it often.

I just responded to a portion of your post, I will reserve comment to your amended post.

I’m using x windows and it doesn’t have the spell check and dictionary I’m used to. Continue the conversation later, I was up all night, when I wake up.

Getting the mechanism in order might be helpful for what’s ahead.