So, I'm a liberal

[Guest]

@medaille said:

@BigAl99 said:


Great I get the compassionate conservative thing.  What power are you proposing for sick people or the working poor or Single parents?  Time travel to undo a bad break, decision or being born in a crap situation that you don't have the skills to get out of, is not an option.  

I agree with you that almost by definition that the
downtrodden have little “power” or “agency”, but I don’t think that it’s a
given that a federal level government is the correct answer for fixing the
problems that they have.  The governments
we have now, by and large, aren’t acting in the interests of the citizenry.  I think we can debate whose interests they
are serving, but I think it’s a given that they aren’t serving you, me, or
anybody else that could possibly be considered downtrodden or middle class.  I think that the whole model we have for
governments is completely broken.


 


This is what politics looks like to me:

• Election
  campaigns based on emotional, triggering topics that we won’t agree on,
  with a very limited number of candidates who are less than inspiring.
• Someone
  wins, half the people feel like the worst candidate got elected.  The other half feels relieved that the
  worst candidate didn’t get elected but isn’t excited about their
  candidate.
• Politicians
  spend a lot of time publicly arguing about emotional topics and pointing
  fingers, but when it comes down to voting on things, they never make any
  progress on the topics they talk about, but they have no problems passing giant bills under the cover of night.

 


I think if you want real change, you shouldn’t expect your
government to do it, because they don’t serve you.  Giving them energy and money is just taking
away from people who could actually be fixing the problems.  The biggest problem with our government is that
it is designed in an easily corruptible way. 
The government siphons a tremendous amount of money out of the system,
yet isn’t really accountable to the people it’s supposed to serve.  There’s no metrics to follow on whether any
law is actually working.  Laws hardly
ever get repealed, so it’s a giant tangled mess that no one can really follow.  There’s no transparency at all, every single
time you want to look at a potential corrupt politician, there’s so many
redactions that you can’t make any conclusions.


 


I think we have our models of self-organization upside
down.  Instead of making bigger and
bigger governments/corporations to serve our needs that are all based half a
continent (or world) away from us, we need to focus on organizing at more local
levels in groups that we can effectively ensure are doing our bidding.  I especially believe that “compassionate”
projects should be done at a local level. 
If you are passionate about topic X, what’s more effective?  Bitching about other people and trying to
force the government to tax them, so that a huge bureaucratic organization with
a poor track record of making progress on anything can try to solve your
problem using people that just want a paycheck and don’t actually care about
your issue?  Or actually working with
people to make things better at some level with real people you can talk to and
real people that are getting helped?


 


I think people need to stop vilifying people that want to
cut government.  We need to cut
government spending, because it isn’t cost effective at doing anything
worthwhile.  We need a reasonable method
for building our own solutions, and then stopping the funding of government
programs that don’t do anything.  We need
real metrics that track whether or not the government is actually doing good
work and where it isn’t.

Bravo!

[Guest]

@medaille said:

@BigAl99 said:
Thats all great, but whats cheaper and who are the members of "our" in "our own"? 

Elaborate on what your concerns are.  I feel like you are asking me to make assumptions in what you think or even more generally, were you even replying to me in the first place or were you replying to someone else?

Excuse me for not being more thorough, here are a couple of examples, from your civil response. 
Lets start with the Who, are these neighborhoods,families, tribe, people like me...  
 "Giving them energy and money is just taking away from people who could actually be fixing the problems."
 "organizing at more local levels in groups that we can effectively ensure are doing our bidding."

Now the What is more cost effective and non-exclusionary. 
"We need to cut government spending, because it isn’t cost effective at doing anything worthwhile"

You can add the when and where, because I can't think of any examples on the macro scale needed for our country, society or civilization.  

[Guest]

@medaille said:

@BigAl99 said:


Great I get the compassionate conservative thing.  What power are you proposing for sick people or the working poor or Single parents?  Time travel to undo a bad break, decision or being born in a crap situation that you don't have the skills to get out of, is not an option.  

I agree with you that almost by definition that the
downtrodden have little “power” or “agency”, but I don’t think that it’s a
given that a federal level government is the correct answer for fixing the
problems that they have.  The governments
we have now, by and large, aren’t acting in the interests of the citizenry.  I think we can debate whose interests they
are serving, but I think it’s a given that they aren’t serving you, me, or
anybody else that could possibly be considered downtrodden or middle class.  I think that the whole model we have for
governments is completely broken.


 


This is what politics looks like to me:

• Election
  campaigns based on emotional, triggering topics that we won’t agree on,
  with a very limited number of candidates who are less than inspiring.
  
• Someone
  wins, half the people feel like the worst candidate got elected.  The other half feels relieved that the
  worst candidate didn’t get elected but isn’t excited about their
  candidate.
  
• Politicians
  spend a lot of time publicly arguing about emotional topics and pointing
  fingers, but when it comes down to voting on things, they never make any
  progress on the topics they talk about, but they have no problems passing giant bills under the cover of night.
  

 


I think if you want real change, you shouldn’t expect your
government to do it, because they don’t serve you.  Giving them energy and money is just taking
away from people who could actually be fixing the problems.  The biggest problem with our government is that
it is designed in an easily corruptible way. 
The government siphons a tremendous amount of money out of the system,
yet isn’t really accountable to the people it’s supposed to serve.  There’s no metrics to follow on whether any
law is actually working.  Laws hardly
ever get repealed, so it’s a giant tangled mess that no one can really follow.  There’s no transparency at all, every single
time you want to look at a potential corrupt politician, there’s so many
redactions that you can’t make any conclusions.


 


I think we have our models of self-organization upside
down.  Instead of making bigger and
bigger governments/corporations to serve our needs that are all based half a
continent (or world) away from us, we need to focus on organizing at more local
levels in groups that we can effectively ensure are doing our bidding.  I especially believe that “compassionate”
projects should be done at a local level. 
If you are passionate about topic X, what’s more effective?  Bitching about other people and trying to
force the government to tax them, so that a huge bureaucratic organization with
a poor track record of making progress on anything can try to solve your
problem using people that just want a paycheck and don’t actually care about
your issue?  Or actually working with
people to make things better at some level with real people you can talk to and
real people that are getting helped?


 


I think people need to stop vilifying people that want to
cut government.  We need to cut
government spending, because it isn’t cost effective at doing anything
worthwhile.  We need a reasonable method
for building our own solutions, and then stopping the funding of government
programs that don’t do anything.  We need
real metrics that track whether or not the government is actually doing good
work and where it isn’t.

I don't disagree with any of that.  That being said - there are issues like healthcare that can't be ignored.  The current free market system in place is broken, healthcare companies are behaving in a manner no different than oil companies are in that they are purely profit driven and taking advantage of consumers who have no other options.  EVERYONE needs healthcare.  Kaiser Permanente posted a $4 billion profit in 2017 with $28 billion in cash reserves.  Yet our insurance rates continue to skyrocket.  Is it because the insurance companies can't afford to cover their consumers without a rate increase?  No, it is purely greed-driven.  And when ALL healthcare companies are doing the same exact thing, because they're raising their rates because the entire market is also raising their rates, it's justified in the name of capitalism.  But it's something that effects every single American.  

So you're saying don't let the government take control of it because they've proven to be ineffective and wasteful.  Okay, I don't think anyone disagrees government programs tend to be wasteful.  Everyone knows they're not a perfect system, but GOP was quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater rather than try to fix the existing issues.  But here's my and many others fundamental issue with Republicans (not supporters) stance on healthcare - what the hell is the solution then?  It's either privatized - which has already been proven to be a colossal disaster over the last 3 decades as these companies are jacking rates un-checked while recording ridiculous profits at all of our expense - or it gets moved to socialized.  But if you say neither works, what's the solution?  You think it's better off in the hands of the state or local levels?  That won't work, because many of the red states like Kansas, AL, MS, LA are already underwater and rely on blue states' tax revenue to stay afloat for social services as it is.  Poor states, counties and districts are going to need help from elsewhere for funding.

Honestly without the government getting involved in healthcare, putting a clamp on these charges and costs that insurance carriers + hospitals + doctors are getting away with - the path we are on leads nowhere and we all know that.  One interesting financial aspect that few people seem to bring up is the cost savings by letting the gov't assume control and move to a single payer system with every man, woman and child fully covered - this country would instantly eliminate the #1 cause for personal bankruptcy:  medical bills.  Every year, the #1 reason that millions of Americans declare bankruptcy is due to medical bills that their insurance didn't cover, or they didn't have insurance to cover, and it results in billions of losses.  Imagine a system that would save billions from bankruptcy losses AND giving the entire country healthcare coverage at the same time.  It's possible.  But in our current un-regulated market, one overnight stay in a hospital for a minor injury in the US can run $15,000-$30,000 but the exact same treatment and quality of care in another country might be $3000, and thank God for those evil "socialist countries" like Canada where you wouldn't pay a damn penny.

We are not a 3rd world country.  It's sickening to watch the rich and these huge corporations pay almost nothing in taxes due to loopholes and clever accounting while one accident to a member of a middle-class family can put them in bankruptcy.  But I don't see other options - it's either privatized or socialized.  If there's another solution we're all ears.

[Guest]

@SFVikeFan said:


I don't disagree with any of that.  That being said - there are issues like healthcare that can't be ignored.  The current free market system in place is broken, healthcare companies are behaving in a manner no different than oil companies are in that they are purely profit driven and taking advantage of consumers who have no other options.  EVERYONE needs healthcare.  Kaiser Permanente posted a $4 billion profit in 2017 with $28 billion in cash reserves.  Yet our insurance rates continue to skyrocket.  Is it because the insurance companies can't afford to cover their consumers without a rate increase?  No, it is purely greed-driven.  And when ALL healthcare companies are doing the same exact thing, because they're raising their rates because the entire market is also raising their rates, it's justified in the name of capitalism.  But it's something that effects every single American.  

So you're saying don't let the government take control of it because they've proven to be ineffective and wasteful.  Okay, I don't think anyone disagrees government programs tend to be wasteful.  Everyone knows they're not a perfect system, but GOP was quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater rather than try to fix the existing issues.  But here's my and many others fundamental issue with Republicans (not supporters) stance on healthcare - what the hell is the solution then?  It's either privatized - which has already been proven to be a colossal disaster over the last 3 decades as these companies are jacking rates un-checked while recording ridiculous profits at all of our expense - or it gets moved to socialized.  But if you say neither works, what's the solution?  You think it's better off in the hands of the state or local levels?  That won't work, because many of the red states like Kansas, AL, MS, LA are already underwater and rely on blue states' tax revenue to stay afloat for social services as it is.  Poor states, counties and districts are going to need help from elsewhere for funding.

Honestly without the government getting involved in healthcare, putting a clamp on these charges and costs that insurance carriers + hospitals + doctors are getting away with - the path we are on leads nowhere and we all know that.  One interesting financial aspect that few people seem to bring up is the cost savings by letting the gov't assume control and move to a single payer system with every man, woman and child fully covered - this country would instantly eliminate the #1 cause for personal bankruptcy:  medical bills.  Every year, the #1 reason that millions of Americans declare bankruptcy is due to medical bills that their insurance didn't cover, or they didn't have insurance to cover, and it results in billions of losses.  Imagine a system that would save billions from bankruptcy losses AND giving the entire country healthcare coverage at the same time.  It's possible.  But in our current un-regulated market, one overnight stay in a hospital for a minor injury in the US can run $15,000-$30,000 but the exact same treatment and quality of care in another country might be $3000, and thank God for those evil "socialist countries" like Canada where you wouldn't pay a damn penny.

We are not a 3rd world country.  It's sickening to watch the rich and these huge corporations pay almost nothing in taxes due to loopholes and clever accounting while one accident to a member of a middle-class family can put them in bankruptcy.  But I don't see other options - it's either privatized or socialized.  If there's another solution we're all ears.

With regards to health insurance, I think people get stuck
thinking there are only two options: 
Free Market Insurance and Single Payer National Level Insurance.  I think both of these options (at least as I
think they would be implemented in the US) suffer from similar problems in
which the consumer/citizen doesn’t have enough leverage to affect things, so
costs continue to rise unchecked.  I do
think Single Payer health care would be a dramatic step forward over our
current system, because at least then there would be someone who’s job was at
least to pretend to advocate for the consumer. 
It still would suffer from the same problem we have with all government
projects in that the insurance companies would be lobbying the govt to agree to
rates that are beneficial to them, and their lobbying money is more influential
than your vote.  Also they could continue
to deny health care for people that want treatments that they don’t approve of
and there’s no real alternative options.


I think a better option than Single Payer would be multiple
smaller “Payers” perhaps something like User Owned Cooperative Insurances.  I could also get behind buyers groups that
buy insurance from existing companies. 
Both would be more accountable than single large entities that exist
outside competition.  I’d imagine a
scenario where the state or county government provides a health insurance check
(collected from taxes) to each person which they have to deposit into one of
the above insurance buyers / providers of their choice would be almost
necessary to distribute funds to those who can’t afford it.


I think the important aspects are to have multiple providers
of insurance and multiple buyers of insurance, such that non-competitive
providers or buyers are incentivized to be more competitive, while having large
enough groups that there is some leverage there.  If a Minnesota-West Insurance Buyers Group
decides to pull 2 Million accounts worth of insurance out of your insurance
company and into your competitor I think that would be enough sway to provide a
better cheaper option.  Alternatively, if insurance is required to be cooperative and higher rates just mean higher profits for you as an owner, I think that mitigates some of the issues of costs, rather than being sunk into the yacht of a billionaire.

[Guest]

@pumpf said:

@AGRforever said:

@Caactorvike said:
Bravo Barr.  Post of the year!!!!

I mean...barr didnt write it.  Larry Allen did.  Not sure how a political post on a viking board could possibly be “the post of the year”. But to each their own. 

I think youd find most “conservatives” dont deviate a ton from the list. I can say that by in large everything the government does costs more and produces less so at least when its coming out of my wallet I’ll prefer the most cost effective version. 

Im not going to do some sort of response to each on mobile. Somebody on their PC can tackle that. 

liberalism is one set of solutions to the problems that we face.  Conservatives offer a different set of problems. 

Agreed.