Timex
4142
I believe you simply email them this form.
So according to this article, our boats were in Iranian (not international) waters when they were captured. http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/13/politics/iran-sailors-capture-navy-criticism/index.html
If that’s true, it’s frankly amazing that they were released so quickly.
Of course, it’s Obama’s fault that they were in Iranian waters.
Well, of course they released our boys quick. Obama is one of them Iran-men.
Those who couldn’t afford insurance and had the misfortune of being stuck in about half the states in this fine union of ours have drawn virtually no benefit from the ACA, since backwards state legislatures have essentially refused to allow the federal government to pay for the overwhelming majority of healthcare costs for these people by not expanding Medicaid.
It’s a sad, weak law, broken by compromise and court decisions, that’s improved things for a large group of people by a marginal amount, but anything short of single payer is a failure on a national scale for those who need help the most.
Menzo
4146
yes, for every primary and election. Too much work!
Timex
4147
But my statement there is totally UNdogmatic. I didn’t support the ACA originally.
But at this point, I believe that statement there, simply stated as it is, is actually a factually correct statement. I know with absolute certainty that many people have had their lives immeasurably improved by the ACA. I know of exactly zero people who have had their lives harmed to a degree which is more than an inconvenience. That is, I do not know of anyone who has had their healthcare get measurably worse through the ACA’s implementation. Some people may be paying more money, but not to the extent where it is causing significant economic hardship.
But I literally do not know of cases where the ACA has significantly harmed anyone, while I know of many people who it has significantly helped. If you know of cases that conflict with my experience, I am absolutely open to hearing them.
Nesrie
4148
Didn’t you know that every morning while getting a cup of coffee Obama pulls out his world map and pencils in the course for each ship in our military?
Nesrie
4149
So you’re in the all or nothing crowd? You know the chances of pushing through single payer at this point is about nil right?
I’m in the “Democrats and so-called progressives who think ACA scraping into law and hanging on by the skin of its teeth is reason to stop fighting tooth and nail for the only real solution have failed their countrymen and shame their name” camp.
ACA is a tiny, albeit important, step in the right direction. But it’s not enough to get someone just Democratic enough into office that they’ll continue dutifully signing vetoes onto laws defunding the ACA for another 4-8 years. A candidate who is willing to put everything on the line and push this nation forward, willing or not, toward a true moral victory is far, far better in my eyes.
But philosophically, why make generalized unequivocal statements like that? One need only produce a single example to invalidate it. What is the point?
Or if you try to argue with someone about what an inconvenience means, then you’re going to end up acting like a jerk by decreeing what they ought to think and dismissing their perspective. (This excludes totally clueless people who have no idea what hardship means and probably deserve a good lecture.)
Timex
4152
So that if someone disagrees they can produce a single example to invalidate it.
Like I said above, I do not know of ANY cases which do. And since there is so much political incentive to publicize such cases, I honestly do not believe they exist.
If they do, I’m eager to hear about them.
That’s totally fair. It’s a polite way to state your position without seeming so dogmatic, and it invites further discussion and learning.
As a neutral observer, I’m instantly skeptical of a general statement without a qualifier like that. It’s just weird and distracting.
Nesrie
4154
It would not receive support. Politically speaking, single payer has no chance right now. It would be a waste of political effort and resources to try and push it. You can’t climb a mountain in a day. This is a step forward. People have a harder time letting go of what they already have, and eventually these people will realize ACA gave a lot even to those who see insurance premiums as the one and only factor.
In my eyes, this is a war (then again, in my eyes, most politics is war; probably why I tend to be such an unpleasant person to discuss these ideas with :P). It’s a war on those too uninformed or illogical to understand the vast social harm caused by the current system. It’s a war on those companies and institutions that stand to continue making enormous profit off of that ignorance and will pay dearly to see it continued. And it’s most certainly a war on those in power who would be the first to take that payment and continue driving the nation down this disastrous course to self-destruction.
In essence, I’m of the view that there can be no rest until single payer is the law of the land, supported or not by a majority who do not understand their own best interests, and those who would continue to stand in the way of progress are cast aside, left behind, or drug along, screaming all the way. People’s lives are very literally at stake here; waiting around until it’s convenient or easy is little better, in my extraordinarily biased eyes, than actively killing those people.
More specifically, as relates to my personal politics in a broader sense, we don’t have the luxury of waiting for the angry old white men to die off and let the world lurch forward briefly before grinding to a halt as a new generation ages into complacence. The push of progress must be inexorable, a great and perhaps sometimes-terrible force.
The ACA is the totality of the current Democratic party’s problems summed up in a single vast and unwieldy whole. It was born from weakness and a lack of conviction, and was unshielded from the all-too-effective and well-honed tactics of the other side in this war I envision here. Those opponents of progress have cast aside any semblance of fair play or adherence to the laws of the land in order to see their bleak vision for the future made real, while Democrats scramble to appease and compromise, pleading and simpering rather than leading. The world is not a pleasant place, and people are seldom interested in anything but their own immediate benefit, and this selfishness can make the cruel and dangerous. If progressives aren’t willing to adapt to the political environment that is our present reality, then they will continue to fail, again and again.
The issue with unwaivering conviction is when the conviction of the other side doesn’t agree with yours. Civility and compromise in politics, Obama’s SOTU theme, isn’t very compatible with the type of conviction that Armando proposes.
One could argue that the Teaparty has been better at letting conviction, alone, steer them. Would you consider them successful? If so, is the solution to become the Teaparty on the Left, as well?
Eh. Believing in progress/equality/etc as a first principle doesn’t mean you can’t be pragmatic and civil in the execution of your politics.
Of course not. But Armando wasn’t just talking about a political view, he was talking about a political approach.
There are areas deserving compromise and debate between rational actors arriving at their positions via rationality and reasoning. Differing views on how to revitalize downtown Raleigh (shall we increase parking fees and remove underutilized programs to finance more development and public servants, or perhaps instead try to better publicize the benefits of the present systems and support local businesses in new ways?) is certainly important, but hardly on the level of the millions of Americans unable to pay for adequate medical care.
But in the end–and I don’t claim to be a shining beacon to be revered or seen as Good–I think there are some things so fundamentally vital that they can’t be drug through committee and weighed in upon by every half-wit with an opinion and a microphone until things have gotten so dire that nothing at all may fix it. Healthcare and the environment, in particular, rest in that category to me.
In the latter case, for instance, there is no benefit to society in giving climate change deniers the time of day or trying to incorporate their opinions and desires into policy moving forward. Doing so is giving credence to people completely divorced from reality, and letting their fantasies literally destroy the planet we’re all standing on. The basic facts of the matter are not a subject for debate or something where all sides have something equally valuable to offer. The problem is real, and it is immediate, and solving it is very literally of global importance.
If we can get everyone onto the same page for that much, sure, let them spend a session of Congress debating exactly how onerous the task of saving the planet should be for businesses, so long as the end result is a plan that has any hope whatosever of even slowing the onrushing environmental doom :P
One could argue that the Teaparty has been better at letting conviction, alone, steer them. Would you consider them successful? If so, is the solution to become the Teaparty on the Left, as well?
The Tea Party is absolutely a model for how to effectively navigate the political waters we’ve lost ourselves in. Theirs might not be the only way to achieve victories in America right now, but it’s proven again and again to be much better at achieving ends than the half-assed handwringing of the left.
Simply wrong. The Teaparty, to the extent someone considers them successful, is only so because of their platform: obstructionism. The same tactics will not, and cannot, work for a progressive approach that requires disrupting the status quo. Politics isn’t asymmetric.
Personally, I think what your arguing is based more on frustration and emotion, rather than effectiveness.
