Lurker > Balrog0

Anteaterking posted...

Are you just rambling here or is this supposed to be an argument for who should be the house speaker in 2019?

I assume he's making a broader point about the party's legislative leadership than just who should be speaker in 2019. Like, someone in this very topic referred to, '[s]omeone who is hip to the modern political games who also has an appreciation for good policy making,' as a god damn unicorn. Because apparently Democrats don't have anyone who is young and also cares about good policy?

There's clearly a problem with how the Democratic party is developing their team, even if you love Nancy Pelosi personally, when your defense of her often boils down to the fact that there is no one else.
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

idk, seems to me there are two possibilities and neither speaks well of the democratic party or their leadership

either all of the relatively fresh faces are garbage and not deserving of any real power within the party, which speaks to a poor candidate recruitment and training process

or they do have lots of new talent and they just refuse to give them any power or authority, which speaks to a leadership that values power more than cultivating a group of skilled legislators -- that probably disagree with them on a wide range of less sexy issues than campaign finance reform

the emphasis on pelosi herself is actually kind of a distraction since the entire leadership has essentially remained the same to the extent that it could (obviously people who are no longer elected officials are still there, e.g. joe crowley)
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

P4wn4g3 posted...

Why is that a narrow issue? You don't see dark money as a problem?

it's a narrow issue in that there are many other issues, and imo not all of her public stances are equally sincere
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

That's not my interpretation at all. I believe him to be saying that she lacks not work ethic but the political will to actually push it.

I actually disagree on the narrow issue of campaign finance reform, which she has talked about at least since the Citizens United ruling though
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

hollow_shrine posted...

Historically speaking, we can see that Nancy Pelosi does work hard and she's very good at what she does. Dems aren't worries about her work ethic. They're worried she may not be the best face of the party at this very moment.

What about his post made you think he was talking about her work ethic?
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

hollow_shrine posted...

Yeah, those are all things she mentioned by name in her latest speech, so I think people thinking she's somehow been fundamentally compromised and won't advocate for those things should check themselves.

I mean Republicans are constantly talking about how they are the ones protecting pre-existing conditions so I'm not exactly sure public posturing should be taken as a sign someone isn't compromised on an issue at least not without exploring it further
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Esrac posted...

DHS first sends Arkansas Works recipients who must meet the work requirement a letter directing them to https://access.arkansas.gov. As of Nov. 16, that URL sent users to a general DHS landing page containing information about voter registration, not health insurance. From the landing page, a beneficiary must navigate a series of menus to reach a login page, where he or she is prompted to create a new account. (Doing so requires an active email address.) Then, the user must locate a unique "reference number" contained on the letter from DHS "to link your online account to your healthcare coverage." Only then can the beneficiary enter work hours.

So, why didn't she do this? Did she not actually read the letter they sent her?

why are you assuming the letter they sent her gave her helpful information like how to navigate their website?
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

bump
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

tag
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

hollow_shrine posted...

You'd need still need someone competent in the role, true. Why not seek both? Someone who is hip to the modern political games who also has an appreciation for good policy making.

those people don't exist because the democratic party leadership gives no new faces any room to breathe in the house; it's (one reason) why charismatic folks like Beto and Sinema decided to run for Senate.
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

yeah no shit
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Questionmarktarius posted...

That's actually an argument for "VA for everyone".

how? seriously look at this objectively and without trying to grind that ax. explain yourself for once and be specific instead of using silly analogies.

Questionmarktarius posted...

That's where the bus analogy works: It's cheap, sometimes even free, and available for anyone to use. Most people, however, would rather just use private transportation.
Or, we can attempt to buy everyone Cadillacs. Good luck with that.

but since you insist on talking about things this way, lets extend the analogy

the government subsidizes drivers indirectly by keeping gas taxes low but continuing to increase funding for highways and roads, which causes more and more lanes to be built and maintained using general fund money or bonds. that means you and I are paying for it even if we don't use it.

what you're saying is that, instead of letting poor people have access to a free car, we should give them bus passes. but you're not saying we should do much to change the situation where government spending unfairly biases people to use cars instead of buses, through the financial incentives they give drivers over public transit riders -- think about it, people say public transit systems are failing when farebox collections don't recoup costs, but literally no car has ever recouped the costs of its trip with respect to the public dollars that are necessary to maintain that infrastructure. In other countries, where car drivers pay their costs, people drive less and use public transit more.

But you're not talking about taking away our massive subsidies for drivers, you're just talking about setting up an alternative system for poor people. And you've yet to explain why except through this analogy which I've hopefully now refuted or at least put into doubt.

tangentially, it's crazy to me how easily you 'libertarian' types can switch between 'consumer behavior is a result of bargaining between different parties and represents the least bad trade off from their perspectives' and 'people do this so that means they prefer to do this' without even slowing down to think about the implications of what you just said
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

HenryAllbright posted...

That's why I don't mind the comparisons to the VA or the DMV, because ultimately they are the best examples we have in terms of seeing how services get extended to the public through means of government without little to no competition.

the best example of public health care in this country is obviously medicaid and medicare which follow the model of a national insurance system
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Questionmarktarius posted...

The inevitability of a public health system is shitty care with a private "concierge" system right over the top of it. Just cut out the awkward time period between "utopian idealism" and "it's become haves and have-nots all over again anyway".

so are you admitting you just have ignored me this whole time? There's no basis for thinking any public system collapses into the Beveridge system except that that system is particularly odious to Americans due to the direct employment of doctors by government. But plenty of countries have public health systems that are as old as the NHS and they haven't moved towards it, while the NHS has actually moved towards more privatization of its functions
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

what argument can I present to you that I haven't presented a billion times already? I can only go over the different kinds of public health care so many times
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Questionmarktarius posted...

The suggestion pretty much always gets hate-dogpiled, for generally weak reasons.

the reasons are incredibly strong, I'm actually kind of considering ignoring you if you keep bringing it up without actually justifying it

I like you the rest of the time
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

HenryAllbright posted...

Can you explain what you mean by this? Also, are you talking in terms of how our current system works? Just wanting some clarification.

https://niskanencenter.org/blog/social-insurance-not-charity/

If private charity is willing and able to step in and do a better job than K-12 then what is it waiting for? The same private dollars that would allegedly jump in when we shut down government schools could jump in today. Existing property taxes are hardly a budget constraint for the kinds of rich households, charities, and foundations that wed expect to fund something like this.

I can already begin imagining some plausible libertarian responses to this (again, of the but for regulation and crowd-out variety), but his point stands. The conventional libertarian argument has always been a bit hand-wavey, pointing to eras in history where, yes, government was smaller and mutual aid societies were bigger, but where poverty was nonetheless widespread and abject.

Consider Jonathan Gruber and Daniel Hungermans well known paper that estimates the extent to which the New Deal crowded out faith-based charity. Their central finding suggests that church spending fell 30% in response to the New Deal, and that government relief spending can explain virtually all of the decline in charitable church activity observed between 1933 and 1939.

Sounds dramatic, right? And it may have been, for the churches. But in absolute terms, church benevolent spending fell a mere 2.9 cents for every dollar that federal transfers increased. As Gruber and Hungerman write, from 1929 to 1932, the last year before the New Deal, annual church benevolent spending in the U.S. averaged about $180 million. This is a little less than 10% as large as the average annual New Deal transfer spending over the 1933-1939 period of $2 billion.

My naive interpretation of this result is that, were the entire post-New Deal/Great Society welfare state eliminated tomorrow, we should expect civil society to leave somewhere between 90-97% of social insurance spending unreplaced. And that is probably being generous, since the cultural and institutional capital needed to coordinate a private safety net does not emerge instantaneously, if it emerges at all.
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Fam_Fam posted...

our system now is horribly inefficient, and costs are ridiculous for what you get. Health care is basically a luxury nowadays.

I never said otherwise!

Fam_Fam posted...

And yes, there will always be shitty doctors, even in the current system, but we have ways of relaying that information, and reading up on techniques that people are using. it's not a complete crapshoot.

But I thought consumers didn't need to know anything but price? The way you're arguing about this seems more like you're trying to justify your conclusion -- which I thought was a discussion question? -- rather than actually trying to talk about it with me.

Fam_Fam posted...

and i'm saying we SHOULDN'T do things the way we always do them, we should change them so that people aren't buying into a shit system that is built for profit of insurance companies. they don't have patient quality of life high in their priority lists. it's all about money for them. and we should put a stop to that.

okay, and I'm saying that proposing an increase in competition sounds nice without any context, but if you put it in context, it starts to sound a lot less attractive and you notice that it might not address these issues the way you want it to
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

HenryAllbright posted...

I get that no system is perfect, but there is quite a bit of opportunity to assist poor people, especially if competition has resulted in much lower prices. The poor people won't need as much financial assistance to get care if the prices are lower, and your average person who does make decent income will have more money left over to donate to poor people if they aren't paying as much for healthcare.

Empirically speaking, for every $1 of public assistance you offer in medical care, you crowd out 1 cent of private charity. If you're relying on prices falling to replace public assistance, then you'd need to bring costs down to literally less than 10% of their current levels for it to be even marginally feasible to make up through private charity.
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Fam_Fam posted...

people don't know a good watch from a bad one, who knows what goes into it? you just get told a rolex is good. who can tell you why its worth thousands more than a $50 seiko watch? and what difference do those differences make?

I'm not sure what your point is. I've watched I, Pencil, dude. I'm not saying that consumers need to be experts on the supply chain management required, the exact specific technical details of the product, etc.

I'm saying that if the goal of health care is to improve health outcomes, we have good reasons to doubt that would happen because of pressure from consumers for better health care.

Watches are status symbols. The point of them is to look good or signal something about yourself. Not comparable at all.

So like I asked before, what's an actually good comparison?

Fam_Fam posted...

Same thing with computers. many, many people don't know shit about the quality of the parts in there. they just see bigger numbers and think things are better. can they tell you why? and what the bigger number actually means?

No, and we have tons of inefficiencies in computer technology because of it. Qwerty is inferior to Dvorak and we use it just because we use it and always have. Is that the kind of medical system you'd like? When we treated health care that way we were using leeches and bleeding people and people paid for it because something was better than nothing.
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

HenryAllbright posted...

But the cool thing is that you totally still have the means in which to help poor people obtain health care. Your priorities can still be executed. Just don't interfere with mine.

It's true, in that not literally every single poor person would be unable to get care. Many more would die now, though. So they do actually run against each other, I'm sorry to say.
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

HenryAllbright posted...

But that brings up a whole other point about maximizing utilization. Maybe healthcare doesn't need to always 100% be about maximizing quantity of life. Maybe some people are willing to trade in what's best as far as their health goes for what makes them have a better quality of life. Odds are there will be options. There's nothing wrong with differentiation of goals among various patients.

this is already the case? My point is that the kind of things people are willing to pay for are not associated with better health outcomes. Plenty of people refuse service on the basis of how it would impact their lives...

HenryAllbright posted...

They would be more affordable, so in turn you would actually see more poor people seeking care. If society actually cared about helping poor people afford medical care, they could donate money to services that help cover their bills. Let society have their values reflecting naturally rather than through means of laws.

Okay, as long as you admit you value this associational freedom more than you value the lives of poor people I have no real issue with your argument here. I have different priorities but at least it's honest.
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Fam_Fam posted...

consumers know pretty much nothing about anything they buy, other than cost, and people telling them that its good or bad.

That's just not true. People know the difference between a good job mowing their lawn or a bad job. In fact, they get to decide that! Tons of consumption goods are that way. As long as you know if you like the pencil, it's a good pencil.

Medical care isn't that way. What's a good comparison consumption good in your opinion?
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Fam_Fam posted...

yes, so im saying let hospitals deal with taking in money and setting prices, and fuck the insurance companies, who are garbage

that's how hospitals used to work and they weren't sustainable. even today you see lots of rural hospitals shutting down because of high uncompensated care costs. the problem is doctors aren't supposed to let people die without treating them, even if they can't pay

so I'm not being facetious, I'm very serious when I say your proposal would require letting folks just die.
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

s0nicfan posted...

The problem isn't hospitals. It's insurance. They all compete on services rather than price because they're all going by insurance rates.

Also, they mostly don't compete at all -- at least at the consumer level -- because most people on private insurance have it through their employer.
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

I saw parts of the sequel because they filmed part of it less than a block from my house and I passed it every day, saw some scenes being filmed

but no I've never watched the movies
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

pikachupwnage posted...

Well yeah for Heart Attacks, Stroke and the like it wouldnt mean as much.

For shit like Hernias, Cancer, Knee replacement Surgery, etc. that is important but not a get treatment In like an hour tops or you are gonna drop dead/suffer severe brain/heart damage it will certainly help. People can and sometimes will pick and choose based on price or perceived quality.

that's the issue; there's very little evidence that consumers know anything about health care and lots of evidence that they really don't know anything about health care. hospitals would start paying a premium for good bedside manners and compliance with patient requests rather than medical knowledge or skill.

anyway this would all be predicated on hospitals refusing care to poor, dying people so that's one thing that you'd see more of
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

CharlesBronson posted...

Good. Maybe if she was capable of following directions she wouldn't be working a minimum wage job.

is that you, Miss Gillespie?
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

P4wn4g3 posted...

Huh, tag. So are you cited in the article?

nah, I'm not in the piece at all, sadly. I just helped the reporters get info on the program and helped them find other people to interview
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Darkman124 posted...

Balrog0 posted...

I seriously don't understand whats supposed to be tying this situation to judges legislating from the bench. it's pretty bizarre, the state house passed a law and the governor vetoed it. now they're trying to pass the law again. That's... literally just how legislation works?

the subtext of qmark's post is the entire point of the bill was to pose a legal challenge of roe v wade before the new conservative SCOTUS

yeah but the point I'm trying to make is that without the SCOTUS safeguards on this issue, it wouldn't even be up to debate and many states would have long ago done this kind of thing or much worse. so I'm still kind of failing to see the point of bringing that up? am I being obtuse?
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

they interviewed me but they just used it for background

I did help connect the reporters to several of the organizations they covered and interviewed at etc, though. They didn't know about Canvas Community Church or Paul, so I still feel good about it. Not gonna lie, though, it would have been cool to be on the national t. v.

story:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/with-new-work-requirement-thousands-lose-medicaid-coverage-in-arkansas
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Darkman124 posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

This is what happens when five people decide national policy, instead of the 486 people specifically elected to do so.

to be fair, the people elected to do so have made it very clear they're never going to decide any national social policy ever again

i mean unless one party gets both houses, the presidency, and a filibuster-proof senate majority

I seriously don't understand whats supposed to be tying this situation to judges legislating from the bench. it's pretty bizarre, the state house passed a law and the governor vetoed it. now they're trying to pass the law again. That's... literally just how legislation works?
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Questionmarktarius posted...

voldothegr8 posted...

Tmaster148 posted...

Representative Christina Hagan, the lead sponsor of the bill, said in an interview on Friday that it was crafted specifically to challenge Roe v. Wade

Well it's probably going to work. I doubt it'll conquer Roe v. Wade though.

This is what happens when five people decide national policy, instead of the 486 people specifically elected to do so.

I don't understand what the 'this' that is happening is supposed to be.
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

I mean, I agree with CruelBuffalo, seems perfectly fine to me. The problem is the shitty real estate markets in NY(C). Speaks to a deeper problem with the way we treat housing as an investment. No reason to get mad at some Amazon employees.
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

I hope not, too. But it's really tough for me to see the incentive for Ds and Rs to play ball on any but the most basic and necessary legislation between now and 2020
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

prettyprincess posted...

do people post while not at work?

I post almost exclusively from work. Real big change from my younger days. I used to browse LUE like 24/7
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

there sequester is coming back, there is going to be a big fight over the debt ceiling again and we will likely have another unnecessary shutdown
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

brestugo posted...

99.9% of them sucked. You didn't miss much.

Mystery Science Theatre and Elvira Mistress of the Night started on public access though so there's that.

Seems a lot like yt for our parents generation
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Darkman124 posted...

parks and rec

but start with season 3

Yeah. It seriously starts with a perfectly good recap for someone whose never seen the show
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

the fallacy you're making is the assumption that you can not pay for that medical care by not insuring that population. in actual fact, when they have heart attacks, they still end up consuming health resources
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

BLAKUboy posted...

He couldn't even get anyone to publish it, so he just releases it as straight up propaganda.

I thought that was weird too
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

prince_leo posted...

Balrog0 posted...

I mean my take away is more that despite my lowbrow tastes I have no trouble adulting or whatever and I don't see how my lowbrow tastes ought to be put up to scrutiny when everyone else gets a pass

that's also a good point, my post was more a response to the claim that american culture is dumbing down

yeah I meant my post more as an addon to yours not really meant as disagreement, sorry if that wasn't clear
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Im sick of hearing about it
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

prince_leo posted...

it's just pretentious
like yeah, comic book movies are childish and full of bad writing. that sums up blockbusters for decades

it's like comparing a fast food cheeseburger to a 5 star steak. yeah one is better than the other objectively, but that doesn't mean I have shit taste when I crave the greasy burger joint

you can like the well written, acted, directed, etc. films with great cinematography at the same time as enjoying a dumb movie with a robot army attacking a city defended by men in tights

I mean my take away is more that despite my lowbrow tastes I have no trouble adulting or whatever and I don't see how my lowbrow tastes ought to be put up to scrutiny when everyone else gets a pass
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

the thing I always wonder is wtf was so deep about the sound of music and the other crap we used to like?
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

KILBOTz posted...

Is SNL really any worse of have ya'll just aged out of their demographic?

what IS the demographic of SNL viewers?
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

UnfairRepresent posted...

"SNL Isn't funny and hasn't been funny since Iwas a kid!" ~ Everyone.

Ever stopped to think that it really hasn't changed it's just that you aren't a kid anymore?

I've considered it, but it isn't actually true (at least for me). In the mid-00s to early 2010s I thought SNL had a really good cast and the show was correspondingly decent. Bill Hader, Kristin Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, Andy Samberg. Someone above referenced that Moynihan and Bayer were the best cast members, but back then they were some of the worst and it's not so much that they got better as the rest of the cast got worse

It also makes sense that a show with a rotating cast and writers room would vary in quality over time.
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

the main thing my mom does is act like Im the most competent dude in the universe which is annoying because I really dont know very much about anything
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Flockaveli posted...

nice
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

AlephZero posted...

I could actually respect her if she admitted her plans for free everything would require significant tax increases across the board. Instead she hides behind "The 1% will pay for it and we'll cut the military!"

Would you? I say that kind of thing and conservatives on ce still deride the position just as much. I'm not even a socialist either.

I mean not saying you're that way necessarily but too many people are reflexively ideological regardless
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But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.