Personal Political Positions

[Youngster Joey]

^^^^Also, therapy only helps people who want the help...

Sorry man but your Logic is flawed. If someone really wants to do something, they are going to do it. Pardon my ignorance, but are assault weapons legal in the UK?

 

[Jason Voorhees]

Guns weren't made to kill people? Really? What other purpose does a machine gun have?

Well, In a way I can kind of agree, but weapons where made for war, and even though you kill people in battles, that's just getting our right for freedom!


@Youngster Joey, someone who knows them can gewt them therapy, and only if they acctually need it. They're obviously going to have a relative or a friend or maybe even just a neighbor. Like that dude in Alabama who kidnapped that kid and brought him into a bunker, the dude once hit his neighbors dog to DEATH with a pipe and killed the dog, just for going on his property. The owner knew about it, she should have got him some help and brought him to a therapist and he wouldn't have shot that bus driver and made that kid faint and take him underground to his bunker and trap him there for a week.

 

[Youngster Joey]

^Trust me. My statement is 100% Accurate.

Therapy is a waste of time and money if the person doesn't want it.

 

[Snoo]

Guns weren't made to kill people? Really? What other purpose does a machine gun have?

Well, In a way I can kind of agree, but weapons where made for war, and even though you kill people in battles, that's just getting our right for freedom!

You really think the war in Iraq was a war for our personal freedoms? Killing some darkies 6,000 miles away isn't exactly my definition is protecting my freedom.

 

[madhjsp]

Guns weren't made to kill people? Really? What other purpose does a machine gun have?

Well, In a way I can kind of agree, but weapons where made for war, and even though you kill people in battles, that's just getting our right for freedom!

Just stop there. The US hasn't had to fight to defend itself since it got involved with the Japanese in WWII, and even then the threat of a full-scale invasion was minimal. Every other war we've been in since then, we've been the aggressor. We aren't "fighting for freedom" over in the middle east so much as we are warmongering. Think about this: The US's annual defense spending by itself comprises 41% of the entire world's military expenditures, 5x as much as second-place China's. It an unbelievable waste of both lives and dollars (and people wonder why our economy is suffering...) and it's indicative of our lax public attitudes towards violence and weapons. There really is no good reason why firearms should be as widely available to civilians as they are, and yet we find ourselves as a public actually debating restrictive legislation when you'd think any reasonable person would wholeheartedly support it, especially in light of the recent shootings. Yes, the recognition and treatment of mental health problems is also an important issue we have at hand, but the first priority and most easily remedied problem should be reducing the number of guns available in the first place. I have yet to hear a convincing argument to the contrary.

 

[Gazza]

Obamacare sucks because all it is doing is raising our taxes and giving us something that we must have that half of us don't even need. STUPID.

But this is where your logic is falling over.
I 100% agree that a lot of crimes could be avoided, and there would be less people in prisons if the first place if mental health issues were treated sooner, and if governments took them seriously.

But for that to occur, mental health services have to be acessible and properly funded. If you're trying to get someone reluctant into therapy, are they going to do it if they have to pay thousands of dollars.

The democrats want to make taxes WAY to high. What the democrats don't understand about taxes is that if taxes are to high you won't even have enough money to take care of yourself and provide yourself with not only wants, but NEEDS.

But this is a myth. I hate this notion pused by Republicans that the US exists in isolation and lower taxes in the US means everyone lives the high life, and that other western countries with higher taxes and socialised healthcare etc somehow live at a lower standard :?: :?: :?:

Throughout the Western world, despite varying tax rates, everyone more or less seems to live to a similar standard.
(Except for the fact that British people live in ugly houses that are cookie cutter :lol: )

 

[tomahawk]

But, agree with you, people need therapy. Free health care isn't something the republican's like though...

Free Healthcare does not exist, that would mean that there would be no costs for medicine, doctors, facilities, etc. SOMEONE has to pay for it, and adding billions and billions of dollars to the already rediculous deficit is not the way to go about it. Is American health care and the process absolute ****? Yes, but adding minimum of $21,000 taxes to families through taxes over the next few years isn't the way to deal with it. I'm dealing daily with the **** health care, but why do I need to be fined, forced, or jailed to sign up for a government run health care, which is what this law calls for. It is my right to choose if I want private or public insurance. The one thing that they got right in this bill is allowing children to stay on family plans until they are 26, even if they get married. Millions of college grads without jobs lacked health care, and knowing how much I got raped in fees for a simple IV when I was sick when I had my own insurance, it helps tremendously.

Why do churches or organizations NEED to provide birth control when it is their belief that birth control is not moral or whatever they say? I'm sorry but forcing an organization, church, business, etc. to supply condoms or the pill for employees is ridiculous. There are already countless places you can get them for free, and it isn't hard to find them. It may not be said employees belief but when you take a job, you would know that they don't provide/offer certain benefits. I don't want big brother telling me what I can do or buy or what doctor I have to go to or can't go to. There is a reason I pay extra to see X doctor instead of Y doctor, because X doctor only has so many patients a day, while Y has anyone who shows up with a cough.

Medical health needs to be evaluated at a higher level in this country, and things like depression, anxiety, and other diseases like this need to be really recognized as what they are, diseases. Knowing countless people very close to me who suffer from depression and anxiety, unable to do simple things like join in a small conversation with family without feeling anxious for fear of exclusion or rejection is very real. I deal with mild depression, yet if I tell people this, some people think I will go and kill myself at any moment which is far from the case. Mental health is so different for every person it can't really be lumped into something as simple as a list. What person A goes through with anxiety is completely different than someone else with anxiety. These type of diseases need to be evaluated correctly and treated correctly, and not ignored.

This leads me into my views on guns, which is people have the right to bear arms as long as they are law abiding citizens and are deemed fit for owning a gun. The guy in Connecticut did not own a gun, his mother did and she was not a responsible gun owner, seeing as she didn't have them properly secured in a safe and they were in a place that he could access. Colorado movie theater guy had bombs rigged at his apartment, and is extremely intelligent, so even if he couldn't have gotten guns, he proved he had the ability to build a bomb from everyday products. He had known psychological issues, and while no ones brain is the same, there should have been some sort of trigger when he was ordering that much ammunition.

With all the school shootings recently, and society being its reactionary self, the reaction is to get rid of the guns. Look at Chicago and Washington D.C. two of the most violent cities in the country, yet they also have the two strictest gun laws in the country. Since criminals ALWAYS follow the rules, making guns unavailable stops them. Nope, just takes them away from responsible people. Since it wasn't reported on, since it goes against the medias view, there was a school shooting STOPPED due to armed staff being alert and they were able to stop before the criminal was able to kill anyone. One person was shot but was released on the same day. This occurred in Atlanta last Thursday for anyone wanting a fact check. By the way, he was not a registered gun owner (it was stolen), it was not considered an assault weapon, and it had a small magazine. So in other words, the proposed gun laws would not have stopped this, what a shock!

In Utah and Texas teachers are allowed to conceal weapons in a secure location in case of a shooting, they are trained to use them and can. The wait for teachers to get this certification in Utah is over two months, and they had over 2,000 over the Christmas holiday's take the course so they could protect their students in case of a shooting.

I just don't understand why take guns away from those who follow the rules when the criminals will get them no matter what. Gun safety is something responsible gun owners believe in and are very particular about. 95% of LEGAL gun owners are responsible too.

Felt like the other side needed a bit of logical representation since it's pretty one sided in here with not so smart posts being made. Probably won't respond again as I've said what I had to say.

 

[furie]

^Pretty sure there's a separate gun topic somewhere

I don't agree 100% with the way the US do things, but the basic point you're making is sound. The US is too huge and the reforms required now are too radical and too late. Though, better gun control could be introduced slowly. We don't have a complete ban on guns over here, but we do have a very strict set of rules for gun ownership. Part of that is that the police can enter your property at any time to check how your weapons are stored. Now, it doesn't stop criminal ownership, but it does reduce the chances of death caused by people not looking after weapons responsibly. It's all a case of slowly making changes and over a long period, attitudes can change. However, THIS!!!

That dude at Sandy Hook WAS really messed up before the massacre, He always wore black clothing and always acted really strange.

Oh and Columbine, those kids where always wearing trench coats and looked like f'ing Batman villians, and AGAIN they acted really weird.

When I say WEIRD I don't mean like nerdy, I just mean strange. Plus you can just tell by how a person acts.

Welcome to my world? The world of my youth and the world of my kids. You've just described me as a teen, and my friends, and my eldest son and his friends.

The difference is that (mostly) in the UK, we're more moderate of our attitudes towards people who are "different". They don't get bullied, or picked on (no more than anybody else) and are accepted for who they are beyond their outward appearance. This liberal attitude stops hatred and bile from building and it allows people to be who they want without wishing any harm on individuals or institutions.

If you find violence or abusive behaviour in the UK, you'll usually find it from the people who dress "normally" and behave "normally".

Maybe if people took out time to try and understand why people want to be different, or why the act differently, they could find a root to the issue that could be dealt with - but treating people as freaks is surely just compounding the issue?

 

[Gazza]

Free Healthcare does not exist, that would mean that there would be no costs for medicine, doctors, facilities, etc. SOMEONE has to pay for it, and adding billions and billions of dollars to the already rediculous deficit is not the way to go

No, medicine is not free...but, what is cheaper.

A) Having it done by the public sector, so that the dollars being paid in taxes go directly into patient care.

B) Having it done by the private sector, so that only some of the dollars being paid in insurance premiums go into patient care, and a portion of it is skimmed off as the profit margin going to shareholders.

Option A requires less money for the same effect, correct?


The other thing people like you fail to realise is that yes, taxes might be higher to support public healthcare, but at the same time, wages are higher because your employer isn't burdened with having to pay for the healthcare of all it's employees, so it means they can pay you more.

In Kansas, the minimum wage is $7.25 USD

In Australia, the minimum wage is $15.96 ($16.24 USD)

Why do you think that is?

So yeah, our employers can afford to pay us more than double you guys because they aren't stuck with the expense of funding health insurance for everyone.

And yeah, the taxes here are higher to support our healthcare system, but even so, i still end up better off because the proportion of my taxes needed to fund the system still work out less than what Americans typically have to pay for their profit driven health insurance.
So more money in my pocket in the end overall cool)
Oh, and the added bonus of knowing no matter what happens, I'll be taken care of well.

Hey, so why is the US budget in Deficit anyway? What are you spending it on that's so much more important?

See, the problem is, tomahawKSU, the onus is actually on you to prove why the US approach to healthcare is better, not the other way around.

Go on then, tell me why Australia, the UK, Netherlands, Canada etc have it wrong and you have it so much better :lol:

I don't want big brother telling me what I can do or buy or what doctor I have to go to or can't go to. There is a reason I pay extra to see X doctor instead of Y doctor, because X doctor only has so many patients a day, while Y has anyone who shows up with a cough.

But the point is being able to provide health care in the first place. Is it more important for you to be able to pick your doctor, meanwhile, someone else can't even access it at all.

For what its worth, I advocate just having two tiers like a lot of other countries. Universal healthcare so nobody is suffering uneccessarily, but the option to get private health cover if you want more personalised care, and other stuff covered.

Felt like the pro public healthcare needed a bit of logical representation since it's pretty uniformed about what actually goes on in the real world in here with not so smart posts being made :roll:

 

[tomahawk]

Was talking more so about the Jason Voorhees comments, not anyone elses.

$7.25 is the national minimum, but several states have it higher, these states also have higher costs of living and taxes, which makes it even out. The minimum wage is too low, but inflation causes any change to basically stay the same.

One of the proposals in the health care was certain procedures like a mammogram, can't be done until age 50, no exceptions. So when someone is a high risk for breast cancer due to genetics (like my soon to be wife who has a 65% chance of getting it by the time she is 40, they can't test it. Prostate cancer is a very similar thing. Sorry but if someone has family history of a certain disease, they need to be tested sooner. Then you have the "panels" who decide if someone who is say 75 with colon cancer is allowed to get treatment based off what they see as their investment. That isn't how it should work and no one can agree with that.

The US SHOULD have a healthcare system like Australia, UK, Netherlands, etc. I don't disagree because the cost for so many is so insane and the coverage is not good for most of them who have it. What I am saying is the plan that is supposed to take over is not a good one and won't do much better.

You can only tax the rich so much before they leave. Look at California, which has some of the highest taxes in the country. Businesses are leaving and relocating to the South because it is more affordable to pick up and move an entire corporation to pay the extortionate taxes that California requires. Gas is sixty cents more expansive than most of the rest of the country due to their extra taxes on fuel, produce prices are a joke due to how expensive it is to transport and other taxes that are placed on farmers, and the cost of living is a complete and utter joke. It isn't NYC bad, but someone shouldn't have to pay $1400/month to live in a small, dated, insect infested one bedroom apartment in a not so decent area.

If someone is willing to pay extra to see doctors they choose, why shouldn't they be able to? What's wrong with keeping it privatized but also allowing those who can't afford private to go public. Smokers are already going to have to pay an extra several thousand dollars, and that includes chain smokers to smoking once or twice in college.

I know I won't change your opinion, nor will you change mine, but I respect and see the points you make which are good. I just don't like big government and higher taxes which result from it.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

How do you tell if people need therapy until they go shoot up a school?

But, agree with you, people need therapy. Free health care isn't something the republican's like though...

That dude at Sandy Hook WAS really messed up before the massacre, He always wore black clothing and always acted really strange.

Er... Not sure that's the sign of mental illness.

Obamacare sucks because all it is doing is raising our taxes and giving us something that we must have that half of us don't even need. STUPID.

Do you realise...

It would be CHEAPER if everyone paid tax than for individuals to pay for private health care?

It's FAIRER, because then those who cannot afford it aren't sentenced to die to incur a huge, life altering debt they cannot possibly pay off?

Imagine you do have private health insurance... And you suddenly get some horrible, lifelong condition requiring lifelong medication. The insurance companies now raise the cost of your insurance significantly, because you're more likely to get sick. What if they refuse to insure you at all? It happens. You're now sentenced to debt you can never rid yourself of.

Not only that, but insurance doesn't completely cover all healthcare anyway. Some conditions, particularly some mental health issues, are exempt from certain policies. And you have to pay excess, anyway, every time you visit a healthcare professional.

Private health care is also a scam. If you go to the doctors with a cold in the US, they give you antibiotics. In the UK, they'd tell you to go home and rest. Why? Because in the US, it's a business. They want you to keep coming back no matter what the problem, no matter if they can't do anything about it, no matter if the best remedy is rest. In the UK, it's the opposite, they are trying to save money. You could argue that's bad, but could you really argue it's worse than being SCAMED about your health? Than being given antibiotics to treat a cold, which contributes to a weakened immune system? Perpetuating your need to return to the doctors? If you have to pay for a service, any service, it's open to abuse from those offering it.

The majority of US citizens DO need free healthcare, actually. It's a small minority which can happily afford private without a struggle.

I hope you and your family never have to endure some life altering illness which effects your insurance, but don't think it can't happen. And then think how much better off you, and the rest of the nation, would be on a free for all, national, moral health service.

$7.25 is the national minimum, but several states have it higher, these states also have higher costs of living and taxes, which makes it even out. The minimum wage is too low, but inflation causes any change to basically stay the same.

And you think the UK min wage is any better? It's £6.19. Most normal jobs are 7 payed hours, so that's $43.33. It costs most people an hours wage or more to get to work. It costs me £10. If I worked a full, 5 day week on min wage, I wouldn't even have enough, ignoring all other expenses, to pay for rent somewhere. Contrast to the US, where my friends pay less than I give my mother a MONTH for rent to live in a nice apartment. And imagine then the tax on top... At my Christmas I was emergency taxed. I made about £800 and lost £160 to tax. (I'll get it back bit, irrelevant.)

The US MUST have a minimum amount of annual earnings BEFORE you are taxed, though. Here it's £5000-something per year.

It always baffles me how Americans think they are alone in the world with their issues, like the economy. And yet, despise any other way of doing things. Across the world there are so many different methods of doing things, and really, they all have problems and they all have benefits. The issue is weighing them up on a moral level, the US does not do this. The rest of the world moves forward, the US doesn't. Even Iran has some better human rights in some areas than the US does.

If someone is willing to pay extra to see doctors they choose, why shouldn't they be able to?

Free healthcare wouldn't change that. We have private healthcare and insurance here, too, but only a.) idiots and b.) filthy rich idiots use it. Companies still offer people health insurance, which covers dental and such, here. It's not like you have to have one without the other. And you can still choose to see which doctor you wish on the NHS...

 

[Gazza]

Then you have the "panels" who decide if someone who is say 75 with colon cancer is allowed to get treatment based off what they see as their investment.

Can you provide a link to a neutral news source/government page saying this is the case.
Because I thought that the "death jury/death panel" was just some myth made up to scare people into opposing public health care.

i just don't like big government and higher taxes which result from it.

I don't think anyone likes the government to be involved any more than they need to be.
But why is all Government activity lumped in the same basket by you?

Isn't universal healthcare something that is worth spending money on?

You've yet to answer the question as to why the US can't fund something plenty of other countries do? What gives?

You can only tax the rich so much before they leave.

And coincidentally, you can only burden companies with health care expenses for employees till they go bust (Eg the Auto makers)