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Dear Zach Lahn:
16 years ago
General
If you really want to challenge the president to an "oxford-style" debate, it would probably be a good idea not to start with false premises. I saw you on MSNBC today saying that UPS and FedEx can't "compete against the USPS when the government can keep throwing subsidies into it". Maybe Contessa Brewer didn't call you out on it and you got the wool over a couple people with that line, but the USPS does not operate on government subsidies, and hasn't since 1971. If you can't get your facts straight in even a baby-debate with a mid-day anchorwoman who isn't even a pundit, how can you ever expect to go up against a constitutional scholar? Give me a break.
For a private insurance to compete against a public option "fairly" isn't the point. If the option is not subsidized by all taxpayers whether they participate or not, then it is just as fair as any other competitor in the market. They get their money from premiums. They just wouldn't have the same profit motive as a private insurance company. If that means that private companies won't be able to compete, then too fucking bad, cause that sounds to me like a failure of the free market to provide better service when the public sector can do a better job on an even playing field in any case. Private insurers can compete more effectively by sucking less, and you and those insurers are gonna have to suck that up and deal with it.
Your ideologies aren't the infallible gods you think they are. They can fail, they have failed, and they will fail again. It's time to grow up and start living in the real world where we can have an honest discussion about dealing with those failures.
For a private insurance to compete against a public option "fairly" isn't the point. If the option is not subsidized by all taxpayers whether they participate or not, then it is just as fair as any other competitor in the market. They get their money from premiums. They just wouldn't have the same profit motive as a private insurance company. If that means that private companies won't be able to compete, then too fucking bad, cause that sounds to me like a failure of the free market to provide better service when the public sector can do a better job on an even playing field in any case. Private insurers can compete more effectively by sucking less, and you and those insurers are gonna have to suck that up and deal with it.
Your ideologies aren't the infallible gods you think they are. They can fail, they have failed, and they will fail again. It's time to grow up and start living in the real world where we can have an honest discussion about dealing with those failures.
I'm pretty sure they'll try to get the prez killed (oh big $$$ media coverage surprise surprise), after all this is reality, bad people define who's right and who's wrong, you try to the right thing and you'll get hanged.
But if so, lets hope people finally see what kind of danger these trouble makers are and stop listening to them.
Honestly, don't we have enough debt without trying to throw more at an antiquated system?
~Kai
Secondly,the problem with universal health care isn't competing with the private sector. The problem with universal health care is it doesn't work. Ever hear of Medicare and Medicaid? It doesn't work because the system is run by politicians who are all too busy stuffing their pockets to give a shit about the little guy. This is true of ALL politicians. Who do you think Obama's spending all that money on? His buddies who are going to supply him with plenty of kick backs. He's gonna get paid!
Thirdly,the 1 ton gorilla in the room that noone is talking about is that health care is too goddamn expensive. Medicine companies produce a pill for 5 cents and sell it for 100 dollars to people who literally can't live without it. It's basically extortion. Checked the cost of even the most basic medical supplies lately? Shit's expensive! The trick to turning a profit is understanding supply and demand. If you can control the supply,you can demand any price you want. Obama doesn't even seem concerned with this.
So yes,that guy was probably a shill for the insurance jackasses. No,that doesn't mean Obama is a good person either. Please stop implying this.
Medicaid doesn't work that well for doctors because it's underfunded and it only addresses the problem of payment, not of lowering the costs of primary care. Medicare works just fine -- if you don't agree with that then try polling some people who are on it to see if they'd like to have it taken away from them. Solving the problem of expensive treatment is a multi-pronged solution, but the current debate right now (even though it's called a health care debate) has to do with the payment of it through private insurance programs, which have been inflating the costs to consumers and generally have failed at their original primary purpose, which was to lower the cost of treatment. Once the insurance companies have been addressed in the proper way (which I think in the long run would be reducing the influence of for-profit insurers to nearly zero), then addressing the actual problems in affordable treatment can also be addressed. One step at a time, dudester. (Me personally, I think one thing the govt can do to reduce costs for example is some patent reform on pharmaceuticals)
Check out this link, I think it actually addresses a good point you brought up regarding treatment vs. payment: http://current.com/1na7m4c
Finally, I disagree with the idea that Obama's not a decent person. I've had the opportunity to see how he operates as a politician for quite a bit longer than most people hating on the guy, and I can say that for the most part I knew what to expect once he started having inclings to go to Washington (and later the white house). It's not Obama's fault that the system's full of shills and sycophants; that comes with the territory. Money and power have their own interests and they aren't always in tune with the majority of the american public. That's a story as old as the republic, and it's gonna take more than one man to change that. That's why I voted for him, and that's why I also supported my local representative. FWIW he's still on the fence about this health insurance reform issue, and I think if he doesn't do the right thing by me, he'll have a new primary challenger next year. That's how representative democracy is supposed to work -- if you don't exercise your rights then don't be surprised when you get somebody who doesn't represent you. Whining about it if you did nothing only serves to annoy :V
And don't sit there and tell me he doesn't. If you bothered to pay attention to him as closely as you claim to have,you'd know he's anti-gun and thinks anyone who disagrees with him is an idiot. Plus,I've looked into those eyes and see a guy who's dead inside. You look in there and tell me he ain't.
Medicare failed for the same reason Medicaid failed. It's underfunded,prone to fraud,and too many politicians have their hands in the cookie jar. I think it's a good idea that all government employees,including senators and the president himself,should only be allowed public health services. No special considerations for congress or other high ranking officials either. They have to take the same medical care as everyone else. They'd fix that fucker then and lickity split too.
It still stands that at the core of the problem is high health care costs and any health care reform needs to address that problem. Not "after a while". Not "some time later". Now. If it doesn't,then it's doomed to end up just like it's predecessors. If your RAM and the CPU are blown,replacing one doesn't fix the problem,does it. It all ties in and it all contributes to the problem. If you only address *some* of the problems,can you really call it comprehensive health care reform?
And finally,how Obama operates as a politician is the same way everyone else does. Lying his ass off. He said he'd end the war in Iraq. As soon as he was in office,he extended the pull out date by 6 months and would "depend on conditions on the ground". Seems to me that Bush said the same thing and got hell over it. Is it not fair to give Obama hell over the same thing,especially given how much he criticized Bush over it? He claimed he would fix the economy and lower unemployment by year's end. The economy still sucks and unemployment is on the rise. He said he'd do his best to reach across the aisle and listen to Republicans on the important issues. Now he's stuffing 1,000 page bills through Congress no one's read,written by people who were not elected to any form of office. And anyone who doesn't like the idea? Probably part of a conservative conspiracy.
So tell me again about how fucking decent he is. And I'll call you a brainless lap dog of the system. One vote doesn't really matter much when most of the voting public is chanting "Hope and change!" like a bunch of trained parrots. Anyone who's really looked at Obama knows what he is. A politician. He'll do and say whatever looks good to the public,but behind closed doors,he's screwing us as hard as he can.
I don't see how you're able to judge a man's actions by looking into his eyes through your TV screen, but if you feel like those eyes look upon the likes of you with condescension, I'd say that's more of a problem with you than with the president, man. You're not alone in feeling that way, but unfortunately all of you out there who use that as a metric of good character aren't normally the people I'd consider reliable judges of character.
Improvements to Medicaid and Medicare are included in HR3200 as part of the total healthcare reform package. As part of this, a panel of health experts used to help determine for congress the prices which these programs want to negotiate with hospitals which accept the govt. plan would be given more power in terms of their recommendations to congress vs. having to rely entirely on the politicians to pass the panel's experts through committee. Again, these are improvements to a system that's still working. Can you even quantify how these programs have failed? I will repeat my claim that you can ask any person on Medicare how it has failed COMPREHENSIVELY (ie: to the point where Medicare should be eliminated) and they'd give you a funny look because Medicare helps cover their medical expenses because it's working. Many people like the federal programs, and would be more than happy to buy into one if they were given the opportunity, which is a major part about what liberals are bitching about right now with this public option.
The premise which I disagree with you in terms of your analogy is whether or not the system is inherently broken. I don't think that it is, and so far you've shown no conclusive proof or qualitative evidence that it is. Because I think the system can be improved in a progressive fashion, my priorities focus on where I think the larger problem exists -- in the payment and insurance system rather than the treatment system.
As you've probably heard being said over and over for months, millions of Americans are uninsured and millions more are underinsured, and this leaves them susceptible to not being able to afford treatment when it becomes necessary. Those who are underinsured are paying way more money than what is necessary or even reasonable to provide the type of adequate care this country needs. The whole reason HMO's exist is to negotiate down the prices of treatment costs by socializing the losses (whether or not that socialization is done by the government or a private insurance company). Private insurance believed it could make greater profits by providing less coverage while continuing to increase premiums. They no longer are able to serve their primary intended function due to the profit incentive driving their continued existence. Without better insurance regulation, Americans who are insured are going to continue paying higher premiums for insurance that doesn't do what it's supposed to do, and those who aren't insured continue to pay ever higher costs for treatment.
I agree that unless we cover all these problems, it's not really comprehensive health care reform. But what I'm saying is that my priorities on what reforms will lead to the best end result are probably different than yours. I think lower insurance costs will eventually lead to lower treatment costs, and one will contribute to facilitating the other.
You can call me whatever you want. A "brainless dog"? Fine. But you'd be wrong. Politics is something I'd venture to say I invest a lot more of my time into understanding than you do, because I want to learn as much as I can about moving this country forward. If you're so presumptuous to think you already know everything there is to know -- set in your ways with the defeatist "one vote doesn't matter" drivel -- then you're even worse than the people you think are naively wasting their time, because you've actively chosen to be a worthless non-contributor to the system we've set up to guarantee a worthwhile standard of living by.
I'm saying after looking into his eyes,I see fear,confusion,and lies. And he's not happy about any of it. He's doing things he doesn't want to do,but he's still doing them. Also,you're trusting a politician to do the right thing. If that doesn't get across the point,I don't know what will.
Ok,so if there's nothing wrong with Medicare and Medicaid,why improve 'em? You can't say there's nothing wrong with them and then say they *need* to be fixed. So which is it? Either they're proof that the government hasn't been able to run health care properly or they don't need to be reformed. I know the answer. They are broken. My folks rely on it. And it's got some pretty damn big holes in it. Weird loop holes and odd financial set ups. But since you know so much about it,you obviously know what loopholes I'm talking about. Can you even tell me how HR3200 closes them?
You do realize not all insurance companies are badly run,right? It also doesn't help there are *laws* that *require* you to get insurance,whether you want it or not. Here's a quick tip,when an insurance company says they'll give you "the legally required minimum amount of insurance",it means the government is *forcing you* to buy insurance. Is any of this sinking in?
And I'm saying that forcing everyone to pay for this universal health care program via taxes means medical companies will try to charge you through the roof for it. Which would be even easier since you personally won't get the bill. And if the government doesn't pay? Hey,it means they don't care about your health. It's not like it's the drug company's fault. Without looking at how the health care industry runs right now,any reform is simply a band-aid on a shotgun wound. In the face. The whole damn industry needs work,not just who's covered and who isn't. Hell,if the health care industry was run right,you wouldn't *need* insurance to pay for it.
I'm just saying you are if you believe someone gets that far in politics and is still a decent person. And since you do,I'd have to say you are. But that's by your own call. Still,I'll give you a little advice. It's ok to move forward,but do you know where you're going? And do you trust your guide to get you there? Bare in mind,your guide is a politician. Personally,I find it's a safer policy to just watch all those little weasels and make sure they're doing what's right. Cause you take your eyes off 'em,and they'll have you bent over the ottoman and going to town on your hinder in a New York minute.
1. Are you reading Nobuyuki's replies, or are you skimming through it catching the words that interest you?
2. Do you think before you reply?
3. Have you ever researched the subjects being discussed?
4. Are you for real, or some kind of troll?
You remind me of a guy I know who's a whole lot of mouth and very little brain. Just spewing out what you hear from the media or peers/family members with limited intelligence. Perhaps your attempts at debates are effective against others with limited intelligence, but this is the internet, man. Knowledge is everywhere, and it's free.
Though, I take full responsibility for [indirectly] stating that you are a person with limited intelligence who likes to run their mouth.
dunno why you got it lol.
1. I never said there was nothing wrong with Medicare and Medicaid. You need to see this as something that's not a black and white issue, the real world doesn't work that way. They're not fundamentally broken, but they can be improved.
2. Health insurance laws vary by state. Most of them do not have a health insurance mandate, or as you say "required by law".
3. The insurance reforms may or may not contain a mandate, depending on whether or not a public option will exist. If you make between 133% and 400% of the poverty line, your coverage will be subsidized whether or not you buy into the public option. If you buy into the public option, there is a good chance that your coverage will be free or almost free. The subsidies are to help get you covered and is distinct from the public option, which would be run like the post office (ie: it operates solely not-for-profit based on the money it makes from premiums).
4. Taxes would only be used to cover the creation of the program and the subsidies involved in helping everyone pay for coverage, that INCLUDES their existing coverage. What this means is that if you make less than $250,000 your taxes will stay the same, but the cost of your premiums will go DOWN, because taxes from elsewhere will go to subsidize premiums for the middle class and working class.
5. Insurance companies (NOT medical companies) can try to raise their premiums but will most likely only result in people dropping coverage. In a system with a mandate, this could mean a tax penalty for the uninsured (if you're not poor, that is), but alternatively if a public option exists you could go into that instead and insurance companies would be forced to compete for lower rates.
6. Politicians aren't a guide. Politicians are your representatives. You're supposed to choose the one that most represents your agenda, not follow them around like a little lemming off a cliff into some god-forsaken war or something.
2. Maybe not health insurance,but many other types are forced on you. It has that mix of politics and business I find very disturbing.
3. Actually,the problem most people have seems to be quality of care and how much this is going to rise taxes for us. Like I said,rich people don't like to pay taxes. Nobody gives a shit about the insurance companies. And after watching my friend and his parents get screwed by the system over and over,you get a little leery about government aid programs.
4. That would only work if no claims are made against it. It's hard to get to that point of subsidiaries from other places paying for it when someone's drawing against it. Like old people and the sickly. And,as I said,rich people don't like paying taxes. And what happens when an epidemic happens and everyone needs health care? And then there's the whole "stealing funds from a public fund to pay for other things" problem that's become so popular lately.
5. Yeah,but only if the service is any good. One of the biggest problems with socialized medicine is long ass waiting times. Ask anyone in Canada or Britain about that. It can't just be "free",it has to be good and available when you need it.
6. I do choose. Unfortunately, there's a bunch of idiots who buy into hype and slogans who pretty much cancel my vote out. I mean,why would I vote for someone who runs at the first sign of trouble and leaves a country to become a haven for pirates and other assorted scum or something?
Also, medical procedures that aren't emergencies are scheduled for appointments on a basis as they become available, that is not limited to public systems and I have to ask you where you think the waiting comes from. If you wanna skip the line right now you can pay out the ear for it, but most people can't afford that luxury. Arbitrarily saying wait times will go through the roof makes me ask "how and why". If the government only acts a payer and not a provider, how can they dictate terms to the hospitals? The answer is that they can't, what they do (what all insurance companies are supposed to do) is to negotiate down the prices by providing a large reliable base of customers. Health insurance companies are also are supposed to provide customers through those numbers a social safety net, so when they get sick and in the unlikely event need expensive treatment the insurer provides the payment for it. They've done such a poor job of living up to this that the government's considering letting them have free reign to do whatever they want in the market.
There's already free clinics and countries with free health care who already have these problems with being over worked and understaffed. Maybe you should look at that some time before you go on about how much of a great idea this is.
lol
And before you ass up that whole "then we should go after Bush" crap,first you have to prove he ever advocated killing innocent people to do that. Civilian casualties caused by our troops are cases of mistaken identity,people who got caught in the middle of a fire,and the acts of nut jobs who were subsequentally punished. Meanwhile,the jerks we're fighting against at yelling at their guys to go kill more innocent people. Plus,at this point,Obama's advocating doing things just like Bush did. So he's just as guilty. And since he's the acting president,I say we string him up first.
And simply saying "Oh,that won't happen" just proves how naive you are. Because it does happen. Alot.
Oh,and good news. I lost my state sponsered health care because they're getting ready for the federal plan which won't be up and running for who knows how long and my brother just got laid off. Great job,Obama.
It's not the federal govt's fault your state dropped their own program btw
Also,the whole argument that torture is ineffective is so flawed,it's retarded. Yes,he could lie to get us to stop. That's why you have guys in the field who can run out and check on his information. It's basic detective work. They also have these handy machines called lie detectors and people trained to be able to tell if someone's lying. So right there,he has to fool lie detectors,psychologists,and the information we already know to be true. That's just 3 of things they do to make sure they get accurate information. And if he's lying,it's right back to the grind. And believe you me,when someone's hooking your gnads up to to a car battery,you'll sell out your own momma to get 'em to stop. Especially you. Hell,I think you'd break with a headlock and a rat tail.
So in the end,you talk like someone who's never been put through torture. Otherwise,you'd know how effective it is.
And yes it is. They dropped the program because there's supposedly going to be a federal program,so why put money towards the same thing twice. See,it's saying things like that that make it sound like you don't grasp cause and effect. I know breaking from the party line isn't easy,but it really is worth it to think for yourself.
absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
While you're out running a wild goose chase from the false information obtained via torture, people could actually be dying while you waste your time and resources. Experts more qualified than you have found rapport-building to be much more effective at obtaining evidence, and yet our officials resorted to torture anyway. If you want to know the real reason why, assuming you can first understand why torture doesn't work for what you think its purpose is in the first place, you have to look at what torture does do, and whether that was its intended purpose all along: providing false information.
Torture was employed by the previous administration in order to extract false information for the explicit purpose to use it to motivate their particular agenda, NOT to save lives. This is probably why Bush himself canned the program in his second term, once he realized what was going on. As we get more information un-redacted from the CIA the complete truth will actually be discovered. Until that time, I'll have to continue to put down stupid arguments like the ones you just made regarding torture's usefulness as anything other than a political oppression tool, and tool of malicious attrition.
So in the end,you talk like someone who's never been put through torture. Otherwise,you'd know how effective it is.
Recently, I discovered that my father was once an instructor in the SERE program. As part of SERE instructor training, you are subjected to various torture techniques. He is shocked, appalled, and angry at the torture program supposedly reverse-engineered from SERE by private contractors and used under our name. I asked, and he told me exactly what effect torture has on a prisoner. You, on the other hand, have no idea what you're talking about.
Rapport building only works if someone is responsive to it. Case in point,you have yet to build any kind of rapport with me. If it's so effective,why haven't you tried it? Oh,that's right,you're not an expert in interpersonal communications. And while rapport building can help alot,it's also A) only as effective as the person you're trying to connect with (ie,a crazed asshole who sees you as an enemy of god and humanity) and B) it takes a lot of time. Time you might not have. So in it's own way,rapport building is just as ineffective as torture. More often than not,it's viewed as weakness by the very people you're trying to reach. And here's a shocker. They can still lie to you. We're talking about people who are ok with killing their own to "save their souls". If they're not above killing,do you really think they're above lying to some simp who offers them tea and dainty cakes?
Of course the experts *WHO SPECIALIZE IN RAPPORT BUILDING* are going to say it's more effective than torture. And here's the thing,we do all of it. We hit them with everything. Ever hear of "good cop,bad cop"? It's where one cop acts like a hard ass and the other acts sympathetic. Know why? They gauge the prisoner's response and determine which method gets results! Then the one officer leaves the room and lets the one with the successful method do their thing.
And finally,if torture wasn't effective,why would you have a program,like SERE,*THAT TEACHES YOU TO RESIST TORTURE*. Here's something your dad might not have mentioned. Everyone breaks. Eventually,if you take long enough and apply the right pressure,you can break even the hardest guy in the world. And what would be the point of breaking someone? To get information.
The more you talk,the more you sound like one of those idiots who believes psychotic killers deserve to be treated like human beings. And honestly,I hope you meet one some day,so you can try your bullshit psychology on them. And that I get to read in the paper about how many pieces they find your body in. I know you like to believe that torturing someone means we didn't try to reach out to them. But the truth is,they're being tortured cause they didn't accept the hand that reached out to them.
SERE does indeed exist to try to condition our military officials to resist torture. My father's thoroughly convinced that torture DOES succeed in eventually getting whatever the torturers want to hear out of somebody. The problem is that the torturer does not have any pre-knowledge of whether or not the information they wish to obtain is known or will be known to be accurate by the tortured, therefore all information ascertained via torture will contain enough garbage as to make the information practically useless. There are no instances, despite your hypothetical "24" type situations, where torture can or should be considered a valid interrogation technique when it comes to getting the correct information at a 1:1 signal-to-noise ratio. Therein lies one of the fundamental tactical problems with torture, all moral and ethical pitfalls aside. As quoted from the man himself: "Sure it works, eventually, if it would never stop you'd tell them anything they wanted to hear to make it stop." Yes, even lies. ESPECIALLY lies.
Anyway, I have no interest in building rapport with you, because you don't seem to respect being introduced to new information when it conflicts with your already existing opinion. I have not seen you having much interest in learning or listening to the truth when I say it; and I don't expect you to change your mind, but I do expect reasonable adults to take objective facts into consideration when they were previously unaware of them.
Don't bask in your own ignorance, dudester. You keep referring to your own personal opinions and analogies and holding them above all else, and if you want to convince anybody of anything, using yourself as a reference of authority probably ain't gonna do it. You have a very high opinion of your own beliefs, and the more I try to have a reasoned debate with you, the more I start to believe that your mind's already been made up before we even began this exchange. In that case, I probably shouldn't bother trying to help you learn more about the stuff you so sorely need to learn up more about -- and by that same token you probably shouldn't bother to convince me or anyone else what you believe is anything more than simple-minded hogwash. Especially if all you can keep throwing back as an argument are bad analogies based on bad premises ad nauseum.
Ok,lets start at the top. First off,torture and the information it gains is not something that sits in it's own little bubble. It is part of a LARGE network of information gathering. You have people in the field who are investigating. You have people in the lab testing evidence found. You have people in the offices looking at the information and piecing it all together. Torture might be the first and only stop for some backwoods dictator in 3rd Worldia,but with any developed and intelligent nation,torture is simply a necessary evil that we have to use on the hard asses.
So once you get information from a prisoner,it is then processed to discern if it is true. Pop quiz,if we didn't double check the information,how would we know if they were lying? How would we be able to tell what the ratio of "signal to noise" is if we couldn't disprove the false information? I know you like to think black ops is run by a bunch of oracles and trained assassins,but it's actually run by people who've perfected techniques and methods that have proven to work for a long,long time. If it didn't get results,we wouldn't use it.
And I know it's fun to embrace the idea that all people who torture are just sadistic bullies,but sadistic bullies don't really care about getting important information. They just like hurting people. To properly get information from a source in a timely fashion requires people who view torture more like a form of "forced therapy". They have to analyze the subject,get inside his head,and really work him over from the inside out. Just putting a hot iron up someone's ass won't get the results we need.
But hey,lets turn this on it's ear and see if you can hit the ground running. What is torture? If you look it up in the dictionary,torture is defined as an "excessive use of force". So what is an excessive use of force? Mostly,what is "excessive" is defined by the circumstances and someone's personal morals. As a result,torture has a different meaning for different people. One man's torture is another man's interrogation technique. So suddenly,what is written in stone is actually a vaguely defined line in the ever changing sands of time. Or to put it in tech-babble,it's a vaguely defined opinion pretending to be an empirical truth.
Here's another thought. Normally,I wouldn't kill anyone. However,if someone were to try to kill me,I'd certainly try to kill them first. Does that make me a murderer? In some people's eyes,it does. In other people's eyes,it's a sensible reaction of self-defense. What does that make me in your eyes? Do tell us. Because that opinion tells us more about you than it does me.
In summation,NO intelligence gathering method is 100% effective. That's why we don't use just one. If there was,we'd just use that and get things done faster. Now stop using recycled idiocy and actually challenge me with something I haven't heard a thousand times before.
My point isn't that hard to understand if you pay attention and don't just throw out the whole thing and substitute something retarded in its place :P
I'm telling you that even with a network of resources and people, it's a waste because nothing that can be gained from torture couldn't also be gained with a bit of ethical rapport-building. That doesn't mean you don't have some carrot-and-stick thing going here either, I mean after all you are detaining the guy, so he knows he ain't going anywhere anytime soon. I established with objective evidence a very relevant case where torture provided NO useful substantiated information, and you're still saying that torture works? If I already proved you wrong, I don't know why we're still having this argument.
At one point, Zubaydah was tortured 83 times in a single month. Do the math. Add it to what I already said about his useless information. You really think that was a good idea? If you try to give a moral justification argument, you concede the point that it was only to try and get useful information. It was stupid, and people knew better. This is why the DoJ is finally starting to investigate shit like this.
The CIA torture program was stopped and will be ended once and for all because it only makes sense to depraved individuals like yourself; an ever-increasingly irrelevant minority of Americans.
You're taking one case as proof of all the others. That's not proof,that's an isolated incident until you can prove it's true in MOST cases. And then you have to further prove that the cases where it DID provide useful information provided information that was unimportant or we didn't absolutely need.
But,hey,what do I know? I'm just the guy who's always right. I said Obama wouldn't change a goddamn thing except where his party's special interests are (guns and environment) and he did just that. I'm just the guy who said if ArtPlz didn't have any kind of web apps by a certain point,it wasn't going to and it didn't. I'm just the guy who always sees it coming and the supposed learned people never want to listen to. But hey,enjoy your fail. You worked hard for it. Just don't come bitching to me when you don't get the job done.
I'm just going to be laughing my ass off when the next Osama bin Laden walks because of the rules people like you make up. :p
Then ask me about the magic beans I used to stop the next 9/11 attack for the past 8 years, they really worked and I dare you to prove that they didn't
And it's not just the greedy ones,the "well intentioned" ones are almost as bad. Case in point. Recently,the discovery of a near extinct minnow in a river has resulted in said river being shut off from the local farmers. Sure,you *might* save those minnows (fat chance) but at what cost to humanity? It's easy to say "we don't need more food anyway" but food shortages bringing higher food costs aren't the problem for most people. It's the poor who are hit hardest when the necessities go up. But,of course,you'll notice none of the enviro-mentals are volunteering to tell those poor kids why a bunch of stupid mini-fish are more important than they are.
But hey,that's me poking holes in people's idiotic beliefs. It's not like it means anything,right? Just ignore it and the problem will just go away. :p
"How would we be able to tell what the ratio of "signal to noise" is if we couldn't disprove the false information?" That's his point.
"requires people who view torture more like a form of "forced therapy"" quoted for police investigation.
Let's redefine words to make us less evil!
"Art.1 1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions."
"Art.2 2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."
US Department of State Bulletin, August, 1988
signed
well known socialist comrade Ronald Reagan
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/.....88/ai_6742034/
I mean,lets look at this "horrible treatment". Barked at by dogs. I get that just walking out of my house. Whole neighborhood's full of dogs that bark like a canine chorus when I go outside. Naked man pile. Frat pledges go through worse during hell week. There are records of people dying from hell week stunts. Where's the body count for naked man pile? Show me even a SINGLE instance of a prisoner dying from these techniques. How about permanent disability or damage? Anything? No? Then I'm not even convinced it's even torture. Hell,that one is someone's idea of a good time
Stand on a bucket hooked up to wires the prisoner is *told* are hooked up to a battery but actually aren't and will die if they touch the floor. Scary? Yes. Deadly? Not really. Water boarding. Oh noes! Someone got dunked in some water! The only change that makes is they tend to smell better afterward and that's hardly permanent.
So once again,what is torture to you? Guess what? None of this shit is torture to me. It's unpleasant,it's scary,but without proof of injury or death or SOMETHING that proves these people were damaged in some way,I can't call it torture.
So the question stands. What is torture? What is "severe" and what isn't? All of this is opinion. And no amount of proof you offer will make an opinion a fact.
Your point is irrelevant as you try to use semantics and pretend this issue exists within a vacuum while there are clearly certain guidelines on what techniques are referred to as torture and what not. And guess what, if the other guys do it it always has been torture,
"From what I understand,they use a similar technique to teach Navy SEALS how to respond if they end up drowning. "
No, they teach Navy SEALS how to withstand such methods as they are usually applied by less than reputable regimes to force false confessions from prisoners of war.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsme.....ves/004617.php
"Barked at by dogs. I get that just walking out of my house. Whole neighborhood's full of dogs that bark like a canine chorus when I go outside. Naked man pile. Frat pledges go through worse during hell week."
I'm amazed by your level of cognitive dissonance. You are seriously comparing frat boy rituals with threatening and intimidating people impending death or injury? You think it i ok to threaten to rape or kill somebody's family (threats that can actually be realized, not nasty off the cuff remarks.
"Where's the body count for naked man pile? Show me even a SINGLE instance of a prisoner dying from these techniques. How about permanent disability or damage? Anything? No? Then I'm not even convinced it's even torture. Hell,that one is someone's idea of a good time"
Again you are shifting the goalpoast and focusing the lights on the arguable less reprehensible tactics, making it all seem like fun and games.
In the meanwhile, about a dozen people died during the other fun interrogations
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_.....dic/index.aspx
"Oh noes! Someone got dunked in some water! The only change that makes is they tend to smell better afterward and that's hardly permanent."
Yes, this is why the Spanish Inquisition and the Vietcong are universally loved for their zany pranks.
"[...]in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk. Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor"
See it's a war crime, discussion over.
"So the question stands. What is torture? What is "severe" and what isn't?"
This question has been answered many times over by governments and international treaties. It's no longer subject to opinion.
"And no amount of proof you offer will make an opinion a fact."
So evidence does not matter for you.
Couldn't have said it better.
PS you still haven't told me what "drug costs 1000 dollars per bottle"
I can only suspect it's because you constantly make shit up to avoid having to provide actual evidence.
Simply put,terrorism and terrorist tactics are something the US has had on the back burner for a long time. Take a look at Clinton's administration. Terrorist attacks at home and aboard and response was minimal. The problem with terrorism is they don't fight like a regular army. So we're having to make up all new rules for dealing with them. And basically,we're going with trial and error. So some bad shit's going to go down while they try to figure out what works.
It's also disturbing to me how naive you are to the practices of PR and misinformation. It's like you believe the first thing you hear about something and refuse to believe anything else. You also don't really look at this stuff objectively. Let me give you an example.
20 years ago,a body of water is classified clean. The equipment they used can't detect any toxins in the water. Recently,with new equipment,they've been able to find previously undetected toxins. It's the same amount of toxins the water's always had,but now that they can detect them,the water is now contaminated. Even though it's not toxic and there's some toxins in ANY water supply simply because there's toxins in the ground,like mercury and lead,that we can't simply "clean up". What changed was not the water itself,but our perceptions of the water.
So what is and isn't "ok" changes over time. If you leave yourself to the whims of society at large,you're going to end up being pulled in dozens of directions at once. A thousand different view points all sounded off at once. If you don't allow for human error and understand that shit does not go smoothly with even the most intelligently designed plans,you're going to end up condemning everyone,including yourself. And sometimes,the only real way to go is to zip up the jack boots and stomp on some moron's neck because the bastard's too stupid to realize what he's doing is just harmful to everyone.
But if you still don't believe me,then you head on over to Afganistan or Iraq and you just try to talk those terrorist assholes out of their crazy ass tactics of murdering anyone who gets in their way. I'll look forward to seeing your beheading video on the interwebs.
Yes because all of those hours of research behind the pill to make it safe and effective are done for free by their workers and they didn't expect to get paid for any of that.
And no, the ban was an issue because researches mostly at universities could not use their existing lab hardware on stem cell research and had to run privately (!) funded hardware on the side.
Everything
Pipettes, expensive machinery, even power.
The vast majority of base research is done at universities and private institutes while drugs are developed by private companies.
This is not the 19th century anymore, you know
Riiiiiight. The grant money itself never came up in any of the news reports on the subject. Never mind several times. And pretty much any time it was brought up would just be impossible. Too bad reality disagrees with you,huh?
So how much "grant" (which I weird, I always thought those are generally non profit) money did drug companies receive? Enlighten me !
And once again, the stem cell ban did not really effect drug companies much since it's a technology still in it's infancy so most of the stuff done with them is primary research in universities.
Perhaps I worded myself poorly there but your misconception is that private companies where affected by this ban which is not true. The lack of funding and additional expenses in universities and(some) private institutes was the problem.
Big difference.
I'm calling bullshit. Prove it.
http://www.america.gov/st/business-.....0.5233981.html
"Estimates about the cost of developing a new drug vary widely, from a low of $800 million to nearly $2 billion per drug."
So wait, I WAS wrong, just not how you though
"And if it takes 10 years to test this stuff,how come once it hits the market,*then* they discover it has killing side effects?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trial#Length
The probability of complications showing only after a drug has hit the market is rather high sense so much more people are getting it. Which is why post market analysis is a very important part of the process.
Stuff that shows many complications you will NOT hear about because it never makes it to the market. It's that simple
"And why is it I hear about new chems on the market only a year after they start researching it? And we're not talking from when I first hear about it. We're talking when I first hear about them starting to research it."
Because science reporting is atrocious and they constantly pull out stuff as "new" that has been researched forever? Because you don't spend your time around places where such news would show up?
I wonder where YOU get your news because the credible places are always a bit more..nuanced.
If you read "a promising new cure" or " a breakthrough" there is maybe a one in 3 chance that anything will come out of it. That's science.
But Please, prove me wrong on this. One year? In that time you can't even do an animal test and examine the specific mechanism of action of a substance.
But the lengthy process new drugs go through is not an easy matter. People have to weight lives against possible safety risks. What would you do?
Lets say it takes about,oh,we'll go with 8 years and 1 billion dollars to research a drug. In that case,the system's broken and someone's stealing from the til. Seriously. Especially with some of the side effects these things can have. I've seen what an improperly tested drug can do to someone. It's not pretty. People can be scarred,impaired,or just plain messed up for life.
So with how long it takes to do all this testing,all the funds required,and it's still got a possibility of horrible side effects? Someone's pocketing some major funds. Someone's asleep at the wheel. And it's all the more reason that industry needs some regulation.
So WHO would you trust?
"I've seen case studies from the 70s that proved that pollution would cause another ice age."
Oh god not that old canard, about 2%-5% of papers at that time claimed that, the rest predicted either steady or rising temperature.
That's what we sciency guys call a minority opinion.
Again, just because you read it in the needs doesn't mean it's true.
"Lets say it takes about,oh,we'll go with 8 years and 1 billion dollars to research a drug. In that case,the system's broken and someone's stealing from the til."
Not necaserily, science is just expensive. Setting up new production methods for drugs is pretty expensive (in fact, stuff like this is outsourced to smaller companies to limit the risk to the parent company, which isn't very nice). You will need hundreds of people working on it, you need to pay people for safety trials, you need to pay the authorities for tests etc.
"Seriously. Especially with some of the side effects these things can have. I've seen what an improperly tested drug can do to someone. It's not pretty. People can be scarred,impaired,or just plain messed up for life."
That's what we call risk-benefit analysis.
"So with how long it takes to do all this testing,all the funds required,and it's still got a possibility of horrible side effects? Someone's pocketing some major funds. Someone's asleep at the wheel. And it's all the more reason that industry needs some regulation."
Are there cases of fraud and improper testing? Sure. there is money and people involved so of course there is.
That does not mean that an acne drug listing "death" as a possible side effect comes from sloppy work, just that there are so many possible things that can go wrong in the human metabolism, cases nobody could have thought of.
In other words,you shouldn't be all "Yay! Lets do it,screw the details!" Your attitude needs to be "I'm for it,but what's in the fine print?"
I am guess ing you mean corruption and cheating. Of course such things exist in government run programs as well but in my experience not as much as in private companies. In bigger companies such things can go unnoticed for 20 years before somebody starts to blow a whistle while in the government the controls are tighter and the potential backlash is much more serious. Similarly in the scientific community, peer review is pretty tight and if you start to fake stuff it can be rather easily demonstrated..and you'll loose your reputation and career forever.
I somehow don't get the the black and white mind frame you display, it's like "if something is not perfect, get rid of it instead of improving it"
PS you still haven't told me what meds your mom is on, I am genuinely interested in doing some cross market research
My friend's house burns down. The insurance leaves it up to the city to build the new house. The city contracts the lowest bidder. The house is built. Within the week,there's cracks in the foundation. But that's nothing. Seems the plumber hooked up the toilet to the storm drain on the street instead of the sewer. First hard rain,the toilet backed up into their house. Poop everywhere. House is uninhabitable.
City decides to take the house,doesn't reimburse them in any way. Fixes the toilet,cleans it up,sells it. Yes,the plumber gets his license taken away,but they're still out of a house. That's the kind of system you want? You can't sue the government when someone drops the ball without a fuck load of money and public opinion behind it. Most will just drop through the cracks. You can sue an insurance company much more easily.
Corruption runs rampant through the government. It can pop up any where. Especially the federal government. There's so many back room deals going on in there,I doubt there's a single politician who's untouched by it. They either know about it or are a part of it. The higher you go,the more of it there is. So,you got the state level corruption that's bad enough,but now we're going to have to deal with federal level corruption. Which is a much bigger headache.
The only reason the whistle gets blown is that politician probably fell out of favor with whoever's pulling the strings. Or one of their rivals got some dirt on them.
Also nice backing up your point that the federal government is horrible with horror municipal stories.
How about some actual evidence for a change?
I don't think I have seen you back up any of your claims yet. At all.
Talking to others I DO agree that some pills are too high in cost. But you seem to imply that the cost of pills should only recover the cost of the manufacturing and nothing else, which is a bit absurd.
Sure they're high. But it's not EXTORTION.
Oh wait that's not reality that's just exaggeration and MAYBE, just maybe, having a reform of the insurance industry or a an optional nation wide medical insurance plan would help.
Nah. That'd make to much sense.
Oh and yeah, I guess you're right. The cost of operations for the business is less important than me complaining. Cause you know, companies with no money can continue to operate.
Again, I didn't say prices shouldn't be lowered. I'm saying you're exaggerating and looking at things at face value.
Are you one of the people that suggest that this was all planned beforehand, just like his fake hawaiian newspaper birth announcement? That people gave him a joke and book deals jsut so that he could become president? Seriously?
"Secondly,the problem with universal health care isn't competing with the private sector. The problem with universal health care is it doesn't work."
That would explain why it is working everywhere else in the world just fine and people generally prefer it to private options (which are annoying to deal with and fuckspensive because they will pay you the proverbial golden colonoscopy and a magazine subscription while you are in hospital!"
"Ever hear of Medicare and Medicaid?"
I heard they have much more satisfied customers and are cheaper because of a lower overhead.
"It doesn't work because the system is run by politicians who are all too busy stuffing their pockets to give a shit about the little guy."
And multi million dollar CEOs do? Really?
"Medicine companies produce a pill for 5 cents and sell it for 100 dollars to people who literally can't live without it."
Well several things
a) the profit margin is not that big on any drugs I can think of
b) production of drugs is not what's expensive (in most cases anyway) ; painstaking research where only a fraction of studied chemicals ever work, endless trials for safety and efficacy are what's expensive
c) I have never paid more than 0-10 bucks for any medicine in my life..and I have plenty of chronic illnesses. Guess why (A: Universal health care with many health providers striking sweet deals ebcause of their shared market power)
What is this, I don't even
wtf is wrong with me?
*uses socialist medicine to find out*
oh ffffff