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TPTB: The Useful Idiot's Guide to Self-Subjugation

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posted on Jun, 12 2011 @ 10:44 PM
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reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux
 


Your argument is a little thin, and it relies waaay to heavily on the "slippery slope" principle.

First of all, education can be free, to the student. Those who carry out all the tasks associated with providing that education must be paid, but the money to pay them needn't come from the students.

When I say "health care" I do not mean the quackery they would love to sell you at herbal stores, I mean actual medicine that has been shown to have an effect on disease. I do not mean raw milk (although by all means drinking that should be legal). The FDA is crooked, but it's entirely appropriate that it forbids the packagers of herbal "remedies" from claiming their products cure disease, because those products don't cure disease.

But anyway, yes I'm advocating a single-payer healthcare system. Did you know that the government collects more money in Medicare taxes right now per citizen, than pretty much any other industrialized nation collects from their citizens, and yet provides only a tiny fraction of the health care other nations do? All because for-profit Insurance companies have their hand in the pot. For-profit insurance should be illegal, because the only way to make a profit in that industry is to collect premiums and then refuse to pay for treatments in return. It's a scam.

I am not sure what planet you get your history from, but on this planet, let me refresh your memory about what life was like before all this "evil" regulation of industry:

* People could sell Snake Oil and claim it cured everything from indigestion to brain cancer.
* Children worked in mines and textile plants for little or no pay, instead of getting an education.
* There was no reasonable guarantee that what you bought as food wouldn't kill you.
* There was no reasonable expectation of safety from a machine you bought, or recourse if it injured you.

These things are not part of a fictional past, they were very real in this country under the system of "Anything Goes!" It didn't work out, so we put a stop to it. And you want to go back to that.

Why?



posted on Jun, 13 2011 @ 12:57 PM
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Originally posted by vexati0n


But anyway, yes I'm advocating a single-payer healthcare system. Did you know that the government collects more money in Medicare taxes right now per citizen, than pretty much any other industrialized nation collects from their citizens, and yet provides only a tiny fraction of the health care other nations do? All because for-profit Insurance companies have their hand in the pot. For-profit insurance should be illegal, because the only way to make a profit in that industry is to collect premiums and then refuse to pay for treatments in return. It's a scam.


Amen, brother. What is the insurance industry anyway? It's a bunch of people using statistics to determine what maladies may befall you and how much it will cost to repair them, which they will pay for (in theory) if you continuously give them money for their bet that you WON'T need them to pay you.



posted on Jun, 13 2011 @ 02:47 PM
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reply to post by vexati0n
 




Your argument is a little thin, and it relies waaay to heavily on the "slippery slope" principle.

First of all, education can be free, to the student. Those who carry out all the tasks associated with providing that education must be paid, but the money to pay them needn't come from the students.


Slippery slope? Your second sentence demonstrates handily that I am not speaking to any "slippery slope", and what I am speaking to is an ideology that clearly exists here and now. There is no "slope" to
"slip" down, we're all ready there.

If there is a cost to something then it is expressly not free. "Free to the student" is not a slippery slope, it is sloppy syllogism. At no cost to the student would be truer, but let's not pretend that there is no cost to a good education.

There are various ways in which to provide a student a good education without placing the burden of cost on that student. Charitable, or "not for profit" organizations is one way. Foundations and Trusts can easily be set up towards this specific aim. That is one way. Is that what you are suggesting? Do you think we need more Foundations and Trust Funds set up for students so they don't have to pay for their own education? I could very easily, even emphatically agree with that.

There are other ways, but I personally think the one I have just spoke to is the strongest, and I imagine that if you disagree you will have no problems in listing the other options, or at the very least, another option.



When I say "health care" I do not mean the quackery they would love to sell you at herbal stores, I mean actual medicine that has been shown to have an effect on disease. I do not mean raw milk (although by all means drinking that should be legal). The FDA is crooked, but it's entirely appropriate that it forbids the packagers of herbal "remedies" from claiming their products cure disease, because those products don't cure disease.


The so called "quackery" you speak of is not as preferable to you as the licensed and sanctioned quackery of the main stream medical profession, which at this point includes not just doctors and scientists, but pharmaceutical companies and astonishingly even insurance companies, is it? Is it just because you don't agree with the claims made by the "alternative medicine" crowd, and seemingly agree with the "conventional wisdom" crowd that you presume we should adopt a fiscal policy mandating healthcare that eschews all
alternative methods and only adopts what is approved by you and your ilk?

Personally, I remain ambivalent about either side, with noticeable exceptions. The noticeable exceptions are the fact that iatrogenocide
- death by doctoring - being the third leading cause of death, and Congress' answer to the clear link between certain SSRI's and anti-depressants to suicidal tendencies was handled by mandating labels warning of this suicidal tendency, and given that "conventional" Western medicine is hopelessly lost when it comes to handling chronic diseases, I would argue that the quackery is universal.




But anyway, yes I'm advocating a single-payer healthcare system. Did you know that the government collects more money in Medicare taxes right now per citizen, than pretty much any other industrialized nation collects from their citizens, and yet provides only a tiny fraction of the health care other nations do? All because for-profit
Insurance companies have their hand in the pot. For-profit insurance should be illegal, because the only way to make a profit in that industry is to collect premiums and then refuse to pay for treatments in return. It's a scam.


While taxation is necessary in order to have a government, taxation in perpetuity is, at best, dubious, and at worst a gross intrusion upon the rights of the people. Taxes are solely to sustain a government. Government has given tasks. A government founded on freedom, a government that is built by law, and follows the rule of law, is tasked with the protection of peoples rights above all else. When that very same government, at some point, opts to expand beyond the scope of that simple task, it follows that such a government must now make a decision between protection of rights, or their new found agenda. When the agenda is the choice, this is where those in government begin deciding whose rights get trampled upon.

When you magnanimously declare that there should be no cost to the student, you understand that this means someone picks up the cost, but you don't seem to care to go beyond that and question who makes the decision as to who picks up the cost, what method will be employed to guarantee the person(s) chosen to pick up the cost comply, where and when this method will be used and for how much? These concerns you seem more than willing to leave up to them.

The problem in this sloppy syllogism is that the premise is faulty. The premise of "free education and health care" is predicated on the belief that a certain fundamental rights must be funded by the aggregate so that those asserting their right can be given that right "free". It is a presumption that rights work in a positive sense, as
opposed to the negative.

Rights are not defined by what we can do, but are defined by what we cannot do. Unless we are defending ourselves, or property, or other people, we do not have a right to cause other people harm. Thus, outside of necessary defensive moves, if what we do causes no harm, then what we do, we do by right. This equation is simple, it is true, it is universal, and it is absolute, just as all law is. When this simple, true, universal and absolute law is discounted as "just a theory", then other theory's are offered that assert that "the laws of
science" do not act in the same way that the "laws of man" do. So, where the "laws of science" are simple, true, universal, and absolute, the "laws of man" are all too often complex, demonstrably false, elitist, arbitrary, capricious, and malleable.

It becomes necessary, when pushing agendas that include "free" education, and health care, to diminish the law, and turn it into inventions of humanity rather than discoveries. When law is recognized as something that exists with or without governments...indeed, with or without humanity....it is understood that these laws cannot be forced to fit within hopelessly idealistic agenda's. It becomes necessary to discount rights of individuals as being nothing more than that of which the government allows. It becomes necessary to do this, because someone has to pay for your hopelessly idealistic agenda, and even you, in all your seeming naivete, recognize that this cost...the debt owed from your "free" programs...will have to be paid by people who, at the very least some of them, will not want to accept a liability for a debt they did not contract to.

All this yammering on about "medicare" and such is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Not all taxes are scams, but the so called "Personal Income Tax" is a scam, so it follows that all programs sustained by this scam would in themselves be scams as well. You seemingly hope to deflect the issue, which is who is going to pay the costs of your "free" programs?

You disingenuously attempt dismiss my question of cost as being a fallacious argument of "slippery slope", but only the willingly indoctrinated will accept this falsehood. I am not in anyway relying on "slippery slopes", nor am I relying on the sloppy syllogism you embrace.

What I am relying upon is the self evident law that all people posses inherent rights that are unalienable and that there is no lawful authority that can come along and declare these rights granted fictions by their authority. You can tell yourself that your advocacy of taking wealth from others in order to give others of your preference programs you advocate is moral, compassionate, and just, but none of this is true. Theft is not moral, and your insistence that it is okay to take from some to give to others is theft. Disregard for the unalienable rights of all people is not compassionate, it is callous and cruel. There is no justice in a callous, cruel, program of thievery.



posted on Jun, 13 2011 @ 02:57 PM
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If there's one thing we don't need, it's commentaries like the OP's that serve no purpose other than to fuel arguments between conservatives and liberals. When people grow up and see this bipartisan system for the plague it's become, then this country will see some change.



posted on Jun, 13 2011 @ 05:56 PM
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reply to post by neo96
 


Just to be clear, I am NOT a Democrat nor am I a Republican, I actually despise the partisan divide. It is another tool they use to accomplish a divide and conquer strategy, if we are fighting each other than we are not fighting them.

I would happily slap the taste out of the mouths of many Dems (Obama, Wasserman-Schultz, Pelosi, Reid) as well as Reps.

I am a centrist, I believe whole heartedly in Balance, the problem I have with the current "Right" agenda is the Extremism it is currently pushing, this as a result tilts the entire spectrum further to the "Right" and then leaves what was once a centrist view sitting in the new "Left".

On the subject of Medicare, credential wise, I am licensed in Life/Annuities/Health/Accident Insurance in 22 states, I have LOMA certification as a Medicare Supplement Specialist (I quit that though because I despise the industry tbh). What is sold in the media as Medicare is NOT how it actually works, the "strategists" that write the talking points do NOT have a clue what they are talking about and the public buys it lock, stock, and barrel.

The program does need some reforms here and there, a good start would be to remove the Bush Medicare Part D giveaway to Big Pharma.

Now, I FULLY agree that Govt spending is out of control, I agree that the Govt has become extremely bloated, but the solutions being offered are ridiculous by design.

It IS a revenue problem, IF the top 1% and the Corporations ACTUALLY paid their Tax Rates then we would be in a much more solid position, actually collecting the revenues coupled with cuts in the form of trimming the fat (Waste, Fraud, Abuse, and Redundancy) will do more towards fixing the budget issues than anything else being proposed.

The healthcare system, by it's very design of "private" and "for profit", inherently means that it is more profitable to treat the symptoms rather than cure the disease. The only real solution to the inherent flaw is a single-payor plan that provides coverage for all, the hospitals all need to be restructured, by force because they will not do it willingly, to conform to the Mayo Clinic format.



i dont know about you i just love i get taxed and i live in new york and it pays for a lightbulb and power lines and roads in california.


That's just silly, you do not live in the independent nation state of New York, your water supply for the most part comes from Pennsylvania and Delaware, your food supply is shipped along Interstates from other states like Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. The idea that we should not support maintainence of Infrastructure is pretty ignorant and is one of many factors that led to the demise of the Roman Empire, since the ability to conduct commerce and trade was not possible.

I thank you for those answers, for I was actually asking, How small are we talking?, I did need to address those assumptions though, but I do not want to derail this thread into a partisan platform.

TPTB: The Useful Idiot's Guide to Self-Subjugation

While the OPs opening salvo was directed at "government" and how the current debate is being framed, I think the subject goes far beyond that, but as some of you have already displayed the OP was right in starting there, for as long as we play their game of back and forth partisanship, we are allowing them to continue to do what they want while we are distracted playing tit for tat.

TPTB are masterfully taking advantage of our base instincts for conflict but have carefully aimed that conflict so that we attack each other instead of those that are actually at fault. While you are hunting down BO's birth certificate T Boone Pickens is draining the Ogallala Aquifer from Texas:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/3d977df3565e.jpg[/atsimg]

Depleting the water supply for our country's farmland so that he can sell the water to China, where they use it to refill their depleted aquifers that came as a result of their Three Gorges Dam.

They have us so locked into the system that we are actually defending and justifying the shackles they have placed on us for them.



posted on Jun, 13 2011 @ 08:10 PM
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s+f OP

I agree 100% and your words are applicable to all. Too many people let themselves be overwhelmed and choose to drown in conspiracy. Why does this happen? Because we are lazy, it's far better to create scenarios or believe others creations in which we are powerless to change anything. Start from the bottom up. When the bottom does not do as the people they are elected to represent want, fire them. Use your voice, you have the freedom to do so.



posted on Jun, 13 2011 @ 08:39 PM
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Big government wouldn't be so bad if we could print unlimited money to pay for it...
and it wouldn't be so bad if we weren't rapidly becoming a BIG police state trampling on individual rights...
and it wouldn't be so bad if we weren't a corporate war machine and criminal invader of sovereign nations...
and it wouldn't be so bad if we weren't a corporate pharmaceutical "healthcare" fraud...
and it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so damn BAD.
The federal government is redundant, burdensome, corrupt, immoral, criminal and HUGELY expensive.
Other than those simple truths, you may have a point.



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