Jeff the Green
Member
I have no idea what your sources are on that. 2 million is the total for all deaths "attributable" to him (not his militia's victims), including the Iranians, and its kind of difficult to say that he was the one responsible for the Iran-Iraq war, especially since that one's been raging since before the time of Muhammad. Second those half a million children are our fault, due to the sanctions.
Wrong! I don't want morons handling my money. I suggest you read John Dean's book Broken Government (and I think you'll have a hard time impugning his neutrality). For the past 10 years, people who believe that "government is the problem" have been in power. When you have people with that philosophy running government, they tend to spend their time screwing it up so much that government is the problem. The thing is that it's just their government.
As for SS running out, that's a ridiculous claim. Every study (not funded by stock brokers), including the GAO's, has found that SS will remain solvent for many decades to come, even with the baby boomers retiring, with minor tweaks (retirement age up two years and getting rid of or raising the FICA tax cap). And before you recommend switching to IRAs, I suggest you take a look at England or Argentina. For a long time, both countries had pension programs similar to our social security. Both switched to individual accounts in the 90s, and both suffered ruin because of it. When the stock market falls, IRAs suffer. SS and England's and Argentina's pensions ware based on government bonds, which are much more stable, and so there's less chance of the elderly losing their retirement. Also, IRAs are vulnerable to fraud (Enron, anyone?) and mismanagement by brokers, which ended up hurting retirees in Britain.
And even if Roosevelt intended to make SS (or Medicare, I can't tell which you're talking about) temporary, Lincoln never intended to give voting rights to the slaves he freed.
Illegal immigration is the hobgoblin of racist minds. First of all, because taxes are deducted from payroll and (in most states) sales, illegal immigrants pay more in taxes than citizens and legal immigrants (they can't file a tax return and get a refund. Second, we're already paying for health care costs for illegal immigrants--through emergency clinics. The fact is that regular health care, which can catch serious but treatable diseases like scarlet fever, tuberculosis, etc. before they require hospitalization, reduces total costs to the system. Also, by giving the poorest access to health care other than the emergency room, it frees up doctors and nurses for things like car crashes, heart attacks, and gun shot wounds.
It is true that the US has shorter wait times than most countries for purely elective procedures and regular check ups. On the other hand, for a non-routine visit, 81% of patients in New Zealand got a same or next-day appointment, 71% in Britain, 69% in Germany, 66% in Australia, 47% in the U.S., and 36% in Canada. You're also comparing the US, which has a broken health care system, to Canada, which has a broken health care system. Compare us with Germany or Australia.
And, yes, it is insensitive to not care whether the "hobo" on the corner gets health care or not. It's also incredibly stupid. Ever heard of epidemic diseases? It starts like this: someone who's fairly healthy picks up an exotic bug (say bird flu) and brings it to America, or a new strain pops up. In a population where most of the population is underinsured or not insured at all (which is where America is heading), the disease rapidly finds a home in the subpopulations without access to health care. When someone without health insurance starts feeling sick, they will likely have no choice but to continue with their everyday life until they are so sick they must go to a hospital. By this time they will likely have infected hundreds of people, more in a particularly crowded city. This massive spread can cause a pandemic, breaking the back of even the best designed health care system. On the other hand, when everyone can go to the doctor when they realize they have something more serious than a head cold, the transmission can be reduced, and often averted.
Absolutely true. But look at that first sentence again. We spend more per person on Medicaid and Medicare than any other country with socialized medicine, mostly because politicians (on both sides, but mostly Republicans) have been bought and paid for by pharmaceutical companies, and so the main strategy that other countries use to keep costs down, using the massive buying power of the federal government to negotiate prices, is illegal.
Good for you. But the fact that the US is the only country in the world that will not use socialist programs to help its own citizens is ONE OF THE REASONS I HATE THIS DAMN COUNTRY! Second, we're not capitalist, we have a mixed economy, and many parts would make Adam Smith tear his hair out. Most of our laws, especially those regarding taxation and corporations, are specifically designed to allow those with money to make money, and keep those without poor so they will remain a cheap labor force.
Actually, it's rather stupid of us to be isolationists. Last time we tried it there were these little things called the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Holocaust. Ever heard of them?
The first problem with execution is that even with DNA evidence, certainty is iffy. Second, a lot of people are executed in the US without DNA evidence. Third, juries consistently believe eyewitnesses, even though studies have proven that eyewitnesses to crimes are more likely to be wrong than right. Fourth, most people executed are black for the simple reason that white juries are more likely to execute a black man, and victims are often unable to distinguish between two people of a different race than their own. Fifth, even if we were able to tell with 100% certainty that a person is guilty, there is a serious question of mental state, which juries often discard.
Finally, I will appeal to Julius Caesar. Before he became Emperor, he was a Senator, and during his time in the Senate a group of traitors were brought before the Senate for judgment. Cicero argued for the death penalty, even though the law at the time did not provide for it. Caesar's response was that, in taking vengeance (which is all the death penalty is, since it has no deterrent effect beyond that of incarceration) we become less than human, our evil often extending beyond that of those we execute, since our crime is done with deliberation, preparation, and, worst of all, we commit it while hiding behind the skirts of lady justice.
As for 12 year olds (and up to 21 year olds), there is a serious question of mental state. The brain changes shape dramatically between childhood and adulthood, and pathways that cause violence can be reshaped.
And if anyone would like to read the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, it's here.