Thread: Obama and Congress giving up on the economy?

-flamebait-
Perhaps they finally decided that healthcare and wellbeing is more important than money and lobbyists?
-/flamebait-

Europe gave up decades ago.

Originally Posted by sean

The major complaint about government-run health-care is that the government bureaucracy is rude, inefficient, and corrupt. What's the difference between that and your average insurance company?

Not much, the main difference i guess is that with a government-run system, everyone would be covered, rather than leaving 46 million people in the dark, inefficient or not.

If you ask me, both sides of the health care debate are addressing the wrong problem.

Well, the problem is the 46 million uninsured US citizens, surely? If the nationalized health-care insurance doesn't address that, then what does? I don't follow you.

Also, i'm not an American so i haven't been following the debate really.

But ditching the healthcare reform because the economy is bad, surely isn't the right thing to do? That was my point with the bait.

Originally Posted by abachler

Looks like they just gave up and have switched to public health care.

don't you remember? they want us to think it's the same thing

The major complaint about government-run health-care is that the government bureaucracy is rude, inefficient, and corrupt.

Where exactly can corruption be thought in terms of the public heath care system?
As for rudeness, I'm unsure what that means.

If you ask me, both sides of the health care debate are addressing the wrong problem.

Oh definitely!
When you see protesters holding signs reading "Obama = Socialism" it becomes obvious there has been no true debate concerning these issues. The level of ignorance is enlightening. Then I see someone being interviewed and accusing him of trying to lead the country to a fascist state by removing people of their liberties and their rights. And I laugh. What's gonna be then?

Do these people even know what a Welfare State is? Of course not. They are too busy being afraid of the commies.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

When you see protesters holding signs reading "Obama = Socialism" it becomes obvious there has been no true debate concerning these issues. The level of ignorance is enlightening.

No, no... Mario, you misunderstand. Those aren't ignorant people comparing Obama to socialism... you have the wrong operator completely. What they're doing is assigning Socialism to Obama so that the comparison can be made in a future call to the method (with the '==' operator) . Anyway... Obama isn't a global variable, so really it should be out of your scope.

Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom

Obama isn't a global variable, so really it should be out of your scope.

Oh, you guys have been coding global variables well since the 19th century. Fix your code.

(edit: but point taken)

Originally Posted by abachler

Hmm, trying to find when we last invaded Portugal, NEVER. So we have a protected variable in our class and as a friend class Portugal decides to make its own class based decisions based on the value of this variable... If you want to do as we say we aren't going to stop you, but that doesn't make it our problem if you follow the laws of a foreign power that does not exercise sovereign authority over you.

This is just out to lunch. Mario F. is not asking to exercise sovereign authority over anyone.

Americans show a (more than?) healthy interest in the internal politics of other countries, I don't think it is inappropriate in the least for the world's people to be interested in the internal politics of America -- unless you are trying to hide something

Originally Posted by abachler

Hmm, trying to find when we last invaded Portugal, NEVER. So we have a protected variable in our class and as a friend class Portugal decides to make its own class based decisions based on the value of this variable... If you want to do as we say we aren't going to stop you, but that doesn't make it our problem if you follow the laws of a foreign power that does not exercise sovereign authority over you.

Well, you can trust that on the matter of health care, hardly anyone follows USA lead.

I however do not understand what's your point. I was suggesting something else entirely. That there is a genuine interest in USA domestic policies. Much as, in this global world of ours, USA is deeply concerned in the domestic policies of other countries.

To be more precise however, I couldn't care less what health care system you put in place. I don't even have relatives or dear ones living in the USA. Although I could argue there's a sizeable Portuguese community that could warrant my concerns, I don't. The truth is I don't care about this particular issue.

I'm more interested in something else. What I see -- or think I see -- starting to happen around this and a few other issues. A certain radicalization of speech by the Republican party, the reemergence of extremist nationalism, and a revival of the old Socialism stigma.

Let me make this more clear than I probably think I should: In the 21st century, the worst example the american society could give to the world of its values and culture, would be the assassination, or attempt assassination, of their head of state. Those days are gone. Over with. A modern and advanced society is much more than a strong economy and a powerful military. It is foremost, a reflection of its citizens education and tolerance levels.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

When you see protesters holding signs reading "Obama = Socialism" it becomes obvious there has been no true debate concerning these issues.

Okay, so you have heard of the people in the SW who started showing up outside outside the "town hall discussions on health care" with ASSAULT RIFLES in order to EXPRESS THEIR SUPPORT FOR GUN RIGHTS?!??!

Now, as a foreigner here I wish I could say that the US is a totally screwed up place, but then I would have to acknowledge that it is not so different where I come from.

Anyway, I don't think people from Europe, unless they have spend some time here, can really comprehend certain things about the very very dark side of America. They can say all they want about the Declaration of Independence, etc, and that is all true, but it is also true that the place was founded and built by the slave trade. And the slave trade, remember, is not nearly so far in the past as Independence; also, it was not some flash-in-the-pan philosophy like Nazism -- it really flourished for centuries, in fact most of the "Independent" history here existed under slavery.

Though it is not seriously acknowledged, the families/descendants of the slavers (and we are not talking about a small minority or something) are of course alive and well. Now, I am not saying these are by definition evil people, but this is NOT something they gave up willingly and you would be naive to think a few generations is enough to transform people who pretty much made a lifestyle out of the worst kind of behaviour imaginable* are now going to swallow like, a truly egalitarian society with stuff like universal health care. That is just too nice. When was the last time you saw a Western where some some guy shot someone and an ambulance was on the scene in 5 min?

I am not trying to say they are the majority, either, but Mario F. -- if you think FEAR is not a very significant (perhaps repressed) aspect of American politics, you are completely wrong. Many people cowtow to the right here because of this in their daily lives and it is hard to blame them. It is not a lunatic fringe inspiring paranoia with paranoia -- it is a large, potentially very violent mass. They may not be allowed slaves any more, but if you think they are going to sit quietly through a discussion of "health care for everyone", think again. You are trying to persuade the Taliban that females should be allowed to go to school!**

So you're wrong, there has been a true debate, but like most of the true debates here, it's a frightening thing to behold.

* pretty much; I mean I guess you could chop limbs all day, but really that is hard to sustain and at the same time raise families, build communities, etc. So it is very difficult to hypothesis a society that could, for hundreds of years, maintain a culture more despicable.
** eg, it is a prejudice of Western civilization to believe that this is not debatable; if you are from somewhere with health care, where boys and girls go to school together, it may seem crazy that people without either one would reject either of these "options".

That's a very interesting point (but not entirely accurate). Slavery was widespread in the sense that there were a great number of human beings being 'traded', for sure, but it was more so a market for wealthy industrialists and farmers than for anyone else (and we all know that there will always be powerful and selfish people willing to take advantage of others). For the most part, anyway.

But many communities in the South were vehemently against the practice and openly outspoken about it. Even so, there were undeniable cultural barriers that nonetheless marginalized Africans to one degree or another (on the whole, that is - there were many exceptions, eg: highly educated and/or 'socially' articulate Africans, of course), and as a result even the most fair-minded, puritanistically moral were susceptible to employ them under less-than-desirable terms. That being, of course, because in those days, people not being as internationally sensitive as we are now, there was a general consensus that there was somehow an fundamental, and undeniable, difference between the two races. I don't really equate that with racism, per se - just plain ignorance.

My great-grandmother spent her whole life surrounded by the servitude of Africans (even employing one for over 50 years) and never once expressed any shame whatsoever (at least to me) about the matter. In her mind, I think, it was a natural order of things that made sense in every way. By all accounts, though, these people were treated with the utmost respect and care (and this is going back well over a hundred years), and no apparent sense of discrimination or degradation (indeed, looking back at historical photos I see the bright, shining faces of what appear to be very happy people). So my point is that although people will say what they will about the South, the fact is that things are never quite so black and white (sorry!).

I'm not defending slaveholders or white-supremists, either - I'm just saying that it's a complicated issue that is often oversimplified.

But back to your point, I have to agree that my gut feeling is that a lot of this so-called anti-Obama sentiment is racially motivated. I mean, it's one thing to disagree with the guy on his policies, maybe call for a debate, but quite another to (seemingly out-of-the-blue) parade around with "Commie Fascist" signs and sidearms. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.