David Horsey by David Horsey

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  1. NoFearPup

    NoFearPupGenius_badge said, 4 months ago

    Socialism would be too good, all Obamas gonna do will only amount to paying off his cronies and we’ll still be in the same mess we’re in now ten years from now.

  2. Simon_Jester

    Simon_Jester said, 4 months ago

    But conservatives should be very happy then sockpuppy…you guys LOVE it when Presidents pay off their cronies and leave the country in a mess.

    Look at how you cheered from the rooftops while Bush was doing it.

  3. DrCanuck

    DrCanuck said, 4 months ago

    How quickly it was forgotten how Bush threw $700 billion to his friends as he went out the White House door, no one knows who to or why; no justification and no accounting. At least everyone knows where Obama’s stimulus package is going.

  4. nomad2112

    nomad2112 said, 4 months ago

    C’est la vie.

  5. motivemagus

    motivemagus said, 4 months ago

    Canuck, that’s not even close to the windfall Halliburton got out of Iraq. No-bid contracts at a high level – and our VP was former CEO and owned stock. This ain’t conspiracy stuff, this is all documented! And we couldn’t kick him out or arrest him now for corruption? Cripes! The most corrupt administration in a century, and they’re off writing their books.

    I never thought I’d miss Nixon.

  6. HUMPHRIES

    HUMPHRIESGenius_badge said, 4 months ago

    Mr Horsey’s statement morally stings. Has anyone bothered to consider the practicality of health care … a healthy society is a productive society.

  7. tpenna

    tpennaGenius_badge said, 4 months ago

    Regardless of what passes, we need to separate health insurance from employment.

  8. Anthony 2816

    Anthony 2816Genius_badge said, 4 months ago

    It doesn’t make him a socialist.

    It makes him an American.

    Much to the irritation of those who hate America.

  9. ChukLitl

    ChukLitlGenius_badge said, 4 months ago

    We can all agree that government is there to provide national defense. Police & fire protection, o.k. Roads & ports, to keep commerce flowing, probably. Railroads & spaceports, schools & hospitals, I say yes, you might not. The big problems with socialism are corruption & greed, sounds like capitalism.

  10. Corosive Frog

    Corosive Frog said, 4 months ago

    “Everyone but hard-working me is a loser”

    And they said Obama was an elitist.

  11. DrCanuck

    DrCanuck said, 4 months ago

    Socialism = Americans taking care of each other.

    Why is that such an aversive concept?

  12. dtroutma

    dtroutma said, 4 months ago

    “promote the general welfare”- says the Constitution. So if you don’t like that, go somewhere that did NOT set it in their basic law of the land.

  13. Patricia Klemme

    Patricia KlemmeGenius_badge said, 4 months ago

    Exactly. Well done, Horsey!

  14. William Wilkerson

    William WilkersonGenius_badge said, 4 months ago

    Welll - actually NO! - it just makes you a human and [bonus round] a patriotic 21st Century American; not an easy thing to pull off these days since the last 20yrs of the last century & first 8 or so of this century were heavily influenced by individuals. political & other, who wanted to reduce this great nation into a gated community of consumers provided their cheap goods by slaves in the criminal justice system OR common thugs who believed that Might Makes Right and ‘Mericka” could do whatever it wanted or we’d just go to war & kill all the little brown people who said we wouldn’t / couldn’t / shouldn’t / better not in their Country… so there…

  15. Gladius

    Gladius said, 4 months ago

    Dtroutma,
    Views of what constitutes the general welfare of the public were quite a bit different when the Constitution was written. Even today there are quite a few differening opinions on the subject. Please don’t order people to leave because of their point of view. The first amendment is part of the Constitution too.

  16. M Kitt

    M KittGenius_badge said, 4 months ago

    I agree, Chuk. DrC too.

    70+% of the U.S. wants a public health care option, that would drive down costs since corporate providers wouldn’t have free reign to charge whatever they see fit. I prefer single-payer myself but won’t have any problem watching the for-profit sector wither if they don’t keep up with public expectations.

    On that subject, if you’re so mired in the conservative mindset that you reject all tax increases reflexively, the services we take for granted like police, fire, public works and others are all strapped for $ (IE infrastructure & services). If we were to repeal the tax exemptions W gave to the corporations all of these programs would benefit, and personally I wouldn’t mind if I had to kick in another 5% myself to pay for those services. I’d also like to go after what I see as an 8 year deficiency targeting specific corporations (PETROLEUM) but that can wait.

    So what’s really the difference between relying on these publicly financed programs and a government health care option? You trust the police, fire dept., and obviously the armed forces to perform their functions competently, GOP raises the socialist bugaboo about health care because so many politicos (some Dems, I admit) are deep into the insurance industry pockets to finance their campaigns. The public program exceptions for success (Post Office & DMV) have always been the LEAST favorite gov’t services because they perform functions any grade-school dropout could easily conduct, and some apparently do.

    Think the V.A., while certainly flawed, is generally a model that would work just fine for the public sector. Their resources are worn threadbare by 7+ consecutive yrs. of ongoing conflict, doesn’t surprise me that systemic problems arose and the public ire reflected that, justifiably. Unfortunately they’ve been stuck with the economic shortfalls/cutbacks the rest of us have had to contend with and it shows. We could discuss the financial impact of an ongoing war in Iraq that most of the public rightly sees as a vast waste of resources that could have been (much) better spent on infrastructure programs, and whether a Dem. in office would have taken U.S. forces there (nope), but I’ll leave that alone for the time being.

  17. senorbullwinkle

    senorbullwinkleGenius_badge said, 4 months ago

    ANTHONY, AND WHERE have YOU been. You walk in here like nothing happen, DO YOU HAVE A NOTE ? Or will we have to mark this as unexcused ?

  18. Anthony 2816

    Anthony 2816Genius_badge said, 4 months ago

    Uh, I went to Yellowstone for a week, and there was no internet access within the park.

    I didn’t think anyone noticed…

  19. pbarnrob

    pbarnrob said, 4 months ago

    Medicare for all; with tough negotiation of medication prices. Preventive medicine (which we thought might happen with HMOs, but denial of claims was cheaper and easier).

    Don’t fall in the bathroom and call 911 during a GI shutdown; $7K+ bills to pay off after a four-year layoff…

  20. furnituremaker

    furnituremaker said, 4 months ago

    so, WHO can afford medical insurance? I depend soley on the VA for my health care (they owe me after 3 tours in ‘Nam), and that part of “socialism” seems to work our real well for a lot of the folks I talk to.

  21. cabrobst

    cabrobst said, 4 months ago

    We should be involved in health care from a purely public health angle. For what kills you can come around and kill me. It’s like sewers and clean water, what’s good for us all is good for all of us. So tax dollars should support it. The insurance companies have only demonstrated the harm that profiteering could do to public health. Besides, the cost will only be as much as one less unnecessary war. We spend far more on Iraq daily than what health care would cost. It’s Bush’s invasion of Iraq that has put our future generations in debt, not taking care of needs at home.

  22. Corosive Frog

    Corosive Frog said, 4 months ago

    Anthony; news from the supervolcano?

  23. senorbullwinkle

    senorbullwinkleGenius_badge said, 4 months ago

    ANTHONY, dont let COROSIVE FROG, OR DALE, pull your leg. Both of them THINK they weren’t noticed going AWOL.

  24. M Kitt

    M KittGenius_badge said, 4 months ago

    Corosive, is there some kind of Caldera activity going on? I’m West Coast and that’s local.

  25. Anthony 2816

    Anthony 2816Genius_badge said, 4 months ago

    Nothing particularly new at Yellowstone, just the continued minor earthquakes that continually alter the geysers and landscape. I just wanted to get in, see it, and get out before it blows.

    Of course, being in California, I’ll still be in trouble if it does, but at least it won’t be instant obliteration.

    But it was great to see it. Amazing scenery. I think Lake Tahoe is a beautiful area, but Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons are even better.

  26. lyris1

    lyris1Genius_badge said, 4 months ago

    This is so profound. But there are those who have concrete blocks they claim are their brains.

    Will they ever learn?

  27. dtroutma

    dtroutma said, 4 months ago

    Yellowstone and Teton are indeed great areas- worked in Yellowstone 63-64 when crowds weren’t as bad. The concept of our National Parks (Yosemite was actually first,1865, but given to California to administer for a while) Which, are National Parks a horrible “socialist concept”? Much of Teton was a gift from the Rockefellers, for all Americans to enjoy-yep, sharing your wealth is a terrible concept.

    BTW, talking to a moose along the trail on the back side of Grand Teton is a lot more informative, and refreshing, than trying to convince some humans to accept greater truths.

    And Gladius, aware of etiology and mutation of word meanings, just had to throw out the “conservative recommendation” for anyone who disagrees with them.

  28. M Kitt

    M KittGenius_badge said, 4 months ago

    Thanks again Tony. http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/ has some current data, just now browsed.

  29. churchillwasright

    churchillwasright said, 4 months ago

    DTROUTMA: “Sharing your wealth” and “the government taking your wealth to share with others” are two completely different concepts.

  30. motivemagus

    motivemagus said, 4 months ago

    True, churchill, but now the major policy seems to be “take what you can grab,” and for the super-rich it’s “get the government to help you grab it.” We have one of the lowest tax rates in the world for the rich, with lots of convenient exemptions.

  31. lalas

    lalas said, 4 months ago

    No, it makes you a self-centered d!ck for not seeing the sense in it until it affected you.

  32. Wildcard24365

    Wildcard24365 said, 4 months ago

    The thing about America is that we’re all about status. How can we enjoy being bourgeouis (sp.?), when even the proles have the same stuff we have? Where’s the incentive to work hard like the good, repressed Puritans we are?

    The concept of Socialism and socialized medicine completely derails the argument that “so-and-so couldn’t get proper hospital treatment because they don’t have health care coverage, and that’s because they’re lazy and have no initiative to work to get it.”

    I love that the Repugs are using individual case examples from Canada to prove socialized medicine is evil, while ignoring the systems of other countries, like most of our European allies in NATO.

    Geez, next those pinkos will be lobbying for shorter work weeks.

  33. Gladius

    Gladius said, 4 months ago

    Canada’s nearby so it makes a good target. You can find plenty of examples in the NHS in Britain. I’ve had aquaintences who’ve had some serious problems. One of them almost died. You can find anecdotal evidence to back or disprove either side.
    The statistics definitely argue for change in medical coverage. Unlike some others I have not denied this. It is the form and cost that I worry about. Please don’t bother screaming about the current costs. I am well aware of them. You can always make something worse. At the moment I’m watching and hoping something decent comes out of all this but I do not have high expectations.

  34. cdward

    cdward said, 4 months ago

    It is not possible to come up with a system that will be problem-free. However, if I had to choose between the problems Canada or England or Germany or France have and those that we have, I’d try some variation of theirs. For every anecdote about a failure in their system, I can find several in relation to our system. As a pastor, I spend a lot of time in hospitals and nursing homes and hear a lot from parishioners who struggle to pay medical bills. We have one couple right now going into bankruptcy because of medical bills they can’t pay.

  35. fennec

    fennec said, 4 months ago

    Sample link about the major cause of personal bankruptcy in the USA…medical bills. There are many other links with similar findings.
    http://blog.prosper.com/2008/03/07/the-leading-cause-of-personal-bankruptcyyou-may-be-surprised/