Since this post has already been graced with entry into the Good Post Gallery, I'll have to put particular effort into my reply.
Otherwise he was a retarded but otherwise unremarkable conservatroll quite similar to all other similar morons of the type we've had.
I wonder if I'm one of the 'conservatrolls' you speak of?
I'm not Hash - although that kind of post is one of the reasons I love Hash! - but I wouldn't classify you as a troll, but I do see your avatar, think muon's posted, and get disappointed. That's not really a judgement of you so much as an acknowledgement that muon's a terrific contributor.Oh, no, muon's great. I sometimes get the same reaction when I read something very old and see myself
This thread's a good a place as any to give my unsolicited opinion - I think you're pretty clearly sincere in your beliefs, but your youth - you're 13/14, right? - becomes fairly apparent sometimes, especially when you try and argue with someone like Al about the NHS.
14. Will be 15 within two weeks, though. And, yes, my performance in my exchange with Al about the NHS was subpar.
The beliefs you're sincere about are also utterly ridiculous and reprehensible, but, again, you're 14 (?). I hope this doesn't sound condescending, although it clearly is, but you'll grow out of them.
Well, of course. I'm well aware of the fact that as people physically and emotionally mature they also politically mature, and that it's unlikely I'll have the same beliefs when I am 24 and not 14. I don't like saying I'll grow out of them so much as saying I'll refine them, but my beliefs are already markedly different than when I first joined the forum in 2009, and it's likely by 2015 the difference will be just as great.
Grown adults - at least those who have the self-awareness and intelligence to post on a forum discussing their beliefs - don't go around thinking that corporations being able to spend billions upon billions to control the political process is the definition of freedom
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. First off, we have grown adults doing so on this forum who are also certainly self-aware (muon, who you praised above, comes to mind, as well as Torie). While it's not the
definition of freedom -- America was not exactly a repressive society before
Citizens United -- I think it's reasonable to say people (corporations are only people in the strictly legal sense, but they are certainly composed of people) should be able to spend their money to buy what they want (ad space) without government interference. Ad campaigns are not always successful; corporations can no more 'buy' an election, as some like to say, than they could before; they can simply run a bigger ad campaign. People choose what they listen to.
or that a society where poor people can't afford to get healthcare and thus have shorter and worse lives is perfectly okay.
There's no easy solution to the healthcare debate, but turning healthcare into a government monopoly is not a good idea because a) nationalization always causes quality and efficiency to drop precipitously, and b) the system we have had has attracted doctors from around the world to the US (to the extent that in Canada people were proposing weakening their system to stop the medical brain drain)! The solution, at least the way I see it, is to provide healthcare for everyone, but then to have poor people who have jobs slowly pay off the debt over the course of many years. (For the elderly, the disabled, veterans, or very young children with poor parents, it may nevertheless be reasonable for the government to pay all or some of the amount). Nobody would live shorter if they still get the quality care yet have to work to pay for it, and I would argue 'worse' is wrong as well; obviously they are in debt, but can take advantage of quality care (as opposed to the alternative, where they are not in debt but the care is worse). Health is more important than wealth.
Those aren't reasonable positions to hold, and you can't argue for them - especially the latter, which is frankly disgusting, since you're literally saying that you'd prefer rich people to live more than the poor - without starting from such bizarre moral assumptions that debating anyone at all would be futile.
As I just illustrated, that isn't what I'm literally saying.
Poll
