““As far as medicare, medicaid AND the VA go: they are broken they need to be fixed.”
Why do they need to be fixed?”
That’s a good question but you won’t get a good answer from BC. The main shortcomings of these programs are where the special interests have got their fingers into the pie to needlessly raise prices and cost.
The claims about Medicare fraud are valid though. Medicare gets abused because it is too efficient in payment. Since they have a 45 day SLA for payment, what happens is bogus entities spring up that pay for SSN’s etc who are eligible for medicare and bill Medicare, getting payment before the government has had a chance to properly validate the claims and/or arrest them for fraud.
These are sidebar issues though and having a useless array of for-profit insurance providers is a bigger issue. An even bigger issue still, is simply the cost of procedures and our overall model of healthcare. Nobody in Congress has bothered to even discuss this and we should have done this first before trying to expand the same stupid system.
“people do NOT want government controlled “free” healthcare. ”
As TDRO stated, noone is talking about ‘free’ healthcare except you. Polls clearly show that people want at the very least a government option to control the currently ‘out of control’ for-profit insurance companies.
Medicare, Medicaid certainly need fixing to get rid of the for-profit waste in there and with the jobs lost from insurance companies we could get them working on Medicare fraud instead. You do realize that they are insuring people insurance companies don’t want to touch right?
“We already have safety nets for folks who can’t afford health insurance.”
Are you kidding me? You are seriously suggesting we do away with Medicare, Medicaid and the VA because we have public hospitals, charity and free clinics!? Yeah, I’m ’sure’ they could cope with millions of new medicaid, medicare and VA patients and this will all be paid for by the same magic fairies that pay for tax cuts and wars..
Yes, I usually take these kind of opinion pieces from the WSJ with a grain of salt since it’s traditionally conservative biased.
However, I agree largely with the article except for the small part decrying lack of ‘insurance innovation’ which is an oxymoron.
But it’s true that instead of trying to solve a problem of cost, access and quality it’s morphed into a battle of the Right wanting to block completely or destroy existing anti-insurance company legislation versus the Left wanting to expand access but in a way that doesn’t irritate the insurance companies too much even referring to it as ‘health insurance reform’.
Cost structure, intervention versus preventation etc are all largely discarded talking points and as such I think this legislation is doomed to fail the American people whether it passes or not.
“Not being able to get in line for care? what a lie. ”
It’s true.. Try going to the ER and asking for a ‘check-up’, in short unless you have an urgent medical condition or happen to be near a free clinic, forget it.
Fact is that it’s easier to get seen by a doctor the same day in so-called ’socialized medicine’ countries than it is here..
“You can’t add 30 million people to the insurance roll without incurring cost- unless you cut spending somewhere.”
Not true.. There are huge areas of waste in the system thanks largely to the for-profit model. If you cut out such waste and thus cut costs, you can pay for those 30 million people AND still reduce the overall cost of care.
Admittedly the current bill proposals probably won’t do that but it’s feasible nevertheless.
“All of which may be true, and if it is, is interesting. But we’re discussing the swirling flush of Detroi’let.”
The point is that if you directly attribute this to Liberalism or ‘Left-wing economics’ the facts don’t back this up since if that were the case then there would be a clear trend of Right-wing government producing prosperity and vice-versa.
So, it’s just another cheapshot while ignoring in this case, the obvious facts of globalization and the general erosion of manufacturing jobs in this country (amongst other factors) which just happened to disproportionately affect cities like Detroit.
The Right use this disingenuous reasoning on multiple issues (e.g concluding ‘Socialized Medicine’ is bad because in one particular country a particular disease has a worse outcome than the US) and it’s very lazy thinking that doesn’t fly in honest examination.
One of the first posts you wrote was actually sensible and correct pointing out the influence of Paul Volcker in recovering the economy during the Reagan years. Unfortunately, since then 95% of your posts are puerile and baseless rants that are constantly laced with pointless insulting remarks.
If you bothered to keep on topic and make some reasoned points without hurling the petty insults, then you’ll find more people will actually ‘engage you’.
“Detroit is in. Run by Democrats for the last 50 years.”
Not a smart comment..
Let’s look at where the poor and rich live in this country shall we? The blue states dominate the ‘rich’ category and the red states dominate the ‘poor’ category. So implying that Detroit’s woes owes to Democratic ideals in government is more baseless nonsense and silly right-wing BS.
No a flat tax is not fair at all..
A flat income tax disproportionately affects the poor as they have less disposable income to pay taxes. I’d be significantly better off with a flat tax model but it doesn’t make it fair.
The only thing close that I support is consumption taxes.
Rather than playing ‘doctor’, it’s best to actually listen to them, science and statistics.
Frivolous scan’s aren’t a good idea. They actually cause many cancers, can induce a lot of unnecessary worry, in many cases produce large unnecessary costs and simply provide little proven benefit.
This is part of the cause of our healthcare problems and not the solution. We need to stop dreaming that expensive technology is the solution and instead focus more on prevention in the first place. This means spending money on reducing obesity, improving diet and exercise etc. If you spend the money there, you will get a much greater benefit than spending on more ’scans’..
It’s nothing short of scandalous that we have people with their lives wrecked and in bankruptcy due to medical bills.
Every year a number of people roughly equal to the entire population of Baltimore file bankruptcy due to medical bills. All of these people had insurance.
This outcome is far from inevitable and wouldn’t happen if we had a payment system that isn’t controlled by insurance companies.
However, as I’ve stated before, focussing on insurance companies alone is wrong and there are only a small part of the problem. But we could spend less than we do now, cover everyone and produce better health outcomes for everyone with noone suffering financial ruin, if we redesigned our healthcare system properly.
“That survey is a year and a half old. And it’s not asking about single payer; it’s asking about a national health plan.”
National Insurance i.e paying money to the government in return for them paying money to healthcare providers IS single-payer.
It doesn’t matter whether other private options exists, if everyone is covered by a national insurance plan then you have a single-payer system.
There is no update to that particular survey but it’s not credible to suggest that doctors have dramatically become less receptive to single-payer in the last 18 months.
I do agree here. I’ve been amazed recently at how even Congress (on both sides) has dropped the ball.
The reason why Pres. Obama sold the notion we need healthcare reform is rightly that it simply costs too much and is a major part of what is killing our economy. Yet, it’s turned into ‘Health Insurance Reform’ and ‘Ensuring everyone has suitable access’ etc on the Left while on the Right, if they aren’t obstructing the issue totally, it’s about finding ways to limit federal/state government roles, in healthcare without any credible effect on overall costs.
Just basic medical procedures in this country often cost around 4 times as much as the identical procedure in Europe (e.g MRI’s). We have 26 psychiatrists for every Physician specialist in preventative medicine (yes it exists). We have a system that discourages specialists in areas we need (like generalists, gerontologists) in favor of lucrative areas like Cardiologists, Radiologists where we have an emerging glut. We have a stupid fee for procedure system that encourages providers to order scans etc even disregarding defensive reasons. There is little incentive for overall outcome. The facts are that if doctors own X-Ray’s, Ultrasounds etc they order more of them! And thanks to this, we have actually given a large number of people with cancers they would not have got without these needless, wasteful procedures.
Finally, we have a payment system that puts the power in the hands of useless for-profit middlemen that have costs upto 10 times that of the government and offer nothing except stifling the ability of the consumers to pool as one when paying the provider (i.e single-payer).
I don’t like this healthcare bill because it doesn’t seem to be tackling the right issues and if no obvious cost benefits emerge, it will feed the Right-wing mantra that ‘government doesn’t work’. But right now it’s broken and it seems like the Insurance Companies/Drug Companies win regardless. A sad time for the US in my opinion.
What he stated was correct that the majority of doctors do support a single-payer system. This is not the same as a majority of doctors support Medicare/Medicaid.
This is the same kind of spin conservatives use when using polls showing most people oppose the current health bill equating to people being against healthcare reform. Tiresome stuff.
The point is that he is the leader of a nation and not a tourist. The latter can get away with trying to impress with usage of phrases or other attempts at showing knowledge of their culture. This is generally well received as you mentioned.
However, he was not a tourist, this was a formal setting and if you are going to bow then getting it right is not that difficult for goodness sake. In this case, he would have been better off just shaking hands and smiling.
“Actually, if you look at the video, the bow was very well performed. ”
No it wasn’t. His back wasn’t straight and he should have kept his hands to his sides. He should have bowed to the same level (slight head nod) or a little below the emperor but he went way beyond that and it was totally deferential.
“That’s right. The President should behave like a boorish tourist, and not try to adapt to local customs. ”
It’s not like that, I like the President but I’ve also spent many years doing business in Japan. In short, it’s such a complex culture that unless you know exactly what you are doing, it’s easy to come off as a buffoon and thus trying to show your ‘knowledge’ of the local language/culture can be counterproductive.
Hmm, looking at that first photo, maybe I was wrong about his bow.. It’s pretty bad and in that case extremely deferential (not to mention performed badly).
Sometimes when wanting to impress the locals, it’s best not to try at all. I hope he didn’t bring any dvds.
“Apparently the emperor doesn’t. Watch the video.”
Yes he did!
It was a slight bow though, just nodding his head which is normal. As I stated, it would have been ok for Pres. Obama to do the same but polite and respectful to bow a little lower since he was the guest. It’s not like he bowed to waist level or was otherwise completely deferential.
Technically, he should have kept his hands to his sides and not shaken hands since that is a Western tradition, but this too is pretty common when a Westerner is visiting.
I find this ignorant of some people to read too much into this. There is nothing in the Constitution that states the President should not be polite or respectful of other cultures.
It’s just showing cultural awareness which is something that was notably absent from the previous administration.
It’s how you bow in Japan that matters. It depends on who you are and who you are bowing to, it’s little to do with recognizing ‘royalty’ as such and much more to do with identifying your own position/rank relative to the other person.
In truth, he could of got away with a slight bow in the same way the Emperor gave him since they have the same status but considering he was the visitor it was not inappropriate for him to bow deeper. I’d thus say he handled it perfectly.
I’ll make you a deal.. Once you actually engage my arguments properly, if you want I’ll explain why I have sympathy for the anti-abortion position.
However, you have a tendency to sidestep debating on logic and using emotion e.g “can’t you see”, “it’s just wrong” etc which weaken your case considerably.
Physical dependency stops after birth. There are thousands/millions of people who would raise a child but noone can take the parents place while its in the womb. It’s that simple..
But please either answer my question or admit that you mainly base your position on your ‘feelings’ versus ethical logic.
As I stated, I’m playing Devil’s advocate to challenge the logic of your position since you hold a very strong pro-life position. As such, I’m deliberately being one-sided in my argument as I’m trying to challenge the strength of yours. But I do see another side, just not really presented well in your arguments yet.
Part of the problem in this whole debate as I see it is that like many other issues, emotions can easily cloud reason. Seeing pictures of an aborted foetus or even live ultrasounds can no doubt evoke a powerful sympathetic response from just about anyone who has a heart.
However, if we based laws on emotion then Drunk drivers, racism, animal cruelty, sex offenders, crimes against extremely vulnerable people etc would all face far stiffer penalties then our courts currently impose.
But back to the debate..
“You talk about ethical dilemmas, etc., that end up supposedly justifying murder. The end result is too heinous.”
Again, explain to me the difference between a mother choosing to not allow her body to support a baby until birth and in doing so causing its death versus a generic person required to use his or body only (noone else can help) in a debilitating physical and mental process in order that another person will live?
“Research how Clinton fought to enable Fanny and Freddy to allow those the could not get loans (due to finances) to get loans and the people that warned it would crumble the system. This was back in the late 90s.”
It wasn’t the ‘late 90s’. Actually, it started around 1993 when he wanted banks to up their CRA ratings which banks baulked at because it ate into their profit.
It didn’t even remotely crumble the system and had almost nothing whatsoever to do with the economic crisis.
You need to do the Math here to get the truth.. As OL is telling you the key is in the derivatives. The assets based on these rose from the 100’s of millions around 2000 to around 26 trillion in 2006. That rise had nothing to do with the CRA and everything to do with the huge amount of profit that commercial banks, mortgage brokers, ratings agencies and of course investment banks were getting from this business.
Pres. Clinton actually had virtually no culpability here and had no direct hand in any of the deregulation that caused this (including repeal of Glass-Steagal).
“That’s a weak argument. The only way an infant can become an adult is if the particular parents voluntarily decide to raise it. ”
Nonsense.. Ever heard of adoption or Orphanages?
“Mothers breastfeed a child. That’s biological dependence. ”
Again, a baby can be bottle-fed from birth. ONLY in the womb is the baby truly dependent on a particular person namely the mother.
“An abortion is not neglecting a child, Lee. It’s purposefully killing it.”
No this is just semantics.. If someone needed a bone-marrow/kidney transplant and I was the ONLY match but without my tissue, they would certainly die then I’m hardly ‘purposefully killing’ them if I didn’t feel comfortable with doing the procedure.
This is a good example of the type of ethical dilemma here.. A Mother has to sacrifice herself physically and/or mentally not just for 5 minutes but for months and even years if you take the ramifications of raising the child or even just knowing the child is out there somewhere (adoption etc).
We would not call someone who chose not to save someones life via a transplant, a ‘murderer’. Similarly, we should not call someone who decided they could not bear going through pregnancy, a ‘murderer’ either.
“Wait a second…I’m not killing a life if I refuse to help someone. That’s way different. ”
No it’s identical. If you are the only person in the world who could help someone live but you chose not to, it is the same. In both cases, you knowingly allow the other living human to die because you did not want to use your body to keep them alive until help/birth.
“Even parental neglect is not quite as heinous as an abortion because an abortion is a specific targeted murder of your own child.”
This seems to be a purely emotional argument versus a logical one. Whether I kill my child or Sam’s down the street, it would be equally heinous. If parental neglect caused death it would arguably be worse since the ‘child’ has more consciousness and thus would be capable of much more suffering.
How Can We Afford War But Not Health Care?
November 20th, 2009 at 8:32 pmTDRO,
““As far as medicare, medicaid AND the VA go: they are broken they need to be fixed.”
Why do they need to be fixed?”
That’s a good question but you won’t get a good answer from BC. The main shortcomings of these programs are where the special interests have got their fingers into the pie to needlessly raise prices and cost.
The claims about Medicare fraud are valid though. Medicare gets abused because it is too efficient in payment. Since they have a 45 day SLA for payment, what happens is bogus entities spring up that pay for SSN’s etc who are eligible for medicare and bill Medicare, getting payment before the government has had a chance to properly validate the claims and/or arrest them for fraud.
These are sidebar issues though and having a useless array of for-profit insurance providers is a bigger issue. An even bigger issue still, is simply the cost of procedures and our overall model of healthcare. Nobody in Congress has bothered to even discuss this and we should have done this first before trying to expand the same stupid system.
How Can We Afford War But Not Health Care?
November 20th, 2009 at 2:24 pm“people do NOT want government controlled “free” healthcare. ”
As TDRO stated, noone is talking about ‘free’ healthcare except you. Polls clearly show that people want at the very least a government option to control the currently ‘out of control’ for-profit insurance companies.
Medicare, Medicaid certainly need fixing to get rid of the for-profit waste in there and with the jobs lost from insurance companies we could get them working on Medicare fraud instead. You do realize that they are insuring people insurance companies don’t want to touch right?
“We already have safety nets for folks who can’t afford health insurance.”
Are you kidding me? You are seriously suggesting we do away with Medicare, Medicaid and the VA because we have public hospitals, charity and free clinics!? Yeah, I’m ’sure’ they could cope with millions of new medicaid, medicare and VA patients and this will all be paid for by the same magic fairies that pay for tax cuts and wars..
How Can We Afford War But Not Health Care?
November 19th, 2009 at 10:07 pmYes, I usually take these kind of opinion pieces from the WSJ with a grain of salt since it’s traditionally conservative biased.
However, I agree largely with the article except for the small part decrying lack of ‘insurance innovation’ which is an oxymoron.
But it’s true that instead of trying to solve a problem of cost, access and quality it’s morphed into a battle of the Right wanting to block completely or destroy existing anti-insurance company legislation versus the Left wanting to expand access but in a way that doesn’t irritate the insurance companies too much even referring to it as ‘health insurance reform’.
Cost structure, intervention versus preventation etc are all largely discarded talking points and as such I think this legislation is doomed to fail the American people whether it passes or not.
How Can We Afford War But Not Health Care?
November 19th, 2009 at 9:58 pm“Not being able to get in line for care? what a lie. ”
It’s true.. Try going to the ER and asking for a ‘check-up’, in short unless you have an urgent medical condition or happen to be near a free clinic, forget it.
Fact is that it’s easier to get seen by a doctor the same day in so-called ’socialized medicine’ countries than it is here..
“You can’t add 30 million people to the insurance roll without incurring cost- unless you cut spending somewhere.”
Not true.. There are huge areas of waste in the system thanks largely to the for-profit model. If you cut out such waste and thus cut costs, you can pay for those 30 million people AND still reduce the overall cost of care.
Admittedly the current bill proposals probably won’t do that but it’s feasible nevertheless.
AP Poll: Tax The Rich To Pay For Health Care
November 19th, 2009 at 5:14 pmJohn,
“All of which may be true, and if it is, is interesting. But we’re discussing the swirling flush of Detroi’let.”
The point is that if you directly attribute this to Liberalism or ‘Left-wing economics’ the facts don’t back this up since if that were the case then there would be a clear trend of Right-wing government producing prosperity and vice-versa.
So, it’s just another cheapshot while ignoring in this case, the obvious facts of globalization and the general erosion of manufacturing jobs in this country (amongst other factors) which just happened to disproportionately affect cities like Detroit.
The Right use this disingenuous reasoning on multiple issues (e.g concluding ‘Socialized Medicine’ is bad because in one particular country a particular disease has a worse outcome than the US) and it’s very lazy thinking that doesn’t fly in honest examination.
Pure, Raw, Right-Wing Obama Hatred
November 19th, 2009 at 12:13 amPiffle,
One of the first posts you wrote was actually sensible and correct pointing out the influence of Paul Volcker in recovering the economy during the Reagan years. Unfortunately, since then 95% of your posts are puerile and baseless rants that are constantly laced with pointless insulting remarks.
If you bothered to keep on topic and make some reasoned points without hurling the petty insults, then you’ll find more people will actually ‘engage you’.
AP Poll: Tax The Rich To Pay For Health Care
November 18th, 2009 at 9:31 pm“Detroit is in. Run by Democrats for the last 50 years.”
Not a smart comment..
Let’s look at where the poor and rich live in this country shall we? The blue states dominate the ‘rich’ category and the red states dominate the ‘poor’ category. So implying that Detroit’s woes owes to Democratic ideals in government is more baseless nonsense and silly right-wing BS.
AP Poll: Tax The Rich To Pay For Health Care
November 18th, 2009 at 9:24 pmNo a flat tax is not fair at all..
A flat income tax disproportionately affects the poor as they have less disposable income to pay taxes. I’d be significantly better off with a flat tax model but it doesn’t make it fair.
The only thing close that I support is consumption taxes.
On Tuesday's Radio Show...
November 18th, 2009 at 7:42 pmRather than playing ‘doctor’, it’s best to actually listen to them, science and statistics.
Frivolous scan’s aren’t a good idea. They actually cause many cancers, can induce a lot of unnecessary worry, in many cases produce large unnecessary costs and simply provide little proven benefit.
This is part of the cause of our healthcare problems and not the solution. We need to stop dreaming that expensive technology is the solution and instead focus more on prevention in the first place. This means spending money on reducing obesity, improving diet and exercise etc. If you spend the money there, you will get a much greater benefit than spending on more ’scans’..
On Tuesday's Radio Show...
November 18th, 2009 at 7:34 pmThis still happens today..
It’s nothing short of scandalous that we have people with their lives wrecked and in bankruptcy due to medical bills.
Every year a number of people roughly equal to the entire population of Baltimore file bankruptcy due to medical bills. All of these people had insurance.
This outcome is far from inevitable and wouldn’t happen if we had a payment system that isn’t controlled by insurance companies.
However, as I’ve stated before, focussing on insurance companies alone is wrong and there are only a small part of the problem. But we could spend less than we do now, cover everyone and produce better health outcomes for everyone with noone suffering financial ruin, if we redesigned our healthcare system properly.
On Tuesday's Radio Show...
November 18th, 2009 at 5:36 pmEven those with insurance have problems getting good preventative healthcare in this country.
To paraphrase Andrew Weil, we don’t have a healthcare system in this country, we have a ‘disease management’ system.
That’s why our incidence of disease is so much higher and why our return on the money spent in ‘healthcare’ is so much lower.
AP Poll: Tax The Rich To Pay For Health Care
November 18th, 2009 at 12:50 am“That survey is a year and a half old. And it’s not asking about single payer; it’s asking about a national health plan.”
National Insurance i.e paying money to the government in return for them paying money to healthcare providers IS single-payer.
It doesn’t matter whether other private options exists, if everyone is covered by a national insurance plan then you have a single-payer system.
There is no update to that particular survey but it’s not credible to suggest that doctors have dramatically become less receptive to single-payer in the last 18 months.
AP Poll: Tax The Rich To Pay For Health Care
November 18th, 2009 at 12:14 am“A majority do not support a single payer system.”
Stop ‘making stuff up’
reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN31432035
as one example..
AP Poll: Tax The Rich To Pay For Health Care
November 18th, 2009 at 12:06 amI do agree here. I’ve been amazed recently at how even Congress (on both sides) has dropped the ball.
The reason why Pres. Obama sold the notion we need healthcare reform is rightly that it simply costs too much and is a major part of what is killing our economy. Yet, it’s turned into ‘Health Insurance Reform’ and ‘Ensuring everyone has suitable access’ etc on the Left while on the Right, if they aren’t obstructing the issue totally, it’s about finding ways to limit federal/state government roles, in healthcare without any credible effect on overall costs.
Just basic medical procedures in this country often cost around 4 times as much as the identical procedure in Europe (e.g MRI’s). We have 26 psychiatrists for every Physician specialist in preventative medicine (yes it exists). We have a system that discourages specialists in areas we need (like generalists, gerontologists) in favor of lucrative areas like Cardiologists, Radiologists where we have an emerging glut. We have a stupid fee for procedure system that encourages providers to order scans etc even disregarding defensive reasons. There is little incentive for overall outcome. The facts are that if doctors own X-Ray’s, Ultrasounds etc they order more of them! And thanks to this, we have actually given a large number of people with cancers they would not have got without these needless, wasteful procedures.
Finally, we have a payment system that puts the power in the hands of useless for-profit middlemen that have costs upto 10 times that of the government and offer nothing except stifling the ability of the consumers to pool as one when paying the provider (i.e single-payer).
I don’t like this healthcare bill because it doesn’t seem to be tackling the right issues and if no obvious cost benefits emerge, it will feed the Right-wing mantra that ‘government doesn’t work’. But right now it’s broken and it seems like the Insurance Companies/Drug Companies win regardless. A sad time for the US in my opinion.
AP Poll: Tax The Rich To Pay For Health Care
November 17th, 2009 at 11:43 pmBlissful,
What he stated was correct that the majority of doctors do support a single-payer system. This is not the same as a majority of doctors support Medicare/Medicaid.
This is the same kind of spin conservatives use when using polls showing most people oppose the current health bill equating to people being against healthcare reform. Tiresome stuff.
To GOP, Bowing: Not Okay; Kissing And Hand-Holding: Okay
November 17th, 2009 at 12:51 amJasper,
The point is that he is the leader of a nation and not a tourist. The latter can get away with trying to impress with usage of phrases or other attempts at showing knowledge of their culture. This is generally well received as you mentioned.
However, he was not a tourist, this was a formal setting and if you are going to bow then getting it right is not that difficult for goodness sake. In this case, he would have been better off just shaking hands and smiling.
To GOP, Bowing: Not Okay; Kissing And Hand-Holding: Okay
November 16th, 2009 at 9:48 pm“Actually, if you look at the video, the bow was very well performed. ”
No it wasn’t. His back wasn’t straight and he should have kept his hands to his sides. He should have bowed to the same level (slight head nod) or a little below the emperor but he went way beyond that and it was totally deferential.
“That’s right. The President should behave like a boorish tourist, and not try to adapt to local customs. ”
It’s not like that, I like the President but I’ve also spent many years doing business in Japan. In short, it’s such a complex culture that unless you know exactly what you are doing, it’s easy to come off as a buffoon and thus trying to show your ‘knowledge’ of the local language/culture can be counterproductive.
To GOP, Bowing: Not Okay; Kissing And Hand-Holding: Okay
November 16th, 2009 at 5:00 pmHmm, looking at that first photo, maybe I was wrong about his bow.. It’s pretty bad and in that case extremely deferential (not to mention performed badly).
Sometimes when wanting to impress the locals, it’s best not to try at all. I hope he didn’t bring any dvds.
Bama Bashers Upset That He Observes Foreign Customs
November 16th, 2009 at 4:21 am“Apparently the emperor doesn’t. Watch the video.”
Yes he did!
It was a slight bow though, just nodding his head which is normal. As I stated, it would have been ok for Pres. Obama to do the same but polite and respectful to bow a little lower since he was the guest. It’s not like he bowed to waist level or was otherwise completely deferential.
Technically, he should have kept his hands to his sides and not shaken hands since that is a Western tradition, but this too is pretty common when a Westerner is visiting.
I find this ignorant of some people to read too much into this. There is nothing in the Constitution that states the President should not be polite or respectful of other cultures.
Bama Bashers Upset That He Observes Foreign Customs
November 15th, 2009 at 2:46 pmEveryone bows in Japan!
It’s just showing cultural awareness which is something that was notably absent from the previous administration.
It’s how you bow in Japan that matters. It depends on who you are and who you are bowing to, it’s little to do with recognizing ‘royalty’ as such and much more to do with identifying your own position/rank relative to the other person.
In truth, he could of got away with a slight bow in the same way the Emperor gave him since they have the same status but considering he was the visitor it was not inappropriate for him to bow deeper. I’d thus say he handled it perfectly.
Republican National Committee Health Plan Covers Abortion
November 15th, 2009 at 12:59 pmFlap,
I’ll make you a deal.. Once you actually engage my arguments properly, if you want I’ll explain why I have sympathy for the anti-abortion position.
However, you have a tendency to sidestep debating on logic and using emotion e.g “can’t you see”, “it’s just wrong” etc which weaken your case considerably.
Physical dependency stops after birth. There are thousands/millions of people who would raise a child but noone can take the parents place while its in the womb. It’s that simple..
But please either answer my question or admit that you mainly base your position on your ‘feelings’ versus ethical logic.
Republican National Committee Health Plan Covers Abortion
November 14th, 2009 at 6:44 amFlap,
As I stated, I’m playing Devil’s advocate to challenge the logic of your position since you hold a very strong pro-life position. As such, I’m deliberately being one-sided in my argument as I’m trying to challenge the strength of yours. But I do see another side, just not really presented well in your arguments yet.
Part of the problem in this whole debate as I see it is that like many other issues, emotions can easily cloud reason. Seeing pictures of an aborted foetus or even live ultrasounds can no doubt evoke a powerful sympathetic response from just about anyone who has a heart.
However, if we based laws on emotion then Drunk drivers, racism, animal cruelty, sex offenders, crimes against extremely vulnerable people etc would all face far stiffer penalties then our courts currently impose.
But back to the debate..
“You talk about ethical dilemmas, etc., that end up supposedly justifying murder. The end result is too heinous.”
Again, explain to me the difference between a mother choosing to not allow her body to support a baby until birth and in doing so causing its death versus a generic person required to use his or body only (noone else can help) in a debilitating physical and mental process in order that another person will live?
Right Wing Meme Of The Day: Attacking Obama On Ft. Hood
November 13th, 2009 at 7:26 pmTrue..
Gotta admit it’s easy to bait me on the economy (and healthcare as well amongst others) so I bite easily.
Sorry..
Right Wing Meme Of The Day: Attacking Obama On Ft. Hood
November 13th, 2009 at 7:15 pm“Research how Clinton fought to enable Fanny and Freddy to allow those the could not get loans (due to finances) to get loans and the people that warned it would crumble the system. This was back in the late 90s.”
It wasn’t the ‘late 90s’. Actually, it started around 1993 when he wanted banks to up their CRA ratings which banks baulked at because it ate into their profit.
It didn’t even remotely crumble the system and had almost nothing whatsoever to do with the economic crisis.
You need to do the Math here to get the truth.. As OL is telling you the key is in the derivatives. The assets based on these rose from the 100’s of millions around 2000 to around 26 trillion in 2006. That rise had nothing to do with the CRA and everything to do with the huge amount of profit that commercial banks, mortgage brokers, ratings agencies and of course investment banks were getting from this business.
Pres. Clinton actually had virtually no culpability here and had no direct hand in any of the deregulation that caused this (including repeal of Glass-Steagal).
Republican National Committee Health Plan Covers Abortion
November 13th, 2009 at 4:50 pm“That’s a weak argument. The only way an infant can become an adult is if the particular parents voluntarily decide to raise it. ”
Nonsense.. Ever heard of adoption or Orphanages?
“Mothers breastfeed a child. That’s biological dependence. ”
Again, a baby can be bottle-fed from birth. ONLY in the womb is the baby truly dependent on a particular person namely the mother.
“An abortion is not neglecting a child, Lee. It’s purposefully killing it.”
No this is just semantics.. If someone needed a bone-marrow/kidney transplant and I was the ONLY match but without my tissue, they would certainly die then I’m hardly ‘purposefully killing’ them if I didn’t feel comfortable with doing the procedure.
This is a good example of the type of ethical dilemma here.. A Mother has to sacrifice herself physically and/or mentally not just for 5 minutes but for months and even years if you take the ramifications of raising the child or even just knowing the child is out there somewhere (adoption etc).
We would not call someone who chose not to save someones life via a transplant, a ‘murderer’. Similarly, we should not call someone who decided they could not bear going through pregnancy, a ‘murderer’ either.
“Wait a second…I’m not killing a life if I refuse to help someone. That’s way different. ”
No it’s identical. If you are the only person in the world who could help someone live but you chose not to, it is the same. In both cases, you knowingly allow the other living human to die because you did not want to use your body to keep them alive until help/birth.
“Even parental neglect is not quite as heinous as an abortion because an abortion is a specific targeted murder of your own child.”
This seems to be a purely emotional argument versus a logical one. Whether I kill my child or Sam’s down the street, it would be equally heinous. If parental neglect caused death it would arguably be worse since the ‘child’ has more consciousness and thus would be capable of much more suffering.