The end is in sight

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 16:47:27 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:

free universal health care that excludes nobody.

But it does confiscate the wages of the productive.

You can have free health care RIGHT NOW! Just eat right, get enough
sleep, deal with stress, don't crash your car, smoke and drink in
moderation, and get up off your lazy fat ass and get some exercise.

I just turned SIXTY (hard to believe, huh? Oh, well, another decade,
another diopter ;-) ) and I haven't had a health problem since that time I
came down with acute pancreatitis. but being a vet, I got treated at the
Long Beach VA Medical Center. (they installed a shunt from my pancreas to
my stomach so I could just poop out the excess enzymes.)

The only time I've EVER had the flue has been after they forced me to
get a flu shot.

I don't do stupid things that could injure me, for example, both times
that I crashed my car, I was wearing a seat belt, which I don't usually
need - I'm not driving at Indy, after all. (I think maybe a premonition
told me to buckle up.) Interestingly, both times I had insurance, so if
correlation implies causation, then having insurance caused my
"accidents". (there's really no such thing as an accident - it's merely
negligence.)

I ride my bike to the store and back practically every day, usually to
pick up a pack of smokes. >:-> Incidentally, smoking does NOT cause cancer
- it's caused by denied self-hatred.

Last time I had a checkup, my lungs were as clear as any 30-year-old's.

I recently declined a stress test/cardiopulmonary function test, because:
A: Isn't life already enough of a treadmill?
B: I knew in advance what they'd say - I no longer have the heart or lungs
of a teenager, so they'd find "impaired" lung function, and they'd tell me
to quit smoking and drinking, which I have no intention of doing.

Have I missed anything?

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 08:16:01 -0700, Bob Eld wrote:

"Bob Larter" <bobbylarter@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:gte5ru$o3$1@blackhelicopter.databasix.com...
bill.sloman@ieee.org wrote:
On Apr 29, 12:43 am, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:
[...]
"Progressive" Great Society programs drove the financial bubble,
which frankly pales compared to the Social Security and Medicare
fiascoes.

The US social security and medicare systems are fiascos - not because
the ideas are impracticable, since they work fine in other countries -
because American politicians don't understand the social contract
underlying the ideas, and won't implement them in a way that benefits
society as a whole.

Well said. That's exactly the problem. In the real world, it actually
costs more to make sure that the 'undeserving' are excluded than it does
to just pay out & accept that there's going to be some wastage. Per
capita, the USA spends more money on health care than countries with
free universal health care that excludes nobody. I suspect that the same
is also true of the Social Security system.

The US spends 14% of GDP on health care while most countries with universal
care spend about 10% of GNP. The US system is inefficient and very wasteful
plus insurance companies rake profit right off of the top without actually
doing any of the health care.

The whole problem was initiated by the Income Tax <Spit!>.

I guess it's time for a little history lesson:

Instead of offering incentive payments to their employees, which would
essentially end up being confiscated by Da Gubmint, they offered medical
insurance (which wasn't taxed). IOW, employee-provided medical insurance
was self-defense against the income tax.

Over the years, it evolved into an "entitlement".

There was no control on the price of care - you'd just turn the bill over
to the insurance company, who'd rubber-stamp it and pay the bill, without
it affecting you at all.

So the medical industry came up with more and more expensive crap, a
billion tests for the sniffles and so on, and the insurance company
would pick up the tab and raise the cost to your employer.

This lack of Free Market medical care caused prices to skyrocket, since
nobody knew or cared how much it was actually cost them. "Oh, the
insurance will cover it!"

If, when Latisha took little Mobutu to the ER for a skinned knee or so,
If they billed her the three grand or so, she might be motivated to invest
in a first-aid kit and learn how to use it.

As usual, the problem is socialism.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 23:00:39 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:

This is where they'd be better off in France, Britain, Australia, or Cuba.

Yeah, the "Americans" who love socialism so much _SHOULD_ Get the Hell
out of the Land of the Free.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 16:36:57 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:46:56 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:
It'll be interesting to see if all the wingnut paranoia about Obama ends
up being justified.

What, haven't you been paying attention?

He whines about the deficit he's "inherited", then proceeds to triple it?

He had to do that to fend off a depression. The way

He bails out the companies that were driven into bankruptcy by cowtowing
to the unions,

Personally, I agree that America would be better off in the long run, if
it let GM & the like collapse, but it'd be a vote-loser in the meantime.
I also believe that the taxpayers shouldn't be propping up farmers
either, but that's another surefire vote-loser.

I have relatives in Minnesota who are farmers, and none of them have EVER

taken a subsidy of any kind. I guess that's just pride in having integrity.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 16:36:57 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:46:56 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:
It'll be interesting to see if all the wingnut paranoia about Obama ends
up being justified.

What, haven't you been paying attention?

He whines about the deficit he's "inherited", then proceeds to triple it?

He had to do that to fend off a depression.

If that's what he thinks he's doing, he's got it exactly ass-backwards.

Or, he just might be one of those fools who believes that socialism can
possibly lead to anything other than national bankruptcy.

Instead of spending millions on TV ads and billions on socialistic pork-
barrel spending, he should use it to buy a clue.

And the empire-building doesn't help any.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 19:26:13 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:

James Arthur wrote:
Bob Larter wrote:
Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:46:56 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:
It'll be interesting to see if all the wingnut paranoia about Obama
ends up being justified.

What, haven't you been paying attention?
He whines about the deficit he's "inherited", then proceeds to triple
it?

He had to do that to fend off a depression.

He said that, but he's clueless.

Historically speaking, it makes perfect sense.

The history of what planet?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:57:12 +0000, James Arthur wrote:

Richard the Poet Laureate of Freedom wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:46:56 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:
It'll be interesting to see if all the wingnut paranoia about Obama ends
up being justified.

What, haven't you been paying attention?

He whines about the deficit he's "inherited", then proceeds to triple it?
He bails out the companies that were driven into bankruptcy by cowtowing
to the unions, and the banks that wrote mortgages that were _guaranteed_
to fail? He's presiding over the biggest redistribution of money from the
productive to the unproductive in the entire history of the known
Universe, and you can't see that?

Sheesh - how long have you had your head in the sand?

"kowtow", i.e., (v.i.) to exhibit servile deference; fawn; (n.)
an obsequious act.

The rest is pure gold.

Thanks! It's nice to know that there's at least ONE sane person left! ;-D

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 16:25:04 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:

James Arthur wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
Bob Larter wrote:
It'll be interesting to see if all the wingnut paranoia about Obama ends
up being justified.

It will indeed. He's been left a heck of a mess to sort out.

Some, but not much different from what Bush inherited from Clinton.

I thought that the Budget was in surplus at the end of Clinton's final term?

I wonder if these numbers are accurate, and verifiable:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 16:25:04 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:

James Arthur wrote:

Obama wants to go a-conquering in Afghanistan--I'm not sure why.

You don't want to go after Bin Laden, et al?

If we hadn't been mercilessly bullying the mideast for hundreds of
years, there wouldn't even have _been_ a Bin Laden.

Remember the Crusades?

And the Zionists didn't help much - bunch of ungrateful louts! We bothered
to rescue them from the death camps, and Palestine graciously offered up
a piece of their own terriory to give them a home, and the first thing the
child-mutilating bastards do is bite the hand that feeds them, attacking
their neighbors on the American taxpayers' dime.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 07:55:29 +0000, James Arthur wrote:

Bush inherited a catastrophic economic collapse, declining revenues,
a stripped military, and then he was attacked.

We'd be better off if he'd been personally attacked, but he ignored
the 9/11 disaster until somebody slapped him upside the head, and then
he (Well, actually, Cheney - everybody knows Dubya is nothing but a
sock puppet) used it as an excuse to go half-way across the world and
attack people who had nothing to do with it.

9/11 was simply revenge for the Israeli devastation of Beirut, on the
taxpayers' dime.

I wonder how many of the 9/11 victims were lawyers, and/or Zionists?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 02:32:53 +0100, Eeyore wrote:

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 05:17:34 +0100, Eeyore wrote:

Caps on salaries,

So, now you show your true stripe as a dyed-in-the-wool Communist.

The caps we need are on government spending, but unfortunately, it
seems that none of the sheeple have the balls to even try.

Well .... if we take your recent cite http://zfacts.com/p/318.html Na
follow some of the advice "Of course there's also the problem of the
banks. Obama should stop saving the bankers, and just take over the bad
banks.

Shades of the Communist Manifesto.

He should have let the bad banks tank; maybe then they'd have got a clue.

After all, it was only the ones who wrote impossible loans to people whom
everyone _knew_ they couldn't pay off - they were all betting on the
bubble.

When someone goes to Monte Carlo and loses the family's life savings at
the baccrat table, do you use tax money to reimburse their gambling
losses?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 16:22:42 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:46:56 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:
Jim Thompson wrote:
On Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:21:55 -0700, "Joel Koltner"
"Jim Thompson" <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@My-Web-Site.com> wrote in
message news:d7bev4thm46u1t8io05n85ilne48ts4mo7@4ax.com...
The end is in sight...
Arlen Specter has defected to the Democrat Party (an hour ago).
I don't think the democrats are necessarily all that much more attractive than
they've been in say, the past decade... it's more than the republicans have
kinda imploded and Specter is running for cover.
Yep. But now that they have total power the Democrats are into rape
and plunder.
It'll be interesting to see if all the wingnut paranoia about Obama ends
up being justified.

1. It's not "wingnut paranoia"

We won't know whether or not it's paranoia until afterwards.

2. It's already been shown to be justified.

Not as far as I can tell. You're obviously entitled to your own opinion.

You're really invested in staying clueless, aren't you?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:47:45 -0700, mrdarrett wrote:

On Apr 28, 7:02 pm, bill.slo...@ieee.org wrote:
...
Jim's logic is as weak as his general knowledge.

Slowman, You still looking for work?  I guess no one is hiring
janitors, huh ?

Wouldn't know. I don't check the jobs ads for janitor jobs. Jobs ads
with "electronics" in the job description have vanished fom the Dutch
web sites - there used to be a couple a week, but not any longer.

Well, you have to admit, five bucks an hour as a janitor beats zero

dollars an hour as a freeloader.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 02:35:23 +0100, Eeyore wrote:

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:59:17 -0700, Bob Eld wrote:

What you're not admitting is that the US would have decayed into a
massive deep depression worst than the 30's had the government not
intervened.

So, since your crystal ball is so accurate, what are this week's winning
lottery numbers? For crissakes, are you really incapable of grasping the
fact that it was government intervention that turned the crash of 1929
into the Great Depressinon?

I always thought the crash of '29 caused the Great Depression.

If there hadn't been massive government intervention, we would have
recovered in less than a year, like we did in 1987's "Black Monday".

Free People are surprisingly resourceful, you know.

Hope This Helps!
Rich

 

[James Arthur]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 16:25:04 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
Bob Larter wrote:
It'll be interesting to see if all the wingnut paranoia about Obama ends
up being justified.
It will indeed. He's been left a heck of a mess to sort out.
Some, but not much different from what Bush inherited from Clinton.
I thought that the Budget was in surplus at the end of Clinton's final term?

I wonder if these numbers are accurate, and verifiable:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms

Thanks,
Rich

That's a cherry-picked, loaded, presentation designed to bamboozle.

You can get the actual numbers from the cbo.gov website; you'll
need to load the .XLS version so you can crunch and organize it.

You'll have to invest a lot of work to understand who really
spent how much on what, and so forth.

The upshot is that Clinton spent on social programs, savaged the
military, and raked in taxes from the internet bubble. No bubble,
no Clinton miracle.

Bush spent even more on social stuff, AND restored the military
to its previous, AND inherited the tax collections collapse that
followed Clinton's bubble. Bad news^3

HTH.

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 16:13:57 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:

James Arthur wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
James Arthur wrote:

I favor Bastiat's formulation: if one man steals from another, even
though he uses the government to do it for him, it's still theft.

Who builds the roads and bridges etc in this world ?

There's a difference between a common good, and taking one man's
money to give to another.

When a government builds a road, it's taking the taxpayers' money &
giving to the guy who own the construction company. Either way,
somebody is having their money taken away from them & given to someone else.

When "government" builds a road, it's paid for by the people who use it,
via gas taxes or tolls. Plus the fact that this is the sort of
government that rises from the grassroots. (well, that's the way it's
supposed to be.)

When BIG government gets its tentacles into the pie, they rip off
EVERYBODY, skimming the lion's share off the top for their junkets and
pork first, and building bridges to nowhere and shit. IOW, it's wrong
to rob the people in Kansas to pay for some pork-barrel project in Alaska.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 12:51:14 +0100, Eeyore wrote:

James Arthur wrote:
Bob Larter wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
James Arthur wrote:

I favor Bastiat's formulation: if one man steals from another, even
though he uses the government to do it for him, it's still theft.

Who builds the roads and bridges etc in this world ?

There's a difference between a common good, and taking one man's
money to give to another.

When a government builds a road, it's taking the taxpayers' money &
giving to the guy who own the construction company. Either way,
somebody is having their money taken away from them & given to someone
else.

But one way a road was built, for all to use.

By pooling resources which is what councils and government can do.

Which is supposed to arise from the will of the people, and be nothing
but a common point, like a network hub; then when the jobe is done,
they're supposed to go home and back to their real jobs.

But, yes, I know, I fantasize.

Sigh.
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 23:16:33 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Bob Larter wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
James Arthur wrote:

I favor Bastiat's formulation: if one man steals from another, even
though he uses the government to do it for him, it's still theft.
Who builds the roads and bridges etc in this world ?

There's a difference between a common good, and taking one man's
money to give to another.
When a government builds a road, it's taking the taxpayers' money &
giving to the guy who own the construction company. Either way,
somebody is having their money taken away from them & given to someone
else.
But one way a road was built, for all to use.

By pooling resources which is what councils and government can do.

Exactly. Universal healthcare works in much the same way.

That's so far from the truth that it's beyond wrong.

Didn't you learn anything in school, other than the Communist Manifesto?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Fri, 01 May 2009 09:18:35 +0100, Martin Brown wrote:

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:59:07 +0100, Eeyore wrote:
Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:10:30 +0000, James Arthur wrote:
Might that help catch criminals and prevent crime?
The only thing the state can do is respond to crime scenes and clean
up the mess, and hope they'll catch the perp sometime.
CCTV in UK town centres has already shown that to be false. At last the
police here can and do now act proactively.

So, when you're being mugged, do you ask the mugger to wait a sec while
you call the cops? Or turn over your cash, while you're waiting for
somebody to observe the crime remotely and dispatch your "protector"?

It happens so rarely that I wouldn't know. Unless you are sure you can
win the advice is generally to give the attacker what they ask for.
Insurance can replace material goods - life is more important.

Yeah! Then when he's walking away, shoot him in the back! >;->

I'd rather be in a gunfight than a knife fight. Most people are a pretty
lousy shot.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Richard the Dreaded Liber]

On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:55:35 -0400, Frank Galikanokus wrote:

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

But massive Big Brotherism is inimical to Liberty.

Turn over your cash.

Go fuck yourself. I'm a human being, with the God-given right to defend
myelf, not some kind of beast of burden, like you seem to want to be.

Cheers!
Rich