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Old 10-12-2014, 01:32 PM
 
Location: Nashville, TN -
9,588 posts, read 5,817,689 times
Reputation: 11116

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Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post

As far as education is concerned, the United States spends a far higher percentage of its GDP on education on any other industrialized country: U.S. education spending tops global list, study shows - CBS News. The problem isn't a funding issue. It's a allocation issue, chiefly because the United States operates its schools on the political spoils system.
The fact remains that higher education in the US is ridiculously expensive and becoming more cost prohibitive for more people IF they don't want to begin their working lives with a sh**load of debt. And don't tell me that that's because the education is so superior. My alma mater (undergraduate) is consistently ranked as one of the top schools in North America for a fraction of the cost of a comparable US school.

Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post
As far as single-payer healthcare is concerned, it's interesting to me how many countries, particularly in places such as Scandinavia are moving away from such a system even as people such as you are espousing it. And just spend time talking to anyone from Canada or Great Britain about the misery of going through their national health systems.
Uh, you're talking to someone who grew up in a country with a universal healthcare system, and you're wrong. Are they perfect systems? Of course not; no system is. But NO ONE goes bankrupt paying for medical bills. I think it's awful that that happens to ANY decent, law-abiding, hard-working, taxpaying American who has done everything right, everything that they were "supposed" to do. Their only mistake was getting sick.

I can assure you that the VAST majority of Canadian, Brits, Europeans, Australians, etc would NEVER give up their universal healthcare systems. NEVER (and the fact is, that most of those systems, with perhaps the exception of Canada, are hybrid systems, anyway). Unless YOU'VE experienced a universal healthcare system for yourself, then, quite frankly, you aren't in any position to comment on them.

Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post
As far as China is concerned, you might want to look beyond the press releases of gleaming high-speed railways. A recent report of the IMF found that there is absolutely no way that China's railway system will ever be able to pay for itself, and huge problems are being found on their tracks due to shoddy construction. In fact, China's infrastructure construction is a pretty good metaphor for the entire country, with serious malinvestment beginning to make itself felt in the overall economic life of the country.
Okay, we'll let China slide. But we can still compare the US with Western Europe. And I still say that I would much rather we pay for the expense of a modern infrastructure than more manufactured war.

Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post
Mind you, the War In Iraq was baloney, something I pointed out at the time. But we can't look backwards now. We have to look at the situation today. Are you really going to sit idly by and allow ISIS to overrun Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon? Are you really prepared for a bunch of thugs to drag that region back to the medieval period, lopping off heads and enslaving women? A willingness to do so is not a sign of higher intelligence, but rather one of moral vacuity.
Are YOU going to sit idly by, cpg? Are YOU willing to fight on the front lines? If you feel so strongly about it, when are YOU signing up? When?

Incidentally, Saudi Arabia routinely beheads people, enslaves women, and has never LEFT the medieval period. Yet I haven't heard anything about us going to war with them. I wonder why?

Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post
You inadvertently made my point for me. Because you keep reciting the same tired shibboleths of the left, never stopping to think if any of them have any grounding in reality. In that sense, you are just as bad as the knuckle-dragging Fox News watchers. You simply get your propaganda from a different source.
There is NO need to insult me simply because I have opinions that differ from your own. And you consider yourself intellectually superior? Apparently, you can't have an intelligent discussion without resorting to name-calling. If I'm a "knuckle-dragger," cpg, then, evidently, so are you.

Last edited by newdixiegirl; 10-12-2014 at 02:09 PM..

 
Old 10-12-2014, 03:03 PM
 
1,196 posts, read 1,801,815 times
Reputation: 785
Quote:
Originally Posted by Adhom View Post
To me the difference is the ability to see the bigger picture. I want policies that benefit the human race, not just for my tribe and people who look like me.

I think that the left vs. right studies aren't clear. I would argue that a lot of people tend to be socially liberal, fiscally conservative.
 
Old 10-12-2014, 04:02 PM
 
28,896 posts, read 54,049,794 times
Reputation: 46669
Quote:
Originally Posted by newdixiegirl View Post
The fact remains that higher education in the US is ridiculously expensive and becoming more cost prohibitive for more people IF they don't want to begin their working lives with a sh**load of debt. And don't tell me that that's because the education is so superior. My alma mater (undergraduate) is consistently ranked as one of the top schools in North America for a fraction of the cost of a comparable US school.

See, what you're actually discussing here is a result of government intervention in the marketplace. College tuition in the United States used to be rather cheap, affordable by just about anyone. Hey, I worked my way through a private college thirty years ago without taking a dime out in loans. But Federally-subsidized student loans began making their appearances 40 years ago. At the very same time, tuition costs began rising at a rate roughly 4X the rate of inflation. The explanation for this is pretty simple. With cheap student loans out there, colleges could suddenly jack up tuition costs because -- hey -- people could now pay on the installment plan. If there was ever a case for the Law of Unintended Consequences, this was it. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Uh, you're talking to someone who grew up in a country with a universal healthcare system, and you're wrong. Are they perfect systems? Of course not; no system is. But NO ONE goes bankrupt paying for medical bills. I think it's awful that that happens to ANY decent, law-abiding, hard-working, taxpaying American who has done everything right, everything that they were "supposed" to do. Their only mistake was getting sick.

I can assure you that the VAST majority of Canadian, Brits, Europeans, Australians, etc would NEVER give up their universal healthcare systems. NEVER (and the fact is, that most of those systems, with perhaps the exception of Canada, are hybrid systems, anyway). Unless YOU'VE experienced a universal healthcare system for yourself, then, quite frankly, you aren't in any position to comment on them.

Oh. So the experiences of my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, and assorted immigrant friends and neighbors don't count. Got it. Nice try. When they all unanimously tell me that there's no freaking way they'd go back to Canada, the U.K., and Germany with a serious illness for treatment, that pretty much tells me everything I need to know.


Okay, we'll let China slide. But we can still compare the US with Western Europe. And I still say that I would much rather we pay for the expense of a modern infrastructure than more manufactured war.

You realize, of course, that the EU's GDP growth continues to lag behind that of the United States by roughly a full percentage point a year, and has for some time. In fact, the gap between the two has widened over time and will actually become even more pronounced in the years to come. The time is coming in the next decade or so when even economic stalwarts of Europe such as Germany will have a lower GDP than Mississippi and West Virginia. But hey, the roads and railways will be really nice, even if the EU's countries have failed to create additional prosperity for its citizenry.

Are YOU going to sit idly by, cpg? Are YOU willing to fight on the front lines? If you feel so strongly about it, when are YOU signing up? When?

Incidentally, Saudi Arabia routinely beheads people, enslaves women, and has never LEFT the medieval period. Yet I haven't heard anything about us going to war with them. I wonder why?

Because I'm 52. However, had my number come up in the draft at an earlier age, I would have gone.

And, to answer your other question, weltpolitik matters. Even when we fought in World War II, we had to make common cause with the second-worst bastard on the planet to defeat the worst bastard on the planet. However, as the United States continues to grow its domestic energy production through new technology, golly how we suddenly do not have to rely on a bunch of feudal despots to supply the energy that keeps our economy functioning. Even as we speak, regimes such as Iran and Saudi Arabia are having to deal with plunging oil prices on the global markets that propped up their corrupt regimes. The other benefit of that is that plunging energy costs make it much more feasible to manufacture domestically. That is, as long as the current administration does not torpedo domestic energy development. Now that would be stupid, to I fully expect the Obama administration to put an end to it. See how interrelated all these things are? Think about that next time you formulate a knee-jerk response to some shrill polemic against the Keystone Pipeline.



There is NO need to insult me simply because I have opinions that differ from your own. And you consider yourself intellectually superior? Apparently, you can't have an intelligent discussion without resorting to name-calling. If I'm a "knuckle-dragger," cpg, then, evidently, so are you.
Oh, if I were insulting you, you'd know it. I am just pointing out to you the blinders that folks such as you have. You basically get your news from those sources that confirm your worldview, rather than think independently and then turn around and trash those with contrary views for their parochialism. That's pretty clear from your arguments. It's like the blind arguing with the blind.

Mind you, I'm arguing with a liberal point of view. But I'm an equal-opportunity skeptic. The entire point of this thread is whether Liberals are more intelligent than conservatives, or vice versa. In truth, neither are very intelligent at all because neither a liberal nor a conservative is truly equipping himself with enough facts to argue his or her position.

Last edited by cpg35223; 10-12-2014 at 04:48 PM..
 
Old 10-12-2014, 04:39 PM
 
11,337 posts, read 11,008,074 times
Reputation: 14993
Quote:
Originally Posted by newdixiegirl View Post
So, in which war have YOU served your country, MP? In the ones that were necessary and good?
In which war have YOU been on the front lines fighting? In the ones that were necessary and good?
Are YOU going to go down to the recruiting center and sign up, if you believe that more war is necessary and good?

You're right; it IS black and white. So please don't give gray answers.

And don't tell me you're now too old to be on the front lines. You could very easily become a member of a crew that cleans up body parts (they're necessary and good AND in pretty high demand).

If ANYONE believes that more war is necessary and good, then he/she should feel obligated to serve their country and get out on the front lines and fight!! End. of. story.
Now you are just being silly. We have people that specialize in blowing things up and killing people that would kill us first as a basic tenet of their religion. I don't have to personally join them, but I am happy to pay them, and that is good enough.

The argument that individuals in a society ALL have to personally serve in the physical defense of that society is ludicrous. Hiring and training a force of destruction and deterrence is a legitimate and rational role for the government of a free society. I am happy to pay my share, and you should be too.
 
Old 10-12-2014, 05:07 PM
 
Location: Myrtle Creek, Oregon
15,293 posts, read 17,626,988 times
Reputation: 25231
Intelligent people don't get sucked into the liberal party line any more than they get sucked into the conservative party line. Intelligent people can handle considering multiple sides to any issue. The only "liberal" bias exists in the survey design, which defines understanding of any complex issue as "liberal."
 
Old 10-12-2014, 05:12 PM
 
Location: Nashville, TN -
9,588 posts, read 5,817,689 times
Reputation: 11116
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post
Oh. So the experiences of my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, and assorted immigrant friends and neighbors don't count. Got it. Nice try. When they all unanimously tell me that there's no freaking way they'd go back to Canada, the U.K., and Germany with a serious illness for treatment, that pretty much tells me everything I need to know.
Oh. So the experiences of your brother-in-law, your sister-in-law, and an assortment of immigrant friends and neighbors is all the "data" you need to know? Well, that tells me everything I need to know. But I'm thinkin' you really need to get out and see a little more of the world.

Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post
Because I'm 52. However, had my number come up in the draft at an earlier age, I would have gone.
How convenient for you.

Why would you have had to wait for your number to come up in the draft? Why didn't you volunteer like millions of other young Americans do? Heck, even now. You're 52, not 82, and perhaps reasonably fit and active. I'm quite sure you could serve your country in some way militarily. They'd love independent thinkers like you.

I'm 48, fit and active. If I felt that any war we'd been waging - or will wage - was a JUST war, a legitimate war, a necessary war (though very few are), I'd go and serve ANY way I could.

Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post
Oh, if I were insulting you, you'd know it. I am just pointing out to you the blinders that folks such as you have. You basically get your news from those sources that confirm your worldview, rather than think independently. That's pretty clear from your arguments.
Nice. This from someone who perhaps calls himself a Christian (?).

"Folks like [me]." Hmm. Not sure what that means, but I'll bite. Let's see. I'm a child of immigrants. I'm an immigrant myself (immigrants generally think outside the box, and have a LOT of chutzpah). My hometown is one of the most diverse cities in the world, as is my parents' hometown. I've lived across 2 different countries in various cities and regions. I'm well educated. I work in education. I'm highly adaptable. I'm reasonably well-traveled and I'm a pretty voracious reader. And my 3 kids are as free-spirited and curious about the world as their mother.

How about you? What in your background and/or your experience has made you so much more of an "independent thinker" than "folks like me"?
 
Old 10-12-2014, 05:17 PM
 
Location: Chesapeake Bay
6,046 posts, read 4,805,240 times
Reputation: 3544
" Oh. So the experiences of my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, and assorted immigrant friends and neighbors don't count. Got it. Nice try. When they all unanimously tell me that there's no freaking way they'd go back to Canada, the U.K., and Germany with a serious illness for treatment, that pretty much tells me everything I need to know. "

cpg:

I bet they'd willingly go back to those countries (if they could) if they didn't have the necessary health insurance to access that treatment in the US.

And you are 52. But when you were younger you didn't put yourself out a bit and join the military? Nope, not you. But you are perfectly happy with the possibility of sending others to their death in a manufactured war.
 
Old 10-12-2014, 05:59 PM
 
1,196 posts, read 1,801,815 times
Reputation: 785
Quote:
Originally Posted by newdixiegirl View Post
The fact remains that higher education in the US is ridiculously expensive and becoming more cost prohibitive for more people IF they don't want to begin their working lives with a sh**load of debt. And don't tell me that that's because the education is so superior. My alma mater (undergraduate) is consistently ranked as one of the top schools in North America for a fraction of the cost of a comparable US school.
I think we have way too many colleges and way too many people going to college that shouldn't. Other countries-who are also seeing their education spending costs at the higher education levels-don't have this "everyone can get to college" motto in the same way we do.

We need to start enforcing better involvement from parents, and cut the non-essential administration and
add-ons at the K-12 level.


Uh, you're talking to someone who grew up in a country with a universal healthcare system, and you're wrong. Are they perfect systems? Of course not; no system is. But NO ONE goes bankrupt paying for medical bills. I think it's awful that that happens to ANY decent, law-abiding, hard-working, taxpaying American who has done everything right, everything that they were "supposed" to do. Their only mistake was getting sick.

I can assure you that the VAST majority of Canadian, Brits, Europeans, Australians, etc would NEVER give up their universal healthcare systems. NEVER (and the fact is, that most of those systems, with perhaps the exception of Canada, are hybrid systems, anyway). Unless YOU'VE experienced a universal healthcare system for yourself, then, quite frankly, you aren't in any position to comment on them.

A lot of countries are facing financial strains on their health system (and their government liabilities/spending in general), from France to Britain to Australia. Universal health isn't going to stop aging and diabetes. Frankly, for one, I like to see the U.S. stop subsidizing lower drug and technology prices-which we primarily fund through massive government programs like the NIH-and have the rest of the world share in the costs. Also, it's a lot easier to manage countries that are smaller than a massively populated and geographic one like the U.S.

Quote:
Originally Posted by newdixiegirl View Post
Okay, we'll let China slide. But we can still compare the US with Western Europe. And I still say that I would much rather we pay for the expense of a modern infrastructure than more manufactured war.
A lot of people would like to see this. And, a lot of non-liberals never supported the war. You know that, right?

Whatever happened to the $500 billion infrastructure bill that was passed?
 
Old 10-12-2014, 06:04 PM
 
Location: DFW
40,937 posts, read 49,032,812 times
Reputation: 54963
Who is "smarter"...

The guy who teaches Economics at a College or the Guy who can rebuild the transmission in your car ?

Intelligence does not equal Smart.
 
Old 10-12-2014, 06:04 PM
 
1,196 posts, read 1,801,815 times
Reputation: 785
Quote:
Originally Posted by newdixiegirl View Post
The fact remains that higher education in the US is ridiculously expensive and becoming more cost prohibitive for more people IF they don't want to begin their working lives with a sh**load of debt. And don't tell me that that's because the education is so superior. My alma mater (undergraduate) is consistently ranked as one of the top schools in North America for a fraction of the cost of a comparable US school.
I think we have way too many colleges and way too many people going to college that shouldn't. Other countries-who are also seeing their education spending costs at the higher education levels-don't have this "everyone can get to college" motto in the same way we do.

We need to start enforcing better involvement from parents, and cut the non-essential administration and
add-ons at the K-12 level.

Quote:
Originally Posted by newdixiegirl View Post
Uh, you're talking to someone who grew up in a country with a universal healthcare system, and you're wrong. Are they perfect systems? Of course not; no system is. But NO ONE goes bankrupt paying for medical bills. I think it's awful that that happens to ANY decent, law-abiding, hard-working, taxpaying American who has done everything right, everything that they were "supposed" to do. Their only mistake was getting sick.

I can assure you that the VAST majority of Canadian, Brits, Europeans, Australians, etc would NEVER give up their universal healthcare systems. NEVER (and the fact is, that most of those systems, with perhaps the exception of Canada, are hybrid systems, anyway). Unless YOU'VE experienced a universal healthcare system for yourself, then, quite frankly, you aren't in any position to comment on them.
No, just a lot of countries going bankrupt or feeling serious financial strains trying to fund their health system (and their government liabilities/spending in general), from France to Britain to Australia. Universal health isn't going to stop aging, diabetes, and poor lifestyle choices. Frankly, for one, I like to see the U.S. stop subsidizing lower drug and technology prices-which we primarily fund through massive government programs like the NIH-and have the rest of the world share in the costs. Also, it's a lot easier to manage countries that are smaller than a massively populated and geographic one like the U.S.

Quote:
Originally Posted by newdixiegirl View Post
Okay, we'll let China slide. But we can still compare the US with Western Europe. And I still say that I would much rather we pay for the expense of a modern infrastructure than more manufactured war.
A lot of people would like to see this. And, a lot of non-liberals never supported the war. You know that, right?

Whatever happened to the $500 billion infrastructure bill that was passed?
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