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I believe that rubbish. For the set of things covered in the paper. And the Japanese have been outliving the rest of us for a while. Of course it is partially genetic and partially environment. But still true.
And note we spend far more than anyone else for a result that is, at best, mediocre.
I agree, it is partially genetic and partially environment. But the debate was about healthcare.
He is presenting the case, as if the primary difference is the result of a bad healthcare system, declaring that America is "below-average". But yet, he doesn't take into account the genetic and environmental differences that might cause the highly-racially-diverse United States to be below-average(as compared to only a handful of largely homogeneous developed nations).
But as I said, even based on his findings, and his biases(selection bias), it would still place several universal healthcare systems well behind the United States. Including the British and Canadian healthcare systems, which liberals have often referenced as success stories.
As a general rule, no sane person wants to attack America only on the quality of healthcare provided. There are only two areas where America could possibly be criticized. Cost and inequality.
If you stick to those things, we can find some agreement. But it is not true that America's life-expectancy rate is a byproduct of a bad healthcare system. The difference between America and other countries, is almost entirely the result of America's culture(cars, drugs, obesity, etc), and high crime rates.
If Americans weren't a bunch of fatties, and if they walked more or took the bus, and if they didn't want to kill each other so much. The life-expectancy gap would narrow to almost nothing.
Last edited by Redshadowz; 06-19-2016 at 06:11 PM..
So you are actually against public schools? Incredible. This type of mentality is mostly popular among the plutocrats in third world countries. Low taxes, a tiny rich elite who controls the political process, massive corruption, extreme poverty, and a large class of people that slave around for extremely low wages. Why do you want America to turn into Mexico? It always amazes me that the people who are most against immigration are also the ones who are trying to push hard for America to turn into a third world banana republic ran by a tiny number of ultra rich families.
Do you even know why public schools exist?
The first step to "nation-building" is creating a national education system. Nations cannot exist without a national education system. It exists to assimilate its people, and turn them into "citizens".
For what is a citizen anyway? It is one who accepts government authority as legitimate, and who otherwise is an obedient worker and soldier, laboring for the benefit of the state.
Hitler did away with homeschooling and made public-schools compulsory. In fact, Germany continues to this day to make homeschooling illegal. Do you know why? Because it is said to create "parallel societies". The object of the public-education system is thus to integrate and assimilate the population into a single unit, a single culture, a single people, cooperating with each other, for the benefit of the state.
America didn't always have a public-education system. It came about in the mid-to-late 1800's, along with most other countries of the world, coinciding with the rise of "nationalism". Which began in Germany(and was probably strongest in Germany).
As H.L. Mencken said nearly a hundred years ago....
Quote:
"The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else."
For whatever reason, I've always wanted a sailboat.
That's because sailing is awesome. Seriously.
Quote:
First, "The two best days in any sailors life, is the day he buys his boat, and the day he sells it".
The best days are those spent on the water.
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Sailboats are incredibly expensive not only to buy, but to maintain, and transport, among other things. Most yacht owners, spend thousands, or tens of thousands every year to own their boat, which they rarely have the time to use.
See, that's the beauty of yachting. A rich guy buys a toy, then has to ask a bunch of poor guys to help him play with it. Other boats that I crew on fall under that concept. And there are many guys like me. Good crew is hard to find. (Not that I'm poor, but I'm not yacht-owner rich, either.)
Point being, I can swing a leg over my bicycle and be on a boat in 10 minutes, and I can sail year round. And that's worth a heckuva lot to me.
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There are certainly a lot of things to do in California, but that is mainly only if you have money.
That ship I showed? It's part of a youth program for schools in underprivileged areas, and I'm chipping in as volunteer crew. I have spent a grand total of $25 - background check for youth work.
The lake I'm moving to, is the 33rd largest lake in the country. Almost the size of Lake Tahoe. My family has owned land there for like 50 years, and my grandfather owned a pontoon and a ski boat, but they guzzle the gas(and two-cycle), and I would rather just go sailing and exploring, than skiing. Especially since it is pretty-much free(plus, you can always paddle/row a small canoe).
I remember watching a video of a guy who made a sailing kayak for the ocean, and he would go fishing, using the sail as kind of like a trolling motor.
And as a member of the Cherokee Nation, I can get a free fishing and hunting license.
See, that's the beauty of yachting. A rich guy buys a toy, then has to ask a bunch of poor guys to help him play with it. Other boats that I crew on fall under that concept. And there are many guys like me. Good crew is hard to find. (Not that I'm poor, but I'm not yacht-owner rich, either.)
Yeah, when I was looking into sailing a while back, I know that if you go to East coast especially, a lot of these rich guys in the Northeast, will want to take their sailboat down to the Caribbean, but it takes a lot of time to sail that far, and they want to keep their sailboats locked up on their private docks in the northeast.
So they'll basically hire guys just to take their sailboats either from the northeast down to like, Florida, or the Caribbean. Or they'll hire guys to bring them back up(usually a two to four-man crew). Its like 1,200 miles New York to Miami, and a large sailboat is generally only moving at like 7 knots. So, you're talking about like 150 hours of non-stop sailing.
I had thought about buying some fixer-upper for next-to-nothing. But it is quite the expense to pull them out of the water, then there is often rot or other holes in the hull. All the electronics are generally either stripped out, or not working, and the insides are generally pretty rough. Plus, you have to paint them with that copper paint, and find some place to park them when you're not using them(otherwise you have to just keep them out in the water).
I had even thought about building them from scratch(there are plans all over the internet), but it would require too much up-front capital.
Maybe, but it's prosperous enough to keep people flocking to the state.
That said, waking up in California with less disposable income as opposed to waking up in just about every other state is obviously worth the sacrifice.
If it works for you, great. But, as beautiful as California is, I'd never voluntarily reside there. Leftist politics are just too intense there.
So you are actually against public schools? Incredible. This type of mentality is mostly popular among the plutocrats in third world countries. Low taxes, a tiny rich elite who controls the political process, massive corruption, extreme poverty, and a large class of people that slave around for extremely low wages. Why do you want America to turn into Mexico? It always amazes me that the people who are most against immigration are also the ones who are trying to push hard for America to turn into a third world banana republic ran by a tiny number of ultra rich families.
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Originally Posted by windowtreatments
Were not against immigration but illegal immigration...
I'm against all immigration.
Why do you think immigration exists in the first place? I mean, why do you think America brought in millions of starving Irish in the mid-1800's? Do you really think it was because we are such nice people? Give me a break.
The Irish were the Mexicans of their day, they were brought in to provide cheap labor so that big-business could be more profitable, and thus have a competitive-advantage in the "world market".
With all this new cheap industrial labor, America began to rapidly industrialize in the mid-1800's, and American industrialization intensified greatly post-Civil War, when the government "cleared the west" for the railroads. And what I really mean is, they either killed or forcefully relocated all the natives, brought in more cheap labor from China, to build the railroads, and gave the land in the west away to white farmers, so they could maximize agricultural production, to provide more food for the industrial cities.
A part of my family came from Ireland during the potato famine. I had multiple family members who were part of the Oklahoma land-run. Whether you think immigration is good or bad, lets understand, its purpose is not for the benefit of "the people". Its purpose is to grow the economy.
The United States effectively stopped almost all immigration in 1925. The rise of American labor(IE unions), was the result. Our immigration policies changed in the 1960's, because American business wanted to crush the labor movement, by flooding it with cheap foreign migrants.
For some reason, moron leftists don't seem to realize that their open-immigration policy is hurting American workers, and is the primary cause of rising American inequality.
Let me add one more thing about the Irish potato famine. It was functionally a form of genocide by the British, who had conquered and subjugated Ireland, stolen their land, which they then used to produce food to send back to England, to feed English cities, while the Irish were starving to death.
The potato isn't indigenous to Ireland, it was brought to Ireland, because it produces more calories per acre of land, than pretty much any other crop. Thus, with the English stealing all the land, the Irish had to produce enough food to feed themselves(and pay their taxes to Britain) with less and less land. Which is why they began growing potatoes. It was the only thing they could grow on such small tracts of land, in enough quantity to feed themselves, and pay their oppressive taxes.
Texas, North Dakota, Tennessee or any other of them flyover States with all them good jobs can have it. No thanks.
I'm not waking up in the morning to look out my window at TX, ND, or TN....sorry. No job is THAT good!
Don't you live in Arizona?
Arizona is a flyover state.
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