Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1st

[Awesome Possum]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

You don't really get how democracy works, do you?

The United States is not a "democracy." It is a constitutional republic. Look it up.

Oh, how I love this.

I'll just quote one of the many posts I have made on that regard (and be grateful it's not the longest or the most scating):

The United States is not a Democracy and never has been. It's a Republic.

Urgh. No. The US is both a republic (a form of state in which the country is considered a "common good" and not the legal propriety of the sovereign) and a democracy (a system of governing in which all citizens have an equal say in the choices of government). I don't know why this is so difficult for some people.

Open a book, will ya?

I actually looked it up like he asked. It goes to a bunch of blogs made by the Cult of Ron Paul, Conservapedia and a ton of other rightwing ramblings. I think they like bringing it up because they think it makes them sound smart when someone says the US is a democracy because the word Republic is in the Constitution.

 

[nightwind1]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

snip

What is it about conservative posters that they consistently refuse to use the Multi-Quote function? Is it because the Founding Fathers chose not to include it in the Constitution? Is it because it was originally a socialist program designed to consolidate individual freedom-loving posts into one big bloated entity? Is it because the board software was secretly developed in Kenya and given fake licensing in America?

Yanks, your posts alone represent about a third of the posts on this page, they're as often as not just one or two line sarcastic or cliche replies with little in the way of debatable content, and they're frequently posted one right after another or in short succession. It's the internet equivalent of shouting down the opposition to drown out their message. Now, I get that it's a largely liberally slanted board, but that doesn't mean you have to overcompensate in the other direction by matching all of them post for post. Quality over quantity is key.

Here is a thought, is there a difference between what the USA classes as Liberal and what Europe classes as Liberal. Could it be acase of what the US classes as Liberal Europe classes as more centrist?

Pretty much.

Our "socialist", "liberal" President is actually much closer to a 1960's/1970's Republican in terms of the right/left scale than he is to a true liberal.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

That's a cutesy gotcha answer that's meant to look smart

It's not even that, it's simply plain wrong. It's like saying "this cat is not black, it is male".

The UK is a democracy but not a republic. China is a republic, but not a democracy. Vatican City is neither (it's the only current absolute monarchy that comes to mind ). The US is both (with being a federation on top of that).

Sorry for the rant, but it's a pet peeve of mine.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

Yeah, it bothers me too. It comes from a misrepresentation of the fact that the drafters of the Constitution didn't want a government like Athens (not that this was ever realistic anyway) and the fact that the Democratic-Republican Party was often referred to as the Republican Party. Because of this, an unnecessary distinction between Democracy and Republic was born in people's heads that has no understanding of what the terms mean or even meant to the people who founded this country.

 

[IndyJones]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

snip

Hey, Carc! Welcome back to the thread. Have you had a chance you ask your wife about that mysterious anti-healthcare provider regulation in the Affordable Care Act?

 

[cooleddie74]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

That's the real politics of it as well. The Republicans used to talk about a "Repeal and Replace of ObamaCare" eventually they just gave up on the replace part. It's lazy.

It's what their base thrives on. Bumper sticker slogans first. Details later - if at all. It's the immediate emotional gratification and stoking of the righteous anger that comes first and foremost. Whipping up the Tea Party and other conservatives into a cheerleader chant mentality so they can keep them energized and the campaign contributions rolling in.

Details. Pffft. Screw details. They just get in the way of some good, clean, old-fashioned 'Muricaning.

 

[marksound]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

I seriously hope you people are right about this stuff and I'm wrong, because otherwise it's gonna be a severe cluster. Severely.

 

[chardman]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

well, it won't be $95 every year. from what i understand the penalty goes up every year or so.

By 2016, the penalty is $2000.

Er...no.

The fee increases every year. In 2016 it is 2.5 percent of income or $695 per person, whichever is higher.

 

[cooleddie74]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

Our "socialist", "liberal" President is actually much closer to a 1960's/1970's Republican in terms of the right/left scale than he is to a true liberal.

Richard Nixon would be called a liberal by a lot of today's Republicans. Founding the EPA? Enacting price controls? Opening up diplomatic channels to forge much better and more peaceful relations with Communist China?

It's like I and others have said repeatedly over the past few years or so: Men like Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush 41 would probably have a Herculean task trying to secure the Republican presidential nomination in this day and age. Too many of the things they said and did during their respective heydays would be anathema if not downright heretical and unforgivable to the current hard Right and the Teabaggers.

They give Reagan lip service every five minutes, but would a man like the Gipper have been the 2012 standard bearer for President? Unlikely. After all, Reagan engaged Mikhail Gorbachev and sought deep cuts in nuclear arsenals with his Soviet partner. That's commie-lib-pantywaist-weakling stuff to a lot of these people and akin to selling out the nation's national security.

 

[IndyJones]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

well, it won't be $95 every year. from what i understand the penalty goes up every year or so.

By 2016, the penalty is $2000.

Er...no.

Er...yes.

The maximum penalty *for a family* in 2016 is $2085 or 2.5% of family income, whichever is greater.

 

[cooleddie74]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

Completely unconstitutional decision.

It was written as a tax, the only way it could be constitutional is if the SC changed it and made it a tax.

Wrong. The court ruling by definition was a ruling that the ACA was indeed constitutional under the umbrella of the power of the United States Congress to levy federal taxes within this nation's borders. They studied and interpreted the ACA and decided that indeed it can be justifiably declared perfectly legal and legitimate because of that Congressional taxation power enshrined in Article I of the Constitution. There were no sinister left-wing shenanigans going on to manipulate the law behind closed doors, and please remember that the conservative John Roberts appointed by George W. Bush sided with the liberals on the Court to declare the law a constitutional legislative act that was not in violation of federal law.

You calling it unconstitutional and not liking it is your prerogative, but doesn't change what a conservative Republican Chief Justice and four other members of the Court decided to uphold as proper and legitimate.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

This is ll bullshit. A good friend of mine has a pre-existing condition and lives under the poverty level. He spoke with someone at healthcare.gov. He was told that as a person living under the poverty level and receiving medicare that he was not permitted by the ACA to purchase Gap or Dental insurance in the marketplace. He hads to purchase dnetal from outside obama care the old fashioned and expensive way. He'd only qualify if he purchased all of his insurance from ACA which he cannot afford.

Hey, Carc! Welcome back to the thread. Have you had a chance you ask your wife about that mysterious anti-healthcare provider regulation in the Affordable Care Act?

 

[Roger Wilco]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

No one is saying that health insurance is a bad idea. It's been around for decades.

Mandatory health insurance is another thing.

Government run health insurance is another thing.

Going more in debt because of the ACA is another thing.

Passing a bill with no bi-partisan support and expecting the other party not to fight it is STUPID.

Refusing to compromise is stupid, see Harry Reid and President Obama.

Aside from the fact that there are people who say health insurance is at least unneccesary (I definitely remember reading that, and wasn't there even some US politician who advocated for directly paying your doctor with chickens or something? ), it is clearly in the interest of the state, the general populace and the treasury for all people to have health insurance.
This is such a no-brainer, that ever since this current debate started in the US five fucking years ago or whatever, Europeans have been scratching their heads what the hell you guys are even fighting about.

 

[MacLeod]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

The easiest way to repeal a law is to get eleected to be in a position to do so. So come 2016 if the PPACA is so unpopular the Republican Party will sweep into power and be able to pass a bill repealing the PPACA.

Or is their belief that it will prove to be unpopular so weak that it can't stand a few years in operation to prove their point? Or are they scared that it will work and they might lose voters?

And at the same time as campaigning against the PPACA, will they have an alternative to it?

 

[Scout101]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

Mostly the scared bit. Otherwise, it's in line with the things they've been proposing for years. So they have to flipflop and start saying how horrible it is. Since they've firmly lashed it to Obama now, if it doesn't immediately crash and burn once up and running, they've kinda fucked themselves for 2016, as pretty clear on the record that they were against it

 

[cooleddie74]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

As far back as I can remember the national Republican Party in this country have for the most part been opposed to expanding government involvement in health insurance coverage.

Back in the eighties they did favor catastrophic health insurance and expanding coverage for children in their Presidential convention platforms, but that was the extent of government using its power to expand coverage to more citizens through a new program or programs. Most of the time it's been a stready drumbeat of tax credits, vouchers to purchase private health insurance on the open market, allowing citizens to buy insurance across state lines and so forth. In other words, an aspirin and small bandage for a perforated artery.

The conservative leadership and the Tea Party are worried that Americans will actually like the ACA once it goes into full effect, warts and all. They saw how opposition to Medicare and Medicaid fell flat on its face after those programs were implemented to wonderful reviews and results and know that there's a chance that Obamacare will radically and positively alter how Americans perceive and receive health care in this country.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

Thanks for my morning laugh!

 

[Squiggy]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

No one is saying that health insurance is a bad idea. It's been around for decades.

Mandatory health insurance is another thing.

Government run health insurance is another thing.

Going more in debt because of the ACA is another thing.

Passing a bill with no bi-partisan support and expecting the other party not to fight it is STUPID.

Refusing to compromise is stupid, see Harry Reid and President Obama.

Setting aside your other comments, I want to focus on your last one: Compromise.

"Compromise" must have a new meaning where you come from. What I'm seeing is less "compromise" and more "temper tantrum" on the part of the GOP. Sorry, kid, what you're seeing isn't an issue of compromise, because the plan the GOP are against is the plan they backed just a scant decade ago, except at that time it was a plan created by the Heritage Foundation, later enacted by former Governor Mitt Romney as "Romneycare."

See, the ACA could cost nothing, give everyone everything, and take no resources, and the GOP would be against it, because it came about under Obama's presidency, and since everything he does is evil, unpatriotic, and wrong, it has to be opposed.

There is no compromise when your opposing faction just wants your face in the dirt.

That's just liberal blather.

The ACA is another level of government (federal) control that's not desire nor needed.

The only compromise that's come out of congress is from the house. The Senate and POTUS won't even talk.

Are you forgetting the sequester we're currently in? I'm guessing you are.

 

[J.T.B.]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

Straight party vote.

Straight party vote.

Of course it was. That was the Republican strategy: Deny the new president any moderate/independent/non-partisan appeal by opposing anything he favored. Nothing would get bi-partisan support, even if it was something many Republicans had supported in the past like individual health insurance mandates. All the work Chuck Grassley had done on bi-partisan health care reform was scrapped as counter to the new party line. Though not everyone got the message at the same time: Newt Gingrich was supporting the individual mandate as late as May 2011 on "Meet the Press."

Completely unconstitutional decision.

It was written as a tax, the only way it could be constitutional is if the SC changed it and made it a tax.

Well, maybe you can become a Supreme Court justice and then someone will give a damn about what you think is constitutional and what's not. Till then...

As they should. Their constituents and the majority of the American people don't want it. The polls were CLEAR when they voted it in.

And yet Mitt Romney kept saying he'd repeal Obamacare "on day one!" and how far did that get him?

Yeah, it bothers me too. It comes from a misrepresentation of the fact that the drafters of the Constitution didn't want a government like Athens (not that this was ever realistic anyway) and the fact that the Democratic-Republican Party was often referred to as the Republican Party. Because of this, an unnecessary distinction between Democracy and Republic was born in people's heads that has no understanding of what the terms mean or even meant to the people who founded this country.

It started bothering me over 25 years ago when I began noticing it in letters to the editor from John Birchers and from goldbuggers, nullificationists and the like on talk radio (back in the Fairness Doctrine days when it was worth listening to). What it comes down to I think is a basic mistrust and/or resentment of "democracy" because it gives too much power to a sort of people who really should leave their government to their betters.

 

[Squiggy]

Re: Ok Trekkers, Don't Forget To Sign Up For Mandatory Obamacare Oct 1

Straight party vote.
.

That's the sucky thing about being in the minority. Your votes aren't needed to pass in a democracy.

Why do you hate America?