Brown wins Mass. Senate race in epic upset

[rb336]

Well, John, I don't want to pay for your police protection or fire protection. I live simply, without excess, and don't encumber myself with crap people want to take from me. I have a stone and steel house on a lake with a good pump. my house is nearly fireproof. why should I pay for your protection?

[lilpup]

Massachusetts has the sixth highest per capita income in the nation. Kennedy was part of the money crowd so they weren't afraid of him. Now that he's gone they're just going to elect their true nature.

[gibran]

I don't think we are advocating taking the "rights of one group away from them"...what we are saying is develop a system of justice based on the concepts that while all people are created equal in reality theri are barriers to equality...and healthc cre accessibility is one of many..equality is not reality until we work to correct the disparity...I really don't think the "pull yourself up " crowd gets that the system that they protect is truly unequal or accessible to all...when it does become that way you will have a valid point.

however, the myths of "doing nothing folk" generally has a root cause behind it...and like someone so wisely posted about HC..until you understand the cost of HC as it exists today...well. Why protect the of the status quo when society is not there yet...economically and morally...

you will never get it if you don't look at behavior and reality....I look at the antecedents to behavior and the root causes as a starting point for solutions... I am not naive enough to think my views alone are enough to save the world...but I do believe my spherese of influence can help make small corners of the world a better place..I an soundly a business man...but I make sure I do it morally and that there is a contribution for the greater good.

touchy feely stuff..well according to you "it worked for me" so I want to enlighten you thatitis not a bad foundation...helping others and paying my share back goes along way to elimenate the divison that the right an dleft seems to be moving towards...and again..what is your response ot families that have memeber to sick to contribute?

I am willing to listen to your sides points because we need a balance,,, but I rarely see one coming from conservatives accept ...the libertarian "self-accountability" while I believe in not enabling people...I firmly believe in compassion and education.

[littlebuddy]

You cannot spend more than you make. You might be able to borrow for awhile but even that will catch up and then what, you are broke. The same with health care. I would say the mojority of Americans live in bad health, mostly because they have chosen a lifestyle that is not conducive to good, long term health, but they all want someone to pay for it to make them well, which usually cost way more than they have put in. I am in favor of health care for all if all, or the vast majority want to live a lifestyle that encourages good, long term health. I would think if health care is a "right" than so is living a good healthy lifestyle, but few want to claim that right. Maybe all who want a health care plan should submit to the tests needed to show where a person is living non-healthy and charge them extra, much like a person pays more for car insurance who are bad drivers. There is no way you are going to give everyone GREAT health care and not go broke with the way most of uslive. And I would think the point of a health care plan is to give everyone great or a very good plan, not the lowest plan that hardly helps anyone.

[gibran]

spending more than we make is a natural for our government..look at Iraq..

[barnesfoto]

"Name one right that requires another human being to provide it for you."


My right to travel freely comes with the complication of needing a passport. I could make a great passport using Adobe Creative Suite, but despite my good sense of design, most governments would not recognize an"auto- passport." So I gotta rely on another person, [[a government employee, like my neighbor the libertarian who works for Amtrak).

Then there's public restrooms, and Fire Department Protection.
You may sneer at the idea that people have a "right" to use a restroom, but in my younger years I worked in both retail and restaurant settings, and I will assure you that customers never asked me if they were "entitled" to use the restrooms; rather they would simply ask me where the restrooms were located.

[[I suspect that this is what Rush Limbaugh is referring to when he denounces an "entitlement mentality" in our society.)

Whether I am visiting a public building or a private building, I might need to relieve myself. But it costs money to provide public rest rooms and everybody knows that many people who use public rest rooms abuse them [[perhaps because they are "free ) by peeing on the toilet seat and not wiping up, or by tossing paper towel on the floor. It would be far more comfortable for me to only use my privately owned bathroom, which is generally cleaner and more comfortable than a "public" facility. In fact, millions of dollars could be saved by eliminating public restrooms completely, or by charging people for their use. This would encourage people not to eat too much, as eating too much leads to added trips to the bathroom.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to charge people fees based on their projected bathroom use: A person with some sort of bladder disorder is obviously going to cost everybody more, and should be charged 10 times what everybody else pays: In the end, this person will not be able to afford the costs of using the restroom, but it will encourage them to stay home and never use public restroom facilities. In fact, by charging people more money if they actually used public restrooms, we could discourage people from using them. But would people still need to relive themselves? What if they simply used the street as a toilet? You can't argue that such a scenario would be much cheaper, in fact , that's how they do it in the third world, and everybody knows that the third world is much cheaper than the developed world.

Therefore, shouldn't we strive to emulate the third world, as our conservocrite friends are encouraging us to do?

Then there's fire protection. Despite the fact that many people may indeed be, as our conservocrite friends like to say "lazy" or "underachievers, " -and even worse, despite that fact that many people engage in irresponsible behavior like smoking or refusing to update their electrical systems, or setting their property on fire to collect insurance money, any bozo that lives in a settlement in the US can simply pick up the phone and call the fire department when his or her property catches fire.

[[While there may not be an article of the constitution that guarantees this , I assure you that the vast majority of Americans never stop to think about whether fire protection is a "right", they just pick up the phone, dial 911, and assume that it is.)

Where are the teabaggers? Is this not a socialist conspiracy? Why should I have to pay the costs of providing fire protection to irresponsible people?

[[The obvious answer is that I live in a city and my neighbor may be irresponsible, but if his or her house is allowed to burn out of control, it may affect my house. Because we live in a bubble of time when many infectious diseases have been eliminated, I don't have to worry that my neighbor may infect me with Smallpox or the Bubonic Plague, but what would happen if a new form of TB [[EDTR-TB for example) was to start spreading amongst the population. Would that new form of TB be more likely to spread amongst a population that has universal health care, or a population that does not? Would a new strain of disease refuse to infect me because I did have health insurance? Just checking.

Unanswered question: Why won't DIck Armey, Leader of the teabagging movement, and opponent of " government healthcare" give up his government health care policy?

Unanswered questionWhy does Japan [[a country where a cab ride in Tokyo can easily start at 100.00) have cheaper health care than the US?

Unanswered question: If MikeG is so disdainful of the UN, does he see any value in the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution? These documents were part of a nation that in its' first 100 years,was profoundly flawed. It was a nation that committed mass acts of genocide and land theft, and was governed by slaveholders who were also rapists. So given your eye for details, you must feel that the D of I and the Constitution are also meaningless, right?

Is there such a thing as "Universal Human Rights" or are "human rights" a variable depending on how much money or which papers the "human" in question has?

[[See also: Orwell, George, aka Blair, Eric: Animal Farm [I]"All animals are equal but some are more equal["/I])

[gibran]

I am humbled by your ability to put in so eloquently...^^^^ that is nice

[Sstashmoo]

Yep, great post Barnes.

[Mikeg]

sstashmoo wrote:

It's been almost 24 hours and all I'm hearing is crickets on this. Mikeg,

It's been almost 48 hours since I responded in post # 97 - maybe you should call an exterminator.

barnesfoto wrote:

Unanswered question: If MikeG is so disdainful of the UN, does he see any value in the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution? These documents were part of a nation that in its' first 100 years,was profoundly flawed. It was a nation that committed mass acts of genocide and land theft, and was governed by slaveholders who were also rapists. So given your eye for details, you must feel that the D of I and the Constitution are also meaningless, right?

As I wrote in my post #97:

the UN as an organization has increasingly failed [[see my post # 64) to live up to the ideals identified in its charter and the declaration of human rights. Nowhere in the declaration does it say that an individual has a human right to state-provided health care, free or otherwise. The declaration rightly points out that the full realization of human rights is based on the responsibility all people have to their community, not to their state. The declaration neither states nor implies that the people have an unquestionable duty or obligation to the state to make this happen.

I am as disdainful of the UN's recent and current performance as you two seem to be of the past and current performance of the US government. I see plenty of value in the ideals and standards expressed in the UN Charter and Declaration of Human Rights as well as in the US Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Have there been gaps between these ideals and the past behavior of sovereign states and international organizations? Definitely! Is there room for improvement in how all sovereign states and the UN currently operate? Of course! While we aren't able to go back and change the past, every sovereign state and international organization can and must look at their current performance and correct for the future. I see evidence that this is happening daily in the US, but the UN General Assembly, Security and Human Rights Councils have seemingly devolved into organizations that are all talk and finger-pointing and which have failed to take necessary actions to correct their own internal shortcomings.

[Sstashmoo]

Quote: "but the UN General Assembly, Security and Human Rights Councils have seemingly devolved into organizations that are all talk and finger-pointing"

Of course they are pointing fingers - at us. They are pointing out our violations of human rights and those of a sovereign nation like Iraq. We invaded Iraq for absolutely no reason. Our last Pres even admitted they lied about it. We are modern day conquistadors and oppressors, and we have associated ourselves with such.

They are also pointing fingers at Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. And rightly so.

These two abominations of humanity should be pointed out and the UN is simply taking an impartial stance and condemning these actions, as they should be.

Mikeg, if it were happening to us, you would have a different opinion of the UN, if a foreign government stepped in, seized control, defeated our military, built walls, restricted travel, restricted commerce, expressed they wish to "win our hearts and minds". The UN would be the American people's only ally.

[gibran]

From The Daily Star:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged on Sunday that Israel would keep parts of the West Bank forever, planting trees in a settlement bloc to reaffirm a land claim long rooted in Israeli government policy."Our message is clear: We are planting here, we will stay here, we will build here, this place will be an inseparable part of the state of Israel for eternity," Netanyahu said in the Gush Etzion enclave.

Sometimes you have to stop the ones you love from self-destructive behavior...that was originally the job of the UN until it was laid impotent by a series of failures... Countries that condemned others while their own behavior was worse and those who now feel they can continue to ignore international laws because they feel immune to it...Both are wrong..and it will take the US and founding members to get back to it origins...and not veto any criticism when it is right ...and to vocalize when it is wrong...FAIRNESS will stop the silliness to potentially a great alternative to wars and disenfranchisement.

maybe if we could have a honest discussion about the UN and it's role in the Middle-east both sides of the conflict would gain confidence in their ability to balance things out,,,but that would take their harshest critics and founders to realize it was designed not as a rubber stamp for super powers and imperialistic adventures...it was to provide a voice for all countries..