this MIGHT be persuasive for a 4 year old with a learning disability.

I know this is what he and a lot of others want to think, but for most of his examples, just like his example of stupidity vs learning disability, there are actual and reasonable grounds for the name changes. PTSD vs shell-shocked, for example, isn't a case of trying to be 'less offensive' - shell shock was an informal term coined by soldiers to describe a range of experiences and symptoms, and combat stress syndrome, PTSD, etc, were developed by professionals who wanted to make an actual diagnosis (to me, shell shock sounds a lot less harmful than PTSD, because I'm not 80 years old). It's a case of people with more expertise and knowledge than Carlin trying to create concepts that are actually useful. You could call it 'murder crazy' if you want to be 'raw' but that doesn't get us anywhere. This is the problem with Carlin's thesis - he brings in terms that he doesn't understand, describing situations that don't affect him directly, and tries to cram it into some 'old white man post-relevance get off my lawn syndrome' (OWMPGOMLS).

I know that a lot of people agree with what they see as his underlying point. I'm just saying that his examples here don't support that point.

I think most of his examples are specious and his fundamental point is grossly shortsighted and insular. When he says 'words don't mean negative things by themselves; context matters,' he's almost right - but the context isn't just the speaker's intent,* it's a million other factors, things that Carlin pointedly ignores.

Still, I know a lot of the Sift audience wants to think that Carlin's point rings true. But does anyone think that it would be more useful, more constructive, and more honest, to call every learning disability 'stupidity'? How would that help us in any way? What could we accomplish with the help of this 'honesty'?


*It's also not 'just' the listener's experience

I really wish more people were prosecuted for abandoning their animals. Pets are a responsibility, not an accoutrement or toy. To me it's like abandoning your learning disabled child...to me there's simply no excuse except an unexpected death of the parent(s).
If you aren't prepared to take care of your animals for life under all conditions and possibilities, just don't have animals.

>> ^messenger:
So could you please watch the whole thing and then comment? You've spent more time doing research and replying to comments than it would have taken to just watch the thing through. And please do so with an open heart. In a nutshell, Matthew makes the argument that scripture actually does not forbid gay Christians to have gay sex. After watching it, you'll see that your comments about homosexual activity being a sin might not be scriptural, which is why nobody in this thread thinks you've actually watched it through. To claim scripture says it's a sin after watching this means you haven't watched it. That's why I invited you.

Well, I've finished watching and I have a really hard time believing that he has spent "thousands of hours" researching this, because you could copy and paste everything he has said from gay apologist websites, almost verbatim. So, there is nothing new here; just the usual twisting of scripture and dishonesty that is to be expected from people trying to justify what the bible clearly condemns as sinful. I'll give you an example of the dishonesty.

One of his arguments was to say that the destruction of Sodom and Gemmorah actually had nothing to do with homosexuality. He says that the attempted gang rape of the angels was actually just a condemnation against rape and not "committed, loving consensual homosexual relationships". He then points out that out of all the mentions of Sodom, sexual sin is only mentioned a couple of times. Which is true, but what he fails to mention is that most of the mentions aren't talking about Sodoms sins at all, but rather are spoken in a prophetic context. He then cites Ezekiel 16:49 which says

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

Matthew then says that this proves that the sin of sodom was not homosexuality but arrogance and not helping the poor. It might prove that, except that this idea is contradicted by the very next verse:

Ezekiel 16:50

And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.

As we know from Leviticus 20:13, God considers homosexuality to be an abomination, which then cements the connection to Sodom. To leave verse 50 out in his exegesis shows his total dishonesty and MO.

The crux of his argument is in trying to overcome Romans 1:26-27, which is the strongest NT passage in condemning homosexual relations. He first tries to weaken it by putting it in the broader context of idolatry, which is actually a correct interpretation. Paul did intend to contrast it to idolatry. With idolatry, man exchanges the natural worship of God to the unnatural worship of false idols. In the same way, man exchanges the natural relations with women to unnatural relationships with men. Yet, what Matthew tries to interject here, is that this only applies to heterosexual men who abandoned their natural predispositions. He then asserts that, based on his opinion and nothing more, that because homosexuals naturally desire other men, it doesn't apply to them. Not only is this position not based in scripture, but it directly contradicts Pauls intended meaning. When Paul is speaking of natural, he doesn't mean someones psychological predispositions. He means what God intended when He created men and women. This is further evidenced by his usage of the words arsen and thelys for male and female, words that are relatively unusual in scripture but are used in Genesis 1:27, which is suggesting that same-sex relationships are a violation of the created order. We also have the fact of biology itself. It is unnatural by definition.

I could go on, but the main point is, every reference in scripture to homosexuality is negative. There is nothing there to affirm any kind of homosexual relationship, but plenty to condemn it. Matthews presupposition that homosexuality is a natural and unalterable orientation for some is clearly refuted by scripture. He acknowledges that God at least once considered it to be abomination which alone refutes this idea.

I am open to solid biblical interpretation, and if someone could present an argument that doesn't have to twist scripture into a pretzel to make it even remotely plausible, I would embrace it. That was not to be found in this presentation. Secular people of course will embrace any interpretation that agrees with their liberal ideals. As a Christian who takes the word of God seriously, I cannot.

>> ^messengerPaul states it is better to be single.Better to be single than what? Can you give me the scriptural reference?

That it's better to be single than be married, because you have more of your life to devote to the Lord.

1 Corinthians 7:27-28

Are you married? Do not seek a divorce. Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife

But if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this


>> ^messenger:
True they have higher disease rates, but I'll jump the gun and say all the other things are most likely the result of discrimination.

The Netherlands legally accepts homosexuality, but not because it's socially popular. The Netherlands is historically a conservative Christian nation at heart, but in terms of governance, they're extremely libertarian. So no matter how vile, sinful or immoral the population at large thinks something is, the higher cause is that government not interfere in people's personal choices as much as possible. Homosexuality is in fact not socially accepted in the Netherlands. It's more like the famous quote, "I may hate what you're saying, but I'll fight with my life for your right to say it," but applied to sexual freedom rather than freedom of speech.

You should have looked before you leaped:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Netherlands

The Netherlands was historically characterized by multitude of religions. Since the mid of the Middle Ages, the Netherlands was a predominantly Christian country until late into the 20th century. Although religious diversity remains to the present day, there is a major decline of religious adherence. Nowadays, the Netherlands is one of the most secular countries in Western Europe, with only 39% being religiously affiliated (31% for those aged under 35), and fewer than 20% visiting church regularly

If homosexuality were going to be accepted anywhere, it would be the most secular country in Europe. You cannot simply write off these statistics as discrimination.


>> ^messenger:
Why is it a "breakdown?" Why not just "discarding"? What families are breaking down because of men having sex? Remember that (at least by my understanding) a man's being attracted to other men isn't a sin on its own. So, what effect can gay sex have on the country? This is the part of the common argument that I have zero understanding of other than the disease angle, which alone isn't enough to label it "a behaviour harmful to society".

It's not just the disease angle, it is also the issue of domestic violence (many times more than normal), drug use, mental health, etc. This is a major drain on society, as well as a danger to children raised in homosexual households. When I say breakdown, I mean of traditional values. To redefine marriage in a society built upon the traditional (and biblical) values of marriage and family is to fundamentally transform it. The same goes with allowing gays to adopt children. This effects our entire concept of human relations and institutions. It erodes monogamy in that gays don't traditionally have monogamous relationships..in the Netherlands for instance, research shows that even in stable relationships, men have an average of 8 partners per year outside the marriage.

It also erodes the boundaries of marriage, and it's a slippery slope to polygamy. Many legal experts have predicted that laws establishing same-sex marriage will open the flood gates to polygamous relationships:

David Chambers wrote in a Michigan Law review piece that he expects gay marriage will lead government to be "more receptive to [marital] units of three or more" (1996 Michigan Law Review).

I think this article does a good job articulating this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/16/AR2006031601312.html

I agree with Krauthammer, that the homosexuality angle is only tertiary to the real problem with marriage, which I see as the abandonment of biblical morality back in the early 60s.

It's bad for children in that the family structure of two biological parents in a low conflict marriage is the ideal for raising children, and the farther you get away from that, the more problems you encounter. Consider these statistics from a federal study "Family Structure and Children’s Health in the United States"

Children in nuclear families were generally less likely than children in nonnuclear families
• to be in good, fair, or poor health [Note: these three categories are considered “less than optimal”];
• to have a basic action disability;
• to have learning disabilities or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder;
• to lack health insurance coverage;
• to have had two or more emergency room visits in the past 12 months;
• to have receipt of needed prescription medication delayed during the past 12 months due to lack of affordability;
• to have gone without needed dental care due to cost in the past 12 months;
• to be poorly behaved;
• and to have definite or severe emotional or behavioral difficulties during the past 6 months.

Children living in single-parent families had higher prevalence rates than children in nuclear families for the various health conditions and indicators examined in this report. However, when compared with children living in other nonnuclear families, children in single-parent families generally exhibited similar rates with respect to child health, access to care, and emotional or behavioral difficulties.


http://www.christianpost.com/news/federal-report-confirms-nuclear-family-best-for-childrens-hea lth-48997/
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_10/sr10_246.pdf

>> ^messenger:

1. I have no problem with teachers being held more accountable in a fair manner, and that they could be let go for poor performance more easily than they are now. The fundamental problem with getting rid of subpar teachers is we don't have enough teachers as is. You can be selective when there actually is a surplus of people wanting to teach. You can't pay teachers a crappy salary, then fire them more readily for poor performance when you have class sizes of 30-40 students. That's my entire point. Right now, the problem is not that you can't get rid of bad teachers. The problem is you can't attract enough good ones, and when you do get them, they leave because the job sucks, and they're not paid enough.

2. We are born with predispositions for certain kinds of intelligence. The ability to teach well is an exceptional skillset. You have to have the right blend of intelligence to learn the subject matter you want to teach, plus the emotional and social intelligence to relate that information to other people, most of whom do not think like you do. The natural ability alone isn't enough, you are correct. But there are people who just will never be good at teaching no matter how hard they work at it. If you haven't the social and emotional intelligence to relate well to others, you won't be a good teacher.

3. The devil is in the details. If a teacher has a class of 37 8th grade students, most with special needs with learning disabilities, and the teacher gets no special education help, should the teacher's performance evaluation be negative if the kids' performances are subpar? (I faced that my last year of teaching, went to guidance dept, raised a stink about it, and their response was that's the best they could do. Thankfully, I left the first week of the school year when I got my first permanent IT job, but I raised a stink anyway because that wasn't fair to the person who would replace me. Our pay wasn't influenced by student performance, thankfully, because that's fundamentally unfair. What about the fact that the #1 factor in a student's achievement is the socio-economic class of the parent(s)? Does that mean teachers in inner-city schools should get more negative performance evaluations than teachers in suburbia? It's easier said than done. And this is the problem with comparing how the business sector works with public education. In the business sector, if these factors caused the business to not perform well, the business would get shut down, and there would be far less negative societal problems because of it. Sure, a few people would lose their jobs, but it's not as likely to cause very long lasting repercussions. If public schools' mission is to provide everyone with a basic education, you can't shut the inner-city school down. Even if you don't shut them down, if teachers realize they'll get paid less because their performance hinges on factors that are not under their control, such as the socio-economic class of the student, they'll flee inner-city schools to teach in suburbia, which means the inner-city schools who desperately need the best teachers will get worse ones.

It's really simple to say there should be merit based pay for teachers. On principle, I agree. But I haven't yet seen a merit based pay system for teachers that addresses all of these kinds of problems, which are significant fundamental problems you can't simply ignore just because such a system works in the private sector.

5.

a) There is incentive to take the risk if it also meant if teachers perform better, overall pay would on average could go up for teachers. But that's not on the table, let's be honest. The real reason teachers aren't getting paid more on average is there's not enough public support for the higher taxes that would have to be paid. And once again, it's a crappy job as is, so why would someone be in favor of making a crappy job even less secure? You don't have enough teachers, period, and even if you did, you're not attracting enough talented individuals to become and remain teachers. How does it make sense to make the job less secure then until you correct that problem.

b) I disagree with you about teacher unions. First off, I lump in any organization that collectively advocates for employees as a "union" when I hear people say "teacher's unions". Here in Virginia, there is the Virginia Education Association, which is an affiliate of the National Education Association. However, it is not a union; it can't initiate strikes. It's a professional association, just like the NEA at the national level. Some states do in fact have teacher unions, some don't. Would you call the following technically unions:

American Medical Association
American Bar Association
American Dental Association

So to lump teachers all together and say they are all unionized is not true.

The VEA and the NEA would not be worried in the slightest about a reduction of members because they still advocate for things other than pay, and teachers are fools if they don't join because, as an example, the VEA/NEA is the absolute cheapest way to acquire liability insurance (if you get sued for anything you do at your job, and there's a lot you can get sued for that makes no sense).

I'm not particularly gung ho about unions in general, nor for teacher unions and associations, but their existence is needed, and they're not nearly as rigid as you're suggesting.

The arts thing, once again, the arts can be a driver to motivation to higher achievement in other things. I won't say they are per se correct in what they advocate, but that would be towards the bottom of the list of things that should elicit that kind of reaction by society in general. There is far more pressing issues in education where you have people who fundamentally don't understand the issue and advocate horrifying policies.

Btw, thank you for actually being open to a discussion about this. I hope you're at least learning something out of it, and are open to changing your mind at least some.

Your description of a teacher's job is like me describing my current IT job as such: "Really, all I do is work with the same technology products. I just Read The F'ing Manual and install the stuff."

That would be a pretty ignorant way of looking at my current job.

You have never taught in a public school. First off, a teacher who reads directly out of the textbook day in and day out is a crappy teacher. Even the crappy teachers I worked with didn't just pick up the book and read what was in there, and assign the exercises at the end of the chapter. You also live in this wonderful fantasy world where the students arrive in your classroom, like perfect brain sponges, and they'll just magically hear what you say, or read the textbook, and magically, they overcome their various learning disabilities, weaknesses in various types of intelligence, distractions in life, and just ...

POOF! THEY LEARN AUTOMAGICALLY!

Not to mention a teacher's role is not simply to teach facts and information. A teacher's role is also to help inspire students to want to learn and do more well beyond the classroom. Those are the teachers students remember for the rest of their lives. I can still name you my favorite teachers from elementary, middle, high school, and college. I remember specific lessons from each one that really spoke to me. I became a history teacher because of my high school history teacher, Claire Tilton, who still teaches to this day, and she's still unbelievable at her job, but she's "just a high school teacher" I guess to you.

I wouldn't be where I am today without those teachers. And those teachers did more than just inspire me; I knew probably a dozen or so people who did 180's and loved history after being in Ms. Tilton's class.

It's one thing to know the subject matter; it's a whole other thing to be able to help another human being who is struggling to understand it learn it, or motivate a completely disinterested human into wanting to learn about it. If you think that people who can do this are a dime a dozen, I don't know what to tell you. I think we end up losing a lot of talented teachers who do inspire because society doesn't value education as it should.

>> ^chilaxe:

@heropsycho
You're certainly right on some elements, but I think there are a number of facets to this issue.
We can probably test the difficult of a job by looking at who can and who can't do that job. Most teachers, like Matt Damon's mom standing next to him, probably can't do particularly cognitively complex jobs like that of a $125k per year software engineer. I took a class in the education & child development department of my college, and I was surprised by how easy the subject matter was relative to classes in e.g. the sciences.
She probably teaches the same (or at least similar) middle school or high school subjects every year, and her primary job (AFAIK) is to follow the instructions in the teacher's edition textbook on a relatively simple subject matter that can be understood by teenagers. Her primary job is not to innovate technologically or come up with a new business strategy to outsmart ruthless competitors; it's to follow instructions.
That's a really different job from something like writing 50 page technical specifications documents, and salaries tend to be proportional to the cognitive complexity required, since anyone can do cognitively simple jobs, but only a limited number of people can do cognitively complex jobs.

LOL... oh, we're gonna play that game now.

So what do you call the stock market crashes post 9/11, 2007, 1987, all under your heroes - George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan? Guess your boys were... what did you call them... or, right... "clueless fking idiots".

Dude, seriously, check your facts before you post idiotic stuff like this.

Just to clarify, I'm not blaming Reagan or W. singlehandedly or even predominantly for those crashes. The drop today in fact has as much to do with European markets as it does the American markets. How exactly Obama could be blamed for that makes absolutely no sense.

About Bush's spending - completely laughable. The right was 100% on board with tax cuts (which contributed massively to the deficit, regardless if you want to count it as spending or not), and both the Afghan and Iraqi wars. About the only thing they were against was the senior citizens prescription drug benefit, and even then, I sure didn't hear a whole lot of opposition by them at the time. Compare that to Obama wanting to raise taxes on millionaires by a few percentage points and the right, including you, come out saying he's a communist or socialist, which is utterly ridiculous.

Name socialist programs that worked?

I define programs socialist in nature that cause the gov't to determine what is produced (related, how it is produced), who produces it, and/or who consumes it. With that said, here are the gov't programs that overall unquestionably the US is better for it.

Universal primary/secondary education
Federal grants and scholarships
Environmental regulation
Food and Drug Administration (before it, it wasn't safe to assume the food you bought from the grocery store wouldn't kill you)
Social Security (say what you want, but even critics have to agree Social Security has run very well, and benefitted the economy for most of its existence)
Medicare (seniors are happier with their health care than any other age group, and the vast majority are on medicare, medicare has been in existence for over 45 years)
Medicaid
VA hospitals

BTW, you can't say something has been a failure just because it's having problems today. If the program has existed for decades and was fine up to this point, it clearly can be run properly. Instead of questioning its existence, it's perfectly rational to look at how to reform it to allow it to work again.

And yes, public schools are underfunded. That's clear as day. And your rationale to not spend more is preposterous. Carried to its absurd conclusion, we should eliminate all funding for education in any manner whatsoever. Kids will learn just as much outside without shelter, books, or even teachers! Funding does matter. It doesn't determine everything about achievement. The #1 factor of student achievement is actually the socio-economic class of the students' parents. However, if the school is drastically underfunded, that child's performance will be inhibited.

See, I taught public schools, so I actually know wtf I'm talking about. You explain to me how routine classes of 37 8th grade students, 24 of them with learning disabilities, in a single class with no special education help (because there weren't enough special edu teachers to go around because it's impossible to find enough special edu teachers, because, oh wonder of wonders, nobody wants to go to spend the money to go to college to become a special edu teacher because their salaries are crap, just like every other teacher, and the job is even harder than other teaching jobs) doesn't qualify as ridiculous underfunding. This wasn't an inner city school, either. It was suburbia in a comparatively well off county in Virginia. Our textbooks were 15 years old and above reading grade level and falling apart. The county didn't have enough schools, so most of the schools had outside trailer classrooms. And no, there wasn't embezzling, or major issues with misallocation of funds. The area was heavily conservative; voters would rather have low taxes than well functioning schools, and it showed. Then you have idiots who claim the schools suck, and say it's because they're public schools, and the government can't do anything right. The government failed because it did what the people wanted - lowest taxes regardless of the consequences.

>> ^quantumushroom:

The Dow dropped 500 points today (04 Aug). Are you awake yet? People are voting with their $$$ and they have zero confidence in the Kenyanesque Hawaiian (a true label, as Papa was Kenyan and Barry is from Hawaii) who has proved to be a clueless fking idiot.
(If you don't want to believe Obama is clueless, a more terrifying conclusion awaits you: everything about his lifelong ideology, thinking America is the #1 threat in the world which must be stopped [or slowed down] is 100% true).
I know you want to believe this debt crap is a 'victory' for the right. It's nothing of the kind. We are in serious trouble and both sides ain't worth sh1t, but only one side is even trying to steer away from the cliff and rocks below.
The "spending cuts" are smoke and mirrors. Allow me to explain. Say you wanted to buy a car for 100K but instead buy one or 20K. The government would call that an 80K "spending cut". The government has NEVER cut spending.
As for your assessment of me, I don't remember enough about you to make a similar assessment, you seem to always be in attack dog mode but rarely do I see you drawing on facts for arguments. The left judges programs on what they're supposed to do, not how well they work (or not). That kind of insanity can only be measured in good intentions and resources wasted. You're standing on the edge of a cliff wearing Styrofoam wings, believing you can fly because that's the intent of the wings. Gravity says otherwise.

I've said it before and will again: I wish you lefties could prove me wrong with results: e.g. actual created jobs and prosperity, real evidence the (Bush created) scamulus worked, proof social programs work efficiently without counting good intentions, and stable financial markets attractive to investors the world over. There is no consumer confidence and zero trust now.

The left's incessant demonization of "the rich" is to win class warfare votes. It can do nothing else. Obama has already apent 3 trillion dollars in 3 years. Do you think "the rich" have more than 3 trillion hidden away? Democrat spending never stops and Republican spending barely slows down.
You can be pissed at me all day long, but I'm even more pissed at the disastrous results of this piss-poor excuse of an administration.

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^quantumushroom:
The Kenyanesque Hawaiian never met a spending cut he liked. He's overclocked this economy because he wants to cripple it. Here comes the broom to sweep the moonbats out of the belfry.

Did you not notice the economic bill he just fucking signed. Spending Cuts EVERY FUCKING WHERE...and Obama saying that it's wonderful...he didn't add any fucking taxes either. You've WON EVERYTHING by supporting the richest in the nation...and you're still bitching about something that's been proven COMPLETELY wrong.
This is my problem with you QM...you're just wrong, even using your own logic and facts, you're just always fucking wrong. I've met conservatives that were smart and made good arguments and I can have a conversation with...you could be one of those people but you're just fucking not. You're given a lot of shit on here but you're also given a lot of leash I would've banned your ass a long time ago just for being stupid.

>> ^entr0py:

If superstition is a pattern detection failure. Does that make it a learning disability?


What is being discussed here is indeed a pattern recognition / learning failure. You're overfitting to sparse data.

I think superstition in general is even less grounded in reality. Something like a black cat crossing your path -- people don't believe that is bad luck because one or two happenstance bad events. MAYBE the first guy who came up with that superstition had something like that happen to him, but I'm betting that's not the case.

If superstition is a pattern detection failure. Does that make it a learning disability?

@mgittle :
Interesting about the Plutonomy Report. It seems pretty straight-forward to say Plutonomies like the US, the British Empire, and the Roman Empire brain-drain the rest of the world. That's why the young creator of Chatroulette recently moved to Silicon Valley, instead of staying in Russia,* same as Google's Sergey Brin.

I remember a study from a few years ago that concluded when human were migrating out from Africa, each group that kept moving to a new location had slightly higher novelty-seeking genes than the group that stayed... fascinating... with the end result being in places at the end of the longest migration paths, like the Americas and the Pacific Islands there were significant differences. However, the paper connected that with higher rates of attention-deficit type learning disabilities in those areas, rather than with higher rates of entrepreneurship.

Ultimately, though, there are myriad differences between groups, so looking at just one trait or theory, as seems to be done in the Plutonomy Report, isn't necessarily very helpful in the big picture.

@mgittle :
Interesting article about time perception. I think it's a good reminder to practice mindefulness in daily life... and I see they mention the Dalai Lama in that article

Had a friend in middle school, moved away before high school but kept in touch, whose parents were both immigrants. The friend and his brother both used to swear a lot, the parents would as well. The friend and brother did it because their parents didn't mind it, and I don't think the parents minded it because it wasn't their first language and they weren't wired to be righteously offended by English swear words. Sure they understand them for the most part, but they didn't react the same as people whose only/primary language was English.

Every parent I met until high school (15-18) didn't want their kids using even borderline swear language and sometimes not even then. But his parents really didn't care in the least...they also took a completely different view on drinking and sex when it came to their kids too. They could drink and wouldn't get in trouble as long as they called for a ride, but they'd get their ass kicked royally if they drove drunk or rode with someone who was. And they'd let them have porno mags, I think there was a little limitation there in that they didn't want them having the super hardcore stuff...but even that rule kinda went out the window as they approached 18. Both were a little unruly growing up, but they controlled themselves better in more out of control situations. And both went on to college and careers, despite a learning disability that wasn't caught until late in high school for one of them. And both are close with their parents and normal well rounded and well liked people.

A lot of what is done today is just too controlling an environment for growing up and maturing in. Thus a lot of young adults spend their early to mid 20s figuring out stuff their parents or grandparents probably learned by the age of 20.

*fear

When did laughing at kids with learning disabilities become not funny? Damn, I must be old.

I have to wonder at the motives of these members of the protests. I personally have spoken to at least one government employee who doesn't want the bill to pass because they don't want their health care plan to change, they paid 15 dollars a month and no co-pays. While I can understand that position, their health care plan is already government subsidized and I can't imagine that pooling the money already spent on the government employees into a single payer plan would do anything but put them in a better negotiating position.

Then we look at what the government already covers....and how people "game" the system to be apart of that coverage.

Medicare, which as far as I can tell covers 65+, but can extend to those who are under 65 and disabled.

Medicaid, which helps pay medical costs for some people with limited incomes and resources.

A lot of people can be on both Medicare and Medicaid.

There are a lot of people who should legitimately be on one of these plans but are trying to "do the right thing" and continue working what little they can even though they are disabled and various other things. I can totally understand why people do the following things Im going to list in a bit, but it's crazy that people have to limit themselves just so they can maintain health coverage for themselves or just their children.


What I've seen people do:

Worked at a medical billing place where a female employee had been working there for 5 or more years, unclear on her exact term of employment. She refused raises because they would put her into a income bracket where her child with learning disabilities would no longer fall under the medicaid plan he had been on. So she had to take it as more vacation days, more coverage on her out of pocket health premiums, or refuse it entirely. Taking the raise would have actually put her in the situation where she couldn't afford her home, child's special needs, and other basic expenses without a significant pay raise. There were other things with this where she wouldn't get married because it would affect her negatively as well.


Rental properties my grandmother owned. They were in a lower income neighborhood, many of the people there had to have her file paperwork for them to receives medicare/medicaid/welfare/etc. Over the years, my parents discovered that the renter's who had this paperwork were changing it once my grandmother had filled it out and returned it to them (government doesn't send it directly to the landlord nor asks for it to be mailed by the landlord). The extent of the changes were unknown, but it was assumed that it involved rent amount and possibly names on the lease (so they could claim one of the leasing parties was actually renting a room from the other.)

These rental properties also created situations where people were getting divorced so the "single-mother" could get healthcare and maybe even a supplemental check from the government for their children. The husband would reside elsewhere. But it created situations where the ex-husband would be hanging around a lot, like too much to not be living there most of the week....and violating the lease agreement in the process. Which was basically put into place to keep people from turning the apartments into a free place to get a shower, wash their car, etc because it was partially paid for by the landlord in the agreement. Where the water bill for a property containing 1 adult and 2 or 3 children would be 4 or 5 times the amount of a large house with 5 people.

Eventually this situation came to the point where the people getting government checks, gaming the system a little or a lot, and still couldn't afford their rent at some future date. The government body providing the checks to these people would contact the property owner/manager which was my father at the time, and try to find out how much more it would take to keep the place rented for the individual and even point out other rental property prices in the area ignoring square footage, number of bedrooms, etc. At this point, my father told them that the property taxes had went up so much that they were actually losing money renting to them rather than let the place sit empty where the building would be in a lower tax bracket.

The point of this is, if these people didn't have to worry about health care costs, they might be able to receive raises, afford the cost of living increases, and even better their situation. But it's like watching people trapped because a lot of them needed the health care either for themselves or for a child, and anything that caused them to lose it would make them lose what little they had already. But you can't let them live in a place for free or at a loss to yourself because that's just a no-win situation there for anyone.


Then on the other side of the spectrum, people who are pretty well off job wise, but their jobs don't offer health care....or don't cover their spouse/kids for whatever reason. I know a few people in this situation. One of them works part time as a bus driver at the local school just for the health benefits, goes in early to run a route and leaves work early to shuttle them back home and goes back to his main job. Then sometimes runs night routes where he hauls band equipment, and in the summer does band/football bus runs. Otherwise is off all summer but still has coverage and draws a paycheck the way he has it setup. So I look at his situation as that he can't replace his primary job unless he finds one that will allow him to keep his bus schedule(and health care) or finds a primary job that offers equitable benefits to the bus gig...which government/school benefits are usually better than any job that is in the same pay range in this area.

Also families who don't fall into government dictated brackets, where health care companies won't insure a child because it was born with a major health problem. And the family is forced to pay the "cover you no matter what" plan where it's regulated I believe by the state the maximum they can charge for it. So you have this outrageous cost of health care for one child, and the family has to struggle with it for 18 years..where the child may not be getting the proper surgeries/preventative treatment to turn them into a potentially productive adult because the out of pocket expense would literally bankrupt the family. And when this child turns 18, they are considered medically disabled and the government ends up footing the bill for them for the rest of their life.....when there was the chance to correct or at least mitigate some of long term problems at a young age through surgery, counseling, or seeing proper specialists.

I just have to ask myself, what motivates these people to protest a system where everyone would be covered, and if they participated in it's creation...they could even push for it to be similar or better than their current coverage. And it would always be there, whether they are employed, laid off, in between jobs, working at job they love that has no benefits, need time off for personal matters.

And the system would have to have less headaches than the current one where you have to constantly check to see if something is covered, trying to figure out how much out of pocket it's going to be, if your plan will cover the drug that works for you or will only cover the generic that you have horrible side effects on. IE Some anti-seizure medications in generic form will cause epileptics to piss their pants during seizures while the non-generics don't. It's not even a life threatening side effect, but that's a side effect I don't think anyone would tolerate because that's a major quality of life problem.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'futurama, zapp, brannigan, disease, sexy learning disability' to 'futurama, zapp, brannigan, disease, sexy learning disability, sexlexia' - edited by ponceleon