*news
*election08

Adding video to channels (Election08, News) - requested by NetRunner.

TYT nails it, but I doubt America will listen. To quote Col. Nathan R. Jessep, "You can't handle the truth!"

I've always been boggled by the lack of initiative for health care reform on the Republican side. I mean surely they don't believe the free market is providing sufficiently for a good/service with such an overwhelmingly positive externality. What do their corporate benefactors* have to lose, compared to what they have to gain: increased productivity from their healthier workers, and a general optimistic view of the future that doesn't forecast being driven into indebtedness due to the risk of high medical bills, especially when you're talking about older workers.

I mean the only plausible explanation seems that insurance companies hold such a vice grip upon their political direction that they are stonewalling any progress. That or they are dogmatically clinging to a black and white, zero regulation market philosophy.

Astonishing to me that so many Americans are vehemently against socialised healthcare without ever questioning socialised education. The first essentially gives people what they'd have to buy for themselves anyway, but at a reduced rate. The second rewards extravagance and living beyond your means.

"Have three kids and a minimum-wage job? You totally deserve a handout. Socially responsible with savings and a budget? Screw you, pay for my kids' education."

I could easily cut a trillion dollars from your budget, but I wouldn't spend it on redeeming incompetence.

>> ^gorillaman:
Astonishing to me that so many Americans are vehemently against socialised healthcare without ever questioning socialised education. The first essentially gives people what they'd have to buy for themselves anyway, but at a reduced rate. The second rewards extravagance and living beyond your means.

Yes, because as we all know that keeping people poor and ignorant is the surest way to a better world.

Nothing in my comment implied that children shouldn't be given an education. Parents who can't afford their children should lose them, and owe the state the full cost of their care.

Regardless, it would be politically impossible not to mention morally wrong on many levels to disown children from their families on financial pretenses. Within those constraints you really only have the options of making the children suffer for the mistakes and mismanagement of their parents or giving them a chance at a future.

Why do you think bad parents are such a boon to their children?

When you have a broken social paradigm, you don't just keep plugging its holes with money, you try to fix the root of the problem. Wall Street bailouts and Free Money for Morons socialised education are symptoms of the same disease.

>> ^gorillaman:
Nothing in my comment implied that children shouldn't be given an education. Parents who can't afford their children should lose them, and owe the state the full cost of their care.


That's fucking asinine.

Who's going to keep the children? Who's going to pay for that? How are the parents going to pay the state for keeping their kids when they can't afford to do it with them living at home?

Your simple-minded solution would compound the problem ten-fold.

"Why do you think bad parents are such a boon to their children?"

Being poor does not equal being bad you fucking idiot.

"Who's going to keep the children?"
The state.
"Who's going to pay for that?"
The parents.
"How are the parents going to pay the state for keeping their kids when they can't afford to do it with them living at home?"
Garnishment of wages, confiscation of assets and a lifelong debt with interest exceeding inflation. Failing that, indentured servitude. You can earn a lot more money in an entire working life than you can just during your kids' childhood.

"Being poor does not equal being bad you fucking idiot."
Being poor and choosing to have children anyway makes you a bad person. Bad people are bad parents.

Actually, it would be pretty easy to support a child on minimum wage with a combination of modest living and home schooling. It wouldn't be a fun life, but that's their choice. Unfortunately, so many people are incapable of matching their lifestyle to their means, which is where the state needs to step in to prevent them from failing their children or burdening honest taxpayers.