Smoking a Cigarette

[madanthonywayne]

Besides the thread asking exactly that there is the atitude of fear that you all seem to show towards goverment run services. Now this maybe fear of incopatance but then if thats the case VOTE IN BETTER GOVERMENTS

Well, Asguard, I think The Who addressed the problem with your suggestion in Won't Get Fooled Again:

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the foe, that' all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

Do ya?

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
​

 

[madanthonywayne]

Well, Asguard, I think The Who addressed the problem with your suggestion in Won't Get Fooled Again:

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the foe, that' all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

Do ya?

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
​

That's not to say there's no difference whatsoever between governments, just that they're all corrupt, all politicians are scumbags. The best course of action is to limit the power and responsibility of government as much as possible.

 

[Asguard]

Mad you do that by voting the corupt ones out of power and\or aresting them. You do that by having different parties controling the sentate than the house (or the white house in your case). You do it by having a strong oposition and keeping those who DO show themselves to be trustworthy and altruistic in there goals. You do it by having INFORMED voters and making politics an important part of education both for those who will be voters and those who will go on to stand. You do it by making PUBLIC money avilable for campaine finance so its not the person with the most donations wins and you BAN private donations so that pollies all have a equal amount of money to run there campaines

You DONT do it by chucking out good pollies or public servants because "there time is up" and you dont do it by limiting services because if you do that you might as well not HAVE a goverment

 

[madanthonywayne]

Mad you do that by voting the corupt ones out of power and\or aresting them. You do that by having different parties controling the sentate than the house (or the white house in your case). You do it by having a strong oposition and keeping those who DO show themselves to be trustworthy and altruistic in there goals. You do it by having INFORMED voters and making politics an important part of education both for those who will be voters and those who will go on to stand. You do it by making PUBLIC money avilable for campaine finance so its not the person with the most donations wins and you BAN private donations so that pollies all have a equal amount of money to run there campaines

You DONT do it by chucking out good pollies or public servants because "there time is up" and you dont do it by limiting services because if you do that you might as well not HAVE a goverment

Sure, sure. But as Lord Acton said:

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.​

The more power you give government, the more corrupt it will be.

 

[Asguard]

thats why you limit there ability to be corupted. You have layers of goverment, you divide goverment into different bodies (executive, judical and legislative), you get a strong oposition.

That last one is what the US lacks, you have no oposition unlike countries with the westminster system because you dont have a parlimentry system. If you look at whats happering currently its every man for himself, no one is evaluating the CURRENT goverment because the current boss wont be there come october. So insted of trying to save his own job he does what will atvantage him AFTER october. In other countries where the PM is the leader the party and the PM have to constandly think of what the public wants because there main aim is to keep power.

I agree full heartedly that power courpts but the first thing it does is make the person WITH the power want to keep it. If you understand this you can use it against them (as long as you dont have a country like zimbubwe of course). If Kevin Rudd wants to keep his power he needs to do what he was elected to do so people will vote for him again. Where is the insentive to look to your own intrests in the US?

Dont take this that i dislike those who wrote the US consititution, they did there best in there current time but they made some HUGE mestakes. The 2 that stand out most of all are setting term limits and using a presidential rather than a parlimentry system where the oposition to the party in power is fractured and unfocused.

Lets take a look at what the canditates who DONT get elected do?
What did Al Gore do for the term after he lost the election? Made some money, did some work for the enviromental loby ect. In that time he was working for himself and causes he surported who was scretinizing the president? Who was saying "if i had the job right now i would be doing this insted of that and there for i opose this bill to prove it"? Who was getting up in question time and asking the hard questions which will apear on the news every night? Then who could go to the next election saying "Bush did this and this and this which i oposed so let me run the country and give him the oposition for a time to cool off"?

This is a HUGE flaw in the US system

Also even ignoring the role opositions have in showing goverment flaws there is also there roll in policy development. The senate can make changes to bills which means that goverment bills which have passed the house (as they always do) then have to be re-evaluated, put out for public consultation, amended ect before they can become law. This means that the goverment has to negotiate with either the oposition or one of the minor parties to get those bills passed. Also sometimes the other parties and the oposition can infulance goverment policy through campaine or political favors (pass this bill and i will pass that bill ect).

Then there is COAG which is another level of co operation and oversite because most services are state run and federally funded so its another opotunity for incopitant goverments to be shown up.

Of course some of this leads to blame shifting but by and large this all leads to a less courpt form of goverment. The proof of this is in the various crime and cruption commissions being run. Coruption has been found in various local goverments (especially in planning) as well as in the police forces but verry little (none if you ignore WA's brian buke scandle) has been found in the state goverments and NONE at the federal level.

If you remove these incentives then insted of thinking about there own political futures pollies will start looking only at there POST political futures and this would be bad for the country

 

[madanthonywayne]

Dont take this that i dislike those who wrote the US consititution, they did there best in there current time but they made some HUGE mestakes. The 2 that stand out most of all are setting term limits and using a presidential rather than a parlimentry system where the oposition to the party in power is fractured and unfocused.

Term limits were not part of our original constitution. They were passed as an ammendment by Republicans pissed off because Roosevelt was elected to four terms which was a break with the traditon started by Washington to serve only two terms.

I am ambivalent about term limits. There is something fundamentally undemocratic about saying a certain person can't run for president simply because he's served in that capacity before.

I know I was unhappy Reagan couldn't run for a third term, but happy Clinton couldn't. Perhaps a limit applying only to consecutive terms? I'd rather have Bill Clinton running again than his wife.

Who was saying "if i had the job right now i would be doing this insted of that and there for i opose this bill to prove it"? Who was getting up in question time and asking the hard questions which will apear on the news every night? Then who could go to the next election saying "Bush did this and this and this which i oposed so let me run the country and give him the oposition for a time to cool off"? This is a HUGE flaw in the US system

You can argue the merits of a parliamentary system v/s the US system, but our system has worked pretty well and has allowed us to go from a colony to a superpower in 200 years.

I think campaign finance laws are definitely hurting us as they make it too hard to raise the money needed to run. You've got to whore yourself out all over the place to get the money you need.

We should scrap the entire campaign finance system and simply require that people report on the internet who donated and how much. If some millionaire wants to give a candidate a million bucks to run, fine. Let the voters decide whether or not that's OK.

I don't like the idea of public financing of elections because (can you guess?) I don't trust the government. Allow the government to choose who gets financing to run for office? Fuck that.

 

[Asguard]

actually the AEC is quite independednt from the goverment. More so than even offices like the inspector general and the Obudsmens offices. As for who gets money at the moment the way it works is based on percentage of votes. You get a certian amount of money for each vote above a certian amount (i belive). The down side of this system is that a) it is retrospective so you need to get the money first from some where else and b) it advantages the major parties over new parties.

It could be improved by making it a flat rate per seat and leglislating that its the only source of funding alowed (we dont have the US problem to the same exstent but it is there currently).

Personally i dissagree with ALL campaine financing that doesnt come out of tax revinue because the ONLY person i want my pollies indebted to is the public. As for the goverment using it to stop people running, i highly doubt that. Well unless your in zimbubwe anyway. You just make laws that say when you submit your name to run in a seat you are given x amount (ajusted for inflation) to do with as you see fit. If you pull out of the running or retire during a parlimentry term you are required to pay said money back and then you could list the reasons why a person was given a exsemption from paying the money back like they die in office or they get cancer or what ever or you could just leave that up to the discreation of the CEO of the AEC ect

As for the parlimentry v the presidential style of goverment your right. The US has become a super power and Australia has not, though that could be related to other things apart from goverment like the fact you have such a large population. However that being said even you fear goverment control of ANYTHING be that because of coruption or because of incopitance and yet MOST of the countries with the parlimentry system (ok we need to rember zimbubwee again) not only manage to deliver ALOT more (and aguably better) public services but even in countries like brittan with so much video servelance very few people seem to fear there goverment. So how do you judge success as a country? By what you do for your people or what you do for yourself (as an elected offical)?

 

[synthesizer-patel]

So your chances of dying of cancer are higher in the UK with your much praised healthcare system than in the rest of Europe and the US beats you all. But surely that's the only problem. Right?

Our health service has plently of problems - I've never denied that - neverthless - cancer statistics included, the poorest person in the UK has an average life expectancy of 3 years longer that the richest american - the balance overall is in my favour.

So the government passes a regulation requiring that patients be seen within four hours and they respond by keeping them sitting in ambulances so the clock doesn't start! Meanwhile, people are waiting five hours for an ambulance to show up! Where I live, the response time is a few minutes with our evil private pay system. How many patients that could have been saved are dying due to ambulances being used as waiting rooms?

Hardly ideal is it - I guess it beats not having treatment at all - or not having access to any medical professionals - or being charged because you didn't pre-arrange the ambulance

So, if you hold the wrong political views, you don't get medical treatment. That's just fuckin' great. Of course, there's no risk in handing over your healthcare to the government. Literally giving the government the power to decide who lives and who dies is no problem. Just be sure not to execute any murderers. But if someone holds the wrong political views, fuck em.

First of all, its not the Government that have imposed this rule, its the hospital, and they will still (in fact are obliged to) treat this gentleman for any life threatening conditions - they have merely denyed him a routine procedure which he can still receive for free at any other NHS hospital - secondly (and thankfully) this is something of a case of Man Bites Dog reporting - in other words its the exception not the rule and that's what makes it newsworthy - I'm not defending the decision - far from it- merely balancing your slightly more extreme interpretation of this.
The nature of the material Mr Anderson sent was considered threatening to the staff - they do have a right to work without without being threatened for doing their jobs.

 

[madanthonywayne]

Our health service has plently of problems - I've never denied that -

That's exactly how I feel about our health care system. Have you considered that part of what makes you so sure your system is best is nothing more than patriotism?

Hardly ideal is it - I guess it beats not having treatment at all - or not having access to any medical professionals - or being charged because you didn't pre-arrange the ambulance

Indeed, neither is our system ideal. But, as I said, we get ambulance service within minutes. The last time I called an ambulance (the only time, actually), the total charge was $50. I'd say that's not too bad.

First of all, its not the Government that have imposed this rule, its the hospital, and they will still (in fact are obliged to) treat this gentleman for any life threatening conditions - they have merely denyed him a routine procedure which he can still receive for free at any other NHS hospital

This story precisely represents my worst fears of any government run system. Sure, you say, he's not being denied life saving services (yet, anyway), he's just being condemned to live in chronic pain and with limited mobility.

secondly (and thankfully) this is something of a case of Man Bites Dog reporting - in other words its the exception not the rule and that's what makes it newsworthy

Sure, it's the exception. Thank God for that. But that's cold comfort if you're the one being denied service.

As I said, both systems have their limitations. Like you, I feel our system is overall not too bad, and could use some small reforms to address issues like pre-existing conditions, and the working poor.

 

[Orleander]

what the hell does the gvmt have to do with Whirlpool smokers being fired???

 

[synthesizer-patel]

That's exactly how I feel about our health care system. Have you considered that part of what makes you so sure your system is best is nothing more than patriotism?.

Quite possibly yes - although I'm pretty sure which of the two would cope better in a crisis scenario i.e. natural disaster, epidemic, pandemic - there are a few recent examples in the US of general failures in that respect: 9/11 rescue workers denied long term care, failures in the aftermath of katrina.

This story precisely represents my worst fears of any government run system. Sure, you say, he's not being denied life saving services (yet, anyway), he's just being condemned to live in chronic pain and with limited mobility.
Sure, it's the exception. Thank God for that. But that's cold comfort if you're the one being denied service.

You missed the point - its not the government, its the hospital that have made that decision - I don't know for sure, but I'd warrant that any hospital anywhere in the world would deny anything but emergency treatment for an individual who was thought to have been threatened their staff - as a libertarian I thought you would get that point - you have rights to free expression until the point that those rights infringe upon others and potentially cause them harm or place them in danger - pretty much the essence of libertarianism.
And this individual is still entitled to a hip replacement at any one of the other NHS hospitals around the country - so he's being condemned to nothing of the sort.

As I said, both systems have their limitations. Like you, I feel our system is overall not too bad, and could use some small reforms to address issues like pre-existing conditions, and the working poor.

perhaps, and its definitely a debate that's worth having - but if you look at the direction legislation is moving in the US it is if anything moving AWAY from that kind of position, not towards it.

 

[Roman]

wow great to see how much power corperations in the US have over there employee's. Slave labor at work

I must use this to show how Marx was right the next time im writing up a sociology essay

How?
Because firms are forced to pay health insurance?
If they weren't being forced to pay for their workers' risky behavior, this wouldn't be an issue.

 

[Orleander]

agreed Roman. Asguard has no idea what he is talking about.

 

[Asguard]

so its poor corperations who dont want to be slave owners but are forced to because you dont have universal health care?

Is that basically your argument?
Rembering of course that if you lie on ANY insurance form they can drop you the moment you try to make a claim realting to that lie anyway.
So it has actually cost the company nothing because thats between the pt and the health insurance agency if they want to lie.

So why did they lose there job?

 

[Orleander]

so its poor corperations who dont want to be slave owners but are forced to because you dont have universal health care?...

slave owners??? exaggerate much

 

[Asguard]

No real point responding to this as she is banned but i will anyway. If a company has the ability to control your actions when your NOT being paid by them then that is slavery, simple as that.