Conservatives

[godtomsatan]

So I'm reading Bob Dole's letter to Rush Limbaugh in defense of John McCain and his conservative credentials:

 

1. Consistent pro-life record

2. Strong advocate for strict constructionist judges (We were misled on the Souter nomination)

3. Supported voluntary school prayer

4. Supported Constitutional Amendment for a Balanced Budget (needed two-thirds and lost by one vote — 66-34)

5. Strong advocate for reducing spending and opposing pork barrel "ear marks" which has, I might add, angered some of his colleagues

6. Consistent on defending Second Amendment rights

7. Opposed "Hillary Care" which would have been devastating

8. Probably the Senate's strongest advocate for strong national defense

9. Of course he has cast many votes since I left. I totally disagreed with the McCain-Feingold legislation. On immigration, Senator McCain was not in the Senate when Congress passed President Reagan's immigration legislation which passed overwhelmingly. It granted amnesty to 2.7 million illegals. It was not much different than the 2007 McCain, Kennedy, Bush effort.

 

Anyone have anything to add regarding the fact that other than the cockamamie 2nd Amendment thing and the notion of strong national defense that each of these is either a lost cause or a complete hypocrisy? Is that what it means to be a conservative?

[driveby]

I think Bob's just trying to convince himself that McCain is really a conservative and that's the best he could come up with.

[SuperCharger]

A true conservative fights to uphold the Constitution and restrict the powers of Government as detailed within Articles 1,2 and 3 of the Constitution.

Edited February 5, 2008 by SuperCharger

[TimC]

Chelsea Clinton was interviewing a soldier that just got back from Iraq.

So she askes him "what three things scare you the most?"

He answers,

Osama

Obama

Yomama

[yo mama]

Chelsea Clinton was interviewing a soldier that just got back from Iraq.

So she askes him "what three things scare you the most?"

He answers,

Osama

Obama

Yomama

[Savage Beatings]

...each of these is either a lost cause or a complete hypocrisy?

 

Please explain in detail how this premise is true for each item first. Thank you. Have a great day!

[Randall]

Chelsea Clinton was interviewing a soldier that just got back from Iraq.

So she askes him "what three things scare you the most?"

Yomama

 

 

John McCain's 100 year war isn't scary at all.

 

National health care is far more terrifying.

[Cyclones]

John McCain's 100 year war isn't scary at all.

 

National health care is far more terrifying.

 

National Health Care = Disaster unless done right.

 

Seems to me that most people who frequent the board have health insurance, whether work sponsored or self purchased. If you have health insurance already, socialized health care will hammer your bank account like no other program you've ever seen. Lived in both, hate the Canadian system compared to what I have now.

 

Ontario - 8% provincial sales tax, 7% Federal Sales Tax

Kentucky - 6% state sales tax

 

Ontario - $19 for 12 beers (wouldnt affect me now, although I poured alot of money into the booze back in the day)

Kentucky - $6.99 for 12 beers

 

Ontario - $1.00 per liter for gas

Kentucky - $2.89 per gallon for gas

 

Ontario - $8.50 for cigs

Kentucky - $2.19 for cigs (again, doesnt affect me)

 

The income tax is harder to explain, but a friend of mine who grosses $5k more than I do annually takes home almost $25k less (this is according to what he tells me, but I have no reason to think he would be dishonest.)

 

The reason for all the above? Health Care. I do, however, think there is a middle ground - maybe a copay, annual deductible combined with some government subsidy. I just hope that if we ever do go to socialized medicine here, that we do it the right way. Even European countries, which have a very high standard of living and consistently rank as the best places to live, get taxed to death to cover the health care. The gov't care is something that Canadians really cling to and are proud of - I used to be one of those, until I discovered that it's not actually "free," or even close to free. It costs a hell of alot more than the $320 a month I pay now.

[Randall]

National Health Care = Disaster unless done right.

 

Seems to me that most people who frequent the board have health insurance, whether work sponsored or self purchased. If you have health insurance already, socialized health care will hammer your bank account like no other program you've ever seen. Lived in both, hate the Canadian system compared to what I have now.

 

 

Most people have it unless you have a pre existing condition which some do have. The Canadian system(I've had it too) would be a safety net, like Socal Security, anyone would be able to get insurance outside of it. Most have pensions and don't plan on using SS.

 

The socialized argument has been made often but expanding medicare could work. Mosdt insurance companies spend 1/3 of their budgets on administration and marketing. Medicare is far more efficient.

 

It's also been said health insurance would ruin the economy yet Britain instituted it after WW2 when they country was in ruins.

 

If everyone could get together and actually debate this something could be worked out but insurance companies will do everything to avoid it.

 

 

 

"The reason for all the above? Health Care. I do, however, think there is a middle ground - maybe a copay, annual deductible combined with some government subsidy. I just hope that if we ever do go to socialized medicine here, that we do it the right way. Even European countries, which have a very high standard of living and consistently rank as the best places to live, get taxed to death to cover the health care. The gov't care is something that Canadians really cling to and are proud of - I used to be one of those, until I discovered that it's not actually "free," or even close to free. It costs a hell of alot more than the $320 a month I pay now."

 

Do you have proof of that?

[driveby]

Medicare is far more efficient.

I'm going to have to call BS on this one.

 

Unless you consider fraud and waste efficient?

[Cyclones]

Do you have proof of that?

 

Good point, no I don't. There are other things that cost more in Canada - maintaining roads for example due to the cold weather and salting, etc. But the Health Care sticks out as the major difference in the two economies, and the high taxes are common among countries with socialized medicine.

[TheShiznit]

National Health Care = Disaster unless done right.

 

Seems to me that most people who frequent the board have health insurance, whether work sponsored or self purchased. If you have health insurance already, socialized health care will hammer your bank account like no other program you've ever seen. Lived in both, hate the Canadian system compared to what I have now.

 

Ontario - 8% provincial sales tax, 7% Federal Sales Tax

Kentucky - 6% state sales tax

 

Ontario - $19 for 12 beers (wouldnt affect me now, although I poured alot of money into the booze back in the day)

Kentucky - $6.99 for 12 beers

 

Ontario - $1.00 per liter for gas

Kentucky - $2.89 per gallon for gas

 

Ontario - $8.50 for cigs

Kentucky - $2.19 for cigs (again, doesnt affect me)

 

The income tax is harder to explain, but a friend of mine who grosses $5k more than I do annually takes home almost $25k less (this is according to what he tells me, but I have no reason to think he would be dishonest.)

 

The reason for all the above? Health Care. I do, however, think there is a middle ground - maybe a copay, annual deductible combined with some government subsidy. I just hope that if we ever do go to socialized medicine here, that we do it the right way. Even European countries, which have a very high standard of living and consistently rank as the best places to live, get taxed to death to cover the health care. The gov't care is something that Canadians really cling to and are proud of - I used to be one of those, until I discovered that it's not actually "free," or even close to free. It costs a hell of alot more than the $320 a month I pay now.

 

You pay 320 a month....how much does your employer pay....I am sure the employer would just rather pay you and let you buy the coverage. Would you like that if it happened....nothing really stopping them. Not like there is a plethera of options regarding jobs available. Universal Health Care does indeed have a propensity to be a calamity if done wrong. But I think we Americans can and will do things better than those Canadians to our north....After all, we are Americans, the most innovative people in the world. Why people try to compare what we would come up with to systems designed by people with less innovation is beyond me.

[budlitebrad]

Rush and the rest of those tools need to realize that they don't have as much influence over the conservatives as they used to. The party obviously needs to rebuild.

[TheShiznit]

Good point, no I don't. There are other things that cost more in Canada - maintaining roads for example due to the cold weather and salting, etc. But the Health Care sticks out as the major difference in the two economies, and the high taxes are common among countries with socialized medicine.

 

So is longer life expectancies....so is length of family vacations...so are lots of things that people in America wish they had in their lives. However, some in our country have substituted free market principles for Democratic principles....like capitalism or free markets are mentioned anywhere in the constitution. Europe and Canada have come to the conclusion that free markets work....but only when gov't can correct inherent inequities. You might ask what are the inherent inequities? Those would be the fact that everyone did not start on a level playing field...therefore a true free market does not exist...especially when you extrapolate that out globally. American worker competing with Chinese workers whose labor is controlled by government is laughable....but free marketers would argue for it. This is the same conundrum with health care. We hesitate to do it cause it violates our precious free market principles...when in all actuality it promotes the general welfare which is in the preamble to our governing document....our mission statement if you will. So, my theory is this. When there is an issue which creates a conflict between free market principles and our constitutional principles....constitutional principles win.

[Randall]

Good point, no I don't. There are other things that cost more in Canada - maintaining roads for example due to the cold weather and salting, etc. But the Health Care sticks out as the major difference in the two economies, and the high taxes are common among countries with socialized medicine.

 

 

That's true. Milk and bread are a lot more than here too but our economies are different. e have a lot a subsidies and price supports that they don't. It's always hard to compare.

 

Medicare's adm costs are a few percentage points where as insurance companies' are 30% due to marketing and other costs. I don't like paying that.

[Randall]

However, some in our country have substituted free market principles for Democratic principles....like capitalism or free markets are mentioned anywhere in the constitution.

 

 

 

Neither are corporatrions, but because of a mistaken interpretation of a Supreme Court reporter's notes in an 1886 railroad tax case, corporations are now legally considered "persons," equal to individuals and entitled to many of the same protections guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

 

Someone needs to go back and right the wrong where corporations got that "right".

 

From Wikipedia

 

The Corporate personhood debate refers to the controversy (primarily in the United States) over the question of what subset of rights afforded under the law to natural persons should also be afforded to corporations as Juristic persons.

 

Opponents of "corporate personhood" believe that large corporations as juristic persons have enjoyed certain constitutional rights intended for natural humans as the result of a misinterpretation of an 1886 Supreme Court Case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. Opponents claim that certain rights of natural persons, such as the right to political and other non-commercial free speech, are now exercised by corporations to the detriment of the American democratic process as provided under the Constitution. Some opponents point to the recent discovery of correspondence [1] between then Supreme Court Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite, and court reporter J.C. Bancroft Davis as proof of a conspiracy among the railroad corporations to intentionally create a misrepresentation of that decision for the benefit of the railroads.

 

Proponents of corporate personhood believe that corporations, as representatives of their shareholders, were intended by the founders and framers to enjoy many, if not all, of the same rights as natural persons, for example, the right against self-incrimination, right to privacy and the right to lobby the government. Some proponents believe that these rights should continue to be extended to corporations regardless of any possible flawed interpretation of the Santa Clara Co. v. So. Pac. Railroad case.

[Cyclones]

You pay 320 a month....how much does your employer pay....I am sure the employer would just rather pay you and let you buy the coverage. Would you like that if it happened....nothing really stopping them. Not like there is a plethera of options regarding jobs available. Universal Health Care does indeed have a propensity to be a calamity if done wrong. But I think we Americans can and will do things better than those Canadians to our north....After all, we are Americans, the most innovative people in the world. Why people try to compare what we would come up with to systems designed by people with less innovation is beyond me.

 

I've been self employed in the past and have had to buy insurance. Paid a little under $800 a month for me, my wife, and my son. Still alot better than coughing up over 50% of my income to taxes.

[Cyclones]

That's true. Milk and bread are a lot more than here too but our economies are different. e have a lot a subsidies and price supports that they don't. It's always hard to compare.

 

Medicare's adm costs are a few percentage points where as insurance companies' are 30% due to marketing and other costs. I don't like paying that.

 

Agree on the admin costs. I have a couple of buddies that sell health insurance for a living, they both live in $600,000 houses and are making a fortune. So my question would be, if someone is paying, say $800 a month for family coverage, how much of that is going to the salesman/sales office that sold the policy? Too much I'm sure.

[TheShiznit]

Agree on the admin costs. I have a couple of buddies that sell health insurance for a living, they both live in $600,000 houses and are making a fortune. So my question would be, if someone is paying, say $800 a month for family coverage, how much of that is going to the salesman/sales office that sold the policy? Too much I'm sure.

 

Answer: 20% on new business commission for the first year. And in year 2 and beyond either 10 or 5% depending on the company.

 

Doesn't count bonuses.

Edited February 6, 2008 by TheShiznit

[godtomsatan]

Please explain in detail how this premise is true for each item first. Thank you. Have a great day!

 

It's not. I misspoke with some of these.

 

The one "winner" mentioned by Dole, and that's the stance against McCain-Kennedy immigration reform.

 

There is the advocacy of strict constructionist judges, defending the 2nd Amendment, and a strong national defense which are not really what I was referring to.

 

Basically, I'm referring to the causes that do not fall in with the majority opinion of American society. We're a pro-choice, anti-school prayer, pro-McCain-Feingold country. And that's not changing anytime soon.

 

A balanced budget amendment and the "ear marks" stance is out and out hypocrisy.

 

I'm not sure how to classify the "Hillary Care" comment actually. I realize she's running for President, but that was an event that took place in 1992, and considering there seems to be a movement afoot to have government more involved in Health Care, the Conservative movement seems to be advocating a "do nothing" approach which isn't necessarily a positive sounding approach.

[Ursa Majoris]

I've been self employed in the past and have had to buy insurance. Paid a little under $800 a month for me, my wife, and my son. Still alot better than coughing up over 50% of my income to taxes.

There's a lot of mythology surrounding other countries tax rates. Let's take a look at this instead of slurping up the stuff we're all spoon fed. Here's the UK tax bands and rates

 

1 pound = $2.

 

Notice no-one pays any tax at all on the first $10,870 of income. People aged over 65 don't pay until they have income > $18,060

 

Also notice how simple it is - the table at the bottom has three bands and that's it. A low earner would only pay 10% on income of up to $4,460 over the $10,870 initial allowance mentioned above. The other two bands are 25% and 40%, both of which only apply to that portion of income that's actually inside that bracket.

 

So - where's this 50% Cyclones mentioned? Granted that VAT (sales tax) is at 17.5% and gasoline is double what it costs here but I don't see any 50%.

 

Let's look at property taxes. The UK calls these "council tax". Picking the city of Norwich off a Google search, we have a $250,000 house paying $4,108 per year. That's pricier than I pay......until you factor in the City Utility bill we get here that's included in the UK council taxes. Close to a wash.

 

Oh - there's no State taxes either.

 

And they manage to maintain free health care.

[cre8tiff]

Sorry dude, you are just that frightening.

 

I heard the Boogieman fears YOU are under his bed.

[TheGrunt]

I've been self employed in the past and have had to buy insurance. Paid a little under $800 a month for me, my wife, and my son. Still alot better than coughing up over 50% of my income to taxes.

This is one of the best posts in this thread. Why? Because those who don't have health care can probably stop buying unnecessary goods and instead of being wasteful they could buy health care coverage -- just like Cyclones. Most people can afford it but they simply don't want to pay for it: social health care is basically like saying "because I don't want to pay for it, I'll make others pay it for me."

 

Something about that simply doesn't fly well with me. It's my money, my paycheck, why should I be paying for other people to have cheap health care when they can pay for better health care themselves? Believe me, most people don't need 400 pair of shoes or that extra 6 inches on a 50" plasma HDTV. You need health care.

[TheGrunt]

Good point, no I don't. There are other things that cost more in Canada - maintaining roads for example due to the cold weather and salting, etc. But the Health Care sticks out as the major difference in the two economies, and the high taxes are common among countries with socialized medicine.

Apparantly, because Canada's expectant Moms head to U.S. to deliver.

 

I wonder why that is?

[Cyclones]

There's a lot of mythology surrounding other countries tax rates. Let's take a look at this instead of slurping up the stuff we're all spoon fed. Here's the UK tax bands and rates

 

1 pound = $2.

 

Notice no-one pays any tax at all on the first $10,870 of income. People aged over 65 don't pay until they have income > $18,060

 

Also notice how simple it is - the table at the bottom has three bands and that's it. A low earner would only pay 10% on income of up to $4,460 over the $10,870 initial allowance mentioned above. The other two bands are 25% and 40%, both of which only apply to that portion of income that's actually inside that bracket.

 

So - where's this 50% Cyclones mentioned? Granted that VAT (sales tax) is at 17.5% and gasoline is double what it costs here but I don't see any 50%.

 

Let's look at property taxes. The UK calls these "council tax". Picking the city of Norwich off a Google search, we have a $250,000 house paying $4,108 per year. That's pricier than I pay......until you factor in the City Utility bill we get here that's included in the UK council taxes. Close to a wash.

 

Oh - there's no State taxes either.

 

And they manage to maintain free health care.

 

Ursa, I said 50% of my income in taxes, not just income tax - vehicle, property, sales, VAT, unseen taxes on gas, cigarettes, alcohol, etc. And I was using mainly Canada as my example, where my friend's income tax burden (again, according to him) is 39% on his upper 6 figure income.

 

Also, I said I would rather pay $800 a month than cough up 50% of my income in taxes. If I moved north of the border at mu current income, I'd be paying close to 50%. I'd rather pay $800.