Quote:
Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND
I trimmed it down, but left the meat of the quote...
1. Gov. healthcare: so all liberals believe in this? I'm pretty liberal and believe it should be provided for minors who can't afford it or whose parents can't provide it. Should the government work to make it more affordable! absolutely! Do I need to see universal healthcare? Nope, but it should be more affordable. Liberal or logical?
2. "Improve" local school... No child left behind was a bush act, no? Do I want federal oversite and more regulations on teaching to tests? No, but we need more work to imrove thinking, not rote memorization... Should there be tolerance taught, and making sure religious tone stays out of schools 100% yes. Kids can go to private school if they need that education. There should be more incentives to hire the best possible teachers. period. Liberal or logical?
3. Salary caps: Do I have a problem with people getting rich, Hell no. but does it sicken me when John Doe of the X investment company made millions while his clients were losing money, hell yes. There was just a 2million dollar wedding in newport from someone who made a fortune with a trading co... I hope his clients are making money if he is! But no, it is socialist to question the golden parachutes some of the corporate guys get... liberal or logical?
4. Gun control: You cna own all the hand guns and rifles you want for hunting, sporting, whatever, but I still advocate a ban on automatic weapons, and would love to see it remain hard to get a gun. I have zero problem with law-abiding people owning weapons/
5. Abortion: the rights favorite zinger... all liberals do not promote abortion as birth control, but it should ABSOLUTELY be a women's right to choose, period.
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1. Government Health Care: You say it should be provided for minors who can't afford it, etc. Scottw says it already is. You say the Gov. should work to make it more affordable rather than universal. I don't see the LOGIC in the Gov. working to make it more affordable. Logically, the private sector must make its services and products affordable or they cease to exist. Furthermore, the Gov. working on behalf of some people at the expense of others, without constitutional authority, no matter how noble, IS liberal, not logical.
As far as more affordable goes, health care is at the most affordable level when it must be payed for by all, or the great majority, OUT OF POCKET. Insurance, private or public, that covers the majority of clients RAISES the price. The health insurance plans that began to blossom in this country in the 1920's were very attractive at the time. The insured groups were relatively small and the totality of clients was a small percentage of the population. So the cost of care was still based on the majority's ability to pay. As the insurance idea caught on, more groups followed suit, companies even used health insurance as a benefit to attract employees, so that, I believe, by the 1960s more were insured than not. By the latter twentieth century the vast majority were under some plan. The cost of health care was now totally driven by the big pockets of the insurance companies, not the little pockets of individuals. Insurance became the CAUSE of high medical costs, not an answer on how to "fix" the problem. Insurance premiums steadily rose to cover the costs that insurance created. Transferring the burden of insuring clients from the private sector to the Gov. may place the latter in the same position of, say, G.M., which became insolvent largely due to the onerous cost of health care and pension plans. The only ways the Gov. can lower costs is to remove some free market forces and reduce service and quality. The vaunted role of big money pouring into the medical arena to create the wonders of modern medicine may be a bit exagerated, though not wholly so. Medical discoveries occured without it. The currently faster pace may not be due solely to the influx of money, but as well to the natural compression of time as civilization and science advance. Certainly, much pharmaceutical advancement extends the latter decade of life with handfulls of expensive pills so that we have the paradox of legally aborting well over 40 million potentially vibrant lives since Roe v. Wade, while at the same time extending the last decade (with the accompanying pain and physical infirmity) of a like number of non-productive senior citizens.
I vote Liberal not logical on number 1.
2. "improve" local school . . .as scottw pointed out it was a Kennedy bill, appointed and signed by Bush as a non-partisan gesture.
You say we need more work to improve thinking. Nature already provides that. Good genes, good food and lifestyle and repeated use of the brain. Use it or lose it. There are no magic Gov. buttons that can be pushed, certainly not indoctrination. Using clear, concrete diction can be taught. Though thinking can be expressed in other ways, language is the most common way of developing and expressing your thoughts. A common language facilitates communication. The old fashioned readin, ritin, & rithmatic provided a good basis to develop common and scientific languages. Have various progressive teaching methods improved the cognitive ability of new generations? Your lament seems to indicate not.
You say there should be more incentives to hire the best possible teachers. The best incentive is a desire to teach. Imbue admiration for teaching. Portray it,constantly, as a noble proffesion, not as a job. Money, beyond comfort, should NOT be an incentive for publically funded teaching. Inordinate salaries would attract those who value the money more, or solely, above the desire to teach. The contract rhetoric of salaries commensurate with industry in order to hire the best and brightest is an insult to those already in the profession. Such rhetoric "concedes" that current teachers are NOT the best and brightest. Worse, raising salaries would not result in mass firing of incompetents or run-of-the-mill to make room for the supposed influx of better mettle. They would all stay on, receiving the raises, with no concurrant raise in quality--same old show, just more expensive tickets. And "industry" would correspondingly raise salaries to continue to get the pick of the litter--all just an illogical inflationary exercise. This 3 year contract dance has occured several times since the coincidence of the 1960's great societal "investment" in education and the unionization of teachers. To a great extent, teaching has become labor intensive to the detriment of its pedagogic mission.
All sounds liberal, not logical.
3. Salary caps. Being sickened by someone making millions while his clients are losing money is an emotional response, not a logical one. Logically, you would determine why it happened, was it legal, what role both parties played, what can be done, IF NECESSARY, to prevent it, etc. Emotional responses are definitely in the domain of liberals, although . . . conservatives would react similarly to this, but only in that tiny, pre-civilized appendage of liberalism that lurks in the deepest cavern of their mean-spirited soul.
Definitely liberal not logical.
5. Abortion. You say it "should ABSOLUTELY be a women's right to choose, period." Even the abomination of partial birth abortion? It's never been explained how delivering a live birth might, in some rare instance, endanger the woman's life, but delivering it dead, KILLING it, removes the threat. Talk about sickening. This procedure sickens me far, FAR more than #3.
Absolutely liberal.
So--4 1/2 out of 5, you ARE, as you say, pretty liberal (not logical?)