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Author Topic:   Socialism in Venezuela has made illiteracy a thing of the past
Mammuthus
Member (Idle past 6475 days)
Posts: 3085
From: Munich, Germany
Joined: 08-09-2002


Message 136 of 193 (258370)
11-10-2005 3:23 AM
Reply to: Message 113 by randman
11-09-2005 4:17 PM


Re: public schools are socialist and should be discontinued
quote:
What you stated was wrong, and really a lie.
quote:
So start being honest.
Accusing your opponent of dishonesty...the telltale sign of a conservative with no arguement that they can support. That you reason that crack or other drug addicition or whatever is the only reason millions of children are not health insured is not dishonest on your part, but certainly willfully stupid.
So here is something for your edification:
http://www.mchb.hrsa.gov/mchirc/chusa_04/pages/0605ucM.htm
Note the red states are not Republican voting..they are states with 12-23% of children uninsured.
http://www.mchb.hrsa.gov/mchirc/chusa_04/pages/0604hiscT.htm
In this graph note that your sweetheart Bush's texas is the worst offender on the list for uninsured children at 23%
http://www.mchb.hrsa.gov/mchirc/chusa_04/pages/0307cp.htm
Here you have the percentage of children in the US living in poverty (not the total poverty rate).
30% of poor children get no medical attention at all
Medical and health information
And while some parents may not enroll their children in health care, under a national health care system they wouldnt freakin have to! They would be insured no matter what.
So what you stated is wrong and really a lie
And we have not even begun to debate other aspects of standards of living in which the US lags behind the rest of the developed world...I really don't give a rats ass if you lived in a slum ..you clearly have never seen anything of the world with which to make a comparison. The US simply does not stack up in terms of standard of living with the rest of the developed world...thus, it is largely like a developing country with some spots of great wealth concentrated among a few.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by randman, posted 11-09-2005 4:17 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 144 by randman, posted 11-10-2005 11:22 AM Mammuthus has replied

TechnoCore
Inactive Member


Message 137 of 193 (258377)
11-10-2005 7:01 AM
Reply to: Message 123 by randman
11-09-2005 7:44 PM


Re: in response to several posters
quote:
You think Stalin would have left you alone without the US deterrant?
We will never know, will we? If the US had not been a player in this game, soviet would also have acted differently. Part of the way soviet acted was in response to what USA did, and the threat it posed to them. I cannot imagine a senario where US would not interfere, since thats all they did the last 50yrs.
Sweden had before the collapse of soviet union compulsory military service between 1-2 years for all males above 19yes old. That is about 1.5 million fit soldiers during war, and the world's 4th largest airforce. If anything it had propably cost soviet too much to invade.
Soviet tried to take finland during WW2, but failed. Finland is a much smaller country. Maybe they could have taken us both, but i dont think so.
But who knows?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 123 by randman, posted 11-09-2005 7:44 PM randman has not replied

IrishRockhound
Member (Idle past 4435 days)
Posts: 569
From: Ireland
Joined: 05-19-2003


Message 138 of 193 (258378)
11-10-2005 7:06 AM
Reply to: Message 134 by randman
11-10-2005 1:13 AM


Re: in response to several posters
I actually know a bit about WWII. My dad is very much into history and I had the opportunity to learn a lot from him when I was growing up.
Last time I checked, the US and Stalin were allies against Germany during the war. Without the support of the Soviet offensive, the US and the other European allies would not have been able to fight effectively and most probably would have lost (Hitler was making a huge mistake with Operation Barbarossa, it drew a vast chunk of his resources away from the western front to attack someone he had agreed to leave alone, and in the end he could not hold the territory captured - and also lost those resources in the Russian counter-offensive).
If I remember correctly, the Soviet advances in Finland were stymied by the Finns themselves, and had nothing to do with the US.
After the war, the question was what to do with Germany and the countries occupied by the Nazis. As far as I'm aware, the decision was that those to the east would be occupied and held by the Soviets, and those to the west would be held by the Allies - most of whom were holding their own country. Germany was split, as was Berlin. This was done to keep the peace in the aftermath of the war, and I very much doubt that the Allies had the resources to do alone. They were then left in a sticky situation because of the clash of two different ideologies, and so the Iron Curtain came down to keep them separated.
You're suggesting that in this scenario, without the deterrent of the US, Stalin would have decided to start another war that his country probably couldn't support, to invade territories already shattered by the Nazis (thereby having very little resources to offer) and full of French and British troops.
You're suggesting that he could then have held these territories, despite how far and how thinly his armies would have been spread across the length of Europe, considering they would have taken severe losses to capture said territories, and also considering that the native population of said territories already have a history of very strong resistance to foreign occupiers (French Resistance anyone?).
This is assuming he wouldn't even try to capture Britain, seeing as that would have been unimagineably expensive and the Nazis already tried and failed.
I've read enough of history to know that the US, and every other country for that matter, has only acted in its own self-interest, whether the results of those acts were good or bad. In the opposite scenario, the US had absolutely no reason to try and make an empire out of Europe for the same reasons - it would be massively expensive, there was no real economic benefit, and they would face strong resistance from the natives who wanted their countries to be free. Added to that, I have no idea how the US government would convince their own citizens that it would be a good idea.
My point is in the absence of the US, it's hard to say what the USSR would or wouldn't have done - but trying to invade the rest of Europe would have been a foolish course of action, and one that most likely couldn't have succeeded.
So please, dispense with the arrogance Randman - the US is not some great guardian angel defending us poor weak Europeans from the satan that is communism. There were European troops in the war too that fought like lions - for example the RAF pilots in the Battle of Britain - and to suggest that they would just lie down and let the Soviets take over is more insulting than I can possibly convey.

"Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 134 by randman, posted 11-10-2005 1:13 AM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
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nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 139 of 193 (258385)
11-10-2005 7:59 AM
Reply to: Message 106 by randman
11-09-2005 12:21 PM


Re: so are the evos here socialists???
So, why are there millions of whildren who go without healthcare, then?
And why is the Republican congress giving the axe to parts of medicaid and a host of other programs geared towards helping the disadvantaged and then turning around and discussing a tax cut?
Have they no morals at all?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 106 by randman, posted 11-09-2005 12:21 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 147 by randman, posted 11-10-2005 11:43 AM nator has not replied

nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 140 of 193 (258386)
11-10-2005 8:06 AM
Reply to: Message 107 by randman
11-09-2005 12:32 PM


Re: so are the evos here socialists???
Why should Social Security funds be gambled with, in your opinion?
quote:
Because it's a far better bet that letting Congress spend that money on whatever project they want to.
No, it isn't, and I'll tell you why.
We can vote to get rid of the people in government who do a bad job.
We can't do that with the multinationals. While failed CEO's continue to live high on the hog with their golden parachutes, the people who invested in their company are left with nothing. And that's just the breaks, that's just the risks of doing business.
If you think that milions of people's retirement investments should be played with Vegas style, you must be quite financially secure.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by randman, posted 11-09-2005 12:32 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 149 by randman, posted 11-10-2005 11:49 AM nator has replied

nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 141 of 193 (258392)
11-10-2005 8:19 AM
Reply to: Message 108 by randman
11-09-2005 12:39 PM


quote:
The truth is the quality of goods, food, services has overall greatly increased in my lifetime.
I have to disagree. With the advent of a lot of cheap imported goods, and the declining standard of living of the middle class, the market for more expensive, higher quality goods has declined.
Sure, we have 50 kinds of Pop Tarts in the store now, but all of the local, family owned bakeries went out of business.
quote:
I am not saying the quality of life has improved, and I think that is your point, but you fail to realize that it's not just we have more Walmarts but we also have more coffee bars, more quality restaurants, more quality technology such as the computer you are typing on, etc,...
I would definitely disagree that we have more quality restaurants. In many, many towns in America, the vast majority of restaurants are national sit-down chains, like Applebys and The Olive Garden, or the national and local fast food chains. Local, family owned establishments have been squeezed out.
And this is not an improvement in the quality of restaurants, but a decline.
quote:
So it's not that we have more cheap stuff. We have a lot more quality stuff as well, and much higher quality health care and other services.
Only higher quality healthcare for some. I pay a lot of money for my HMO coverage. I don't get more than 15 minutes of my doctor's time during my annual check up. I have to wait 3 weeks to a month for an appointment for a non-emergency (but still painful) health issue. And prescriptions and office visits, even with the co-pay, are still pretty expensive.
Oh, and service in general has greatly declined in America, that is common knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 108 by randman, posted 11-09-2005 12:39 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 148 by randman, posted 11-10-2005 11:47 AM nator has replied

nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 142 of 193 (258394)
11-10-2005 8:24 AM
Reply to: Message 111 by Mammuthus
11-09-2005 4:06 PM


Re: public schools are socialist and should be discontinued
quote:
Oh yeah, and with the exception of the US, nobody in any of the G7 countries has to even worry about losing their health care and being faced with catastrophic bills after treatment without insurance...they are all covered, and so are their children.
Just think of the freedom people in the US would have WRT leaving a bad employer, or becoming an entrepeneur and starting their own business if they didn't have to worry about losing their health insurance.
(I speak with a lot of fairly wealthy people in my line of work and many, many of them do not like their jobs at all but are afraid to leave them because they have children and they worry about losing the health insurance.)
What an improvement in people's lives (and in the lives of their family) it would effect if they could have that huge, constant worry lifted.
This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-10-2005 08:27 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 111 by Mammuthus, posted 11-09-2005 4:06 PM Mammuthus has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 146 by randman, posted 11-10-2005 11:28 AM nator has not replied

nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 143 of 193 (258396)
11-10-2005 8:29 AM
Reply to: Message 112 by randman
11-09-2005 4:13 PM


Re: public schools are socialist and should be discontinued
Ever been to rural Appalachia, randman?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 112 by randman, posted 11-09-2005 4:13 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 145 by randman, posted 11-10-2005 11:22 AM nator has not replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 144 of 193 (258445)
11-10-2005 11:22 AM
Reply to: Message 136 by Mammuthus
11-10-2005 3:23 AM


Re: public schools are socialist and should be discontinued
The BS meter just went off the charts reading your last post. It's obvious you don't know much about the issue. You can find someone to create some pseudo-statistic all you want, but it doesn't change the truth.
Take the poverty indicator. Do you know how that is calculated? Basically, 90% of American children that "live in poverty" live far above what the middle class lives in much of the rest of the world. Had you ever had children and lived under the government poverty level line, either 100% or even 130%, you would know that.
Sure, being poor is tough. I've been there before, but I still had a phone, a car, a warm and air conditioned house to live in, furniture, food, etc,...and we lived for a period of time at 130% of the poverty level line with 4 kids.
The simple fact is the line is adjusted upward so that it is more a measure of just the bottom level earners, which we were in the ministry for years. It's worse for people that don't have the same opportunities to change what they are doing and move on, but stats can be very misleading.
When I was little, and my Dad was in med school and we lived off my Mom's school-teacher salary, we were very poor, poverty stricken too, as I suspect many families are or have been when parents are still in school. Heck, probably every family in married student housing is poor, but they don't all stay poor. Your stats don't speak to that.
You mentioned Texas. Now, could one possibility that children in Texas are not as "covered" be that many are not actually American citizens???
Duh?
At the start of this, I pointed out that if you include migrant workers and non-Americans, there are issues and a lot of that has to do with the fact we have a very porous border down there, and as poor as you see these people, they see being poor in America as better than what they could have in Mexico.
So frankly, you are the one lying here, or at least obfuscating the truth and not being straighforward and honest. All children in the United States living below the poverty line qualify for Medicare programs. That's the truth. Whether their parents take advantage of it is a different story. Maybe some do not because they are here illegally, but I seem to recall in CA, that even illegal immigrants qualify too.
The truth, which you claimed was a lie, is that only after you move up beyond the poverty line and beyond a low income, are your kids not qualified, and so it is the middle class that sometimes cannot or does not buy health insurance, and they are not poor.
The reasons are varied, but it is cheaper to pay out-of-pocket for medical expenses as long as you don't have a serious illness.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 136 by Mammuthus, posted 11-10-2005 3:23 AM Mammuthus has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 169 by Mammuthus, posted 11-11-2005 3:14 AM randman has replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 145 of 193 (258446)
11-10-2005 11:22 AM
Reply to: Message 143 by nator
11-10-2005 8:29 AM


Re: public schools are socialist and should be discontinued
Sure have schraf. Have you?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 143 by nator, posted 11-10-2005 8:29 AM nator has not replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 146 of 193 (258447)
11-10-2005 11:28 AM
Reply to: Message 142 by nator
11-10-2005 8:24 AM


Re: public schools are socialist and should be discontinued
Been there and done that. Been poor. Been making a fairly high income with a large company. Been laid off; no insurance and then started my own company, living without insurance. In fact, we had an on-going medical treatment in excess of 20K per year when I was laid off.
Been at the level where we made too much for subsidized insurance and not enough to feel comfortable paying for health insurance.
Been at the level where we just want catastrophic insurance because we'd rather pay to our own medical savings account. Been at all the different levels for this discussion.
The simple fact is too many of you don't know the truth about the system because you haven't lived it with your children; don't understand it and accept at face value a bunch of misleading statistics.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 142 by nator, posted 11-10-2005 8:24 AM nator has not replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 147 of 193 (258451)
11-10-2005 11:43 AM
Reply to: Message 139 by nator
11-10-2005 7:59 AM


Re: so are the evos here socialists???
Shraf, any child that is part of a family earning at or below the poverty line qualifies for Medicare. You can actually make a lot more than that, depending on the state, and still qualify.
When I got laid off and started a business, my daughter had an on-going treatment well in excess of 20k per year. The COBRA payment was $900 per month. The hospital made some recommendations, and even when I started making money, we could have full insurance for the kids with a $10 payment per month, includes medicine too, until I started making over 50K per year. That was a blessing.
Before that, the insurance company took a long time to want to cover the treatment, and the hospital and drug manufacturer covered her for free. So we got free treatment, had our insurance company pick it up eventually, and then were able to use some assistance during the transition.
Later, we actually went awhile with no insurance despite being somewhat well off, living about a block from the ocean in a very expensive area. We were one of those stats even though we lived a comfortable lifestyle just because paying an additional $500 per month for full coverage was not something we wanted to do.
I say all that because unless you talk with people that have experienced some of these things, you can be misled by statistics suggesting poor children are not covered, which is false.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 139 by nator, posted 11-10-2005 7:59 AM nator has not replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 148 of 193 (258453)
11-10-2005 11:47 AM
Reply to: Message 141 by nator
11-10-2005 8:19 AM


maybe you should drop your HMO?
Pay out of pocket. It'll be cheaper, and you can pick the doctor you want, and if they don't treat you right, you can go somewhere else.
If you are concerned about catastrophic illness or something very expensive, you can buy insurance for that, for bills in excess of $5000 or $10,000, and you can set aside the remainder savings in your HMO payment to a tax deductible medical savings account if self-employed and maybe if not (I don't know), or just in a savings account.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 141 by nator, posted 11-10-2005 8:19 AM nator has replied

Replies to this message:
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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 149 of 193 (258454)
11-10-2005 11:49 AM
Reply to: Message 140 by nator
11-10-2005 8:06 AM


Re: so are the evos here socialists???
You don't have to invest in multi-nationals. There are plenty of other companies one can invest in. You can buy government bonds as well, or invest in owning a rental property. There are lots of things besides big multi-nationals you can invest in.
It's not Vegas style gambling, and it sure beats having Congress spend it ALL!!
This message has been edited by randman, 11-10-2005 11:50 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 140 by nator, posted 11-10-2005 8:06 AM nator has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 155 by nator, posted 11-10-2005 3:26 PM randman has replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 150 of 193 (258463)
11-10-2005 12:06 PM
Reply to: Message 138 by IrishRockhound
11-10-2005 7:06 AM


Re: in response to several posters
The weakness in your argument is that France and Germany and Western Europe were helpless at that point without the presence of US and British troops. The Brits were already strained, and had vast areas of their own empire to think of. Had the US withdrawn, there was absolutely nothing to stop Russian troops from over-running Europe.
Moreover, they had sympathetic allies among the communist parties in Europe.
There may have been some nations that could have made a stand, such as militias in the Balkans, so that the Russians would have left them alone, but all of Germany and France and the neighboring states would have been brought under the same heel as East Germany.
Just look at the differences between Poland, Hungary, and East Germany compared to France, West Germany, and Denmark, and you can see clearly what the US saved western Europe from.
To pretend there was any military power at the end of WWII besides the US that could withstand the Russian army and air force is ridiculous, and frankly without nukes, it would have been tough on us if war had broken out.
This message has been edited by randman, 11-10-2005 12:07 PM

This message is a reply to:
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