Frank's Niece!

[Cathy]

I don't really understand the attraction of either Facebook or Twitter. Why are people filling their heads with noise? I do see some of the utility--it's the casual socialness I don't gork. And then any asshole--aka the lowest common denominator--who wants to, gets to traduce and bully at will.

--Brant

the Zorro of the Internet (swish, slash, poke, poke, poke!)

Hi Brant! I have facebook because I have children out of state. this way they can talk to me and send me pictures. I woke up this morning with a headache from all this. Now Conny is starting on me about it ugh! I wish my dad would have let Aunt Alice inform us of some of her philosophies...maybe I would be better prepared. I just think our government should work for us, but it seems we work for them. Then you get someone like Brad on there who wants to insult me and my friends, even Aunt Alice and Paul Ryan, and all he's doing is skirting around the issues. Bullying us, instead of proving his point. I am not in his league to win the debate, I don't like arguing (I will if I have to)but I am not good at it. I got extremely upset when he called Aunt Alice a pathetic piece of shit. I am still upset about it. Everything she went through right from the beginning when she came here, learning, struggling, and hatred...she is more than I ever thought she was. When he called her that...I felt this over whelming need to protect her...not Aunt Alice, but Ayn Rand! Can you believe it! I think the two are coming together for me. BTW I have a cane corso named Zorro ~Cathy~

If someone attacks Ayn Rand the person it's a logical fallacy. That should be pointed out, not that her or her views are being misrepresented. That would be mud-wrestling and sanction.

--Brant

then you disengage

Your a nice man Brant, and I like you lots! But damn, do I ever have a hard time knowing what your saying without a dictionary! You could win an argument with me very easily

Because I'm nice I don't generally try to win arguments. I've discovered there is no such thing respecting the person you are arguing with. But sometimes it's too much fun and I can't help myself!

--Brant

Clarice: the world is a much more interesting place with you in it--and I expect the same consideration in return

Silence of the lambs...that movie scared me to death! It really takes so much out of me to argue...I just never thought I would get that angry over that! I wanted to say the F word and everything...but didn't. it took everything I had just to type and try and stay as calm as I did. Your to funny Brant! I've missed you all! ~Cathy~

[Cathy]

She is more than he could ever be!

Cathy,

Don't worry. He knows it.

Why do you think he only looks down his nose and snarks at you?

Ayn Rand is taken seriously in high places throughout the world. Her influence with intelligent people of action literally stops jerks with an authoritarian bent from taking over for once and for all. Your friend knows it. He's not stupid. Believe me, he knows it.

Ayn Rand mucks up his inner control freak. And that really pisses him off.

Michael

Your right Michael! I quoted Paul Ryan first and he wasn't that like that with him. Soon as I brought Ayn Rand up, he got really nasty. Yep, he does know. ~Cathy~

[Cathy]

I will help you out Cathy! If someone attacks Ayn Rand the person it is the logical fallacy of adhominem. If someone attacks Brant Gaede the person it is the logical fallacy of Reductio ad Absurdum BOOM! Attacker is reduced to his original components. , or as SCTV had it, blowed up real good.

Hold up...let me get my dictionary Now the last sentence is more like me

[Selene]

I will help you out Cathy! If someone attacks Ayn Rand the person it is the logical fallacy of adhominem. If someone attacks Brant Gaede the person it is the logical fallacy of Reductio ad Absurdum BOOM! Attacker is reduced to his original components. , or as SCTV had it, blowed up real good.

Hold up...let me get my dictionary Now the last sentence is more like me

Abusive: An Abusive Ad Hominem occurs when an attack on the character or other irrelevant personal qualities of the opposition—such as appearance—is offered as evidence against their position. Such attacks are often effective distractions ("red herrings"), because the opponents feel it necessary to defend themselves, thus being distracted from the topic of the debate.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomine.html

[Cathy]

I will help you out Cathy! If someone attacks Ayn Rand the person it is the logical fallacy of adhominem. If someone attacks Brant Gaede the person it is the logical fallacy of Reductio ad Absurdum BOOM! Attacker is reduced to his original components. , or as SCTV had it, blowed up real good.

Hold up...let me get my dictionary Now the last sentence is more like me

Abusive: An Abusive Ad Hominem occurs when an attack on the character or other irrelevant personal qualities of the opposition—such as appearance—is offered as evidence against their position. Such attacks are often effective distractions ("red herrings"), because the opponents feel it necessary to defend themselves, thus being distracted from the topic of the debate.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomine.html

exactly! Thank you Selene,,,this is Brad!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Cathy,

The road to hell his paved with good intentions.

That's one of the biggest problems with Obamacare.

Many people who supported the enactment of Obamacare are not evil. They are good people. They are merely blind to the opportunity for power-mongering that ALWAYS results from centralized government. Like all people who try to right a wrong, they have their villains and, in their view, Obamacare is supposed to stop those villains (generally greedy businesspeople who like to exploit everyone, especially the poor, just to "make a buck").

They forget that government employees are people, too. They, too, have their villains. It doesn't occur to them that the villains of civil servants are different than the villains of people like them, who are trying to care for the poor and weak among us. The civil servant want to keep his job and privileges. He loses his idealism over time in a work environment where ass-kissing is valued above good intentions. His villain is anyone who will take his situation from him. If you doubt that, make some serious waves at a government office and watch what happens. It won't matter if you are one of the "poor and weak among us," You will get screwed.

Well, those are the very people you will have to go to under Obamacare when you are weak in health.

These supporters have another blindness, too. Imagine being able to freeze people walking in a busy city square. Then imagine you will be able to talk to them in that frozen state. You tell them something really good is getting ready to happen, but they will have to use their conscience and common sense to see if they should take advantage of it. If they don't need it, they should just move on. It's their call and you are counting on their honor. Then you throw a crapload of money up in the air and let it float down to the ground among them. Then you release the freeze.

What do you think is going to happen?

All hell is going to break loose, that's what. Those who champion government handouts simply don't believe anyone will be clawing and shoving and beating people out of the way in order to get the money on the ground, and that most people who stay will soon start doing that, too. They are blind to this side of human nature. They say this shouldn't be and, as Rand said over and over, "blank-out."

It is inconceivable to the supporters that only the nastiest most immoral people will be able to get the best healthcare under Obamacare. But that's the way it will work. That's just the way government works.

But there is a blindness on the anti-Obamacare side, too. (More, actually, but one especially relevant. It's not all angels and devils in this issue. While there are many downsides to centralized healthcare, there are actually people in really bad shape. It only makes sense to help those who need it (without turning into altruism). Obviously there's empathy and plain old garden variety decency as a human being for reasons. But there's another angle. Human history is replete with stories about the ruling class stuffing themselves at banquets right next to the starving masses. That rarely ends well. Many on the anti-Obamacare side simply don't see this.

So what to do? If you allow the government to take care of it, the government will end up taking over and screwing everyone except those who have pull or are otherwise well-connected. If you don't take care of it, someone will organize the "hungry masses" and turn them into a political force that will make laws that will take your stuff from you.

I believe the answer lies in educating people about the nature of limited government. And here is a truth many in O-Land ignore: a constitutional republic (like America) only works if the people are good. This means that you cannot make an abstract democratic republic like we have here and expect it to work at all times in all situations.

There is one thought experiment I like to cite as a good example. If you take a bunch of hardened criminals to a desert island, teach them about individual rights and constitutional republic, draw up documents and so on, leave them there and tell them you are going away, so make it work, what do you think you will find when you return six months later? Milk and honey?

Hell, no. You will find gang warfare and a reduced population.

That's an indication that a social structure based on individual rights only works when people are good. And how do people become good? They have to talk about being good, then talk about it some more, then tell stories about it, feel it, and talk about it even more, and so on.

And where does that happen? In church. That's where. At least for most people. There are exceptions (like Rand's philosophy, but there is other good secular stuff out there) where people come online to discuss being good, they can read the same books over and over, they can make mini-communities, go to lectures, and so on. The point is that morality is not a one-time decision. It is more like eating. You don't just eat one meal and then you're done. You get hungry after a while and have to eat again. That's the way morality works.

Now getting back to the poor and weak. Who should take care of them when their family will not, cannot, or they don't even have a family? Once again, the churches. Or private charities of different sorts.

When people are interested in being good, they like to give others a hand up. They are benevolent by nature. You don't need a government to control their goodness. In fact, when you do that, you piss them off.

So the government should exist to allow good people to coexist in peace. That's all. Nothing more. What about scumbags? They have to work it out with the good people or face government enforcement. And what about the poor and weak? The good people will take care of them. They always have and they always will.

If you want to see healthcare resolved pronto, and resolved in the best manner possible, get the government out of it entirely and get the government out of the way of churches and private charities.

Even with all the governmental intrusion here in America, this is still the most charitable nation on earth. Frankly, it's harder to starve--literally starve to death--in America than it is to find a meal in the middle of a jungle.

Michael

[Selene]

Here are facts about the Affordable Care Act which:

1) establishes more than "...150 new bureaucracies, agencies, boards, commissions and programs..." that "...are emowered to tell doctors and hospitals what is quality health care and what is not, what are best practices in medicine, how their medical practices should be structured, ad what they will be paid and when;"

2) twenty thousand [20,000] pages of regulations and thousands more to come;

3) Initial Internal Revenue Service regulations alone amount to 159 pages;

4) attempts, by statute, to "...prohibit future Congresses from altering it...:"

5) created the fifteen-member Independant Payment Advisory Board [iPAB], which "...ostensibly is responsible for controlling Medicare costs;"

Shall I continue?

It only gets much worse...

Post this on your social media...

A...

5)

[Cathy]

Here are facts about the Affordable Care Act which:

1) establishes more than "...150 new bureaucracies, agencies, boards, commissions and programs..." that "...are emowered to tell doctors and hospitals what is quality health care and what is not, what are best practices in medicine, how their medical practices should be structured, ad what they will be paid and when;"

2) twenty thousand [20,000] pages of regulations and thousands more to come;

3) Initial Internal Revenue Servisce regulations alone amount to 159 pages;

4) attempts, by statute, to "...prohibit future Congresses from altering it...:"

5) created the fifteen-member Independant Payment Advisory Board [iPAB], which "...ostensibly is responsible for controlling Medicare costs;"

Shall I continue?

It only gets much worse...

Post this on your social media...

A...

5)

This is GREAT! I posted it...now just have to wait lol!

[Brant Gaede]

There is one thought experiment I like to cite as a good example. If you take a bunch of hardened criminals to a desert island, teach them about individual rights and constitutional republic, draw up documents and so on, leave them there and tell them you are going away, so make it work, what do you think you will find when you return six months later? Milk and honey?

Hell, no. You will find gang warfare and a reduced population.

Depends on if they've got (enough) women. No women, no fighting.

--Brant

what would be the point?

[Cathy]

Cathy,

The road to hell his paved with good intentions.

That's one of the biggest problems with Obamacare.

Many people who supported the enactment of Obamacare are not evil. They are good people. They are merely blind to the opportunity for power-mongering that ALWAYS results from centralized government. Like all people who try to right a wrong, they have their villains and, in their view, Obamacare is supposed to stop those villains (generally greedy businesspeople who like to exploit everyone, especially the poor, just to "make a buck").

They forget that government employees are people, too. They, too, have their villains. It doesn't occur to them that the villains of civil servants are different than the villains of people like them, who are trying to care for the poor and weak among us. The civil servant want to keep his job and privileges. He loses his idealism over time in a work environment where ass-kissing is valued above good intentions. His villain is anyone who will take his situation from him. If you doubt that, make some serious waves at a government office and watch what happens. It won't matter if you are one of the "poor and weak among us," You will get screwed.

Well, those are the very people you will have to go to under Obamacare when you are weak in health.

These supporters have another blindness, too. Imagine being able to freeze people walking in a busy city square. Then imagine you will be able to talk to them in that frozen state. You tell them something really good is getting ready to happen, but they will have to use their conscience and common sense to see if they should take advantage of it. If they don't need it, they should just move on. It's their call and you are counting on their honor. Then you throw a crapload of money up in the air and let it float down to the ground among them. Then you release the freeze.

What do you think is going to happen?

All hell is going to break loose, that's what. Those who champion government handouts simply don't believe anyone will be clawing and shoving and beating people out of the way in order to get the money on the ground, and that most people who stay will soon start doing that, too. They are blind to this side of human nature. They say this shouldn't be and, as Rand said over and over, "blank-out."

It is inconceivable to the supporters that only the nastiest most immoral people will be able to get the best healthcare under Obamacare. But that's the way it will work. That's just the way government works.

But there is a blindness on the anti-Obamacare side, too. (More, actually, but one especially relevant. It's not all angels and devils in this issue. While there are many downsides to centralized healthcare, there are actually people in really bad shape. It only makes sense to help those who need it (without turning into altruism). Obviously there's empathy and plain old garden variety decency as a human being for reasons. But there's another angle. Human history is replete with stories about the ruling class stuffing themselves at banquets right next to the starving masses. That rarely ends well. Many on the anti-Obamacare side simply don't see this.

So what to do? If you allow the government to take care of it, the government will end up taking over and screwing everyone except those who have pull or are otherwise well-connected. If you don't take care of it, someone will organize the "hungry masses" and turn them into a political force that will make laws that will take your stuff from you.

I believe the answer lies in educating people about the nature of limited government. And here is a truth many in O-Land ignore: a constitutional republic (like America) only works if the people are good. This means that you cannot make an abstract democratic republic like we have here and expect it to work at all times in all situations.

There is one thought experiment I like to cite as a good example. If you take a bunch of hardened criminals to a desert island, teach them about individual rights and constitutional republic, draw up documents and so on, leave them there and tell them you are going away, so make it work, what do you think you will find when you return six months later? Milk and honey?

Hell, no. You will find gang warfare and a reduced population.

That's an indication that a social structure based on individual rights only works when people are good. And how do people become good? They have to talk about being good, then talk about it some more, then tell stories about it, feel it, and talk about it even more, and so on.

And where does that happen? In church. That's where. At least for most people. There are exceptions (like Rand's philosophy, but there is other good secular stuff out there) where people come online to discuss being good, they can read the same books over and over, they can make mini-communities, go to lectures, and so on. The point is that morality is not a one-time decision. It is more like eating. You don't just eat one meal and then you're done. You get hungry after a while and have to eat again. That's the way morality works.

Now getting back to the poor and weak. Who should take care of them when their family will not, cannot, or they don't even have a family? Once again, the churches. Or private charities of different sorts.

When people are interested in being good, they like to give others a hand up. They are benevolent by nature. You don't need a government to control their goodness. In fact, when you do that, you piss them off.

So the government should exist to allow good people to coexist in peace. That's all. Nothing more. What about scumbags? They have to work it out with the good people or face government enforcement. And what about the poor and weak? The good people will take care of them. They always have and they always will.

If you want to see healthcare resolved pronto, and resolved in the best manner possible, get the government out of it entirely and get the government out of the way of churches and private charities.

Even with all the governmental intrusion here in America, this is still the most charitable nation on earth. Frankly, it's harder to starve--literally starve to death--in America than it is to find a meal in the middle of a jungle.

Michael

I use to have very good insurance and never thought a thing about it until we lost it. I am a diabetic and need medicine for the rest of my life and couldn't afford it after our business went under. There is a St Ann's clinic here that I get all my medical needs taken care of free. Never in a million years did I think I would have to stand in line at 7 a.m. for the clinic doors to open at 9 a.m. to wait hours to see a doctor, but there I was, and not to proud to do it either. I always say, if I ever get any money, I will help St Ann's...and I mean it. You would think I would be grateful for any health care, and I would have been if I had a choice, not by being force get it and fined if I don't. I know this health care will be for the good of the haves and not the have not's, why change history now? Not only am I worried I wont be able to afford it, but places like St Ann's will not be available once this comes into effect. I am worried hospitals will turn away the sick and injured if they don't have the Obama care (only because we are forced to have it) and that would make a for sure way the government can enforce it. you are right Michael, it is hard to starve in America, and if someone was hungry, family, churches and friends would give food...but whose going to be the doctor, or hospital if your dying? I don't know all the in's and out's of Obama care yet, and I am sure there are some hidden factors to the plan that isn't to our benefit. And whose to say what the government thinks is affordable to what most Americans think is affordable. I love all this inputs, because when I read about it on the internet, it all ends up being French to me...and I cant read French! ~Cathy~

[Cathy]

There is one thought experiment I like to cite as a good example. If you take a bunch of hardened criminals to a desert island, teach them about individual rights and constitutional republic, draw up documents and so on, leave them there and tell them you are going away, so make it work, what do you think you will find when you return six months later? Milk and honey?

Hell, no. You will find gang warfare and a reduced population.

Depends on if they've got (enough) women. No women, no fighting.

--Brant

what would be the point?

LOL!

[caroljane]

Cathy, I can read French but I cant understand most internet outbursts on the tortuous healthcare issue either,although they are in plain English, except the swear words.And even some of them are unfamiliar to me lol.

[Cathy]

Cathy, I can read French but I cant understand most internet outbursts on the tortuous healthcare issue either,although they are in plain English, except the swear words.And even some of them are unfamiliar to me lol.

LOL...I love this site! Sometimes I call my sister and read the little funnies you all say and we laugh and laugh. You all make my day!!!! ~Cathy~

[Brant Gaede]

Cathy, I can read French but I cant understand most internet outbursts on the tortuous healthcare issue either,although they are in plain English, except the swear words.And even some of them are unfamiliar to me lol.

LOL...I love this site! Sometimes I call my sister and read the little funnies you all say and we laugh and laugh. You all make my day!!!! ~Cathy~

Funny? I don't need no stinkin' funny!

--Brant

you really don't know where you are

[Cathy]

Cathy, I can read French but I cant understand most internet outbursts on the tortuous healthcare issue either,although they are in plain English, except the swear words.And even some of them are unfamiliar to me lol.

LOL...I love this site! Sometimes I call my sister and read the little funnies you all say and we laugh and laugh. You all make my day!!!! ~Cathy~

Funny? I don't need no stinkin' funny!

--Brant

you really don't know where you are

Brant, I know this, you all have helped me through some pretty tough issues, and none of you know how much I appreciate that. I have my uncles print you sent me hanging where I can see it everyday...I truly, truly appreciate that! I no longer have a black void, that I never knew I had, until all of you filled it with the knowledge of what I was missing all a long. I don't know if you can understand this, because in ways I don't either. But all of you have filled up my heart and soul and literally has made me a whole person. Its like someone with amnesia, going through years without remember who they are or who they could be without knowing where they came from. and all along not knowing they were missing that. I do know where I am...right where God wanted me to be ; ) ~Cathy~ and I love all the humor...just love it! : )

[Selene]

Rep. Sean Duffy schools MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Obamacare Wednesday, Oct 9, 2013 at 2:29 PM EDT

Yesterday on MSNBC, an ‘interview’ between Andrea Mitchell and Congressman Sean Duffy (R-WI) quickly devolved into a tense exchange over the effects of the government shutdown and the media coverage of Obamacare, which left Mitchell, who was clearly unable to follow Rep. Duffy’s logical argument, speechless.

[Selene]

Use it Cathy...

this man was one of the pivital geniuses of the Founders, and yes, I capitalize "Founders" because in the long slog of "humanity" from the the historical swamps, these were brilliant men and women who changed the bloody, repressive horror of collective statism, monarchism and plain old repressive slaughter that has dominated man's rise from the collective.

"When the same man, or set of men,
holds the sword and the purse,
there is an end of liberty."
-- George Mason
(1725-1792), drafted the Virgina Declaration of Rights, ally of James Madison and George Washington

"It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression."
-- Eric Hoffer
(1902-1983) American author, philosopher, awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom

AND...

of course, your aunt, who saved out lives...

"...there is no such entity as 'the public' - since the public is merely a number of individuals - the idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others."
-- Ayn Rand
(1905-1982) Author

[caroljane]

Brant, of course you do not need any stinkin' funny! As my dear Granpa always told me consolingly, looks are not everything.

[caroljane]

Use it Cathy...

this man was one of the pivital geniuses of the Founders, and yes, I capitalize "Founders" because in the long slog of "humanity" from the the historical swamps, these were brilliant men and women who changed the bloody, repressive horror of collective statism, monarchism and plain old repressive slaughter that has dominated man's rise from the collective.

"When the same man, or set of men,

holds the sword and the purse,

there is an end of liberty."

-- George Mason

(1725-1792), drafted the Virgina Declaration of Rights, ally of James Madison and George Washington

Yet those guys held the purse and the sword together pretty effectively ... all while wearing high heels.

It is a little trickier these days.

[Selene]

Yet those guys held the purse and the sword together pretty effectively ... all while wearing high heels.

It is a little trickier these days.

Carol:

I will waive consecutive translation because you are Canadian.

However, what the fuck are you talking about?

A...

[Cathy]

Yet those guys held the purse and the sword together pretty effectively ... all while wearing high heels.

It is a little trickier these days.

Carol:

I will waive consecutive translation because you are Canadian.

However, what the fuck are you talking about?

A...

LOL!

[Cathy]

Use it Cathy...

this man was one of the pivital geniuses of the Founders, and yes, I capitalize "Founders" because in the long slog of "humanity" from the the historical swamps, these were brilliant men and women who changed the bloody, repressive horror of collective statism, monarchism and plain old repressive slaughter that has dominated man's rise from the collective.

"When the same man, or set of men,

holds the sword and the purse,

there is an end of liberty."

-- George Mason

(1725-1792), drafted the Virgina Declaration of Rights, ally of James Madison and George Washington

"It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression."

-- Eric Hoffer

(1902-1983) American author, philosopher, awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom

AND...

of course, your aunt, who saved out lives...

"...there is no such entity as 'the public' - since the public is merely a number of individuals - the idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others."

-- Ayn Rand

(1905-1982) Author

I used it.

[Cathy]

Rep. Sean Duffy schools MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Obamacare

Wednesday, Oct 9, 2013 at 2:29 PM EDT

Yesterday on MSNBC, an ‘interview’ between Andrea Mitchell and Congressman Sean Duffy (R-WI) quickly devolved into a tense exchange over the effects of the government shutdown and the media coverage of Obamacare, which left Mitchell, who was clearly unable to follow Rep. Duffy’s logical argument, speechless.

I put this on facebook to

[Selene]

Rep. Sean Duffy schools MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Obamacare

Wednesday, Oct 9, 2013 at 2:29 PM EDT

Yesterday on MSNBC, an ‘interview’ between Andrea Mitchell and Congressman Sean Duffy (R-WI) quickly devolved into a tense exchange over the effects of the government shutdown and the media coverage of Obamacare, which left Mitchell, who was clearly unable to follow Rep. Duffy’s logical argument, speechless.

I put this on facebook to

My humble thanks.

I am just getting started.

The more I read about the "Affordable" [which it is not], and the "Care," which it does not provide and it does "Act."

Frighteningly, how it acts is to:

1) remove 16 to 17% of the economy, directly in to the coffers of the Federal statist system;

2) segregate, by class, the American individual citizen into:

a) those that will die [due the 'death panel,' that this abomination encysts into the statutes of the no longer Constitutional Republic]; and

b) those that will "live," as serfs, or, slaves, to produce income to support the "system" that operates to sustain itself, and to supress the rest of the citizens, until they "graduate" to be absorbed;

I will expand on this later.

A...

[caroljane]

Yet those guys held the purse and the sword together pretty effectively ... all while wearing high heels.

It is a little trickier these days.

Carol:

I will waive consecutive translation because you are Canadian.

However, what the fuck are you talking about?

A...

Duh Adam, I forgot the apocalyptic gravity of the topic. Swords, purses and high heels... just wanted to get in a comment before PDS did.