How Does Republican Platform Help Middle Class?

How fortunate it is that there's not the remotest chance of that happening.

Well, I think this thread has made it all clear. Republican policies keep you from being eaten by the imaginary socialist boogieman who lives under Coyote's bed.

No, because socialized health care is, for obvious reasons, more efficient.

You forget that I lived in the UK for over thirty years. I have never had to wait that long for anything.Meanwhile, the guy upstairs from me now has a lymphedema the size of a soccer ball on his leg. He's had it for three years. He had private health insurance, but despite the fact that it is profoundly disabling, the insurance company (Kaiser) refused to cut it off. He is now unemployed, and is officially registered as "permanently disabled" despite the fact that it would take a good surgeon about an hour to permanently cure his disability. God bless America. I have always said that socialism doesn't work, which is why I have never advocated it.

Hey, I've got an idea. You could pretend that they and the Community Reinvestment Act were responsible for the sub-prime crisis which ensued 30 years after the Act was passed. This will be particularly easy to do if you lie about both the provisions of the Act and the reasons for it.Here, I made you this handy chart: However, if you're going to dance down that particular yellow brick road, would not a little of the imaginary blame fall on the Republicans who did nothing to repeal it when they were in power?Apart from that, it's the perfect teabagger excuse: "The real reason our economy was screwed after six years of a Republican legislature and eight years of a Republican presidency was that evil liberals wouldn't let us be mean to niggers ... er, er, let's not put it quite like that. Not in public, anyway."Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

OK, let's look at Canada, shall we?They have a higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rate than the US.They have universal coverage. The US, not so much.Let's look at what it costs them. (These figures are from 2005). In U.S. dollars, per capita costs are $6350 for Americans, $3430 for Canadians. That's 9.7% of Canadian GDP against 15.2% of American GDP.It should be born in mind that here and elsewhere when I talk of per capita costs, I'm not talking about costs per capita of people who are actually benefiting from the spending, but per citizen whether they're covered or not.31.0% of health care expenditure in the US is on administration, as against 16.7% in Canada. One can only imagine the economic effect if that money was freed up to do something useful. If we could reduce our spending on red tape alone to "socialist" levels, that would be over 2% of our gross domestic product that could be spent on something other than moving bits of paper around. But wait! The only good way to stimulate the economy is tax cuts for the rich. I was forgetting.And here's the real kicker. Government per capita costs in Canada are $2402. And in the US, $2862.Yes, you read that right. The US government spends more per citizen on propping up our shoddy system of Potemkin capitalism then the Canadian government spends on their universal health care. And this for no better reason than that people like you can congratulate yourselves on not having a "socialist" system. But is that proud boast really worth paying higher taxes for?

Ah, but you're overlooking the hidden costs in terms of taxation. After all, the Belgian government spends US $2465 per capita on healthcare, which is taken out of the taxpayers' pockets, whereas the US government ...... oh, wait, it spends $400 more than that.But at least in the US not everyone is covered. That would be socialism. In America you might be paying more taxes, but at least there'd be a fair chance that you wouldn't be eligible for any actual medical treatment.

How about Buzsaw, then? Something that they have failed to actually do.The one promise they can keep is that if you elect them, then Evil Democrat Death Panels won't take your guns and use them to abort your babies. This is one reason why their propaganda relies so heavily on demonizing the opposition, because they can sincerely promise to be better than the boogieman.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Yes. For example, this message will have a thing at the bottom saying "This is a reply to message 113 by Theodoric". If you click on where it says "message 113" it will take you to your post, and if you look at the url at the top of your browser you will see that it now specifies the message number, like this:EvC Forum: How Does Republican Platform Help Middle Class?"m=610605" specifies the message number.Linking to that url will take people directly to your post.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

The boogieman argument in its most basic form.So who are "the other guys"? "Death Panels"? "Communists"? The people who "hate America" and "want the terrorists to win"? The Evil "Stealth Muslim" in the White House? Who specifically is trying to hurt you?

Or tax rates, either.They would rather pay a large sum of money called a premium than a smaller sum of money called a tax; and this is weird enough.But weirder still, they would rather pay a large amount of tax and call the result "capitalism" than pay a smaller amount of tax and call the result "socialism".Of course, this is only weird if you suppose that they've actually looked at the figures and thought it through. If instead you suppose that they are ignorant of the facts and are just knee-jerking to buzzwords and propaganda, then the situation is not weird at all --- it's depressingly commonplace.

So ... I'm not following you ... why do you need Republicans to prevent them from doing so?

Then you'd have had little time to discuss liberty with Patrick Henry when he was Governor of Virginia, and to explain to him that he should have cried: "Give me liberty or give me rented accommodation!"You'd have had little time to discuss liberty with George Washington when he rented his Valley Forge headquarters during the War of Independence, nor when he rented Mount Vernon from his half-brother's widow.You'd have had little time to discuss liberty with Thomas Jefferson when, living in rented rooms, he wrote the Declaration of Independence.Fortunately, it seems that they could all do quite well without your advice on that subject.

Perhaps this would be a good time to point out that your self-serving fantasies about the opinions and/or socioeconomic status of the people who are disagreeing with you bear no relation to reality.

So, just to make this clear ... if someone "expects any of their routine living expenses to paid for by someone else", this is wrong only if these living expenses are extremely modest, but it's OK if it provides them with a life of luxury and ease? Hmm, let's see. On the one hand, a slave-owner who exploits the people he owns to provide himself with a life of luxury, on the other hand, someone who having spent his life paying into the system expects that when he is in need he might get enough back to feed himself.No, there's not really a moral equivalence, is there? This will not, of course, prevent the rest of us from mocking you.