Dana: nobody in this site is more ideological than you...
Thanks for playing.
The only reason I'm here is to do battle with your ideology which prevents you from examining the issues without the politics which are deeply embedded into your brain. You might be the only one in this discussion, and in this whole site, that is so clueless about how you come across with your ideological bent. You either would like to mislead others into believing that you're not ideological, or you really fail to understand what "ideology" means, or you really don't understand yourself.
My point is that ideologies are bad, period.
NO they're not!
Ideologies are what changes the world, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
But, to claim that you're not ideological when you clearly are on the side of the democrats/liberals/progressives, and on all of their issues, then you have to be lying to yourself. You can't lie to me or the folks out here becauce we know an unbending ideology when we meet it.
Like I've stated before, I'm ideological, but I'll look at all ideologies and points of views before deciding which way to turn on any issue. I've been that way all my life, even when I was a liberal democrat.
That's why I avoid them.
Who do you think you're kidding? Certainly not anybody out here with any kind of brain. If you really think that you're not ideological, then you really have a mental handicap, just like the Taliban who cannot recoginze that their radical way of looking at their religion is what gets them into trouble.
Your ideology has been burned into your brain so much, that it would take a de-programmer to get you to understand anything outside of your programmed mind.
As any set of political beliefs becomes entrenched in power it risks becoming an ideology.
Idelogies exist in people's minds. An ideology can become the prevalent way of a government and of a people, but it has to have an initial way to get into people's brains.
When an ideology becomes the prevalent way of thinking for a group of people, one can safely say that that ideology has become entrenched, like it has with you and the liberals. Breaking away from that can be very difficult, with you being a prime example of how difficult it seems. But, if I was able to break away from my liberal ways, you too can do it. It just takes a little bit of effort to open up your mind, and eventually, you might be able to see the error of your ways and your ideology.
Here's a test for you:
How often have you acknowledged that someone, who has engaged you in a discussion and with an opposing point of view, might really be making a good point? From the looks of it, and especially in this current discussion, you have gone out of your way to make sure that every "opposing" point somebody else has made, is answered, one by one. Not a single time have you acknowledged that someone might be making a counter-point worth researching further.
I know there was excess on the liberal side 40 years ago.
You're still refusing to look around you and the current state of politics.
The democrats/liberals have never been more ideological than they are at present. When they voted, by themselves, with no republican support, to "pass" Obamacare, and against the will of the people, then you can't get more ideological than that. It was ideology before country and before the people. And they've been doing it on issue after issue. And you support that!
There's now an excess on the conservative side,
I agree with that point. Republicans can be, at times, very ideological and very unbending. But not to the extent of the democrats who will go against the will of the people, and won't listen to them, and will do whatever it takes to get their way. That's why it's expected that the democrats will take a big whipping this coming Novermber.
and your posts are a perfect example of that.
I will defend my views, but I will also be open-minded. I've been open-minded alll my life, and that's why, after being a liberal for a big part of my life, I became a republican. But, I'm a republican, not because I agree with everything they do, but because their economic philosophy is more closely like mine. There are a good many points which I still disagree with the republicans about.
However, like I've stated many times, I would rather cast my votes outside of party lines if I could. But doing do might result in the election, by default, of people that I fully disagree with, like Pelosi and Reid and Obama, and Schumer. So, while the Libertarians might have a lot of good points to make, and their agenda is more closely in agreement with mine than republicans, I will have to vote republican because the numbers for Libertarians is miniscule in the electorate.
I realize my pointing it out won't change your ideology, but in the end facts will win out.
Nonsense!
Ideology has nothing to do with my way of thinkiing. Like I've stated already, my biggest disagreement with the democrats, and with many republicans, is their penchant for growing the size of government. That's not ideology. It's common sense. Big government is detrimental to any economy and to the well-being of people and their lifestyles.
Fact. Japanese spend half what we do on health care and live
longer. Fact. Japanese have a centralized system for health care.
So do the Canadians, so do the Germans, so do nearly all the
countries we compete with.
And, many of those countries are having economic problems of their own, and much of those troubles they're having go right back to big government spending, including nationalized health care. Also, comparing the problems of those countries against those of the U.S. is like comparing apples and oranges.
The U.S. is a much bigger country in population, in economy, in land mass, and in responsibilites. As an example, the U.S. is the policeman of the workd (like it or not), and those countries are dependent upon the U.S. for protection. Those countries are also very dependent upon a lot of the medical research conducted by the U.S., including medicines and medical equipment and techniques. Those countries don't spend as much in their research as does the U.S. Therefore, those countries can afford to re-direct a lot of the money that they would otherwise have to spend on defense and on reaearch. If those countries were to do the same exact things that the U.S. does, chances are that they wouldn't have anything left for nationalized healthcare or other social programs.
It's our lack of control over rising costs that has us in an economic hole.
No argument there.
But, a lot of those costs are the result of heavy government regulations and heavy taxation. Remove a lot of those regulations, and the costs would come down dramatically and most people could afford private healthcare. Also, if taxes were to be reduced, the cost to healthcare organizations, including hospitals and doctors and medical plan administrators (like HMOs) would be reduced further. Remember that corporations don't pay taxes. Corporate taxes are paid by the customers fo those businesses. Corporate taxes are alsmost always passed on to business customers in the form of higher cost on the corporate products and services.
But, the economic hole we're in was not caused by lack of healthcare. It was caused by the rising cost of big government and heavy government intervention into the free-markets. Most of that hole was bug for the country by liberal democrat policies, of course, with the help of many republicans.
This was the first attempt to start digging us out.
We won't start digging out of the hole until all politicians, especially the liberals, acknowledge that what created the mess was big govenment and big taxes and heavy and detrimental regulations.
Combined with efforts by private industry, I think it will work. But it
will take time.
Private industry is the key. Government getting out of the way of private industry is the bigger key.
No recovery will be possible until big government advocates, like you, acknowledge what caused the greatest economy in the world to take such a deep nosedive.
Support for health reform, which seemed to be growing in July, is back to the levels it had in May, according to the latest Kaiser Foundation poll.
