So can we agree that this sums everything up?

[Tom]

Businesses are moving out of California...however, it will probably take a while to be noticeable within such a large economy.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2013/01/16/fleeing-california-taxes-get-in-line/

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/moved-342887-companies-texas.html

I thought of a possibly interesting topic about this..

Will these California companies moving to Texas, become Texas companies ? Or will they turn Texas into California ?

Look at Virginia turning from Red to purple, to maybe solid Blue ? Will it happen to Texas ?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Freedom consists of two things, rights and responsibilities. All you want to look at is your rights. You freedoms are embedded in a matrix created by other people and to whom you owe a debt. No freedom comes without demands. The only person who is free is he who meets those demands voluntarily.

I agree with you on this but I think it's important to note that his statement was in response to:

You might not be an "expert" at human evolution so let me explain it to you. The reason why human's live in groups are that people with different "expertise" fulfill different roles in the group.

Human beings would be extinct if the myth of the individualist was actually true.

That was in response to Atreus comments about DC. I believe Tom is in error on key points. In the context of the exchange DC would be "the experts". That would require our system being a functional meritocracy based on expertise in areas they will legislate. No such system exists. In fact to my knowledge it never has. In the real world society exists for mutual benefit and that requires a hierarchy of control, and control establishes order. Now the results of that vary wildly, but rarely does mastery of the subjects being controlled enter into the equation of power. It often happens that order is established at a high cost to the individual, which I axiomatically state is the fundamental "unit" of any society. Conformity of thought, establishing a unified and adherent population makes the task of governance easier, but does it make it better? That would be somewhat subjective, but I would submit that which does not build up the individual, the self we all have, is harmful. Automatically assigning "expertise" based on political power hardly qualifies as a means to a positive end. I'll repeat for the benefit of others that I believe that government is not the solution, but neither is it the problem. It is a thing, a construct, and its quality and how it is allowed to function, indeed if we have any real say in that, determines it's value.

The short of it is that Tom doesn't refer to any of this, but takes on principle, or apparently seems to, that those who have mastery of us automatically have the expertise which drives society. I say that's incorrect. What we have is an order placed upon us by those who have established lasting power, and that can be used for good or ill. More than that the assumption of correctness of authority is anathema to a society which has supposedly some control over it's government. The obligation of the citizen is not to obey, but to vigorously challenge claims and assumptions made by those who have charge over them. I cannot be the comfortable conformist, but the pesky contrarian, because if one does not demand good, competent governance one will surely not find it. One is not an expert because one is elected. One is not competent because of the same. One is not good because of it. All of those depend on other metrics. A plan is best? I'm from Missouri, show me.

Further he seems to extend a valid argument to include those who are not experts. Lets look at examples from our early American history. If one looks at a town in pioneer times one will find experts. There's a doctor, a barber (sometimes they were both the same), a blacksmith, a taylor, and so on. People grouped together and those with a particular skill set provided the needed services. The barber really couldn't intelligently tell the blacksmith how to make horse shoes, and I would not want a shave with an axe from a woodcutter. That would be foolish.

My opinion in all this is neither the aggregate nor the individual should be accountable to poor leadership, and both are important.

I think the goals some people have for society such as peace and plenty could be reached most efficiently by taking Orwell's world and replacing the leadership with beneficent tyrants who act for "the greater good". Smiling, happy and soulless, conforming to the image of those who have absolute control over the individual, for the purest of motives of course. That would be for me at least a nightmare. Give me the One Ring and watch your problems go away. Would you want that?

 

[Genx87]

Democrats look like idiots.
Republicans got lucky.

They both look like power hungry asswipes.

 

[Moonbeam]

Agree...Detroit responded poorly to changing realities.

Everything everywhere is happening exactly as it has to. Humanity is asleep. New organs of perception develop only with need. It is need that is driving the evolution of thinking in Detroit. The evolution is greater now because the need is. Detroit has responded exactly as it could and can.

Life remains at stasis when life is sustainable. When the economic activity in a region reaches the point where live degrades the needs of the region switch from growth to environmental preservation. Success breeds regulation and the lack of it brings growth. As California sheds California, California will go everywhere, and along with it, California regulation. If you are a regionalist, an ego whose self worth is based on regional identification, a common attribute of human sleep, you will view shifts in economic activity, growth and decline, as a sort of ball game rather than as an osmotic flow seeking stasis. It is consciousness that determines now meanings of stasis. We are ever pushed by need.

China has 10% economic growth but you can't breathe the air. There was a small but heavily polluted region there that produced plastic. The government closed it down and not the plastic industry and its pollution has sprung up all over China as those businesses moved away. When Texans start to die from polluted air and industrial waste, Texas will have it's lack of regulations to thank. Then a different part of California will be imported, and the Texas disease will move somewhere less enlightened by modernity.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I didn't say he was. The ACA wasn't written and isn't being administered by one person.

If your field is healthcare, or insurance, or something else, I'm sure you'd admit that even if you think they have it wrong, there are experts in the field that are deeply involved in the law and it's implementation.

And the point I was arguing about was the wisdom of relying on experts for some things versus everyone doing everything on their own.

Not the expertise of President Obama.

No, it was not written by Obama, but he is the self appointed figurehead. What I do know is that experts may have been sought, but at the end of the day the decisions and implementations weren't make and done by the experts. The politicians took it and ground it to conform to their political interests. We need something more like an elected meritocracy, which is about as far from where we are now as can be.

I'm glad you clarified your point of experts. My contention is that reality demonstrates that power does not require reliance on expertise. It's optional and often the best means to and end take less importance than making political hay. Republican or Democrat, that's an awful way to run a nation.

 

[irishScott]

You're making a political argument, not analyzing the ACA.

It's true that real health insurance costs more than the pretend health insurance lots of people have been bamboozled into buying over the years.

But guess what ? It's a much better value because it actually is real health insurance.

Another thing. Health care costs, and insurance costs, have been going up for decades. And they go up as people get older. Now, EVERY increase is because of the ACA ?

It's a massive fiction being used as a political tool. It works to reenforce the Obama haters, it isn't going to work on the general public.

The website. The website is going to be fixed. Then what ?

Anything that is actually bad about the ACA can be fixed. I'm saying it will be fixed because that suits both party's interests in the upcoming midterm election.

By the time there's a national election in 2016, an election where what's happening right now might matter, the ACA issue will be long over.

Here is reality. The Republicans are not going to have veto proof majorities in the House and Senate after the 2014 election. President Obama will still be President.

So ACA isn't going away. What will happen are fixes to make it better. Congress people from both parties can run on that.

For the moment, yes. The immediate spike in millions of people's health insurance costs is directly attributable to Obamacare, in spite of repeated promises that such a thing would not happen.

No one disagrees that we need healthcare reform, but it seems a majority now agree that Obamacare is shit:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/165863/americans-approval-healthcare-law-declines.aspx

As for my making a political argument as opposed to analyzing Obamacare, Obamacare can't be fully analyzed by any human alive precisely because it was so political. Imagine the convoluted mess that is the US tax code was created by one law. That's what Obamacare is for healthcare IMO.

Sure there will be fixes, but those fixes will have to amount to a full re-writing of the law to be anything more than band-aid solutions.

 

[Juddog]

When there is political deadlock in congress and a budget cannot be passed, all of congress should get fired and we should get to vote in new ones, with the stipulation that none of those present for the mass-firing will be eligible to re-run.

Fresh blood is needed - on both sides.

 

[Moonbeam]

I agree with you on this but I think it's important to note that his statement was in response to:

I think your criticism here is probably right because I made my comments only with regards to whom the name Atreus evokes of my memory. My comment was addressed to that person and not the context at all. I say probably because I still haven't addressed the context. I have read Atreus posts for a long time and was responding to what I see about him only. I think he represents a viewpoint where everybody wears the one ring.

 

[sportage]

Answer to the OPs question? It depends...
If your are gay, you should like democrats.
If your are gay democrat, you dislike republicans.
If your a woman that wants access to abortion for whatever reason, you like democrats.
If your a woman and do not want your abortion rights, you like republicans.
If you are a minimum wage worker, you should like democrats.
If you are a minimum wage worker, you should dislike republicans.
If you are uninsured for healthcare, you should like democrats.
If you are uninsured for healthcare, you should dislike republicans.
If you believe in separation of church and state, you should like democrats.
If you do not believe in separation of church and state, you like republicans.
If you embrace unions, you should like democrats.
If you demonize unions, you probably like republicans.
If you believe in climate change, you should like democrats.
If you do not believe climate change... republican.
If you want healthy clean air, food, water... democrat.
If you don't mind taking in unknown substances from food, air, water... republican.
If you prefer your child were trim, healthy and intelligent... democrat.
If you prefer a fat, lazy, uneducated child (i.e. Rush Limbaugh)... republican.
If you are responsible for your own healthcare costs... democrat.
If you are not responsible and rather others pick up your ER bill... republican.
If you vote in your own best interest... democrat.
If you vote for personal detriment... probably republican*.
(*note: Personal detriment — negative outcomes for individual consumers)
If you prefer schools staffed with heavily armed teachers/staff... republican.
If you believe in reasonable gun control and schools free of weapons... democrat.
If you suck in every word from right wing millionaires on national TV/Radio... republican.
If you rather pursue the true facts instead... democrat.
If you believe one day you will get old and need assistance... democrat.
if you believe God will rapture you away before that time so why be concerned... republican.
If your core belief is that you are better and deserve more than others... republican.
If your core belief is that everyone should be equal... democrat.
If you subscribe to the Tea Party philosophy... republican. (and a lost cause)
If you reject the Tea Party philosophy... democrat. (and still a member of planet earth)
If you believe John McCain picking Sarah Palin was smart... republican.
If you believe John McCain needed mental medical attention ASAP... democrat.
If you love war, while ignoring the consequences... republican.
If you question involvement in war... democrat.
If you hate big government but insist on your Social Security and Medicare... republican.
If you realize big government is Social Security and Medicare... democrat.

 

[Moonbeam]

When there is political deadlock in congress and a budget cannot be passed, all of congress should get fired and we should get to vote in new ones, with the stipulation that none of those present for the mass-firing will be eligible to re-run.

Fresh blood is needed - on both sides.

It's not the blood, it's the system. The system uses bought blood. We need a constitutional revolution but I don't see it coming because the focus is always on the other.

 

[nehalem256]

If your core belief is that you are better and deserve more than others... republican.
If your core belief is that everyone should be equal... democrat.

So according to liberal core beliefs they are equal to an illiterate retard :biggrin:

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Everything everywhere is happening exactly as it has to. Humanity is asleep. New organs of perception develop only with need. It is need that is driving the evolution of thinking in Detroit. The evolution is greater now because the need is. Detroit has responded exactly as it could and can.

Life remains at stasis when life is sustainable. When the economic activity in a region reaches the point where live degrades the needs of the region switch from growth to environmental preservation. Success breeds regulation and the lack of it brings growth. As California sheds California, California will go everywhere, and along with it, California regulation. If you are a regionalist, an ego whose self worth is based on regional identification, a common attribute of human sleep, you will view shifts in economic activity, growth and decline, as a sort of ball game rather than as an osmotic flow seeking stasis. It is consciousness that determines now meanings of stasis. We are ever pushed by need.

China has 10% economic growth but you can't breathe the air. There was a small but heavily polluted region there that produced plastic. The government closed it down and not the plastic industry and its pollution has sprung up all over China as those businesses moved away. When Texans start to die from polluted air and industrial waste, Texas will have it's lack of regulations to thank. Then a different part of California will be imported, and the Texas disease will move somewhere less enlightened by modernity.

Texas (32nd) is no China and certainly no California (50th) in regard to air quality.

http://statehealthstats.americashealthrankings.org/#/country/US/2011/Air-Pollution

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...s-air-pollution-compared-to-other-states.html

 

[Tom]

I agree with you on this but I think it's important to note that his statement was in response to:



That was in response to Atreus comments about DC. I believe Tom is in error on key points. In the context of the exchange DC would be "the experts". That would require our system being a functional meritocracy based on expertise in areas they will legislate. No such system exists. In fact to my knowledge it never has. In the real world society exists for mutual benefit and that requires a hierarchy of control, and control establishes order. Now the results of that vary wildly, but rarely does mastery of the subjects being controlled enter into the equation of power. It often happens that order is established at a high cost to the individual, which I axiomatically state is the fundamental "unit" of any society. Conformity of thought, establishing a unified and adherent population makes the task of governance easier, but does it make it better? That would be somewhat subjective, but I would submit that which does not build up the individual, the self we all have, is harmful. Automatically assigning "expertise" based on political power hardly qualifies as a means to a positive end. I'll repeat for the benefit of others that I believe that government is not the solution, but neither is it the problem. It is a thing, a construct, and its quality and how it is allowed to function, indeed if we have any real say in that, determines it's value.

The short of it is that Tom doesn't refer to any of this, but takes on principle, or apparently seems to, that those who have mastery of us automatically have the expertise which drives society. I say that's incorrect. What we have is an order placed upon us by those who have established lasting power, and that can be used for good or ill. More than that the assumption of correctness of authority is anathema to a society which has supposedly some control over it's government. The obligation of the citizen is not to obey, but to vigorously challenge claims and assumptions made by those who have charge over them. I cannot be the comfortable conformist, but the pesky contrarian, because if one does not demand good, competent governance one will surely not find it. One is not an expert because one is elected. One is not competent because of the same. One is not good because of it. All of those depend on other metrics. A plan is best? I'm from Missouri, show me.

Further he seems to extend a valid argument to include those who are not experts. Lets look at examples from our early American history. If one looks at a town in pioneer times one will find experts. There's a doctor, a barber (sometimes they were both the same), a blacksmith, a taylor, and so on. People grouped together and those with a particular skill set provided the needed services. The barber really couldn't intelligently tell the blacksmith how to make horse shoes, and I would not want a shave with an axe from a woodcutter. That would be foolish.

My opinion in all this is neither the aggregate nor the individual should be accountable to poor leadership, and both are important.

I think the goals some people have for society such as peace and plenty could be reached most efficiently by taking Orwell's world and replacing the leadership with beneficent tyrants who act for "the greater good". Smiling, happy and soulless, conforming to the image of those who have absolute control over the individual, for the purest of motives of course. That would be for me at least a nightmare. Give me the One Ring and watch your problems go away. Would you want that?

I am only in "error" in that you put words in my mouth.

I did not say the elected officials in DC are "experts". So the entire premise of your presentation as it's tied to me, is wrong.

We elect people to represent us and to make judgments and set policies to achieve the goals we want for ourselves and our society.

Part of the process of accomplishing that is that our elected officials consult and seek advice from "experts" in the matter they are considering. In the case of the ACA there were thousands of experts consulted.

Then we expect our elected representatives to make decisions, not based on their personal expertise about a given matter, but based on the expertise of people who really are experts, along with their experience as human beings, their adherence to the Constitution, their understanding of the world, etc.

There's more, but I don't have time to explain how the society that is the United States functions right now.

 

[BoberFett]

sportage's avatar is actually a picture of a self-lobotomy her performed.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I thought of a possibly interesting topic about this..

Will these California companies moving to Texas, become Texas companies ? Or will they turn Texas into California ?

Look at Virginia turning from Red to purple, to maybe solid Blue ? Will it happen to Texas ?

The plague is already occuring... Austin is the bastard child of Texas :'(

Beautiful city. Horrible people.

 

[palehorse]

Both of your numbers are wrong. Many more people will sign up in the coming months and chances are no one will lose their insurance because of the ACA.

4.9+ million have ALREADY lost their private insurance plans as a direct result of the ACA, so I'm really not sure how you think you can get away with claiming otherwise.

Perhaps you missed the President's announcement yesterday and the entire reason it happened?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I am only in "error" in that you put words in my mouth.

I did not say the elected officials in DC are "experts". So the entire premise of your presentation as it's tied to me, is wrong.

I did thank you in a subsequent post for clarifying your position so whatever I said regarding my understanding of your position necessarily is affected.

We elect people to represent us and to make judgments and set policies to achieve the goals we want for ourselves and our society.

Theoretically correct, however I would submit that the nature of the electoral process really subverts that into a wishful thought. There is room for many thoughts in the marketplace of ideas, however when all the booths force closed by the two biggest sellers the choice is effectively limited. You have a choice between Republican and Democrat offers, and no others, at least none that have any real chance.

Part of the process of accomplishing that is that our elected officials consult and seek advice from "experts" in the matter they are considering. In the case of the ACA there were thousands of experts consulted.

Then we expect our elected representatives to make decisions, not based on their personal expertise about a given matter, but based on the expertise of people who really are experts, along with their experience as human beings, their adherence to the Constitution, their understanding of the world, etc

I'll give another example of what you state. Back in the early 2000's we had elected officials who sought the expertise of people, no doubt in the thousands, following a process similar to that you describe and they gave us the Iraq War and the War on Terror. Perhaps that passes muster for you in terms of competency and quality of leadership, but for me not so much.

The problem with your explanation is that in the America we don't operate according to theory. What happens is that the politicians decide just what is done and how to go about it. They will employ experts and gather information and then filter it to suit their own ideology and agenda. They may legislate, but they have little understanding of what they are attempting and since they are the ones putting pen to paper they can hardly avoid the law of unintended consequences since they don't really get what they are told. That seems to be a best case scenario. In the case of the ACA it appears that little was learned, because I find it difficult that thousands of people representing tens of thousands of man years of experience could only come up with this.

I don't have time to explain in detail the realities of how things are, but it would be tragic that this is the best the finest minds in the US can do. In fact it's unimaginable.

 

[Texashiker]

The biggest thing that's wrong with the ACA are the Republican run states that are trying to sabotage it.

Please explain how Texas made my insurance go up 9% in October?

Please explain to me how Texas made my uncles insurance go up $375? Not up to $375, his insurance now cost an extra $375 more then it did a couple of months ago.

 

[Tom]

4.9+ million have ALREADY lost their private insurance plans as a direct result of the ACA, so I'm really not sure how you think you can get away with claiming otherwise.

Perhaps you missed the President's announcement yesterday and the entire reason it happened?

That's my point.

Did all 4.9 million still ALREADY lose their healthcare ?

It's already done, never to be changed, from now til the end of time..

Or is it being fixed ? Like I said.

 

[Tom]

Please explain how Texas made my insurance go up 9% in October?

Please explain to me how Texas made my uncles insurance go up $375? Not up to $375, his insurance now cost an extra $375 more then it did a couple of months ago.

My insurance goes up every year. For 20 years.

Send me your uncles documents and I'll tell you why.

I assume you mean he pays $375 per day ? That is expensive.

 

[Tom]

I did thank you in a subsequent post for clarifying your position so whatever I said regarding my understanding of your position necessarily is affected. Theoretically correct, however I would submit that the nature of the electoral process really subverts that into a wishful thought. There is room for many thoughts in the marketplace of ideas, however when all the booths force closed by the two biggest sellers the choice is effectively limited. You have a choice between Republican and Democrat offers, and no others, at least none that have any real chance.



I'll give another example of what you state. Back in the early 2000's we had elected officials who sought the expertise of people, no doubt in the thousands, following a process similar to that you describe and they gave us the Iraq War and the War on Terror. Perhaps that passes muster for you in terms of competency and quality of leadership, but for me not so much.

The problem with your explanation is that in the America we don't operate according to theory. What happens is that the politicians decide just what is done and how to go about it. They will employ experts and gather information and then filter it to suit their own ideology and agenda. They may legislate, but they have little understanding of what they are attempting and since they are the ones putting pen to paper they can hardly avoid the law of unintended consequences since they don't really get what they are told. That seems to be a best case scenario. In the case of the ACA it appears that little was learned, because I find it difficult that thousands of people representing tens of thousands of man years of experience could only come up with this.

I don't have time to explain in detail the realities of how things are, but it would be tragic that this is the best the finest minds in the US can do. In fact it's unimaginable.

Well, it could turn out great.

 

[glenn1]

Well, it could turn out great.

Yeah, and the Iraqi people could have greeted our invasion troops with flowers, and people could have loved Obamacare once they found out what was in it. Meanwhile, the rest of us who aren't willfully blind are trying to deal with a reality which has turned out far differently than your predictions.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Well, it could turn out great.

As glenn said, so could have Iraq. That one might get lucky based in spite of ignorance and bad approaches is hardly to be commended.

 

[Tom]

Yeah, and the Iraqi people could have greeted our invasion troops with flowers, and people could have loved Obamacare once they found out what was in it. Meanwhile, the rest of us who aren't willfully blind are trying to deal with a reality which has turned out far differently than your predictions.

My predictions haven't turned out yet.

You can't judge Burger King's new fries based on Crystal Pepsi.

 

[Texashiker]

My insurance goes up every year. For 20 years.

Yea, around the rate of inflation every year. Which equals around 2.5% - 3% per year, not 9% like in my case, and not something like 75% - 85% in my uncles case.

My uncle is on disability and carries a supplemental insurance policy.

How the hell are people on fixed incomes supposed to cover that kind of increase?