Comments by "sharper68" (@sharper68) on "The Humanist Report" channel.

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  2. Red Pill So? It does not mean anything of the kind and your defense of useless and needlessly expensive insurance companies is not a rally cry of freedom but treadmill of tyranny to their profit. There is nothing that is working in favor of "freedom" for the vast majority as it ties them to jobs they need just to ensure their family is covered. We are stifling innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit to foster a dependence on insurance giants who have no other goal but to make profit. Health care is not a free market commodity and when you need care you often do not have the luxury of shopping around. No matter what you are going to "buy" the product. It is the sale of oxygen and just like selling air it means some are not going to be able to afford it and will die if the only way to get it is to pay money they do not have. If you point at the emergency room loop hole you are using the most expensive form of taxpayer funded health care and it is literally pouring our money down a hole with bodies at the bottom of it You are in favor of a bankrupt system that bankrupts its victims not because of taxes but because of ridiculous health care bills. Your position is untenable to the educated. One way or another the only way a system works is if someone insures it. Single payer systems are simply insurance systems funded by the state with no profit motive and a mandate to provide care. They help control costs and ensure everyone get the medical care they need in a much more efficient and seamless way than the expensive and convoluted way we do it.
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  38. +Red Pill You are the one running away and clearly can not face ideas you do not like.  You need a safe space and it is whiners like you who are consistently the biggest intellectual cowards in any debate they join.  Only in your fact free bubble does your spin even make sense.  The opposite of a statist is an anarchist and you spent some time pretending you are not one of those in an earlier post.   So if my choice is between living in a society of laws and living in chaos I guess I am a "statist" as are most of us.  Your assertions are fact free and it is you who uses invalid talking points not attached to reality.  If you can pretend I am ok with stealing then it is very fair to say you are ok with murder and you need to own that.  You want to let insurance companies choose who lives and dies based on how much money they have so they can make a profit and then call that "freedom".  I want the system of providing health care that does not pick who lives and dies based on their net worth.  I am pointing out you are far more concerned with "theft" from those who have he most than the deaths of the poor. I am both intellectually and morally superior to you.  What I am advocating for is what the best systems in the world universally do.  I am pointing out that what you want never leads to good results and never ever has.  The country was created because the people rejected taxation without representation.   That they solved that  problem does not make taxation evil. I have lived all over the world and read more books than you have touched.  I know what works and what does not and your faith based version of the economy is nothing but sloppy blow job to those who think profit is more important that peoples lives.  You turn your head and ignore those that die around you to support your spin and this marks you as neither principled or moral.   That you care nothing about life and focus on property speaks the value of convictions.  I do know what a constitutional republic is and there is no reason we can not provide universal care, none.
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  39. +Red Pill Fact free, there is nothing in the constitution that prevents this as I have already clearly shown.  You are clearly wrong about centralized government programs in a constitutional republic, we have had them for 80 years.   I am not arguing with you I am just pointing out the fact and you care more about "theft" than "murder" and that is a position that is basically indefensible.   You would forgo the "mob" to hand power to a few so they can enrich themselves and their friends at everyone's cost.  That is another tough sell and I challenge you to pump up your next leader by talking about how they do not have to represent the American people and how our system was never intended to.  The mob rule is better than taxation without representation, at least that is what the founders thought. You claim to speak for the founders and it is clear you have no idea what you are talking about when trying to apply what they did to this situation.  The ideas we are talking about simply did not exist when our forward thinking founders wrote  the original documents.  There is literally nothing in the constitution that precludes us setting up an opt in Medicare for all system. I am saying the government working for insurance companies speaks to corruption and not them focusing on principle.   More and more Americans can no longer afford our over priced system and there is literally no merit to defending it unless you own an insurance company.  Giving them the power of life or death over Americans is an indefensible potion and you have not made a single argument that does so.  Practically NO ONE CAN NOT AFFORD CARE without a middle man, there is a reason we have hundreds of thousands of health care bankruptcies even with insurance. I can't "get" your failed arguments and assertions through my head because they are poorly made and not attached to any working reality you can point at.  You do tacitly defend insurance companies as you support the status quo because there is no realistic form of any health care system anywhere that works as you assert it should and there never will be.  Insurance companies love your spin that promotes stasis and handing them more power, own that. Do not admonish anyone on reading skills as it is clear yours are not strong,  just saying.
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  41. Red Pill by pretending I have shared Marxist views you show yourself to be patently ignorant of what the term actually means.   We (USA) are the poster child for the first world nations and they you imagine we are not one speaks to more of your ignorance and nothing else.  You have no idea what the term actually means as you make the painfully miss the point arguments you do about home ownership, property taxes, etc.  The entire first world has these things and pretending that we do makes us not first world is marks you as base ignorant on the subject. There is an answer to the question "Who exactly do you consider "rich"?  and it has nothing to do with what I make as unlike you I do not want to exclude myself from the system.   Paying taxes is not punishment it is the cost of living in a modern society and that you are a deadbeat who wants to sponge off others does not mark you as principled.   What has been proposed is that anyone who makes over 200k pay a few more points on taxes and that would raise the money needed for many programs.  This represents 2% of the population and crying for the most affluent paying another 2% like it is immoral is a real tough sell for most.  You do this trying to appear moral and high minded  while saying it is ok for the poor to die, making you look just douchy.   It most certainly will not make those who have to pay a little more poor and whining that they make a little less will be a tough sell to the vast majority who make an average 30k.  Every single term you use you seem to misunderstand willfully or otherwise.   Graduated income taxes are not a slippery slope to anything else and I have already hammered down this particular weak talking point.  That you can afford to pay more taxes when you make more money is not a complex idea.  The system does not level the playing field so everyone makes the same amount and if you think it does then you are clueless and really need to study up on what you are talking about before saying incorrect things in public. That you see taxes as theft and are deeply concerned about it is undermined by the fact you do not care if the poor die or even worse a child does because they can not afford health care.   You accuse me of emotional porn while you base you entire argument on doing just that by misrepresenting taxes as theft.  The fact is the group I belong to do not think it is ok to go over seas and kill people,  it is the corporate funded dems and the entire GOP including your leaders that support it.   So your question "why it is not okay for our government to force our military to go halfway around the world and kill millions of people, but it is okay for the government to forcefully steal the fruits of other people's labor and redistribute " is moot because we as a group who disagrees with you generally do not support murder of in the name of oil companies and it is your guys who do. What you fail to understand is what you advocate for is slavery to the rich and a lower standard of life for all Americans to make those at the very tippy top far richer.  Your pipe dream of a pure voluntary system simply does not work and never ever has.  You are free to think what ever you want to as this is America.   Whatever that is you still have to pay your taxes or you are completely free go and live somewhere that does not collect them.  It literally makes no difference to me.
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  42. Red Pill  I know I am digging in sand talking to the likes of you.  That is ok as talking out loud in place like this is often the only forum people see our ideas and it has value to me.  You calling me a "Marxist" shows you have no idea what the term actually means admit it or not.  I have heard your empty stance from dozens of greed based halfwits in the past and you said absolutely nothing new nor have you refuted anything I have said.  You support an imaginary pipe dream cooked up by crooks who are buying your leaders and robbing us all blind.  When talking to people with your spin I am never trying to convince you as your have a hard core faith based vision of reality which does not value facts or data or that your vision of society will not and never has worked for anyone.   I don't think we as a people actually have to pay more tax just that the tax we pay is necessary and that it should and would e spent better if our leaders were not for sale.   Your argument we should not have any taxes is an extremist position of little moral value as "voluntary payment" is clearly more important to you than a child dying in the streets because their mom is poor.   This country is not based on volunteerism and no country on earth has had this system in any working capacity in over 100 years.  There is literally nothing in our founding documents that validates your spin and you are just making shit up.  We were minor colonial power in the days of the system you want to go back to.  You are as poorly focused as hard core communists in that you both imagine your ideology will ever survive contact with reality giving good results when they never will.   You both share a faith based fact free version of reality where you do account for the greed of those who will be given unrestricted power in your system.  The fact taxes are wasted instead being spent here is based on who we elect to our system and who they work for.  The way our taxes were once spent building infistructure, developing and supporting new technology, supporting workers rights made us the envy of the planet.  Since then we have moved away from that and those who write your parroted spin have been robbing us into decline ever since.  If our health care was public no one would be paying anymore, we would all pay less.  I am interested in how you address this fact or why you ignore it.   I must assume you purposely ignore it because it hampers your spin.  I challenge you to ask everyone you know if they feel more free paying double for their health care than anyone else in the fist world.  As far as the rich paying more, why should I care if they do not want to?   They are already benefiting from our system the most and I guess they can just leave and not make money here if they feel that strongly.  In any case arguing they are having a right stepped on by paying a couple more points on the millions they throw on the pile is defense of greed that does not look shiny when exposed for what it is.  You make paying taxes into some kind of high crime and it makes you look silly as you are clearly willing to let a person next to the one you defend die because they can not afford care.  How to better distribute our taxes and what level they are collected at is an entirely valid topic of conversation and there is room for argument debate on that subject.   But please understand that is an entirely different spin than taxes is theft.  The term first world has a definition.  We are all industrialized liberal democracies/republics meaning we value free speech, right of assembly of free press.  We are all secular states that do not actively promote any single religion and are universally market based economies.  It is associated with the countries that were considered on the allies side (later joined by Germany and Japan) and represent the countries with high standards of living.   It is summed up as the countries of the world that have many industries and relatively few poor people : the rich nations of the world We qualify because we were the first to coin the term and literally built the alliance and life style the first world represents.   The first world has high standards and are prosperous and comfortable because of that, The countries you want to be like are third world because they have none of that.   You ask who determines my health care standards and I counter with who determines yours?  Mine are based on a clearly defined set of metrics you and anyone else can validate.   I am sorry to say there is zero chance you can say the same.  So good health care and education are measured by a standard,  that you do not accept that standard or for some arbitrary reason (that you have not shared) and that you decide to reject it does show they are not better. You have not shown any insight into economics and what you propose is not used anywhere for a good reason.   Your simplistic cookie cutter talking point spin is not validated by anything but your in the bubble ignorance.  You are not learned on this issue and do not appear to have anything to teach me as your talking points are NEVER backed up with single number and your bizarre claims to some kind of superior knowledge are not proven by what you share as it is never validated nonsense.  It is clear it is you who does not understand economics as you try to pretend our credit card debt and the national debt are the same thing.  The fact is every time we print a dollar bill we create debt.  The very act of printing money creates debt out of nothing.   Hate the world economic system all you want but it is the base nature of it that debt increases and unless you propose something else to replace it you at blowing hot air and are just complaining about a symptom of it.  Our financial system is wholly based on debt and I am convinced what we are doing is not a long term solution for a great many reasons.  That being said what you propose is not the answer either as ignoring the problems your spin would cause does not make them go away.   The tip of the ice burg is the failure you have with an issue as simple as health care for the poor.  Your argument we should let them die or hope someone donates money to help them is not well thought out or actionable if we want anything but chaos.  All this bullshit about force is nonsense.  You are free to go anywhere and no one keeps you here.  Go or pay your dues to society as that is the choice you make by living here.   Vote with your feet as you have no right to make the country into a third world hell hole where poor children die because of who their parents are so you do not have to pay taxes.  Regardless of what you want it is not going to happen anyway so as it stands the only thing your empty spin does is empower the super rich to rob us more. That our government spends money poorly is not an argument we should not have one or they should not have money but that they should all be replaced.  The system is broken largely because of the fact our leaders have not and do not work for us.  We have none the services the rest of the first world enjoys because our leaders are paid by the interests who make t he trillions off our backs.  As long as our leaders are legally for sale we can expect no change.   You are not in favour of liberty, you fight for economic slavery and the empowerment of the very cancer that is rotting our system.   Greed. I would humbly suggest you find a group of like minded voters and primary the corporate whores who own the gop and pulling the sellouts in the establishment dems with them.  Until our leaders work for us they will waste our hard earned money in giveaways to their buddies and wars instead of what it should be spent on.  I want my tax dollars to be injected into our shared infrastructure and R&D and education at home creating good jobs and putting much needed money in the hands of people who work for a living reigniting the growth of the middle class.  Get your leaders to push your goals,  because as it stands they are not working for either of us it appears.
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  43. Red Pill I say it because it true.  You are using it incorrectly and that you have your own definition does not change you have it wrong as I am in NO WAY Marxist.  You are speaking your own language and no one out side your bubble understands what you mean when you say it.  Could you define Marxist for us? I am not trying to fit anyone in my "socialist" box I am talking about what people want.  I am not sure how popular you think your vision is or why, but it is not.  You have to have workable options that address real world concerns to counter the proposals I advocate for and your spin can not and never will do that.  You are forced to use double speak and emotional terms like force, coercion and theft to frame common ideas as villainous while ignoring the deaths caused by the policy you advocate for.  You are not concerned about real world results at all and are 100% ideology based.  Accusing me as being indoctrinated does not ring true from someone that uses coded language and espouses a religious like certainty on economic assertions that have no real world model.   First rule of any cult like group of thought, accuse others of what you do.  If you are indoctrinating your followers then accuse everyone else as being indoctrinated and that is why they can not see the truth.  It allows them to dismiss when the Marxists bring up facts they have no answer for.  You are part of pretty small minority and have not shown you have an understanding of the basic concepts and terms you consistently and incorrectly use.  You mix up abject tax rejection with advocating for state and local taxes.  You used the credit card and home finances analogy when discussing the immorality of the national debt.  You think Marxist means people who  disagree with you, who are not "informed" like you.  You are part of no majority anywhere and belong to a bubble of those so lost in group think you do not even define common words the same way as the rest of the planet does.  The constitution does not layout a workable solution to health care, if it did we would have had it enacted at some point.  Please share your clearly deep insight to show I am wrong. The constitution is not a silver bullet with all the answers and it was not meant to be.  Our founders designed it to be amended and updated as we go along.  It was never meant to hold us back from what was coming next.
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