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It's tough to get through to anyone that seriously thinks the U.S.A. is number one in everything, and uses that to back up their arguments. Pointing out that the U.S. healthcare system isn't the best in the world by a number of metrics just bounces off the ears of a lot of people.
Leon Einstein fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Oct 8, 2012 |
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Oct 8, 2012 15:45
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Also, it's true that occasionally a Canadian will go to the US to have a medical procedure done... because they're rich and want to take advantage of a system where rich people can pay extra to skip lines for non-essential procedures, whereas in Canada they would have to wait their turn with the poor people. If you need an essential procedure, you get it immediately. For example, someone my mom knows was having leg pain but she's a hippie who lived on a commune and was trying to cure it by eating goldenrod or some alternative crap. When she was finally convinced to go see a doctor, she ended up in surgery that same afternoon to correct the problem, because it was urgent. No wait times, no having to go to the US to do it, and no worries about insurance (as a hippie living on a commune I doubt she would have insurance in the US). But if you mention the Canadian healthcare system to Americans they go "Pfft, Canada," handwave, and then tell the bullshit story about that woman who went to the US because a for-profit doctor there lied to her and told her that benign growths were tumours that would kill her, and she mortgaged her house to pay for it and now crusades against the Canadian system because she believed the US one saved her life. It's depressing. It's especially depressing when I meet actual Canadians who believe the US lies, because you'd think they would know better having lived here all their lives.
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Oct 8, 2012 15:46
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vyelkin posted:Here in Canada our minimum wage ranges from $9.75/hr to $11/hr but almost all provinces are between $10 and $10.25, with regular incremental increases most years in most places. It's still not enough to get you out of poverty but it's a drat sight better than the US. And our economy is running better than yours, with less poverty, go figure. In fact the only real movement to change the minimum wage here is to make it higher so it would actually be a living wage. Our (current) second-biggest party had that as part of their platform a few years back, and even introduced a motion to set the federal minimum to $12/hr, but it didn't pass because we've had wannabe Republicans in power for the last six years. Thanks, that puts all of Canada's minimum wage well above the US. Like I said, Washington is the highest at just under $9/ hour this year, but they have automatic increases which will put it above $9 next year. But they are actually an outlier. Even among States with above federal wages, the norm is closer to $8. One of Obama's platforms is he wants to make the federal minimum $9 and tie it to cost of living increases. But he doesn't talk about it much because there isn't much support for it unfortunately; which still makes our progressive leaders well behind Canada. One area I have had success in making people at least consider minimum wage laws is by tying it to social programs. Pointing out that parents working multiple jobs at $8 (higher than the $7.25) can still qualify for Food Stamps, Section 8 housing, Medicaid, etc. But that if we forced places like Walmart to actually pay these people $10-12 an hour at a minimum, the number of people who qualify for handouts would dramatically decrease, without having to cut funding for people who really need it. It doesn't cause an about-face of "yeah, raise minimum wage!" But it usually results in grudging acceptance that its a good point and at least plants that seed.
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Oct 8, 2012 15:58
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vyelkin posted:Here in Canada our minimum wage ranges from $9.75/hr to $11/hr but almost all provinces are between $10 and $10.25, with regular incremental increases most years in most places. It's still not enough to get you out of poverty but it's a drat sight better than the US. And our economy is running better than yours, with less poverty, go figure. In fact the only real movement to change the minimum wage here is to make it higher so it would actually be a living wage. Our (current) second-biggest party had that as part of their platform a few years back, and even introduced a motion to set the federal minimum to $12/hr, but it didn't pass because we've had wannabe Republicans in power for the last six years. It's been covered a bit already but it's really impressive how thoroughly the right has managed to poison that well. I'm American but I've been living in France for a couple of years now and last summer when I was river tubing back in Michigan I ran into a guy who refused to believe me when I told him that things are in fact pretty ok in France. He had this image of Europe as being like a caricature of Soviet Russia, nothing but breadlines and misery. He even expressed disbelief at the idea that most French households have televisions because he was 100% certain that socialist Europeans couldn't afford that sort of luxury. The dude wasn't even spouting off right wing talking points or anything, he was just really confused as to why I, as a person who lives in Europe, thought things weren't the way he knew them to be, despite his never having been further away from home than Ontario.
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Oct 8, 2012 16:02
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RagnarokAngel posted:The most effective method is unions, a non-government system run by the people to get what they need can be very important to protect unskilled workers (when I was a register jockey in college it was a lifesaver). Agreed, but there is probably a connection between states with no minimum wage laws (or sub-Federal laws) and states that are anti-Unions. I remember when my wife (girlfriend at the time) was working in a call center for Cavalier Phone in VA and the idea of unionising was going around. The management came down on it hard, threatening that it would lead them all to losing their jobs, etc.
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Oct 8, 2012 16:03
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Soviet Commubot posted:It's been covered a bit already but it's really impressive how thoroughly the right has managed to poison that well. I'm American but I've been living in France for a couple of years now and last summer when I was river tubing back in Michigan I ran into a guy who refused to believe me when I told him that things are in fact pretty ok in France. He had this image of Europe as being like a caricature of Soviet Russia, nothing but breadlines and misery. He even expressed disbelief at the idea that most French households have televisions because he was 100% certain that socialist Europeans couldn't afford that sort of luxury. My Mom had a similar reaction to the Olympic opening ceremony's celebration of the NHS. My Dad recognized it for the propaganda that it was, but my Mom was just confused that anyone would see socialized medicine as something worth celebrating. Sort of related: I was watching a Doctor Who episode involving coma patients and was briefly surprised by the fact that the patients were sleeping in the same hall, beds all in a row, without even plastic curtains separating them. Is that normal in Britain and the other Godless commie countries?
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Oct 8, 2012 17:02
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Pththya-lyi posted:My Mom had a similar reaction to the Olympic opening ceremony's celebration of the NHS. My Dad recognized it for the propaganda that it was, but my Mom was just confused that anyone would see socialized medicine as something worth celebrating. With the current Tory government I wouldn't really call the NHS segment 'propoganda'. Wards in modern NHS hospitals look like this;  For the most part people will leave those curtains you see open so that they can chat to people in the bed next to them. There are individual rooms available if necessary as well, and the biggest ward I think I've ever seen was 6 beds.
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Oct 8, 2012 17:17
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Fat Guy Sexting posted:With the current Tory government I wouldn't really call the NHS segment 'propoganda'. General wards, especially in older hospitals, can be up to 10-12 beds. Newer hospitals are built with 4-bed bays instead, with of course individual rooms for infection control etc. Of course there are curtains that can be drawn around beds for privacy. Admittedly my only experience of American healthcare is Scrubs but the ward there (which was a HDU, IIRC) was laid out exactly the same way (8 or 10 beds in two rows), only with a few private rooms too.
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Oct 8, 2012 17:23
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goddamnedtwisto posted:General wards, especially in older hospitals, can be up to 10-12 beds. Newer hospitals are built with 4-bed bays instead, with of course individual rooms for infection control etc. Of course there are curtains that can be drawn around beds for privacy. I admit that most of my experience has been with the newer hospitals, I guess anything from 1990 onwards had the better designed ward sizes?
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Oct 8, 2012 17:28
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vyelkin posted:I kind of wish more progressive Americans would use Canada as an example of things when discussing how to improve the country. For example, when people bring up the minimum wage, you could mention that ours is significantly higher than yours, and it hasn't strangled business to death. I've brought up the minimum wage thing before, and when I'm not hearing "Canada, HA!", I get a lovely inflation argument that sometimes has a touch of "right to choose what we buy!" thrown in. Basically, people hear that random technologies and non-essential things cost more in Canada, and either assume that means everything is more expensive and thus increasing the minimum wage increases all prices so there's no reason to raise it(and while I know this isn't true, and the basics of elastic vs. inelastic goods, I simply don't know enough to provide a convincing argument).
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Oct 8, 2012 17:30
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Pththya-lyi posted:My Dad recognized it for the propaganda that it was, Propaganda in what way? The opening ceremony was about showing changes to Britain's culture throughout time. The creation of the NHS certainly ranks up there in major milestones in British culture. A culture which guarantees top of the world healthcare for every last person is a huge cultural shift. Showcasing this during the 1940's segment seemed perfectly legitimate to me, rather than some kind of propaganda with the intent to...?
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Oct 8, 2012 20:21
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Countblanc posted:I've brought up the minimum wage thing before, and when I'm not hearing "Canada, HA!", I get a lovely inflation argument that sometimes has a touch of "right to choose what we buy!" thrown in. Basically, people hear that random technologies and non-essential things cost more in Canada, and either assume that means everything is more expensive and thus increasing the minimum wage increases all prices so there's no reason to raise it(and while I know this isn't true, and the basics of elastic vs. inelastic goods, I simply don't know enough to provide a convincing argument). I would just make this argument: wages are only a portion of overall cost of a good or service. And minimum wage increases only increases the cost of goods or services where minimum wage is used. For example, a minimum wage increase does not increase the cost of transporting goods to Wal-Mart, because the drivers' income is already greater than minimum wage. But if you assume 20% (hugely generous) of what you buy at Walmart goes to paying the minimum wage shelf stockers and register workers, a 50% minimum wage increase (massive and will never happen in one jump) results in only a 10% increase in cost of goods at WalMart. Meanwhile, plenty of other things in your monthly expenses are completely unchanged because they don't rely on minimum wage workers (power bill, rent/mortgage, gasoline, cell phone service, etc). Increasing minimum wage by X% does not immediately inflate everything X%. It has only minimal effects on certain businesses. Perfect example: Papa Johns' claims that giving their employees adequate healthcare as required by Obamacare is raising the average $20 pizza order by $0.20.
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Oct 8, 2012 20:38
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I'm using "propaganda" in a broader sense, as in the first sentence of Wikipedia's entry on it: The NHS segment presented the position that the NHS is good (and therefore deserves financial and political support), but did not present the position that the NHS is not good (and therefore does not deserve financial and political support). In a time when conservatives in Britain and in other countries are trying to delegitimize and defund socialized medicine, the segment presented a definite side of a definite argument. Unlike my regressive dad, I believe that the segment was correct in presenting its position, and Heaven knows I'm not one of those "both sides are worthy of attention/truth is somewhere in the middle" types, but that doesn't mean it doesn't fit my (and Wikipedia's) definition of propaganda. Pththya-lyi fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Oct 8, 2012 |
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Oct 8, 2012 20:39
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Sarion posted:Perfect example: Papa Johns' claims that giving their employees adequate healthcare as required by Obamacare is raising the average $20 pizza order by $0.20. This is one of those things you shouldn't actually say in an argument because it's effectively changing the subject, but it blows my mind that people would use this as a reason to rail against the ACA. It's two dimes, and Papa John's has (as of 2010) 16,000 employees. Even assuming that only half of those were the bottom rung that didn't get insurance through their work (which could well be low balling it, since that would make the company a little top-heavy), that's 8,000 people that have one less thing keeping them up at night, all for an amount of money that a lot of people wouldn't stop to pick up on the street. At the very least, it's such a tiny marginal cost that virtually no one will change their buying habits. Similarly, I heard a (conservative) family member tell another family member (low information, neutral politically), "Obamacare will make your premiums go up so that poor kids have health insurance." And let's be clear here - he thinks this is a bad thing.
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Oct 8, 2012 20:59
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Boxman posted:This is one of those things you shouldn't actually say in an argument because it's effectively changing the subject, but it blows my mind that people would use this as a reason to rail against the ACA. It's two dimes, and Papa John's has (as of 2010) 16,000 employees. Even assuming that only half of those were the bottom rung that didn't get insurance through their work (which could well be low balling it, since that would make the company a little top-heavy), that's 8,000 people that have one less thing keeping them up at night, all for an amount of money that a lot of people wouldn't stop to pick up on the street. At the very least, it's such a tiny marginal cost that virtually no one will change their buying habits. Actually, it's even worse when you consider that John Schnatter said that to his stockholders. John Schnatter posted:If Obamacare is in fact not repealed, we will find tactics to shallow out any Obamacare costs and core strategies to pass that cost onto consumers in order to protect our shareholders best interests So they are going to raise prices because heaven forbid the added cost of taking care of their employees comes out of their goal of MAXIMUM PROFITS.
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Oct 8, 2012 21:27
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Sporadic posted:So they are going to raise prices because heaven forbid the added cost of taking care of their employees comes out of their goal of MAXIMUM PROFITS. But they have to generate MAXIMUM PROFITS: a corporation's primary legal duty is to make money for its shareholders, and if they fail to discharge this duty, the shareholders have the right to sue. That's one of the main reasons why the system is so hosed up. But don't take my word for it, read the words of a former corporate lawyer here.
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Oct 8, 2012 21:37
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Fat Guy Sexting posted:I admit that most of my experience has been with the newer hospitals, I guess anything from 1990 onwards had the better designed ward sizes? Well there's actually quite a lot of argument about what is actually the best design. In some ways larger wards can be better - it's much quicker for doctors to do their rounds, a single nurse can easily care for more people, and it's easier to move people and equipment around, and it's much easier to design things like piped oxygen and vacuum. Balanced against that is that infection control is trickier in larger wards, and patients prefer smaller wards or private rooms. 4-bed bays seems to be where things have stabilised. Personally I prefer the larger wards when I'm ambulatory - it's easier to wander round and chat to people. Perversely I think the 4-bed bays are actually less private than the old large wards because you tend to be closer to other patients and being in a smaller room like that tends to make other people stick their noses in. I've experienced both sides over the last few years, at least as a visitor, as my local hospital is the Royal London which has wards that are literally 200 years old (including signs asking people not to smoke in their beds and even some original gaslight mantles in some of the hallways), but which has had 4 major renovations (1910s, 1950s, 1980s, and a move to a totally new building this year) meaning it's basically a museum of hospital design. My favourites are the old TB wards, with their lovely big balconies overlooking the park...
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Oct 8, 2012 21:53
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I have a friend who I cannot convince that UHC is a good thing. His anecdotal evidence trumps all. He has an aunt who lives in Canada and needed a procedure done to her eyes, the waiting list was so long that she went blind. The problem is I don't know if it was in fact a long line situation or if the doctor just hosed up. The only thing I can say in response is that people don't get sent home to die in Canada like they do here. Aeka 2.0 fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Oct 8, 2012 |
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Oct 8, 2012 22:45
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Have you seen my apex seals? I seem to have lost them.
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goddamnedtwisto posted:My favourites are the old TB wards, with their lovely big balconies overlooking the park... There are a couple of books by an author named Jane Grant (Come Hither, Nurse and Come Again, Nurse) which, although fictionalised, are supposedly pretty much semi-autobiographical accounts of what it was like to be a student nurse in London in the early 50s. There's a lot of eye-opening stuff for a modern reader (particularly, of course, social attitudes, like everyone automatically assuming that a nurse who got married would immediately quit her job). One thing that stood out for me was the chapter covering her stint in the TB wards, where patients could spend a year or more. Before the widespread use of effective antibiotics, treatment consisted of temporarily collapsing one lung to "rest" it. The doctors usually had TB themselves, since infection was a problem, and some of them had only a few months left to live. It was a supreme waste of time and life and it's a tribute to modern medicine that such places are no longer required.
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Oct 8, 2012 23:03
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Aeka 2.0 posted:I have a friend who I cannot convince that UHC is a good thing. His anecdotal evidence trumps all. He has an aunt who lives in Canada and needed a procedure done to her eyes, the waiting list was so long that she went blind. Is she wealthy enough that she would have been able to afford the necessary treatment to save her sight in the US?
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Oct 8, 2012 23:09
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vyelkin posted:Is she wealthy enough that she would have been able to afford the necessary treatment to save her sight in the US? I don't know her or her living situation and there can be plenty of variables. Fore example people can be too poor for the care but lucky enough to have a job that provides the proper care. I can't imagine asking that question would come up with any forward results. If she was rich enough I would imagine that she would have done some tourism?
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Oct 8, 2012 23:26
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Sarion posted:I would just make this argument: wages are only a portion of overall cost of a good or service. And minimum wage increases only increases the cost of goods or services where minimum wage is used. For example, a minimum wage increase does not increase the cost of transporting goods to Wal-Mart, because the drivers' income is already greater than minimum wage. But if you assume 20% (hugely generous) of what you buy at Walmart goes to paying the minimum wage shelf stockers and register workers, a 50% minimum wage increase (massive and will never happen in one jump) results in only a 10% increase in cost of goods at WalMart. Meanwhile, plenty of other things in your monthly expenses are completely unchanged because they don't rely on minimum wage workers (power bill, rent/mortgage, gasoline, cell phone service, etc). Even better example (pdf): UC Berkeley posted:Even if Walmart were to pass 100 percent of the wage increase [from min wage to $12/hr for 1.4 million employees] on to consumers, the average impact on a Walmart shopper would be quite small: 1.1 percent of prices, well below Walmart's estimated savings to consumers. This works out to $0.46 per shopping trip, or $12.49 per year, for the average consumer who spends approximately $1,187 per year at Walmart. The arguments against raising the minimum wage are, at best, deeply ignorant, or I believe more commonly outright fraudulent misrepresentations with the goal of squeezing every bit of profit and productivity out of the poor.
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Oct 8, 2012 23:31
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Boxman posted:This is one of those things you shouldn't actually say in an argument because it's effectively changing the subject, but it blows my mind that people would use this as a reason to rail against the ACA. It's two dimes, and Papa John's has (as of 2010) 16,000 employees. Even assuming that only half of those were the bottom rung that didn't get insurance through their work (which could well be low balling it, since that would make the company a little top-heavy), that's 8,000 people that have one less thing keeping them up at night, all for an amount of money that a lot of people wouldn't stop to pick up on the street. At the very least, it's such a tiny marginal cost that virtually no one will change their buying habits. I should have been more clear. It wasn't a direct example of minimum wage. But rather an example of how something that has a large overall cost results in a small cost to the consumer because it only makes up a tiny portion of the overall cost. But 800peepee51doodoo's example is even more perfect because it hits both points. Sarion fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Oct 9, 2012 |
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Oct 9, 2012 06:03
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Not too crazy... But considering who posted it, it's just another way of saying, "college is for losers. And you have to be super special to be in the military." And whenever a celebrity dies, and it gets any media coverage, the military moms go ballistic. "Why does anyone care about THEM? They aren't a HEEEEERO!!! They didn't fight for our FREEEEDOM!!!"
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Oct 9, 2012 07:00
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Kat R. Waulin posted:Not too crazy... But considering who posted it, it's just another way of saying, "college is for losers. And you have to be super special to be in the military." And afterwards they drag their ten kids to the BX and complain about the lack of CHEEEEEETOS!!!
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Oct 9, 2012 07:26
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How many of their spouses are actual front line dudes? I've found that the loudest "WE'RE A MILITARY FAMILY GODDAMN IT" spouses are usually rarely actually related to the 'people putting their lives at risk every day'.
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Oct 9, 2012 07:30
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Glitterbomber posted:How many of their spouses are actual front line dudes? I've found that the loudest "WE'RE A MILITARY FAMILY GODDAMN IT" spouses are usually rarely actually related to the 'people putting their lives at risk every day'. I have a friend who's been on two tours of Iraq and three in Afghanistan. He's told me some pretty personal details about some of the poo poo he saw. He's not a badass by any outward standards. He's a goofy nerd that plays Warhammer 40k, talks loudly, and makes hilarious hand gestures. He will tell people he was in the Army if they ask about his job or whatever, but he'll never claim to be some sort of "MILITARY MAN!!" I've seen him in his military garb once ever and that was before he shipped out when I went to see him off. He is, however, probably the most badass person I know. You have a right to be proud of the service that your spouse or child or parent has performed, but it doesn't give you the right to treat someone else's life choices as invalid. It's infuriating how entitled and superior that military service makes some people feel.
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Oct 9, 2012 08:42
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Yea shockingly enough the guys who actually do spend their entire day hoping they don't get blown up tend to not strut around going 'yeeeeeeea coulda got fuckin killed any day, I'm pretty awesome for not dying like many people I knew did...' but the dudes who posture around about it tend to be guys who's only front line time is when someone puts Apocalypse Now on the base tv.
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Oct 9, 2012 08:44
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I got a doozy today. I checked Snopes first off, but all Snopes did was say "This article claims to be from former Russian state-run paper Pravda, but is actually from Pravda-Online, a tabloid." The version I have claims to be from Pravda-Online, though, so I got nothing to rebut it with yet. _______________________________ I copied this from a FB friend who is a world traveler. He has access to world news that we apparently don't get to see. This is copied from the English version of "Pravada" and is what the world thinks and knows about America that we don't see on our "liberal media". Here is an example of the media information, about this country, that "foreign" readers have access to, but we don't. Russian news The irony of this article appearing in the English edition of Pravda (Russian on-line newspaper) defies description. Why can a Russian newspaper print the following yet the American media can't/won't see it? American Capitalism Gone With A Whimper It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breathtaking speed, against the backdrop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people. True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists. Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters. First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather than the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas than the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a Burger King burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish. Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more than Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more than happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America. The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Weimar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe. These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, losses, and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more than ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them? These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties, and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more than a whimper to their masters. Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motors) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self-given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions. So it should be no surprise that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less than two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, and so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride. Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "free man" whimper. So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance, and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Frank, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive. The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left. The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest, and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.
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Oct 9, 2012 11:55
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XyloJW posted:I got a doozy today. I checked Snopes first off, but all Snopes did was say "This article claims to be from former Russian state-run paper Pravda, but is actually from Pravda-Online, a tabloid." The version I have claims to be from Pravda-Online, though, so I got nothing to rebut it with yet.
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Oct 9, 2012 12:41
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Anybody who calls people 'sheeple' is usually fuckpot crazy and lacks any opinions worth listening to.
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Oct 9, 2012 12:48
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Haha, I just got called an uninformed child because I implied Romney's life of privilege made him an unsympathetic and in some ways evil person. I was told Obama was the truly evil one because the Iranian parliment was endorsing him which is just...yeah. Anyone have any idea where that particular gem may have come from?
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Oct 9, 2012 13:04
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XyloJW posted:I got a doozy today. I checked Snopes first off, but all Snopes did was say "This article claims to be from former Russian state-run paper Pravda, but is actually from Pravda-Online, a tabloid." The version I have claims to be from Pravda-Online, though, so I got nothing to rebut it with yet. Am I reading this right? Wall Street is trying to turn us into Marxists? The people who have the most to lose from a turn towards Marxism are covertly carrying it out? All so they can gorge themselves on sweet sweet tax dollars? And how old is this? Democratically controlled congress? GM bailout? Oh wait, I see when it was written. Putin warns Obama and Blair, so it was during that brief period after Jan 20th 2009 when Obama was President, but before June 27th 2007 when Blair stopped being Prime Minister. You know, that negative year and a half in bizzarro world. Also, I love the way they complain about Corporate Fat Cats gorging themselves on US bailouts and then cry out in horror at the idea of Ultra-Marxist, and well known social pervert Barnie Frank trying to impose rules and restrictions on those Corporate Fat Cats. This reads like some crazy, early 2009 Tea Party-esque screed. But if you would like to know more about Pravda-Online... http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Pravda.ru Why is the government keeping us from reading about Russia's equivalent of Bat Boy?!?
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Oct 9, 2012 13:48
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andrew smash posted:how about - it's stupid bullshit?
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Oct 9, 2012 13:53
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Kat R. Waulin posted:And whenever a celebrity dies, and it gets any media coverage, the military moms go ballistic. "Why does anyone care about THEM? They aren't a HEEEEERO!!! They didn't fight for our FREEEEDOM!!!"
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Oct 9, 2012 14:54
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Leon Einstein posted:It's obvious that the only thing capable of taking away our freedom is our government Is this sarcastic? I can't tell. Not to say it isn't capable of that, but no it isn't obvious.
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Oct 9, 2012 15:03
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VideoTapir posted:Is this sarcastic? I can't tell. It's such a dumb talking point about how our military fights for our freedom, but it's used so often that nobody really thinks about it.
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Oct 9, 2012 16:25
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Corporations and criminals take away our freedom all the time. Your statement was that obviously only government could do it.
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Oct 9, 2012 16:28
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XyloJW posted:Corporations and criminals take away our freedom all the time. Your statement was that obviously only government could do it.
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Oct 9, 2012 16:58
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You're setting different goalposts for how a government would take away someone's freedom vs. how a criminal or company would take away someone's freedom.
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Oct 9, 2012 17:06
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