The better pessimist: Democrats or TV media?

I shared many times in this forum my beliefs and convictions. Call the following nonsense, but at least I have them. You want proof? History is on my side without a doubt. For a recap...here are just some of them:

--You can't have employees without employers first.

--You can't make the poor rich by making the rich poor.

-- Taxes are way too high. This income distribution has to stop. Solution: Fair/Flat tax. You earn 10 times more, you pay 10 times more tax. The IRS has to go.

-- The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a vital individual right. It is so important that our framers made it the 2nd Amendment. If you want more gun laws, just enforce the over 2,000 laws we have already on the books.

-- Freedom OF religion by necessity must include freedom FROM religion. I hate bible-thumpers that preach to me telling me I am going to hell. I have you people here to tell me that without implying religious overtones. If religion is in your life, then it should be a personal relationship between you and your creator. "From religion" also means that if islam wants to take over the world, I will protect myself and other infidels from this true enemy of the free world.

-- The chief cause of societal problems today is government solutions. Instead of addressing problems like welfare and crime, I believe the government made these issues worse.

-- Government should limit itself to the powers specifically granted to it in the Constitution.

-- If you harm or endanger no others, what you do is not the business of the government. A man’s damnation is his own business. If a person wants to drink himself to death or smoke dope...let him...but that same person better not come crying to us that they need medical help at OUR expense. If a man wants to buy flowers and candy for his girlfriend to romance his way to a sexual encounter, so be it. With that said, if he wants to skip the courtship process and simply hand over "X" dollars immediately to obtain the same goal, I don't see this as a problem between two consenting adults. What happens in the bedroom is nobody's business.

-- Government officals should have to obey the same laws it expects citizens and corporations to obey. Especially regarding the environment and labor.

-- Social Security should be privatized and forced to obey the laws. Citizens should have a choice in where their hard-earned dollars go.

-- Free immigration strengthens America. Illegal immigration should be punished, legal immigration should be free, fair, and easy. Companies that hire illegals need to get the book thrown at them. However immigrants should not expect free government handouts. All they should get is what anyone should get, a fair chance to rise as far as their abilities let them. This also means that immigrants need to enter the United States through legal and proper ports of entry where they can be accounted and properly documented for security purposes.

-- The welfare state doesn’t work. End it. Establish a $1 for $1 tax deduction for charitable contributions. Charitable organizations like Habitat for Humanity are way more successful than any government housing or socialized program.

-- Our educational system is broken. End the federal Department of Education and return this issue to the states. This department was a payback from Jimmy Carter to the teacher's unions. Since 1977, over a half of TRILLION dollars have been spent by this department and for what? This money would be better served at the LOCAL levels. Also individuals should haev school choice in where to send their children.

-- Amending the Constitution is a very serious thing and should not be advocated lightly or for mere matters of policy. Even though I don't agree with gay marriage or flag burning, changing the Constitution via amendment is not only wrong, but the attempt cheapens the Constitution itself.

-- National ID cards (social security cards with a picture) should be used for all government business. What I mean by government business is strictly for travel in and out of the United States, driving privileges, travel security (air, cruise, rail), voting identification, and citizen status. Nothing more than this.

--English should be the offical lanquage of the United States. That is...all legal and government business should be conducted in English. We don't need to teach firemen 10 differant ways to yell "fire" in an emergency.

Now...that I have listed my core convictions. Let's see what you got. Should be interesting reading.

 

Midas "Show me ONE democrat that wants "loser pays" legislation and a cap on lawsuits...just ONE. You won't because the trial lawyers are one of the largest PAC's contributing money to the democratic party."

im a democrat thats for it. so i guess you better start eating your hat.

the fact is alot of what you are saying is how a brain washed republican feels about the democrats. you know as much about the democratic party as you hear on your talk radio and from other republicans. you are as bad as alot of democrats i know that spend all their time bashing the republicans.all they hear is one side and their opinion shows it.

ill tell you whats ruining this country. its not the republicans or the democrats, its not the church and its not welfare. its the mindless bickering and name calling that doesnt seem to have an end.the last election was the dirtiest ive ever seen and it seems that the american public thinks that that is a legitimate way to deal with politics.

bush and kerry didnt think they could win on their own good qualities so they made their whole "platform" on why the other guy sucks. it was crap and everyone gat a ba deal.

 

I got a lot of words, my conviction is in how I live my life, not in the words I tell to you. Everything boils down to two simple things:

- Rule #1: Make sure you left the world in a better place than you found it. Personal gain is great, but my time is temporary, I belong to something bigger.

- Rule #2: Live life to promote rule #1, and everything else falls into place.

 

I should have said, ONE elected Democrat in Congress. Great!!...there is still hope for your party. Now we need a couple million like you and the world would be better off.

 

There is only one problem with your statement, and that is;
I'm sure there are a whole lot of Democrats out there, along with you, that feels this way. However, you guys just don't seem to be able to elect into office anyone who will vote to put these practices into law. Think about this one...when was the last time "you" got to vote on any piece of legislation that has gone through Congress? Just as I thought, it happened the same time "mine" got counted...never.

 

Dirty elections, I seem to remember from the history books a duel in New Jersey between a Burr and the guy on the ten dollar bill. Dirty elections from stuffing the ballots to name calling has and will always be part of the system for the system is run by humans and not all of us are as nice or as innocent as Danr.

I seem to remember in political science that at the time a statewide election in the east was thought to have at least 100,000 phony ballots, dead people/phoney names/etc., lined up that would count as actual votes and that was how many votes the challenger needed to start even.

 

lets get rid of congress and secet ballots.
we have satellites now that could count a show of hands :hail:
and think about how much corrupt bureaucratic B.S. would be cut out of the works with out congress.not to mention the money we would save from not having to pay theses guys while thay get rich with their shady side deals

 

Andy "a duel in New Jersey between a Burr and the guy on the ten dollar bill. "

which proves at least there was enoug honor to risk life and limb.

 

Burr was calling Hamliton a ni-g-r based upon where Hamliton was born and the questions about his mother. There was other stuff too but that was a recurring theme.
Burr was most upset that everytime his political star started to take off, Hamliton was there to pull him down. Burr was later involved in a plot of taking over Texas and ...
history is pretty interesting stuff.

 

i tought it was the other way around and burr called for a duel.

 

Duh, it would save huge amounts of money for SMALL BUSINESS. In case you do not know they pretty much ARE the American economy. You are on thin ice with your thinking. Ask any small business owner health care is PUTTING THEM OUT OF BUSINESS!!

 

Duh...And I answered WHY health costs are out of control. I answered what is the core problem of raising health care costs. Kerry's plan didn't address the root of the problem. All it did was throw good money after bad.

...And I yes I understand that over 80% of productive Americans work for a small business. I promote free enterprise, lower taxes, and the end of stupid government regulation. Can you say the same??

It is people like YOU that don't get it. "Slip and fall" trial attornies have sued their way into billions of dollars. Consequently to protect medical doctors from these lottery settlements, insurance premiums have gone through the roof. Do you know how much a doctor spends each year on malpractice insurance alone? These costs are then passed on to the purchaser of medical insurance who have to pay for medical coverage.

Thin ice?? Did you ever hear to "follow the money"? Well, it is no secret because you can't watch television without seeing some extortionist lawyer looking for "have you been hurt or injured" clients. After all, they DON'T want to go to court, they just want to settle and walk away with their 35 to 50% settlement fee.

Face it Danr. I laid point after point and all you got is that Kerry wanted a goverment program to pay for insurance. Great! Freakin' Great,

 

I do not recall who called for the duel itself first. I do remember reading that it was a long process of insults and letters back and forth as well as public statements that led to it. If I remember correctly it was said that Hamiltion shot away from Burr on purpose for he did not want to kill him but who knows for sure. I am sure spinning was done by Hamiltion's supporters which did lead to Burr's first Trial.



"ALEXANDER HAMILTON was born a British subject on the island of Nevis in the West Indies on January 11, 1755. His father was James Hamilton, a Scottish merchant of St. Christopher. Hamilton's mother was Rachael Fawcette Levine, of French Huguenot descent. When Rachael was very young, she had married a Danish proprietor of St. Croix named John Michael Levine. Ms. Levine left her husband and was later divorced from him on June 25, 1759. Under the Danish law which had granted her divorce, she was forbidden from remarrying. Thus, Hamilton's birth was illegitimate."

Since his birth was declared illegitimate, Burr was saying that Rachael Levine was not his mom and it was a slave. Hamilton did have curly hair so that added fuel to the fire.

 

That was my point about his restructing the military. He down sized the man power but money was poured into high tech weapons. Now which do you think supports the industrial military complex more. The soldiers drawing pay or a few companies getting big fat contracts.

 

You could be right I am too lazy to google it, my perception is that Rummy was big into that, not Bubba

 

You have fallen for the biggest lie going. Malpractice ins is high because of insurance company corruption (Google AIG,Greenberg) They invest the float in irresponsible ways. The other reason their ins is expensive is the fact that the docs absolutely REFUSE to police themselves (about 5% of docs do about 50% of malpractice AND THEY ALLOW THEM TO CONTINUE TO PRACTICE!!). In short get rid of the butchers and clean up the slime in the insurance biz. AGAIN THE LAW SUIT THING IS A LIE!!!

 

Obviously, you didn't follow the money for if you did, you would find that trial lawyers netted $40 billion from $205.4 billion in settlements for the last fiscal year. (study by the Washington Times and a number of sources)

The $200 billion works out to just over $700 per US resident (including that baby of yours). Of course, it's not like a tax courtesy of your liberal left where you have some idea of what you are paying. The cost of lawsuits is built into the prices of goods and services as companies pass on to consumers the cost of lawsuits and the cost of measures taken to reduce the risk of lawsuits.

These figures underestimate the impact of lawsuits from trial lawyers like John Edwards. When calculating the costs of the litigation, you HAVE to include insured costs and overhead, self-insured costs, and medical costs. These measures did not include tobacco settlement costs, most contract and shareholder litigation costs, most punitive damages costs or indirect costs like reduced innovation or investment. Bottom line is that the $205.4 billion estimate is the tip of the iceberg...and you wonder why you can't turn on the television without hearing a lawyer asking you "if you have been hurt or injured". They just want a bigger piece of this multi-billion dollar pie!

While some lawsuits have merit, many are based on junk science and jury shopping. The breast implant cases that destroyed Dow Corning and crippled many medical device manufacturers were based on junk science and left leaning juries. The genuine asbestos cases have been overwhelmed by a flood of new cases based on the notion that workers that may have been exposed to asbestos should be compensated for diseases that have not manifested themselves and may never do so. Law firms have become adept at using the threat of class action lawsuits filed in multiple friendly jurisdictions to force companies to settle cases that had no merit.

Let's talk about insurance for a minute. You as a consumer can shop Insurance "A" against Insurance "B". You have a choice and with that, the free market and competition force companies to either perform at a given fee or go out of business. I remember reading about a group of counties in Texas that pooled their money for a self insurance fund. It made sense because the the larger the pool, the less per person for insurace costs. What happened because of trail lawyers? This fund paid out more than $8 million in legal costs alone for one fiscal year, not including the money actually paid out in losses. As payouts rise, guess what Danr??, so do insurance premiums. Litigation, or its threat, is a growing line item in city, county and school district budgets. And that cost is being passed on to us, the taxpayers. That doesn't seem to bother you Danr. Why not?

So the buck stops at those that play this legal extortion game. These lawyers don't manufacture or provide anything constructive for this country as they live off of extortion lottery settlements. Meanwhile, costs rise, companies close or move off shore, and the economy suffers great harm.

Because of this, I support caps on these lawsuits as well as loser pays legislation.

Here's a warning I saw on a lighter, "Flame may cause fire". You know why the manufacturer had to place that warning on the lighter? It is because of a trial lawyer waiting in the bushes to SUE!!

You start with the lawyers, THEN you got after all the insurance companies you want. But you HAVE to start where the money ends up. Get it now???

 

Most of those lawsuits are completely legit. AGAIN IF DOCS POLICED THEMSELVES AND GOT RID OF THE BUTCHERS it would go a long way toward solving this. THEY REFUSE TO GET RID OF BAD DOCS AND WANT TO TAKE AWAY MY RIGHT TO SUE That is evil.
As for ins companies they ascribe a monitary value to risk based of formula the formulas can be manipulated, again google AIG, GREENBERG. It has come out that they simply charge more than what is fair then invest the money irresponsibly. The fault is not with the lawyers it is with the docs and ins companies.

 

We'll let the audience decide. The fact you think that most lawsuits are legit demonstrates you are clueless...or you don't work in the real world. Which is it? Or is it both?

 

the only way to fix the way things are done is to make it so you cant get rich from it.to many greedy people in the world.

or have all attorneys in these cases be court apointed.get rid or all the ambulance chasers.

one thing i would like to add to this thread is,

its weird how P.O.'ed everyone gets about how rich the C.E.O.'s and attorneys get, but look how much we pay movie stars and football players.
movie stars and football players (imho) do less for everyone than doctors/c.e.o's/lawyers.