Did anyone see Obama talking about wokeness? I thought his comments were really interesting as they highlighted the danger of ideology crushing any chances you had of succeeding in the real world.
I think this is true on all sides of politics, the idea that you have to energise the base is absurd. These are the least likely people to vote for the other guy, you only have to do enough to get them to the voting booth.

This thread was provoked by some of the comments on the stand up thread. Also by an interesting article written by a left wing politician that called the left a "human centipede" as they slowly devour the entire chain for not being woke enough.

I mean it's so weird... Who would be the Republicans absolute favourite candidate to run a against and who is trailing behind Trump greatest in the polls amongst the heavy hitters. The answer on both counts is Elizabeth Warren.
Why would you do this when Biden is your only chance of beating Trump?

Warren is going to scare the hell out of every aspirational middle class worker for the sake of getting her face on some college T-shirts... Because we learnt nothing with Hillary.

Nov 11, 2019 2:11:30 GMT iNCY said:

Did anyone see Obama talking about wokeness? I thought his comments were really interesting as they highlighted the danger of ideology crushing any chances you had of succeeding in the real world.
I think this is true on all sides of politics, the idea that you have to energise the base is absurd. These are the least likely people to vote for the other guy, you only have to do enough to get them to the voting booth.

This thread was provoked by some of the comments on the stand up thread. Also by an interesting article written by a left wing politician that called the left a "human centipede" as they slowly devour the entire chain for not being woke enough.

I mean it's so weird... Who would be the Republicans absolute favourite candidate to run a against and who is trailing behind Trump greatest in the polls amongst the heavy hitters. The answer on both counts is Elizabeth Warren.
Why would you do this when Biden is your only chance of beating Trump?

Warren is going to scare the hell out of every aspirational middle class worker for the sake of getting her face on some college T-shirts... Because we learnt nothing with Hillary.

Two years ago that might have been the case, but Biden has some pretty significant baggage of his own right now.   A lot of his past statements are coming back to bite him, and his son working for Ukraine energy firms caused him a huge conflict of interest when he was VP.   

The only two Dem candidates I would even consider voting for are Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard, but neither one has a chance in hell of getting the nomination in the current climate of the Democratic Party,  The ideological purity test is too steep for them right now.   A lot of the normal liberal crowd is wondering what the hell happened to their party.

Now a lot of the conservative crowd is wondering the same  of the Republican Party under Trump, but Trump has most of the party backing him, and the economy has been robust under his administration, and that is typically good news for an incumbent.    So many in the GOP are perfectly willing to pinch their nose and vote for Trump anyway.

woke

alert to injustice in society.

How many people actually use " woke " in a non-satirical sense?

Obviously, it's origins have depth. But it's another example, as it why we should never listen to the opinions of children under 22. I was an idiot at 22, and an even bigger one at 18. My opinions were naive, ill-informed and ignorant. That's if I had any real independent thought at all. So what was once a term to describe an awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice, has morph into just another layer of outrage culture, and has become a baseless word to throw around to show an adversary that you're more intelligent, and hold the higher ground because you're " woke "

At least now men are allowed to be men... As long as they cry... Because tears lubricate the razors??

Nov 25, 2019 14:12:11 GMT iNCY said:

At least now men are allowed to be men... As long as they cry... Because tears lubricate the razors??

Did the really show him bleed while using their own razor? What a terrible ad God their product.

How did woke culture go for the new Charlie’s Angels movie?

Nov 11, 2019 7:49:02 GMT NATH45 said:

woke

alert to injustice in society.

How many people actually use " woke " in a non-satirical sense?

Obviously, it's origins have depth. But it's another example, as it why we should never listen to the opinions of children under 22. I was an idiot at 22, and an even bigger one at 18. My opinions were naive, ill-informed and ignorant. That's if I had any real independent thought at all. So what was once a term to describe an awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice, has morphed into just another layer of outrage culture, and has become a baseless word to throw around to show an  adversary that you're more intelligent, and hold the higher ground because you're " woke "

meh, I've heard folks from the older generation have come across as imbeciles yet act as if their age automatically grants them a superior level of knowledge. Your assessment of youth is very absolute.

I think we’re too quick to jump to any “their only chance to beat...” comments in politics. Hillary, the least liked presidential candidate of our time lost by a tiny number of votes.

I’m a little bit left out of politics right now though. In my voting life this has been spinning since the Tea Party in 2010. They put an incredible pressure on the Republicans to go far to their right or else they’d be primaried. Representatives in the House lost their seat against primary challenges by saying they’d be willing to consider an idea from the opposing party. The “woke culture” or “snowflakes” or whatever is just the Lefts version of the same movement.

There’s no room for pragmatism anymore. Either you know Trump is a Nazi or you know Hillary killed Epstein and there’s just a few of us hanging out in between. Now I frequently think our president is a disgrace to the Office, but we really are going to spend months of government time on an impeachment trial that we know ends up nowhere?

Nov 27, 2019 22:00:52 GMT mikec said:

I think we’re too quick to jump to any “their only chance to beat...” comments in politics. Hillary, the least liked presidential candidate of our time lost by a tiny number of votes.

I’m a little bit left out of politics right now though. In my voting life this has been spinning since the Tea Party in 2010. They put an incredible pressure on the Republicans to go far to their right or else they’d be primaried. Representatives in the House lost their seat against primary challenges by saying they’d be willing to consider an idea from the opposing party. The “woke culture” or “snowflakes” or whatever is just the Lefts version of the same movement.

There’s no room for pragmatism anymore. Either you know Trump is a Nazi or you know Hillary killed Epstein and there’s just a few of us hanging out in between. Now I frequently think our president is a disgrace to the Office, but we really are going to spend months of government time on an impeachment trial that we know ends up nowhere?

Mike, I'm really interested in your opinion on this. Trump is obviously never going to lose an impeachment vote with the current split of Republicans and Democrats. Do you think these proceedings do anything to help the democrats win an election? It just seems to me that at a time when none of the democrats is able to build a proper profile, Pelosi keeps pushing them off the front page of the newspaper.

I mean even the people who voted for Trump think he's an asshole, it's just that they see him as their asshole. As for the impeachment proceedings, whether or not it was technically illegal I don't think most would regard it as a deal breaker in what we call in Australia "the Pub test"

Nov 28, 2019 3:10:20 GMT iNCY said:

Nov 27, 2019 22:00:52 GMT mikec said:

I think we’re too quick to jump to any “their only chance to beat...” comments in politics. Hillary, the least liked presidential candidate of our time lost by a tiny number of votes.

I’m a little bit left out of politics right now though. In my voting life this has been spinning since the Tea Party in 2010. They put an incredible pressure on the Republicans to go far to their right or else they’d be primaried. Representatives in the House lost their seat against primary challenges by saying they’d be willing to consider an idea from the opposing party. The “woke culture” or “snowflakes” or whatever is just the Lefts version of the same movement.

There’s no room for pragmatism anymore. Either you know Trump is a Nazi or you know Hillary killed Epstein and there’s just a few of us hanging out in between. Now I frequently think our president is a disgrace to the Office, but we really are going to spend months of government time on an impeachment trial that we know ends up nowhere?

Mike, I'm really interested in your opinion on this. Trump is obviously never going to lose an impeachment vote with the current split of Republicans and Democrats. Do you think these proceedings do anything to help the democrats win an election? It just seems to me that at a time when none of the democrats is able to build a proper profile, Pelosi keeps pushing them off the front page of the newspaper.

I mean even the people who voted for Trump think he's an asshole, it's just that they see him as their asshole. As for the impeachment proceedings, whether or not it was technically illegal I don't think most would regard it as a deal breaker in what we call in Australia "the Pub test"

As a point of order I do think they will win the impeachment vote. The Senate won’t remove him from office, which only becomes an option once the impeachment is a yes.

I think the impeachment hearing is a mean to keep Democratic House Members safe from their liberal bases kicking them out of their seat with a primary. I also think a lot of them are working from an old playbook of “if we impeach this person, people will turn on him”. But they’re playing checkers while Republicans have so mastered communicating to their hyper-partisan and poorly informed base that they’re winning the sound byte battle the whole way.

Nov 28, 2019 3:54:17 GMT mikec said:

Nov 28, 2019 3:10:20 GMT iNCY said:

Mike, I'm really interested in your opinion on this. Trump is obviously never going to lose an impeachment vote with the current split of Republicans and Democrats. Do you think these proceedings do anything to help the democrats win an election? It just seems to me that at a time when none of the democrats is able to build a proper profile, Pelosi keeps pushing them off the front page of the newspaper.

I mean even the people who voted for Trump think he's an asshole, it's just that they see him as their asshole. As for the impeachment proceedings, whether or not it was technically illegal I don't think most would regard it as a deal breaker in what we call in Australia "the Pub test"

As a point of order I do think they will win the impeachment vote. The Senate won’t remove him from office, which only becomes an option once the impeachment is a yes.

I think the impeachment hearing is a mean to keep Democratic House Members safe from their liberal bases kicking them out of their seat with a primary. I also think a lot of them are working from an old playbook of “if we impeach this person, people will turn on him”. But they’re playing checkers while Republicans have so mastered communicating to their hyper-partisan and poorly informed base that they’re winning the sound byte battle the whole way.

I agree with you on all of that, but the Democrat message is as hyper-partisan as any Republican policy. It seems as if the only way to win the democratic nomination is to wheel out policy that scares the pants off more than 60% of the country. Not that all the things aren't nice to have, but they cost a horrific amount of money and it can only come through middle class tax increases.

Well I should be clear that I’m not talking about policy because no one in our government is either. When I’m talking about hyper partisanship I’m talking about messaging and the idea of creating an us vs them dichotomy which I think Republican politicians are better at, at least in part because Fox News is way better at dumbing down the news to reach their audience than MSNBC is. Rachel Maddow may know more five syllable words than me, but by the time she’s made one argument, Hannity has made Democrats a traitor to the country five different ways.

I think one hyper partisan group has begat the other. Democrats tried a middle path with Obama and ended with a muddle of compromised policies because he tries working with a Congress who said they’re first priority was making sure he didn’t accomplish anything. I also think there are 20 candidates in the field and even if you cut it down to the top 4 current candidates you would find that two that are considerably closer to center than the woke culture we’re talking about. I think that Warren/Sanders are the ones that the Right wants us to think of when we talk about Democrats, ignoring that Sanders didn’t come close to winning in 16 and that Biden continues to hold a national lead and the clearest path to the nomination.

And I’m not sure I believe that 60% of Americans are that scared of the ideas proposed by Warren/Sanders, especially when you consider the fairly apathetic majority.

Nov 11, 2019 7:49:02 GMT NATH45 said:

woke

alert to injustice in society.

How many people actually use " woke " in a non-satirical sense?

Obviously, it's origins have depth. But it's another example, as it why we should never listen to the opinions of children under 22. I was an idiot at 22, and an even bigger one at 18. My opinions were naive, ill-informed and ignorant. That's if I had any real independent thought at all. So what was once a term to describe an awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice, has morph into just another layer of outrage culture, and has become a baseless word to throw around to show an adversary that you're more intelligent, and hold the higher ground because you're " woke "

When I got my masters the school of education hosted many students in the "studies" fields.  They fucking took this shit seriously.  My last two years I avoided the school after got I labeled sexist for calling my wife crazy.  This was the wife that faked two assaults complete with broken bones, police investigations and arrests to manipulate me into marrying her.

What I always found interesting is almost all top scholars of the studies fields are upper middle class white women.  They are the experts on the experiences of the poor black community.  They would not leave their cars, or even get out of them, in actual poor black communities, like the one I lived in, because it was too dangerous, but could write a 50 page paper and ship it out for academic review of what it was like living there.

My labmate went on to do educational interventions for poor black students focusing on racial identity.  To deal with woke culture people coming and pushing their agenda he just banned all white people from the events.  At least in North Carolina the black activists have had it with woke culture.  The view is if woke culture really cared about the black community, people would have at some point stopped to ask them what their needs are, rather than speaking for them and telling people what they need.  I read a thesis that put it best, "When a 16 year old shot by the police and bleeding out while being held face down in the street with a foot in his neck if you stop and ask if the bandages that are being used matches his skin color you are missing the point entirely and should remove yourself from the conversation."

Nov 28, 2019 4:27:33 GMT iNCY said:

Nov 28, 2019 3:54:17 GMT mikec said:

As a point of order I do think they will win the impeachment vote. The Senate won’t remove him from office, which only becomes an option once the impeachment is a yes.

I think the impeachment hearing is a mean to keep Democratic House Members safe from their liberal bases kicking them out of their seat with a primary. I also think a lot of them are working from an old playbook of “if we impeach this person, people will turn on him”. But they’re playing checkers while Republicans have so mastered communicating to their hyper-partisan and poorly informed base that they’re winning the sound byte battle the whole way.

I agree with you on all of that, but the Democrat message is as hyper-partisan as any Republican policy. It seems as if the only way to win the democratic nomination is to wheel out policy that scares the pants off more than 60% of the country. Not that all the things aren't nice to have, but they cost a horrific amount of money and it can only come through middle class tax increases.

People are not scared of Warren and Sanders's policies.  They are scared of the propaganda that airs in the deep south saying you will be paying 50% or higher income tax rates.  They are afraid that healthcare will decided by the federal government and the doctor the federal government assigns them to replace their current doctor.  They are afraid that their kids will be forced to go to different schools that will tell them their parents are awful people for living the way they do and they should act like the city folk they see on TV.  People believe really weird shit in the poor deep south and the radio hypes up the fears constantly.  And the radio is very big in the deep south where internet is not something you can get in all places, or people are too poor to afford it.

Nov 28, 2019 7:57:55 GMT c said:

Nov 28, 2019 4:27:33 GMT iNCY said:

I agree with you on all of that, but the Democrat message is as hyper-partisan as any Republican policy. It seems as if the only way to win the democratic nomination is to wheel out policy that scares the pants off more than 60% of the country. Not that all the things aren't nice to have, but they cost a horrific amount of money and it can only come through middle class tax increases.

People are not scared of Warren and Sanders's policies.  They are scared of the propaganda that airs in the deep south saying you will be paying 50% or higher income tax rates.  They are afraid that healthcare will decided by the federal government and the doctor the federal government assigns them to replace their current doctor.  They are afraid that their kids will be forced to go to different schools that will tell them their parents are awful people for living the way they do and they should act like the city folk they see on TV.  People believe really weird shit in the poor deep south and the radio hypes up the fears constantly.  And the radio is very big in the deep south where internet is not something you can get in all places, or people are too poor to afford it.

I've seen interviews with middle and upper middle class americans where they claim that healthcare systems that are similar to canadian or british systems are terrible, and then cite examples of how poor our system here and I find that level of fear mongering interesting as well. The opponents of a different system are targeting the rich and saying their lives will be worse under a new system. 

Nov 28, 2019 5:27:15 GMT mikec said:

Well I should be clear that I’m not talking about policy because no one in our government is either. When I’m talking about hyper partisanship I’m talking about messaging and the idea of creating an us vs them dichotomy which I think Republican politicians are better at, at least in part because Fox News is way better at dumbing down the news to reach their audience than MSNBC is. Rachel Maddow may know more five syllable words than me, but by the time she’s made one argument, Hannity has made Democrats a traitor to the country five different ways.

I think one hyper partisan group has begat the other. Democrats tried a middle path with Obama and ended with a muddle of compromised policies because he tries working with a Congress who said they’re first priority was making sure he didn’t accomplish anything. I also think there are 20 candidates in the field and even if you cut it down to the top 4 current candidates you would find that two that are considerably closer to center than the woke culture we’re talking about. I think that Warren/Sanders are the ones that the Right wants us to think of when we talk about Democrats, ignoring that Sanders didn’t come close to winning in 16 and that Biden continues to hold a national lead and the clearest path to the nomination.

And I’m not sure I believe that 60% of Americans are that scared of the ideas proposed by Warren/Sanders, especially when you consider the fairly apathetic majority.

Rachel Maddow is everything that is wrong with the Democratic part, she has as much bias as anyone on Fox, but her elitism and superiority makes her message off putting, she practically sneers at anyone who votes Republican, the Republicans know that to win elections they need the 'Deplorable" and the "Centrists"
Obama was a pretty terrible President, I don't think he was a bad guy and I think Universal Healthcare is a minimum requirement for any developed country, but he was a poor politician.
Politics is about deal making, reaching across the aisle and getting things done, then having the balls to veto it when it doesn't match your vision.
It seemed to an outsider that Obama was way to obsessed with a deal, any deal that he ended up with a horrific mess... He should have veto'd it then wound the pressure up on the Republicans and made it an election issue.
He didn't though, that's the problem with a fixed two-term majority.

Nov 28, 2019 7:50:58 GMT c said:

Nov 11, 2019 7:49:02 GMT NATH45 said:

woke

alert to injustice in society.

How many people actually use " woke " in a non-satirical sense?

Obviously, it's origins have depth. But it's another example, as it why we should never listen to the opinions of children under 22. I was an idiot at 22, and an even bigger one at 18. My opinions were naive, ill-informed and ignorant. That's if I had any real independent thought at all. So what was once a term to describe an awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice, has morph into just another layer of outrage culture, and has become a baseless word to throw around to show an adversary that you're more intelligent, and hold the higher ground because you're " woke "

When I got my masters the school of education hosted many students in the "studies" fields.  They fucking took this shit seriously.  My last two years I avoided the school after got I labeled sexist for calling my wife crazy.  This was the wife that faked two assaults complete with broken bones, police investigations and arrests to manipulate me into marrying her.

What I always found interesting is almost all top scholars of the studies fields are upper middle class white women.  They are the experts on the experiences of the poor black community.  They would not leave their cars, or even get out of them, in actual poor black communities, like the one I lived in, because it was too dangerous, but could write a 50 page paper and ship it out for academic review of what it was like living there.

My labmate went on to do educational interventions for poor black students focusing on racial identity.  To deal with woke culture people coming and pushing their agenda he just banned all white people from the events.  At least in North Carolina the black activists have had it with woke culture.  The view is if woke culture really cared about the black community, people would have at some point stopped to ask them what their needs are, rather than speaking for them and telling people what they need.  I read a thesis that put it best, "When a 16 year old shot by the police and bleeding out while being held face down in the street with a foot in his neck if you stop and ask if the bandages that are being used matches his skin color you are missing the point entirely and should remove yourself from the conversation."

The other side of "Woke" politics is even if it is ALL the fault of white middle class people, acknowledging that does absolutely NOTHING towards fixing the problem.
If white people created the environment in which black people became an oppressed and downtrodden social minority, all we can do to fix it is create an enviroment where people are able to improve their situations.
The success of any such plan is going to rely on the community that is affected to want and affect change.
I have no illusions about how difficult it is to come out of slavery onto the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder and be forced to try and build a life, it sucks white people did that... But there is no magic want to fix it.
There was something on NPR and a black lady gave a speech with these exact words "Black people need top stop demanding equal opportunity and demand equity" That's insanity and it won't fix anything.

Nov 28, 2019 7:57:55 GMT c said:

Nov 28, 2019 4:27:33 GMT iNCY said:

I agree with you on all of that, but the Democrat message is as hyper-partisan as any Republican policy. It seems as if the only way to win the democratic nomination is to wheel out policy that scares the pants off more than 60% of the country. Not that all the things aren't nice to have, but they cost a horrific amount of money and it can only come through middle class tax increases.

People are not scared of Warren and Sanders's policies.  They are scared of the propaganda that airs in the deep south saying you will be paying 50% or higher income tax rates.  They are afraid that healthcare will decided by the federal government and the doctor the federal government assigns them to replace their current doctor.  They are afraid that their kids will be forced to go to different schools that will tell them their parents are awful people for living the way they do and they should act like the city folk they see on TV.  People believe really weird shit in the poor deep south and the radio hypes up the fears constantly.  And the radio is very big in the deep south where internet is not something you can get in all places, or people are too poor to afford it.

I think you give deep south too much credit, I don't think it really gets past the higher taxes thing.
The free college education and free healthcare are only  half measures and won't work unless you are willing to nationalize the entire system, which won't happen.
We have a single payer system in Australia and it works because the states own the hospitals and employ the doctors, therefore the costs can't blow out.
If they were really serious about reducing the cost of Healthcare in the USA they would first focus on reducing the amount of frivolous litigation that is driving the cost of being a doctor through the roof.

Nov 29, 2019 1:01:32 GMT nazzer said:

Nov 28, 2019 7:57:55 GMT c said:

People are not scared of Warren and Sanders's policies.  They are scared of the propaganda that airs in the deep south saying you will be paying 50% or higher income tax rates.  They are afraid that healthcare will decided by the federal government and the doctor the federal government assigns them to replace their current doctor.  They are afraid that their kids will be forced to go to different schools that will tell them their parents are awful people for living the way they do and they should act like the city folk they see on TV.  People believe really weird shit in the poor deep south and the radio hypes up the fears constantly.  And the radio is very big in the deep south where internet is not something you can get in all places, or people are too poor to afford it.

I've seen interviews with middle and upper middle class americans where they claim that healthcare systems that are similar to canadian or british systems are terrible, and then cite examples of how poor our system here and I find that level of fear mongering interesting as well. The opponents of a different system are targeting the rich and saying their lives will be worse under a new system. 

In Australia the public system is pretty amazing:
My Father has had 2 x Stents in his heart (one stent on two occasions)
My Sister in Law had breast cancer: Chemo, radiation, double mastectomy, hysterectomy, breast reconstruction
In both cases they paid $0 and had immediate treatment, they could not have had better treatment in the worlds best private practices... Maybe a nicer room and prettier nurses, but the quality of the staff is amazing.
The trade-off is that elective operations like knee reconstructions you might wait a year for your turn.

I have Private Health insurance because our government attached a 2% levy to our total gross income.
On top off that, if you don't have private health insurance then you have to pay an additional 1-1.5% depending on your income.

Health insurance costs a bit more than the 1.5% but at the end of the day I would rather have something for the money paid.

As I have said before, I believe in Universal Healthcare, but it's not "Free Healthcare", someone is paying.

iNCY just to be clear, I am perfectly happy with my not quite perfect health care in Canada. Sure there are flaws, and I am aware it's not free, someone is paying. And I am very much ok with my taxes going to healthcare, and just as ok with me paying more into the system than the poor and destitute do. I would rather pay more than the poor and be given a system that might rate a B+ than be able to pay privately for A+ care while others get nothing. I may be right leaning on the philosophy of I want to control my own money, but certain things are just better to share.

In Canada the discussion has started on increasing free access to more prescription drugs as well as introducing some sort of free dental care. All good things.

Nov 29, 2019 1:01:32 GMT nazzer said:

Nov 28, 2019 7:57:55 GMT c said:

People are not scared of Warren and Sanders's policies.  They are scared of the propaganda that airs in the deep south saying you will be paying 50% or higher income tax rates.  They are afraid that healthcare will decided by the federal government and the doctor the federal government assigns them to replace their current doctor.  They are afraid that their kids will be forced to go to different schools that will tell them their parents are awful people for living the way they do and they should act like the city folk they see on TV.  People believe really weird shit in the poor deep south and the radio hypes up the fears constantly.  And the radio is very big in the deep south where internet is not something you can get in all places, or people are too poor to afford it.

I've seen interviews with middle and upper middle class americans where they claim that healthcare systems that are similar to canadian or british systems are terrible, and then cite examples of how poor our system here and I find that level of fear mongering interesting as well. The opponents of a different system are targeting the rich and saying their lives will be worse under a new system. 

Belief in the US is the Canadian and UK healthcare system is horrible.  People believe that in both countries people are regularly dying due to lack of healthcare, long waits for visits and accidental deaths due to mistreatment when you do see surgery done.  In America it is believed if they change the money given to healthcare, then everyone will quit and no one will go to med school.  Which is not at all based in reality either was most healthcare workers are not doctors but underpaid nurses.

Also people believe that companies will stop drug research, which is also BS as most groundbreaking research is publicly funded and done by students.  Doctors due to the thinking but the graduate students do the lab work for next to nothing.  

For the rich, they do have a point.  In the US money can buy the best healthcare in the world.  But the best healthcare in the world does not take insurance, they only deal in cash so 99 percent of America cannot access this.  But the reality is, most Americans oppose change that will only help them.


Edit:

My new research interest that I hope to study for a PhD if my health gets better, is looking at hospital error rates.  Early research is showing that if you total up all the deaths that occur with a week of being discharged from a hospital in the US that are a result of the condition they were being treated for and deaths that are a direct result of the treatment being done, medical error would be the fourth leading cause of death in the US.  So after heart, cancer and accidents, not receiving the help you should in a healthcare setting would be the fourth leading cause of death.  Clearly what we are doing now does not work.  Sadly without a research institution and representation I cannot get the data to look into this on a deeper level myself.

I think you give deep south too much credit, I don't think it really gets past the higher taxes thing.

Well the school thing is bigger than most people think.  People believe that their good christian boys if they went to a liberal school would come back as atheist girls.  The fear of atheism, and homosexuality - transexuality is huge here.  Also the South is still pretty segregated.  People will gladly tell you that there is nothing wrong with black people staying to their own areas in rural Georgia.  They do not see why those people need to be in their schools and want to know why they cannot just sends those people to go to school with their own kind.  The white kids are mostly farmers in these areas and the black kids are more city kids because their parents do not own their land, so there is a huge racial divide that starts early and then is reinforced by the different crimes in rural areas (meth and incest are the most common felonies) compared to city crime which is violent in nature.  

While the tax thing is backbreaking for poor Georgia, it is the fear of social change that drives the hate for liberals and their policies.  Which is super weird, as things like the min wage being $5.15, $2.35 less than the federal amount.  Food stamps and healthcare are not considered rights for the poor so every fucking cent matters there.  If you do get food stamps, Georgia uses funky math to calculate the food stamp amount assuming food for a person per month only costs $34 a month so you only get $17 a month in food stamps (it is expected you pay half of the food cost unless you have an income of 0).  The entire system in poor states work to keep the people poor, then make them fear any progressive policy by saying their taxes will go up.  They promote small business, but small business often can pay people state minimum wage and not federal.  It is crazy as stores have to price stuff less than national prices as the people are so poor, they cannot afford to shop at the average national prices due to this crazy system.  When you make so little, leaving the area is not an option.  You literally get stuck.  The prospect of that was so scary, I left almost everything I own when I fled from the crazy place I was staying at as I really felt if I waited any longer I may not be able to leave.  The girl I moved to Georgia with and the kid I was helping raise are trapped with no real way to leave now unless someone outside will pay for it.

Nov 29, 2019 4:27:59 GMT nazzer said:

iNCY just to be clear, I am perfectly happy with my not quite perfect health care in Canada. Sure there are flaws, and I am aware it's not free, someone is paying. And I am very much ok with my taxes going to healthcare, and just as ok with me paying more into the system than the poor and destitute do. I would rather pay more than the poor and be given a system that might rate a B+ than be able to pay privately for A+ care while others get nothing. I may be right leaning on the philosophy of I want to control my own money, but certain things are just better to share.

In Canada the discussion has started on increasing free access to more prescription drugs as well as introducing some sort of free dental care. All good things.

Yes, I am the same with the Australian system, it is not perfect, but it works pretty damned well.

Nov 29, 2019 8:41:24 GMT c said:

Nov 29, 2019 1:01:32 GMT nazzer said:

I've seen interviews with middle and upper middle class americans where they claim that healthcare systems that are similar to canadian or british systems are terrible, and then cite examples of how poor our system here and I find that level of fear mongering interesting as well. The opponents of a different system are targeting the rich and saying their lives will be worse under a new system. 

Belief in the US is the Canadian and UK healthcare system is horrible.  People believe that in both countries people are regularly dying due to lack of healthcare, long waits for visits and accidental deaths due to mistreatment when you do see surgery done.  In America it is believed if they change the money given to healthcare, then everyone will quit and no one will go to med school.  Which is not at all based in reality either was most healthcare workers are not doctors but underpaid nurses.

Also people believe that companies will stop drug research, which is also BS as most groundbreaking research is publicly funded and done by students.  Doctors due to the thinking but the graduate students do the lab work for next to nothing.  

For the rich, they do have a point.  In the US money can buy the best healthcare in the world.  But the best healthcare in the world does not take insurance, they only deal in cash so 99 percent of America cannot access this.  But the reality is, most Americans oppose change that will only help them.


Edit:

My new research interest that I hope to study for a PhD if my health gets better, is looking at hospital error rates.  Early research is showing that if you total up all the deaths that occur with a week of being discharged from a hospital in the US that are a result of the condition they were being treated for and deaths that are a direct result of the treatment being done, medical error would be the fourth leading cause of death in the US.  So after heart, cancer and accidents, not receiving the help you should in a healthcare setting would be the fourth leading cause of death.  Clearly what we are doing now does not work.  Sadly without a research institution and representation I cannot get the data to look into this on a deeper level myself.

Anecdotally, I think the US population is way over-medicated and over-treated.
I was shocked in the USA how almost 1 in 4 adds are for prescription medication, we would be lucky to get one drug advertisement per evening here.
We have a PBS which means once drugs are approved the government foots the bill for 90% of the cost.
It is true that with our health system there are far less people wanting to be specialist doctors in the Public System they make much less, but it is a good living.
Most run a private practice as well.
Google says: "The median salary for a neurosurgeon in the USA is $540,000, while in Australia it is 275,000 AUD"

Nov 29, 2019 9:07:22 GMT c said:

I think you give deep south too much credit, I don't think it really gets past the higher taxes thing.

Well the school thing is bigger than most people think.  People believe that their good christian boys if they went to a liberal school would come back as atheist girls.  The fear of atheism, and homosexuality - transexuality is huge here.  Also the South is still pretty segregated.  People will gladly tell you that there is nothing wrong with black people staying to their own areas in rural Georgia.  They do not see why those people need to be in their schools and want to know why they cannot just sends those people to go to school with their own kind.  The white kids are mostly farmers in these areas and the black kids are more city kids because their parents do not own their land, so there is a huge racial divide that starts early and then is reinforced by the different crimes in rural areas (meth and incest are the most common felonies) compared to city crime which is violent in nature.  

While the tax thing is backbreaking for poor Georgia, it is the fear of social change that drives the hate for liberals and their policies.  Which is super weird, as things like the min wage being $5.15, $2.35 less than the federal amount.  Food stamps and healthcare are not considered rights for the poor so every fucking cent matters there.  If you do get food stamps, Georgia uses funky math to calculate the food stamp amount assuming food for a person per month only costs $34 a month so you only get $17 a month in food stamps (it is expected you pay half of the food cost unless you have an income of 0).  The entire system in poor states work to keep the people poor, then make them fear any progressive policy by saying their taxes will go up.  They promote small business, but small business often can pay people state minimum wage and not federal.  It is crazy as stores have to price stuff less than national prices as the people are so poor, they cannot afford to shop at the average national prices due to this crazy system.  When you make so little, leaving the area is not an option.  You literally get stuck.  The prospect of that was so scary, I left almost everything I own when I fled from the crazy place I was staying at as I really felt if I waited any longer I may not be able to leave.  The girl I moved to Georgia with and the kid I was helping raise are trapped with no real way to leave now unless someone outside will pay for it.

I'm a weird centrist I guess, I am all for Universal Healthcare and a fair Minimum Wage... But the whole progressive left with the rainbow flag waving you can keep.
Remember when the left was all about workers rights, growth of the middle-class and job security?... Now it is all Transgenendered bathrooms and the wage gap for women.
I have no problem with Gay people, but it seems like the left is looking for a cause and it seems to be struggling to find something meaningful to get behind, which is so strange considering the impending destruction of the middle-class.

The narrative of people being trapped is an all too common one now, there are a raft of jobs now where people are locked in to long hours to make ends meet, leaving no time for self-improvement and self-education.
The problem though is that those who do have the time, don't educate and improve themselves, they instead believe that they are owed a middle-class income, a phenomena that existed for about 75 years of history in the West.

The problem with the left from what I see is they feel everyone should have a voice, and this promotes an unorganized rabble of noise that does not lead to social change. They need a centralized voice from people who can speak and create change. Right now we are rabble that speaks into an echo chamber that spends more time fighting the left than creating change. The left believes every injustice needs to be addressed, but given time is finite, some issues are worth more than others IMO to fix, like poverty.

Trans bathrooms are a thing because in my old state of NC it was illegal to use a bathroom that did not match your birth certificate (and yes people were demanding to see the birth certificates at times) because people feared that guys dressed as girls were going into bathrooms to rape children. It is not hard to make bathrooms gender neutral and just let people pee in peace.  

But my favorite example of the left going nutty is the "Yes All Women" hashtag. From the start I said it was a dangerous thing. I studied memetics a lot, which is about how messages move through society. This meme was a complex meme, consisting of two parts. The feminist part people were spreading, which was not a bad thing itself, and a secondary implicit message that women deserve to be hurt because that was the source message when Elliot wrote this. When I talked to people about this I was told I was sexist for speaking against against it. I mapped the data last year and following the spread of this hashtag there was a notable increase in violent crimes on women starting a week or so after the hashtag that lasted a year or so. Switching hashtags would have prevented this but it was considered more important to let people speak, than to try to prevent actual harm.

This is the problem of the left IMO, they focus on prioritizing people speaking rather than stopping actual harm. The privilege talk is the same principle. People fight over privilege and want to stop interpersonal racism but that is not the real issue racing minorities. Institutional racism is a far greater problem but takes the backseat to microaggressions and implicit racism. The school to prison pipeline and cops killing non-violent black people take a backseat to use of language.

I want to give an example of woke culture that I appreciate happening.

You can Google bill Peter's coach of the Calgary flames, akim aliu or Dan carcillo for some interviews and stories.

It comes down to the way coaches treat ice hockey players, and hazing in hockey. Junior hockey and youth hockey has a hazing culture that is not good and we are starting to talk about it now. I don't wish to go into details, but the hazing includes things that should be classified as sexual assault. If you ward comments sections on social media people will say things like, oh yes just being butthurt or it's tough love etc. But this type of behaviour needs to change. So yay for whole culture?

That Hockey stuff I would not consider part of woke culture. That was people getting straight out abused from hazing and the fucked up culture of hockey. Woke culture I see as more of people who are not part of a group claiming they are awoken to the injustices that occur there. IIRC in the Hockey stuff players themselves were speaking out. If this was woke culture the problem would not have been the hazing but toxic masculinity and the solution would be not to stop the hazing but expose boys to feminine ideas at an earlier age to offset the aggressiveness associated with male sexuality. Instead the problem was targeted as hazing and is being change by solving behaviors that are toxic and not really caring about the underlying culture.

Nov 30, 2019 5:59:59 GMT c said:

That Hockey stuff I would not consider part of woke culture. That was people getting straight out abused from hazing and the fucked up culture of hockey. Woke culture I see as more of people who are not part of a group claiming they are awoken to the injustices that occur there. IIRC in the Hockey stuff players themselves were speaking out. If this was woke culture the problem would not have been the hazing but toxic masculinity and the solution would be not to stop the hazing but expose boys to feminine ideas at an earlier age to offset the aggressiveness associated with male sexuality. Instead the problem was targeted as hazing and is being change by solving behaviors that are toxic and not really caring about the underlying culture.

To me the relation to woke culture was the way the average person is mocking it and saying the guys complaining are just pansy lefties. But yeah I don't know

c, story for you on healthcare in Canada.

A friend went to the doctor 'feeling a little funny'. Ended up getting a colonoscopy, diagnosed with bowel cancer, and had it removed (hopefully all of it for a full recovery). All within 28 days. Cost $0.

Please feel free to share this story.