Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Why do liberals support gun control

Why do liberals support gun control?
Gun control has never one time in history been proven to equal crime control. All the statistics I can find show that throughout history gun control has never worked. Take Australia, Great Britain, and the District of Columbia for example. In the US the states with the lowest per-capita gun violence and overall crime rate are the ones with the almost non existing gun laws. If guns cause crime, why do states like Montana where 95% of the populace is armed have such a low crime rate. The number of guns in the US has been increasing year after year, yet our crime rate has been steadily dropping. 38 states have seen a drop in their crime rate after enacting concealed carry laws. DC banned handguns, immediately afterward their crime rate skyrocketed while the rest of the countries went down. California has a much higher than average gun violence, yet they have the strictest gun laws in the country. So since no one has ever been able to show a case of gun control equaling crime control why do 65% of liberals despise guns? What is your true agenda? Also, why do you mention hunting when referring to the second amendment? What part of the second mentions hunting or target shooting? We all would like to see less gun violence, so why will so many liberals not get behind something that works? When you get rid of guns you have an environment where only criminals are armed, therefore they are far braver than they would be if they knew there was a good chance their victims could be armed. I am an Independent. My opinion is both parties are corrupt, so this has nothing to do with the right. I'm asking this based on a debate I participated in in school. I just want to gain some info as to why so many Liberals support stricter gun laws when the ones we have don't work. I am for background checks, and anything that will truly help keep criminals and the mentally ill from obtaining guns. That is where it ends though, laws that do basically nothing but create red-tape for the law-abiding I see no use for. Wow some of you ppl are so fucking stupid. Like the "cows in Montana" comment. Please look up per-capita please. TD, could you share the statistics that show the states with lenient gun laws have as much if not more crime please? The answer is, no, I bet you can't. It simply isn't true so good luck with that. LOL Paul RN, you are a classic example of just how fucking ignorant the gun grabbers are. Your answer is so baseless, and without fact it is pointless to even respond to. According to the most recent polls only 3% of America feels gun control is an important issue, while 73% of us feel the laws we have are enough. 44% thinks we have too many useless gun laws that do not work. Point is, my question is mainly driven by curiosity. The people with the "all guns are bad" mindset are so few it doesn't really matter what drives your ridiculous opinions. Luke, if its the guns doing this why have the countries that have virtually disposed of guns not seen a drop in gun violence and their murder rates? I encourage you to do some research on the subject. For starters look and see who commits 0ver 80% of our gun crimes. Cars, cigarettes, swimming pools, and fast food kill far far far far more children than guns so do these things need to be banned? Ever wonder why school shootings didn't happen 50 years ago? Back then children had much m

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Why do people believe that socialism will work here in the U.S. when it's always failed everywhere else

Why do people believe that socialism will work here in the U.S. when it's always failed everywhere else?
Socialized healthcare is a terrible mistake but so many people seem enamoured of it or a government ran socialized health insurance. Why don't people understand that this will drive up the costs for everyone and make it more difficult to obtain? People in Canada cross the border into the U.S. daily to use our healthcare system and people in Great Britain die waiting for Cat scans. Socialism has never worked; yet many people here seem to think it's the way to go.
Politics - 11 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
It is better than the healthcare system we already have.
2 :
87% of people in Canada are satisfied with their healthcare system. A few people crossing the border does not mean the system failed. Did you know that people from the US go to other countries to get operations performed. Look it up, it is called medical tourism. Does that mean our current system is a failure?
3 :
Every major industrialized nation on the planet has socialized healthcare except the united states. It's clear that WE are doing something wrong. Is the system perfect? Far from it, but even then, it's something. Even waiting a month for something like a MRI scan is better than never getting it at all because you can't afford to pay for it. Private healthcare is always an option though, even in countries where socialized medicine is the norm. But a public one is invaluable. Especially one day if say you'd need a liver transplant, and your insurance carrier doesn't think you're worth it, so to keep the bottom line high, they'll claim that a liver transplant is "experimental" and deny you payment for one.
4 :
why do you people never mention americans who have to travel to europe or canada for procedures not offered here? you only mention the vice versa
5 :
Debunking Friday the 13th: 13 Myths about Health Care Reform Written By: Conrad F. Meier Published In: News Releases Publication Date: June 12, 2003 Publisher: The Heartland Institute -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you cross the path of a black cat this Friday the 13th, you’re about as likely to experience bad luck as you are likely to win the lottery. That’s a fact. But facts often give way to myth. While many of those myths are relatively harmless, others can be downright dangerous to our life, liberty, prosperity, and health. The single-payer health care plans touted by former Vice President Al Gore, Congressman Richard Gephardt (D-Missouri) and other Democrats offer a truly frightening case in point. Consider these 13 myths about single-payer health care. Myth #1 Single-payer systems are not socialized medicine. Single-payer means government is the insurance company. It doesn’t charge “premiums,” but instead raises taxes. It controls not only the financing, but who gets what services, the quality of what they get, when they get it, and if they get it. You don’t get much more socialized than that. A single-payer system is one big HMO, without the discipline and accountability achieved by competition. Myth #2 Single-payer systems are efficient. A study by the Institute for Global Health at the University of California concluded the Kaiser-Permanente HMO in the United States and Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) have similar resources, but the HMO offers better care more quickly. The difference is explained by better management, better use of integrated systems, greater investment in technology, and free-market competition. Myth #3 Single-payer systems are compassionate. If you think HMOs and insurance companies lack compassion, wait until you experience a health care system run by politicians and government bureaucrats. Single-payer health care systems depend on coercion and intrusion into the private affairs of persons subjected to them. Paperwork and red tape--not compassion or respect for the doctor-patient relationship--rule. Myth #4 Single-payer systems are not expensive for governments. Gephardt’s proposal would cost $247 billion--every year. A proposal to implement single-payer health care in Maryland alone would have cost $40 million a year ... plus lost payroll tax receipts of nearly $5 billion. As many as 117,000 jobs would have been lost. Myth #5 Single-payer systems are “free” for individuals. Single-payer health care plans are not free: They are paid for by tax dollars. Billions of them. The Maryland proposal would have required a 33 percent increase in the state’s personal income tax. Canadians pay extraordinarily high income taxes for their “free” care ... only to have to pay again when they come to the United States for care they can’t get in Canada. Myth #6 Single-payer systems do not ration care. In a single-payer health care system like Britain’s, patients have every incentive to demand care, and lots of it. Since no system can satisfy unlimited demand, the central authorities must resort to the only strategy open to them: rationing. In single-payer systems, you get rationing by waiting list; rationing by price controls; and rationing by restricting access to specialists, technology, and new drugs. Myth #7 Single-payer systems offer high-quality care. To get access to the least-invasive, most effective health care technology, citizens living under single-payer health care schemes come to the United States. The Canadian Fraser Institute reported in August 2002, “with regard to access to high-tech machinery, Canada performs dismally by comparison with other OECD countries. While ranking number one as a health care spender, Canada ranks 18th in access to MRIs, 17th in access to CT scanners, [and] eighth in access to radiation machines ...” Myth #8 Single-payer systems offer timely care. On any given day, one in 60 British citizens are waiting for medical treatment. Of those who are sick and actually need care, one in six must wait. After meeting with a senior doctor, one million people in Britain are on a waiting list for in-patient hospital admission at any given time. Just 155,000 of those are seen within four weeks. For 250,000 of them, it takes more than 26 weeks to be admitted for care. Myth #9 Single-payer systems improve access to prescription drugs. In Britain, the government determines how much profit a pharmaceutical firm is allowed to make--a sure way to arrest research and development. In addition, they ration access to drugs with a lottery based on a consumer's zip code. The prize is your eligibility to receive free medication. The “lucky” zip cod can change at any time, apparently on the basis of political expediency rather than medical necessity. Price controls and rigid drug formularies--hallmarks of a single-payer health care system--limit access to drugs and violate doctors’ and patients’ freedom of choice. Myth #10 Single-payer systems allow you to see any doctor you choose. Many doctors already refuse to accept Medicare patients. A recent study by the American Medical Association found nearly half of all U.S. physicians would have limited their Medicare practices further if the federal government had carried out a plan to cut physician fees. How many more doctors would “opt out”--or quit the professional altogether--if the entire U.S. were one big Medicare program? Myth #11 Single-payer systems are popular with doctors. Five hundred physicians leave Canada every year to practice in something other than a single-payer health care system. Zosia Kmietowicz wrote in the October 20, 2001 issue of the British Medical Journal, “one in four general practitioners (GPs) in Britain's National Health Service is seriously considering leaving general practice.” The British Medical Association surveyed all 36,000 General Practitioners in Britain, asking them if they would be prepared to resign from the NHS. There was a 66 percent response rate ... and 86 percent voted in favor of resignation. Myth #12 Single-payer systems are popular with patients. In 2002, seventy-nine percent of Oregon voters rejected a plan to have government officials run a health care system for the state’s 3.5 million residents. Measure 23, touted by supporters as “health care for all Oregon,” attracted just 204,082 votes, 21 percent of the total, while 786,768 voters--79 percent--rejected the plan. Myth #13 Single-payer systems are preferred by “forward-looking” countries. Nobody outside Britain--and apparently the United States--praises the NHS anymore. The country is out of step, clinging to central government control and management of health care while other countries move away from a single-payer model towards some mixture of free enterprise and government health care. Canada, Russia, Sweden, Germany ... and even Britain itself ... are moving toward greater reliance on the free-market. Friday the 13th myths are harmless enough. But single-payer health care? I would just as soon cross paths with a black cat while walking under a ladder. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conrad F. Meier is senior fellow in health policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Health Care News. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For further information, contact Heartland Public Affairs Director Greg Lackner at 312/377-4000, 773/489-6447, email lackner@heartland.org
6 :
People "think" such a health care plan would be a "given". They do not realize that we will be taxed to death. It's not just the socialistic healthcare, it seems more and more politicians are of the socialistic "mindset". This "mindset" is NOT good for our country. Big, Bigger, and Biggest Government does NOT work folks.
7 :
it seems to be working in China,. as long as you buy your poisonous, cheap crap from the great wall-mart of China,.
8 :
I don't believe that such programs are going to work. However, I'm still voting for the Democrats because a "Universal Health Care" program is far less wasteful than that pointless war in Iraq or the planned War to overthrow the government of Iran (all we've done in Iraq is strengthen al-Qaeda and increase how hated we are in the Middle East and it will be even worse if we go into Iran). Obviously, trying to copy Canada or Britain's health care system would be idiotic and Barack Obama is facing attacks from his opponents because his plan would simply make health care affordable to everybody and not force people to be insured or have the government nationalize the health care industry.
9 :
It didnt fail anywhere ! They just dodnt know how to apply it ! When i lived in former Yugoslavia it was perfect before USA destroy it so they can make you believe it failed !
10 :
Socialism IS feasible. Why it wont embrace socialism, even though it can: Because American leaders look at statistics and probably shit their pants. And they're right, judging from raw statistics at least. In America: Health care expenditure as a % of its GDP is 14%. That is a HUGE figure, especially with America's economy being second to none. ( while in the UK it is only 8%) Already America is ponying up 45% of its citizens' medical bills, while the citizens themselves pay 55%. (In the NHS in Britain, they pay up to 82% of its citizens' medical bills, while the citizens themselves only pay 18%) Statistically speaking, America cannot afford to embrace socialism, especially now with the falling dollar. What I'm sure they're missing, is that out of this 14% most of the health care expenditure is due to vanity, in which the govt. doesn't need to cover in the first place! (E.g. plastic surgery, rhinoplasty etc.) America CAN embrace socialism, however, it would reduce the efficacy of medical services. ( Due red-tape and bureaucracy, NHS waiting lists number up to 1.01 million, also the NHS is slow in adopting new medical procedures and delivering up to date technology. Its health care services are one of the worst in the developed world.) My substantive: America can embrace socialism in regards to healthcare, but most Americans wont like it anyway. At least if you're rich ,you wont suffer, but in the NHS, regardless of whether you are rich or poor, you suffer sloppy services and outdated procedures. (unless you're rich enough to cross over to somewhere where your money matters.) Besides, as Darwin would explain it, American culture has evolved in such a way that even the absolutely dirt poor Americans are not left completely defenseless, you could like, be on Oprah or something lol.
11 :
I don't know where you got the idea that national health care doesn't work. I've asked a lot of people from the UK, Australia, Canada, etc., "Should we do the same?". The answer has never been no. Not once. And they don't die waiting for cat scans. They do wait a bit for surgeries and procedures that are not critical. Carpal tunnel surgery would be a good example. But here in the USA we have some getting it a bit quicker and many others not getting it at all. That's not better. And those "socialist" western European societies are not doing so badly. but anyway the reason we need something like socialism is that without it what we have is economic anarchy. A system that does nothing to stop those with capital cannibalizing those without.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Isn't Western Europe proof that Socialism can't work

Isn't Western Europe proof that Socialism can't work?
Why are we moving in that direction when all indications are that it will ultimately bankrupt countries. Isn't insanity doing the same things over and over and expecting different results? I think that the state of California (welfare state), Spain, Greece, Great Britain, etc are exactly the reason we should move away from this way of thinking.
Politics - 13 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Don't forget France (the socialist's utopian paradise), their government will hit 100% GDP in 2014.
2 :
We have ample evidence from our own experience that Capitalism doesn't work, either, if you think you have any that Socialism doesn't work. Every system will run into rocky patches.
3 :
There are no socialist countries in europe. There are many many reasons to prove this, but the simplest is the EURO, which would not exist in a socialist system
4 :
supply and demand in terms of the economy it is like a boat when it tips on one side put weight on the other. you kids didn't complain when it was time to tilt to the supply side back in the 80's. Now we need to tip to the demand side. Europe is just in the opposite situation.
5 :
Western europe is proof of many things That people can lose their manhood become unappreciative envious little turds and basically a pain in the butt
6 :
If you want to attack the socialists you have to attack the more successful socialist countries like Norway, Switzerland, and France. These countries have proven that they can compete with us in nearly every area of civilization. They have better education, a good health care system that covers everyone, they aren't nearly as obese, longer life expectancy, less crime, and more social rights.
7 :
There is no socialist western European country. They are all social democracies - like the USA. Did you sleep through the British election? Hint: election = representation = democracy.
8 :
You confuse socialism with a social democracy. And that has worked very well in Western Europe for most of the last 150 years. No even the Iron lady Maggie Thatcher dared dismantle the things the people wanted. Greece (not in Western Europe) is in trouble because it simply refused to pay for the very costly social policies it adopted. But where the policies are properly funded, lots of people grumble about their high taxes, but hardly anyone wants to give up what those taxes pay for.
9 :
It is just the latest example as to why Socialism can't and will never work.
10 :
Absolutely! I mean, look at all the Europeans who are just begging to come here and leave their Socialist hellhole. What's that you say? They're happy with their way of life? Couldn't possibly be the truth. After all, ours is the only possible acceptable way of life, isn't it? Get back to me when you are willing to give up your police department, fire department, public schools, libraries, public highway system, etc. The answer is no.
11 :
Yet California has one of the largest economies of any state in America, and all of those countries you named are successful first world nations with no serious problems to speak of...
12 :
Isn't the current state of America's economy proof that Capitalism ultimately destroys itself? The current problems in Spain, & Portugal is because they tried to follow suite like America and play the "we'll all get rich off of housing" With Greece, they allowed Goldman Sachs come in and install credit default swaps. Funny how you mention countries in trouble because of American "capitalistic" influences. George Bush was handed a 300+ billion budget surplus from Clinton. Bush then hands a 1 trillion dollar budget deficit to Obama. Funny how this simple fact is always overlooked. The rest of the countries are doing fiscally well. Ask yourself why is it that American media fails to point out 80% of the countries in the Euro system are fine? Unfortunately your question is long on rhetoric and short on facts
13 :
And Spain, Greece and Great Britain are worse off economically than the Sudan? Have you ever been to a country that doesn't have taxes, and then visited one with high taxes?

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Work without a visa in Europe

Work without a visa in Europe?
How possible is it to work without a work visa in Europe (outside of Great Britain, that is)? I'm talking about any location and any kind of work that doesn't involve prostitution or anything nasty like that..hehe.. I speak four languages and have a masters degree. Waitressing, teaching English, farm work, retail shop work, dishwashing, etc.. Im just looking for short term work to pay the bills and move on to the next country... Anyone done it? Can anyone give me info about this? Thanks! : ) UGH, and PLEASE dont talk to me about the famed "Global Financial Crisis". I am well aware of the "crisis" and that employment is scarce. That is NOT the question. Employment without visas will ALWAYS exist, as long as it is more viable for the employer than legitimately hiring a worker and paying all of the corresponding social payments. So please, no answers about "the crisis", blah blah blah.
Other - Europe - 3 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Where are you coming from? I am pretty sure you have to have a work visa or be a citizen of a country in the EU. It may be possible to work part time without a work visa, or if you are a student at the same time.
2 :
Well apparently you don't want to hear the truth then, and only want to hear that it is easy to get an job and that employers are queuing up to hire illegal employees The fact is (at least speaking for Western Europe), they are not queuing up for this. Why would they hire an illegal when (a) in this day and age, hiring of illegals is a hot potato and more people report illegals, and more checks are made, with more fines for the employer (b) "Cheap" labour can be found easily with migration of immigrants (legal ones!) in the EU (c) yes, here it comes, people are willing to settle for less and happy to carry out 'lower' positions in the current economic crisis. I disagree that it is 'more viable for the employer than legitimately hiring a worker'. Before the expansion of the EU then this was indeed the case, but those days have long gone. If you have a masters and speak four languages, then why don't you put this to good use, get a good job in your home country, build up experience and then seek to work under the highly skilled migrant programs, or with an International company who has branch offices in Europe and with whom you can transfer based on knowledge There is also the 'working holiday' visa for nationals such as Australians, Canadians etc - maybe this is a good option (you didn't mention your nationality)
3 :
If you have a Masters degree, you don't need to work without a visa. Many European countries have a "Highly Skilled" worker category. You can get a Tier 1 visa for the UK or a Green Card for Denmark if you have a Masters Degree that would allow you to get any job legally Why would any company risk a €10,000 fine for hiring an illegal American, Canadian, Australian, South African, New Zealander, etc. when they can find someone from an EU country like Romania or Bulgaria willing to work legally for less than half of what you'd expect to be paid. Would you really work for only €2.50-3/hour in a bar or restaurant? Because that's what they are paying in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy etc. That's why even in Southern Europe, most of the people working in restaurants are from the former Communist bloc, because to them €2.50/hour is more than double what they would make at home. If you don't have connections with bar or restaurant owners, it's almost impossible to find work. I have friends who went to Greece last year thinking they could just find jobs when they got there. But the only job they could find was handing out flyers for a club, and they got paid in free beer, not cash.