by "ImmoralMinority" (araimondo)
Published 09/24/2017 at 18:06
by "ImmoralMinority" (araimondo)
Published 09/24/2017 at 18:06
No Tags
STARS: 4
Buffer image for political content.
I find myself on the outside of American political discourse. I am against discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc., but I am for business, small government (especially federal), personal freedom, and accountability.
This NFL kneeling debate is interesting to me. Personally, I think they should be allowed to do what they want. However, Kaepernick in particular should be condemned for not voting, and for using his platform to advocate AGAINST voting.
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Democracy is imperfect and awkward, and often disappointing. But the vote is all we have. If the vote means nothing, we have no power and no voice other than violence. I refuse to accept that.
Part of why we are where we are is low voter turnout; participation moves us forward. Obama won by inspiring desparate and disillusioned people to come out and vote; his campaign won via turnout. Hillary did not visit Wisconsin, and ignored black areas of cities like Milwaukee that came out strong for Obama. The same is true in Ohio. The vote matters, as we have learned from a man who has gained all from exploitation of cyncism.
In recent years, the left had fought for the firing of shitheads like Curt Schilling, for their “offensive” posts on social media
Now the right demands the firing of Jemele Hill, and players who protest the anthem. How do we distinguish?
How many times have I seen progressives post that the 1st Amendment does not prohibit a private business from terminating an emplyoee for off air comments that are “offensive?”
You can’t have it both ways, and the right is using the weapons of the left against them.
We need a new conversation.
"190octane" (admiralcb)
09/24/2017 at 19:01, STARS: 0
Who would you rather employ, someone who puts racist and bigoted views online for everyone to see, or someone who is protesting inequality?
To me this is like comparing civil rights marches to Charlottesville... they’re both marches about race, but one intention is a lot better and more pure than the other.
"XJDano" (xjdano)
09/24/2017 at 19:17, STARS: 0
Do presidential votes from the general public actually count towards anything besides a popular vote?
You should see about getting a photo with all those lights on. Blinker, Reverse, Brake. Would be interesting.
"fintail" (fintail)
09/24/2017 at 19:54, STARS: 0
What we need is for a dotard with dementia to stop telling a privately owned employer what it should do about certain employees (in order to distract from his failures re: healthcare, “the wall”, immigration, etc and to fire up the deplorables), to stop marching us towards a 21st century Cuban missile crisis, to step away from Twitter and address domestic issues, like the crisis in PR that he has effectively not touched.
Every day I hope that the smoking gun between this regime of sycophants and nepotists and Russia is revealed, and these people can be removed, lock em up in a room and throw away the room. Not likely though, when we can’t even get tax returns.
"KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs" (kusabisensei)
09/24/2017 at 21:16, STARS: 1
As a small-l libertarian, i take the position that the players can do as they please. Just as the owners (i.e. the employers) can decide if they should represent the team’s brand (you try pulling a stunt like that when you are representing your employer and see how long you still have that job. Most employers don’t want to be involved in politics). And just as it is my right as a viewer to watch the NHL instead.
I’m tired of the false dichotomies that get presented every flipping day by the establishment. Just because you don’t want “Medicare for all” does not automatically imply that you want people to die (well, maybe if your logic unit is defective...). But that is what passes for logic these days.
I haven’t met anyone who is willing to have a discussion in good faith without some ridiculous pretense that unless you want this socialist outcome (e.g. single payer), therefore you are evil and it is ok to deceive, cheat, and lie to you, because you aren’t actually a person, just an evil Republican.
I’m getting royally screwed by the healthcare system, and I never have had to go to the hospital since 1997. My premiums are up about 300% this year after getting laid off, and they are set to double again next year. They are as much as a goddamn mortgage payment! And no one wants to stop this madness.
Oh and let’s add salt to this by having to pay for both employee and employer portions of FICA taxes, along with the ridiculous levels that government wants from my paycheck.
I could go on for hours. But I won’t. If you think I’m insane, fine: Go start your own business and be *profitable*, and then tell me that you are fine with how small businesses are treated.
"190octane" (admiralcb)
09/24/2017 at 21:20, STARS: 1
In your libertarian utopia, how would health care be done?
"Steve in Manhattan" (blogenfreude01)
09/24/2017 at 21:24, STARS: 2
“ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
That’s it. Doesn’t protect you from getting fired by Target if you show up wearing a MAGA hat. Or a Kaepernick t-shirt, for that matter. I am as liberal as they come, but all people need to understand what the amendment protects them from, and what it doesn’t.
Oh, and Trump broke the law when he called on private employers to fire their employees.
Signed, Steve’s Lawyer Brain ...
"KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs" (kusabisensei)
09/24/2017 at 21:29, STARS: 0
As a business owner: neither. I don’t want my business involved in your political squabbles outside of work.
You want to come in and do what I’m paying you for? Great!
You want to come in and make a political statement in public while I’m paying you and people see you as a representative of my company? You’re fired on the spot. Because that is not what I’m paying you for, and you have just made my life as a business owner miserable dealing with the PR fallout. This means you are more trouble than you are worth as an employee to me.
And no, you can’t say “Muh First Amendment!” The Constitutional freedom applies to *government* restrictions against the Freedom of Speech. At present those do not apply to non-governmental entities.
"Berang" (berang)
09/24/2017 at 21:35, STARS: 0
There have been a lot of people who’ve advocated not voting, because voting for anybody who doesn’t have their specific interests at heart is bad... and the results historically have been that this usually makes everything worse for the people who didn’t vote because their perfect candidate doesn’t exist.
Funny, these are usually the same type of people who’ll tell you that the “if you don’t like it don’t buy/watch/read/listen to it” approach is flawed because it doesn’t stop other people from doing it, and therefore doesn’t rid society of the problem. But somehow, magically, this attitude is supposed to reasonably be applied to voting.
"190octane" (admiralcb)
09/24/2017 at 21:48, STARS: 0
If you’re sweeping the floors at a fast food place, you probably should keep your political opinions to yourself.
If your job makes you famous and gives you a platform to make social change (for better or worse) it’s a different story. Why shouldn’t someone like Lebron James or Cam Newton use their platform to make the world a better place?
By the way, you sound like a real pain in the ass to work for.
"fintail" (fintail)
09/24/2017 at 21:55, STARS: 0
What kind of business do you run?
"EngineerWithTools" (engineerwithtools)
09/24/2017 at 22:01, STARS: 2
It’s all so frustrating and so depressing, at least to me. I can’t agree more with your statement, echoed in some of the other comments, about a new conversation.
It seems that well reasoned, polite discussion has disappeared entirely, replaced by many screaming tribes for whom “he might be a bastard, but he’s our bastard” rules the day. Politics has always had nastiness, but something - maybe technology? hell if I know - has allowed that nastiness to permeate almost every discussion.
Anyway, I don’t know the answer, but I do know that I appreciate this little corner of the interwebs and those (mostly, usually, certainly way above internet average) civilized individuals that inhabit it.
"KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs" (kusabisensei)
09/24/2017 at 22:09, STARS: 0
1) There is no utopia.
2) If we assume a similar federal structure to the one we have now, this is the responsibility of the States, not the Federal government.
2a) A State may choose whatever they like, including nothing at all, to resolve the issue.
3) For routine visits and diagnoses, these should be paid for out of pocket at a provider of your choosing, and if you do happen to have a health plan, you can choose to submit for reimbursement pursuant to your plan rules. This means that you have to receive enough information about price to make an informed decision, before spending money. Having clear pricing will help with costs.
3a) You should pick the coverages you want, not a bureaucrat picking them for you. This means you can buy plans from any insurer, or you can use an independent agent to help you get the exact coverage you need.
4) For emergency situations, you can file a claim much like one does for fire or liability insurance.
5) There will always be people who are in need. I believe that a return to secular mutual aid societies and church fraternal aid organizations will go a long way to restoring a local voice in the aid of those in a community that truly need help (as opposed to a kick in the ass to get off their duff. People in the local community can easily tell the difference between the two.)
5a) For absolute last resort, there should be a way for local government to assist with payment. The closer the government to the problem, the better the results tend to be.
6) States could be encouraged via block grants or other mechanisms to provide for a reinsurance pool to help in case of a diagnosis of a chronic health issue. Care has to be taken to make sure that the reinsurance pool is self sustaining. A condition of using this pool is that any policies reinsured become guaranteed issue. This provides a way to allow for guaranteed issue.
7) Depending upon how the risk pools look, it would be preferable to move insurable seniors to the private system via transfer payments to them or by a government purchase of a plan on their behalf. (I would prefer direct purchase)
8) Any transition would have to be done over a number of years, but giving power back to the people will help give them ownership of their health and their healthcare.
"KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs" (kusabisensei)
09/24/2017 at 22:20, STARS: 0
It’s just as well: You sound like a real trouble employee who no one really wants to deal with.
Can Newton can do whatever he wants so long as his employer is OK with whatever he is doing while at work. If his employer is not OK with his behavior, then he has to change or run the risk of being fired.
If his employer (Carolina Panthers), doesn’t like losing attendees to their games (lost revenue) and doesn’t like the loss of TV revenue via the league, then it’s perfectly in the Panthers rights to tell him to knock it off, or he gets canned.
You have a constitutional right to the Freedom of Speech. You do not have a constitutional right to be employed.
“Making the world a better place” is something that they can do on their own time.
"OpposResidentLexusGuy - USE20, XF20, XU30 and Press Cars" (jakeauern)
09/24/2017 at 22:23, STARS: 1
The government hates small businesses. I’ve seen how my aparents get treated...
"KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs" (kusabisensei)
09/24/2017 at 22:31, STARS: 0
And it really is irrelevant what kind of business you run. If you have less than 5 people on payroll, you get basically nothing from them.
I had the most idiotic two weeks of my life going from government agency to government agency trying to get all the numbers, witholding accounts, business licenses, zoning checklists, and probably what will end up being backdoor campaign contributions (what, you think they are on the up and up at these agencies?). I have a stack of papers about 3 inches thick just from the business startup.
The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing, and no one had a straight answer to any questions I or my CPA had for them.
I’m lucky I don’t require a professional license to have a business. That would have been even more red tape.
"OpposResidentLexusGuy - USE20, XF20, XU30 and Press Cars" (jakeauern)
09/24/2017 at 22:34, STARS: 0
Yeah my parents own an automotive repair shop. Luckily we live in Tennessee bough and the laws are loose enough not make it cost prohibitive but lord dont get me stared on if they were in california.
"190octane" (admiralcb)
09/24/2017 at 22:39, STARS: 0
It’s amazing how much of a “trouble employee” you can be when you make the company money. That goes for me and Cam Newton, although I’m willing to bet Cam makes more for the Panthers than I do for my employer judging by our respective paychecks.
Trying to make the world a better place is something that most of us who aren’t selfish assholes try and do all the time.
"KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs" (kusabisensei)
09/24/2017 at 23:09, STARS: 0
Oh, so now wanting your employees to do the job you are paying them to do (whether it’s throw a football, fix some servers, or build a car) is being a “selfish asshole”.
Wow, your logic faculties must be on the fritz tonight.
"190octane" (admiralcb)
09/24/2017 at 23:46, STARS: 0
Should he be throwing a football during the national anthem?
"Spridget" (dustbustervans)
09/28/2017 at 19:56, STARS: 0
“2a) A State may choose whatever they like, including nothing at all, to resolve the issue.”
This is a very, very bad idea. I’m not saying single payer would work, but this almost certainly wouldn’t.