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A new "documentary" about America's broken health care system Michael Moore style. Any thoughts?
A new "documentary" about America's broken health care system Michael Moore style. Any thoughts?
A new "documentary" about America's broken health care system Michael Moore style. Any thoughts?
Well, you know you'll have to see it because you know it's going to come up in your interviews.
Even if it wasn't, I would still see it. I enjoy his films.
A lot of people bring up the fact that Michael Moore presents his data in such a way as to further promote his take on a subject. This is stating the obvious. He's never said his films were fair and balanced -- after all, he's not making documentaries for the Discovery Channel. He's making documentaries because he hopes they inspire social movements based on his take of a subject.
I'm also curious to see what impact this will have on our future careers (if any).
Michael Moore uses the tactics of appealing to fear, argument from consequences, appealing to the crowd, nit-picking, red herring, and apples and oranges, which are all FALLACIES. He cannot make his point without these tools. I think thats enough to officially dub him an "idiot" and unworthy of acknowledgment.
Michael Moore is an idiot.
Michael Moore uses the tactics of appealing to fear, argument from consequences, appealing to the crowd, nit-picking, red herring, and apples and oranges, which are all FALLACIES. He cannot make his point without these tools. I think thats enough to officially dub him an "idiot" and unworthy of acknowledgment.
Never before has true been stated so clearly and succinctly.
Ya, Moore is proof that a simpleton can have an impact on this world, except in his case, it is via distortion and propaganda.
Not a single twit in Hollywood has enough balls to challenge power in America
Aaron Sorkin!
a "few tools" includes billions of dollars of private contribution from a several wealthy liberals. Not that that's bad, but he hardly is struggling to produce and distribute his films...especially here in 2007...
I think on the very basic of levels, all us premeds/med students agree that every human deserves healthcare. The problem is if the healthcare system were to change as Obama or Clinton have proposed, it will have enormous implications on the future of medicine as a profession...there's going to be unions of doctors or something equally as non-lucrative. Not to mention it will take 50 years to pay back loans instead of the usual 10 or so. Good for people. Bad for future docs. my 2 cents.
a "few tools" includes billions of dollars of private contribution from a several wealthy liberals. Not that that's bad, but he hardly is struggling to produce and distribute his films...especially here in 2007...
I think on the very basic of levels, all us premeds/med students agree that every human deserves healthcare. The problem is if the healthcare system were to change as Obama or Clinton have proposed, it will have enormous implications on the future of medicine as a profession...there's going to be unions of doctors or something equally as non-lucrative. Not to mention it will take 50 years to pay back loans instead of the usual 10 or so. Good for people. Bad for future docs. my 2 cents.
Well he's no Lewis Lapham that's for sure. But you know what, when was the last time any of us heard a reasonably intelligent blue collar guy who's not afraid to take a contrary view point in the Mass media. Not a single twit in Hollywood has enough balls to challenge power in America, so who can we count on to make at least provocative questions in the general direction of the American power structure. The corporate media is out of the game from go. And what remains is a lot of partisan hype with little substance.
Just being controversial, but in honor of the picture elsewhere posted on this thread, Matt Stone and Trey Parker would be examples.
There are a whole bunch of other such people who's opinions don't lean left enough to garner the support in Hollywood.
Just being controversial, but in honor of the picture elsewhere posted on this thread, Matt Stone and Trey Parker would be examples.
I'm more or less with you on the Stone/Parker thing because I think they occasionally hit good points (case in point, the Scientology episode of South Park) but a lot of their other depictions -- such as the Moore character in the TEAM AMERICA movie -- are simply juvenile stabs at defaming notable people (the gay Saddam character is another example).
That's true to a degree, but this is really more of an example of these entities maintaining their own status quo. This may not make them liberal, but it does make them left. Those terms are often put together, but they really have slightly different meanings. The organizations do lean farther left than the average american, agree or not with the view, which is why I called them such. They just continue to lean left in the same way.Well Ok. But having gay friends does not make someone an independent thinker. Hollywood like "the media" gets charged with being "liberal" constantly and yet who does more to preserve the status quo than the corporate controlled news and entertainment businesses.
In any case, I remember your blog a while back and just revisited it. Great stuff. Exactly the type of thing I would like to learn.
Do have any book recommendations for health care economics?
The organizations do lean farther left than the average American, agree or not with the view, which is why I called them such. They just continue to lean left in the same way.
I took Step I today, so I'm a little out of it.
I don't want to take this thread too far off topic, but I'll bite a step further.But are they any more left than might be expected for their educational and economic demographic? Elites tend to skew left (though there are exceptions). Israel's Ashkenazi elite is much further left than the non-European Jewish majority. Wealthy people in Egypt, Turkey or Iran are much less likely to espouse the "God, guns, git to the kitchen, gut the godless" agenda of religious fundamentalism. Get a hundred well-off Britons in a room, and how many of them voted Conservative at the last election? Much less than the population as a whole.
Certainly there are thinking people who are anti-left. But the main strain of rightism in America today relies heavily on xenophobia, nativism, bigotry, and appeals to faith. Those tend not to appeal to people who have been to college and gotten a wider exposure to the world. Again, statistically (college graduates tend to vote Democrat).
It's a problem all over the world, the appeal to the masses of a shallow, superficially religious ideology driven by ignorance and fear. It's not a knock on our home-grown Christian jihadists. If anything, it is a knock on the elites, which have lost the mass of people who are religious, despite the fact that the tenants of all the monotheistic religions are strongly leftist in tone (Debt forgiveness? No interest-bearing loans? Feed the hungry and clothe the naked? Who does that bearded commie think he is?)
Yeah, I hope that my score reflects how tired I was when the process was over. Are you taking the plunge soon?Yaaaa! Congradulations!!!
You are correct that educated "elites" tend to lean further left than the average person. However, since we were discussing films made by blue collar average american type people (who virtually by definition are not educated elites), I think it's irrelevant.
I'd make the argument that much of the argument by the modern left also relies on a defacto reverse bigotry, immediately lableling opposing ideas with all sorts of derogatory terms while simultaneously refusing to simply prove what they claim to be (and maybe even is) obviously true.
Points:
1. Higher intellect doesn't always correlate with higher education (though it often does).
3. College students tend to vote democrat, but college educated people exhibit no such trend after they graduate. The trend in college probably reflects a left bias in acadamia, which self-perpetuates. The most heavily left leaning districts in the country are inner city ghettos with a significantly undereducated population.
4. In the parable of the talents, the master removes the money from the individual who doesn't use his money wisely and gives his money to the individual who is actually productive. The bible, while promoting charity, never advocates forced redistribution of wealth.
5. Regardless of what you think politically, any attempt to compare Cuban healthcare to US healthcare is so biased and untrue that no amount of credit to his mission justifies the extent of deceit Moore would have to use to make the connection.
Someone said that it was good that a blue collar guy expressed his beliefs. I simply countered that others do, and that some of them aren't as well received in Hollywood, which tends to lean left. You attempted to then say that this makes Hollywood more in line with the elites, because everyone else relies on bigotry. I then pointed out that it was irrelevant, because the individuals who we were referencing (whom are supposed to be blue collar and expressing their views) are not elite. Moore was called a regular guy by another poster, but I was simply claiming that his ability to associate with Hollywood as a "regular guy" is due to his political leanings.You made a general claim about Hollywood being to the left of America as a whole. I responded to that point. If you are saying that Moore is a regular guy and not associated with left-leaning Hollywood, then why bring up Hollywood at all? It doesn't make sense. If your assertion is relevant, then my response is relevant.
Well, I am a libertarian who doesn't genuinely lean left or right. I agree that people on both sides of every argument do this. You were the one who originally brought it up as some sort of undereducated right-wing tactic. From your original post: "But the main strain of rightism in America today relies heavily on xenophobia, nativism, bigotry, and appeals to faith." I was just pointing out that this is really what everyone is doing, while giving an example on the left as support for my argument..In the opening chapters of Don Quixote, Cervantes writes, of the prose of the romances that inspired the hero, "The poor fellow used to lay awake at night trying to disentangle the meaning of such sentences as these, even though Aristotle himself would not have been able to understand them, even if he had been resurrected for that sole purpose."
You seem to be claiming -- apropos of nothing I can see -- that people on the left call other people names and do not support all their arguments with evidence. Of course, the right would never be guilty of such a thing. No, I'm afraid what you have described is neither the left nor the right but the punditocracy in all its forms.
OKDid I say it did? I don't think so. George Bush graduated from Yale, after all.
This hasn't been my experience anecdotally. Any statistic on how people vote will be heavily marred, as no one really know who votes what way. I have also seen other stats that contradict the idea. Atleast here in Miami, the most left-leaning areas are either full of retirees (heavily educated) or individuals on public assistance (highly undereducated), showing a much stronger association locally between receiving government assistance and voting left than education.College educated people tend to vote democrat, and even more, to hold "left" views. For a humorous analysis of these and other trends, see here.
Selling everything and giving it to the poor is mostly a directive given to the disciples. Aside from that, mandatory debt forgiveness occurs once every 50 years at Jubilee, is predictable, and never mandates wealth redistrbution. This is more akin to bankruptcy than welfare. All biblical mandates on money are also to the individual, with no power given to anyone to force people to comply. This is in stark contrast to explicitly stoneable offenses, such as adultary. Jesus admittedly makes this less clear when he saves a prostitutes life with his "let him who has no sin cast the first stone." However, it does all show that the bible has no problem with force mandates AND never applies such a mandate to wealth redistribution. The 10% tithe is to God, and he is supposed to reward or punish, not the government of man.You are incorrect. It's called a "parable" for a reason. It's not really about money. When Jesus was talking about money, he said "Sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and follow me." The Bible is full of specific references to mandatory debt forgiveness, charitable contributions, and so on.
I don't believe that either of these points should be law here. See my above post as to why your point is stll incorrect.Now many -- but not all -- take the form of commandments to the individual. That would be relevant if the Christian fundamentalists took the position that the Bible's instructions were for individuals and not society. But they do not. They do not tend to look at a strip club, or pornography, or homosexuality and say "It's not for the law to enforce Christian morality." So they would not, if they were consistent, say that the state should enforce those parts of the Bible and not the parts that mandate the wealthy supporting the needy.
Nope, I just take the eye witness accounts of hundreds of local people that I know personally over a piece of political propaganda by an openly biased pseudo-journalist. Of course Cuba supplied Moore's 9-11 victims with care. It's great propaganda. The other people who just live there aren't so lucky, and I base this on conversations WITH THESE PEOPLE, many of whom risked their lives on dinky boats to escape that utopia.So essentially, what you are saying is that you have a non-falsifiable belief and not only do you exclude the possibility that you might be wrong, the very fact that someone disagrees with you, when you are so clearly right, makes them deceitful (even though you haven't seen their evidence or heard their argument). Evidence that contradicts your belief, therefore, is significant only because to show the lengths which the deceiver has gone to lead you astray.
Another way to say it might be that you are calling Moore names ("deceitful") whilst "simultaneously refusing to simply prove what they claim to be (and maybe even is) obviously true" ("I live in Miami and I know Cubans; trust me.")
The level of evidence I could mount for you would hold up in court.Religions, political creeds, and ideologues of all kinds have used this syllogism to vilify their opponents; as I said, it's an equal-opportunity fallacy.
Someone said that it was good that a blue collar guy expressed his beliefs. I simply countered that others do, and that some of them aren't as well received in Hollywood, which tends to lean left.
You attempted to then say that this makes Hollywood more in line with the elites, because everyone else relies on bigotry.
Well, I am a libertarian who doesn't genuinely lean left or right.
I was just pointing out that this is really what everyone is doing, while giving an example on the left as support for my argument.
This hasn't been my experience anecdotally. Any statistic on how people vote will be heavily marred, as no one really know who votes what way.
I have also seen other stats that contradict the idea.
Selling everything and giving it to the poor is mostly a directive given to the disciples.
Aside from that, mandatory debt forgiveness occurs once every 50 years at Jubilee, is predictable, and never mandates wealth redistrbution.
This is more akin to bankruptcy than welfare. All biblical mandates on money are also to the individual, with no power given to anyone to force people to comply.
If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you. . . . If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave." Leviticus 25:25, 35, 39
"During the seventh year, let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove." Exodus 23:11
"At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year's produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied." Deuteronomy 14:28-29
However, it does all show that the bible has no problem with force mandates AND never applies such a mandate to wealth redistribution.
Nope, I just take the eye witness accounts of hundreds of local people that I know personally over a piece of political propaganda by an openly biased pseudo-journalist.
The level of evidence I could mount for you would hold up in court.
Okay, we'll disagreeThis wasn't clear to me in your original post; thanks for elaborating. I disagree with your analysis, however. "Roger & Me" was made on a shoestring (Moore morgaged his house) and widely distributed only on video, where it became a hit. Hence the key to Moore's success is not that his views align with the powers that be in Hollywood, but rather that he makes a product that sells well.
You misunderstood. I said that Hollywood is probably pretty typical for Americans of that income and level of education.
I try to be balanced. You generally attack the right, so I defend them, since your position is generally left. You're probably correct that I tend to jump to the defense of the "right" on economic issues. We don't debate a lot of the social issues (the one's that aren't about giving people things for free), because I often agree with the "left."I'm sure that's true as far as your positions on the issues are concerned, but time and time again I have seen you castigate the "left" and leap to the defense of the "right." Emotionally, you clearly identify more with the right.
I'd say my anecdotes are as good as anyone elses. With regards to the link, I'm not even sure I read it on the internet. I'll have to dig it up when I have more time.What example?
But that's not a problem with your anecdotes?
I'm sure there are some; how about a link?
Refresh my memory. My recollection is with the disciples.It wasn't a disciple to whom Jesus said that, but rather a layman.
I guess I see it differently. The debtor intentionally redistributed the wealth. Jubilee was a defined period every 50 years, which essentially prevented permanent servitude in the name of debts. Anyone lending money would know this, and no one would be forced to lend the money.Debt forgiveness redistributes wealth from the debtor to the indebted. And there are many other examples.
Where?Welfare is exactly what the Bible prescribes:
I will say it again, that those commandments are given to individuals, to be punished by God, not man. With regards to adultery, God gives specific instructions for punishment. I see nowhere biblically where God says to man that it is man's job to punish all commandment breakers. Also note that wealth redistribution isn't in the original 10 commandments, but stealing is expressely forbidden.And so on. These are commands applicable to everyone and no more or less optional than those against adultery.
Well, I actually said that the punishment was supposed to be from God according to Christian precepts, as opposed to man. I never said that there was no punishment. This is really sort of a silly argument, because I'm not really coming from a desire to impose Christian values on anyone, as I often don't live by them myself. I agree that some people try to legislate them, and I disagree with these people.What a unique argument. Unless a commandment comes with a specific punishment attached, it's not a commandment. I don't think that passes the laugh test, but as I've pointed out, what matters is what the fundamentalists think, and they place no such restriction on the legislation of Christian precepts.
You haven't seen the film and don't know what it says. By discounting it on the basis that it can't be true that Cuba's health system is in some way superior to ours, you abandon reason in favor of a declaration of faith.
In a court of law, you can't use or even mention evidence which you are not willing or able to produce. Referring to evidence, then failing to provide it, is not allowed. And you do that a lot.
I try to be balanced. You generally attack the right,
Refresh my memory. My recollection is with the disciples.
Once a Jewish religious leader asked Him this question: "Good sir, what shall I do to get to heaven?"
"Do you realize what you are saying when you call me ‘good'?" Jesus asked him. "Only God is truly good, and no one else."
"But as to your question, you know what the ten commandments say- don't commit adultery, don't murder, don't steal, don't lie, honor your parents, and so on."
The man replied, "I've obeyed every one of these laws since I was a small child."
"There is still one thing you lack," Jesus said. "Sell all you have and give the money to the poor – it will become treasure for you in heaven – and come, follow me."
But when the man heard this he went sadly away, for he was very rich.
Jesus watched him go and then said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye f a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God."
I guess I see it differently. The debtor intentionally redistributed the wealth. Jubilee was a defined period every 50 years, which essentially prevented permanent servitude in the name of debts.
I will say it again, that those commandments are given to individuals, to be punished by God, not man. With regards to adultery, God gives specific instructions for punishment. I see nowhere biblically where God says to man that it is man's job to punish all commandment breakers. Also note that wealth redistribution isn't in the original 10 commandments, but stealing is expressely forbidden.
Well, I actually said that the punishment was supposed to be from God according to Christian precepts, as opposed to man.
I agree that some people try to legislate them, and I disagree with these people.
As do you and everyone else who posts lengthy diatribes on the internet with limited time. Were I going to court, I'd have more evidence. Feel free to subpeona my local witnesses when we get there. If you can tell me how to produce live people that I've met locally on student doctor, I'd love to know how.
You are correct, I haven't seen the film. I have seen other Moore films, and I am extrapolating his propensity to bend the truth.
Shall I remind you that you started this conversation with:No, I'm balanced and you attack the left. Let's argue about it some more! Probably not a useful discussion. But if you can point my to a thread in which you vehemently defend "the left" while sterotyping and heaping insults on "the right" I'd be happy to see it. It's my observation that you tilt to one side. But I could be wrong.
Where is the next verse where Jesus sends the IRS after the rich man to throw him in jail for his refusal?from Luke 18: 18-27.
He may have said something similiar to the disciples. He had a really simple message and tended to repeat Himself.
One is an issue of posession and one of enforcement. No one can force the rich man to lend his money, but I don't have a problem on setting ground rules as to what he can do to get it back. He has given up his property with risk for the purpose of obtaining a profit. Once he lends it, it is no longer his, he gets instead a promise of repayment, unless you would argue that he is supposed to get the exact same dollars back.Shouldn't you be against bankrupcy laws, if it is your belief that the right to property is an absolute right? In any case, I think you've put you finger on the spirit of these passages, which is -- wealth has the power to put other people in servitude, and that power must be limited, and those that don't have it need to be cared for by those who do. The Bible rejects the idea that wealth and poverty are distributed justly and that the rich deserve to keep their riches and the poor are poor for a good reason.
Well, I'll point out that I'm not really using the bible as the basis of my belief system. I was just trying to argue in the defense of those that you started by attacking (how liberal of me). I don't think that any of the other people in question (the "religious zealots") are arguing that we shouldn't pay our taxes, but rather arguing what it is that we should pay taxes for.Reiterating your position is not the same as arguing your point. As to the commandment; the Bible specifically says to pay your taxes, it describes systems of taxation and support for the needy; the authors of the Bible did not have any way of knowing that 2,000 years later a fringe movement would believe that taxes and regulation constituted a form of theft.
But you do associate it with punishment. If you simply argued that helping out your fellow man was good, I wouldn't argue with you. It's the enforcement that involves punishment for those who "fail to do the right thing," that I have a problem with.I wasn't talking about punishment. A law that, say, closes post offices on Sunday is not punishment for breaking the Sabbath; it is an effort by society to uphold Christian precepts in how they govern themselves. You are trying to associate it with punishment, and I don't think that association holds water.
I think that I've atleast shown that it is possible to disagree with forced charity and be religious, though I am not particularly religious myself.So do I. But my original point, which still stands, is that Christian fundamentalists, who do not believe this, ought to be first in line advocating the provision for the needy that the Bible commands on every other page. They ought to be screaming for food, housing, and health care for the poor. But the greatest number of them are not.
You know, we'll just have to disagree on this point. When Castro eventually knocks off, and the people on the island develope some semblance of freedom to say what they think without fear of the secret police, we'll address this again. You're right that I can't interview everyone on the island. I do have access to the largest collection of Cubans who live in a place that lets them speak in the world. If you still need witnesses, I'll tell you to turn on channel 7 news in Miami whenever anything happens in Cuba, and you'll see some the people of whom I speak. If you're not from here, it's impossible to understand how life revolves around Castro here in Miami. That is something that I know personally, I speak for myself so there is no heresay, and any disagreement on your part would have to be based on faith, unless you have a long Floridian history that I don't know about.It's just the irony of saying introducing hersay evidence by saying you could prove your case in court. And while your correct that I don't always provide the sources to back up my claims, I at least am making the effort to provide specific sources and links. I think I manage to do that a lot of the time.
There is another problem with your supposed eyewittnesses. They are a perfect example of the dolphin fallacy. The dolphin fallacy is that people claim, on the basis of eyewittness accounts, that people were saved from certain drowning by dolphins guiding them to shore.
The problem is that there is an alternative hypothesis; what if the dolphins are just playful, and pushing people in a random direction? It accounts for all the stories of people miraculously saved. Everyone else, of course, drowned before telling their story.
Your sources -- if we can call them that, since you can't produce them -- say Cuba and everything about Cuba is bad, bad, bad. Who are these people? These are the people who risked their lives to immigrate to America. The overwhelm majority of Cubans may disagree with them entirely, or at least have a more balanced view of life under Castro. But those people, by definition, would not be abandoning their country to start a new life in America. You would not find them in Miami, where you collected your data. Your sample is non-generalizable, a scientist would say. And even a jury would recognise them as hopelessly biased.
It means that I will not trust it from him. I called him a liar because of previous examples of him lying and misrepresenting the truth in previous films.I go by what you said, which was that Moore is a liar because his thesis could not be true. That is what you said, and I think it better reflects the thinking behind your opinion.
Shall I remind you that you started this conversation with:
But the main strain of rightism in America today relies heavily on xenophobia, nativism, bigotry, and appeals to faith.
No one can force the rich man to lend his money, but I don't have a problem on setting ground rules as to what he can do to get it back. He has given up his property with risk for the purpose of obtaining a profit. Once he lends it, it is no longer his, he gets instead a promise of repayment, unless you would argue that he is supposed to get the exact same dollars back.
I was just trying to argue in the defense of those that you started by attacking (how liberal of me).
I think that I've atleast shown that it is possible to disagree with forced charity and be religious, though I am not particularly religious myself.
That it doesn't come off as "balanced"And your issue with this statement is?
We'll just have to have a fundamental disagreement on this point. When I lend money out, there is no way for me to guarantee that I will get it back. I believe in bankruptcy laws as a mechanism to prevent debtors from enslaving the indebted. If an indebted can pay back, bankruptcy should then force them to do so. Nevertheless, in a loan, the lender needs the borrower. This isn't the case with regards to taxes used to pay for someone else's healthcare, and it is simply the government taking money against the will of the property owner/employer to shift it to someone else.Equally, no one can force you to work, or buy property, or employ people, and when you do those things, there are conditions attached, and those conditions include regulations and taxes. These are not punishments, but rather, part of the rules of the wealth-making game, which is a part of the larger being-a-member-of-society game.
Again, you never argue in defense of the left, and you chose to see factual description of your allies on the Christian right as an attack.
It seems to me that you have simply asserted it several times without coming to grips with what the text says. While it is certainly possible to be "religious" and be against the government caring for the poor, we are not talking about being "religious" but one, particular interpretion of one particular religion. And what I have argued is that the belief system of the American Christian fundementalist is not self-consistant -- that they selectively advocate for certain elements of Biblical morality to be enshirned in law, that they elevate the Bible as the source of these principles, but they ignore what the Bible says regarding social justice and welfare. I know that you do not share this belief system, but have tried to show how the Bible supports it, but your efforts in that regard have not been at all successful, in my opinion, perhaps because you haven't spent a lot of time with the Bible yourself (which is my sense in talking to you about the Bible, and I could be wrong.) Are there any parts of the Bible -- you mentioned the parable of the talents before -- that you think support the case that you are making about the Christain right?
That it doesn't come off as "balanced"
You never attack the left, so I've never had to defend anything in that direction.
My father, who was born an Ashkenazi Jew converted to christianity in high school. I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church, before my family was kicked out after my father exposed a small scandal involving funding misappropriation on the part of the minister. Before our expulsion, I attended three services a week, played in the church band, and helped run the sound system. I attended a small number of churches after that, but stopped going seriously after about the age of 17. Does that answer your question about my biblical background?
I think that I've mentioned about a zillion times that I don't agree with forcing religious dogma into law.
If you want to make the argument that early law was tied in religion, and argument for equal responsibility:
Exodus 30:15
The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give an offering unto the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls.
To the argument that we should labor to end poverty:
1 Samuel 2:7
The LORD maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up.
The LORD maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up.
8He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and he hath set the world upon them.
9He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail.
10The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall he thunder upon them: the LORD shall judge the ends of the earth; and he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed.
From the same passage as the parable of the talents in Luke 19:
For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.
I could go on, but I really don't want to, as it is irrelevant and not really reflective of my position. We can agree that you believe that the religious right are a group of xenophobic hypocrites.
P.S. Perhaps we should turn this thread back over to "sicko," start a new thread called "Miami_med and Quikclot Don't Agree on Anything," and let everyone else watch our next debate honestly.
As do I. I didn't know that your comment was tongue-in-cheek.You claimed to be balanced. I didn't, except the tongue-in-cheek remark, above. I feel it is more important to be correct than to occupy the middle ground.
No, but unless you have personally chased all of my posts and writing on all topics and all forums, I assume that the majority of your experience with me has been when we disagreed.So your mission on SDN is to attack whatever I say, and that is why you never say anything against the right? I have to give you credit; you come up with justifications that I never see coming.
I have, though it has now been long enough that I occasionally forget the location of certain verses.No, not really. Have you ever made a serious study of the Bible?
I have to say that it's been pretty hard to tell what we were talking about, since most of this misguided argument about peripheral things related to a movie that we haven't seen has intermixed these two things.And that would be therefore the zillionth time I have to remind you that we are talking about what Christain fundementalists believe, not what you believe.
Thus all individuals must provide the same amount of money. Each life being equally valuable also requires a contribution from each individual. I will admit that I'm stretching this a bit, but I am trying to make an argument in the name of someone I don't really agree with.This particular contribution is a flat fee; however, the fact that this has to be spelled out in this case, rather than simply saying "pay a half a shekel," makes it clear that the normal practice would be for the rich to pay more and the poor to pay less. The fee is the same for both implictly as an exception.
Why make an exception in this case? Read on:
30:16
When you receive this forfeit money from the Israelites, you shall donate it to the service of the meeting tent, that there it may be the Israelites' reminder before the LORD, of the forfeit paid for their lives.
This offering is the same for everyone because it represents the price of their lives. It must be the same for everyone, because everyone's life is equally valuable.
It has to do with the attempts of men to end poverty. If God decides, no war on poverty, universal healthcare, or wealth redistribution should be able to solve it.I can't see how that passage implies that labor ends poverty. It says just the opposite; no human activity, neither labor nor anything else, determines our circumstances, which are determined by God:
Yes, a parable about money.Again, it's not about money. It's a parable.
Some of this is probably true, and I won't argue with it. I just felt compelled to point out that this wasn't some kind of "the right wingers do it so we should do the opposite," kind of thing.Well, not everyone who is inconsistant is a hypocrite. No large group, including the religious right, is without its margins and its outliners. You can find good people and bad people everywhere. But in general, I would say the movement derives much of its energy from those negative human passions I described. Unfortunately, it is always easier to create a mass movement based on those things.
Perhaps we shouldn't take all the blame; after all, it's hard to stay on topic when the topic is a movie that no one has seen.
Why subject myself to information the validity of which I cannot verify?
I also used to hate Mr. Moore vehemently. I did not want to see Sicko because I knew his viewpoint to be totally biased and inflammatory - rather than balanced and impartial. Why subject myself to information the validity of which I cannot verify?
I did, however, see Sicko yesterday. I believe this film is much more objective than other Moore films. It did not drive me away, but presented a picture of the motivation that drives healthcare insurers and pharmacy companies as being contrary to the service they say they provide - namely healthcare. As evidence of this, Mr. Moore offers testimony from three people who worked for large health insurance corporations. They were told that their jobs, as claim analysts, executives, or as M.D.'s, were to find ways to deny converage. The executive's year end bonus was tied to how many dollars in claims she was able to deny. The M.D.'s job was to use medical knowledge to support the companies denied claims. If you want to see a dark side of the healthcare system, this is the movie to see.
As another viewpoint, Mr. Moore shows the English, French and Canadian healthcare systems motivating factor as helping people get better (as opposed to the US systems motivating factor as making money). Generous materinity packages, state sponsored nanny's and daycare, the great ease of obtaining coverage, a complete lack of billing, no denial of coverage no matter what, and small benefits (such as travel reimbursement for those who cannot afford to travel to the health center; or doctors making house calls) all paint a picture of three countie's medical system's that deliver a type of medical care via a national health system that was built on the foundation of delivering medical care to anyone who needs it. Seeing the difference in care was depressing, and motivating.
In the past it has been easy to dismiss Mr. Moore's films as being inflammatory and idiotic. With this new picture, however, a deeper examination of Mr. Moore's message and motives become clearer without the mudslinging dirtying up the relecting pool's waters.
One of the two main topics for this next presidential election, as well as a topic for your medical school interviews, Mr. Moore's Sicko is worth seeing. If for no other reason than to make your argument of why you hate Mr. Moore all the more believable.
At the end of the day, whether you like Mr. Moore or not, the data doesn't lie. 1) 50 million in our country do not have health insurance. 2) HMO's and pharmaceutical companies are making a lot of money. 3) Individuals with legitimate medical problems who have medical insurance are being denied coverage.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/healthcare/
http://www.joinrudy2008.com/index.php?section=2
http://www.mittromney.com/Issue-Watch/index