SOMEONE'S gonna need health care

[Arkaron]

All the money in the world wouldn't fix the shit that happens in some homes. I can't support a financial bar for having children.

[Eidolon Faer]

It's not simply "American Exceptionalism" -- which is another way of saying "contrarian".

It's that this country was founded on the ideal of people being able to do whatever they want, whenever they want, to the largest extent consistent with having something you can call a civilization.

Other nations, not so much. Cuba, for example, has a wonderfully humane and cost-effective approach to the AIDS problem. Rigidly-enforced quarantine. Basically, if you test positive for AIDS, you quit your job and move to a pleasant community where *everyone* else has AIDS too. You can do whatever you like there. You can be a productive member of society. You can have sex with whoever will have you (odds are that most of the folks there put out.) They give you the usual meds and take pretty good care of you.

You just cannot leave. If you NEED to interact with the non-infected, they put a low-jack on your ankle and they have someone escort you to make damned sure you don't swap body fluids with anyone while you're on your day-trip.

Would that fly here? No fucking way.

The solutions we have to use are harder, because we cannot just force our irresponsible jackasses to do what they ought to be doing.

[Ddrak]

On the crack-baby thing, isn't smoking crack still illegal? Why not just toss the women into a low security prison that happens to look a lot like a rehab center for a while?

Now, if smoking crack became legal then it puts the whole thing into the same realm as drinking or smoking tobacco when preggers. You can't stop the woman doing it because it is, after all, her body and by the same rationale that tells me a woman can have an abortion if she wants to, you can't stop her damaging the baby as sick as it makes me that someone can be so inhuman. I think there should be provision for people who want to check themselves into a facility that doesn't allow them out until the baby is born, but that's about the limit.

Dd

[Lurker]

why is it so difficult for us to go about solving the healthcare problem

We also have entrenched for profit industries that are more concerned with making money than providing health care, and they are experts at using disinformation campaigns to dupe the public and lobbying to influence lawmakers in order to protect their interests.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Pretty much any drug you think is illegal still is, with the exception of Marijuana's legality being up to individual states now.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

We also have entrenched for profit industries that are more concerned with making money than providing health care, and they are experts at using disinformation campaigns to dupe the public and lobbying to influence lawmakers in order to protect their interests.

Because in Lurker's world no one can go to a town hall and have a legitimate question that sounds like something someone else is saying is "misinformation".

[Harlowe]

Some people use their right to "Free Speech" to lie and fear-monger and has nothing to do with actual discourse or debate.

[Lurker]

I totally support people who want to go to town halls to ask questions and then listen to the answer. I don't even care if their questions are grounded in disinformation (like asking if a member of Congress will sign up for the public option, when the reality is that nobody will be forced to sign up), as long as they shut their pie hole and listen to the response.

Like Harlowe said, this hostile crowd tactic is all about shutting down honest debate. Based on the shouted questions and chants, the screamers are deeply misiniformed and they won't shut up long enough to realize that.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Some people use their right to "Free Speech" to lie and fear-monger and has nothing to do with actual discourse or debate.

Which is a constituional right. Free speech doesn't have to be civil or even true for it to be protected.

[Lurker]

They aren't protected against removal from a public event if they are disrupting it.

[Harlowe]

Some people use their right to "Free Speech" to lie and fear-monger and has nothing to do with actual discourse or debate.

Which is a constituional right. Free speech doesn't have to be civil or even true for it to be protected.

We're not talking about just the words, but the disruption and violence. Not everything in every venue has to be allowed. You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, no matter how much you want to be an idiot.

Also that's not true (with regard to lying is a form of "Free Speech" that is your constitutional right) there are legal avenues for dealing with some of that, when the intent is malicious - it's not protected (slander, libel, false advertising etc).

They aren't protected against removal from a public event if they are disrupting it.

QFE

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Some people use their right to "Free Speech" to lie and fear-monger and has nothing to do with actual discourse or debate.

Which is a constituional right. Free speech doesn't have to be civil or even true for it to be protected.

We're not talking about just the words, but the disruption and violence.

The Violence isn't coming from any of these "misinformed" people. If you'd actually paid attention the violence is coming from the likes of SEIU and other left organizations, thus far.

Disruption can be pinned on these "misinformed" people, but don't lie to yourself and everyone else and say that the violence can be too.

[Harlowe]

Yes it's certainly not the "misinformed" that are making death threats.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

See, I don't count death threats as "violence" per say. The argument can be made that its certainly a threat at violence, but most threats are either empty words or someone who is just batshit crazy. Some of the "misinformed" are a little to the batshit crazy side, but I wouldn't toss the nutjobs that actually make these threats in with the lump of people disrupting town halls and generally being "misinformed" anyway.

[Harlowe]

The "Misinformed" is a nice way to label the crazies when people are talking about them, they aren't just talking about misinformed people asking questions.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Well when I'm talking about "misinformed" I'm talking about misinformed people who are asking questions and either not getting straight answers or answers that they know in their gut are bold faced lies. Those are the same people being "disruptive" at these townhall meetings.

When I'm talking about nutjobs or batshit crazy people, I call them nutjobs or batshit crazy people.

[Lurker]

Is having a screaming mob follow people to their car violence? How about banging on the windows and doors of a building because it filled up and you were stuck outside? Storming doors and trying to push your way past the police?

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Angry people who aren't being allowed to voice their fears/concerns are doing those things. They are not being violent, they just want to be heard.

[Lurker]

They are not being violent, they just want to be heard.

Ditto the SEIU. See how that works. We can excuse actions (violence) by shifting it to what they want (to be heard).

Sorry, but the Teabaggers and 9/12 nutballs are committing violence. Just like the union workers who step out of line are. I could point out that the subsequent acts wouldn't have happened without the initial violence, but I don't want to excuse wrongdoing.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

I don't think you can lay claim that the SEIU is not being violent.

I mean, they physically injured a guy in St. Louis.

They arrested 6 SEIU members.

You know, or another SEIU member at that event that actually hit a woman with a camera.

Now as far as I know, there has been no physical violence from the "misinformed" people you seem to be saying are also violent. Are they loud? Yes. Are they angry? Yes. Are they pounding on doors? Yes. Are they physically fighting back when they're attacked by these thugs? No.