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it's an issue, but it don't seem like as big of an issue as liberals make it out to be. the median income in the USA is ranked at number six in the world. that's not bad at all. so it's not so much that there's a problem with income inequality as there is there is just a lot of really rich people in the USA. that's not a bad thing. yes, in a country as rich as ours, people should have what they need for the essentials of a safety net. but we already got it... it just needs to be run better. we spend more than we need to on healthcare and food and housing... these programs just need to be run better to help more people. so even the rich v poor disparity isn't as bad as liberals make it out to be.
thoughts?
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
if every other country has unviersal healthcare that costs half as much and is better quality, why can't we? if every other country doesn't spend nearly as much on the military why can't we spend a little less? maybe we could tackle our deficit with all the money we save. this is, and should be considered, the conservative ideal, all this stuff i'm sayin. from the global perspective i'm a conservative, and these are conservative ideas.
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i was right. this is a no brainer. and the only reason it's not clear to everyone, is because everyone ranting against me, has no brains.
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@Greyparrot
that's not the only alternative. traditional conservatives support free trade, traditional liberals support targeted protectionism... only trump supports a full scale trade war. that means we have two general alternatives here. laissez fair trade, or targeted protectionism. this second one sounds much more moderate, reasonable, and such.
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most developed countries spend 35 percent of their GDP on taxes. in the usa, we spend 25 percent. the thing is, half our healthcare is taken care of by the private sector... and we spend 18% of our GDP on healthcare, which means about ten percent is covered by the private sector. what does all this mean? it means we spend about the same as other countries on taxes and healthcare, but we get far fewer results to show for it.
other countries have generous social safety nets, and generous benefits. not so in usa.
so where's all the money going in the usa? mostly healthcare. but also a bloated military. our military is bigger than the next ten militaries combined, in terms of spending. plus every other country spends half as much as we do on healthcare, and covers everyone, with most countries having overall better quality of care, such as wait times.
would it matter if we spent five hundred billion on defense, instead of 800 billion? couldn't we get our healthcare spending closer to other countries?
we could have a better safety net and benefits... or we could have more money to take home, or we could get our deficit under control.
why isn't this a no brainer?
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@Greyparrot
i do support targeted protectionism... which is the liberal goal, remember. but i dont support full scale trade wars. some people say trump is just playing hard ball to get what he wants, but he's even said if china wants to walk away from negotiation, he's cool with an indefinite trade war. that's not cool
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@Greyparrot
the consumer will take the cheapest thing he can buy.... it's the worker you're talkin about. he's pretty pissed to be havin his jobs outsourced.
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God promotes "dashing' infants, not "smashing" them. see, i can play games with bible verses too!
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f'real though, doesn't that argument best explain the extremes that God displays throughout the bible? wrath. vengeance, love, mercy, "jealous God", "wailing and gnashing of teeth", "eternal torment" etc
here is a satire piece on the subject, but it does the best job actually making the argument, that God indeed has bipolar disorder
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@Vader
why is Obama a better president than trump will ever be?
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think of all the benefits we'd get if we switched to clean, renewable energy.....
... but, what all this climate change talk is all a big hoax, and we create a better world for nothing??
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@Mharman
i agree that no one should be bound to a certain culture. but what is accomplished in stating that? you can't deny that black folks are predisposed to the hood culture much more than other races. so, in your attempt to be PC, you are ignoring the heart of a problem for blacks. you can't fix a problem if you are unwilling to name it.
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i grew up a poor white boy... but i was sometimes called a "prep". i dressed nice even with the cheap clothes i could afford, and i didn't act poor. when i was really young, i wouldn't have even known any different that i was poor. and i never played a victim card.
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to the young blacks who act gangsta/ghetto... if you don't want to be treated like a stereotype, then dont act like one.
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@Greyparrot
@Mharman
let's call a spade a spade. there's a culture that mostly blacks participate in. read the article, it's from an honest black person. the gangsta slash ghetto thing. even if not all blacks participate in it, they are still victims of it... it causes them to have less opportunity when businesses don't build in the ghetto, it causes white people to fear blacks more and take it out on the black folk who dont act up. (white people fear black people... more than anything. let's not forget that blacks commit half the murders out there, despite being a fraction of the population. and their high crime rate.) it's not fair to generalize onto specific black people, but it's not like white people are completely irrational in their fear of blacks, or that the loss of opportunity isnt affected by black culture too.
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id say blacks are mostly victims of their own culture. there is indeed some white oppression that is unjust.. but their own culture is the bulk of the problem.
here is an article from a black person criticizing black culture itself...
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@3RU7AL
i can't prove that humans aren't just robots, but just think about it, use common sense. we sure as shit dont look seem like robots. so, maybe we're not? at least if we have any reason to think we might not be, maybe we should entertain the idea that maybe we're not robots. it's ridiculous to even argue the point, that no we're not robots, but atheists have such hardened hearts and minds.
ive posted examples, such as someone's damaged retina suddenly becoming healed. something impossible. never seen that level of miracle happen to atheists.
it's possible people are just hallucinating afterlife stories, but it doesn't look like it. even if they do, it's still a stretch to think people just consistently hallucinate afterlife stories when they die. plus all the evidence that skeptics just ignore that point to them being authentic. from another thread here...
"i encourage folks to read Dr. Long’s book “evidence of the afterlife” to get some concrete science that points to NDEs being more than just hallucinations. for example, when out of body experiences are studied under scientific conditions, the folks who have the experience are almost always accurate in describing events that happened outside their body while they were dead. folks who try to just guess what happened outside their body are almost always way off. the book mentions the work of heart surgeon (skeptic turned believer in the ‘realness’ of NDEs) Dr. Parnia, the AWARE study, where a couple experiences accurately describe events outside the body in a verified and documented situation. another factoid, is that folks meet relatives during the experience and the relatives are almost always dead: if this was just a hallucination, folks would experience living folks and less relatives a lot more often. then there’s how drugs dont replicate the NDE….. drug experiences are almost always random experiences, random imagery in hallucinations, not consistent stories with common themes of the afterlife like NDEs. also, there’s the fact that common themes like tunnels and meeting a being of light are consistent when measured and documented across cultures and with people who have never heard of NDEs, including young kids. finally there’s just a philosophical point…. the idea that people just consistently hallucinate afterlife stories when they die pushes credibility. is there some story embedded in our brain or genes or something? it’s a ridiculous notion.
there’s a load of other scientific factoids in that book. i highly recommend it. clearly there’s something deeper going on with NDEs than just hallucinations."
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yeah, humans are just advanced biological robots, makes perfect sense. even though it looks like something other than the universe caused the universe, we'll just pretend that isn't true, makes perfect sense. even though things that look like miracles dont happen to athesits but happen to theists all the time, we'll just ignore that too, makes perfect sense. even though there's plenty of evidence for out of body experiences and experiencing the afterlife when folks die, we'll ignore all science into that matter, and just pretend people hallucinate elaborate afterlife stories when they die (never just random hallucinations either, always elaborate stories of some kind)... makes perfect sense.
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there are things that look like miracles that happen to christians all the time. from what i can see, it's very hard to find examples of miracles happening to other faiths, and it often involves funny business. and we never see miracles or things that look supernatural happening to atheists... if you can find some examples, let me know, but ive offered that challenge to skeptics many times and they always fall short. jesus said you should at least believe in him for the deeds that he does. plus christian imagery is common in near death experiences... and when it comes to atheists, most are just ignorant or stupid when it comes to understanding that stuff. like atheists think people experience elaborate afterlife stories when they die? atheists think humans are just advanced biological robots? really? there's a lot of stupid stuff that atheists believe, lacking common sense. plus there's a good message at the heart of the gospel... Jesus taught a kingdom of love, and the golden rule which everyone can understand, and there's hope for an afterlife and an answer to the meaning of life too... this is great news.
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@Greyparrot
i'm not promoting a total lockdown. i'm promoting masks and social distancing. and, by definition, herd immunity is like ninety percent of the population gets the disease. the thing is, the death rate for those who get the disease, is like .7%. so do the math with 330 million people in the usa.... millions dead.
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the "we should get herd immunity" argument is stupid. herd immunity is where ninety or so percent of the population gets the disease. which means millions die. if we can avoid that, that's the optimal route. other countries are much lower in their death rate... there's no reason we can't be like them.
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opinion article from cnn on the matter
fact check article that says what's actually possible
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@Tradesecret
you just assert things happen, that are impossible. the only way for the things in the opening post to happen, or to explain it.... is to say there was a miracle, it was all one big miracle. but when miracles happen, there's evidence for it. when someone's retina miraculously heals, there's evidence that the retina was damaged and beyond repair. you seem to think God has to hide evidence, and plants evidence that contradicts what we see. i give God more credit than that. you and i have different presumptions about how miracles work, and how God works. your beliefs are heretical, and sinful.
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@Tradesecret
there are lots of destestable cities nowadays. why shouldn't we nuke em or destroy them the old fashioned way, nowadays? why should the innocent people in those cities die?
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as this is a debate board, i feel obligated to dissent to the opening post
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yeah i'm disappointed in the opening poster. illogical post. for reasons others have pointed out.
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@Tradesecret
i'll answer any questions you want. it seems to me you and ethan just like to play games because a lot of stuff in the bible doesn't make sense but you want to insist it's the word of God.
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@Tradesecret
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@Tradesecret
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@Tradesecret
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when trump wanted to ban travel of virus laden countries, the democrats called trump a racist. then eventually trump's ideas became the global standard. basically, liberals were letting political correctness override people's lives. so yes, being PC can be a major problem.
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there was a poll that said most republicans said it was an acceptable loss. most dems said it's not.
i would say it is an acceptable loss in the bigger picture. but it still didn't need to be that way. if people wore masks and social distanced and such better, we could be like other countries where they didn't have such a high rate of death. one thing i dont know, though, is how their economies look, or how open for business their economies are.
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i think this proposal is a great idea, but the best criticism of it, is that it would majorly and fundamentally shock the economy if we transitioned to it. i dont know how a transition period would work.
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@SirAnonymous
good point slash recap, thanks.
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@seldiora
you seem to have a lot of insight into the debaters for a new account.... have you been around these debate sites for awhile?
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here is my new proposal for universal affordable healthcare in the usa, that i think would be uniquely american as it has a lot of conservative principles in it:
the government gives catastrophic insurance to citizens above the median salary amount. if the median salary is 50k, then the insurance kicks in above 50k. to keep things simple, everyone is liable for up to 50k.
all other health insurance is outlawed and it's a cash economy for healthcare..... this will drive down costs tremendously.
everyone who receives care must pay what they can or pay ten percent of their payr until paid in full, or until they die where his estate pays what it can. all healthcare debt is non-dischargeable in bankruptcy, such as how student loans are non-dischargeable. (there can also be hardship exceptions as there are with student loans) this ensures people pay what they are able, individual responsibility.
non-payment insurance pays all medial bills and takes care of any debt collecting from estates and folks who refuse to work or can't work. this ensures doctors get paid for their service from deadbeats, and puts the onus on the non-payment insurance company to collect.
as with student loans, most people will work to pay healthcare debts, cause they want money from a job. if you choose not to work, you perhaps get away with murder (as with student loans, we can't force people to work), but you get no income and can be sued if you have assets.
i think this covers all bases. what are your criticisms?
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@SirAnonymous
i haven't been following the minutia of your arguments, but it looks like he doesn't accept the authority of the bible as evidence.
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@SirAnonymous
as a source of authority, can you prove the bible is inerrant?
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@seldiora
why do you suck so much?? kidding. why is your score so low?
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is it possible to want what's best for God? id say so. God wants all sinners to come to repentance. so i hope God gets what he wants. but the agape thing was probably more accurate and historic and academic.
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there's also the concept of "agape". "unconditionally self giving and self sacrificial love". i think with this definition, we see that God was self sacrificial, but it wasn't unconditionally so with respect to the damned.
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@Tradesecret
you dont need a formal definition to say that you dont love someone who you torture for eternity... everyone has an intuitive sense of what unconditional love is, and that aint it.
but okay. here's a definition. "having affection for someone and wanting what's best for them, no matter what". is this definition adequate for you? again, we can see that torturing someone for eternity isn't unconditional love.... at best the person being tortured was loved at one point, but no more... conditional love.
i would say some parents are capable of unconditional love as i defined it.... why isn't God? or, is it just your perception of God that is flawed?
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@Tradesecret
and to be clear, according to your idea of unconditional love, you think that God does unconditionally love the people he sends to hell?
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@Tradesecret
do you believe in eternal hell flame? i might be able to understand 'putting sinner's out of their misery' but still loving them or something like that, but is it possible to torture people for eternity while still loving them? does God unconditionally love the people that he's physically torturing for eternity?
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@Tradesecret
loving without conditions. did God love the world when he killed everyone but noah and his family? did he love them but deem it proper for them to all perish? what do you think unconditional love is, and does God do that in the old testament?
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i would say no as clearly God had conditions on earning his favor
discuss, debate
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a lot of verbiage in this thread, but i dont think i once saw a gun nut explain the opening post. plus, i really laid it down in this thread, if i do say so myself
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