A religious person (MAGA fanatic) will do what he is told…no matter what is righ

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."

Thomas Sowell

Define Socialism for these purposes.

I've asked Puddy this question before and he won't answer. It seems like to Puddy, socialism is you criticize dear leader. But let's see if he can articulate in this context what he means.

No you haven't asked that, so no idea why you're trying to claim a victory lap. Sowell is an illustrious economist, you're a butthurt liberal.

Socialism is often defined as government ownership of the means of production, often involving redistribution of wealth.

CJ is an academic who lives off of family money, so of course he doesn't have a clue about how the real world works.

Show me on the doll where the Orange Man touched you!

rofl @ "show me on the doll"

I value "progressive" government policies and call myself "progressive" economically but this board doesn't use the word the way I mean it, so I guess I shouldn't call myself that. I don't value government ownership of the means of production or planned economies (this idiotic theory simply doesn't ever work, in the real world) but I do value taxation for the purposes of social-service programs, including (but not limited to) minimum standards of education, health care, housing, food; taxation also for infrastructure (esp. means of distribution, roads bridges rail air centers etc.). All developed nations do this, the only question is how much, or to what degree.

MaGa Is a CuLt!!!

Also the left. LITERALLY CALLING OBAMA SOME SUPER-BEING!!!

"Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment."
https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/mor…

"We stand for something – I mean in a way Obama's standing above the country, above – above the world, he's sort of God. He's going to bring all different sides together."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-seeks…

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2…

https://www.vogue.com/article/the-refres…

Who's sucking their candidate's anus again?

I don't believe any of that shit about Obama. He was an average middle class kid with a great deal of charm which he worked in Law School to get insider status. I am not sure if he is actually African American or not, he's so mainstream. Railing against the idiots on one side doesn't make the other side less full of idiots. At least the morons who think Obama is a Light Saber are just wanking it at the movies instead of shooting strangers.

"I don't value government ownership of the means of production or planned economies (this idiotic theory simply doesn't ever work, in the real world)"

Also advocating for universal health care. Harris is on record wanting to make private insurance illegal. We need to make her account for this and her other far-left positions.

Single payer works in almost every developed nation in the world. Healthcare costs in USA are quadruple what they need to be. I don't know if privatization or total socialization will work to solve the problem, but right now our healthcare payment system and costs are the laughing stock of Europe and most of developed Asia.

"Railing against the idiots on one side doesn't make the other side less full of idiots."

OP literally said his side are the moral ones.

Obama didn't have the black American experience. But he turned on off AAVE depending on who he was talking to.

Oh I almost forgot about Chris Matthews and the thrill up his leg. Lots of people said they felt so inspired and energetic watching Obama speak, I thought he was a used car salesman, spouting off a bunch of pretty words that meant nothing. Never underestimate the left's ability to pat itself on the back as "moral" without any sacrifice or giving whatsoever.

"Single payer works in almost every developed nation in the world. Healthcare costs in USA are quadruple what they need to be."

No. That's an uninformed applause line. The "universal" systems are extremely different from one another and all have a private component, which puts them to the right of Harris.

Canadians and Brits, for one, are waiting longer than ever for anything that isn't an emergency, and Canadians are even being encouraged to seek assisted suicide rather than fight difficult conditions.

The Sanders and Warren M4A proposals would cut reimbursements to HCPs that take a loss on every Medicare patient as is, are overworked, and leaving the industry at an alarming rate. We implement that, get ready for waiting lists that would make Europe's ass clench. But that's what I'd expect from two people (like OP) that haven't created a drop of private sector wealth in their lives.

> The "universal" systems are extremely different from one another and all have a private component, which puts them to the right of Harris.

If Harris runs on universal health care, I will buy you a VIP session at a club of your choice Puddy. That issue, in America, died with Bernie Sanders' campaign.

She's going to run on improving healthcare the margins. Leveraging medicare to get lower prescription prices for seniors, as Biden has done. Getting rid of pre-condition eligibility. Filing in the small gaps of people who are uninsured. Ensuring the marketplace remains competitive.

Back to OP’s point.

Where’s the connection between MAGA and religion?

Trump certainly doesn’t seem like a religious person

@motorhead

> Where’s the connection between MAGA and religion?

White evangelicals are the biggest core of Trump's base. In 2020 evangelicals prefer Trump 8 to 10 over Biden. https://apnews.com/article/trump-christi…

> Trump certainly doesn’t seem like a religious person

I agree, and it doesn't make sense to me either, that a thrice-married philanderer and sex offender with ties to Epstein would be the preference of religious voters. And yet, that's the case. Here's a quote from the AP article I linked from an evangelical pastor:

> “We’ve all come from sinning. Jesus sat with sinners, so he’s going to sit with Trump,” Vaughn said. “It’s not about where Trump came from, it’s about where he’s going and where he’s trying to take us.”

No doubt where Trump will take is further erosion of abortion rights and other individual liberties that religious conservatives oppose. And of course your favorite Latina stripper being deported.

"If Harris runs on universal health care, I will buy you a VIP session at a club of your choice Puddy. That issue, in America, died with Bernie Sanders' campaign."

And we're going to make sure she explicitly disavows the abolition of private insurance. Which will piss off the left.

This is my day job. Neither party has a clue (especially not Trump). Only way this gets solved is for every party to come to the table at once and everyone sacrifices something. Every dollar of "waste" in the system is somebody's salary and they probably have veto power.

I would support that sort of action on the margins but it would not be transformative. Obama wanted to be transformative but always had undue faith in his own negotiating powers and Republicans ripped the guts out of his program.

One thing that's bipartisan that I like is the impending crackdown on pharmacy benefit managers aka PBMs who add nothing to the system but extract money from patients, pharma companies, and independent pharmacies. I think Ron Wyden, who is a liberal Democrat but a Senator I've always admired, is heading that.

@puddy it's weird to me that when you articulate your own personal positions, they seem to be in line with a typical center left democrat office holder. Like your personal opinions on health care and immigration are pretty lockstep with any member of the Blue Dogs in Congress.

The GOP does not want to work at the margins, they want to eliminate Obamacare entirely (which would leave millions without insurance.)

^ I was dead against ACA at the time but I would not favor its repeal now. Generally I'm an incrementalist, same reason I'm a conservative, I'm against sweeping change not made with all the consequences in consideration. Nothing more than healthcare. Big ideological changes, left or right, generally go bad.

Aside from what we would prefer, in an ideal world, I have a question about SCotUS's handling of the Affordable Care Act and more recent changes. When the ACA decision came down, I read the whole thing, and in it I discerned a TONE, a STYLE of language. Roberts (Chief Justice, who was writing the decision) really sounded like what he was doing, was re-claiming the Court as "his own." He was basically saying, with a lot of the structural choices, "you will not push me around" to Alito and Scalia. He prefaced some things, which were not legally necessary; he told a few early anecdotes, which could have been chosen quite differently. The whole thing sounded like he was casting himself as Steward of the Court for future generations. The decision upholds, by finding slim pretext to uphold.

(I frankly think it's a very unconvincing decision. According to it, the ACA is actually a "tax" ... riiiiight ... and therefore within Congress's Constitutional mandates. Taxing Power clause. I like the ACA very much, it saves me about $10,000 a year and puts healthcare onto the front burner for about 40% of Americans who would be more negligent about it, I think. But I find the decision to uphold it rather ... umm ... suspect, anyway.)

So, the ACA decision sounded to me like, "Hey, I'm your Chief and we're going to be balanced and decent here. We're going to let Congress be Congress and we're not going to be activist." You have to admit, Roberts (a staunchly conservative "Old Republican" of the Goldwater variety) upholding Obama-Care is pretty much the definition of cross-aisle and cooperative. Anyway. So, that was the TONE of the Obamacare decision.

Fast forward to Dobbs. The SOUND of the thing is cantankerous, aggressive. It's like, Roberts (who didn't write Dobbs, BTW) has just given up on handling this thing. He's getting his conservative decisions, he's probably not unhappy with the votes and the balance. But he's not getting the RESPECT he used to have. The WHOLE country, Right and Left, thinks of the Court as too political. That's funny to me. In fact, it was probably MORE "political" in the sense of, it was more willing to broker deals rather than stand on principles, back when it decided Obamacare than when it decided Dobbs. Dobbs is a loud-mouthed, arrogant, but highly principled and legally conservative decision. So by the time the general public has begun to think of the Supreme Court as "too political" it has done the opposite, ironically, and has started to become less political and simply much more principled in conservatism.

(Oh and I'm not defending Dobbs because I like it. I hate it, for its ultimate outcome, I'm very much pro-choice on the abortion question. But I can read legalese and understand the premises and therefore I respect how Dobbs was reasoned. The privacy right is, in fact, nowhere in the Constitution's grants to Federal Congress. It's a State's right, I can see that clear as day. Too bad for me, but fact.)

Just observations about the flavor of things.

Note that Harris, and her ilk, talk about "Hope" and "Change" (Obamaese, I know). She said we need to look to the future and not to the past. She never defines what that "future" will looks like, an no one asks. As Margret Thatcher said, "Socialism works while you have other peoples' money to spend." Even Bono (of U2 - a BIG leftist) admitted that Capitalism is the only solution for 3rd World Countries - throwing money at them is just pissing up a rope, and the "leaders' of those shithole countries get rich.

Trump, on the other hand, spells out what he will do, assuming Congress backs him - and don't say "Project 2025" as he has never signed up for it. He has said the same for 40 years - go list to his 1986 interview w/Oprah on YouTube, and is consistent. I know, I know the progressives her will get their knickers in a twist over this. We did better for 3 years (toss 2020 as Trump didn't create it) compared to the past 4 years. Also, Trump was never convicted of rape, it was slander/libel going after that bitch - really, in a dressing room, 30 years ago???

"The WHOLE country, Right and Left, thinks of the Court as too political."

No, the left has a weed up its ass about it now that decisions aren't going its way. They've set up a smear campaign, asked conservative and only conservative justices to recuse themselves, and are outright threatening to pack the court (whatever euphemism they might use, that's what it is).

The left was awfully quiet about "court reform" during more liberal courts. They truly have no compunction about changing rules to get what they want.

Yes, the debate on both sides has gone tits up. This goes back to the end of the Cold War when we were united against a common enemy. The nature of modern media has fanned the flames. I'm not convinced that anything short of a major, unifying national crisis would bring us back together.

Missed my point to quibble with non-germane generalizations. In the psych literature that's call "deflecting."

I support court-packing. We should have about 23 justices. For the outset I'd also be happy with each major party picking their bunch such that the existing ideological balance isn't changed by the addition of new justices. There's nothing requiring exactly 9. I'd really really REALLY support term limits, on all of 'em, the SC Justices, Senators, and Members of the House, Cabinet members and major Secretaries, etc. etc.. Twelve years max.

^ No one is "deflecting" anything. I addressed your point on "tone."

Again, you don't get to pack the court because you don't like the current balance. If the left appoints 4 more to "restore ideological balance" (you want to talk about something that is nowhere in any kind of law or precedent?) And the GOP is going to appoint 8 to restore the old ratio. Is this the route we really want to go down?

Term limits would be great, good luck passing them on anyone.

@All of you

Elect me as your President.

1. Universal clubbing for all citizens. All adult MALES will get a $1000 club stipend to be used within their home state. All adult FEMALES will need to register with their state club association to be placed in an age appropriate club.

2. All clubs will serve 4 star level food (not 5), and be capped at $20 floor/$40 VIP/$100 all inclusive FF (food and fucking).

Oh wait. That's some commie shit isn't it?

^^^^^I forgot.

3. Male evangelicals may apply for a religious exemption for themselves, but not for their wives and daughters.

@Puddy Also ignored / missed where I stated clearly that my fantasy would allow ideological balance to be maintained. Never mind. If you're going to go off on tangents without reading the things you're responding to, it's not really possible to discuss. Silly me, here I am trying to throw in laurel-leafs, giving the other side its fair due, consistently getting slammed back in my face.

^ That's even dumber. Ideological balance? According to who? The establishment? Congress? Thankfully it's "fantasy" rather than the left trying to rig the rules in its favor again.

The left suddenly finds foul with SCOTUS because it isn't legislating from the left anymore. Their double standards for Thomas and Alito vs Sotomayor on conflicts of interest is gobsmacking.