Obama Healthcare

[Clint]

They get more money back because they pay much more money. Proportionally, they don't get nearly as much back.

Their tax cuts are still larger. I don't care if it's proportionate or not, them getting larger tax cuts is making them richer, and us getting proportionately less tax cuts is making us poorer. Hence widening the gap, as I've been saying. You apparently just don't get it, though.

That's not taxation, that's income redistribution. America is not a socialist state. We don't take from those who achieve and hand it out to those who don't.

You mean achieving more financially, I'm assuming. Otherwise you kind of sound like a jackass. America may not be a socialist state, but it sure as hell does have some pretty damn socialist qualities. I don't see how a few more would hurt.

You're advocating that they be forced to give up their own money and have it given to the poor as a hand-out.

No, I'm really not. What I've been saying has nothing to do with a hand-out to the poor. It has to do with the amount of taxes that the rich and the poor both have to pay. The rich should get increases on taxes merely for the simple fact that they can afford to pay those increases, but I never suggested that they be taxed until they're broke, and I never suggested that their money be distributed to the poor. I merely suggested larger tax breaks for families that can't afford to pay the middle to lower class taxes.

Not once did I say that. Everybody earns their money, whether they're rich or poor. I'm just saying don't bitch about the rich having the money that they earned. If and when you ever earn a decent amount of money, I'm sure you'll want to keep it, too. That doesn't mean that you'd want to keep somebody else's money, just your own, the money you earned.

Yeah, you kind of did say that. And just for the record, I'm not greedy. If I somehow made over a million dollars, I would only keep about twenty five percent. I wouldn't want to become like those money-hungry bloodsucking bastards on Wall Street.

Please explain your definition of "a lot". I'd love to see you argue the bullshit lie that the majority of people with a good amount of money received it in inheritance.

I said a lot, not majority. A lot could be a hundred. A lot could be a thousand, or ten thousand, or a million, or two million, or so on. You can't deny that there's a good number of rich folk who have money simply through inheritance. Like most of my Sicilian family in California. Many of them alive today are simply rich because their grandfathers were leaders of a branch of the Mafia in the 1950s. A lot of them are probably still in the Mafia, though. Doesn't change the fact that they inherited their money.

They provide a service for a fee. People have a choice to pay that fee or to go somewhere else. What about car insurance companies? Life insurance?

What about all the stuff that they charge extra for, or don't cover at all due to some bullshit loophole in the contract? Like life insurance, for instance. If it's a suicide, most companies won't cover it. It's a loophole.

Yes, you've applied to more than three hundred jobs, sure.

Yes, three hundred applications. I live in a decently large city. There's well over three hundred places that are looking to hire... All of them are just not looking to hire me, unfortunately.

even though they earn it, by doing things like, well, WORKING

I don't know how to tell you this, Sassy, but working doesn't always work.

No, I just like the idea of pulling my own weight and not relying on somebody who has achieved more in their life than I have to carry me.

I never said anything about relying on the wealth of another. Once again, you fail to understand my point. My point is taxes. That has been my point this entire argument. It's not about the poor getting the tax money of the wealthy, having it redistributed, it's about what's fair. It's about these multi-billionaires, who pay very, very little taxes in proportion with their own income, due to the fact that the wealthy get significant tax breaks from the federal and state governments, whereas, the middle class always seems to be getting tax increases. That doesn't sound fair to me.

What were you saying about having a poor argument because you resort to insults?

That wasn't an insult. You are completely full of shit.

First, you have no credible evidence to suggest that most people with a lot of money got it from their parents.

Considering how many people are wealthy, and how many of those wealthy have children, and how many of those children have wealthy parents, I just figured it was safe to assume.

the poor do not get proportionally smaller tax cuts than the rich. They pay much less than the rich do -- not just in quantity, but in percentage.

And yet many still can't afford to pay taxes. Weird, huh?

Did you get that? You make $20,000/yr, and you'll get another $3600. You make $75,000/yr, and you will pay more than $17,000.

I wasn't talking about lower-upper-class being taxed higher amounts. I was talking more along the lines of people who make around $50,000,000 a year. I'm pretty sure if you make that much, increased taxes isn't really going to effect you much.

If they worked smart and hard, they would have made more money. It's a pretty simple concept.

Uh, no. Neither money nor labor works like that. Sure, working hard and smart can get you rich, but it doesn't always.

But who's responsible for your finances? I'll give you a hint: IT'S YOU.

Oh no I'm not. I didn't throw the country into recession, causing the business I worked at to lose money, therefore them not being able to afford to keep me around after I got hurt. I didn't take fifteen percent away from my father's hard-earned pension. And guess what, I didn't raise the unemployment rate. In times of recession, if somebody can't find work, and can't find money, it's not the fault of the individual. Do you see old pictures of the Great Depression, of all the homeless people lining the streets just to get a bole of soup thinking, "Those assholes should have worked harder and smarter. They shouldn't have trusted their money in banks. They wouldn't be homeless losers if they had done that. What a bunch of ****ing idiots." I don't know if you realize this, but something very similar to the Great Depression is occurring literally right now.

No thanks, kid.

That was actually a really good example. You should have read it. You're a ****ing idiot for not reading it, but I kind of already knew that about you.

And I suppose that when somebody in a hospital dies of a disease they've had for years, it's the hospital's fault, right?

No. It's all your fault, of course. Duh.

The government is supposed to protect the citizens. It's not the American government's job to babysit and hold hands of all 300-something-million citizens because some of them are too friggin' incompetent to take care of themselves.

It's kind of hard for people to take care of themselves when they're running low on money. I'm just saying.

And when they actually don't know what the hell they're talking about -- like claiming that the poor pay proportionally more taxes than the rich or get proportionally smaller tax cuts -- is it still an insult? Let's call a spade a spade here, kid.

No, I'd rather call a Spade a David. I never said that the middle-class doesn't get tax cuts. All I said was that the tax cuts given to the rich are much, much too large, and the tax cuts given to the middle-class are much, much too small. The point being, the rich can afford to pay more, whereas, the poor have trouble coming up with the money.

A very intriguing, and very bullshit, idea.

Yes, a very bullshit idea. I concur. I also slept with your wife, but that's a story for another time.

You believe that the government is hiding the cures for AIDS and cancer because they somehow make more money, and you try to call me brainwashed and closed-minded? Wow.

You were in the military, if I remember correctly. What do you think they do to military personnel during training? They break you down and reprogram you with all their government patriotic propaganda. So yes, you are brainwashed. I'm not. I never said that my opinion was fact. I was proposing an idea which I heard from a reliable source. That source being a very reliable reporter for the New York Times, whom I interviewed personally for a report in one of my classes. I'm not saying it's true, but it is an actual idea which is circulating through various other reliable sources, including the scientific and medical communities.

Of course not. You don't have the time to prove your argument. Why would you? You're a busy man, what with living with your parents and not working and all.

I never said I don't have any jobs to do. I just said I was unemployed. I'm actually painting the garage right now. I'm pretty sure that's considered work, considering that my grandfather made his living through painting. That, included with work I have to do for school, included with my routine exercises pretty much fills up a lot of my supposed "free time."

I have. Which is why I know that any insinuation that the government is holding the cures for cancer and AIDS is not only ignorant, it's ridiculously stupid.

You researched it? What did you use, Wikipedia again? Of course it won't be there. And if you try to Google it, conspiracy theory websites will pop up. You'll need a face to face interview with somebody reliable. That's how I got my information. You can't always find everything online or in a library.

You failed to address them because treatments that prolong life would make more money for the government, according to your wacky conspiracy theory, and thus would throw a wrench into your little hamster-wheel belief.

Nope. I didn't mention it because I wasn't talking about it. I am now, but that's only because you, for some strange reason which only Ron Killings, former two time NWA World Heavyweight Champion would be able to understand, brought it up.

They're still prolonging their lives. If they make more money from people dying than they do from them living, this would be counterproductive.

They actually make more money from treatment. Dying just adds to the money made, however, the longer the sick person stays alive, the more money they'll make. They must love Magic Johnson.

I'm not going to go through this childish game with you, kid. Post some credible evidence for your claims -- any of your claims -- or admit your ignorance and crawl away with your tail between your legs.

Oh, are those my only two options? Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not playing the argumentative side of arguing. I much rather prefer the persuasion side of arguing, and therefore, I don't need evidence, which is the exact reason why in all of our arguments, I have never posted evidence. Plus, there's also the simple fact that you're not a strong critical thinker. Even when presented with disproving evidence, you'll ignore it. And you can't be persuaded to think any differently, because you've already made up your mind about the topic at hand. The only way to beat you in an argument is to outlast you. I've done it many times before, and I'll sure as hell do it again with this one.

I don't care if you "felt insulted", that doesn't mean that I actually insulted you.

Actually, that does mean that you did indeed insult me. I don't know what your definition of "insulted" is, but it's not the right definition.

And you insulted your own intelligence -- or lack thereof -- by buying into conspiracy theories and failing to understand simple economics.

How about "no."

But only people with no argument resort to insults, right?

Sometimes, yeah. It's different here. I usually end up insulting you at some point because it's really hard to take you seriously, and therefore, it's pretty hard to take the argument seriously. It's nothing to do with you personally.

Believe it or not, some people are right when they disagree with me. You're just not one of them.

What a coincidence. You're not right when you disagree with me. That doesn't mean the universe is going to collapse in on itself, does it?

There's a difference between being fired and laid off. Damn, kid.

I don't care. If I'm laid off or if I'm fired, it still leads to the same result; unemployment.

According to whose morals?

Just some family morals. The way I was raised. You know, that old chestnut.

Not at all. If it's the best thing for them, then so be it.

In this case, it isn't the best thing for them. They've been living in that house for nearly twenty-five years, and they both still get around pretty good, too, for a 75 year old and an 81 year old. It would be wrong to sell their home.

It he needs help paying for it, it's not his house, it's the bank's. And if he's not a selfish man, maybe he should have passed that value on to his child, who is bitching because other people have more money than he does.

He doesn't need help paying for it. It's his house. And I'm not "bitching" because people have more money than I do. I'm merely arguing a simple debate of economics.

*GASP* OH NO! You might actually have to be uncomfortable! You might have to give up your bedroom at Mommy and Daddy's house and have somewhat cramped living quarters, like hundreds of millions of people before you have gone through! Oh, the humanity!

I'm disappointed in you. The house I live in is two bedroom. My parents have one, and I have the other. My brother took the finished half of the basement. There is no point in living in a cramped uncomfortable house when it would just be easier to wait out the storm. It's not selfishness. It's just the mere fact that living in a cramped house would significantly lower the living conditions of my parents, of my brother, of myself, but most importantly, of my elderly grandparents.

According to the birthday in your profile, you were eleven.

So I was... I guess I said I was twelve because I turned twelve that year. That was a mistake on my part. Thanks for the correction.

Really? Three thousand applications you've turned in?

Really? You actually did the math? Your original estimate of three hundred was way off then.

If we need money, we take what we can get. Most people don't work their dream job. I'm still waiting for a job to open up where I can watch sports, fish, shoot, and receive oral sex all while getting paid, but right now, I have to resort to what I can get paid for.

On my cousin's behalf, he recently got laid off from a career that he was only a year and a half into, which really screwed him, because a year and a half isn't much experience in his field. So he kind of desperately needs to get back into that field.

So you don't meet all qualifications, you don't have an education, you don't have skilled labor training, and you don't know how to do every job. Sounds to me like it is your fault you can't find a job. Although with three thousand applications, I am just shocked that you can't find anything.

I don't meet all the qualifications because it's virtually impossible to meet all the qualifications, I don't have an education because I'm working on getting a degree, I don't have skilled labor training because I have a bad back, and I don't know how to do every job because there are far too many jobs on earth to know how to do literally all of them. It sounds to me like it isn't my fault.

You "can't" because you prioritize your school over your work. That's perfectly fine, except when you bitch and moan about how you don't have money.

The only reason I complaining about not having money is because I pay out of my own pocket for my education. I do believe that that's a noble cause to work towards. Don't you?

And to get online and make long posts on internet message boards, of course.

It doesn't take nearly as long as you think to respond to you.

Many "demanding" jobs don't require lifting that much. Hell, mow lawns on the weekends.

I do mow lawns. I can only do so much though, before I pass out and die of heat exhaustion. And it only pays so much.