RichardGibbons

Interesting results. Thanks cigar.

Interesting perspective. I think I'm one of the more left-wing people on this board, and I'd actually support a nominal $25 usage fee (or something like a $50 initial consultation fee to avoid screwing over the people with persistent issues treated over multiple sessions), particularly if it replaced insurance premiums (my family of four is $1800). There are several reasons why healthcare is challenging, and one of those reasons is that you can't get accurate price signaling. So, a nominal cost for service isn't that bad, I think. It would be interesting to look at the statistics when they added the ambulance usage fees. Did that result in deaths, and did it lower usage and costs? That said, you could be totally right that in Canada, no-fee medical service is a sacred cow, and there's certainly a concern about it being a slippery slope. But it is a shame that we're too scared to try stuff and look at the outcomes.

Hey, wow, funny! What are the odds you'd figure it out only a week after I say it? Some brilliant investigative reporting, west!

Hmm? You mean I shouldn't have said that cardboard adds value? I actually gave an example of where I thought cardboard was correct. (And, if you view this discussion as a "team sport"--which I assume you do since you think I'm declaring myself a victor--I essentially shot the ball into my own net, betraying my teammates, simply because I view intellectual honesty as both important and the thing that is completely lacking in American political discourse.) I actually didn't mean to say that that the right wing can't field an argument in general--there are some people on the right who can make solid, convincing arguments. Sorry that I phrased that poorly. I meant to say that the right isn't very good at fielding arguments here. That's just like, my opinion, man. The reason I'm saying the arguments on here from the right aren't very good here is because they have largely not provided evidence, and, when questioned on it, told their opponents that they needed to find it themselves. And, to argue against the people they disagree with, they have essentially said "Obama did it first" as if it would be OK to ignore the sixth amendment simply because Obama ignored it first. Of course, if you view those kinds of arguments as convincing, that's fine. The right must have a very high opinion of Obama if they think Obama doing it first implies it was a good idea. Thanks for pointing out that my behavior seems self-righteous to you. Cardboard has called me a leftist demagogue, a devout Marxist, a deranged individual, and [mentally] sick, so I'm trying to figure out the sensible, fair way to respond to him. Thus, getting your feedback about my tone in my responses to him is helpful to me.

I think Cardboard contributes--he talks about stocks frequently, certainly far more often than me. And he is useful in espousing his ideology here in the absence of a right-winger who can actually make coherent arguments. (As I might have said before, one of the most annoying things about Fox News is that they have convinced the right that the soundness of their argument is irrelevant. That's a big loss, because the right wing has some good things to say.) That said, Cardboard does get it right sometimes--so far most of these immigration examples are anecdotes, not data, and in Trump's America, people are far more likely to blame Trump for their border misfortunes than random bad luck. (Not to say that it is just bad luck--I'd bet that things have changed--but this thread doesn't provide evidence.) The question I'm still struggling with is evaluating Cardboard's non-political posts. Like, are these logical fallacies and false equivalencies confined to political discussions where his ideology trumps reason? Or should we assume that his reasoning is poor all the time, and weigh his ideas accordingly?

Demagogue? You view me as a political leader now? Interesting. I think you're vastly overestimating my influence. Instead of highlighting me, I'd suggest that you use Dick Cheney and Mussolini as examples of leftist demagogues. They're to the left of you and at least they are politicians. FWIW, I actually don't view the incidents discussed on this thread as anything more than anecdotes for now. That said, it has been widely reported that when Trump signed his presidential order banning people with Visas coming from the six undesirable countries, lots of people with Visas were held up at the border. I don't have the stats for Visa holders being denied entry in Q1 versus every other Q1 on record, but I think it's pretty strange pretending something widely reported didn't happen simply because some random Canadian on a message board cannot provide you with confidential US Immigration Service statistics.

You're kind of missing the point. There are four main reasons to talk about this: 1. It's amusing--bitching about politics is fun. Pointing out Rat's doublethink is also fun. I actually sincerely think it's cool seeing such a direct example of doublethink. 2. I believe it is possible to change people's minds, just not the people talking. When you point out the gaping holes in Rat and Cardboard's arguments, they look foolish. That won't persuade Rat and Cardboard since their arguments are based on ideology rather than reasoning. But it has the potential to impact the attitudes of people who are reading the thread, but not posting. They might look at this and say, "The Trump supporters really aren't making much sense, and it takes very little effort to make their arguments look extremely foolish. I probably shouldn't model my beliefs after theirs". 3. I have changed my beliefs based on these discussions. Not radically, but in evolutionary ways, and I think that's good. 4. It's interesting hearing the best arguments of the right, because I was arguing with a literal Communist the other day, and it's useful understanding the good arguments of the right so I can adopt them. This thread hasn't had many of them ("Obama did it so it's OK if Trump does it too" is a terrible argument anywhere outside of a Fox News studio), but some threads do. That said, feel free to be bored with us. I don't think it bothers us if you feel that way, so go ahead.

This is actually a really cool comment in light of the previous four posts showing people with proper papers being inconvenienced by the new procedures. I've actually never seen a real-life example of doublethink. In fact, I assumed that it was a science fiction construct created by Orwell rather than anything with a basis in reality. But I think Rat sincerely saw evidence that contradicted what the state had told him, and he literally forgot it existed, just as doublethink says he should. That's pretty neat.

Exactly. The problem is that the right views every issue through a "right versus left" lens. (e.g. look at this thread--almost every argument is "Fox News tells me Obama is just as bad") Instead of fighting for a free country with the rule of law, the right seems to only be interested in whether their team is winning or not. It seriously doesn't matter whether your team wins if the result is that you end up living in a country where freedom of the press no longer exists, the government can murder its citizens without consequences, and hundreds of thousands die each year as a result of pollution.

His comments about Trump saying "not one word about" medicare, social security, income inequality, corrupt campaign finance, voter suppression, and climate change was largely political rhetoric rather than a serious criticism of Trump's speech. Sanders had no reason to expect Trump to talk about those things--Trump doesn't feel those things are a problem, so why would he mention them? Thus, to me, the first third of the Sanders video seemed like pointless campaigning. The comment on clean air/clean water pointing out Trump's hypocrisy was fair. The argument linking spending on defence to cutting benefits for the poor seemed a cheap rhetorical trick. If Trump thinks defence is lacking, he should spend more on defence. If he thinks cutting benefits for the poor is the right thing to do, he should do that. For Bernie to imply that defence spending going up is somehow directly linked to spending on the poor declining is unfair. The tax breaks for the rich comment, and the comment about Trump creating his own swamp were both fair. The corporate tax cut and tax avoidance comments are again conflagrating two distinct issues. If you think the tax cut is the right thing to do, you should do that. And if you think using tax shelters is a problem, you should put rules in place to reduce tax shelters. To say, "We shouldn't cut corporate taxes because companies are using tax shelters" doesn't make sense. So, again, I think this is cheap rhetoric. The ACA/healthcare comments make sense, as does his comment on single payer being the most sensible healthcare solution, but again, that feels like less of a comment on Trump's speech and more of a campaign slogan for Bernie. The stuff about Republicans being worried feels like he's trying to invigorate his base. So, pure politics with no substance. Thus, this was more of a campaign speech than an attempt to refute or criticize what Trump said. While I prefer Sanders' approach to Trump's (and Clinton's to Sanders'), if this video was seriously attempting to be a reply to Trump's speech, it fell woefully short. (And if he really wanted to do a campaign speech, he shouldn't have bothered linking it to Trump at all, because doing so makes him seem disingenuous.)

Because rent for a 2 bedroom in Vancouver is less than $2,500, and because the cost of that condo isn't just the interest on the mortgage, but rather includes things like depreciation, insurance, and taxes. What's more, that $2,500 mortgage cost isn't fixed, but rather can increase dramatically with interest rates at the same time as the value of the assets decline. Plus, big, costly things can go wrong. The risk of owning is far higher than renting, and ignoring those costs is a mistake. So, if you actually care about the math, the math on renting in Vancouver is far superior to buying right now--I'm grateful that my landlord subsidizes my living expenses by hundreds of dollars a month (my two bedroom is $1,600).

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Can you explain what you'd like CNN to do? Thanks.

I'm actually pretty grateful to the right wingers on this threat. I mean, I look at the most recent things Trump's doing--starting down the path to becoming a theocracy like Iran by removing the separation between church and state, and persecuting the press--and I think, "how could anyone American support these actions?" And then watchword and rat step forward and give me clear indications of why they support the destruction of American ideals. I find it pretty useful to form a mental model of why people allow support the decent from a free democracy to a theocratic dictatorship.

Fair point, Racemize.

Ah, I see. You're not interested in providing insight about Fairfax, but ensuring that everyone understands the semantics of particular words. If that's your priority, then I'll assure you that I agree with you--that is a definition of "required".

Hmm. When my first kid was born, I bought life insurance when my death would put my family in a hard situation financially. I got rid of it a decade later when we had enough money that my death would be no more than an inconvenience. So I guess my life insurance was never required since I chose to remove it later?

Am I missing something? Write puts means go short puts, which increase in value when the stock falls. So, you're saying if management screws up, the share price plummets, and the short puts skyrocket. Wouldn't the loss on the short puts cause severe losses in the plan rather than large profits? Or do you mean write calls?

The left's hysterical overreaction has set the bar so low that all Trump needs to win over another term is not be Hitler. He isn't bothered by the the Hitler/facist comparisons, and probably hopes they continue. #MasterStroke You're starting to understand. Keep going, and you'll soon be miles ahead of the all the "experts" in the media, and DC politicians. LOL, on this thread, onyx1 reminds me of John Scalzi's discussion of Trump today:

Absolutely. Nevertheless, this is big in my mind. Pretty well everyone who has watched the guy campaign should expect extreme, thoughtless actions and gross incompetence out of Trump. However, incompetence combined with an unwillingness to correct obvious mistakes is far worse than mere incompetence. And, before this, it seemed much more likely that we'd be in the former scenario than the latter. Now, I have some hope that it might be the latter. So, I wouldn't dispute that anyone qualified to be President would've gotten this basic thing right in the first place. Nevertheless, I think it's admirable to correct this obvious mistake rather than obstinately refusing to correct it out of pride.

I respect Trump for this change today. He's not a thoughtful guy, so everyone should expect many mistakes from him in one of the most complicated jobs in the world. But in this case, he could have remained rigid and let the courts fight about it for months. Instead, he recognized the mistake and wasn't to proud to correct it. That's much more than I expected from him. Well done, Trump.

It sounds like a cultural problem with Detroit police (or simply a perception you have of the world). I obviously don't know much about the situation, so it's pretty hard to diagnose it. But if people aren't doing their jobs, typically you'd fire them, be they police officers, judges, or politicians. And really, if you think your solution is the only real solution, you should attempt to get rid of the police force and justice system entirely, and just go with vigilante justice. Why waste money on a system that isn't working?

This sounds like it makes sense, but it really doesn't. I repeat--Vancouver, where guns are illegal, hasn't had a single cop shooting for 30 years. This area includes the east side, called by the BBC the "Drug Central" of North America. It might surprise you, but there aren't actually manned border stations on the edges of cities where they take away all the dangerous fruits, vegetables, and guns. If a kid pees in the shallow edge of the pool, you're going to be swimming in piss, even if you're halfway across the pool using the diving board. I guess it's a bit different in this case in that you actually have millions of kids all over the country peeing in the pool. DTEJD1997, in places where law enforcement is incapable of protecting its citizen, I'd suggest making guns illegal throughout the country to make the job far easier for law enforcement, increasing taxes and throwing the money toward cop and judges, and federally prosecuting corrupt cops and judges.

This is interesting to me--does anyone actually have evidence of this? Education Systems: Canada has more private education? Or less public funding per capita? Immigration Laws: USA has more per capital immigration and less stringent requirements? I can believe that, but I'm curious if there is actual evidence for that. Regulatory Burdens: This surprises me if it's true. That said, Canada is far less litigation-prone, which might result in less need for stupid regulations. The Rule of law: Does this mean USA's laws are more liberal? Punishments less harsh? This is interesting to me, considering that, as far as I know, Canada doesn't have the death penalty, nor the skewed incarceration rate by ethnicity, nor the lack of gun controls, nor widespread civil forfeiture. Or maybe he's just weighting contract law and property rights greatly? Corruption: This one confuses me, because I've always thought of corruption as orthogonal to degree of conservatism. Canada is less corrupt, but why does that mean it's more conservative? So yeah, it would be interesting understanding the reasoning these conclusions.

Okay, I suppose that you can argue that statistics about homicides by guns are completely irrelevant to a discussion about homicides by guns. It's not the way I would approach the discussion if I wanted to prove my point, but you and I think differently. Since you prefer the murder rate, USA has about 5 murders for every 2 that Canada has. Therefore, I'll assume that you'll concede the point that gun-control makes sense if you actually care about keeping people alive. (Some fun trivia: on February 2nd, we'll hit the 30th anniversary of the last time a cop was killed by a gun in Vancouver. Also--since we care about all cop murders, not just gun ones--the last time a cop was killed in Vancouver.) I see. As long as you exclude every place that you don't like, and restrict the area of comparison to a tiny geographical area comprised of less than 0.5% of the country's population, then gun ownership doesn't matter at all. Are you listening to yourself? Next time you analyse a business, I suggest you exclude all the money the company spends on salaries--it'll make it look really profitable! So what you're saying is that the US is inherently more violent, and so therefore it's great to ensure all these inherently violent people have guns? Hmm. It kind of amuses me that Trump's been implying that the immigrants are the criminals, but from what you say, it would probably be better diluting the inherent American aggressiveness by increasing the number of peaceful immigrants. :) With respect to the UK, let's look at the situation. (I know you tend to throw out statements out without bothering with facts or evidence, but it's helpful to me when the conversation is actually grounded in reality.) http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-2313942-1974D490000005DC-694_634x522.jpg So, this chart isn't adjusted by population size. Thus, all else being equal, you'd expect every line in this chart to trend up as the population increases. Yet what do we see since the 1997 gun ban? Homicides down. Violent crimes went way up, and then down. Net of everything, violent crimes are up about 10-15% despite the population growth since 1997. So this doesn't support your argument either. At best, we have lower homicides and roughly equivalent violent crimes. That said, I'm starting to understand why you throw out these statements without any supporting evidence. You know, I understand that with you, when there's a conflict between your ideology and facts, ideology always wins. But you'd save everyone some time and be more persuasive if next time, you'd just say, "I think freedom to bear arms is more important than reducing the number of men, woman, and children who die from guns." (Seriously. I can respect that position over these half-hearted attempts to pretend that gun control wouldn't work. I think, for instance, that privacy should trump spying on Americans in an attempt to root out terrorists, even if allowing Americans privacy would result in more Americans being killed by terrorists. That's basically a completely parallel argument to the one you should be making on gun control.) That's a valid point. It certainly wouldn't be easy getting to reasonable gun control, and may not be worth the effort.

Yeah, why would anyone think that banning guns would have any effect on gun deaths? If Emperor Trump has taught us anything, it's that people should make all decisions based on blind ideology and not even bother looking at the data such as the firearm-related homicide rate for countries with and without guns. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2014001/article/11925/c-g/c-g04-eng.gif