I wouldn't consider it treasonous, just curious. So what is the reason? German heritage? Honest question.Quote:
Originally Posted by BDunnell
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I wouldn't consider it treasonous, just curious. So what is the reason? German heritage? Honest question.Quote:
Originally Posted by BDunnell
Fox does nothing but incite fear and vile hatred into the silly souls that believe the crap they spew out through people tv sets.Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
But anthonyvop, im glad that we agree on the same things when it comes to news on the Bleacher Report!! ;)
Do you guys get MSNBC over there? Ever see Keith Oberman, or Rachel Madow, or Chris Mathews? Same thing, just left instead of right.Quote:
Originally Posted by steve_spackman
I don't think either side "lies", they just put their spin on things.
Ive seen em all whenever ive visited the US to see family.....Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck34
I keep away from FOX...As for Keith Oberman, or Rachel Madow, or Chris Mathews..i watch them now and again, but prefer Bill Maher
Bill Maher?!!!!!???? What???? You think he's unbiased???? Come on man, you're smarter than that.Quote:
Originally Posted by steve_spackman
Bill Maher is funny..Oh yes very funnyQuote:
Originally Posted by chuck34
I did enjoy his film Religulous..
Funny? Maybe, but don't take him serious. He's just a funny man.Quote:
Originally Posted by steve_spackman
The answer to this question is contained in none other than your own post:Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck34
The basic profit motive of all businesses is in direct opposition to patient care. There is in essence only two methods of increasing profit - Either increasing end user costs, which you've already got because on a per person basis as a nation you already pay more than any any other country in the world. Or by lowering costs; how can you possibly improve patient care by lowering costs?Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck34
Cost overruns are surely more desirable than lowered patient outcomes. You can't honestly tell me that because you pay higher premiums, you're getting a better level of service, can you?Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck34
Why in principle is it desirable for instance to value patients according to their level of incomes? Where's the equity in that?
Middle of the road??Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
That is why they got the only Conservative in the UK, Daniel Hannan, to talk about how rubbish he thinks the NHS.
Lived there, want to move back there.Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck34
Precisely right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brown, Jon Brow
Fox are the middle ground. The middle ground between Rush Limbaugh and the KKK.
Take all the profits out of the system then. You still have to control costs. Even not-for-profit organizations, or the government have to control costs. You can't just print money to pay all the doctors, lawyers, beurocrats etc. Congressmen and Senators have the same issue. They can't raise the quality of patient care without raising taxes. Who was the last politician that got re-elected after raising people's taxes? So there may not be a "profit motive" in a government system. But there is a "cost control" motive. Just different shades of the same thing. Why do people seem to believe that government is this great and wonderful bennevolent entity that just does things for the good of everyone, and has this giant stack of never-ending money?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
I have no idea. I don't think you can. But President Obama and the Dems in Congress seem to think they can. So you tell me, how can you improve patient care by lowering costs?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
There will be costs overruns in a government system. Huge cost overruns. Don't you doubt that for a minute. Why is that not desirable? Because this country is BROKE. Worse than broke we are hugely in debt. Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, and a whole host of other programs are just about out of money. They won't be able to pay out their obligations in about decade or so. Now you want to add $1,000,000,000,000 on top of that (and when was the last time that the government got the price right for one of their programs?). How do you pay for that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
Yes I can. You get what you pay for, most times.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
Why is it desirable for you to take my hard earned money and give it to someone that I don't know, and perhaps they are just sucking off the system, not working, not contributing anything to anyone? Where's the equity in that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
Like it or not Fox is the most un-biased and middle of the road major media outlet in the US. Unfortunately those on the left are quick to call bias any story that questions their ideals.
Of their 4 top shows only Hannity can be considered partisan. O'Reily bashed Bush as much as he does Obama and in fact has written a pro-Obama article for Parade magazine. Sustern slants a shade to the left in some issues and beck is.......well he hates everyone.
All of the other Networks either lean to the left,(ABC and CNN), Firmly left (CBS & NBC) or Radically Left(PBS & MSNBC)
And so are those on the right, hence your ridiculous comments about Fox being unbiased and all the other networks having a left-wing bias. This is complete rubbish to anyone with all their faculties.Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
The question of "left and right" means something entirely different in American parlance. The left and right scale seems to refer to the Libertarian-Authoritarian axis of the "Political Compass" (see the link):Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
http://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2
When Mr Vop talks about something being "to the left" I wonder exactly what he means because almost certainly unless he's either willing to tell us how he defines it, we'll have to accept the standard definitions.
Fox News is a News Corporation media outlet, and like the Wall St Journal, The Times (London), the Australian, the Sun and the Sydney Daily Telegraph, it would be called by the rest of the world as "Centre-Right".
The speech by James Murdoch certainly does not indicate an "unbiased" and "middle of the road" but a very very right shifted view:
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2009/s2670550.htm
The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit.
The free-market is the ultimate expression of the right, it is by definition the right. (see the Political Compass)
Mr Vop, everyone including News Corporation themselves rejects your notion, even the Wall St Journal admitted as such:
http://www.slate.com/id/2119864/
Even we at Fox News manage to get some lefties on the air occasionally, and often let them finish their sentences before we club them to death and feed the scraps to Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly. And those who hate us can take solace in the fact that they aren't subsidizing Bill's bombast; we payers of the BBC license fee don't enjoy that peace of mind.
Fox News is, after all, a private channel and our presenters are quite open about where they stand on particular stories. That's our appeal. People watch us because they know what they are getting. The Beeb's institutionalized leftism would be easier to tolerate if the corporation was a little more honest about it.
If people can not afford the system, then you've made a value judgment of those people. If you don't think that poor people are worth spending money, then I'll conceed the argument, but remember:Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck34
"When the least of society suffers, all of society suffers"
- US Secretary of State (1789 - 1793) Thomas Jefferson
Really?Quote:
Originally Posted by BDunnell
Prove me wrong.
I can prove you that I am right.
Like others have said, there is often a difference between the way "left" and "right" are defined on either side of the pond.
On Fox news, A UCLA study shows that they are the most unbiased of all media outlets in their news reporting. Please also note that this does not include commentary and opinion pieces, but as far as presenting both sides in the news room, they present the most balanced pieces.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla...UCLA-6664.aspx
As far as healthcare, a lot of our opinions revolve around whatever we view as the role of government. IMO healthcare is an individual matter and not something the Federal government should have anything to do with.
So basically anyone who isn't on the left is a sodding fool? THAT's nonsense and you know better.Quote:
Originally Posted by BDunnell
Fox is not always playing to the right, and they sure as heck more fair in how they debate topics and air the other side than those idiots on NBC. Or we could talk about CBS where their anchor and his producer set flame to their careers with a fiction that Bush was in the ANG to avoid Vietnam, while they actually had some evidence he volunteered at one point to go over there. They hid THAT truth but put the fictious ppwk up there as truth, which fell apart in 48 hours. THAT's a fair media?
Keith Olbermann on MSNBC would embarass all but the most left media.
Most Ameircan Media has a slant, either slight or great to one side or the other. So does the Canadian media and the BBC in Britain. A smart person watches a few different takes and makes an intelligent estimation where the truth is, but I do know Fox at least will pay lip service to hearing the left. Anyone watching O' Reilly or Beck will notice they have spent their share of time dumping on all the politicians, not just the ones on the left....
This Sceptered Isle currently on BBC Radio 7 has on this subject, a programme about 1946, touches on the inception of the NHS... but you've only got abot 5 days left before it rolls through:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lkmyl
this subject needs more discussion
No. That is why there are charities. I personally donate quite a lot to the charities of my choice. And you will find that in the US it is the Conservatives that give more to charity by quite a large margin.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
It's the difference between what you think the role of government is (to semi-quote Mark). NO ONE wants to just dump poor people in the streets. NO ONE is calling for the dismanteling of the Medicare/Medicaid system (except for Obama himself, who has proposed pulling $650 billion or so from that system to pay for his)
And if you think that Jefferson would have been in favor of this ... well go read some more about him. Because that is just laughable.
No...this topic is like many, both sides firmly entrenched, with neither side conceding the other has a point.Quote:
Originally Posted by crazzycat
Me...the guy with universal healthcare and no choice can see arguments on both sides and has tried to take both sides to the middle...with little or no success.
That said, for those who don't understand what Chuck and those against the plan are going on about, are only seeing it as a matter of fact and what I have pointed out more than once that THIS plan isn't anything like what the UK or Canada has...it is a mismash of.....well that's just it isn't it? No one is sure what you are getting except it is VERY expensive and the US of A is broke...in case no one forwarded the memo...
What exactly is the first role of government then? I always thought that it was the general welfare, justice and safety of the people. Perhaps I was wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck34
So providing for the general welfare means that the government MUST contol healthcare? As someone else brought up, why don't they buy me my food then? Or my house, afterall I need shelter to live, right?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
Providing for the general welfare means that the government sets up conditions whereby which everyone has access to basic necessities of life. I'd say that government setting up Medicare/Medicaid does that quite well, except for the fact that those programs are bankrupt. So, I suppose, Constitutionally we should fix those programs before we do anything else. That is if you really want to argue that government MUST supply healthcare.
Again, do you honestly think that Thomas Jefferson, or for that matter, any Founding Father, would have been on board with government run healthcare?
Oh yeah, one more thing. HOW DO YOU PAY $1,000,000,000,000 WHEN YOUR COUNTRY IS BROKE?
Based on this thread, many Americans seem to be almost afraid of the government and its actions. Why on earth do they have one then?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
We have a VERY limited government according to our Constitution. It was written that way on purpose.Quote:
Originally Posted by DexDexter
Defence, foreign affairs, law and some communications (roads etc.). The citizens can take care of the rest. They should so, I think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
How can citizens take care of transport networks, for instance? Not all transport can be private. There has to be some degree of co-ordination in order to have a network, and private enterprise generally shows itself to be incompetent at this, because of the overriding interest it has in competition rather than co-operation. And why should defence be immune from being run by the private sector?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy Tamasz
Didn't you read his post?Quote:
Originally Posted by BDunnell
Our constitution directly addresses a national defense.Quote:
Originally Posted by BDunnell
Now i would approve of a private army. It is obvious that privately run military organizations are much more effective and efficient.
Er... yes. He only referred to 'some communications', not the means of those communications, and not to modes of transport.Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
How is this obvious? And do not the massive delays and overspends on major military projects indicate that contractors cannot always be trusted to deliver the best possible value and the best possible service to the government, or is this entirely the fault of government, in your considered opinion?Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
Those overruns are contractors/Government deals.Quote:
Originally Posted by BDunnell
Those delays and overruns don't happen very often in the private sector. It is called business.
Rubbish.Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
As someone who works in the construction industry I have to say that that is one of the most ludicrous things I've ever read.Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
British railways are a good example of private transportation and its problems. It was a shock to travel by train in the UK after being used to efficient, on-time, comfortable new trains (run by the government) here.Quote:
Originally Posted by BDunnell
Indeed.Quote:
Originally Posted by DexDexter
I read an article recently about two London-based supporters of Liverpool FC. They had flown on Easyjet from London to Alicante and then immediately jumped onto another plane from Alicante to Liverpool. The reason? It was cheaper than getting the train from London to Liverpool.
Competition and the free markets at work. Ain't it great?Quote:
Originally Posted by BeansBeansBeans
Not to my mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck34
If the cost of travelling by train is so expensive that people take the option of flying via a foreigh country to save money, something is badly wrong.
Sarcasm, hopefully.Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck34