As if exempting Nebraska wasn't insulting enough to "equal protection"...

[Alt+F4]

Strange, then, that most workers in this country don't belong to unions and earn more than minimum wage.

Very true, but unionized workers are much more likely to get benefits, such as health insurance, than non-union workers are. For people with families the benefits are often more important than a small raise.

My significiant other makes $13.00 an hour which is quite a bit over minimum wage, but gets no health insurance. I pay for it.

 

[KingMerv00]

Please.

Ok, PLEASE give me a legal theory to go with your legal conclusion.

If you are going to throw around words with specific constitutional meanings and fail to use them correctly, don't be surprised if you create confusion.

All you have to do is say your opinion is SOLELY a moral one and I'll go away because then this thread won't twang my pet peeve.

"Banish"?? I don't think it's at all out of line to ASK someone to not participate in a thread they obviously are not comprehending.

If I do misunderstand you, it is your fault, not mine.

 

[leftysergeant]

Read the link in the OP. If you're ignorant as to the facts of the situation, it's only by your choice.

I did read it. Pay attention. the tax is not on all insurance policies. Stop whining.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

"Banish"?? I don't think it's at all out of line to ASK someone to not participate in a thread they obviously are not comprehending. However, I've reported the post and we'll see whether or not I am "allowed" to make that SUGGESTION.

You most certainly did not ask anything. You made a statement in the imperative mood. You were polite (you said "please"), but it was clearly not a question.

You're allowed to make that order (not a suggestion--again, it was in the imperative), but no one has to obey it because, as I implied, you do not have the authority to banish someone from a thread.

 

[leftysergeant]

Very true, but unionized workers are much more likely to get benefits, such as health insurance, than non-union workers are. For people with families the benefits are often more important than a small raise.

And those who get coverage but are not union members are getting a free ride because union activists fought, sometimes died, for those benefits for all of us.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Really? There's no philosophical foundation to the principle of equality under the law? The legal system has completely co-opted the phrase and made it impossible for it to be used in a more general sense?

I never claimed there's no philosophical foundation to legal principles. I was just refuting you when you claimed that you were not making a legal assertion in the OP, but only a philosophical one.

You most obviously were making the incidental claim that the healthcare bill violates the 14th Amendment. (I saw it as incidental to your complaint that the unions shouldn't be allowed into these negotiations.)

 

[Alt+F4]

And those who get coverage but are not union members are getting a free ride because union activists fought, sometimes died, for those benefits for all of us.

As a third generation union member I am grateful for those who struggled and sacrificed for the benefits I have today. However, not "all of us" get the benefits, as the OP points out. The government has decided some Americans are more worthy than others and it goes much further than who is in a union and who isn't.

 

[Ziggurat]

Very true, but unionized workers are much more likely to get benefits, such as health insurance, than non-union workers are.

Which is completely irrelevant to the fairness of taxing non-union workers and exempting union workers.

 

[Ziggurat]

The unionns had to fight to get minimum wage laws passed.

Irrelevant to people being paid more than minimum wage.

If the unions went away

Likewise irrelevant. We aren't talking about making unions go away, we're talking about the fairness of taxing non-union workers and exempting union workers.

Learn some history.

Learn some logic.

 

[The Painter]

I did read it. Pay attention. the tax is not on all insurance policies. Stop whining.

It will be. When taxing the "Cadillac policies" doesn't bring in enough money they will tax the "VW Bug policies". The door is open.

Didn't the government already take over Cadillac? Oh yeah, they were going to save it. How's that going??

 

[leftysergeant]

It will be. When taxing the "Cadillac policies" doesn't bring in enough money they will tax the "VW Bug policies". The door is open.

Straw man. We still have the stupidly low cap gains tax to readjust. And inherentance tax exemption sunsets next year and it will take a positive motion from the Congress to keep it in place.

Don't count on that, no matter how many seats the right loonies pick up this year.

Didn't the government already take over Cadillac? Oh yeah, they were going to save it. How's that going??

Sometimes, capitalism has to be rescued from itself and the cry baby investor class never forgives the rescuers, like demented little tweaker snots forced into rehab.

 

[The Painter]

Lefty, you keep talking about the "investor class". Don't you realize that most investments are by the working class? IRA's, 401K's, Pension funds, etc. Where do the unions put the pension funds? Investments? That would make union members the investor class.

 

[Tricky]

Folks, it's borderline uncivil in here. I'm letting the previous posts ride, but stop personalizing the discussion. You've had your mulligans.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Tricky

 

[leftysergeant]

Lefty, you keep talking about the "investor class". Don't you realize that most investments are by the working class? IRA's, 401K's, Pension funds, etc. Where do the unions put the pension funds? Investments? That would make union members the investor class.

Working people do not make their entire living on investments, and count on the pros to invest those funds wisely. And the pros have been driving companies into bankruptcy and walking away with their executive bonuses while the court lets them default on those pension funds.

No. The unions are not investor class. That is just an absurdity that the right wing throws out to try to convince working people that they have something in common with critters like the Walton larvae or the userers at Goldman Sachs.

The financial sector is only useful to society if they are helping to kep the wheels of industry spinning in the countries where their wealth is created. When they try to send those industries off shore, it is time to cut them off. They can start paying their fair share of taxes to fix this mess and stop kvetching about how the unions have not turned over all the gains they made over the last hundred years.

 

[NoZed Avenger]

Didn't the government already take over Cadillac? Oh yeah, they were going to save it. How's that going??

The company's auto workers will continue to vote for and contribute funds to those who gave them the bailout funds, so I'd say it's going as everyone expected.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Ok, PLEASE give me a legal theory to go with your legal conclusion.

If you are going to throw around words with specific constitutional meanings and fail to use them correctly, don't be surprised if you create confusion.

All you have to do is say your opinion is SOLELY a moral one and I'll go away because then this thread won't twang my pet peeve.

Well said, and I predict we will not see a legal theory of why the healthcare bill represents a violation of the 14th Amendment beyond the arm waving we've seen.

 

[The Painter]

The company's auto workers will continue to vote for and contribute funds to those who gave them the bailout funds, so I'd say it's going as everyone expected.

Does that include the 21,000 who got fired?

GM will also cut more of its U.S. hourly workers. The company said its U.S. blue collar workforce will decline from roughly 61,000 in 2008 to 40,000 in 2010

 

[Beerina]

I am not sure that this is even the case. I keep hearing the word "Cadillac coverage" bandied about. It may simply be that the unions want there to be no mistake that there are reasons that are for the good of the country that they have the coverage they have. It is unlikely that even most other working-class people's insurance will get taxed.

For certain, executive-level benfits that include coverage for Rogaine and lipo should be considered fair game if the working schlub employed by the same company can't get chemo.

Why such a hateful viewpoint? Someone who works hard to get that coverage now gets penalized because some "working schlub" doesn't?!?

That's nothing but hateful class warfare rhetoric. The honest goal, if you have one, is to lift people up to the best, not tear them down, adding an anchor around their neck to force them to drag along other people, too.

That's what "free country" means -- you're free from government and people who would use it to advance themselves. Let them go do whatever stupid thing they want to -- they are not permitted by the Constitution to force you to do so, as well.

But (sophistry to rationalize things like this that we reeeeaaaallllyyy wanna jam down other peoples' throats) and therefore we can. I know, I know.

 

[leftysergeant]

Why such a hateful viewpoint? Someone who works hard to get that coverage now gets penalized because some "working schlub" doesn't?!?

Your meaning is not clear? Do you mean that you see me trying to penalize executive-level employees for "working hard?" Cue laughing dog.

That's nothing but hateful class warfare rhetoric. The honest goal, if you have one, is to lift people up to the best, not tear them down, adding an anchor around their neck to force them to drag along other people, too.

Make up your mind. The investor class is winning that class warfare and it is not pretty. You will, however, not shame me by whining about the resistance. You know why most of the world's great religions consider usury a major sin? It's because the money manipulators use it to enslave the working class.

I say tax the cash procedes of sin to do good works among the working people, like doing the things that Jesus said we should for each other.

That's what "free country" means -- you're free from government and people who would use it to advance themselves.

Admit it. You would rather have government out of the way so that the investor class is more free to oppress the working class for fun and profit.

Let them go do whatever stupid thing they want to -- they are not permitted by the Constitution to force you to do so, as well.

The corporations can force us to do what they want by starving us into submission and we cannot remove the boards of directors unless we pay for that right.

Corporations are not moral, by law. Government is supposed to be. The first step towardrestoring moral govertnment is to overturn the idiotic legal fiction of corporate personhood.

But (sophistry to rationalize things like this that we reeeeaaaallllyyy wanna jam down other peoples' throats) and therefore we can. I know, I know.

Stop being so pompous. The investor class is trying to jam compost down our throats by pretending that they need to be pam,pered if the working class is even to survive.

 

[FlamingMoe]

No. What you just did was to deny that you are making any legal claim at all, even though you're using legal terminology.

So basically what you're doing is playing the British judge to my Simon Singh -- telling me what I meant and instructing me to defend your interpretation of my own words, despite the fact I'm telling you your interpretation is wrong.

Nice.

But it's one thing to disagree with a court ruling but making an argument for why and quite another just to make a baseless assertion, which is admittedly all you're doing here (as you have done on other threads regarding the constitutionality of the healthcare bill).

At this point I'm quite at a loss to know what it is you want. I can disagree with precedent, but I can't say so because I have no precedent to support my opinion?