"The Republicans’ war on science and reason"

[Newtons Bit]

Because it does not matter how carefully you plan for your future, you can still wind up penniless and old and unable to stay alive except for public entitlements.

Medicare and SS aren't entitlements if you pay your fair share into them.

 

[BenBurch]

Medicare and SS aren't entitlements if you pay your fair share into them.

That's true, I start using the language because I hear it so often from opponents of those programs, but I need to be more precise.

 

[Bri]

Medicare and SS aren't entitlements if you pay your fair share into them.

That's true, I start using the language because I hear it so often from opponents of those programs, but I need to be more precise.

They actually are entitlement programs that are paid for via a payroll tax. There's nothing wrong or derogatory with that term, and proponents of the programs agree with the terminology.

That said, Robert Prey is wrong about almost everything he's said about Social Security (and just about every other topic) but it's futile to try to provide him with accurate, nonpartisan information since he won't read anything that might contradict his beliefs.

-Bri

 

[Robert Prey]

My mother had her 90th birthday a few weeks ago. She's been collecting SS benefits probably longer than Robert has been alive. Medicare pays for her prescriptions and covered a recent, thankfully brief, hospital stay.

So how about it, Robert. Is my mom freeloading off the taxpayers?

She's benefiting from the Ponzi Scheme which soon will go bust for everyone else as currently funded.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Maybe not exactly, and I applaud Obama for getting us (mostly? soon?) out of at least one of two morasses that Bush got us into.....

Sadly an Iraqi embassy staffed with 16,000 when the norm is ~100 and the continued wasting of taxpayer money on Bush crony companies like the renamed Blackwater security force and the stepped up use of drones in new countries like Somalia and Yemen suggests otherwise.


As Biden Visits Iraq Ahead of U.S. Withdrawal, Critics See Last Ditch-Effort to Preserve Occupation

RAED JARRAR: Sure. Currently the plan is to leave 16,000 U.S. personnel under the U.S. State Department’s mission. It’s a huge number. This is large as an army division. Half of these 16,000 will be armed military contractors. Now, this is, of course, really shocking. The size is unprecedented. It’s not only against Iraq’s national interest and national security interest, but it’s also against the U.S. national security interest to keep these huge numbers of personnel there.

Glenn Greenwald: Is Obama Fulfilling the Neocon Dream of Mass Regime Change in Muslim World?

And yet, here we are engaged in extraordinarily broad military efforts, constantly escalating in numerous parts of the world. There’s six different countries in which the U.S. is actively using drones; in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya and Yemen, against groups that didn’t even exist at the time that 9/11 was perpetrated. And constantly, what you find is we are killing all sorts of civilians.

Sorry, I know it's a tad off topic.

Carry on.....

 

[Robert Prey]

Since Robert doesn't, apparently, accept the theory of evolution by mutation and natural selection, and, as well, doesn't accept global climate change, I wonder what he thinks of Michele Bachmann's opposition to mandatory vaccination of girls against HPPV. Granted that this statement of hers goes back to 9/13/11, I doubt she's changed her mind since then.

Here's a quote from that link:

Besides objecting to the mandatory vaccinations, Bachmann also asserted:

There’s a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate. She said her daughter was given that vaccine. She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine.

What's particularly absurd about this assertion is that the earliest approval of the vaccine goes back only to 2006.

You certainly do have a talent for throwing red herrings into a discussion. But you really need to ask those who have been victimized by mandatory vaccinations as well as the brainwash delivered by the government/pharmaceutical complex.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

....
Well, yeah, it's politics. I don't even read some posters any more. While I have no one on my ignore list, sadly I have sort of a mental one. That's probably why I don't see the economic argument as the thrust of the main argument for Republicans being anti-science. The current PR and leadership is clearly and forcefully anti-science based on their stances on established science issues.

Again, I disagree with them on a lot of economic issues, but I wouldn't call them anti-science for it. Some of them reject reason with the way they support some policies though, because they tend to reject evidence to the contrary. They have no monopoly on that though, and even policies I endorse I've seen supported in an anti-reason way.

If you haven't yet read, "Merchants of Doubt" you might find it interesting as an account of why or how the Republican war on science actually developed. It's a lot more complex than some simple profit motive.

 

[Robert Prey]

Not a bit of it. Those who are still deriving material benefit from the infrastructure by earning income through their own labor, or the labor of those they employ are taxed to repay the loan from the workers who came before them.

This is really simple stuff here. It shouldn't take more than a room-temp IQ to grasp this, assuming one does not allow mindless ideology to blind one.[/QUOTE

Baloney.The entire Ponzi scheme is going bust. Enjoy it while you can. As Margaret Thatcher once said, socialism seems to work for a while, until you run out of other people's money. To see America tomorrow, check out Greece today.

 

[Bri]

She's benefiting from the Ponzi Scheme which soon will go bust for everyone else as currently funded.

You're wrong, of course. SS will never go bust as currently funded. It's also not a Ponzi scheme.

-Bri

 

[Upchurch]

But you really need to ask those who have been victimized by mandatory vaccinations

Oh, this has got to be good. What's your source? WND? Jenny McCarthy? Some dude with a blog?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You sent me to Google, which led me to Wikipedia, which showed me this:

[qimg]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7161/6418721915_b7b28e42e8_z.jpg[/qimg]

And, so, I've been informed (yay!) and the numbers do surprise me, but I accept them. I was and am disgusted with Bush's lack of fiscal restraint, but I'm open to seeing a broader pattern as well.

So, comparing 7.3% rise under Republicans, with 1.0 % rise under Democrats, the only question is does this qualify as "very nearly entirely responsible"? I guess that's just semantics but...

...the date spread is important. It conveniently excludes both Roosevelt and Obama.

But as I said before, this is all past history. The question is, who has the best solutions going forward? I'm all ears on that one.

Continuing with this theme, lies, damn lies and statistics comes to mind. Try more analysis that doesn't move the Bush initiated spending and commitments over to the Obama side of the tally as the Repubs like to try to do.

How the Deficit Got This Big

And a little further analysis in The Atlantic (after a 30 second ad).The Chart That Should Accompany All Discussions of the Debt Ceiling

 

[Biscuit]

She's benefiting from the Ponzi Scheme which soon will go bust for everyone else as currently funded.

Robert do you know that words have definitions? A Ponzi scheme is defined as a fraudulent investment operation.

Care to explain what is fraudulent about SS? Do I need to define fraud as well?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

If more revenue comes in after the W tax cuts, how does that contribute to the deficit???

Except that is not what happened now is it?

Of course if you ignore the fact that at the same time as the cuts the Bush admin borrowed heavily and pumped deficit spending money into the economy in the way of war spending, you could be fooled that the modest increase was related to the tax cuts. If it were, then one needs to explain how the economy stuttered and the government ended up with lower revenues not greater revenues at the end of Bush's term.

Graph of income tax revenue collected 2000 to 2009

Look at the deficit spending over the same time frame.

Peddling prosperity: economic sense and nonsense in the age of diminished ... By Paul R. Krugman

 

[Robert Prey]

Robert do you know that words have definitions? A Ponzi scheme is defined as a fraudulent investment operation.

Care to explain what is fraudulent about SS? Do I need to define fraud as well?

SS law makes or shall we say infers promises it cannot keep.

 

[TimCallahan]

You certainly do have a talent for throwing red herrings into a discussion. But you really need to ask those who have been victimized by mandatory vaccinations as well as the brainwash delivered by the government/pharmaceutical complex.

First of all, this isn't a red herring. Remember that the basic assertion of this thread is that most of the Republican candidates for the presidential nomination are antagonistic to science. Since we've pretty much beaten the discussion of global climate change to death, pointing out to you that anthropogenic global climate change is scientifically valid - which you still continue to deny; and, since you also seem to deny the reality of evolution, I thought I'd look at another example of Republican antagonism toward science. Hence, I brought up Michele Bachmann's weird stance on HPV vaccination.

YOu are now asserting that people have been victimized by mandatory vaccinations. S far, this is nothing more than an assertion on your part. Do you have any evidence to back your assertion?

ETA: Here are quotes from the Wikipedia article on the HPV vaccine. First, let's consider its effectiveness:

HPV vaccination has also been found to prevent nearly 100 percent of the precancerous cervical cell changes that would have been caused by HPV 16/18.[2] The data so far show duration of production for up to 6.4 years with Cervarix and for up to 5 years for Gardasil—in women who were not infected with HPV at the time of vaccination.

As to harming people, here's what the article says. See if you can find anything here about the vaccine causing mental retardation:

Both Gardasil and Cervarix have been tested in tens of thousands of people in the United States and many other countries. Thus far, no serious side effects have been shown to be caused by the vaccines. The most common problems have been brief soreness and other local symptoms at the injection site. These problems are similar to ones commonly experienced with other vaccines. The vaccines have not been sufficiently tested during pregnancy and, therefore, should not be used by pregnant women.[2]
[edit]Safety

Gardasil is a 3-dose (injection) vaccine. As of 1 September 2009 there have been more than 26 million doses distributed in the United States, and there have been 15,037 Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports following the vaccination.[34] Ninety-two percent were reports of events considered to be non-serious (e.g., fainting, pain and swelling at the injection site (arm), headache, nausea and fever), and 8 percent were considered to be serious (death, permanent disability, life-threatening illness and hospitalization). There is no proven causal link between the vaccine and serious adverse effects; all reports are related by time only. That is, they are only related because the effect happened some time after the vaccination.[34]
As of 1 September 2009, there have been 44 U.S. reports of death among females who have received the vaccine.[34] None of the 27 confirmed deaths of women and girls who had taken the vaccine were linked to the vaccine.[34] Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), a rare disorder that causes muscle weakness, has been reported after vaccination with Gardasil. There is no evidence suggesting that Gardasil causes or raises the risk of GBS. Additionally, there have been rare reports of blood clots forming in the heart, lungs and legs

 

[Biscuit]

SS law makes or shall we say infers promises it cannot keep.

No. Try again.

 

[BenBurch]

She's benefiting from the Ponzi Scheme which soon will go bust for everyone else as currently funded.

I'm sorry you want to convene a Death Panel to kill all the old sick people.

 

[BenBurch]

OMG. An anti-Vaxer, too!? I give up.

 

[Walter Ego]

She's benefiting from the Ponzi Scheme which soon will go bust for everyone else as currently funded.

That's not an answer to the question I asked. My mother had been collecting SS benefits since 1986. She's collected more than she paid into the system. Is she, in your opinion, freeloading off the taxpayers (like myself) who are currently having FICA taxes deducted from their paychecks?

 

[Walter Ego]

You certainly do have a talent for throwing red herrings into a discussion. But you really need to ask those who have been victimized by mandatory vaccinations as well as the brainwash delivered by the government/pharmaceutical complex.

I had to have vaccinations for the most common childhood diseases before I could enroll at the elementary school I attended. In what way was I "victimized" by the "government/pharmaceutical complex"?