Random political thought thread.

[Red Herring]

Senators ask CEOs why their drugs cost so much more in the U.S.

​

I just checked and found the official price here in Germany to be around 3,000 Euros per bottle (assuming your insurance refuses to pay for it). The copay, I think, is 10 Euros.

That still makes it one of the most expensive medications around.

To be fair though, the list price in the US is $22,230.08 (not 25,000) and the price actually paid in the US tends to be around 6,000, from what I could find, with a copay of 25 Dollars.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Live Results: Republican Caucus in Nevada and US Virgin Islands


Trump won both quite convincingly. So if Haley loses her own home state in a few weeks that is it. There is no path.

Just saying.

 

[Virtual ghost]

‘It’s devastating’: Trump seizes unmatched control over GOP

 

[SensEye]

Pretty damming indictment on Biden's mental health while being acquitted on having classified documents. Basically, he's not mentally competent to form criminal intent (or at least for anyone to prove it). Yikes!

Then Biden dug the hole deeper in a press conference trying to defend his mental competency. Tough to do when you can't organize your thoughts cohesively.

CNN has been pretty shameless trying to defend their boy. The special counsel should not be making such comments, it's not that bad, etc. etc.

In any event, the Tweedle Dum vs Tweedle Dictator election showdown continues unabated.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I just checked and found the official price here in Germany to be around 3,000 Euros per bottle (assuming your insurance refuses to pay for it). The copay, I think, is 10 Euros.

That still makes it one of the most expensive medications around.

To be fair though, the list price in the US is $22,230.08 (not 25,000) and the price actually paid in the US tends to be around 6,000, from what I could find, with a copay of 25 Dollars.

Yes, well it is more then possible the person mentioned in the article was either unable to get insurance or was unable to have insurance cover it.

 

[Coriolis]

You've grossly oversimplified, but you have the gist of it right. I hold right of center political views on a number of topics. I am certainly no bleeding heart either. I do view basic humanity as something afforded to all human beings, but the devil is in the details of what one considers "basic". However, my political views vary from left to right on depending on the subject. Sure I am on the right regarding strict immigration regulation, and a firm justice system. OTOH, on subject such as socialized healthcare and abortion rights I hold views generally considered on the left. Those are just examples, mainly to demonstrate my views vary based on each issue depending on what I consider the most rational and reasonable position for both my well being and society over all.

You are a typical left wing social liberal, dare I say "woke", and you post your views here regularly as well. You suffer from the typical arrogance of the left, in that you feel your views are correct and virtuous, and anybody who disagrees with you is therefore incorrect and a bad person. I recognize your view as simply a different way of looking at things. Your views are a bit dogmatic and not logical in many instances from my viewpoint, but I don't consider you bad for holding them.

What exactly do you mean by "woke"?

Also, do you consider yourself a Christian?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Noting ‘unprecedented’ coral bleaching and heat stress, NOAA expands coral reef alert system

 

[The Cat]

Willful Retention is why Biden and Pence arent in trouble and Trump is.

​

One might hope no one criticizing people on the basis of stuttering in an interview or the elderly ever stutters or grows old, lest they find themselves trapped in the outer limits of life.

 

[The Cat]

 

[Tomb1]

I don't think I am missing the point. I do not feel my "freedom" is an illusion. I do agree Democracy does not rely as heavily on pain stimulation as other non-democratic systems and that in itself probably makes it the best system. Nobody wants pain.

In any event, it's fine to criticize, but what would you propose as an alternative? Communism has been shown not to work. Sure the masses don't compete with each other because there is no benefit to doing so. The problem is, nobody is motivated at all because there is no disincentive to free riding. Not to mention when the 'state' has zero accountability, it always leads to massive corruption. Perhaps you have some sort of ultra libertarianism approach in mind (you seem to have a burr under your saddle regarding freedom). Not workable IMO. That's basically anarchy.

If you've got something better than democracy in mind please share. I can't think of any such system.

Centrally-planned State democracies feature massive corruption. Governments avoid accountability by having a "fall guy" take the blame. Courts of law set such anal-retentive standards for evidence that actually being able to hold an entire department or branch of the executive accountable is extremely difficult to do. That would take a lot of wire-tapping. You'd be asking legislatures to pass laws that provide for wire-tapping themselves, so that won't happen

Democracy with a State succeeded over communism largely because the hordes of low to average intelligence masses in the latter has really no idea its being controlled. Communist intelligence agencies had a harder time creating internal strife. Nobody retained an illusion of freedom under the communist countries (which were really dictatorships that controlled through pain stimulus) so the CIA and British Intelligence found more success running campaigns of subversion. But if you're comparing physical health for example men in cuba have much lower obesity rates than men in the USA....sitting at desks all day looking at computers and stuffing their faces with processed food and tons of sugar and getting health problems before sixty characterizes the American prototype. If it weren't for medications, the life span in the USA would be among the lowest in the world.

Of course anarchy and even libertarianism is more workable. Anarchy extinguishes the State's pathological obsession with herding and controlling masses of people for its own gain, so the population is freed from false needs. But it sounds like you have a preference for being governed under a system in which case centrally-planned State demoracy is more your cup of tea. I don't....I'm anti-state but not about to sit around waiting for some political upheaval to occur....so the practical alternative in my own life is carving out my own path towards beating and opting out of the system...whatever advantage I get I take and whatever string can be cut gets cut and i do it in a way that involves the least interdependence....free and clear

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Of course anarchy and even libertarianism is more workable. Anarchy extinguishes the State's pathological obsession with herding and controlling masses of people for its own gain, so the population is freed from false needs. But it sounds like you have a preference for being governed under a system in which case centrally-planned State demoracy is more your cup of tea. I don't....I'm anti-state but not about to sit around waiting for some political upheaval to occur....so the practical alternative in my own life is carving out my own path towards beating and opting out of the system...whatever advantage I get I take and whatever string can be cut gets cut and i do it in a way that involves the least interdependence....free and clear

I was in an anarchist group in college that was very cult-like. In addition, you had one or two guys always calling the shots on everything, but they used the word "we" instead of "I" so it was ok. If that's what a "leaderless" group looks like, no thanks. If you're going to call all the shots, just make it obvious and give yourself a title. The fact that you don't have an official title doesn't make it better. I never had an issue with people in leadership positions anyway. Better them, than me.

What finally made me walk away was realizing that the one or two guys running things had no plan and no desire to engage in politics. This was 2008. I said to them something like "maybe we should think about how the political climate might change in November and how we should handle that." This was shrugged off with a "we don't want anything to do with elections" (even though I wasn't asking him to vote). This made it clear to me that this was a performance for them, and that these people (or at least the ones leading the "leaderless" environment) had no real interest in changing things. (Even if they don't vote, I think they should still be able to acknowledge that an election has the power to change the "climate". I supposed if they did that, though, that would weaken their case for elections not mattering.)

If you know other anarchists, ask them what their plan is for November and see how they respond.

Maybe some anarchist groups are different, though.

 

[SensEye]

What exactly do you mean by "woke"?

Also, do you consider yourself a Christian?

In this instance I use woke in what I now consider the common use of the term (which is not the original definition of woke). I mean it in the sense of the politically correct dogmatic way that people parrot virtue signaling mantras without any real consideration of the pros and cons of a specific issue.

I grew up in a Christian culture but I am not a believer if that is what you are asking.

 

[SensEye]

Of course anarchy and even libertarianism is more workable. Anarchy extinguishes the State's pathological obsession with herding and controlling masses of people for its own gain, so the population is freed from false needs. But it sounds like you have a preference for being governed under a system in which case centrally-planned State demoracy is more your cup of tea. I don't....I'm anti-state but not about to sit around waiting for some political upheaval to occur....so the practical alternative in my own life is carving out my own path towards beating and opting out of the system...whatever advantage I get I take and whatever string can be cut gets cut and i do it in a way that involves the least interdependence....free and clear

Indeed, modern civilization is my cup of tea. I can't help but enjoy things like a transportation network, a communications network (the internet), well educated people from universities (who can provide healthcare and technological innovations) etc. etc. All the conveniences of modern life. A state tis needed to organized all those things, plus maintain rule of law (and regulations and taxation) so chaos does not ensue.

It sounds more like you take advantage of all state provided services and opt out were you can. That's fine, but I'd have more respect for you if you just ventured off into the wild and lived totally off your own efforts.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Some people just don't understand we aren't in the 19th century anymore and that the whole anarchy or libertarianism thing can't work in the modern world (for a number of reasons).


The first and most obvious is that today armies are moving around very quickly. In other words it is easy to glorify anti-state ideologies when the state if providing you with nuclear shield against Communist dictatorships. In other words when you would abolish the government in USA China would be landing in California in about 2 to 3 weeks. Not to mention that no significant resistance could be mounted without the government. The main reason why just about everyone is stomping on countries in Africa is because their governments are pretty weak. Also the most radical example would perhaps be Ukraine. Imagine the scenario where Ukraine abolished the state. In other words today there would be no Ukraine on the map. Since even with marshal law and large international help it is kinda miracle that the place is still standing. However just about the same would be the case for Poland, Germany, Romania, Italy ... etc if they would do the same. The same works for Taiwan as well. Abolishing the state in the end of the day is nothing more than a state of complete power vacuum, which someone will quickly fill (state or none state actors). However if you want to introduce libertarianism into Russia or China .... good luck with that.


Another problem is education, as the tech level grows the education has to be longer and longer. What is very hard to maintain if there is no government. Because even if you manage to make some kind of society without government the market will push people to work instead that they study. What means that they will not be able to compete with those that studied various tech and science topics in much more detail. What means that those people would have completely upper hand on the long run. Since experts can very quickly turn the tide in any economic issue. US is loosing in global competitiveness exactly since it has completely outdated understanding of education. In the case that the corporations aren't importing the mass of experts there would be massive problems in these areas almost instantly. However even with this factor the problems are slowly starting to snowball. Especially since US struggles in keeping the standard of living that many experts want. Being super smart and wanting to move into the country that thinks that socialized medicine is radical idea ? That is simply the decisions that is harder and harder to rationalize if you ever lived with socialized medicine (which evidently requires government in order to function). That is something as if you don't have law enforcement, who normal wants to live without that ? Without that you basically have Somalia style lifestyle. In other words socialized medicine is basically law enforcement for diseases. Your life is on the line, they have to save you anyway they can. However this can't function without some sort of the government. However in the end people who are healthy tend to be much more productive, what really matters on the long run.


Long story short: in the real world libertarian ideas are completely unrealistic. Since this is basically the utopia that only works on paper and abstract realities.

 

[ceecee]

I was in an anarchist group in college that was very cult-like. In addition, you had one or two guys always calling the shots on everything, but they used the word "we" instead of "I" so it was ok. If that's what a "leaderless" group looks like, no thanks. If you're going to call all the shots, just make it obvious and give yourself a title. The fact that you don't have an official title doesn't make it better. I never had an issue with people in leadership positions anyway. Better them, than me.

What finally made me walk away was realizing that the one or two guys running things had no plan and no desire to engage in politics. This was 2008. I said to them something like "maybe we should think about how the political climate might change in November and how we should handle that." This was shrugged off with a "we don't want anything to do with elections" (even though I wasn't asking him to vote). This made it clear to me that this was a performance for them, and that these people (or at least the ones leading the "leaderless" environment) had no real interest in changing things. (Even if they don't vote, I think they should still be able to acknowledge that an election has the power to change the "climate". I supposed if they did that, though, that would weaken their case for elections not mattering.)

If you know other anarchists, ask them what their plan is for November and see how they respond.

Maybe some anarchist groups are different, though.

Aren't anarchist groups and meetings defeating the point of anarchism?

 

[The Cat]

Aren't anarchist groups and meetings defeating the point of anarchism?

I like to think of them as human ant colonies.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I like to think of them as human ant colonies.

What about alien ant colonies?

oh nooo, it's just like maximum overdrive

 

[Red Herring]

Aren't anarchist groups and meetings defeating the point of anarchism?

I don't know about the US of A, but here in Europe anarchy is defined as a lack of social hierarchy and government, not rampant individualism. It usually implies living in communes, collectives and syndicats.

So an anarchist group, even a well-organized one, is no oxymoron. A selfproclaimed leader of such a group on the other hand...

I'm personally a fan of large scale complex civilization. There's a reason people all over the world developed states and administration as soon as they settled down and practiced more complex agriculture: cooperate to plant rice (which as far as I know, requires lots of helping hands and can not be done by an Individual or a small family), save some grain and organize things around the flooding of the Nile, control watering rights so everybody gets a fair share, etc. Add organized defense against outsiders as well as somebody taking care of keeping the streets save and you already have yourself a tax collecting, law imposing state.

Even hunter-gatherers hunt and gather in groups, take care of the sick and old, help each other out and follow tribal laws.

Thoreau style individualism in a cabin in the woods is not an option for our species, only for a handful of individuals (who, as had already been said would be freeloading on the work of others and/or dramatically diminish their life expectancy and quality of life).

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I don't know about the US of A, but here in Europe anarchy is defined as a lack of social hierarchy and government, not rampant individualism. It usually implies living in communes, collectives and syndicats.

That's usually how it's defined here. My understanding is that term libertarianism, however, has a different meaning in Europe.

So an anarchist group, even a well-organized one, is no oxymoron. A selfproclaimed leader of such a group on the other hand...

I'm personally a fan of large scale complex civilization. There's a reason people all over the world developed states and administration as soon as they settled down and practiced more complex agriculture: cooperate to plant rice (which as far as I know, requires lots of helping hands and can not be done by an Individual or a small family), save some grain and organize things around the flooding of the Nile, control watering rights so everybody gets a fair share, etc. Add organized defense against outsiders as well as somebody taking care of keeping the streets save and you already have yourself a tax collecting, law imposing state.

I too love large-scale civilizations, as well as writing, etc.

I also think laws are necessary for such endeavors as environmental protection to work. I used to argue with an anarchist about this all the time; she thought the government had no right to determine what goes on in public land. I would think anyone with a cursory understanding of the subject would realize that these laws exist so people don't log or drill these places. There are countless examples. We can look at the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. There was a much higher level of biodiversity there when compared to most of the other beaches and harbors I've been to. (The one that came close was part of a national park, I should mention.) I don't doubt that part of this is because the waters were part of a national marine sanctuary.

 

[ceecee]

I don't know about the US of A, but here in Europe anarchy is defined as a lack of social hierarchy and government, not rampant individualism. It usually implies living in communes, collectives and syndicats.

So an anarchist group, even a well-organized one, is no oxymoron. A selfproclaimed leader of such a group on the other hand...

All libertarians I know and know of really have no issue with sucking the teat of the state - they are vastly less smart than they think, while being breathtakingly overconfident. They remind me so much of Wile E Coyote. And again, in the US, libertarians are just Republicans that want legal weed and no age of consent laws. I know one anarchist that fits the European definition but the rest

I'm personally a fan of large scale complex civilization. There's a reason people all over the world developed states and administration as soon as they settled down and practiced more complex agriculture: cooperate to plant rice (which as far as I know, requires lots of helping hands and can not be done by an Individual or a small family), save some grain and organize things around the flooding of the Nile, control watering rights so everybody gets a fair share, etc. Add organized defense against outsiders as well as somebody taking care of keeping the streets save and you already have yourself a tax collecting, law imposing state.

Meeee tooo! I say frequently - the infrastructure of government is excellent. The issue are the people in it. I know big government and social dem flavored capitalist societies tend to have happy people and happy capitalists (see Norway). But so much is about trust in government and it simply doesn't exist in the US. It's depressing.