r.j. - 10 August 2007 03:08 AM

curlyq - 10 August 2007 02:07 AM

Well at least someone in American has a brain! I am re-posting this seeing that my initial was closed...freedom of speech...mmmm?

:Mod Edit

No, your not hijacking this thread. Read / know the forum rules… live them… which would mean make the effort to take part in some conversations (which this repost of your off topic drivel was not) or don’t open threads…

PS
This is your formal warning to stop breaking the forum rules… which are stickied in the general section.

Cheers
Sl0re
\: Edit Off

If you walked into a restaurant and walked up to a large party who were sitting down talking about politics and you pulled up a chair and just starting talking, and they asked you to shut up, would you then complain about your freedom of speech being violated?

In other words, this isn’t really a public sphere, it is a semi-public sphere, whereby the administers can set the rules.  If you want to take part you play by the rules.  And these rules, by the way, are hardly oppressive.  The 10-posts-before-you-start-a-thread rule is your opportunity to pull up a chair, listen, get a feel of the place, make a few polite contributions and generally get to know people before making assumptions about them.

And there’s really no use posting Sl0re’s message to you in the hope that we will be shocked.  He is well respected around here and people appreciate the work he and the other administrators do to maintain a friendly and open atmosphere.

That was me. I deleted his repost and wrote that in it’s place / was not a PM.

That was me. I deleted his repost and wrote that in it’s place / was not a PM.

Oh, I see.  Well, thanks and keep up the good work.

How many of us believe that for-profit health insurance and pharmaceutical corporations really care about what’s best for our people before what’s best for maximizing their profits? How many of us think our politicians, who are funded in large part by these business sharks, would be willing to commit political suicide by standing in the way of the profiteering game of delivering our health care and drugs?

Notice the Sicko graphic of politicians in Congress with $$ amounts above their heads? That about says it all doesn’t it? Go ahead, I’d like to see anyone dispute that accepting corporate money doesn’t all but guarantee a conflict of interest, hindering sound government policy.

Sorry but your hostility toward Michael Moore is misguided – he is not the problem, the system is rigged against us and he’s just shedding light on a society plagued by corporate greed. Ultimately WE are collectively the real cause - you and me and generations of voters before us who keep electing over and over again, the same breed of lying, corrupted and bribery-infested politicians who are willing to throw us under the bus in favor of the corporations who fund their political machines. They talk a good game but do some digging and you’ll see what they really pledge allegiance to! Politicians taking bribes has become business as usual. American government is now run by corporations and politicians are their tools.

The root of all evil is greed, and it’s thriving in the boardrooms and every nook and cranny of government. We can’t expect corporations to resist the temptation for profit at any cost, but our representatives should be above that. And yet, so many of them are shamefully nothing more than corporate prostitutes. Our corrupted political machine could well be more the real ‘Axis of Evil” than terrorists overseas. America desperately needs health care reform, but we shouldn’t expect any version of it to succeed if first we don’t have campaign finance reform. Nothing will change unless WE change the business of electing American politicians. You fed up with bloated government excess and fraud? Join the club.

Most of us think the system is broken and could be better, we just differ on the solution.  And we don’t resort to lies and distortion to present our problems and solutions.

I do think for-profit healthcare absolutely has the best interests of their patients in mind.  Keeping them happy and healthy makes them more money.  It’s pretty simple.

A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she lay her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird’s chest.

After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, “I’m so sorry, your duck Cuddles has passed away.”

The distressed owner wailed, “Are you sure?

“Yes, I am sure. The duck is dead,” he replied.

“How can you be so sure,” she protested. “I mean, you haven’t done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something.”

The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room and returned a few moments later with a black Labrador Retriever.

As the duck’s owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head.

The vet patted the dog and took it out and returned a few moments later with a cat.

The cat jumped up on the table and also sniffed delicately at the bird from head to foot. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room.

The vet looked at the woman and said, “I’m sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck.”

Then the vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman.

The duck’s owner, still in shock, took the bill.

“$150!” she exclaimed. “$150 just to tell me my duck is dead?”

The vet shrugged, “I’m sorry, but if you had taken my word for it, the bill would have been $20. Now, with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it’s $150.”