Bipartisan Senate group proposes ‘no fly, no buy’ gun measure

[Warren Dew]

(01-17-2020, 11:44 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Still confused, or have I straightened you out?

You're still confused.

[David Horn]

(01-19-2020, 10:15 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-17-2020, 11:44 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Still confused, or have I straightened you out?

You're still confused.

So I guess you didn't write what you clearly did.  OK Boomer.

[Carol1990]

Americans scream tyranny is wonderful, but Americans are unable to explain why Cubans try to escape even though Cuba has gun control and free medical care.

[pbrower2a]

(02-22-2020, 05:07 PM)Carol1990 Wrote: Americans scream tyranny is wonderful, but Americans are unable to explain why Cubans try to escape even though Cuba has gun control and free medical care.

Cuba has a secret police and rigged elections. 

...I cannot understand why people still support Donald Trump, the most dictatorial President we have ever had, but enough do that the 2020 election is no sure thing. Trump holds Casto-style rallies complete with harangues like those that Castro held. 

Cuba has free medical care in part because it underpays its physicians. OK, Castro did something right in putting the emphasis on general practitioners instead of specialists (prevention is cheaper than heroic care, and more effective)... and the same secret police that harasses someone who makes a snide joke about the leadership aids physicians in monitoring the behavior of patients. If the physician tells you to stop drinking and you don't, maybe some people from the Comites de las Defesa de la Revolucion will pay you a visit and confiscate your rum and beer. Or if you need more exercise the same police will insist that you do calisthenics. Not taking your pills? The secret police knows. Nothing like that happens in America. 

I have a cousin who would be living had he gotten the Cuban medical treatment. The fellow bloated to 480 pounds. He overate... and he had a recipe for macaroni and cheese that included the instructions "add sugar". He died at 48 because of his weight.  

You win some and you lose some. We Americans would be better off with something other than our profits-first medical system that imposes the world's highest costs and gets at best mediocre results.

[Bob Butler 54]

Nice Rant.

It is all over the place.  I will chase down one angle that interests me.

Insurance companies are behind a lot of it.  A lot of vices and criminal behavior are checked by law.  For example, if you smoke or speed you put your own life and others at risk, causing health care and insurance rates to climb, not to mention killing people.  But the insurance companies have the direct financial motive and money to go to law makers and cut premiums while increasing profits by banning antisocial behavior.  A lot of the laws you mention forbid vices which can effect other people for ill.

Why is it that vices kill people?  Why is it that your vices should effect me in real life and my premiums financially?  And should we be in the business of encouraging vices or criminal activity?

You would have to go through it law by law to see how it makes sense.  I assume you are a vice filled criminal for it to bother you.  Maybe in the wide open spaces of the middle of the country your vices and criminal activity effect your neighbors less.  Maybe they too are more into vice and criminal activity.

However, population dense areas have seem enough of vice and crime.  It isn’t insanity.  It is often an honest attempt to solve a real problem.  Just because you have not encountered the problem does not make it insane.  It just makes you naive.

[Bob Butler 54]

At the same time I have not been a big fan of prohibition. If someone wants to indulge in a vice, there is always a criminal element ready to bypass the law and help him indulge. I oppose prohibition primarily because it is futile. If some felon wants to carry a gun, or someone wishes to indulge in some mind altering substance, they are going to do it with or without giving the criminals a chance to profit as well as very full jails.

Many, especially among the blues, are crazy for prohibition. They are going to fail, often miserably. That is another perspective that must be considered when looking at the problems above.

[Bob Butler 54]

What happened to the rant? I guess that was easy.

[pam]

Americans used to hate criminals and the homeless, but now every American is a criminal and soon every American will be homeless.

[pbrower2a]

(04-18-2020, 04:25 PM)pam Wrote: Americans used to hate criminals and the homeless, but now every American is a criminal and soon every American will be homeless.

It is fine to hate criminals. The homeless? They have done far less to merit hatred. Typically they have been unable to do bad things to people of the sort that make others homeless.

If you want to know what it was like to have things designed so that everyone could be treated as a criminal, then contemplate Article 58 of the old Soviet Criminal Code.

[David Horn]

(04-18-2020, 04:25 PM)pam Wrote: Americans used to hate criminals and the homeless, but now every American is a criminal and soon every American will be homeless.

Leveling tends to be down, then up, and we're still in the downward phase.  It takes a while for the gravity of anyh situation to dawn on enough people for it to trigger real change.  We're still accumulating converts.

[Tavo5]

Tyranny can make you brave because you have nothing left to lose.