71–80 of 435 posts
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Well good news! Now you won't have it at all. Wait until you try medical bankruptcy on for size.
I will assume that gozur88 has some source on the 85% increase. If that isn't true, ignore this. A prerequisite for an 85% increase is some payment beforehand. If they had no health insurance, they wouldn't have been paying for health insurance, and therefore their rates could not increase.
This is definitely the preference falsification election. Those who know me on HN know that I'm an outspoken proponent of unorthodox ideas. I'm regularly shouted down, called racist/evil/etc, downmodded and flagged on HN. I also get a steady stream of private emails: "I wouldn't say this publicly cause of the bullies, but that .gov link with all the data does seem to support you. I think you might be right, I need to…
> This is definitely the preference falsification election. I agree. In fact, the point at which I started to think that Trump could win was Hillary's "Basket of Deplorables" blunder. It was a blunder because the way she phrased it, she put far too many in that basket. Paradoxically, because people believed what she said —that there are many Deplorables— she might have initiated the very preference cascade that cost…
It was a blunder because she called people deplorable. Had she talked about deplorable attitudes, she would have been on firm ground. I hope it doesn't sound like a fine distinction, because it isn't.
I voted for her; I am terrified of Trump -- rightly or wrongly, we'll now find out; but I knew this was a bad, bad mistake when she made it, right up there with Mitt Romney's infamous "47%" comment.
And yes, in my opinion, Trump made a lot more serious mistakes. But I am not totally surprised that a majority of Americans don't seem to agree with me.
Yes, liberals in America are all smug and holier-than-thou, unlike their ideological opponents, who really listen to what you have to say and never judge you ahead of time. And, of course, they never pass comment on how a person looks.
"[T]he contemporary debate within modern political systems are almost exclusively between conservative liberals, liberal liberals, and radical liberals. There is little place in such political systems for the criticism of the system itself, that is, for putting liberalism in question" (Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, 394).
Smugness is a problem for liberal liberals and conservative liberals alike. Perhaps smugness is a natural temptation or outgrowth of liberalism itself.
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Trumps treatment of women in the past makes my skin crawl, as an individual I think his behavior on that count is despicable. But if I were given the option of Hillary or Trump I'd vote Trump. I might be wrong but I've not heard him say anything that is racist. No doubt there are some that are supporting him because they're racist, that doesn't mean all are. On that note I would love someone to prove me wrong and sho…
Well, you say abortion is an issue that feels like a Holocaust to you. To me racism and xenophobia are the the things that fuelled the actual Holocaust. I tried to outline some of the racism inherent to Trump further up. To be honest, I don't understand conservative Christians love for republicans. They preach social darwinism, often they preach fear of others. Is it all based on this notion that "The left also treat…
But on the Christian view, there are actually themes in the Bible that talk about a "worker deserving his wage", and "if a man doesn't work he doesn't eat". So I don't know if Christianities version of "Love thy neighbor" is what non Christians think it is. The concept of Love in Christianity doesn't always map to what non Christians see as Love. For example discipline is seen as a form of love. Sometimes doing something that is unpleasant for an individual but helps them in the long run can be seen as love. But to be honest I don't think biblical concepts really align with the left or the right.
If I were convinced as you are that Trump wanted to introduce racist policies as president then I'd agree there is no way in good conscience to vote for him. I'm not yet convinced of that and as I'm not American did not bother researching enough to be fully convinced.
But then I don't know who I'd have voted for. I'm not a fan of Hillary and then there is the Libertarian and Green candidates, neither really align with my moral views either.
It would have been nice if there was a strong moral candidate, but I don't know that either were this election.
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Sulla was an Optimate.
What is that? Roman history? (Genuine question)
A good overview from A.H.M. Jones, Augustus, from the first chapter, "The Breakdown of the Republic":
https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/U7mLJYGy...
(The book is brief but the remainder is about as similarly dense as this overview -- if you're not already familiar with Roman history and particulars, there's not quite enough context to grab hold of. There are better, longer biographies which should be easier reading.)
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Do you have any examples of what you call racism from Trump. I haven't been following him super close (not American), but from what I've seen he wants to tighten up immigration. It's my understanding that this is not racism, but protectionism. Here in NZ it's very hard for people to immigrate here (I have had friends have to leave) but we don't associate racism with tight immigration policy.
The Huffpost did a round-up: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-racist-exam... For example there were proposals to not allow Muslims to immigrate to the US. There was calling Mexicans 'criminals' and 'rapists'. Beating of black people at Trump rallies (which he endorsed). This shows up this night on my twitter feed: "I am at a Trump rally in Manhattan, and thousands are chanting 'We hate Muslims, we hat…
I'm not 100% sure of the context. But it looks like it's fake.
@SRowntreeNews @WALTBACON Dude that's a fake account. Don't RT that garbage.
@aobrien7 good catch, thanks
@SRowntreeNews This is fake, @michaeldweiss. Part of disinfo network spreading false rumors. They were very active during Euro soccer riots.
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If thats case aren't you just perpetuating a narrative about Trump supporters being a bunch of racist bigots, when in this case its made up BS????
This is exactly what pissed off a lot of regular people and got them to the polls IMO.
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This is the issue. People did not vote Trump to satisfy hateful racism and sexism, they voted Trump despite everyone painting them as racist sexist pigs. The other option was so far from what they wanted they had little choice. Please try to understand why people disagree with you, why the majority disagrees with you.
Precisely. Political Correctness is now starting to work against the Left.
But what happens when you don't discuss a subject that the voters consider (right or not - that's not even the issue!) important and worrying?
It wasn't until the subject was considered debatable by more centrist parties that this rise was halted, or at least coupled with less worrying ideologies.
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That's kinda my point. This election was yours to lose, just as it was Remain's, since it was the status quo. Genuine question, are you aware of Brexit at all? Do you feel the Dems learned any lessons from it?
As I pointed out above, the status quo is actually pretty good. And yes, I'm aware of Brexit at all. I think that Trump learned more about Brexit than we learned about Remain, Brexit being the politics of complaint.
For you. And me. But we are not the majority. The majority does not benefit from automation, globalisation etc. as much as you and me.
And it doesn't matter if in absolute terms we are all better of(for which citation would be needed, specifically for the lowest income bracket), it matters that the benefits of this new age are not spread around to those bearing the costs as efficiently as necessary.
This is why people vote for brexit, trump, afd etc. And no, those don't have the answers either. But they offer convenient scapegoats and changes with "tangible" effect in favour of their voting base.
Politicians on the left and the right are united in their elitism and their own bubbles of what is "important", and they have become disconnected from their populace so much that they can't even coral them effectively any more.