The news thread

[JackFetch]

I'm in Australia and we've had a form of universal healthcare (medicare) since the late 70's, but in the past decade we're going down a path of who pays the most gets to the front of the line, and it frightens me.

That's basically how it works here now. The rich get the best care, and the poor get what the law says they must get(it's illegal to turn anyone away at an ER). We've grown up with the thought of, "if you want to be rich, become a Doctor". People are treated like cattle at Doctor's offices now because they want to get the most amount of patients they can in a day to make more money. What happened to wanting to be a Doctor to help people?

[Dread]

This country is in the middle of a gargantuan recession and the government is just adding hundreds of billions (if not over a trillion dollars) more to an already hideously large deficit. Our generation and our children and grandchildren are going to be paying for this for decades. The government just keep spending money it doesn't have.

It was called the New Deal and it got your country out of the Great Depression. Relief for the people should and must be first in an economic recession.

Instead of throwing money at the automotive industry and bailing out amoral banks with no guarantees that the money wouldn't go into the CEOs pockets (which it did) the governent is spending money on its people. Which is kind of what it is supposed to do.

[Stavros]

Universal healthcare for me is one of those basic human rights. The right not to die in agony just because you can't afford care. Our most conservative elements in this country still treat the NHS like a sacred cow, they know that nobody would vote for a government that advocated its abolishment.

I've always been amazed that the US doesn't operate some sort of basic humanitarian system like most western civilised nations. It was the ONLY industrialised nation that didn't have healthcare for all. This is a step in the right direction for you guys.

[Kscriv]

I love my universal healthcare. I love the fact that I can get the things that I need when I need them and not run my entire budget out of whack for a year because of it.

Governments spend a whole lot of money on things that not everyone likes. That's just a fact and I really don't understand why everyone gets into a hubbub about it.

Maybe it's because I've been raised in a "sociallist" province like Manitoba and make no mistake about it, I wave my orange NDP flag and recognize Tommy Douglas as a Canadian legend. That said, my Dad is about as far to the right as I've seen, and he's takes the same stance as me on universal healthcare.

[James D.]

This country is in the middle of a gargantuan recession and the government is just adding hundreds of billions (if not over a trillion dollars) more to an already hideously large deficit. Our generation and our children and grandchildren are going to be paying for this for decades. The government just keep spending money it doesn't have.

It was called the New Deal and it got your country out of the Great Depression. Relief for the people should and must be first in an economic recession.

It's truly scary how many people actually believe that. It's one of history's greatest myths. It did not get us out of the Great Depression at all. In fact, the New Deal kept us wallowing in it even longer:

--FDR tripled taxes during the GD, and most of the money from this didn't even go to the poorest income bracket of U.S. citizens. So, the people had less money to spend, and employers had less money with which to hire people. (And thanks to mandatory unions, they weren't ALLOWED to hire new people. More on this shortly.) And later on, he enacted a payroll tax that took more money from the working class and less from the highest income earners just to make Social Security look like some kind of self-financed insurance plan. It is crucial, especially during a depression to keep more money in the hands of those who earned it because they will be more careful about how they spend it. When someone has control of someone else's money, caution and discretion are pretty much thrown out the window.

--FDR siezed everyone's gold, which has long been a valuable asset when paper currency depreciates in value. It keeps your savings safe when hard times occur...like in a depression. So, he signed a highly unconstitutional act into play that demanded everyone turn over their gold and receive near-worthless paper money, or else be subject to a 10-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine. What's that when the government steals private property for themselves? Oh, yeah. Fascism. FDR's reasoning was that, "Oh, if everyone gets gold, there won't be any left soon." Bullshit. Gold has flourished for thousands of years in kingdoms, republics and countries all over the world. The dollar's value plummetted after this and it affected Europe badly because it was costing more and more American dollars to import British and French products, and so inevitably, they shipped less and less.

--The Agricultural Adjustment Act forced food prices above market levels, which helped farmers very briefly, but hurt everyone else. And this, in turn, hurt the farmers like a perfect circle because they weren't selling as much of their products and couldn't get more tools and equipment. Furthermore, FDR sanctioned the destruction of food when there were thousands starving. Farmers were forced to let thousands upon thousands of acres of crops wilt away or be plowed under. This happened because of New Deal policies that conflicted with one another. One policy had the U.S. importing crops at an exponentially higher rate while another forced them to destroy the same crops in fields here in the country. Sharecroppers, the poorest farmers (of whom there were roughly 1.5 million at the time), were the ones hit by this the worst. The government's destruction of acreage caused the average household income for a sharecropper to drop from $735 to just over $200. But hey, since FDR wasn't counting on their votes for re-election anyway, he couldn't be bothered to care about them. And mandatory price fixing eliminated competition between farmers. Competition is a GOOD thing. (Just ask wrestling fans.) Believe me, there were plenty of other problems this act caused, but it would take me hours to type them all out. Nothing made any sense with the AAA.

--"Relief spending" helped the unemployed, but corporate income taxes, undistributed profits taxes, Social Security taxes, minimum wage laws and forced union involvement led to even more massive unemployment rates. And the vast majority of the unions that FDR backed were led by racists who would not hire blacks; and so, thanks to these compulsory unions, it actually became illegal for employers to hire black people in many areas. And of course, these racist labor unions were largely run by violent thugs who forced member wages well above market value through strikes that kept employers from hiring new people. They called it "collective bargaining". I call it what it really was--a violent monopoly on labor.

There are plenty of other problems that the New Deal caused, but I'm sure no one cares. FDR was one of the worst things to ever happen to this country, or the world, for that matter, since his poorly thought-out policies caused worldwide problems. There is a myriad of quotes of his from his colleagues that proved that he didn't have the slightest clue what he was doing or enacting. He pretty much enacted what sounded good to him and whatever granted the government more control over the people and the private sector. He and his cohorts felt that private property and individual economic freedoms were obstacles to economic recovery. The exact opposite is true.

[Dread]

Triple-taxing ONLY occurred after he pushed unions to enforce a 300% raise for their workers.

To say that FDR was the worst thing for the country is like saying, well, that universal health care is wrong.

Open your eyes: the US is one of the richest nations in the world and it has the worst health care system in the first world. You pay a shitload of taxes and get fuck-all for it. Now you're getting something.

The average MIDDLE CLASS American family is one serious illness away from poverty. That is what is the problem.

I'm done arguing about this. It goes nowhere.

[MaxPower]

This country is in the middle of a gargantuan recession and the government is just adding hundreds of billions (if not over a trillion dollars) more to an already hideously large deficit. Our generation and our children and grandchildren are going to be paying for this for decades. The government just keep spending money it doesn't have.

It was called the New Deal and it got your country out of the Great Depression. Relief for the people should and must be first in an economic recession.

It's truly scary how many people actually believe that. It's one of history's greatest myths. It did not get us out of the Great Depression at all. In fact, the New Deal kept us wallowing in it even longer:

Actually, no-one can prove with any certainty what caused the Great Depression or what helped end it or what made it go longer. In fact several Nobel Laureates have opposing views on it, so to totally dismiss one of either view is basically comical.

It's actually what makes this current round of 'bailouts' comical, with 70 years of study no one can still prove with 100% fact how everything effected everything in the depression, yet we have people who think they know how to solve this current crisis. There is a saying in economics, the only effect that is certain is that there will be an unintended effect. Or something like that.

[James D.]

I'm done arguing about this. It goes nowhere.

I honestly don't know why you're getting so hostile. I'm not trying to be confrontational at all. I'm just trying to show the other side of the argument. And I thought it was a pretty good and worthwhile debate, personally. Isn't that the point of a forum? To have discussions? The only thing I'm not keen on is that you're essentially telling me I can't have an opinion on this issue because it differs from yours. Maybe Canada's government is awesome. I don't pretend to know what's going through Stephen Harper's head. All I know is our government (whether it's being run by Democrats or Republicans) is next to useless when it comes to operating much of anything. Anytime they take control of something, I get nervous. And frankly, I think my anxiety is completely justified because history shows us that they fuck things up vastly more often than they fix things.

If you don't want to debate it, that's fine. But I don't see how not having meaningful discussions on an issue like this is a good thing.

[JackFetch]

It's truly scary how many people actually believe that. It's one of history's greatest myths. It did not get us out of the Great Depression at all. In fact, the New Deal kept us wallowing in it even longer:

It put millions of people to work, putting food on their tables, and saved millions of lives. That is a fact. That is the greatest example of a government helping it's people. They did it by spending lots and lots of money to build things like railroads and dams. Put artists to work. Help farmers make more money. If you drink alcohol, you can thank the New Deal. The revenue made from selling it caused the people to want prohibition repealed. It did not keep us in the great depression longer, but it kept millions alive long enough to see the end of it.

[Dread]

I'm not getting confrontational, I am just looking for a point against Health Care Reform that isn't "lots of money (so's the illegal war Bush started)" or "I can pay for my own why can't they? (which is the height of elitist bullshit)"

"I don't trust them to handle it well" is one thing but I ask how it's being handled right now? Could it be worse? Probably not.

Canada's government isn't awesome. In fact, they fuck a lot of stuff up. But we hold them accountable when they do. Paul Martin accepted a winning legacy from Jean Chretien and did absolutely nothing except keep our non-interference stance in wars not supported by the UN (thank God) that Stephen Harper is trying to abolish seeing as the US is going to ask for more of our troops in Afghanistan (of which we're already over there cleaning up the American mess).

But when inactivity and comfortablity reigned supreme, we ousted him. As fucking bad and aggravating Harper is, he gets shit done. I respect him for that and that alone. The US is so divided amongst party lines that it taints any and all views. People still kiss Bush's ass when he was a war cirminal with a lackey who still to this day goes on television and brags about torturing inmates in Guantanamo Bay. They're anti-Obama not because of his policies, but because he represents something they aren't. I'm not saying all Republicans are like this, just the vocal majority at least. The fact that not one Republican voted for the health care reform is not a sign of defiance to me, it's a sign of cowardice. Party lines mean nothing if they affect the people who voted for you negatively. Too bad so many Americans are so blinded by Glen Beck and Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly and any other mouthpiece hate monger to see anything but the sliver of truth.

I have nothing against you James, know that. I have issues with the politics of those not in support of ANYTHING better than the health care they already had.

Edit: in other news, a Coulter follow-up: Canada says "Fuck You, Ann Coulter." Makes me proud. While I will say that I respect everyone's knowledgable opinion, anyone who buys into her or any of her compatriots, named above, deserve nothing but the worst that the world has to offer them.

[Missy]

Ore. scouting exec says parents negligent in abuse

By WILLIAM McCALL, Associated Press Writer

PORTLAND, Ore. – The president of the Boy Scouts council for the Portland metro area has testified he believes the parents of some Scouts were negligent and even criminal for allowing sleepovers that led to sex abuse.

Eugene Grant told a jury in a $29 million sex abuse lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America and its Cascade Pacific Council that parents should not have allowed boys to stay overnight with a single man at his apartment.

The man, Timur Dykes, has admitted molesting the victim who filed the lawsuit and has been convicted of other sex abuse dating back to the early 1980s, when Dykes was an assistant Scoutmaster.

During cross-examination by Kelly Clark, an attorney for the victim, Grant said Thursday it was not Boy Scouts policy to allow sleepovers, especially when they were unsupervised.

"His parents should have known better," Grant said, referring to the parents of the victim. "I think it was criminal."

But when Clark pressed Grant about whether he knew the Boy Scouts had any formal policy against sleepovers in the early 1980s, Grant replied, "At the time, no."

Grant later said he believed that, at the very least, the parents were negligent.

"I just find it almost incomprehensible to think their children were going to be safe in that type of environment," Grant said.

Clark had called Dykes a "pied piper" earlier in the trial for filling his apartment in the early 80s with things such as exotic pets, an aquarium and games to attract boys from a Scout troop organized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Grant, who is an attorney and church member, also said he did not know that lawyers for the council had denied there had been any abuse until shortly before the trial began.

But Grant said he believed the council was not responsible for the abuse, even though he admitted that a Scoutmaster and a Mormon bishop who both knew Dykes made "bad decisions" if they had any role in allowing the sleepovers.

Grant was Scoutmaster for another troop in the early 1980s and said he knew the victim when he was a Scout. But he denied knowing Dykes or ever receiving any reports of abuse at the time.

In a separate line of questioning, Grant estimated that 30 percent to 50 percent of the Boy Scout troops across the nation in the mid-1980s were chartered by the Mormon Church, which has already settled its portion of the lawsuit.

Grant compared it to a franchise arrangement, saying that allowed Mormon officials to manage the Scout troops.

"They're not staffed by Boy Scouts officials or employees," Grant said.

Clark asked Grant whether that meant the Boy Scouts knew that disciplinary action taken against any adult volunteers suspected of abuse generally would be kept secret because the church considered such discipline a private matter.

"They would know that, sometimes, results would be kept confidential," Grant said.

Clark began the trial last month by showing the jury six boxes packed with about 20,000 pages of files the Boy Scouts of America kept on about 1,000 Scout volunteers nationally who abused boys from 1965 to mid-1984.

Clark told the jury they would be the first to see the secret files, also called "perversion files" by the Scouts.

The trial began March 17 and was expected to last about a month.

Source

[KnightWing]

Great. Now people are gonna start "Boy Scouts are trying to molest your children!" campaigns.

[Nicolette Opal]

Great. Now people are gonna start "Boy Scouts are trying to molest your children!" campaigns.

Where have you been? They've been saying that for years. And it's been happening for years.

[SuaveStar]

The guy who's trying to blame the parents is an asshole.

[KnightWing]

Where have you been?

Under a rock, apparently.

Well, that and I tend to automatically tune out as soon as anyone uses the term "Boy Scout" in reference to anything other than Superman.

[Nicolette Opal]

Ah.

The thing is, they've been trying (and largely succeeding) for years to keep homosexual boys out of the Scouts and homosexual men from being Scout Leaders. Because, duh, "OMGTHEGAYSWILLPOUNDMYBOYINTHEASS!!!RABBLERABBLERABBLE!!!FAGGOTSAREALLCHILDMOLESTERS!!!"

When it's more likely the ultra-religious men who're going after the kids.

[KnightWing]

Ah.

The thing is, they've been trying (and largely succeeding) for years to keep homosexual boys out of the Scouts and homosexual men from being Scout Leaders. Because, duh, "OMGTHEGAYSWILLPOUNDMYBOYINTHEASS!!!RABBLERABBLERABBLE!!!FAGGOTSAREALLCHILDMOLESTERS!!!"

When it's more likely the ultra-religious men who're going after the kids.

Well, I don't know about the religious thing, but the thing is that people just assume that since it's a man with a boy, it's an issue of homosexuality. Now, hey, there's something to be said for keeping people who would be sexually attracted to one another out of those groups (like how they don't have female leaders in the Boy Scouts or male ones in the Girl Scouts), but sexual orientation has little-or-nothing to do with pedophilia.

[JackFetch]

Well, I don't know about the religious thing, but the thing is that people just assume that since it's a man with a boy, it's an issue of homosexuality. Now, hey, there's something to be said for keeping people who would be sexually attracted to one another out of those groups (like how they don't have female leaders in the Boy Scouts or male ones in the Girl Scouts), but sexual orientation has little-or-nothing to do with pedophilia.

While I would agree with that, many would ask why the Girl Scouts never had any of these issues. I personally know lesbians that spend most of their time with young girls, and have never heard of anything bad ever happening. I always hear about the youth pastor, the troop leader, or some other guy in a position of authority over boys getting caught being a pervert. I have never heard of an openly gay person being a molester though. It's always the closeted guys.

[KnightWing]

Men are far more likely to be predatory than women. As a man, I will readily admit this. (not that the statistics don't speak for themselves)

[JackFetch]

Men are far more likely to be predatory than women. As a man, I will readily admit this. (not that the statistics don't speak for themselves)

There seem to be an awful lot of women taking advantage of boys. They are on the news constantly.

[Venneh]

But men will get called out on it more with pedophilia/ephebophilia (which are two different things entirely, cause the one is prepubescent, the other's pubescent), simply because of the cultural attitude (w/r/t heterosexual sex) of "Men don't get raped", and, "All a woman has to do is ask".

[KnightWing]

Well, that's definitely true.

[Nicolette Opal]

Well, I don't know about the religious thing, but the thing is that people just assume that since it's a man with a boy, it's an issue of homosexuality. Now, hey, there's something to be said for keeping people who would be sexually attracted to one another out of those groups (like how they don't have female leaders in the Boy Scouts or male ones in the Girl Scouts), but sexual orientation has little-or-nothing to do with pedophilia.

Men aren't Girl Scout Troop Leaders, and women aren't Boy Scout Troop Leaders, not because of a fear of sexual attraction. The scouts are about learning skill sets and gaining self-esteem (in some ways antiquated and gender-stereotypical, some not). It's about bonding with fellow boys or girls, it's about celebrating being a boy or girl. That's why they don't mix genders with leaders. Obvious social hang-ups aside.

[SuaveStar]

COCHRAN A small group of Bleckley County High School students staged a rally at the courthouse Thursday evening to protest their high school allowing a gay student to take his boyfriend to the prom.

Bleckley school system officials last week granted senior Derrick Martin permission to take another boy to prom. The decision marked the first decision in the countys history about a same-sex couple attending the prom there.

We knew Derrick was gay, said Keith Bowman Jr., a high school senior who showed up at the rally. They dont want (Cochran) to be known as a pro gay town.

Most of the dozen attending the rally said they werent bothered by Martin being gay or being allowed to attend prom with his partner. But they said the school systems decision has brought too much attention to their small town.

People who dont know the area will think it reflects on everybody, said John Smith, a grandfather who owns an air-conditioning business in Cochran.

Before he stopped by the rally, he asked county officials Thursday if a separate prom could be held at the citys recreation center, he said.

The rallys organizer, Amber Duskin, sent text messages to high school students Wednesday asking them to show up.

The senior said she asked her high school to return her prom ticket money and does not plan to attend because of Martin.

I dont believe in going up there and dancing with gay guys like that, she said. Its also not just him bringing a boy. It was bringing all this attention to it.

A group of college students also stopped by the rally but not to protest.

Were for it, said Carly Nobles, a Middle Georgia College student. It takes a lot for someone to come out (as gay).

This is a small town. Some of these students are sheltered, and I dont think they can think for themselves.

Martin said talk at school Thursday was that the prom committee may do away with the traditional walk through when students and their dates are announced as they enter the prom.

Hes also heard some students are trying to have a separate prom.

As a result of the media attention, Martins parents have kicked him out of their home, and hes staying with a friend in Cochran.

Martins father is a math teacher at Bleckley County High and is the schools Teacher of the Year.

I think his dad is embarrassed, said sophomore Brittany Bohannon. As school faculty were introduced at an unrelated motivational speaking event Thursday, Martins father attended but stood in the background, she said. People thought it was OK I was going to prom but not OK with me telling anybody, Derrick Martin said Thursday. All this media attention has gotten people scared Cochran is an openly gay community.

Martin said the rally has not changed his plans to attend the prom with his boyfriend, Richard Goodman, of Tifton.

But Martin said he might not talk to media until after the prom to help minimize the attention that so many feel is unwelcome.

Read more: http://www.macon.com/2010/03/26/1073335/students-protest-bleckley-prom.html#ixzz0kKvImTmb

Source

[JackFetch]

“They don’t want (Cochran) to be known as a pro gay town.”

So they want the world to know that Cochran is a homophobic hick town? Done.