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@Tav Let me wade into this since Pride called SoF 'paranoid' in your wardec.

As a SoF member who don't really get myself involved in this stuff, I can tell you 100% tag split was happening and there was no secret plot to turn the netting tag into a stealth war tag for 'later'.

The minority of SoFers who chose to War this set were promised a war, and heavily hinted at it being pre-arranged and we were told to explore lots and war wasn't in the cards early in the set.

The political events that led to this war happened very quickly. In a span of a weekend, we were put on red alert with many of our war countries not ready for war and our netters obviously not ready.

Now who is paranoid?

To me it seems obvious MD spotted an opportunity for a nice FS and took it. Knowing it can play the victim card later because of the existing political alliances in place.

That is about as legit as Serbia crying about being gangbanged by NATO focusing solely on the power imbalance while ignoring all the scheming and plotting that led them there.

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sof paranoid? There's no secret plot to tag team MD, 'coalition' or no. You FS'd a tag with coalition allies who was bound to step in, what did you expect.

We weren't even ready for the FS. We were planning for a friendly, and leaders told those going to war to keep exploring for land as late as last weekend.

I was more upset I wasn't warprepped for the war than I was with the FS! heh.

oh yea, quite a few were going to try netting this set on a netting tag.

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Otbol wanted to give away the land!

Ronmeycare is pretty much the model Obamacare is built on.

I'm not even sure why this is even an issue. Mitt Romney ran away from it because it was a liability this election.

He's a spineless SOB for it, but when he signed it into law, it was meant to be his legacy issue.

And again, the individual mandate central to both Romneycare and Obamacare 'WAS' a Republican idea, before the party went apefluff right-wing after 2008.



I've heard this mentioned on the talk shows post election, but I think the fact that Republican operatives can go on TV and blame the democrats for starting this 'war on women' thing is kind of ridiculous and probably offensive to the same women you just turned away. It's essentially blaming the otherside for a wedge issue the Republicans introduced.

And abortion/women's right had been a reliable wedge issue for decades for the Republicans. Split the soft democratic vote away with fearmongering about abortions and turning it into a debate about piety.

But the big story this election is how these wedge issues are beginning to fail as even young republicans find the whole anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-contraception (hint: it's cheaper to put women on the pill than to abort a fetus) anti-fact based stance of the GOP repulsive.

Actually that is racism. Blacks will vote overwhelmingly democratic regardless. Maybe their turnout would be lower, which is what the right wing was banking on. But their anti-democratic hopes is for another topic entirely.

I would also point out the 90s Republicans are pretty much where the current Democrats are. Remember, the individual mandate central to Romneycare and Obamacare was a right-wing 'free market' idea the Republicans put forward.

I'm not really sure what the fight is of listing governors by state going back to the 90s, but the the Republican party has swung pretty far right after 2008. They've essentially doubled down on being jackasses after Bush failed spectacularly and the economy imploded in his watch. For many, the lesson is to go further right, not to moderate.

Their whole strategy post 08 is to stoke up religious extremism and rant about the debt created in large part by poor financial management by their own party, while they furiously press the giant red button on old reliable wedge issues like abortion and welfare.

So I'd actually classify the modern republican party as proto-fascist with a theocratic tinge. They don't even hide it anymore that their whole tax position is ONLY to protect the wealthy. Reagan would roll over in his grave if he were to watch Boner or Cantor speak. Someone covering the elections here in Canada mentioned the party has a jihadist streak , not dissimilar to fundamentalist governments in the ME. in that it actively seeks out and kicks out moderates while trying to retain ideological purity. I can't disagree.

Well, Americans already spend more per capita than any other industrialized nation and it also happen to be the only industrialized OECD nation without universal care.

It's fairly compelling what is driving up costs. The healthy are uninsured and the sick shoulder all the costs. And when you are sick and dying, you'll pay $2000 for a nurse to draw blood from you for 'tests'.

That's a nice series of Republican talking points though, but it doesn't empirically prove risk pooling is the wrong way to go.
Just fluffy things Repubs like to say while people go bankrupt for getting sick.

Also interesting everyone on Fox news and think tanks making the point against universal care have insurance coverage. Would love to see these same people on cheapo insurance or no insurance for a year and make the same argument.

I don't even want to know how much care some of these old white republicans are receiving behind the scenes.

Mitt Romney will pinch hit for me on this question.

http://www.forbes.com/...usetts-healthcare-reform/

I had meant to include it but forgot. Not to mention to the extra trillion it added to the debt during good economic times.

Oh and GW Bush's tax cut for the rich that turned Clinton's surpluses into deficits.

@bobby who is projecting what?

Repubs were sure Obama would be a one termer because of the economy, they were wrong when the electorate proved to be smarter and still remembered the worst president in US history GW Bush was in charge before Obama and rightly blamed the economy on Bush.

What makes it more ironic is I hear a lot of 'Obama is the worst president in history' from right wingers during election, and during their salty tears phase after election day when they posted videos and wrote blogs showing their incomprehension of why they lost.

So obviously, lots didn't get the memo that Obama didn't preside over the worst terrorist attack on American soil in US history then followed that up by invading a country that didn't have anything to do with 9/11, killing thousands more.

The biggest reason for people flipping out over Obama's re-election is Obamacare stays, and from what I recall in another thread, you seem to agree it's actually a fairly reasonable piece of legislation and would lower costs of care. So I'm not really sure why you'd be upset he won.

Nah, we knew exactly what he meant, so do Republicans.

It is as I said. It essentially translates to 'We lost cause of the ethnic vote'

And signals to Republicans that they ought to do something about it, which Repubs are indeed discussing. I see 3 camps right now. The tea party types who think they weren't conservative/racist enough, people who think Republicans just have a branding issue, and the smallest group, Republicans who think the party had gone off the deep end and need to moderate and have policies that you know, actually appeals to young and voters who aren't white.

There will be blood for sure. I hope it is a long and bloody civil war for the party.

I saw the interview and read his wording. It's also a nicer version of 'we lost cause of the ethnic vote' that sunk at least one Canadian separatist's political career when they lost the referendum in 1995.

It really only reinforces Republican view that they only lost because they didn't suppress the vote well enough in places like Florida.

There's a lot of equivalency that Republicans like to pull that Dems do it too etc etc but in this case there is none. Dem governors and state legislatures don't go around systematically limiting the rural white vote. I'm still waiting for an explanation of why Florida's Republican governor Rick Scott keeps dodging questions on why he eliminated several days of early voting which resulted in 4-5 hour lines in Democratic counties on election day.

@bobby that is a related issue. The solution is to convene experts to determine which procedures produces the best outcome at the lowest cost. But recall the tea party and Palin called them death panels and half of the country freaked out.

When a party is so obviously against common sense you know that they can't be trusted

Busy at work but Romney was short on details on just about everything he promised to repeal and replace.

Not worth the risk of the tea party screwing that unknown plan from Romney.

Not saying you are. :) Just noting Obama and Romney care are based on Repub free market alternative proposed to Clinton plan in 1994. It really amazing watching the party gobto war with its old self, and some Republicans still think they own moderates. I Lol at that.

Yes but you also have a larger pool if people to spread the risk on. Romney and Obama care are massive giveaways to private insurers. They get all these new premium paying customers. It is a reasonable trade off to ask them to cover more. Besides opposing pre existing coverage is a non starter for even some Republicans as it is a popular measure.

Most Republic opposition is on the universality aspect which you actually support.

YOU also have to consider that a human life is not an inanimate object.

The argument i am making is that to have an effective insurance market risk must be spread or all you will have are sick people running up the bill and not being able to afford the premiums. And without a wide net for insurance the healthy will play the risk of being uninsured until they get sick, at which point the personal costs become excessive and the public still foots the bill in the format of ER costs as the uninsured go to the ER as their last resort with conditions that could have been treated more cheaply earlier had they had insurance to cover the costs

It is good policy to cover everyone. Conservative anger is misplaced.

The Republican problem is their old coalition is broken and instead of moderating to grow the tent, their solution is to pander harder to the white rural vote and with cynical attempts at stealing elections by voter suppression and finally by talking about issues meant for America 50 years ago.

I don't even need to go to Immigration which they are fudged on. They lost the youth vote 60/40 and young voters are now 1/5 of the electorate. They lost the Asian vote 75/25, and last I checked Obama is not Asian, so the race argument doesn't apply.

Fundamentally the Republicans are living in the past.

@bobby. Some items on insurance are indeed not true insurance as they are known costs that the claimants can control.

Most private health insurance covers birth control because contraception is ultimately cheaper than abortion or carrying to term and a birth. That's not to mention contraception allows for family
Planning which helps the economy as women aren't forced into motherhood before they are are ready.

In that context it is not ridiculous but good business practices. A good part of insurance is to cover low cost preventative stuff that prevents higher cost problems later.

This is totally non political but again Republicans shirt on it to satisfy their base. The fact that they are advocating against good policy doesn't matter

Dibs, think of it this way. If you are NOT required to purchase it and you get sick and the government steps in to pay your bill cause you accidentally shot your balls off and had to see a testicle re-attachment specialist on government disability, you're technically also stealing from the public. Cause you paid nothing into it and the public is footing the bill.

With a mandate to insure, at least there's some guarantee you've actually paid into the system before you use it.

This is the typical get your hands off my medicare argument. Ironic, but very instructive.

Anyways, this has been a fun election to watch. I'm done arging here :P

insurance is not 'stealing' money.

It's a risk spreading mechanism, it was instrumental in allowing the age of discovery when ships going out to 'America' could easily sink and captains had to find people to 'underwrite' their ventures. In exchange for a premium payment, the underwriters of the venture promised to pay a fixed amount of money to the investors in case the ship sinks. This provided a floor for losses for the investors in case the ship did sink, and allowed for a 'market' to develop. Modern insurance operates in much the same way.

The insurance industry was built on capital. If you only knew of the insurance capitalists playing the stock market buys on their bets and shorts and options, your head might explode.

The insurers could count of a percentage of all trips succeeding, thus not needing a payout, thus, the premium money collected can cover their costs, including a profit margin! SOCIALISM!

Watch less Fox News plz.

Edit: Urge to buy a gun? Threats on the internet when losing an argument? Should a mod be contacted? are you the next Jared Lee Loughner ?

rapture 2012? or will it be delayed?

No need to name call.

And no insurance isn't socialism, otherwise, nothing risky would ever happen.

Obamacare is, like Romneycare a mandate to insure the healthy along with the sick so that healthcare costs become more manageable.

Insurance, by its very idea, is to spread the risk among many people so the few who have to claim don't break the 'market' for insurance

If only sick people wanted insurance, the price would be prohibitive, and this is what you are beginning to see. Young healthy dudes in particular would rather booze up than voluntarily pay for insurance.

But when these sad fluufers get liver cancer when they are 50, guess who foots the bill. Their family, and when they finally can't pay and he goes into ER, the public pays.

There's a saying for your 'amazing' American healthcare. You guys do have universal healthcare, it's the Emergency Rooms of your hospitals where uninsured go when they are about to die.

So rather than spend a couple of hundred bucks in prevention, you spend tens of thousands treating critical patients.

Also Obamacare, and Romneycare is a massive handout to 'private' industry. It basically only requires people to buy insurance, that insurance is still provided by private companies.

THAT IS FAR from Socialism in any form. It's actually a Republican idea from the 1990s when Clinton wanted a real single payer system and the Repubs came up with their 'free market' alternative.

But I suppose 20 years time difference has turned it into socialism. And thus we return to my point from earlier.

The Republicans have lost the plot. They are insane. And reading the demography of why they lost last night and why they will continue lose elections gives me a hard-on. That hot non-white vote.

That question makes no sense. I could just as easily ask you if you want to bet your life the money men behind the Republican power base won't sell your job for cheaper Chinese labour.

There's nothing for sure in life, you're projecting way too much.

Not only that, you're absolutely sure Romney is going to save you from China. I have no words.

China's not going to cut the credit line of their biggest customer.
Just like Japan's rise didn't mean we're all using the Yen.
Despite that bogeyman being largely a 80s/90s thing, Japan continues to buy loads of US securities because they export to the United States and need to keep their currency trading in an acceptable and stable range.

I'm not really that interest in a economic/geopolitical argument, because I am fairly certain there is going to be broad agreement.As I said I'm conservative, I prefer a unipolar world under the USA, but the Republicans really have no clue.

Yea, China is a rival, but starting a trade war over bullfluff fear tactics isn't the right way to go about it. The dems and the left actually generally have a better track record here anyways, as they are traditionally the protectionist party. The far right would sell out the USA for higher fourth quarter earnings of their SuperPAC "corporations are people too" donors, if they could.


My issue with the Republican party continues to be the willfull ignorance of their leaders, talking heads and 'soldiers' who not only believe in crazy fluff like creationism and insults minorities and women then get mad at minorities and women for rejecting their insane policies, but have gone so far as to create this bubble where Reagan's ghost is inside them all the time and it's still morning in America 1980s style.

Well fluff, I love the 80s. I was born in the 80s. But im 30. that's 30 years ago. I really don't have to say much more than the cognitive dissonance last night when the right wing pundits were so sure it would be Romney winning and or Karl Rove having a meltdown on Fox news after Ohio was called. He was still using Bush 2000 math. That's how far the party has fallen.