I finally get it! The reason these culture warriors want the Ten Commandments displayed everywhere is because THEY DON’T KNOW THEM:
Colbert: What are the Ten Commandments?
Westmoreland: You mean all of them?–Um… Don’t murder. Don’t lie. Don’t steal Um… I can’t name them all.
Maybe they really DON’T know how to use a remote control. On another note, doesn’t it make you feel great that this jackass is making decisions that affect your life?
Doctor Gonzo
I’m agnostic, and when I saw the question “What are the Ten Commandments”, I immediately thought “Do you mean Catholic or Jewish?”
And yes, I can name all of them.
Emma Zahn
From the Atlanta Journal Constitution Political Insider blog on Westmoreland’s appearance:
Patrick Lightbody
If the commandments were simply things like “don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t kill” like this idiot started off with, it might not be such a problem to have them in public buildings. The problem is that they also include shit like “I am your one and only God”, which quickly moves them from being general common sense (and stuff I could believe our Constitution was founded on) in to religious doctrine.
This guy is pathetic. Please tell me he is one of the seats getting challenged in November.
Perry Como
Colbert is brilliant. I’m a godless atheist and I can cite the ten commandments.
Mr Furious
Why the hell are any Republicans dumb enough to go on that show?
That was awesome.
Tsulagi
That C&L clip is funny as hell!! That congressman co-sponsors a bill to allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed in government buildings, but goes 3 for 10 in identifying the commandments. Plus he can’t think of any better building in which they should be enshrined. Um, maybe a CHURCH!
Welcome to the Reign of the Super Stupids. Bush 2.0’s version of the SS.
alkali
I saw this and tried to name them and I got 9. (Suffice it to say that I’m not telling my wife which one I missed.)
Emma Zahn
Mr Furious asked, “Why the hell are any Republicans dumb enough to go on that show?”
An answer, also from AJC Political Insider.
I don’t begin to understand the reasoning but it looks like it was a deliberate plan.
Steve
That interview was unbelievable. It wasn’t just the Ten Commandments thing. The guy came across as totally, irretrievably stupid, like I have never seen before. Britney Spears looked like Einstein compared to this guy.
Rudi
Have to be proud that the Repugs are in the majority. Maybe we can apply some “good ole affirmitave action” to idiots like this. The follow is a link to US gov web site. Voting rights Here is a snippet from the link:
These idiots who appear on a show like Colberts must fail the literacy tests, vouchers of “good character,” of this government web page. Any voter who enable these politicians are guilty of greater degree of stupidity.
Andrew
I take it you haven’t met the other 230 House Republicans?
Andrew
Okay, that’s not entirely fair. At least half of the Democrats in the House are similarly idiotic.
This is one of the most amazing things about our representative government: I don’t think half of them could out argue a paper bag.
Steve
Dude, I know you’re being funny, but this guy was simply amazing. It’s like sending Raymond’s brother to Congress.
zzyzx
Don’t forget that Colbert does have the power to edit. Take anything on a show like that with a ton of salt.
Pb
zzyzx,
I saw that bit, and I’ll say this–editing alone simply couldn’t have made him look *that* dumb.
Andrew
I’m only being hyperbolic in the number; I seriously think that a few dozen members of the House are either bat-shit insane (Katherine Harris, Jean Schmidt) or functionally retarded (this guy).
Here’s the thing: I bet the editing was fairly minimal.
SeesThroughIt
This is at once hilarious, brilliant, and utterly unsurprising.
The Other Steve
What’s interesting, I think is that he only remembered the second table. It’s the first table which has much more religious signifigance and was the issue which led to Roger Williams being banished from Massachusetts and founding Providence, Rhode Island. The start of the Seperation of Church and State argument in the Americas.
It’s just interesting how these so-called religious conservative pick and choose which parts of the Bible they want to believe in.
Christie S.
And, I’m horrified to admit…this idiot represents Ga’s 8th district. MY district. He’s not ashamed. *I* am. I console myself daily that I didn’t vote for him. It doesn’t help much.
Punchy
Snizzap!
Rusty Shackleford
I’m worn out. I have no hope for November. Mindless panderers run the country and the country seems to like it that way.
This is not America.
canuckistani
If anyone remembers The History of The World Part I, there were actually 15 Commandments, but Moses dopped one of the tablets. The missing five were:
XI Thou shalt not gay marry
XII Thou shalt not burn the flag
XIII Thou shalt provide America with a Mighty Army
XIV Thou shalt not be a slut
XV Thou shalt not gay marry
Explains a lot, doesn’t it? I bet Westmoreland knew those ones.
nyrev
And yet, these guys still can’t figure out that Colbert is laughing at them, not with them.
fwiffo
I think he was being quite clever. He knows that if people actually knew and obeyed all ten it would be a big problem. For starters, #2 might well forbid putting up statues of the ten commandments everywhere, and #10 would surely destroy the economy.
RSA
You’re obviously thinking of her Guide to Semiconductor Physics.
neil
I think most Congressmen have never met an interview request they didn’t like.
Cyrus
Graven images! Thank you! THAT was the one I couldn’t remember! I was all set to do a post listing them and ending it with
… 10. I can’t remember. I feel so guilty. Wait, that’s just for the Catholics. /rimshot
Zifnab
Which one is “Thou Shalt Pander To Thine Witless Base?” Is it before or after “Nie-ther shalt thou count to 2, unless immediately proceeding to three.”
John S.
This would not bode well in this country for the amount of other ‘worship’ that is diverted away from G-d.
Yikes! Modern christendom would positively recoil in horror if they had to give up their mountains of crucifixes.
No more swearing to commit ungodly acts in the name of G-d? Who then will we swear by?
Oh no! No more football on Sunday?!?
Until they start stealing your money. Then you can file to ‘divorce’ them.
Without capital punishment and war, what kind of civilization could we possibly call ourselves?
What fun would that be?
How would corporations and up and coming entrepeneurs ever get ahead?
The last refuge of the politician – gone forever? Perish the thought.
This complete defies the American way of life. If you don’t covet what the Jones’ have, you’re not American.
Let’s face it folks, the ten commandments have no place in our American way of life. Embracing them would destroy our country, which is why I’m glad that those in government can’t be bothered to remember them. God bless them for keeping our American way of life safe!
croatoan
My neighbor has a really nice ass. It’s hard not to covet it.
yet another jeff
John S.,
I’m betting that there aren’t a lot of crucifixes in Heaven, if it exists. Was it Bill Hicks that said that if Jesus came back, the last thing he wants to see are a bunch of crosses.
Another funny part is how few of the commandments are actually laws, esp in light of the argument is that the commandments are the basis for western law.
Anderson
It’s hard not to covet it.
Do you really want to *have* the ass, or just use it for a few minutes? Because the latter might be okay.
Punchy
Post of The Day. Clearly.
John S.
I believe it was, and it’s a remarkably salient point. I mean, if Lincoln came back, do you think he’d want to see a bunch of Southern actors running around brandishing pistols?
Otto Man
Yep. He said it would be like wearing a gold necklace with a rifle medallion on it, and walking up to his widow saying, “Just thinkin’ of Jack.”
The Other Steve
I’m outraged by the Britney Spears jokes. Wearing that school girl outfit in her video pretty much makes up for anything stupid she may do or say for the rest of her life.
merelycurious
at the risk of being banned for adding something of scholarly value to a Balloon Juice thread…
Here are two great discussions about how the “10 commandments”, at least as they are popularly understood, don’t exist at all, in the bible.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/mistaeks/tencommandments.html
http://members.cox.net/deleyd/religion/tencommandments.html
For those too wary or lazy to follow the links, what are the “correct” 10 commandments? Glad you asked. (readers of Neil Stephensons “Snow Crash” please note number 4)
Then the LORD said:
1. I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you. Obey what I command you today.
2. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
3. Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you.
4. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles [That is, symbols of the goddess Asherah].
5. Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
6. Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices.
7. And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.
8. Do not make cast idols.
9. Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt.
10. The first offspring of every womb belongs to me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from herd or flock.
11. Redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck.
12. Redeem all your firstborn sons. No one is to appear before me empty-handed.
13. Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest.
14. Celebrate the Feast of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year [That is, in the fall].
15. Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD, the God of Israel.
16. I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the LORD your God.
17. Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast, and do not let any of the sacrifice from the Passover Feast remain until morning.
18. Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God.
19. Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.
Punchy
On the above, I’m calling spoof for numbers 2 (Jebusite? Huh?), 11 (breaking donkey necks? How? With a donkey punch?, and number 19. Nobody cooks young goats; that’s not what they’re used for…at least not in Alabama.
merelycurious
I’m also calling number 12 “the DeLay” clause…
.
..
…
OK fine, groan if you must but it polled well internally.
Otto Man
As long as she doesn’t try to put the costume back on at her current fighting weight.
ppGaz
I must say, these are catchy.
Mike S
My favorite part was where he said he couldn’t think of a better place to post them. The look on Colbert’s face was priceless as he waited for Congressman Dumbass to finally get it.
I almost felt sorry for him when he didn’t.
stickler
I’m betting that, outside of Catholic churches, there aren’t a lot of crucifixes in the American South either. Try and find one in a Baptist church, for example.
Most Protestants aren’t too hip on the grisly crucifixion, as it happens. The cross is usually depicted empty. (I’ll spare y’all the theological explanation.)
RonB
I could only get 7 out of 10 off the bat without looking.
John S.
Which 3 did you forget?
slickdpdx
What about the ones on the back?
rachel
He would have looked somewhat less pitiful if he’d said, “I have trouble remembering all of them, and so do many other people. That’s why we need to have them posted in public places.”
Still stupid, though.
CaseyL
Wiki has a really interesting section on the 10 Commandments. There are, apparently, many different versions, because the Torah contains 613 laws, and doesn’t emphasize any particular ten of them. Various Christian sects, as well as various Jewish sects, have a more-or-less agreed upon Big Ten.
Even there, though, there’s an important difference. Christians elided the first two Jewish commandments to de-emphasize the first Commandment’s statement about there only being one God (in order to justify the divine nature of the Trinity) and about not practising idolatry (in order to justify worshiping images, relics, and saints).
Apparently, the 10 Commandments, like Leviticus, can be cherry-picked to produce a set that conforms to local prejudices.
Krista
That was kind.
caroline
And people in the south get upset when the rest of the country thinks we’re a bunch of idiots? Maybe once we quit electing these losers people will stop laughing at us.
Steve
It’s worth noting that even the Big Ten Conference has 11 teams.
John
As per usual, take any wiki with an appropriately large grain of salt. The 10 Commandments are not referred to as such in the Torah, and they got the number of “commandments” right, but…
The 10 Commandments usually refer to the 10 laws inscribed on the tablets that Moses brought down from the mount (and they *are* in the Torah, Exodus 20.) They are called the 10 Declarations (approximately, it’s usually transcribed as Aseret ha-Dibrot, where 10 Commandments would be Aseret ha-Mitzvot.) In rabbinical teachings, the 613 mitzvot can be categorized by under the 10 Declarations. Think of them as chapter titles, I guess.
It’s been a long time since my comparative religion classes, but I’m fairly sure all that is accurate.
RonB
Honor the Sabbath, honor mom and dad, and taking the Lord’s name in vain.
fwiffo
Having recently moved to Florida, I can say that I saw plenty on my way down. Ooodles and oodles of them.
Actually, what I found most strange was that not only was there more churches (or at least, they were more ostentatious), but that there was a lot more smut too (or maybe that was just more ostentatious too). I can’t think of any place in the country I’ve been that had nearly so many advertisements for “adult” establishments so out in the open like that except Vegas. It was like “megachurch… adult book store… giant cross… strip joint… giant Jesus statue… cathouse… megachurch with giant Jesus wreathed in kudzu… all-nite diner, truck-stop, strip-joint and tourist trap…”
That last place is completely for real. They’ve got billboards every 40 feet along a desolate 800 mile stretch of I-75 in Northern Florida. The advertisements brag about their scrambled eggs, showers and feature pictures that look like they came from a high-school yearbook circa 1987.
yet another jeff
Many would still covet that ass, of course.
stickler
fwiffo:
The ‘crucifix’ is the cross with Jesus hanging on it.
The ‘cross’ has no body hanging from it. (Empty; He’s not there anymore, He was put in the tomb and arose again, etc…)
Most Protestants prefer the latter, especially in their churches.
MikeLucca
I’ll still take my chances with these guys before I’ll give the keys to the kitty to Howard Dean. Westmoreland is an idiot, but he seems pretty harmless to me. Everything about the debate on display of religious things seems pretty harmless to me. I’d rather not have the Ten Commandments displayed in front of the Supreme Court, but I really don’t care much in the end.
Let the religious rednecks have their sandbox. It’s not hurting anyone and it’s not costing tax payers any money.
yet another jeff
And there I was thinking of the empty cross as brandished before vampires…I guess the word “crucifix” is used too often for linquistic reasons.
If we’re going to be picky, then revise my earlier post to be about crosses, not crucifixes…since the empty cross is what I had in mind at the time. However, there was a crucifix or two in my Presbyterian church as a youth…in the fellowship hall.
yet another jeff
Yeah, you tell ’em, MikeLucca. Howard Dean is scary, how many companies has he bankrupted? No taxpayer dollars would be spent to put the 10 commandments in govt. buildings, of course. Screw it, it’s all worth it if we can keep welfare mothers from driving used Cadillacs.
MikeLucca
yet another Jeff says:
No taxpayer dollars would be spent to put the 10 commandments in govt. buildings, of course.
I’m sure private companies would be happy to bankroll it. And if not, how much do you think it would cost the government to do it? Maybe 10 or 20 million. We spend ten times that much on PBS, ten times that much on the NEA, two other government programs I could live without. If we can spend money to pay guy to make “Piss Christ”, then we could spend it to put up a Ten Commandments monument.
I’m not saying we should do either. I’d get rid of the NEA, PBS, and not fund Ten Commandments monuments. But I just don’t see how one is different from the other, except that the first two are much more expensive.
chefrad
I am an Anglican. The 5 commandments and the 5 suggestions.
Brian
There was the Bronze Age. The Iron Age. We live in the Stupid Age.
Brian
Seriously though, how did the US get so freaking stupid all of a sudden? You don’t get as wealthy and technologically advanced as we are without some brains, even if we tend to be pragmatic and don’t sit around discussing Hegel much.
CaseyL
MikeLucca’s all about no taxes. Do whatever you want, to anyone you want; as long as he doesn’t have to pay taxes, he doesn’t care.
MikeLucca
CaseyL says:
Do whatever you want, to anyone you want; as long as he doesn’t have to pay taxes, he doesn’t care.
Taxes is my money, our money. You’re damn right I care how we spend it. And I don’t think Howard Dean or Hilary Clinton feel the same way, honestly.
fwiffo
And thousands of times as much on useless nuclear bunker buster bombs, a broken medicare drug program and a nonfunctional missile defense “shield”, corporate welfare etc.
Why are anti-tax conservatives always penny-wise and pound-foolish?
fwiffo
Actually, Howard Dean is known for his record of fiscal conservatism as governor of Vermont. Apparently he’s now a flaming tax-and-spend liberal because he screamed at a political rally once though.
But feel free to say whatever you’d like about Hillary. I heard she’s a lesbian and killed vince foster (who was also a lesbian).
MikeLucca
fwiffo says:
I heard she’s a lesbian and killed vince foster (who was also a lesbian).
Funny, but cliched by now to accuse anyone who doesn’t like Hilary Clinton of thinking she killed Vince Foster. There are substantive criticisms of the Senator from New York. She may position herself a a moderate, but her healthcare plan would made all the bunker buster bombs and defense shields look like dime store toys, fiscally. Let’s not forget that.
John S.
Prove it. You have anything solid to justify your claim, or is that just how you feel? I know you modern Republicans are long on rhetoric – short on substance.
In the meantime, here are some facts on how your party of fiscal responsibility has done:
In the last fifty years, the national debt as a percentage of GDP has only had net increases under Republican presidents.
The current national debt is $8.195 Trillion. At $600 Billion per year, the Bush Administration will add $1.8 Trillion to the national debt over the next 3 years. That will put the national debt at approximately $10 Trillion when Bush leaves office, which will be double what it was when he took office.
But, oh those Democrats and their theoretical spending, right?
MikeLucca
The estimates I heard on Hillary care were in the ballpark of a trillion a year. And as long as the Democrats can’t win elections and were unable to get their plans through even back when they did, we can all consider ourselves lucky that their spending plans remain theoretical.
tBone
As opposed to the actual spending plans of the current Republican administration? Yeah, I feel soooo lucky.
John S.
So you have no proof. Just the old ‘I heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend” line, eh? Good job.
As opposed to how fucked we are under the non-theoretical spending plans implemented by Republicans who have been elected by fools like you who have no regard for the facts.
I guess in your mind, $500-600 billion a year based on reality is better than $1 trillion a year conjured up in fantasyland. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that seems to be the thrust of your argument.
MikeLucca
You seem to be arguing that the Democrats’ inability to win elections is some kind of a virtue. Yes, we all know you can’t spend money when you’re stuck on the political sidelines. But how does that prove they wouldn’t spend money if they were in power?
tBone
You seem to be arguing that the Republican’s ability to win elections is some kind of virtue. Yes, we all know you can spend money like drunken sailors when you’re not stuck on the political sidelines. But how does that prove the Democrats would spend similar amounts of money if they were in power?
Bob In Pacifica
One quibble. Wasn’t the Sabbath, when the Big Guy handed down the laws, Saturday. I don’t recall a written correction on that.
That means that COLLEGE football is blasphemous. Friday night football and the NFL is mostly off the hook, except for those few games in December.
Personally, I’m always looking over the fencing and wanting to get at my neighbor’s maidservant.
John S.
LOOK AT THE CHART YOU MORON.
When Democrats WERE in office, they still didn’t manage to spend like a 16 year old with daddy’s credit card.
I will not prove a negative for you. I allege that you like to fuck goats. Can you prove that you don’t fuck goats? No? Then you must fuck goats.
You’re a waste of time. Your arguments are nothing more than vapid talking points and you have thus far offered ZERO evidence to back up any of your absurd claims.
When you learn how to present a cogent argument where you supply evidence and analysis to make your point rather than desperately seeking for others to disprove your ridiculous statements, I’d be happy to have a rational discussion with you.
Until then, you are merely another GOPbot 2006.
MikeLucca
tBone says:
You seem to be arguing that the Republican’s ability to win elections is some kind of virtue.
Yes, I am. Why does that seem strange to you?
MikeLucca
Seriously, John S and others, how much do you think Hillary care would have cost? If you think less than a trillion, you’re nuts. Look at how much we spend on Medicare and Medicaid and this would have been much larger. It’s not my fault it never got far enough along in the planning stages for us to get actual projections on its costs.
Medicaid and Medicare cost 365 billion dollars a year, for reference.
CaseyL
I like to spend my money on things that do some good.
I don’t mind taxes so much, because I like roads, schools, sidewalks, clean air, clean water, police and firefighters, street lights, food that’s safe to eat, medicine that’ll do what it claims and not poison me, appliances that work well and safely, and a criminal justice system that’s mostly honest and operates according to established rules.
I don’t mind taxes so much, because I like knowing that, if there’s a traffice accident, state troopers and ambulances will arrive to take care of things. I like knowing that, if I need medical care, the doctors and nurses are certified to know what they’re doing. I like knowing that things like flu or Legionaire’s Disease or e. coli outbreaks are monitored and tracked. I like knowing about hurricanes before they hit.
I don’t mind taxes so much, because I like going to parks, hiking in forests, rafting down rivers, and knowing that someone’s keeping an eye out for fires, someone’s maintaining the trails, and someone’s around if I get lost or hurt myself. I like that I’m not likely to find a shopping mall or a 7-11 or a McMansion where the rain forest used to be, or a toxic spill in the river, or be shot by a private army camped out in the woods.
I don’t mind taxes so much because I like museums and zoos and county fairs, art festivals and national monuments.
I don’t mind taxes so much because, if everything I’ve mentioned here was privatized, it would only be available to people able to afford to pay out of pocket for it, and I wouldn’t be one of those people, and most everyone I know wouldn’t be one of those people.
tBone
To steal a line from Perry Como – I can think of 8,385,011,617,455 reasons.
John S.
Unlike you, I don’t vote based on what I ‘feel’ or what boogeymen I have conjured up in my head.
The largest increase to that in recent history COMING FROM THE REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION OF GEORGE W. BUSH.
But don’t take my word for it. Here are those liberal hacks over at the Heritage Foundation criticizing Bush’s 2007 Budget:
What else you got for us, slick?
fwiffo
I’m no defender of Hillary, but any discussion of how much it would cost would be meaningless without comparing it to what the current system (private health care) costs.
MikeLucca
I never said the Republicans weren’t spending too much — they are. But I would argue that the Dems would make it even worse.
There are times when I think we need a third party.
fwiffo
You would argue that, but you’re just too busy to find facts to support your arguments.
MikeLucca
fwiffo says:
I’m no defender of Hillary, but any discussion of how much it would cost would be meaningless without comparing it to what the current system (private health care) costs.
That is a very fair point. I was waiting for one of you to make it. And there’s no way I can make that comparison without knowing a lot more. I believe that government system would be more inefficient and more expensive than what we have, but no one can prove that, of course, though there are case studies in other areas that would suggest that is the case.
kdaug
Yep. We’d also have to add in additional current costs such as added expense of emergency critical care of the uninsured vs. early dignosis & treatment had they been covered, additional profits to big pharma since there’s no price negotiation in Bush’s medicare bill, insurance company profits (and MD’s costs) for malpractice insurance which could instead be covered under a medical-security plan for doctors, etc.
Bottom line is that the US currently spends much more per person on medical care than any other counrty, and we are less healthy, have shorter life spans, and higher infant-mortality rates than any other first-world country with “socialized” medicine.
Some things shouldn’t be “for-profit”. Medical care is one of them.
CaseyL
I wholeheartedly agree.
Something strange happened when healthcare became an item in investment portfolios: the for-profit part swamped the healthcare part.
I don’t object to healthcare professionals making good salaries. I don’t object to healthcare institutions making money that allows them to hire more healthcare works, buy more equipment, and build more hospitals.
What I do object to is applying the concept of “shareholder value” to healthcare. And I particularly object to it when the shareholders aren’t individuals who live and work in the community, and therefore have a personal interest in the healthcare being provided, but are major portfolio managers who only care about monetary returns and climbing stock prices.
I also particularly object to the “synergy” model that has healthcare institutions and insurance companies aligned with each other in the name of “greater efficiency” – which translates to insurance companies setting healthcare policy in order to enhance investment value, with patient care taking a really distant back seat.
Healthcare by its very nature isn’t, and shouldn’t be, a profit center. The for-profit model inverts the essence of what healthcare’s supposed to do.
tBone
But wait, no one could prove that! And there are vague unnamed case studies that say differently!
Andrew
Beautiful spoofing, Doug.
The Other Steve
It seems to me that the profit/market motive of healthcare is fundamentally flawed because it does not properly operate as a Free Market should. And I am not certain that it ever can.
Both insurance companies and Hospitals which are profit/market driven, are incented to increase revenues. That is, to please the Wall Street masters, they must show revenue growth. Given the restricted nature of this market, in that Healthcare is not something people want to buy more of if they can help it. That is, unlike say cellular phones, you can’t really go out and encourage everyone to get a heart bypass operation.
Or, well, can you? I believe that the model setup by insurance and healthcare providers encourages a situation where it is not in the best interests of the market players to CURE problems. Rather it is in their best interests to treat symptoms.
The best example of this was ulcers, which became a multi-billion industry for anti-acid drug vendors. Until a crackpot doctor in the Australian outback came to realize that ulcers were caused by a bacteria. He was fought ever step of the way by the medical establishment because he threatened their careers.
The Other Steve
There’s a University of Malmo study which supports this conclusion of yours.
You might want to talk to John Stossel about it, as I’m sure he’s aware of that study.
ppGaz
No se puede, amigo!
He’s a spoof. You are talking to a spoof.
ppGaz
Please, tell us less about it.
CaseyL
We don’t need a third party.
We’re in the mess we’re in because people don’t vote, esp. in primaries, where there’s a wider choice of candidates, including some who might actually make good public servants. We’re in the mess we’re in because a lot of the people who do vote vote for single issues, or slogans, or for whoever best assures them that their particular bigotries are going to be enacted into law.
We need more, and smarter, voters.
Until we get more and smarter voters, a third party will just replicate the problems with the two we already have.
neil
Oh, wait, I get it.. so the Ten Commandments are like the Online Integrity pledge! Now it makes sense why you and Jeff Goldstein went around saying it needed to be enshrined on every blog.
Cyrus
I don’t think Mr. Lucca is a spoof, personally. I can see it now: some poor guy, maybe even a father like he says, has been cruelly driven away from his favorite right-wing blogs. Half of the bloggers have become raving moonbats like Greg Djerejian, and the other half are physiologically unable to admit they are wrong, which means they are stuck in ongoing vicious mudslinging contests (over Ben Domenech or paste-eating, instead of the usual ongoing vicious mudslinging contests over whether Howard Dean is as bad as Stalin, or just Castro.)
So his usual blogs are either telling him stuff he disagrees with, or they’re telling him about college professors that practice bestiality. And then he finds out about Balloon Juice. Maybe he had never checked it out before, or maybe he left in protest when Tim showed up. Here, he thinks, is a right-wing blog. Not perfect, no, and this John Cole person apparently has disagreed with The President of the United States here and there, but then it hasn’t degenerated into BDS either, so he figures he’ll give it a try.
So he comments a couple times, and people ask for… evidence! They need reasons to believe “Hillary” isn’t the Swedish word for “redistribution of wealth” – how could they not already know it? Those assholes! What raving moonbats, doesn’t EVERYONE know DeLay is innocent! What’s wrong with people around here?
MikeLucca
Cyrus says:
So his usual blogs are either telling him stuff he disagrees with, or they’re telling him about college professors that practice bestiality.
You’re not far off. There’s some scary things out there in the world of conservative blogs, I won’t lie to you.
Cyrus
LOL. I may have been too hard on you. No one with a sense of humor like that can be all bad.
Krista
Funny…just last week, or the week before, I posted a link to a study that proved pretty definitively that Canada’s government-run healthcare system is more efficient, less expensive, and provides all-around better care.
So, believe what you like. But you’re wrong. :)
MikeLucca
I haven’t looked hard at Canada’s system, only the European system. My impression is that Canada’s has more free market forces working in its favor than, say, Italy’s. But I could be wrong.