Comments Posted By michael reynolds
Displaying 131 To 140 Of 839 Comments
THINKING IMPURE THOUGHTS IS MORE THAN A MORTAL SIN IF YOU'RE A REPUBLICAN
It's true, it's all truuuuue. I'm so sad and lonely without Jesus.
Yesterday, lacking any moral sense, I shot a hobo just so I could feel something. You know, man? It's the emptiness inside me. Of course that last thing could be the diet.
The jaws of Hell are open wide beneath me. I look down into that fiery pit and see . . . No! Noooo! It can't beee! It's full of loose women and pot-smoking men. Plus every interesting person who ever lived. Sluts, bongs and Winston Churchill. The horror. The . . . horror.
Wait! Now, they're engaging in all the deadly sins: pride, avarice, wrath, gluttony . . . Oh, sorry, my bad. That wasn't Hell it was just Thanksgiving dinner.
Isn't there some way I can go to heaven, Increase Mather? And spend eternity with the ladies of the altar guild and men who wear pompadours?
Eternity . . . eternity . . . eternity . . . with Pat Roberston.
Yep. If that doesn't make me want to give up blasphemy I don't know what it will take.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 24.11.2009 @ 16:43
'THE COST OF DYING:' FALSE CHOICES OR THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN HEALTHCARE?
Jackson:
Both private insurers and government make health care decisions. If you assume:
1) That both find an advantage in collecting as much money as possible while paying out as little as possible, and
2) Private insurers are more efficient, you are left with:
Conclusion: private insurers are more likely to kill grandma.
Of course in reality it goes more like this:
1) The CEO of Aetna makes more money every time he can refuse to pay.
2) The GS 16 gets diddly squat for cutting anyone off, therefore:
Conclusion: private insurers are more likely to kill grandma.
In fact, aside from your assumption of government perfidy, I doubt you can construct a logical argument that would lead to the opposite conclusion.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 24.11.2009 @ 13:55
What I don’t support is putting this sort of planning - or ‘encouragement’ of planning - in the hands of government. Doctors don’t need laws to tell them to encourage patients to do this and laws shouldn’t exist forcing people to do this.
The existing "law" for doctors is the law of the free market. They make money from performing procedures. So what exactly would motivate a surgeon to say, "Look, you don't need or want this surgery, all it would do is drag out your miserable existence for another six weeks."
Why would a surgeon say that to a patient? Altruism? Are you a big believer in altruism? Because I have to tell you that the predicate of a free market is individuals acting in their own interests. It is very much in the surgeon's interest to perform surgery. And there is really zero doubt that health care in this country is about ass-deep in unnecessary but very profitable procedures.
Unless you propose eliminating Medicare the vast majority of these pointless but very profitable procedures are going to be paid for by the taxpayer. So don't you think it's a good idea for the persons paying -- the government, meaning us -- to have some say in how many pointless procedures a doctor performs? Or is your wallet just an open trough at which any doctor may feed?
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 24.11.2009 @ 11:02
Ninja:
What does a will or a living will have to do with compassion? Or a government overlord?
Look, you find a form online, or you go to your lawyer, and you answer a bunch of difficult questions. And then when you get sick or die you don't shove all the decisions off on your wife or your kids.
The lack of compassion is shown by some 90 year old bankrupting his family so he can cling to life for an extra two weeks. Or forcing his distraught family to argue and fight over what his wishes might have been.
You're going to die, Ninja. We all die. So take an afternoon and do the grown-up thing and work out a living will and a regular will.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 24.11.2009 @ 09:07
On the larger issue, I would love it if we had an intelligent conversation in this country. Unfortunately it will quickly devolve into a competition between political parties over which can swear the greatest loyalty to the elderly.
Old people vote. Which is why the government will buy a transplant for a 100 year-old man, but tell a twenty-five year old to drop dead. And it's why paranoia about the government and death panels is so ludicrous. You'll note that we are now debating whether to extend to young people the very benefits we long since granted old people.
I've had a living will for more than a decade, ever since our first kid was born. Had it updated not long ago. It's a fairly grisly discussion (So, let's say you're in a coma, is it okay if we starve you?) but really if you're old enough to make the old man grunting noise every time you stand up you're old enough to face the fact that the death rate is still right where it's always been: 100%.
It's staggering in a country full of people who claim to believe death is just a ticket to eternal life that people are such pussies about death. When I die I expect I'll cease to exist. (By the way, I answered, sure: starve me. At least I'll die thin.) So why is it I can face it more easily than all the paradise-bound Christians?
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 23.11.2009 @ 17:26
Jackson:
If someone else is making a decision on when I need to die and I have the following choice of decision-maker:
a) A guy who will make more money and have more job security if I die fast and cheap.
b) A politician who may want my family and friends to support him in the next election.
I have to go with (b.) You really don't want to leave that decision in the hands of someone whose stock options rise in value if you die.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 23.11.2009 @ 17:11
'IQ OF A CELERY STALK?' WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT ONE?
Narciso:
Your understanding is so profound, your ideas so clear and compelling I think you should run with Palin.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 22.11.2009 @ 22:31
The right, although many of them can be appealed to on populist terms, is generally about individual rights, individual responsibilities, and individual opportunity.
Which is why they stood up for Civil Rights. Oh, wait, that wasn't the Right, it was the Left. The Right moved swiftly to exploit the Left's embrace of Civil Rights by appealing to racism in the 1960's and going forward.
And that whole rights thing would be why the Right has been so strongly in favor of women's rights. Yeah. It was the Right that fought to get rid of laws that allowed employers to screw a woman out of half her pay solely because of her gender. No, no, wait, now that I think about it, the Right fought against the individual liberty of women who wished to work for a living.
And of course the Right fought against the liberties of gays. Still is doing so.
In fact, when you come down to it, the Right doesn't stand so much for liberty as it does privilege. The privilege of whites to deny the vote to blacks, to deny employment to blacks, to deny equal treatment to women, to deny equal protection to gays, to non-believers.
Come to think of it, it was the Right that pushed for increased government censorship in media. And of course opposes abortion. And wants children to be force-fed Christianity in public schools. And opposes an individual's choice to end their medical treatment.
And unless I'm mistaken it was the Right that supported government surveillance throughout every means of communication.
The only liberty the Right defends is gun ownership.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 22.11.2009 @ 13:47
Insight:
Perfect!
Translation: People are idiots, Sarah Palin appeals to idiots, better our idiot than their idiot.
And we're the elitists?
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 22.11.2009 @ 12:38
What is particularly amusing is that Palin's supporters don't get that we Democrats love Palin. Palin embodies every mean thing we want to say about the GOP. The more Palin represents the GOP the happier we are. (As partisans, not as patriots, that would be a very different reaction.)
So the louder the tea partiers scream, the crazier Glenn Beck gets, the more paranoid, the more Palinized the whole asylum gets, the better for us. Bigger government vs. smaller government is a fight we can lose; but we'll never lose the sane vs. batshit battle.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 22.11.2009 @ 11:34
