Various political observations recently
JoeUser Forums
In no particular order…
Scientists are Democrats…right?
Pew Research says that 55% of scientists say they are Democrats, 6% Republicans. Gosh, must mean people who value the scientific method are Democrats while Republicans are just a bunch of religious nut jobs right?
Strangely, the left-wingers who have commented on it don’t seem to be that concerned as to how the survey identified who a “scientist” was. Is a scientist someone who works at a university doing pure scientific research on the breeding patterns of fruit flies? Does it count someone who works at say a software company researching new ways to simulate different uses of carbon nanotubes? Something tells me the survey identified the former as a scientist and the latter was not counted as one. Icky capitalists aren’t scientists right?
Would people who want “affordable” health insurance be willing to go to your door with hat and hand?
I was reading Digg the other day and as some of you know, Digg is largely populated by far left-wing people who are largely unaware of how far left they are (they freak out about FOX News pretty much daily).
Anyway, on the topic of health care, every time there is a discussion on it, it always boils down to the consensus (on Digg anyway) that single player health care is the way to go. Single player meaning really tax payers which, as some know, is only around 60% of the US population, the other 40% paying zilch.
So let’s put this in perspective. Presently, around 88% of the adult population of the United States has health insurance that they either pay for themselves or (mostly) is paid for by their employer. No matter how you slice it, they’re “paying into” the system.
But single payer advocates prefer a system in which only 60% of the population is paying into it. This means either massively higher taxes just to get what we have today OR (more likely) a lot crappier quality health care than we have today and all so that the remaining 12% of the population can have health insurance.
Most people I’ve met who want a single payer system happen to be in that 40% of the population who pay no net federal income taxes. I wonder if they’d be willing to come hat in hand and ask you to pay for their pills in person? Of course not, they’d rather act like they’re taking the moral high ground in demanding that you pay for their pills via taxes.
Tree huggers & agendas
I don’t expect a lot of out activist environmentalists. Most activists seem more concerned with making themselves feel like they “care” than actually doing anything constructive to help the planet. It’s purely about emotional satisfaction for them.
In the mind of the modern American liberal, results are irrelevant, it’s about caring. Don’t you care about the environment? Don’t you care about the poor? Don’t you care about…?
I wish they’d do a little less “Caring” and a little more “DOing”.
Case in point, in an on-line debate on whether SUVs should be outlawed or not I pointed out that yes, I drive an SUV to work every day. It only gets 18 MPG.
The lady debating me in the post took the high and mighty position that it’s people like me destroying the environment because I don’t “care” about the environment.
I pointed out “Well, I only drive 6 miles a day, that means I only burn 1 gallon of gas every 3 days, how far do you drive?”
Well, she has a 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid. She kept pointing this out throughout the discussion because it apparently gets 40MPG.
After a few times of me asking how much she drives, she admitted she works “about” 30 miles from work. That means 60 miles a day or a gallon and a half of gas PER DAY.
So when I suggested that if she’s so worried about the environment and wants the government to start banning things, why not limit the # of gallons of gas someone can use per week instead of worrying about what kind of car they drive.
And so I got the usual “Not everyone has the luxury of living only a few miles from work, I can’t afford to live any closer.”
Awww. See, it doesn’t matter that she’s burning about 8 gallons a week of gas because she cares. It’s not really about saving the planet. It’s about feeling better about oneself.
I mean, if CO2 is going to cause “millions” of deaths and is the most important issue facing the world (as she repeatedly said) then how can she possibly justify burning 8 gallons of gas a week? Especially when she’s saying “deniers” like me need to give up our “toys” (said toy that burns a quarter as much gas a week as she does).
That’s always been the bottom line with the activist environmental movement. They’re not really serious. It’s just narcissism posing as political posturing.
