AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

I think this is really an important point. People like Okie do not feel that we have any real duty towards our fellow man at all, or that people should be able to decide to ignore that duty with no consequences.

Cycloptichorn

"I have two reactions to the election in Massachusetts. One, I am disappointed. Two, I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in Congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results. If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills. But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the Senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some Republican Senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform because I do not think that the country would be well-served by the health care status quo. But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened. Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the Senate rule which means that 59 votes are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of the process."

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I think this is really an important point. People like Okie do not feel that we have any real duty towards our fellow man at all, or that people should be able to decide to ignore that duty with no consequences.

Cycloptichorn

Total and absolute crap, as usual. We have a duty toward fellow man, but it does not always involve government, nor does it mean that the government should steal from one man to give it to another in a futile effort to make all men equal in terms of what they earn or own, unless of course you believe the principles of Karl Marx.

The explanation of how you were using them wrong is HERE-

http://able2know.org/topic/113196-917#post-3880345

When a table tells you you can't COMPARE the numbers between years that means you can't subtract one from the other to give a total number of jobs lost.

When the numbers are for the YEAR it also means you can't claim they are for December of that year.

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.cpseea1.txt
Total employment in the USA in:
December 2006 = 144,427,000
December 2007 = 146,047,000 (maximum total employment in USA history)
December 2008 = 143,338,000
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
December 2009 = 137,792,000

1 Not strictly comparable with prior years. For an explanation, see "Historical Comparability" under the Household Data section
of the Explanatory Notes and Estimates of Error at http://www.bls.gov/cps/eetech_methods.pdf.

That's funny okie because I don't spend more than I make, I tend to work hard and I practice personal responsibility. I also believe in educating myself wherever possible. Does that make me a conservative? Or does that mean you are trying to redefine conservative to make yourself look good?

That's funny okie because I don't spend more than I make, I tend to work hard and I practice personal responsibility. I also believe in educating myself wherever possible. Does that make me a conservative? Or does that mean you are trying to redefine conservative to make yourself look good?

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.cpseea1.txt
Total employment in the USA in:
December 2006 = 144,427,000
December 2007 = 146,047,000 (maximum total employment in USA history)
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
December 2008 = 143,188,000
December 2009 = 137,792,000

In my mind, it makes you a conservative.

I dont dare speak for okie, because his brand of conservatism doesn't come close to matching mine.

You aren't really disagreeing with my position; you feel that duty towards' one's fellow man is an optional thing, that you should have the freedom to choose to ignore. Which I have no doubt you then, in most cases, promptly do.

Cycloptichorn

posted at 11:51 am on January 21, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

The dream of cramming down the Senate version of ObamaCare died as Scott Brown arrived in Washington DC to prepare to enter the Senate as the first Republican from Massachusetts in 38 years, which was both coincidental and providential. Nancy Pelosi announced late this morning that she can’t get the votes necessary to move it to Obama’s desk:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she does not have the votes needed to pass the Senate version of the health care bill.
“I don’t see the votes for it at this time,” Pelosi told reporters in a briefing.
After Democrats lost their 60-vote supermajority in the Senate Tuesday after Republicans won an upset victory in the Massachusetts special election to replace the late Ted Kennedy, House passage of the current Senate health bill appeared to be one of few options available for Democrats hoping to complete their year-long quest to pass health reform.
Brown’s arrival in the capital today carried a message that Democrats finally began to comprehend, after dismissing voter anger at town halls for months as meaningless:
Rank-and-file Democrats vented their frustration at a closed-door meeting Thursday. Emerging from the session, Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-N.Y., said: “The mega bills are dead. If we didn’t see what happened Tuesday night, we have blinkers on.”
And now that the blinkers have begun to come off, Democrats realize that most people didn’t consider this a priority in the first place:
Also fueling the Democratic search for a fresh health care strategy is a conviction by many in the party that it’s time for an election-year focus on jobs and the economy, which polls show are easily the public’s top concerns.
“I don’t think we have to wait for health care to be resolved one way or the other before we move to jobs,” said Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa. “We need to put a jobs bill on the table very soon, certainly in the next few weeks.”
This puts an end to the complicated pass-this-now, do-a-modification-later approach that had been floated over the past week as it became apparent that Democrats would lose Massachusetts. It also probably means an end to the reconciliation approach, which could only be used to pass the least popular elements of ObamaCare " Medicare cuts and tax hikes. We’re probably looking more at a Square One approach, and this time the Obama administration may try to draft key Republicans into the talks in order to get bipartisan cover.
Either way, it’s an ignominious defeat for Obama and Pelosi, whose radical approach and “I won” attitude finally caught up with them. Even with massive majorities and a filibuster-proof caucus, they could not jam down a massive government intrusion into the private sector through Congress. They overreached, and now they have been exposed as radicals in the middle of an election year.

Democrats get push-back on trimming healthcare plan
(By Noam N. Levey, The Chicago Tribune, January 22, 2010)

Even as congressional Democrats began examining ways to scale back their gargantuan health legislation, a wave of consumer groups, patient advocates and doctors called on Democrats Thursday not to abandon the comprehensive health overhaul they've worked so long to pass.

"The legislation passed by the House and Senate would broaden access to quality, affordable health care to tens of millions of people who are currently uninsured or underinsured," leaders of the AARP, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, Consumers Union, Families USA and Service Employees Union International said in a joint letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

"The bills also make important changes to emphasize disease prevention, place greater emphasis on health care quality, and take vital steps to improve the efficiency of health care delivery systems," the groups said. "The legislation is not perfect. No bill is. But now is not the time to turn back,"

Leaders of the American Medical Association also voiced continued support for efforts to expand insurance coverage and reshape the nation's healthcare system.

"We're the last … industrialized country that has not figured out how to do this. It is time," said Dr. Nancy Nielsen, immediate past president of the AMA.

Also joining the call for action were liberal grassroots powerhouse MoveOn.org and Healthcare for America Now, a coalition of left-leaning consumer groups and labor unions.

Many Democrats on Capitol Hill, shaken by the Republican victory in Massachusetts Tuesday, are pushing for more limited healthcare legislation that focuses on popular initiatives such as preventing insurance companies from canceling policies of consumers when they get sick.

"We ought to be able to come up with a scaled back version of healthcare reform and get it done very quickly," Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) said Thursday after House Democrats met to discuss ways to salvage their health campaign.

President Obama has expressed interest in such an approach, as well.

Democrats also face continued pressure from Republicans to abandon their health campaign. "The bottom line is, nobody wants this bill but Washington's special interests," House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday. "And if they jam it through, I think they're going to face a firestorm from the American public."

Speaking to reporters Thursday, Pelosi acknowledged that she does not have the votes to pass the sweeping healthcare bill approved by the Senate just before Christmas, one option that had been under consideration.

Senior Democrats have begun exploring whether it would be possible to craft more limited bills that would strengthen restrictions on insurance companies, expand Medicare drug coverage for seniors and promote more disease prevention, among other things.

But many involved in the healthcare debate believe that breaking apart the painstakingly assembled health legislation into smaller parts presents a major challenge because the healthcare system is so interconnected.

"This is very hard to do in a truncated form," said Nancy LeaMond, executive vice president of the seniors' group AARP.

And Democratic leaders are still exploring the possibility of passing the Senate bill in the House along with a package of changes that would address perceived problems with the Senate legislation, such as its tax on high-end Cadillac health plans.

"Everything is on the table," Pelosi said.