Comment On Dan v Cenk

 So Dan Bongino had Cenk Uygur on his podcast for what was a friendly debate. One thing I believe Cenk had an upper hand on was the state of US Healthcare. 

Those who have followed the blog long term knows that I have been in favor of single payer "universal" healthcare. Cenk made many of the arguments I have made. For example, The extremely high costs of healthcare that is driven by high levels of price gouging. For example, go to the hospital and see how much they bill you for things. You would be shocked.

Another item Cenk pointed out was how people are locked into plans provided by their employers and therefore can be "stuck" in a job situation due to needing this coverage. I myself had to face this issue when I declined to be a medical experiment.

Bongino's response to this was that people have choices, though they may not be pleasant ones. He is, of course, correct but it really came across as "sucks to be you" and if I wasn't already disposed to his position, I would likely NOT support a politician with such an attitude.

I think part of the reason Dan could have such an attitude is that he is currently quite wealthy. Hence he can make choices that are at best 'inconvenient" in terms of paperwork relative to a person in the middle class who may have to upend their entire life. So I do think that Dan's current situation resulted in a kind of blind spot on the issue.

Currently I am NOT in favor of government run single payer healthcare because of the other reason Dan gave for the against it: Government tyranny.

Like many other things, the COVID pandemic showed me the REAL danger that a sprawling government is. We saw government mandates to take experimental products. Government interfering with doctor-patient relationships via propaganda and other means to prevent the use of known drugs and therapies. We saw it collude with private entities to end the livelihoods of people who opposed the government.

We even had government and non-government people talking about declining medical care to those who refused the jab.  And this doesn't even include calls for jailing and worse done by non-government actors.

That was enough to let me know that the government cannot be trusted. Dan failed to bring this up and perhaps will do so when he does part 2.  But I think this is what Dan had in mind when he talked about the government having the monopoly on violence, which is inescapable vs. a private company which is escapable. Bringing myself back into the discussion, I declined the poke and fortunately quickly found other employment. If the government had the power to force me to take said poke and could deny me access to any and everything (say via CBDC), I would have been screwed.

My current belief is that since government cannot be trusted, that private insurance needs to be disconnected from employment at prices that are not "whole paycheck". Related to this is that the price gouging has got to be addressed. There is possibly a government role there.

Dan did make the correct argument on the issue of taxes. Cenk tried to make the argument that we cannot ask those who wish to see higher taxes volunteer to pay them because then people would opt out of the things needed for the "public good." So they would refuse to fund things like the Iraq war, Israel's current behavior, Ukraine, etc.

Dan agreed and so do I. The government may make a tax argument for domestic stuff like roads, police, etc. And that's a 'may" because there may be other means to fund these things. But lets assume they can. The other stuff, should not be on the backs of the taxpayers without their explicit permission. 

But what was most off-putting about Cenks' taxation argument is that he kept saying that the government was *giving* money to corporations as if the money *belongs* to the government. I fundamentally disagree with this. The money earned by people and corporations belong to them. It is their property.  I find it offensive that Cenk and others think that 75% (or whatever) of what make over say, 150k somehow belongs to "society" because there are things they want to do.

When I see money being spent on illegal aliens that was taken under threat of force from citizens and legal residents I am very..shall we say...not happy. When I see tax money sent to Ukraine which the US used tax payer dollars to destabilize (I have a video on it), I am...upset.

Dan is absolutely correct that the government needs to be shrunk, programs eliminated and once THAT is done, we can talk about what MAY be the "fair share" that certain people ought to pay. It was very clear that there are many government programs and agencies, both federal and state that are vampire grift operations that need to be ended. For example, back to the illegal alien problem. There are entire entities, getting govt money to literally break federal law. This should not be happening.

So to close, I think Dan and others need to revisit their commentary on healthcare. Saying you have options, not necessarily good, is not a convincing argument and is why the ACA not only passed but remains popular. There are certainly dangers of government run single payer, but at the very minimum the idea that affordable insurance can only be gotten via employment is ripe for the picking.

They Are Absolute Imbeciles

 

Lets assume the above is an actual real post.

There are apparently people out there who take this "trans whater" is a "real whatever" and are entirely baffled by the fact that reality does not comport with their mental illness.

Furthermore; these same people have managed to get politicians to pass laws to enshrine their mental illness as a protected class.

I recently had to do the yearly "trainings" which have evolved, on some topics into leftist propaganda. One such slide featured the narrator discussing people "assigned [sex] at birth".

I have made it a point to correct this whenever I see it. I sent a note to the authors that sex is not assigned at birth. Sex is observed at birth and is often *known* prior to birth.

That this nonsense is encapsulated in law across many states is the sign of the age of stuporstition that The West has fallen into.

Garvey's Ghost TV 10-7-2024: Blame Game

NYC "Migrant crisis" is completely self-inflicted.

 Rumble:

 

Angela Represents Everything Wrong...

 Watch this clip:

WATCH: The liberals on the Breakfast Club tried to corner Byron Donalds on police immunity by claiming Trump wants to protect cops even if they violate the constitution, but got fact-checked INSTANTLY

"When you violate a constitutional right, qualified immunity doesn't apply to… pic.twitter.com/9KAQ7Aucfo

— George (@BehizyTweets) October 1, 2024

Notice that Byron correctly states the limits of qualified immunity. The host quotes what I assume is a Google search that he did. What does Angela do? She did what far to many black people do. Refuse to admit she was wrong.

There was a reader asking me why I "Changed". I didn't change, I refused to be that person who refused the truth because it contradicted some belief I had.  I would have had a great deal of respect for Angela if she had said: "I did not know that. I was misinformed and I withdraw the accusation I made."

But she cannot because she doesn't have principles like I do. That's why she's on the air and I remain an unknown.

Learned Nothing From 2020

Either a lot of people learned nothing from the government overreach during the Covid crisis, which IMO, was a crisis of government more than a medical crisis, OR a lot of people were and are OK with the government overreach. Either way, the linked article highlights what should be a non-starter with the public after the 2020 (and on) fiasco.

The founders of this country, the US, knew the dangers of safety-ism. They knew from experience that a scared people will allow tyranny to be implemented because it is the nature of humans to submit to "authority" when they don't feel safe.  During the scamdemic, governments around the world realized that if they scared the shit out of the public they could do anything without mass resistance. They discovered that they could order you to stay in your home. They could ticket you for walking down the street for "no good reason" because "Covid". They could shut down your business by revoking your licenses. Based on what offense? Because Covid. 

They demanded you be subject to medical battery in order to fly or keep your job.

They demanded you take an experimental medical product in order to keep or get a job.

And they all got away with it. Having gotten away with shit that should have at a minimum resulted in lost office holding and lost employment and more favorably,  jail time and summary execution (no I'm not kidding) They continue to turn the screws and way too many people are OK with it.

I pointed out years ago that "safety-ism" was going to be the tool to implement mass tyranny by government. The emotional blackmail of "but think of the kids" or "You don't want to kill grandma.." or "Too many lives lost" are emotional weapons. No one wants the kids hurt. No one wants grandma dead, and nobody wants to see someone die in a car crash.

Politicaly you can't say "fuck granny" nor "I don't care about..." which is actually the proper response to those attempting to emotionally blackmail you. 

When it comes to "speed enforcement" I long said that toll boths on highways are ripe for revenue generation because as you pass through them, your average speed can be calculated and it is is above the speed limit for that section of road, you could be sent a violation. This was *before* EZ pass. EZ pass is essentially a radar gun. States and counties could just mass ticket all motorist of pass under an EZ pass reader while doing more than the speed limit.

Anyone driving on an interstate or major state highway knows full well that if you do the speed limit, unless there is traffic, you better park in the right lane because you WILL be passed by everybody else.

On average vehicles are travelling 15-20 MPH  over the posted speed limit. If speed kills there would be a mass of dead people and NOBODY would be doing these speeds. Yet all the data shows that speed does not kill. What kills is inexperience, distraction and improperly maintained vehicles.

So here's how we know that Marco has no idea what this actual proposal is about.

"Safety activists and cyclist advocacy organizations are hailing its passing as a big win for everyone, while the National Motorists’ Association has been actively running a petition to prevent the bill from passing."

Ahh the "safety advocates" on cue.

"Any vehicle sold from 2030 onwards that has a front-facing camera or GPS guidance system will be required to provide a warning whenever drivers exceed 10 miles over the speed limit."

No driver is "accidentally" going 10MPH over a speed limit. At low speeds, most people are in "city traffic" and are following the vehicle ahead of them regardless of speed (up to a point). Most people simply follow the flow of traffic. And this proposal does nothing but add more distractions to the driver. Let me explain.

I have a 1997 BMW Z3. On the dash is the following:

Speedo, Tach, Fuel level, engine temp, miles. plus placeholders for "idiot lights" which are usually not illuminated. The radio has a one line screen. I connect my phone via BT. The volume is a knob and I have actual buttons I don't have to look at to use. The only time that car beeps or dings at me is if the door is open while the key is in the ignition. Did I mention the light orange glow?

The last time I had a loaner vehicle. The screen was bright as all hell. Gone was the light orange glow. Replacing it was a number of colors and animations. Yes, animations on the dashboard. Then we have the bright center screen where the nav map and other things appear. That's two screens worth of "info" compared to the ONE from back in 1997.

Then the beeping started. It didn't like how close I was to this lane marker or the other. Someone cut in front of me. An animation and more beeping as it throught I was going to have a rear-ender. Eventually I habituated to the noises, which then defeats the purpose of such warnings. I eventually dug into the menus to turn it off.

I'm trying to drive here.

I once had a guy back into me in a parking lot, despite the fact that he had "distance control" wailing at him that was getting to close. I'm pretty certain it was habituation from his car constantly beeping at him. But back to the article

"While nothing in the bill prevents more aggressive measures, such as the car automatically reducing speed once this overclocked limit is detected, or additional warnings related to speeds, it also makes it clear that this system must be able to be disengaged by the manufacturer or a ‘franchisee’—essentially the driver themselves."

You know they put speed limiters on trucks right?

For your safety. Never trust the "but we aren't doing that" argument.

" the bill only calls for a one-time warning, with audio and/or haptics. But the fact that it is not sustained will make this required minimum safety feature fairly easy to ignore or forget, even by well-meaning drivers with a bit of a lead foot."

Because the point of this is to habiuate YOU the driver to being monitored by the state via the manufacturer. Once you are habituated to this technology, then next shoe drops.

"While manufacturers are expressly permitted to go above and beyond these regulations, it’s likely they won’t unless drivers demand it."

No drivers, except those in government and manufacturing asked for this in the first place. I would place a large sum of money on a wager that no one outside the aforementioned "Safety activists" both inside and outside government even asked for such legislation in the first place.