spoco2
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Married, 3 young kids, living in be-a-utiful Melbourne, Australia.
Life is good.
Also, opinionated pain in the arse.
Member Since: 2006-08-21
Last Power Points used: 2008-08-24 • Available: now
Max Power Points: 1
Last Power Points used: 2008-08-24 • Available: now
Max Power Points: 1
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Member Stats
Rank: 172
Rating:
65 star points
Votes Received: 1328
Votes Cast: 1877
Comments Posted: 1526 • browse
Comments Applauded: 19
Sifted Videos: 46
Unsifted Vids: 1
Sift Talk Posts: 7
Profile Views: 12088
Rating:
65 star pointsVotes Received: 1328
Votes Cast: 1877
Comments Posted: 1526 • browse
Comments Applauded: 19
Sifted Videos: 46
Unsifted Vids: 1
Sift Talk Posts: 7
Profile Views: 12088
In reply to this comment by spoco2:
>> ^complacentnation:
fuck trucks
It's hard to without injury.
Um
So I've heard.
For some of us danger is uncommon but for a few of us danger is an every day thing.
That's why I got out of my last line of work.
Do i let it rule my life, no I don't. But do I let my guard down, I was trained not to.
I said stay off the highways, it means take a back road.
My posts are to be taken with salt.
By the way those are good odds, I should play the lotto.
I sure hope you're being sarcastic.
What an insanely fearful way to live that robs you of basic joys every day. If you spend all your time worrying about what could, possibly, in a 1 in a 100,000 chance, maybe happen if you go out of the house... then... really... what's the point of life.
But then, I get the impression you are joking because, well, your post makes little sense... how has anyone got any back to a wall, and how does this apply to subways?
In reply to this comment by spoco2:
It is, if you check just near the middle of yours it's the same thumbnail they have, all it takes is for a vid to be a sec or two longer or shorter for it to have a different thumbnail.
In reply to this comment by Aemaeth:
You sure it's the same vid? It seem similar, just strange to have such a different thumbnail.
In reply to this comment by spoco2:
*dupe of http://www.videosift.com/video/What-if-there-were-no-stop-signs , but their embed is gone, I'd say give this embed to them and discard this...
In reply to this comment by spoco2:
you know, this might be better if you explained what the hell the ad is you're talking about.
I have no idea what this is in relation to, so it makes no sense at all to me.
In reply to this comment by spoco2:
*dupe of http://www.videosift.com/video/What-if-there-were-no-stop-signs , but their embed is gone, I'd say give this embed to them and discard this...
In reply to this comment by spoco2:
Well, had to go to the link to see it, and the audio is atrocious, but that was... indeed... funny
In reply to this comment by spoco2:
Thought you might like this sift, a really great talk from an agnostic about his journey of trying to spend a year living by all the laws in the bible (all 700+ of them!), sifted by another user.
It says a lot of what I feel to be true, that there is a lot of good in the bible, and a lot of bad, it all comes down to how you follow it...
In reply to this comment by spoco2:
Sometimes I do wonder about what does and doesn't get sifted up.
I truly hate this apple ad, I've been a PC gamer for a long, long time (and programmer, it's what I do for a crust), and so suggesting that all PCs do is boring things just rubs me up the wrong way.
Cause there's SO many games available on the Mac compared to the PC.
Self righteous Apple people... grrr.
In reply to this comment by spoco2:
I agree, I don't think we're going to change either one of our minds.
So... we'll end this discussion.
And probably argue about something else later
In reply to this comment by thepinky:
I never said that I want to eliminate taxes altogether. As I said several times, I like government programs and I like the good things they do. But I don't want them to take any more of my money, I want them to start using correctly the money that they already take.
What about self-sufficiency? Who says that rural areas can't survive without help from Big Brother? I grew up in a small farming town, 60% of the population of which were Hispanic, many of those illegal immigrants. We didn't get enough funding for our high school so we worked our butts off to raise it. The town had a huge tourist event every year to raise money for the town, and all of the cultural organizations would work at the festival to earn money. My parents sruggled financially and we lived on beans and otmeal and rice for a few years. They learned to survive. The town built cultural centers and theaters with no government help whatsoever. You're probably going to say that I'm falling into the trap of saying that I didn't use the services so blahddy blahddy blah, but don't you think it is insulting for us to assume that people can't make it on their own? That they need help to get the things they need? That they shouldn't have to change their situation (move to a city if that's what is needed) or make sacrifices to succeed? Most people are just as intelligent as me and just as capable of making it as I am. We tell them that they can't do it so they don't. Yes, the government and taxes are good and necessary, but I don't believe that we ought to be so dependent on someone else. "Ask not what your country can do for you..." and all that. By making people feel like all of their problems are somebody else's fault, we are teaching people not to take responsibility for there own actions, and it is leaking into the moral attitudes of people as well. Everything is somebody else's fault.
And I obviously don't feel like we shouldn't help each other. We should! But we should do it in such a way that we give money where it's needed and teach people to become self-sufficient if they possibly can. It helps them to feel useful and good and capable and like human beings instead of like useless children.
I grow weary of this conversation because we're never going to agree. I'd rather talk about something like this in person because typing it all out gets so annoying.
What about self-sufficiency? Who says that rural areas can't survive without help from Big Brother? I grew up in a small farming town, 60% of the population of which were Hispanic, many of those illegal immigrants. We didn't get enough funding for our high school so we worked our butts off to raise it. The town had a huge tourist event every year to raise money for the town, and all of the cultural organizations would work at the festival to earn money. My parents sruggled financially and we lived on beans and otmeal and rice for a few years. They learned to survive. The town built cultural centers and theaters with no government help whatsoever. You're probably going to say that I'm falling into the trap of saying that I didn't use the services so blahddy blahddy blah, but don't you think it is insulting for us to assume that people can't make it on their own? That they need help to get the things they need? That they shouldn't have to change their situation (move to a city if that's what is needed) or make sacrifices to succeed? Most people are just as intelligent as me and just as capable of making it as I am. We tell them that they can't do it so they don't. Yes, the government and taxes are good and necessary, but I don't believe that we ought to be so dependent on someone else. "Ask not what your country can do for you..." and all that. By making people feel like all of their problems are somebody else's fault, we are teaching people not to take responsibility for there own actions, and it is leaking into the moral attitudes of people as well. Everything is somebody else's fault.
And I obviously don't feel like we shouldn't help each other. We should! But we should do it in such a way that we give money where it's needed and teach people to become self-sufficient if they possibly can. It helps them to feel useful and good and capable and like human beings instead of like useless children.
I grow weary of this conversation because we're never going to agree. I'd rather talk about something like this in person because typing it all out gets so annoying.
My siblings and other family members have had to make use of "those services," and I very much appreciate their existence. I don't believe in the idea that people on Welfare are lazy drunks. I agree with Karl Marx about a lot of things. But Welfare IS abused and it needs to be a system where we encourage self-reliance and help people break the cycle of poverty instead of perpetuating it. And I think by "a couple of bad eggs" you mean tens of thousands.
I don't care about Joe Shmoe's birth control. It is not a neccesity. I don't care how good his sex is. I intend to use birth control pills. I never had my teeth straightened. I still have my wisdom teeth. I'm not complaining about my quality of life. A vasectomy is a luxury, plain and simple.
It's not about healthcare as much as it's about the principle behind this whole thing.
Let me tell you about some of my religious beliefs, since you brought that up. In the New Testament, Paul's epistles to the members of the early Christian church (following Christ's death) reveal that the early church practiced what Mormons call "The Law of Consecration". It is similar to Marxism in that everyone's needs are taken care of and capitalism doesn't exist (for the sake of the public good).
I believe that there are God's laws and then there are Satan's counterfeits. Here is a little quote about it: "To me that means that whenever God creates something that is good, true, and beautiful, Satan, in his devious way, comes up with something that is false, counterfeit, and ugly, yet appears to be similar to our Father’s creation." In this case, the eternal law is consecration. You share everything you have with others. Satan's counterfeit is communism. Are you following me? I promise I'm going somewhere with this.
In the early days of my church, they tried to practice the Law of Consecration. For a while, it worked, but people began to be jealous and resentful because some people weren't working as hard or sharing fairly etc., etc. and Joseph Smith did away with it in favor of tithing. Tithing is the lower law and the law of consecration is the higher law. (I don't know how much you know about Christian theology, but it's like Moses' Law being lower until Jesus came and gave a higher law. Jesus said "turn the other cheek" and Moses said "an eye for an eye.") We pay tithing for the greater good ("us") as a sacrifice to prepare us for a time when we are righteous enough to be given the higher law again.
Tithing is 10% of our income and is used for many things. We know that our money is being used where we want it to be used and we give it voluntarily. We also give what are called Fast Offerings. That is, we fast once a month and have the choice to give the money that we saved on food to the church and the money is distributed to the needy. Most people give a lot more than they saved on food, though.
The way it works is that the Bishop interviews people who aren't doing well financially and helps them become self-reliant if they possibly can. If they can't, the church gives them money to support them until they can find a way to support themselves. Also, the Bishop will often give the person the opportunity to serve the church in some way so that they can feel as if they're earning the money. This is a good system. Satan's counterfeit is socialism. The government takes our money by force and does with it what it pleases and we have no idea what happens to most of it. Much of it goes to the rich and to those who don't deserve it and who didn't work for it. Often, our welfare system helps people who really need help and I'm delighted about that, but much of the time my money goes to the lazy, to those who abuse their own bodies with smoking and unhealthy lifestyles, to those who want a vasectomy because other forms of contraception are just too difficult for them to handle, to those whose fathers and grandfathers were on welfare, to those who won't do what it takes to get/hold a job, to corrupt politicians and rich corporations, and so many others.
Like I said before, I give a huge chunk of my money to charity. I give it VOLUNTARILY. It's not all about me, me, me. It's about what is just and what is unjust. It is unjust for people to get free handouts unless they are really in need and cannot possibly take care of themlselves. To give people stuff that they don't deserve is not doing them a favor. Indeed, it is perpetuating ignorance and laziness and co-dependency instead of the things that truly make people feel like worthwhile human beings like self-reliance and hard work. The Lord's way of service and sacrifice and benefitting the greater good makes people happy. Socialism isn't right for that reason.
But I really do believe that we need government programs for those that cannot help themselves. I just don't like the way things are looking right now. We're slipping into socialism and I don't like it one bit. I wish there was a way to fix healthcare without privatizing.
Those were my opinions, by the way. Not church doctrines. The church doesn't take a stand on political topics.
I have more to say but I'm sick of typing and I don't think you want to read it, anyway.
In reply to this comment by spoco2:
Have you watched Sicko (Michael Moore, who I'm going to guess you don't like), if not, do so, it demonstrates the differences between the US and countries like ours.
I see that you have the usual right wing view of "How does it work besides you having to pay for somebody else's elective surgery?" You're coming from the viewpoint of me, me, me, rather than us, us, us.
Which, considering your strong religious views is odd, as the Christian ethos is 'do unto others as you would have done unto you'... which to me I would read 'If I were sick and couldn't afford to pay for a heart operation, I would hope that others might help me.'
Really, do you think we notice the money that goes towards public health? Nope.
Do we notice the huge difference in the cost of medicine and health care day to day for all of us here compared to places like the states? You betcha.
Really, even though you have private health cover, you should check out Sicko, it shows that just having cover doesn't mean things are going to be covered. And do you think it's right that before a doctor will perform LIFE saving procedures on you they ask about your cover, whether they'll get paid for it?
It's disgusting.
And breeding excellence is a load of absolute toss.
As I mentioned, one of my sons has a host of heart conditions, what we discovered is that we, right here in Melbourne Australia, with its public health system, not having to pay for it... we have one of the absolute BEST heart care centres in the world. The care we get for our son is second to none... really, they are superb, and we've read a lot on it, and talked to many, many people in the same boat around the world, and the quality of care in the states is no better, and the cost is far, far more.
I know which health care system I'd want.
And, by the way, I DO have private health care also, because we can afford it, and because you benefit for doing so and helping out further. And if you think that the rest of the country is paying for people to have boob jobs and the like you're very mistaken. By elective surgery, I mean things like vasectomies (very handy in keeping the ol' population down in this overcrowded world), and other things that are not life threatening, but impede the quality of life. (Um... warts being removed, wisdom teeth extracted, things like that)
In reply to this comment by thepinky:
In reply to this comment by spoco2:
In reply to this comment by thepinky:
?
In reply to this comment by thepinky:
Ah, capitalism. I could really get into that. I donno, Spoco. I'm terribly wary of a public health care system. The US doesn't always handle its public programs in the best way. Prime example: Education. Also: Welfare. I'm afraid that the quality of our health care will go down. We do have social programs for free healthcare. The government will pay and it really isn't that hard to obtain. Just ask my brother.
So if you were to break you leg tomorrow and went to an emergency room and didn't have private health cover, would you have to pay for treatment?
That's my question really... In Australia we just don't have to think about the cost of health issues really, unless it's an elective surgery, and even then most of that is covered as well, it just takes longer on public than private. Having health care so very closely entwined with private enterprise is a scary, scary thing.
Providing health care to people shouldn't be a for profit game.
No, because I wouldn't be stupid enough not to have health insurance.
No, no, no, no, no. You DO have to worry about the cost of health issues. It comes out of your paycheck every single month of your life. I'm just spewing opinions here because I've never witnessed what socialized healthcare looks like, but I believe that competition breeds excellence and innovation most of the time.
Tell me about your healthcare. How does it work besides you having to pay for somebody else's elective surgery?