Quote from: Cadenza on January 19, 2016, 03:54:17 PM

Reading comprehension is a very valuable skill

Indeed.

Quote from: Tsirist on January 17, 2016, 07:40:14 PM

"I was a liberal when I was young, therefore all young liberals will eventually be conservatives. Also I was dumb then and I'm not now so all young liberals must be dumb."

This doesn't even belong on the serious board in my opinion.

I was mirroring what this guy said.

Reading comprehension.

Ah, it's hard to tell replies to the OP from replies to other posts without quotes.

Specifically more openness to change, as in more openness to revising and correcting your views, not more changing.

Which still isn't true. The more open you are to revision the lower your standards will be when you decide to make--what you think are--corrections. Some inertia is necessary.

Quote from: Imperial Apologist on January 17, 2016, 10:27:41 PM

Quote from: Connor on January 17, 2016, 08:12:12 PM

This place surprises me with how conservative it can be

It's not even that conservative. There's like Turkey, Midget. a few other not-so-active members and I who can reasonably be called "conservative".

This place, at least it seems, has way more moderate liberals and libertarians. Which isn't at all unusual.

Not really, tbh

There are plenty of moderates, but I'd say there are just as many conservative-leaning people on Sep7 as there are liberal-leaning people.

I doubt that, highly. Now that Gaara's here we have another conservative, but in my political compass thread the results were pretty heaving to the Left IIRC.

Quote from: Imperial Apologist on January 20, 2016, 09:12:58 AM

Quote from: Cindy on January 20, 2016, 08:36:13 AM

Quote from: Imperial Apologist on January 17, 2016, 10:27:41 PM

Quote from: Connor on January 17, 2016, 08:12:12 PM

This place surprises me with how conservative it can be

It's not even that conservative. There's like Turkey, Midget. a few other not-so-active members and I who can reasonably be called "conservative".

This place, at least it seems, has way more moderate liberals and libertarians. Which isn't at all unusual.

Not really, tbh

There are plenty of moderates, but I'd say there are just as many conservative-leaning people on Sep7 as there are liberal-leaning people.

I doubt that, highly. Now that Gaara's here we have another conservative, but in my political compass thread the results were pretty heaving to the Left IIRC.

People usually consider themselves more liberal than they are

You mean apart from the conservatives. . .

And the fact that the test is used precisely to bypass noise from self-perception.

Quote from: Imperial Apologist on January 20, 2016, 06:38:05 AM

Quote from: Baha on January 19, 2016, 05:14:06 PM

Specifically more openness to change, as in more openness to revising and correcting your views, not more changing.

Which still isn't true. The more open you are to revision the lower your standards will be when you decide to make--what you think are--corrections. Some inertia is necessary.

It doesn't have anything to do with standards.  If you are committed to a view in itself over reality you are doing it wrong.  If you would rather have what is familiar and comfortable over what is true you are doing it wrong.  To make a comparison, you cannot possibly tell me with a straight face that something like the widespread denial of evolution in the US is a case of some people having "higher standards".

If you are unwilling to entertain the possibility that you are mistaken you have ceased to hold meaningful views, and willingness to entertain that possibility is not the same as being less certain.

I either phrased it vaguely or you've completely missed my point.

I made the claim that saying higher openness to change equals a greater communion with reality is not correct. Some inertia is necessary, maybe quite a lot, but it's certainly not the case that the people most willing to change are more connected to reality.

He really expects people who make 2 mil or more to give half to the federal government? Not even factoring in the state taxes.

What a fucking moron. Dude needs to drop dead.

Quote from: Connor on January 17, 2016, 10:47:02 PM

Quote from: Kupoop on January 17, 2016, 10:40:05 PM

Quote from: Connor on January 17, 2016, 10:35:29 PM

Does Midget even count?

He's legit dumb but he turns it up to 11 when he's here, because one certain user still takes his bait.

I've always thought he was just a troll, and I'm not sure why he's allowed on Serious.

I mean his name is literally "Niggerbot 9000" so I thought that was enough of a giveaway.

Midget knows how to just barely skirt around the rules so he can be his usual midget self bet never get bannu'd.

It's all dancing on technicalities.

Frankly, I'm offended at being called a troll. As per usual, having a dissenting opinion is now "troll-worthy". It's like you guys don't even try anymore.

Oh, and my name is irrelevant to my posting prowess

Canada's had these tax levels for a long time AFAIK.

Nope, Canada's federal tax rates are lower than in the U.S. (though they're roughly the same). The difference is that Canada has a minimum tax rate in place that prevents very wealthy citizens from benefiting from a number of deductions available in the U.S. that lowers their marginal tax rate. In general, if you're making less than six figures, you'll pay less tax in Canada.

Quote from: Turkey Sanders on January 21, 2016, 02:40:31 PM

Nope, Canada's federal tax rates are lower than in the U.S..

Really? My dad said to me his tax rates are roughly 50% and he rakes in quite the paycheck.

Taking into account provincial tax rates are typically much higher than in the U.S. I was just talking about Federal.

The average Canadian and American workers actually pay the same amount in income tax (chart source below), though through various other taxes (such as some of your insane sales taxes) Canadians on average give about 42% of their income in tax.

Quote from: Turkey Sanders on January 21, 2016, 02:54:56 PM

Taking into account provincial tax rates are typically much higher than in the U.S. I was just talking about Federal.

The average Canadian and American workers actually pay the same amount in income tax (chart source below), though through various other taxes (such as some of your insane sales taxes) Canadians on average give about 42% of their income in tax.

Spoiler

Out of the two systems (Bernie's vs. Canada's), which one would be more preferable/feasible, in your opinion?

It's hard to comment on, because America is really different from Canada. Canada spends less than 2% of their GDP on military spending, almost entirely because they're a strong, bordering ally of the U.S. You don't need a big military to assert and protect your interests, because they're basically the same as America's and the Americans are more than happy to spend it instead. Because of that, Canada has a lot more disposable GDP to work with. Canada's system works fairly well, but their healthcare system is still worringly inefficient.

Bernie's plan, on the other hand, is not to address any of the problems in our own healthcare system such as inefficiency, overinflated insurance costs which directly lead to massively inflated healthcare costs -- hospitals charge significantly more than they need to because it's what insurance will pay for, not what their services are worth; instead, his plan is to tax everybody more and just make people pay for it. It's a broad extension of the Affordable Care Act in the sense that it doesn't fix anything, it just finds ways to make it continue. Canada's system isn't perfect, but Bernie's is the equivalent of looking at a burning house and telling the fire department to ignore it because he'll just make rich people buy a new one.

Quote from: Turkey Sanders on January 21, 2016, 03:06:02 PM

Canada's system works fairly well, but their healthcare system is still worringly inefficient.

In what way? I mean, I agree that it has its flaws (personally, I don't think my tax dollars should be spent on the treatment of someone with cancer who got it from smoking cigarettes or eating meat, because they made that stupid decision for themselves and my money could be more beneficial elsewhere), I'm just interested to hear what an "outsider" thinks.

An average wait time of four and a half months, with an estimated economic loss of over $1,000 per patient, is the primary problem. Restricted access to physicians and services is an extremely difficult problem to quantify, and it mirrors the same outrage America saw at VA clinics.

So, how would you go about implementing his ideals? It's clear that free healthcare is on his to-do list -- what would be the easiest/most feasible/realistic way of achieving this? Or is his current plan exactly that?

I don't have a plan -- I don't write policy or anything like that -- but the main focus would be completely overhauling how insurance works in the U.S. to prevent inflation of prices and abuse of the system. I strongly disagree with any single-payer system I've seen, and I think universal healthcare can be achieved without it.

Quote from: Turkey Sanders on January 21, 2016, 03:22:58 PM

but the main focus would be completely overhauling how insurance works in the U.S. to prevent inflation of prices and abuse of the system.

Like you said earlier, about how Hospitals charge what the insurance companies will pay?

Basically. The thing that's difficult is that this would require regulation; the reason services cost so much is because any company will logically charge whatever they can to make the most money. The government needs to step in and regulate this industry.

Quote

I think universal healthcare can be achieved without it. [Single-payer system]

How?

Insurance mandate e.g. Obamacare, or a hybrid system in which the government provides a minimum level of insurance via tax money and individuals are responsible for any other insurance they want or need. Universal healthcare doesn't mean socialized medicine, it just means everyone has healthcare.

Quote from: Turkey Sanders on January 21, 2016, 03:49:40 PM

Insurance mandate e.g. Obamacare,

So, do you like Obamacare, or...?

No, because it doesn't fix much (though it admirably tries to address malpractice costs), it just makes people pay for services (or makes people pay for someone else's services).