The Most Dangerous Man In-and To, America?
14 December 2007 by Raindogzilla
From Arkansas Online:
“‘I didn’t get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn’t have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives.‘
He compared his entry into politics to ‘getting inside the dragon’s belly,’ adding, ‘There’s not one thing we can do in those marbled halls and domed capitols that can equal what’s done when Jesus touches the lives of a sinner.‘”
Wherein the creepily affable Huckster admits to a certain Manchurian flavor to his candidacy. Please, Huck, tell us more.
“I don’t think the issue’s about being against gay marriage. It’s about being for traditional marriage and articulating the reason that’s important. You have to have a basic family structure. There’s never been a civilization that has rewritten what marriage and family means and survived*. So there is a sense in which, you know, it’s one thing to say if people want to live a different way, that’s their business. But when you want to redefine what family means or what marriage means, then that’s an issue that should require some serious and significant debate in the public square. And if you look at states that have had it on the ballot—I know in our state it was a 70-percent-against issue. Most states are similar to that.”
*- Isn’t that a bit like saying there’s never been a civilization that lived under water, breathing through reeds that survived? And how ’bout those civilizations before the institution of marriage as we know it? Oh, wait, those aren’t still around? Damn, he’s right.
Some of the Old Rugged splinters up Huck’s ass?
- support for ousted Alabama Chief Judge Roy Moore’s court-stripping bill to keep federal courts from meddling with public officials who use their office to promote religion;
- vetoes of hate crimes legislation, ENDA (anti-discrimination law), and the fairness doctrine;
- stripping schools of federal funding for exposing children to “homosexual propaganda”; repealing IRS restrictions on churches endorsing candidates;
- bringing back Bush’s social security privatization plan;
- imposing a ban on federal funding for any U.S. group that performs or advocates for abortion;
- boosting federal abstinence spending to match contraceptive funding.
Huckabee was the runaway winner of the straw poll taken among the organizers’ hand-picked attendees. More than that, he was declared an answer to prayer by organizer Janet Folger (author of “The Criminalization of Christianity”), who said Huckabee had been revealed by God to be the “David among Jesse’s son’s.” Folger has only ramped up her rhetoric since then, insisting that God’s hand is on Huckabee and that he will be the next president of the United States. Folger was recently named to co-chair Huckabee’s Faith and Family Values Coalition.”
If only he were riding in a police interceptor with John Belushi, half a tank of gas, a full pack of cigarettes, in the dark, and wearing sunglasses on this particular mission from Gob…
14 December 2007, on 12:33 pm
You know, in a way, I hope that they nominate this clown.
It would be fun watching him go down in flames in the general election.
14 December 2007, on 12:40 pm
When I clicked on the link to the main page and saw this come up I almost peed my pants laughing!
14 December 2007, on 12:51 pm
LOL! I’m a Republican, and my vote is a lock for Comrade Clinton if Huckabee is nominated.
I’m pro-science, pro-technology, pro-capitalism, pro-killing religious fundies Republican.
I’m not going to vote for a Baptist preacher that pardons murderers when they shout “Jesus!”, promotes Stalinist ClintonCare, says he has a “Biblical duty” to stop global warming, wants to put gays with HIV in concentration camps, pushes state sanctioned covenant marriage, wants the federal government to criminalize abortion, and thinks the world is 6000 years old.
I would like to take power ***away*** from the morons in DC and give it back to states and individuals. The only thing worse than a socialist is a socialist that wants the government to do Good Works for Jesus.
14 December 2007, on 1:06 pm
But he’s so nice. You’d probably want to not drink and not dance with his Baptist ass. He’s like a teddy bear with plutonium stuffing, a
wolf in sheep…, no, an addled and ravenous fuckwit in a clown suit.Good on ya, Mr. Bowden!
All together now…FUCK HUCK!
Ollie, provided there were a sufficiently reasonable, rational, secular Dem to illustrate the true depth of the chasm separating the two, it would be a nice sort of national referendum on the subject. Unfortunately, as the democratic slate continues to present their bellied to the religious, it’s hard to tell which, if any of them, would fill that bill. Dodd, maybe?
14 December 2007, on 1:24 pm
I knew government didn’t have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives
And the skeptics out there said that theocracy could never really happen in America. They are not even trying to hide it anymore. We don’t need democracy, we just need to accept Jesus as our personal savior. He’ll tell us what to do. Or at least people who are able to talk to him will tell us what he wants us to do.
Any non-Christian politician who said such a thing about their personal savior would make the front page news for months on end (”Don’t worry, Mohamed and Allah will tell us what to do”) and the talking heads would literally be calling for their heads. But hey, you know, theocracy works so well in other countries, I’m sure it will be super right here in the good ol’ U.S of A. Let me know how it goes. I’ll be moving to Canada.
14 December 2007, on 3:25 pm
Hey Bruce,
When you get up here, let me know. I need some help painting my living room.
Thanks,
14 December 2007, on 3:48 pm
I second ollie’s thoughts, for his reason, and because we could all get bumper stickers proclaiming RDZ’s “FUCK HUCK!” I’ve been thinking that Huck’s name just naturally lent itself to this phrase for tshirts and bumper stickers since he came into the fray.
14 December 2007, on 4:07 pm
Dear Huckleberry, son of Dingleberry,
I, Sir, would like to offer up my services as warden for that brilliant, forward-thinking, Concentration Camp On the Hill you’ve proposed. If I may be forgiven my audacity in doing so, I would like to offer up a humble suggestion of my own. In addition to the infected perverts, I propose we also round up the uninfected catamites, the killers of Christ, the deniers of Almighty God- be they amoral atheists or just immoral followers of false gods and idols(up to and including the islamofascist heathens), the lame or otherwise infirm for they are an inefficient use of precious God-given resources, the politically unsuitable- i.e., anyone to the left of Mitt Romney, the homeless for it is our Christian duty to provide them with shelter, illegal immigrants, scientists, loose women, abortionists, the board and all the staff of Planned Parenthood, Bill Maher, Lewis Black, George Carlin, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, PZ Myers, the poor who fall below a certain income level- to be estimated by Intelligent Calculation, those who’s skin tone is darker than a paper bag, heretical papists, and the descendants of certain undesirable European stock- i.e., the French, the Poles, the Irish.
I further propose that an earthen levee ten cubits high be constructed along the outside of the electrified, concertina-topped fence. Upon this earthworks shall be American made bleachers and great piles of stones- each approximately the size of a baby’s head. Of an evening, the residents of Camp Iniquity shall be herded out of their yurts and refrigerator boxes to the fence line, where good, white, economically comfortable, Christian Patriots have filled the bleachers to stone the sinners for $15 a head or 4 for $50.
The income would help to jumpstart a national Manhattan project of Intelligent Design spearheaded by the triumvirate of the Discovery Institute, Answers In Genesis, and Dr. Kent Hovind to replace the now cleansed secular science, technology, and research sectors and resume America’s dominance in this world via Godly invention.
Thank you for your consideration,
Nat Asfonos
14 December 2007, on 4:36 pm
How do they hide these nutty ass comments from the general public. How are the Democrats not exposing Hucky and his ilk for what they really are. It wont cost them many votes because anyone who thinks the Huckster is right will already vote for him. Surely, the list of people that think he is an idiot HAS to be bigger.
14 December 2007, on 4:41 pm
Oh and FUCK HUCK!
14 December 2007, on 4:59 pm
an addled and ravenous fuckwit in a clown suit.
ROTFLMAO!
14 December 2007, on 5:10 pm
I absolutely love that picture! That should be part of his campaign. This guy is a scary theocrat, but I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to see him get elected. After all, Huck loves him some Jesus.
14 December 2007, on 5:30 pm
Chaoswes says: “How do they hide these nutty ass comments from the general public. How are the Democrats not exposing Hucky and his ilk for what they really are. It wont cost them many votes because anyone who thinks the Huckster is right will already vote for him. Surely, the list of people that think he is an idiot HAS to be bigger.”
– Because the general public, the majority of of our voting citizens, are christian enablers. Fuckabee, er… Fuckabass isn’t all that crazy to them. Because the Democrats love to rub their penises on jeebus/gob for good luck, or otherwise they will not win because the majority of our voting citizens are christian enablers, pardon the redundancy.
and yes, FUCK HUCK! quite, quite, indeed.
14 December 2007, on 5:33 pm
FUCK HUCK ? You fuck him you brought him.
Jimmy don’t do no Huck Fuckin.
I see what you mean it just rolls off the tongue nice and clean. Like a glass of ice tea on a hot summer day.
These retards just seem to get more and more full of Stupid the Jesusier they get. Or vice a versa.
Also, why is Mitt’s religious view any different than this Huckster’s. I think it odd that a reverend isn’t being asked if he can separate his religiousity from governance. but we know that answer. There is no difference to him.
14 December 2007, on 6:11 pm
Chaoswes, part of it may be that, at the moment, our illustrious Democratic contingent is too busy failing to differentiate between each other. Huck isn’t really on their radar yet- and won’t be unless and until he both wins Iowa as expected and turns away both Ru-9/11-dy and Willard the Morm in Vermont(the Repugnantklan people are represented by two separate but equally important groups; the candidates, who actively engage in the campaign, and Fred Thompson, who arrives at the end to dispense pithy mots, both avuncular and idiotic. These are their stories.)
Thus far (Fuck)Huck is just a phenomenon, an admittedly affable, ecclesiastically charismatic alternative to the slightly mad, John McCain, the city slicker, Giuliani, the Mormon Automaton, Willard “Mitt” Romney, the couldn’t be bothered, Thompson, and that one guy in your group that none of the girls would ever date, Ron Paul. Oh, and “Brownback” sounded more like a public men’s room stall variation on a Dirty Sanchez than an actual candidate.
Just you wait. The Dems will turn their dreaded comfy chair and soft cushions on Huck before to long…
14 December 2007, on 7:35 pm
Doesn’t it just fill you with confidence when a candidate for office says government has no “real” answers?
14 December 2007, on 7:54 pm
Pasty, BALDING, sexless, genital-free preacher…Huckleberry Hound fits right in with the Republican party and its surfeit of frothy buckshot-in-the-gums true-believers…a perfect match.
14 December 2007, on 8:10 pm
Sandy Huffaker, caglecartoons.com
14 December 2007, on 8:16 pm
we better get out and fucking vote next year or this jackass will be the next pres.
i took my son to see “golden compass” today, loved the anti-religeous tone, my son loved the bear.
check out the zealots:
http://www.kansascity.com/273/story/402686.html
14 December 2007, on 8:23 pm
there’s a lovely bit-o’ Huck-a-loog at Pam’s House Blend and an even lovelier pic of the dick in his Sunday-clown best. A bit-o’ warning though: a rational person’s brain may melt upon reading or hearing what Huck-a-Fuck has to say. never mind, ya’ll know that already anyway. so…
there’s the bit from ten years ago when he refused to sign a piece of legislature because it referred to natural phenomena such as tornadoes and floods as “acts of God.” Because in his “view” god only does good things and tornado’s and floods kill people, so god can’t possibly do those things.
and there’s the bit about the sermons he delivered back in his preachin’ days all of a sudden disappearin’ from his old church during some impromptu remodeling. oh, but hey, don’t despair, some of them [in]-conveniently survived, so click-on-over to the link above to read some of that good-ol’-time fundie shit that Hucky used to spew. oops, did I say “used to”, i meant continues to spew.
14 December 2007, on 8:57 pm
^^ (untempro, linkie fixed )
14 December 2007, on 9:35 pm
“How are the Democrats not exposing Hucky and his ilk for what they really are.”
The Democrats ***know*** Huckabee is an easy kill in the general election, but the evangelicals have too much blind faith to acknowledge it. The latest CNN polls shows even the sleazy trial lawyer polling 25+ points ahead of the Huckster in the general election.
Think of why Republicans promoted Dean in 2004.
14 December 2007, on 10:56 pm
Re: ^ J.H. Bowden
the Democrats ***knew*** that Bush was “an easy kill” and look how well that turned out. Twice!
15 December 2007, on 12:12 am
Tee-Hee
15 December 2007, on 1:54 am
RDZ
ROFLMAO!
15 December 2007, on 3:20 am
Huckabee looks (and thinks) like one half Gomer and Goober Pyle (if Gomer and Goober were combined into a Super-Stupid-Super-Mutant-Super-Pyle), one quarter Forrest Gump, and one quarter old-school carnie geek.
Every time I look at the guy, I half expect him to bite the head off a chicken. Or, at the least, just say, out of nowhere, “Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy!”
And how about his “Science changes but God doesn’t, so I’ll stick with God” comment?
Jesus Harvey Oswald! How can someone that stupid survive long enough to be considered a candidate for any elected office? And why do people keep electing them?
That’s the only downside of democracy, if you ask me. The Palestinians elect Hamas and we elect morons like Strom Thurman, Dubya, Santorum, and Huck-A-Fuck.
15 December 2007, on 9:02 am
Problem is, a lot of the “Twice Born” I know think he’s “going to show the atheists what’s what…” and will get the country back on track, putting their deity first, smiting hip and thigh where needed.
Others, because of the Rev’d tag, say he’s “a man of god therefore good.” Evidence that such a thing ain’t necessarily so (Baker and Swaggart come to mind immediatly)doesn’t enter into their heads at all.
The “godly” seem to see him as a “man on horseback” come to rescue them and make the world right, and he has the answers they want to hear, even if they make no sense to us. They don’t see that a “man on horseback”’s first concern is the fettling of his horse and all else takes a back seat.
Remember, in 1933 Hitler was the national joke of Germany, a ridiculous figure as far as most Germans thought…if they thought of him at all. By 1945 there wasn’t a lot of snickering.
15 December 2007, on 9:38 am
Repugs can have him. So can jebus. As a matter of fact here’s hoping jebus calls him home in the form of a mac truck to the face.
Oh and anyone who harkens health care plans to ’stalinism’ isn’t running on all cylinders to begin with.
15 December 2007, on 11:03 am
^Right on!!!!!
15 December 2007, on 1:13 pm
What I’m afraid of, (actually, this would be the least of the Fuckabee ‘terrors’) is someone might bring back that old 12 bar blues dance…as some of you older ‘cats’ (& pussies?) might recall…
“The Hucklebuck”?
Yeah…I know…he’s really an R&R type guy…or thinks he is.
Hey!…rock ‘n roll…ryhthm and blues roots?
Just for a taste of that old bullshit, here are two versions:
Da Foist is pretty much the slower, instrumental, 12 bar blues riff, mit blues improv., horn solos…no vocal…
“Lucky Millander – The Hucklebuck (1948)”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGE1b_vRh5g
Unt, second, is der more appealing to youse younger kits…ya?…mit das vocal shtick etc…
“Coast To Coast – Do The Hucklebuck (1981)”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftd6pHpp1wo
Of course WE might change that to (you KNEW where I vas goink all along)…
“The Hucklefuck”?
Now, why do I think that that’s not new for that lyric?
Coitenly any musicians I’ve played with, would be fucking with THAT lyric; right from the get-go! And these days…
we’d be on a mission from “Gawd” for that mockery!
15 December 2007, on 2:13 pm
Check out this nauseating video if you can keep from barfing…
Fuckabee: Divine Providence Helps My Poll Numbers
15 December 2007, on 4:01 pm
OurLady of Perpetual Motion says: “Oh and anyone who harkens health care plans to ’stalinism’ isn’t running on all cylinders to begin with.”
– I know, that’s bullshit. Those douche bags stand on the floor of our Congress and yell “the democrats want to build socialism in america!” Fuck you, you republicunt assholes! You don’t know what socialism is. Are you so fucking stupid that you can’t tell the difference between Canada in 2007 and Soviet Union in 1947? Just kill yourselves already, you old senile motherfuckers. Your Mad Cow has rotted your brain so all that’s left are fragments of Cold War Dogma that you memorized from your senile, Mad Cow riddled grandpa Ron.
Ugh, now I feel an even longer rant coming on. Maybe later.
15 December 2007, on 6:09 pm
Star
“Check out this nauseating video if you can keep from barfing…”
The sad irony of statements like this is that, although many consider these kinds of sentiments to be very humble, they are in fact terribly egocentric and boastful–”look at me; I may be Larry the Candidate Guy, but the Lawd finds favor with me.”
If Gawd really cares so much about him being President, why the need for a “surge” in poll numbers. Why is Gawd fucking with Fuckabee’s emotions like that? If He favors him, why not simply strike the other candidates deaf, dumb, blind, or just plain dead, like he would have done in Old Testament times and get it over with? Give Fuckabee the nomination straight out?
Oh, wait, there I go again, questioning the divine wisdom of the almighty. Or maybe the wisdom of an inbred Ar-Kansas twerp runnin’ fer Prez-dent.
15 December 2007, on 6:42 pm
If there was a Gob, it would do us all a favor, & squash Hucksterbee.
15 December 2007, on 8:09 pm
Off topic–yesterday, as I was driving home, I saw one of those cloying vanity plates that said “God is Awesome!”
“Amen” I said to myself out loud, but felt that this license plate didn’t proclaim devotion to our Heavenly Father nearly as emphatically as He deserves.
So I will be making myself a t-shirt that goes one adverb better:
“God is FUCKING Awesome!!!”
(Notice that three exclamation points is 3 times more emphatic)
With this t-shirt, I hope to offend everyone.
15 December 2007, on 10:48 pm
History, well hell, memory is something these guys don’t seem to have much to do with.
These school lunch/nutrition programs actually WERE instituted, and the childrens health programs came about in the early fifties for reasons that had very little to do with the horrors of socialism or dreaded humanism or gruesome altruism. During WWII and Korea there was an initiak military rejection rate of about 25% in draftees and enlistees in all services because of complications of childhood malnutrition during the depression. So, these “humanist” programs were institutedto make sure there was gunfodder in acceptable numbers for next go-round.
Can’t tell “conservatives” that, though. Even when you tell them where to find this they won’t, they don’t have to, because they know it was “liberals” and “humanists”.
Verifiable facts just seem to confuse everyone.
16 December 2007, on 12:09 am
“the democrats want to build socialism in america!”
Well, they do. What’s frightening is that many Democrats see religious fundamentalists of the Muslim variety as some sort of noble proletariat. But yeah, believing like Mike Huckabee that waiting in a government queue is “access to healthcare” isn’t too smart. You’re not in good company.
16 December 2007, on 4:19 am
^ What the Democrats are doing is NOT Socialism. If you can’t tell the difference between http://www.democrats.org/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union then you should get yourself checked for Mad Cow. Also, your O’Reillyesque vilifications of the Democrats don’t exactly put you in good company either. Furthermore, on the subject of “bad company” – religious fundamentalism in America and across the globe is a defining characteristic of conservative political entities. And believing in the “INVISIBLE HAND OF THE FREE MARKET” is about as rational as believing in “THE BIG INVISIBLE DADDY IN THE SKY”. If that’s the company you want to keep… yeah, I can dish out divisive semantics and play childish spin games as good as…
okay, fine, wisecracks aside… my family escaped from behind the iron curtain (back when the curtain was still there in Europe). I’ve stood in my share of government queues for bread and milk. I was only a teenager back then, but I know what Socialism feels and looks like because I lived it first hand, and what the Democrats are doing is NOT Socialism.
I wouldn’t wish Socialism on either friend or foe alike. However, since I’ve lived without health care for the past twelve years I kinda feel like I’ve been missing out on something. That something being… HEALTH CARE! So until you and your concervathieve pals can offer me HEALTH CARE that I can afford, among other things, I’ll stick with the “company” that is at least trying to do something for me and for the rest of the working class. Every job I’ve ever had either didn’t offer health care at all or the plans were un-affordable and strategically didn’t cover anything that I needed. And as I have never accepted a single penny of government welfare of any kind and have always lived only within my means while corporations are raking in tax breaks and subsidies by the boat load and CEOs are cashing in stupendously huge bonuses, I can overlook any idealogical lapses on the part of the company I keep if it gets me HEALTH CARE. You seem to have been able to overlook the x-ain fundie contingents’ ideological lapses in your own party as long as it got President Pumpkinhead elected, so you’re not exactly positioned on firm footing to criticize my choice of “company”.
Now I’m not going to defend what the Democrats are doing, because despite my support for them I still think that they have their heads firmly up their asses. They are, in my view, only the lesser of two evils, and not by much. But you obviously don’t have full support for the Republicans either, otherwise why would you be here bashing the crazy religious fundie contingent of your party. Well, at least we have that in common. It’s almost funny really, I read your earlier comment (#3) and if I may, without any sarcasm, appropriate a part of it for my closing here: I’m pro-science, pro-technology, pro-capitalism, pro-killing religious fundies Independent. The truth is, if I had the money, I’d be a Libertarian, but ideology alone doesn’t get me HEALTH CARE, so until I have the cash to join the club… I’m sorry, but we’ll just have to disagree.
16 December 2007, on 10:36 am
^Ramen, untempro! The old rightwing bogeymen of the Red Menace and the Evil Empire are still alive and well today- though now entirely hallucinatory. I suppose it’s a symptom of both the subsequent bogeyman- Drugs and Terror- being insufficiently distracting from the reality on the ground.The reality of the free market run amok, of capital being redistributed from the middle class to the wealthy, of the dizzying spin required to gussy up the borderline socialist teachings of Jeebus into a paean to wealth accumulation, of some absurd percentage of the world’s inhabitants not being able to count on potable water daily, much less a nutritious meal, of middle ages infant mortality rates in some of the third world- in the 21st century!
16 December 2007, on 11:23 pm
untempro–
The market is an organic system, like the environment. Disbelieving in the free market is exactly like disbelieving in the theory of evolution.
Understand how a government subsidy works. Suppose the govt paid for the movie tickets for everyone under 30. Demand would increase without limit since people are getting free service, businesses would raise prices and expand production since Uncle Sam is footing the bill, those over 30 would be priced out of the market, and the tab to the government would run out of control.
This has been the situation in American healthcare since the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. ***Any*** ***government*** ***subsidy*** works the same way– think of cost overruns in the Pentagon, or rising college tuition. Markets work on the opposite principle– individuals compete for market share by lowering prices and increasing quality. That’s why LASIK surgery has fallen in price, that’s why computer technology keeps falling in price, that’s why even the common man today can afford things like cell phones and digital cameras.
Our system rations, but in a particularly evil way. Our Congress resorted to rationing by passing Ted Kennedy’s HMO Act of 1973. This subsidized HMOs heavily, forced employers to offer HMOs as an option, and overturned many state laws against physicians receiving money to **deny** people healthcare. I shit you not.
Most people under a socialist healthcare system are happy, because most people, i.e. the healthy, will get marginally better care. That is NOT the test of a successful healthcare system. We want a system that cares for the ***minority***, that is, people who are seriously sick. The American system still outperforms others when we consider mortality rates for specific diseases such as prostate cancer, breast cancer, etc.
The irony is that socialist system screws the poor, the elderly, and the sick. The rich can always jump the queue, either through political favors or by taking a plane flight to a place where freedom still exists, such as India. The poor are still stuck in the queue. The elderly — well, the policies chosen by bureaucrats in countries like New Zealand are practically institutionalized euthanasia for the elderly. And lastly, those with serious illnesses have to wait months to get treatment, while the healthy can overuse the system for every little sniffle.
This is why I think government healthcare is Stalinist. There are several proposals out there to recreate a market in American healthcare to lower prices, but we need to understand how socialism works first. I don’t even watch the losers on Fox News, so I wish you’d take this stuff more seriously. After all, it is your health.
17 December 2007, on 5:08 am
^ First, J.H. Bowden, don’t patronize me or blow smoke up my ass. You damn right it’s my health, so unless you donate $’s directly to my health care don’t talk down to me as if I’m your property.
Second… jumping jesus fucking christ on a pogo stick… will you please cut the McCarthyist rhetoric and the Reaganesque hyperbole. I can’t take anything you say seriously if you use words like “socialism” (and now you’ve dragged out “stalinism”) to describe things that have NOTHING AT ALL to do with those concepts. By using these words in this context you only show how little you understand them, or the rest of the stuff that you talk about.
Stalinism, as an umbrella term, includes the systematic spying on and subsequent imprisonment and execution of countless scientists, writers, artists and intellectuals of various types, done at the whim of the leader of a totalitarian, authoritarian regime without legitimate legal procedures or even records. Does that remind you of anything? Like say, for example, President Bush, who spies on American citizens, arrests people without charges, suspending habeas corpus and holds them in prison indefinitely, and… (TA DA!) destroys records and evidence, (VIDEO TAPES). Ring a bell at all? Who’s Stalinist now, bitch? (I don’t mean to call you a “bitch”, but that phrase fit really well into my rant, so please don’t take it personally, I’m just rolling here.) Anyway, back to… Stalinism is when you’re dragged out of your bed, out of your home in the middle of the night by the secret police and sent to a forced labor camp in the middle of Siberia where if you don’t die from starvation and exhaustion you’ll be executed when you can no longer work. THAT IS STALINISM. What?! You want to compare the health care in the old Soviet gulags with the American health care system. And you’re asking me to “take this stuff more seriously”. Please!
1. The market is not like evolution. People didn’t create or invent evolution, but we created the market. The market would not exist without us, evolution had already done some major wonders before we came along. In several interviews, not too long ago when he was promoting his book (you can look them up), Greenspan said that the market is anything but free, or as you say, “organic”. Rather, it is tightly controlled by people using all kinds of creative accounting and fuzzy math to achieve a specific goal. The market is a tool that is used to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. It doesn’t even everyone out every so often like a sine wave, but at least it occasionally makes a few assholes get that froggy feeling and jump.
2. The movie ticket analogy is flawed and racist. Just because I can get some worthless shit for free doesn’t mean I’ll drop everything I’m doing and rush over to get my share of it over and over and over again. In fact, if the movies suck I will not go at all. I’m not a fan of political correctness, so the following may be offensive. I don’t care. At a job I had I was talking with a co-worker, he was telling me about his family trip to the zoo, fun times, then out of the blue he says “if you plan to go, don’t go on Monday”. I asked “why?” He said, “Monday is when, you know, they let anybody in, for free, so the zoo is full of, you know, those people” [nudge, nudge, wink, wink]. Ah yes, “those people”. Yes, of course, I understand your objection: when things are subsidized “those people” get some too, for free, and you, you, you have to sit next to “those people” in the waiting room.
3. Yeah, your idea of affordable LASIK is having some fly-by-night, unaccredited, back-ally butcher of an ophthalmologist cut your eyes open and either under or over correct your vision so that you either require more expensive surgeries or having to wear glasses even stronger than those you were before the surgery. And really, you want to trot out consumerism in your defense. Ya’ll got your commemorative 9/11 cell phones and digital cameras, cause ya’ll remember what the prezadumb said: “DON’T LOOK AT THE BURNING COLLAPSING BUILDINGS, GO SHOPPING INSTEAD!!!” …but seriously, falling computer prices and record profits for Bill Gates who made so much money that he gave away more than $35 BILLION to various philanthropic causes. So, record oil prices too, that means prices at the pump should fall through the ground and Lee Raymond (formerly of ExxonMobile) should be throwing money away just to have any room in his house to move around… What’s that? Gas prices are record high in the US and Lee Raymond is a fat fuck who got a $400 MILLION retirement bonus on top of the shitload of money he already pilfered from the pockets of the working people. Yeah, your system works really well. Thanks.
4. So we agree that the system is broken. Ted Kennedy is my hero. I like having comical heroes, it keeps me grounded and humble. Whatever. Look, I’d like to go to a doctor, but the doctor will not see me because the insurance company does not allow him to see me because the insurance company does not have a relationship with my employer. I would like my employer and the insurance company to stay the hell out of my personal health care. This transaction should occur only between myself and my doctor. Alas, because of the insurance companies I can’t get anywhere near a doctor. Government health care is not subsidized by the government, its subsidized by everyone, but mostly, by the rich. And if I haven’t already made it absolutely clear: I DON’T CARE ABOUT THE RICH! THE RICH ARE TOO FUCKING RICH ALREADY. IT IS OFFENSIVE, PROFANE AND OBSCENE HOW FUCKING RICH THE FUCKING RICH ARE. I dare you to give me (us) any justification for Paris Hilton, Lee Raymond or [insert your own filthy rich asshole here] (you can’t choose Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, they justify themselves) that will not make me involuntarily retch my guts out.
5. You say: “Most people under a socialist healthcare system are happy, because most people, i.e. the healthy, will get marginally better care.” What’s wrong with that!? Oh, yeah, I forgot, you went on with that compassionate conservative spiel. I really don’t care for that. I don’t want a system that cares for the “minority”. I don’t want a system that cares for the “seriously sick”. Our world is facing an insanely destructive over-population problem. We need to trim the fat, as it were, so lets crank up that natural selection machine and get our global population down to a sustainable size. Yes, some people need to die. But those that slave away their lives sustaining all of our systems so that the privileged rich can fuck around as they do anyway, since they can’t do shit-worth of anything else, that majority deserve good health care. I am willing to live within my means so long as when I clock out and go home I can enjoy what little I have instead of being afraid to do anything that might make me sick or injure myself because then I’ll miss out on work, blow through little savings I have to get myself well again, or worse, not get well, lose job, home, everything, and end up among the “seriously sick”, homeless, desperate – no point in living then, so if I ever find myself in that position, I’ll gladly die for humanity instead of dragging it down by using ever decreasing resources.
5. As I said before, screw “the poor, the elderly, and the sick”. There’s only so much space on this planet… natural selection… death is natural and inevitable (at least for now)… until we build us some spaceships to get us the hell off this rock, we simply can’t keep everyone around. Some people need to die, the sooner, the better.
6. Yeah, you’ve demonstrated that you have no clue how Socialism (and Stalinism) really work.
[the preceding commentary has not been reviewed or revised, so there are probably a ton of errors and mistakes and if parts of it don't make any sense... oh well, i'm tired, i'm going to sleep]
17 December 2007, on 10:55 am
untempro, ??? Wow…without taking any sides here, I am not certain what side of this issue you are on ..for national health care for everyone…or screw everyone?? (scratches head) So you are for no health care and let natural selection take its course — but want national health care for who, then???
(We are way off topic from making fun of Fuckabee…but ) We haven’t had a candidate yet explain his or her proposals in any depth how they are going to try to fix our health care system. All we hear lately is GOB GOB GOB JEEBUS JEEBUS JEEBUS GOB GOB PRAIZE JEEEEZUS GOB LIKES ME BEST GOB GOB GOB.
With my recent hospitalization came huge co-pays and fees that insurance refused to cover. My husband has insurance through his company, and the company has gone with cheaper policies which end up costing us more when we have to use it. We have never had to pay so much “extra” before because of “non-allowances”.
I used to think that people who didn’t have insurance were out of luck till one of my roommates in the hospital (who was an immigrant and had no health insurance), had a visit from a social worker to fill out forms and then I heard the social worker say to her “don’t worry hon, we adjust the bill according to your income and you may not even have to pay anything at all”. I was like WHAT THE FUCK! I thought people who didn’t have insurance were left to die in the streets or left to pay really huge bills. Then, after doing research online, I found out that hospitals cannot turn people away and they give allowances for those who cannot pay.
So, after witnessing the girl with no insurance being told she may not have to pay her bill…and then doing research where I read that hospitals that accept Medicaid patients are often on the brink of bankruptcy, it seems that if an uninsured person goes to a richer hospital they will get financial aid. The hospital I was in is in an affluent area, and more and more uninsured are going to hospitals in better areas where they know they will get free care.
I write to many people overseas. Those who are happy with their National Health Care are those who never have to use it. But those who have serious illnesses, or have family members with serious illnesses are always bitching about having to wait so long to be seen or for treatment that the illness gets much worse than if they could have been seen promptly. I have a couple of pals who use the National Health Care for non-urgent things, but they also carry a supplemental policy so they can opt out when they feel they need to be seen sooner. But not everyone can afford the supplemental policy. And many get sicker waiting, and some die while waiting.
Seems like the bigger problem is that the middle class is paying more and more for insurance premiums, even when the company is paying most of the cost…and our co-pays are going up and up and much more is falling under the category of “not allowed”. If I was poor I could waltz right into an ER, have an operation and let Medicaid pick up the tab.
17 December 2007, on 1:48 pm
Well, if Huckabee becomes president, America will become a Christian nation again and god will make all of us healthy again!
17 December 2007, on 2:38 pm
Well, if Huckabee becomes president, America will become a Christian nation again and god will make all of us healthy again!
tommy, people could all line up at the White House for a “laying of hands” and gob would work through Huckabee so all those god-fearing Xians wouldn’t need to go to the doctor anymore and we heathens wouldn’t have as long of a wait in the waiting rooms at medical facilities.
17 December 2007, on 3:02 pm
Meanwhile, in a case of the leprous appendage falling not far from the leper, Huck’s prizewinning boar son is apparently a fan of Michael Vick.
Bonus? His “COPS” style portrait.
Ish Kabibble…
17 December 2007, on 3:14 pm
RDZ ^^ Gob gave humans “dominion” over the animals so they can mistreat, torture and even kill them however way they want to”
Seriously though, that is just SICK.
17 December 2007, on 5:40 pm
Re: Stardust / #42
I’m not talking about hospitalizations and emergencies. I’m talking about preventive medicine. The current system that we now have in the US has been the making of insurance companies for more than thirty years. It is set up to deny care and to make more money for the insurance companies. Medicaid, Medicare and free or reduced fee services for the insurance-less at hospitals are the attempts by the humane liberals in our government to plug the gaps in the landscape of our national health care left open by the conservatives who are in the pocket of the insurance companies.
The insurance companies understand that they can’t make any money from the jobless and the poor. They understand that if “those people” get health care somebody has to pay for it. They don’t want to pay for it. They don’t want their rich pals to pay for it, otherwise they’ll stop being rich, and you know what that means: they’ll have to stop being pals. So who’s left? The ever shrinking middle class. The working people who earn money. The insurance companies must have that money! In the process, they turn the middle class into the poor. This is where we’re heading with our current health care system.
So when you speak of that insurance-less person whom you met at the hospital, ask yourself: who should pay for her care? The government doesn’t pay for anything, it merely redistributes our tax $’s. So follow the money and ask that question (who should pick up her medical tab?): the working middle class, the indecently rich or some combination of the two. The third option is to stop being humane. To stop caring for the jobless, homeless, poor, those who can not pay. Considering our global over-population crisis the third option is not entirely without merit. So either somebody pays or some people need to die. The conservative objection is that liberals want our government to do some wealth redistribution without asking the rich what they think of it all. Frankly, that is a more palatable choice than killing a bunch of people.
So where do I stand in all this, and does my position really matter? After all, I’m not really all that important, and I know that. But I won’t deny that I am a selfish asshole. I want to live. However, I said before that if I’m ever so far gone that all I am is a drain on resources without giving anything back, I’ll gladly die for humanity, but while I have something to give, I have something to live for. And since this is the only life (right!) I’ve got, I want to live it instead of worrying about how I will pay my medical bills if I get sick or injured. I want to pay only for services rendered, not for insurance, and I want the services rendered to be affordable. Insurance companies should be made a thing of the past. Charging insurance should be illegal. Insurance is legalized racketeering: you pay for protection from illness and injury – things that the insurance company can’t possibly prevent you from having. Insurance is religion, except all the supernatural ooga-booga talk is replaced with creative accounting and fuzzy math: you pay for a promise of a favorable financial future in dealing with medical costs, yet whenever you call on the insurance company to deliver on its promise it never does, kinda like god. See, I brought it back ON TOPIC, sort of.
So, back to where I started… I’m not talking about hospitalizations and emergencies. I’m talking about preventive medicine. Everybody dies eventually, until we perfect immortality, that is fact. I’m talking about the quality of life of the contributing members of society. I have no objection to the rich being rich and having a lifestyle that I find morally repulsive, but I am against the rich living that lifestyle at the cost of quality of life of the working people – that is ethically irresponsible. And if the rich can’t manage to see that on their own, then I have no problem with having the government cut the rich down a notch.
I don’t want free or cheap services at a hospital ER. If I have to go to the ER that means I’m already dieing. I want to go to a doctor before I am sick and get myself checked out regularly. I want to use modern medicine to maintain my quality of life at a descent level. I want to pay for it all, but I want it all to be affordable. The purpose of the insurance company is to make money. The purpose of the government (in this context) is to redistribute money. I want what I pay for health care to go to my doctor, not to the insurance company. Now, I realize that neither system is perfect, as I stipulated before in all cases some people need to die, but I trust the government more (in this case) to make sure that I get what I pay for and that the doctors get what I pay them.
Stardust, you said earlier (I’m paraphrasing, so please excuse me if I don’t get it quite right) that as an ex-xian you came to a certain realization about religion and god and you’ve learned to live without either. Well, I’m making a similar leap. I choose to live without (technically, I refuse to pay for) insurance because I don’t believe in it. Like religion, it doesn’t do what it promises to do. Like god, it doesn’t ever deliver.
Three years ago I left a job that I loved. I know it’s cliché, but I still love saying it: I used to work in rock’n'roll. Technically, I worked in the entertainment industry specializing in audio/visual production. My last job was a seasonal gig on a tourist resort island. The company I worked for didn’t provide health insurance. In fact, while I was there they were investigated by the Labor Department which discovered, to my shock, that my rich bastard of a boss (with whom I was friendly in our daily professional relationship) cheated all of his employees out of over-time pay over many years. Yeah, it was pretty fucked up to sit next to this guy who’s a millionaire and hear him tell his employees about how (cheap he is, or) how little he spent on his last vacation in the Dominican Republic (yeah, a millionaire pennypincher), and then to find out that he’s been cheating me on my paycheck every week. So even though I loved working with bands, musicians and entertainers, even though I had an awesome job where I could sleep in almost every day and show up to work in shorts and a t-shirt, even though this job allowed me a creative outlet in our uniformly commercialized world, and despite many other reasons for which I loved my job, I left three years ago because I decided that I want more. One kind of satisfaction is not enough. There’s ideology and there’s reality – both are inseparable inside every human being. So I decided to avail myself with an education and to partake in some of that social mobility. I left that job and went back to college to finish my BA degree (which I started and didn’t finish after high school). I’m just about done with it and I plan to go to graduate school next year to earn an MA and then a PhD. The only way I can go to grad school is with a university assistantship – a financial support package which now usually includes health insurance. I’m not sure what I’m gonna do about that. I imagine that if I get health coverage through a third party, as in this case, I will waltz right into the appropriate medical facility and tell them that I could possibly be dieing right now and not know it since I haven’t had any kind of medical attention or treatment for the past twelve+ years. I would imagine that they will look at me like I’m a bleeding lunatic, and then I’ll say, well how about you start with a full physical examination and run all the tests that a person like me should reasonably be subjected to, and they will probably say that none of that is covered by the insurance and that I need to have actual symptoms of an illness or an injury to receive covered treatment.
So, here we are then, back where we started. This is the issue. Anyway, if this is too off topic then I will refrain from further comments; I don’t want to break any house rules. So just to be safe here’s the obligatory FUCK HUCK!
18 December 2007, on 1:46 am
Thanks for…erm…baring your ’soul’(?) Untempro.
I personally consider Insurance companies to be totally bullshit, greedy, unnecessary “middlemen”. I haven’t seen Michael Moore’s “Sicko” movie; but I’m inclined to agree with much of his ‘thesis’. I certainly think he was “right on the mark” about Bush in his “Fahrenheit 911″ film; for which he’s utterly despised by all the Bush, Right-wing-fuck, ass-lickers.
The usual argument people come up with against a government run health plan, is the old canard about corrupt “bureaucracy”. As if HMOs aren’t exactly that; and for MAXIMUM profit, to boot!
I resist getting into arguments about all this…like a lot of the other endless worldly ‘niceties’ which go with being a “fucked into existence” earthling.
[I have no kids, by the way. Not from some erstwhile 'wise choice';...It just didn't happen.]
I sympathize a lot with your comment about going for years without health insurance.
I’m a ’semi-retired’ (hit by a semi?) musician on Medicare/Medicaid these
days; but went for some twenty years with absolutely no medical coverage. The last insurance I had, was a policy from the musician’s union; when I was working a ’steady gig’…my first stint…at Chicago’s Sears Tower Metropolitan Club, one day a week. When I left that in 1983, I couldn’t afford, even at THAT time, to have any insurance. I was ‘fortunate’, I guess not to have gotten sick etc. in the intervening years.
I still…(force of habit)…have not had myself checked out.
“What’s that Doc…you want me to…bend over? Foist…Have you washed your hands…and clipped your nails?…HmMMM?”
Seriously…with all the latest shtick on people going into the hospital with something minor; and then dying from either a doctor’s fuck up, or catching a Strepp infection from dumb employees not washing their hands…I’ll stay away for the time being.
To me, there are many things worse than death; some of which come from too eagerly (or desperately?) trying to extend ones life beyond any ‘reason’. I’ve known people who’ve ‘extended’ their lives through medical intervention…but paid a terrible price for the result.
Of course, if something seriously gets my attention; I’ll drag myself to a doctor for the usual barrage of tests…that’ll be a REAL drag for me!
I’m also in favor, by the way, of consensual euthanasia. And suicide?
[Yeah...let's not go there?]
The OTHER 800 lb. gorilla in EVERYONE’S room is…
the DENTAL CARE issue!
Talk about…(which nobody does)…EXPENSIVE!!! Yada, yada…
[What's that?...let's not go there, either...?]
OK…FUCK HUCK…
FUCK ALL OF THEM?
FUCK EVERYBODY?…erm…
OK…I may have stepped (shlepped?) over the line on that last one.
Sorry! (NOT!) :shock”:
18 December 2007, on 4:03 am
ChuckA says: ““fucked into existence” earthling.”
I like that. It beats thrownness. Can I repeat it ad nauseum to everyone I know? Or is it ad infinitum? Ad libidum? Ad… whatever.
Oh, and thanks Raindogzilla for posting this article. yeah, sorry i got riled up objecting to J.H. Bowden’s linguistic acrobatics: socialism this, stalinism that – and got dragged into a totally off topic discussion. I didn’t really mean to.
No health care and no hell scare, so no point in talking about it since it won’t get me in to see a doctor. besides, i came here to get my head filled with happy thoughts of the religion-bashing fun variety, so…
Speaking of Schmuck-a-bee … nothing really, I just wanted to call that clown a schmuck.
18 December 2007, on 11:25 am
untempro–
Creationists like Mike Huckabee believe evolution is impossible, since things cannot evolve without the planning of one single intelligence. Mike Huckabee also believes progress in a market economy is impossible without the planning of one single intelligence. He’s a dumbass. No one person can know even a tiny fraction of all of the transactions that occur daily. Markets are the most efficient way of dealing with human ignorance. I preach evolution, not revolution.
For example, are patients waiting too long to see specialists in Tallahassee? What kind of healthcare coverage matters the most to near-elderly residents in Spokane? Capitalism is a discovery procedure. The feedback mechanism is the consumers themselves, and letting them make their own decisions is a method of capturing and conveying that information. Even a purely socialist system has to determine who gets new treatments that are not universally available.
Prices are not obstacles to get what you want, as you seem to believe. Prices provide an incentive to react to popular want and resource scarcity and the means to do so. This is Adam Smith’s insight that as long as cooperation is strictly voluntary, no exchange will take place unless both parties benefit. Individuals who only intend their own gain, by the invisible hand, end up promoting a good they did not intend. There is nothing mystical about this– it would be commonplace, if it wasn’t for the media behemoths, Academia, and Hollywood beating Marxism into the heads of the average citizen everyday.
Fucking over the elderly, the sick, and the poor with a socialist healthcare system in favor of the healthy majority is morally perverse. I clearly explained how a socialist system creates inequalities in my last post. Our healthcare system should help those who really need it, instead of giving handouts to healthy people like me who do not. Socialist medicine is democratic in the worst way. Many forget that Lenin’s social democratic labor party split into two camps, the majority (the bolsheviks) and the minority (the mensheviks)– Lenin thought that since he had a majority, he could do whatever the hell he wanted to the minority. In contrast, I want to help the ***minority*** — the elderly, the poor, and the sick. You said that “some people need to die.” I can’t tell you how much I disagree with this.
There is nothing racist in the notion that consumers buy more at lower prices and less at higher prices. There is nothing in racist in the idea that producers supply more at higher price and supply less at lower prices. Your cries of racism here are juvenile.
Lastly, most of us when spending our own money will spend it wisely, making certain we get the most value for our dollar. When someone else is spending someone else’s money for another party, there’s an incentive to spend as much money as possible, without regard for quality. In the United States, 86% of all healthcare expenditures are paid for by third parties, more than Japan, Canada, and Italy. This happens because government pays almost 50% of healthcare costs in the US, and we have a policy where employer-based insurance is tax free, while you have to pay taxes if you buy it individually. The HuckabeeCare you support will only add another layer of government intrusion upon an already bloated system– people like him and Clinton are going to bankrupt any HMO that specializes with their managed competition schemes. In the interest of yourself, and the common good, I strongly recommend you reexamine your ideas about this.
18 December 2007, on 11:35 am
“But I won’t deny that I am a selfish asshole.”
Most democrats are. If they really cared about other people, they would support free markets.
Mike Huckabee’s crackpot idea of preventive medicine isn’t going to deliver healthcare for real illnesses of real people. The problem with American healthcare is the rising costs created by subsidies that aren’t rationed directly. The solution isn’t rationing. For HSAs, we should eliminate the health insurance requirement, allow tax-free withdrawals for all health insurance premiums, and remove the contribution limits that prohibit employers from depositing the full value of benefits directly into an HSA. This step alone will create a healthcare market with millions of people in it. We should reform Medicaid along the lines of welfare reform, and introduce a partial voucher system to reduce Medicare costs. This will help make health insurance more affordable, which is my main goal. If you’re using healthcare to preach something else like class warfare, well, you’re not going to give a shit about making it more affordable.
You should compare the US healthcare system to other countries on the stats that really count. or example, if you are diagnosed with prostate cancer, the mortality rate is 19% in the United States, while it is 44% in Germany, 49% in France, and 57% in the United Kingdom. Or take colon cancer– 30% of Americans diagnosed with die from it, as opposed to 58% in France, 62% in New Zealand, and 74% in the United Kingdom. Breast cancer shows the same pattern: less than 25% of diagnosed American women will die from it, compared with 35% of French women, 46% of British women, and 46% of women from New Zealand. The United States has double the amount of MRI machines per capita than the United Kingdom and triple the amount per capita than the left’s imagined utopia, Canada. The amount of cancer deaths per capita is 70% higher in the United Kingdom than it is in the United States. The only way to make things look better for the rest of the world is to look at life expectancy, which has more to do with obesity and firearms — two things Comrade Moore knows about — than the actual delivery of healthcare.
Yeah, fuck HuckabeeCare and the moron supporters of it.
18 December 2007, on 1:23 pm
J.H. Bowden says: “You should compare … the stats that really count”
yeah, which stats would these be? the one’s that make your argument for you? in whose favor do these stats count, yours?
I looked at ALL the stats, and still arrived at my previous conclusion. Thus, I disagree with you because the stats that count aren’t the one’s that you’re quoting.
If I’m diagnosed with something that will kill me, then I will die. Health care should be for the living, not for the dieing. I don’t want your near-death care, I want health care while I’m alive.
18 December 2007, on 2:31 pm
J.H., this is very simple – when I go to a mechanic – lets call it car care – there are no premiums, no deductibles, no co-pays and no middlemen-insurance entities. I pay only for what I need/want – I pay only for services rendered, nothing else. I want the same thing when I go to a doctor (without the instant bankruptcy). If the system you propose (the free market or whatever) can make that happen, fine, I’ll support it. But, it can’t, it never has, and I don’t believe that it will.
20 December 2007, on 5:02 pm
“Fuck Huck 08″… I like that.
J.H. Bowden says:
Our Congress resorted to rationing by passing Ted Kennedy’s HMO Act of 1973. This subsidized HMOs heavily, forced employers to offer HMOs as an option, and overturned many state laws against physicians receiving money to **deny** people healthcare. I shit you not.
Hi, I’m new here and I read a bit of your post and I wanted to say that I had learned recently that it was Nixon and the founder of Kaiser who forced HMO’s on to the public. Apparently, they devised that it would make health “care” corporations tons of money. Yes I watched Sicko and I heard the Nixon recording. So, I’m confused. Are you blaming the rise in HMO’s on the Democrats?