Trial Lawyers
Barbara Streisand
France
The ACLU
Flag burning (see also: flag pins)
Teachers Unions
George Soros
Am I missing any?
Monday, September 22, 2008
The Seven Deadly Obsessions
Conservatives have an almost religious devotion to obsessing over the following and I’m not sure why. Mostly they just don’t matter all that much and I defy any conservative to identify which of these items actually plagues your life.
Am I missing any?
Am I missing any?
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16 comments:
Dave,
Here is my take on your items:
1. Trial Lawyers: drive up health care prices due to outrageous lawsuit settlements.
2. Barbra Streisand: Hypocrite. Period. Thinks she has the right to tell americans how to live just becasue she has some money. And yet, she does not abide by her own rules, I guess because she is special
3. Failed socialist state that is jealous of American success. Plus John Kerry.
4. ACLU. Picks and chooses cases based on ideology and not merit.
5. Flag burning. I am not opposed to flag burning
6. Teachers Unions. Responsible for failed schools and high property taxes
7. George Soros. Like Barbra, a hypocrite. Made billions off of screwing people in financial markets. And is against the 2nd amendment.
1. Trial Lawyers: drive up health care prices due to outrageous lawsuit settlements.
from this
The available evidence suggests that premiums have risen
both because insurance companies have faced increased
costs to pay claims (from growth in malpractice awards)
and because of reduced income from their investments
and short-term factors in the insurance market.
Evidence from the states indicates that premiums for malpractice
insurance are lower when tort liability is restricted
than they would be otherwise. But even large savings
in premiums can have only a small direct impact on
health care spending—private or governmental—because
malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of that
spending.
Another one of RM's wrong-wing myths disproven, shall I go on?
How about the ACLU defending Rush Limbaugh back in 2004?
And the French will be amused to learn they live in a “failed state”.
but dave, the ACLU is only good when it represents the interests of WASP men with drug problems.
And how dare teacher's unions fight for a decent wage and conditions when they have to deal with some of the monsters they have to deal with? Perhaps the public school system wouldnt be in the shape its in if some parents would their jobs as parents better.
Dave,
True the ACLU from time to time chooses a conservative case to defend, but the vast majority of the time it defends far left wing cases.
Geek, like the ACLU, you cherry picked your info. Take a look at this:
"The doctors say they can no longer afford to pay skyrocketing malpractice premiums. Their combined insurance has leapt 48 percent to $510,000 a year. In Wisconsin they’ll pay just $50,000.
Health-care experts cite multi-million dollar lawsuits, high medical costs, a move by insurance companies to recoup investment losses, and the failure of insurance regulation in many states as primary reasons for the spike in malpractice premiums.
As a result, doctors are making similar decisions to move throughout the country, especially in states with weak insurance regulation.
“More and more of them are actually leaving, especially in areas where they can stay in the same metropolitan area, but cross state lines,” according to David Dranove of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
The American Medical Association says Illinois is one of 19 states facing a full-blown crisis over malpractice premiums. Hardest hit? High-risk specialists, like OB/GYNs."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4798572/
Another one of geeks liberal myths proven wrong. Should I go on?
Dave,
What is your take on this ACLU case?
http://www.oag.state.va.us/PRESS_RELEASES/NewsArchive/0406_ACLU_Threatens_to_Shutdown_Boy_Scout_Jamboree.html
ACLU Threatens to Shutdown Boy Scout Jamboree
Virginia Attorney General’s Office Files Amicus in Defense of Scouts/U.S. Military
*National Press Conference featuring AG McDonnell at 2PM EST*
Richmond- Tomorrow, April 6 at 9:30 a.m., the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago will hear the appeal of a case that would put an end to the National Boy Scout Jamboree which is held every four years at Fort A.P. Hill in Caroline County, Virginia.
The case, Winkler v. Rumsfeld, was brought by the ACLU. In its case the ACLU alleges that the words “duty to God” in the Scout Oath make the group a religious organization, and that any government support for the group, including use of a military facility, violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment that dictates separation of church and state. The ACLU was successful in a federal district court in Chicago where a judge ruled that the military’s support for the Boy Scout’s is unconstitutional. If the ruling were to stand, the military would be able to offer no support for the Boy Scouts, despite the fact that the United States military regularly provides support for many other civic organizations. The Department of Defense has appealed the case.
The Virginia Attorney General’s Office has written an amicus brief in support of the Department of Defense and the Boy Scouts. As the host state of the Boy Scout Jamboree the Commonwealth has a vested and direct interest in this case.
Speaking about the case, Virginia Attorney General McDonnell, a former Boy Scout and U.S. Army Officer himself, stated, “The Boy Scouts are a patriotic and important civic organization teaching young people the values they need to become mature and productive citizens.” McDonnell continued “This case is not just about the outrageous ACLU attack on yet another bedrock of American culture. It is about preserving a rational view intended by our Founding Fathers concerning the First Amendment ban on a government establishment of religion. I believe our Founders would be incredulous to learn that some believe that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the Boy Scouts from acknowledging their duty to God while on a military base.”
The Jamboree is also important to the economy of Virginia. Every four years scouts from across the country come to the Fredericksburg area to meet, and in the process dramatically benefit the economy of that region. Virginia wants this great character building event to continue to be welcome in the Commonwealth.
Rick,
I say let the judge decide. The ACLU has no power to on its own to change policy. That’s up to the courts.
And this is a civil liberties matter not a “leftist” matter. I think that is where you guys get confused. Conservatives attribute or equate anything they don’t like, civil liberties, Muslims, fleas, etc. to somehow being attached to the The Left™. It’s that binary thinking you all are famous for. It’s Us vs. Them everywhere, all the time. And if it ain’t US, it must be Them.
Well, whatever your take on the ACLU, they lost a great deal of what was left of my respect for them when they defended NAMBLA. I think they did a great deal of damage to their reputation when they chose to defend that organization.
The NAMBLA “defense” was a free speech issue. The ACLU does not condone or support in any way any illegal activities including sexual contact between adults and children.
This issue goes back to 2000. Here was the ACLA position at the time:
"NEW YORK--In the United States Supreme Court over the past few years, the American Civil Liberties Union has taken the side of a fundamentalist Christian church, a Santerian church, and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. In celebrated cases, the ACLU has stood up for everyone from Oliver North to the National Socialist Party. In spite of all that, the ACLU has never advocated Christianity, ritual animal sacrifice, trading arms for hostages or genocide. In representing NAMBLA today, our Massachusetts affiliate does not advocate sexual relationships between adults and children.
What the ACLU does advocate is robust freedom of speech for everyone. The lawsuit involved here, were it to succeed, would strike at the heart of freedom of speech. The case is based on a shocking murder. But the lawsuit says the crime is the responsibility not of those who committed the murder, but of someone who posted vile material on the Internet. The principle is as simple as it is central to true freedom of speech: those who do wrong are responsible for what they do; those who speak about it are not."
This actually speaks to the fact that the ACLU isn’t looking for partisan cases but civil liberties cases. And even if one suggests that the ACLU is somehow condoning child molestation, how is that being partisan for the left. I don’t know of anyone on the left who is in favor of child molestation. That’s just ridiculous.
Which also gets to my main point that the right is obsessed with the ACLU just because it gets the base riled. The outrage has little to do with reality.
Mr. Zero Reading Comprehension you cherry pick your own statements, you said:
drive up health care prices due to outrageous lawsuit settlements.
I said But even large savings
in premiums can have only a small direct impact on health care spending —private or governmental—because malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of that spending.
I disproved your claim that on health care costs, admit it and don't change the story.
2+ 2 <> 5 dumbass
I wasn't making it a case about left-partisanship, but apparently you think I was; I was simply stating a case that the ACLU can be rather morally nebulous at times. I don't know or care if the ACLU is left - I was simply stating that they have lost some of my respect for defending and possibly finding a loophole for a group that, in my and most people's estimations, represents moral turpitude.
I am all for defending free speech, but I would have to question at what lengths we should go to protect an organization like NAMBLA that is even lambasted and ridiculed by the traditional gay and bisexual groups in America. I think the NAMBLA walks an extremely fine line here when it comes to legality.
Furthermore, I am not sure what I said that made you think I was right leaning or that I was countering the argument that the ACLU was attacked by the right. I agree. The right typically hates the ACLU. Not all of the Right, but probably most people that fit into a nice description of "the Right," whatever that is.
Are you suggesting that only right wing people are critical of the ACLU? Or that in order to be critical of the ACLU you must be right-winged or somehow off base? Not sure I understand.
And I should say, while I concur that the ACLU is not condoning child molestation, etc., I still do have issues with the position they took on the particular case with NAMBLA. They have defended some pretty baseless organizations before, but this one took the cake.
Teachers unions have a big impact on your life if you have kids in public school, or even if you don't, because they so fiercely oppose the notion that parents should actually be able to choose what school their kids attend.
Aren't parents supposed to be the primary educators of their children, whom teachers are there to assist... not the other way around? (Granted, a lot of parents fail in this duty but that doesn't mean the government has to just wholesale assume everyone will and take that responsibility away from them.)
George Soros has an impact on people's lives because he has gazillions of dollars at his disposal to advance his favorite liberal causes.
The ACLU and trial lawyers in general influence our lives because so much of what goes on in healthcare, law enforcement, education and just about every other government or private endeavor nowadays is driven by a desire to avoid getting sued.
Compared to those things, Barbara Streisand, flag burning and France don't amount to much.
BookWorm,
I have kids in public schools and your statement is total nonsense. The teachers union is not a problem except in your wingnut fantasy world.
To the rather limited extent (not including all the wingnut fantasies scenarios I read about) that Soros donates to liberal causes SO WHAT! There aren't rich people donating to conservative causes? PUH-LEEZ!
Your ACLU crap is just that (except again in wingnut fantasy world)
JLo,
1) My response was not just to you but to Rick Monday and to the general point I was making in the post. I was not assuming anyhting about your ideology, simply riffing on the NAMBLA thing.
2) The ACLU was interested in defending the First Amendment, not NAMBLA per se. Any encroachment on the First Amendment can have consequences far beyond the creeps at NAMBLA.
3) The suit was civil and not criminal. There was no "technicality" involved unless you consider the First Amendment a technicality. I don't. And (responding to Rick Monday's point the the ACLU uses ideology in selecting who to assist) if the First Amendment is considered leftist, I'll take it.
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