USA Politics (redux)

[SimonNZ]

I think I have a general idea of what "the mainstream media" says about medicare for all because I watch Youtubers comment what "the mainstream media" says.

And again:

Once again: you have no idea what "the mainstream media" says about medicare for all, you simply accept your Youtubers saying that a large diverse group of professional journalists should be  sweepingly dismissed... so you'll stick with them.

Applies to everyone, not only me.

Others would (or should)look to change their ways if they saw it in themselves, not wear it proudly like a badge. This pride in your bias is why people find your critical abilities missing.

I am out of this thread. Why did I even bother...

Really. Please.

[71 dB]

This pride in your bias is why people find your critical abilities missing.

What pride? 

[71 dB]

Once again: you have no idea what "the mainstream media" says about medicare for all, you simply accept your Youtubers saying that a large diverse group of professional journalists should be  sweepingly dismissed... so you'll stick with them.

The Youtubers I follow praise some journalism whenever there is reason for that. That's about 10 % of it.

[Fëanor]

...
At least certain agendas have a platform. For example, MSM media is against medicare for all, because they get add money from insurance companies and Big Pharma. In general Youtubers don't get that kind of money so they can be pro-medicare for all. Do your research. What does science and studies say about things and how well does MSM compare to Youtubers in regards of those facts? If MSM is correct, I guess all other western countries are idiots fot not having something that only the US has, costs 2 times more and doesn't covers everyone. Are we Finns stupid for not having medical bankruptcies? Because according to the Times we are.

Americans spend more on their healthcare overall than any other country by a factor of almost 2X.  That without better outcomes for their population as a whole.  Where does that money go?  It goes to profits to the healthcare industry, (healthcare delivery, drug companies, insurance companies).  These folks have tremendous, greed-drive interest in lobbying Congress to against universal healthcare.

Meanwhile scurrilous alt-Right and conservative sources sources -- not so much the MSM -- feed Americans an endless stream of lies about other countries' universal healthcare by.  Canada's healthcare in particular gets a lot of slander from conservatives source given we are their next door neighbors.

The huge irony is that the USA spends not only more private money on healthcare but also more public money than most other OECD countries.

[drogulus]

Max Blumenthal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Blumenthal

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/08/biden-iran-envoy-starving-civilians-pain-sanctions/

     There's an interesting piece in the Atlantic about Iran policy.

     The Princeton Historian Mugged by Reality

His captors' complete indifference to his actual guilt or innocence rapidly revealed itself. They told him, matter-of-factly, that he was being kept solely for purposes of exchange. The regime that held him, Wang came to feel, had no intention of altering its behavior if the United States made concessions: This was its true self, and not the product of American aggression. He said he once thought that the dreadful state of Iran was "all because of something we did wrong to them," and that a thawing of ties would empower Iranian moderates. But that view relied on what he called a "mirage" of moderation within the Iranian government. "I slowly saw: They don't want to be our friends. They don't want to reconcile." In prison he watched a great deal of state propaganda. "They say it clearly," he told me. "They want us as an enemy, because that is the reason for their existence." To hope that Iran will stop behaving like an enemy is to hope that it will suddenly decide not to exist anymore.

Unlike many American hostages, Wang was allowed to mix with the general inmate population, a motley bunch of political prisoners and financial criminals whose stories he learned in detail. (One of them spoke French, and taught Wang well enough for him to berate the Iranian ambassador in Zurich.) To Wang's surprise, he found that activities he thought the regime would appreciate—pursuing business and cultural ties with foreign countries, the kind of thing that his own university encouraged by sending him to Iran—often landed people in prison. The Iranian regime "needs people outside Iran to press progressive politicians for lifting of sanctions," Wang said. But if you are in Iran and call for greater engagement, you are a threat to a regime based on its enmity with America, and you end up in a cell in Evin. "They ruthlessly suppress people who do that in Iran. And if you are arrested with them, you will realize there are so many Iranians [imprisoned] because they engage with the West."

     A realistic assessment of Iranian intentions should be the basis for policy. That means we'll have to give up on the "reformers vs hard-liners" myth.

[Karl Henning]

I think I have a general idea of what "the mainstream media" says about medicare for all because I watch Youtubers comment what "the mainstream media" says.

Correction: You know what the YouTubers have to say about it (The observations of confirmation bias stand).

You're dancing quite the tarantella to avoid examining what a ridiculous remark "MSM media is against medicare for all" is.

And, significantly, you do not offer any MSM examples in any defense. You just double down with "I heard it on YouTube, it's gotta be true," indifferent to the light this sheds on your critical faculties.

[drogulus]

     The "MSM" hasn't evinced much enthusiasm for MfA. It's treated as an unrealistic proposal by the left Dems even at MSNBC.

[Karl Henning]

You know both these things already, Ernie, but "lack of enthusiasm for" ≠ "MSM media is against medicare for all"

And to conclude that MfA is unrealistic is certainly reasonable. e.g., our JBS has repeatedly argued that it may not be the best means of insuring all Americans.

Maybe JBS needs a YouTube channel?...

[drogulus]

     I sometimes favor unrealistic policies, like pot legalization and same sex marriage. Popular support made them realistic, and then real. I could take that attitude about MfA, except that acceptable alternatives are likely to develop and I'm more interested in getting the good thing than the means of getting it. I think of MfA as a terrible no good thing to frighten the policy gurus into insuring everyone.

[71 dB]

Americans spend more on their healthcare overall than any other country by a factor of almost 2X.  That without better outcomes for their population as a whole.  Where does that money go?  It goes to profits to the healthcare industry, (healthcare delivery, drug companies, insurance companies).  These folks have tremendous, greed-drive interest in lobbying Congress to against universal healthcare.

Meanwhile scurrilous alt-Right and conservative sources sources -- not so much the MSM -- feed Americans an endless stream of lies about other countries' universal healthcare by.  Canada's healthcare in particular gets a lot of slander from conservatives source given we are their next door neighbors.

The huge irony is that the USA spends not only more private money on healthcare but also more public money than most other OECD countries.

I have been saying this for years here and half of the time I am told I am a victim of confirmation bias and I live inside the lefty Youtuber's bubble. The facts are inside someone's bubble. Someone's bubble contains the truth or otherwise everybody is wrong. I am especially surprised about the hostility from SimonNZ given the fact that the healthcare system in the New Zealand is nothing like in the US and much cheaper. Why SimonNZ defends the US healthcare system is so weird to me. Maybe he owns stocks of Big Pharma? 

[DavidW]

Someone's bubble contains the truth or otherwise everybody is wrong.

No more like there is some truth in each bubble, not that there is a bubble that is 100% truth on all topics.

[71 dB]

Correction: You know what the YouTubers have to say about it (The observations of confirmation bias stand).

You're dancing quite the tarantella to avoid examining what a ridiculous remark "MSM media is against medicare for all" is.

And, significantly, you do not offer any MSM examples in any defense. You just double down with "I heard it on YouTube, it's gotta be true," indifferent to the light this sheds on your critical faculties.

Well, they don't shout "M4A SUCKS!!" That would make them look silly. They are more subtle. One common tactic they use is bring advocates of medicare for all to the studio with people against it (paid to oppose it by the healthcare industry). Then they threat these parties equally (Gees, can't say who is right and who is wrong!). It looks like they are not opposing M4A, but in reality they spread distrust to these progressive agendas putting corporate propaganda and fact-based progressive ideas on the same line. It's like having a debate between flat-earthers and real scientists about whether Earth is flat or not. You can't treat both parties equally. You need to call out the other party is silly and not interested of real facts. Similarly MSM should call out the lobbyists and tell people they are not interested of providing people healthcare in a cost-effective way. Only the M4A-supporters are insterested of that.

Somehow "lefty" MSNBC was much more enthusiastic about Biden than Bernie. That tell everything about what they think.

Finding examples is surprisingly difficult and I am so sick and tired of all the cookie consent crap these site have.

[71 dB]

No more like there is some truth in each bubble, not that there is a bubble that is 100% truth on all topics.

On some issues that is true. Healthcare is an issue were this is clear were the truth is.

[greg]

No more like there is some truth in each bubble, not that there is a bubble that is 100% truth on all topics.

Watch out. This is what I've always been saying here and then I get labeled a "bothsideists." Good luck considering multiple viewpoints here. 

[SimonNZ]

I have been saying this for years here and half of the time I am told I am a victim of confirmation bias and I live inside the lefty Youtuber's bubble. The facts are inside someone's bubble. Someone's bubble contains the truth or otherwise everybody is wrong. I am especially surprised about the hostility from SimonNZ given the fact that the healthcare system in the New Zealand is nothing like in the US and much cheaper. Why SimonNZ defends the US healthcare system is so weird to me. Maybe he owns stocks of Big Pharma? 

I have not once said anything about the US healthcare system on this thread.

The only thing I have said about healthcare has been to tell you that you know nothing about the pros and cons of the NZ system as it currently exists - probably as little as you know about the US system - and are not fit to compare it to anything.

This is the way your Youtubers argue: if you dont agree with me I can just go ahead and assume your reasons and act as though you've already stated them.

It would take a mountain of reading before I would consider myself ready to opine on a subject like that. And I know you haven't read so much as a page.

[71 dB]

I have not once said anything about the US healthcare system on this thread.

Well, what I say about the US healthcare system doesn't seem to please you based on the unfriendly posts I get from you.

The only thing I have said about healthcare has been to tell you that you know nothing about the pros and cons of the NZ system as it currently exists - probably as little as you know about the US system - and are not fit to compare it to anything.

Yes, I don't know anything about the NZ system except that it costs about the same as the UK system, which is considered cost-effective. I do know about the  US system, because I have been following US politics for years now. Why would I write so much about it if I knew nothing?

[SimonNZ]

No, you've been watching a bunch of superficial and simplistic Youtube amateur pundits for years so you've never gone beyond a superficial and simplistic understanding.

Pick up any overview of the subject published by a university press and realize just how very little you know, how massively complex the subject is and how much more you would need before you could even start to understand. At this stage you don't even have a sense of the landscape of whats out there in the scholarship and debate, or how to even begin on the path to the most introductory-level familiarity.

[Gurn Blanston]

...........Why would I write so much about it if I knew nothing?

That's an excellent question, and one I have often wondered at. One of those little mysteries that life so often provides to give us some mind candy... 

[71 dB]

It would take a mountain of reading before I would consider myself ready to opine on a subject like that. And I know you haven't read so much as a page.

Don't be silly. Elections would be pointless, because hardly anyone would know anything! People can get an overall picture of thing without becoming Nobel laureates. I am not talking about things that need really deep knowledge, because I don't have that, but anyone who has followed US politics just a little bit outside MSM know the huge problems of the US healtcare system and also what the solutions are.

If this was math this would go like this:

71 dB: Square root of 81 is 9.
SimonNZ: Go away. You don't read. You can't know that!
71 dB: Yes I can. I have an university degree in engineering. I can easily calculate the square root of 81.
SimonNZ: I don't believe you! You are not Terence Tao! Not even Michael Penn or Dr Peyam!

[SimonNZ]

No, it wouldn't go like that because you learned that from a professional teacher in the wider context of a mathematical education and its principles and with a sense of how much there was still left to learn, you didn't just take it on faith from some random person as a floating factoid.

I think I've said before that you're more like someone who says "I have learned that the square root of 81 is 9 which means I am now a mathematical expert who can speak with authority on any mathematical issue"