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what do you think of this image?
click the image to see my take.
{ 62 comments }
That made me laugh out loud, I admit. It’s a great example of political cartooning at its best. And yes, I am a supporter of the legislation.
I actually think Democrats will implode if they don’t pass this. They’re going to take a beating in November no matter what, but if they don’t pass something substantial their own base will completely abandon them and stay home. They need to nut up or shut up: if they can’t get this done, their supporters have no reason to vote for them.
more evidence, then, that politics has made me a humorless troll – a dour mullah, if you will. dont click through to see my rant, it will disappoint you (I fell off my political-neutrality wagon).
it would never happen, but if Obama vetoed the bill for any reason I’d vote GOP, even for Sarah Palin, as protest.
Aziz,
You’re absolutely pathetic. This whole topic was discussed last week when the cartoon came out.
It’s not always about the mooooooslims.
It’s a statement that the Dem leadership is asking backbenchers to commit political suicide for Obama’s presidency.
I suppose they could have drew a Japanese Zero pilot, but we’re over 60 years removed from those guys.
Stop being so butthurt.
And about the “Obama Akbar”; Going back to the Zero pilot, “Obama Bonzai!” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Stop being butthurt.
I see. So its really just a generic political comment. So you’d have no problem if, instead of a suicide bomber, it was an angry white guy flying a small plane into an IRS building?
Enh, your link didn’t work so I didn’t read it at first, but I fixed the link so I did.
I think you’re just exhausted by the Muslim-obsessed. No, I don’t think you’re “pathetic,” or “butthurt” (never heard that term before), but I would agree that it could just as easily be a Japanese kamikaze pilot. Or a lemming!
I suppose there are those in the fever swamps who look at that and say “Yeah! Obama the Muslim and the Muslim-dominated Democrats terrorizing America with death panel health care!” but all I saw was a rather clever way to illustrate the (common) argument that Democrats are destroying themselves over this bill.
These things can be Rorschach tests, I admit, but I’d chill. Hard sometimes, I know, it’s why I take a periodic break from politics myself.
suicide bombers arent just committing suicide. The argument is as much about their target as their own deaths.
If you saw the threads at redstate or twonhall, you’d realize that the “fever swamp” view you alluded to is the primary interpretation over there.
Here at DW it is different – I dunno what my conservative colleagues here at DW think of it, though, which is why i posted the image, to solicit their opinions. mine is dismissed as being “butthurt” (whatever that means) – fine. but what do YOU people think?
Yah, I agree with Dean. Good political cartooning skates at the razor of offense, and I think this does that. Good political cartooning is also all about context, and somebody looking at this 30 years from now won’t get it.
The cartoon gets its edge from the stereotype you are objecting to, and in its own way points out that it IS a stereotype. All in all, one of the best political cartoons I’ve seen in a while.
heh.. no it wouldn’t be a problem at all, if that imagery would convey the point across effectively to the readers. I doubt that image would work as well though. Which is precisely why a suicide bomber, in today’s climate, worked best.
We’re talking about this cartoon aren’t we? And it’s message is being repeated over and over isn’t it? Seems like this cartoon worked pretty well.
And what makes you think I would care if a ‘white guy’ is portrayed in a negative light? ‘White guy’s’ are portrayed in negative lights all the time. Your specific ‘white guy’, Andrew Stack, was a nut. If people want to use him for political fodder then so be it. He earned that special ‘privilege’ the second he decided to fly a plane into a building.
For all you know I’m not white, or even a guy. So again, why do you think I’d care if a ‘white guy’ was portrayed negatively? Assuming I even believed in identity politics, that is.
It appears your problem has less to do with the political message, or even the imagery, but rather sits with identity politics. It doesn’t matter that the ‘suicide bomber’ likely represents ethos that you find reprehensible, and disgusting. You self identify with it because you believe it’s a Muslim act. How sad is that?
*munches popcorn*
wow ASadEnemy you’re TOTALLY in my headspace. Please, tell me more about what I believe and what I think.
*takes popcorn away because it’s not fair to eat in front of people with broken metabolisms*
I don’t need to be in your head to figure out you’re stuck on identity politics. It’s obvious from all your posts.
Your assumption, in previous threads, that Obama didn’t play race games. That you take offense to the use of suicide bombers in this political cartoon. My god man, it’s a Donkey, but you still only see MOOOSLIMS! Your belief that I’m some ‘white guy’ and that I’d obviously take offence if a ‘white guy’ was displayed in a negative light.
People naturally project their own inner beliefs onto people they don’t know. You saw Muslim suicide bomber, even though the cartoon was a Donkey with TNT on it’s chest. So you projected that I’d care if a ‘white guy’ was in a negative cartoon. I wouldn’t care, because I don’t see ‘white guy’ (or Muslim). I see nutcase (Andrew Stack, or the suicide bomber). To me they’re essentially the same. They couldn’t solve their problems in reasonable ways, so they decided to kill people who have nothing to do with their problems.
You saw Muslim suicide bomber, even though the cartoon was a Donkey with TNT on it’s chest.
Eh. The cartoon makes explicit reference to Islam. If you saw something other than that, I’d be tempted to question your comprehension.
A good political cartoon brings out many axes for grinding.
i understand now, ASadEnemy. Donkeyphobia. Thats what it references. The cartoon makes much more sense now. Truly, you have a dizzying intellect! /fezzini
A good political cartoon brings out many axes for grinding.
agreed, deangc, and I am generally pro-editorial cartoons. But there is indeed a fine line between walking the thin edge of symbolism and crossing over into outright harmful stereotype.
I suppose if I gave full benefit of the doubt to the cartoonist (which I dont, because Ive seen much of his previous work), I’d interpret teh cartoon as “Democrats revere Obama and intent on destroying the country (and themselves in the process) upon Obama’s divine command because they think it will being them to (electoral) paradise”
No.. it uses elements of our current society to make a directed political point.
It’s not ‘islamophobia’, if there is even such a thing.
You’re so stuck on identity politics that you can’t see ‘suicide bombers’ as anything but Islamists. Why can’t you see them as deranged people? Do they represent what you believe Islam is? They certainly don’t represent what I interpret it as. So why is it a negative representation of Muslims before it’s a negative representation of murderous nuts?
That’s why I wouldn’t care if it’s a ‘white guy’, or a suicide bomber.
It’s not ‘islamophobia’, if there is even such a thing.
I’m afraid you just gave away a bit about what’s in your own head, Sad. “Islamophobia,” i.e. the irrational fear of the religion of Islam and its adherents, is a perfectly normal word, easily explainable to any reasonably bright 10 year old child, and describing a common fear. To suggest there is no such thing as such a fear in some quarters is to say a lot more about yourself than you realize.
It’s real, I’ve encountered it online and in meatspace. And if you actually are a Muslim, you tend to get acutely sensitive to it. Perhaps, at times, oversensitive, but that’s also understandable.
I don’t know this cartoonist’s background or his previous work, and all I saw was a reference to crazed jihadi suicide bombers, but I saw nothing more than if it had been, as we’ve discussed, lemmings or kamikazes. That said, I’m not shocked that someone would read more into it, and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if over at Red State, or Jawa Report (i.e. JAFI Central), they’re going crazy making this cartoon about The Muslim Enemy.
Actually, Dean, if you are to characterize suicide bombers as Islamists, like Aziz has, then it isn’t islamophobia.
Is it so irrational to fear a suicide bomber? I’d say it’s totally rational. So it’s not a phobia at all.
I love it. I think the guy should win another Pulitzer for it.
My take on it is that many Dems are committing political suicide in the name of Obama, and they’re willing to take out many of their colleagues along the way.
I’m not sure how that comes across as a smear to Muslims, but hey, you can get your hate off any way you choose…
Actually, I would have thought that you would take it as an appropriate use. Both situations seem to be depicting extremists (terrorists/far left) who are attempting to use the cover of the overall group (Muslims/Demcorats) to justify their own vicious attacks (suicide bombing/reconciliation) on the perceived enemy (the West/Republicans), while the others under the same banner are faced with either disavowing the entire deal (Islam/Health Insurance Reform) or being assumed to tacitly support the tactic.
Oh, I’d say it’s not Islamophobic to call modern suicide-bombers Islamists, since Islamist assholes make up the majority of such people today.
Gaaaah, I hate that I’m probably getting tagged with the “centrist” label again, but honestly, YES, it’s a reference to crazed Islamist suicide bombers, NO, it didn’t come across as Islamophobic to me, YES, I can understand why someone would view it that way anyway, but I OTHERWISE thought it was just funny and clever.
“Democrats are doing something crazy and self-destructive and taking themselves and a bunch of others with them because of a crazed obsession.” That’s how I read it.
I don’t even agree with it (much), and I laughed.
Phew!
Does anyone here know what Tamil Tigers yell when they blow themselves up?
Yours,
Tom
“It’s Guuuuuuuuurea–” and then boom.
ok, that was pretty funny.
Most Palestinian suicide bombers don’t do it for religious reasons either, it was never Arafat and co’s real agenda.
I’m totally with Dean on this one. Yikes.
I am in agreement with Dean on this as well. I thought the cartoon was funny, but I have no no doubt those psychos over at “The Jawa Report” and the likes will interpret and use it in every wrong way imaginable. Talk about killing a joke…
And those psychos on Aziz’s side and the likes will interpret and use it in every wrong way imaginable too.
It is a spark to start a discourse on healthcare.
It is different, if not funny.
It catches and engages you… and it worked.
It is funny.
Ya Dean… All those suicide bombers who worked for Arafat were completely motivated by secular issues.
You know what his suicide brigades were called? al aqsa martyrs brigades. Doesn’t that just scream secularism?
heheh.. but seriously… Arafat’s martyr brigades were about as secular as a Vatican organization.
ASadEnemy,
So what I understand you’re saying now is, you’ve come around to agree with Aziz?
Jay,
no.. just that Dean, in his example, doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.
“So what I understand you’re saying” is that you like strawmen?
And those psychos on Aziz’s side
which psychos would that be?
The pro-Healthcare takeover psychos, obviously.
im not in favor of a health care takeover, and the bill before congress doesn’t take health care over either, so i’m good.
i agree with you. a takeover of health care would be psycho. if you could actually convince me that was what this bill did, i’d drop my support immediately. i am doggedly and dogmatically against a NHS like they have in Britain.
(which is NOT what they have in Canada, btw)
Aziz, the bill before Congress does not explicitly “take over” health care. But it lays the groundwork to do so and creates a situation where the government will inexorably crowd out the private sector.
I’m sure you don’t believe that, but that is the express intent of the bill. Once this bill is law, insurance companies will no longer be able to run their business according to the market, instead the government will set their rates, their coverage standards and their payouts. This will inevitably drive the profit margins down, resulting in less and less private insurance in the market. That will drive a desperate need for a “government option” to plug the gap created when private businesses get out before going broke.
That’s the plan. That’s the purpose. That’s the goal. As many people have pointed out, if this plan passes, there will be no profitable health insurance company within 10 years, and there will be no choice except to nationalize the industry.
Again, that is, in my opinion, by design. Even if it is not by design, the risk of such an outcome is simply not worth the supposed “reward” that Obama and the progressive movement is looking for. Health Care in this country is not “broken”. It is measurably better than in most countries, including those “progressive” states who lecture us about providing “universal” health care. The stories of hospital abuse and incompetence in countries with “universal” health care are rampant, and that is what this country is heading for. The best estimates of actual people who have a need for, but no access to, health care is somewhat less than 5% of the population. Yes, that’s a lot of people (maybe as many as 10 million). But there are ways to provide access to health care for those people other than dismantling the most successful health care industry on earth. It can be argued that this nation’s health care is top heavy, with too much focus on the high end services and too little focus on low end services for the truly needy. But that can be addressed without destroying the system we have. And it is an unpleasant truth that no matter what you do, there will always be some people who won’t have access to health care they need. That is the nature of any product or service. This is yet another example of the search for perfection being the enemy of the good.
You say you would drop your support if you could be convinced that this bill takes over health care. That is a tautology since you cannot be convinced of that no matter what evidence or argument is presented.
I oppose this bill on the grounds that it is a huge step towards nationalizing our health care by taking over the health insurance industry. I believe that the unstated but obvious purpose is to squeeze out the profit making health insurance companies, forcing the government to “step in” to “save the industry” by nationalizing health care as soon as possible, likely within 10 years.
And I think there are a lot of people who see it the same way I do. Hopefully enough to put a stop to this disaster before it happens.
We’ll see.
Aziz,
It’s fundamental economics. Insurance companies work on the basic principle of population cost distribution. The population of relatively healthy insurance premium holders pay premiums that cover their minimal useage costs (in the year) and helps shoulder the cost of the relatively unhealthy premium holders. This buisness model only works if there is a large pool of healthy premium holders to a smaller pool of unhealthy premium holders.
When you force everyone to get insurance, but also set the insurance premium prices, and the ‘minimal’ insurance package coverage, you’re setting the basic ground rules that will make insurance companies non viable businesses.
So yes, while this bill doesn’t outlaw the health insurance industry in America (like we have here in Canada), it does defacto make the industry nonprofitable and therefore removes it from the equation. It’s a back door take over of health care. It’s nor surprising. Obama has said since his early career that he favors incremental movement towards single payer anyway.
But you should be more concerned with cost containment. Every single health care industry in the world has the same basic problem. Continued cost increases. The proposed bill does nothing to contain costs. It goes about the routes that Canada has taken to contain costs. Those approaches are entirely artificial, and decades of experience in Canada has demonstrated that all this does is yield a welfare health care state.
When you set the ‘cost’ of a procedure that doesn’t reflect the actual cost, but rather is an arbitrary ‘social’ cost set by some politician, you dont’ recover technical, infrastructure, equipment etc. costs for each procedure. So over time you can’t replace those basic elements of the procedure, and you get what Canada has. Less MRI machines in all of Canada than the city of Philli (for example).
And I’m not sure you understand what we have in Canada Aziz. It is fundamentally the same as NHS. We’re a little more conservative in our health care expansion compared to Britan, and our physicians are compensated on a ‘fee per service’ basis. But both systems are artificial cost contained single payer systems.
The best way to look at what Canada, and other socialized health care systems have (in terms of access), is access to WAIT LISTS, not health care. If all you need is a prescription for a pain killer, or antibiotic, or a basic procedure like an X-Ray, then you’re good to go. If you need rationed diagnostics (ie. MRI, CT scans), or rationed procedures (ie. hip/knee/joint replacement, bladder replacement etc..) you could wait 6 months to 2 years for your procedure (assuming you can live that long).
In my travels around the world I have received better health care in Peru, and Brazil, than I have in Canada.
CC, unlike you I assume that the motivations and intent of lawmakers – Republican and Democrat alike – is to craft law that reflects genuine belief in policy, to solve problems.
it lays the groundwork to do so and creates a situation where the government will inexorably crowd out the private sector.
If that were true, it would have happened in Australia, where they have a very similar system as ours will be after the legislation passes – except that Australia has a public option and we won’t.
ASE, I didnt say I wantedd to import Canadian health care here. For one thing it wont work anyway because Canada’s system (like Britain’s NHS) was built with a population much smaller than our sin mind. The only way we can manage cost control in America is to let private industry take the lead in health services. The insurance industry however is a totally separate piece and single payer insurance would indeed be best, but since that will never happen I am content with creating a level playing field.
I will also note that as a MRI physicist myself I can assure you that more MRI machines does not mean better care. The metrics by which you define “better” are not in numbers of this or that but simpler things like life expectcancy, birth fatalities, etc. And on those measures we arent doing as well as we should be.
The health insurance market in the US is already heavily regulated, has been for generations, and does not reflect “the market” so much as “a market under conditions already created by government.”
As for the idea that this new bill will lead us “inexhorably” toward a British-style health system: bollox. If that were so that would be the pattern we’d see all over the world when government gets involved in providing medical coverage–and it almost never does. In fact the general trend when looking at other democracies is pretty clear: with only a few exceptions, you wind up with a mixed private/public system. Even the British have been allowing private insurance and private hospitals and providers for many years now; if a national health service is so inexorable why is the trend away from that very thing in most of the rest of the world?
Almost no one wants a 100% government-run system. Almost no one wants a 100% private system. And oh look, almost no one has either one. And almost no one is proposing it, except on the fringes.
I was going to point this out for a different reason — we should look at the industries where this already happened. That means… Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. How did that turn out again? Oh yeah, total collapse due to ignoring market pressures to satisfy political goals and rampant cronyism and corruption.
The problem is, this takes us from 75% private / 25% public to 50/50, with another 5% shifting to public every year, by design. That’s a huge jump to start with, and a slippery slope you don’t climb off of without some serious pain. (Discussion numbers, not based on a study I’ve seen. Not sure there IS a study.)
Really, the silver lining in all of this is that to make the BS accounting work, they want to collect taxes on this for four years before they actually start giving out any entitlements. That means that there are four years to repeal this monster in a relatively painless way.
I found this illuminating. And the New England Journal of Medicine is by no means a right-wing outfit.
http://www.nejmjobs.org/rpt/physician-survey-health-reform-impact.aspx
The cartoon itself is a bit offensive, not because it makes fun of terrorists but because it (perhaps inadvertently) compares Democrats to terrorists.
It’s accurate, though. Enough so that I almost hope the wretches succeed in ramming this abomination down our throats.
Phelps, the problem is that I said it’s been this way for generations. Which it has. For longer than either of us have been alive, by a large margin.
So it’s fine to look at this or that regulated market and see failures. What of it? There will be such failures no matter how your market is structured. Including in a market that is completely unregulated (although it’s arguable whether a truly unregulated market has ever existed or even can exist).
Not really. Heath insurance as we know it didn’t even exist until the 30s, and employer sponsored programs didn’t come around until the war, when it became a tax break. Medicare has only been around since 65, and managed care plans weren’t really popular until the 80s. Before that, it was all fee for service, and most people paid out-of-pocket for normal visits, and kept insurance for hospitalization situations.
This really is a new way of doing things. And the difference in markets is that in unregulated markets, you have frequent, small failures. In the heavily regulated market, especially when the regulator has a piece of the pie, the failures are forestalled and put off until it is one massive, catastrophic failure. Like the Sept 08 meltdown.
Keeping with the medical analogy, it’s the difference between getting sick a few times a year, or taking a super-drug that keeps you from ever feeling sick — until it ruins your liver and you die in five years.
“And the real health care jihadists are the conservatives who are so desperate to k10 ill the bill that they employ the language of fear – fear of muslims, fear of tyranny, fear of immigrants – to try and argue against the basic moral principles of social justice, central to Christianity and Islam.”
————————————————————————————————————————————-
1) Obamacare
I’ve been hanging around with some Madison liberals in recent months, and I’ve learned that “social justice” to them stands for just about everything that the Jacksonian side of my temperament finds obnoxious.
I had thought for a while that parts of the Obamacare health plan would be something I could support. That thought died a while back, along with any support I might have had for latest experiment in making a totally unqualified politician seem to appear like a real Mr President. All I can see now is that it would screw up health care for most Americans and would bankrupt the US economy and its tax vs spend balance in about four years, according to latest analysis by the Connecticut treasurer.
In any case, I didn’t vote for Obama in 2008, and now I can hardly wait for him to get bounced in 2012. Despite that some of the regional planning fixes I want for Dane County and other urbanizing areas might get bounced along with Obama. My first priority is a government that I can trust. And I sure as hell cannot trust the one now in power.
2) The Obama Akbar! cartoon.
Considering everything that has gone on around this country since the destruction of the World Trade Center and the attempted destruction of the Pentagon and the US Capitol builsing in September 1991, who in hell else would you expect any American cartoonist to use as a model for someone trying to blow himself up in the service of some presumably higher purpose, if not a Moslem?
Sure, this must be painful to the sensitivities of a Moslem such as you, member as you are of the peaceful and western-oriented, and thoroughly modernized Dawoodi Bohra sect of Shi’a Islam. That, and the fact you were born in the USA, should tell you that, above all else, cartoonists are free to caricature anybody or anything around the world that has come to public attention. The same as any journalist has right to drive literary knives of any religious figure living or deceased, be he the Pope of Rome, any one of a half-dozen great prophets, or their priesthoods both great and small. All they need to do is find somebody to publish them. And since the demise of Joe McCarthyism more than 50 years ago, boycotting anybody over their exercize of free speech or their cartoons gets you nowhere fast.
All that is what the freedoms of western civilization are all about. So get used to it, and continue your efforts to get all Islam to lighten up and call off the “we will rule the West through Shari’a” crap, plus the terrorism the islamofascists practice against everyone these days, including their fellow Moslems. Who knows? Maybe you can help create a moslem reformation, sort of what Luther pulled off 500 years ago, and for which Islam is badly overdue.
And just so you don’t get the wrong idea. I like you, and I wouldn’t be taking the time and trouble to write to about this the way I have, if we hadn’t gotten into each others’ lives for just an hour or so.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold, trust me you wont find me advocating fo rboycotts or censorship. I’ve been something of a – fanatic? – about that over the years. My answer to offensive speech is educational speech; my answer to hate speech is respectful speech; my answer to bad speech is more speech.
I know you’re a skeptic, but you have to recognize that people of faith do see value in speaking out when their sacred icons are defiled. Thats becaus ethey are sacred; our outrage is also free speech. I admit to being a little naive, but i still believe that a man making an appeal to civility and decency can still mean something. Perhaps its futile, but not o have tried at all would be far worse.
btw ive just been so hosed these past few weeks, its not funny. What day of the week are you generally free or available to come down to madison? still looking forwar to a Panera bread meeting of the minds :)
also, you should be thanking ME and me alone for the lack of snow in mid-feb to now. After all, I bought a new snowlower on feb 14th, my bday.
Aziz,
> also, you should be thanking ME and me alone for the lack of snow in mid-feb to now. After all, I bought a new snowlower on feb 14th, my bday.
Hold it! I bought a part to fix my snowblower about the same time, so I deserve a bit of credit. If only I had installed it, the East Coast would also have been spared.
Yours,
Tom
Phelps: Actually medical “insurance” in some form has been around longer than that. It used to be that you could join collective groups for joint medical coverage that wasn’t called “insurance” but was pretty much the same thing: you would join a fraternal society such as the Loyal Order of Moose or Knights of Columbus or Trapezius or whatever and that included contracts and funding for medical care. It was also not unusual at one time for small towns to contract doctors, teachers, etc. to come and service families there, to subsidize their income. Some form of this has been around a while now.
But yes, medical insurance offered through employers has been around as you say since something like the 1940s, which counts as “generations,” and government’s been part of that ever since. We don’t HAVE an unregulated “free market” in health care, haven’t had one in our lifetimes, and good luck finding many people who really want one. Including anyone in the medical insurance industry.
Aziz,
Stefi and I are available just about any day of the week for one of the Panera Bread Company restaurants around Madison. But only after we finish our morning workouts at the Princeton Clubs. There’s at least one Panera out west on Mineral Point Rd east of Gammon Rd. We will scout out other nearby locations that might be more convenient to you, inasmuch as you probably have to stay close to the UW-Madison medical center.
We’ll contact you separately about this. I have your cell phone number squirreled away.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
actually theres a panera next to west towne that is right up the street from the princeton club! what time do you finish your workout?
Actually, I don’t doubt that you can find at least three here in the comments. I’m one, to start.
(Remember, the whole world isn’t the People’s Republic of Michigan).
Phelps,
> We don’t HAVE an unregulated “free market” in health care, haven’t had one in our lifetimes, and good luck finding many people who really want one.
Dean is probably wrong about this. Eric S. Raymond is an anarcho-capitalist. Anarcho-capitalists want an unregulated “free market” in everything, and he is easy to find. In addition, his blog attracts anarcho-capitalists, so you can find several in the comments there.
> Actually, I don’t doubt that you can find at least three here in the comments.
Friedman and Sowell, for example, would probably come up with a small number of regulations they would deem necessary. I doubt I would be more libertarian than they. I suspect you are wrong about this comment section, but then maybe there are some anarcho-capitalists here.
> I’m one, to start.
I really truly doubt that. I want actual health care fraud to be actually punished by the actual government. That’s a regulation. We had a pharmicist locally who watered down some very expensive drugs. He’s in jail now. Do you want really want the government to fail to regulate fraud?
Yours,
Tom
When I say I don’t think you can find many, I mean in the general population. You can point to some radical libertarians and some anarcho-variants, but, like people who actually voted for Ron Paul last election, they represent a very small number.
Mind you, I like some of them, consider some of them my friends, used to be more sympathetic to them and still am sympathetic to them on some issues, but on the whole? Nope, I really, really, really don’t want to live in their idea of a country.
No, that’s contract enforcement. Fraud isn’t a regulatory issue; it’s a civil suit issue. Watered down drugs is also fraud. The government doesn’t regulate fraud (or else there would be some sort of fraud permitted under the regulations).
I don’t think anyone wants to live in any other person’s idea of a country. That’s the main reason that I want government out of the equation as much as possible, because ultimately, government is the imposition of one person’s ideal on another. (And at the barrel of a gun, harkening back to our other discussion.)
What time we finish our workout will depend on the time we start. And that depends on the time we should expect to meet you at that Panera’s on Mineral Point Rd a couple of blocks east of Gammon Rd. And that depends on your own daily schedule. Unless you are in position to look at your watch, shut down whichever piece of million-dollar hospital equipment you are working on, shout to the rest of the staff
“I’m having brunch with the Arnold and Stefi, so I’m out of here!”
And scram for the door while your staff all stare at you in amazement.
So preplan it, and let me know which day and week you have in mind.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
> No, that’s contract enforcement. Fraud isn’t a regulatory issue; it’s a civil suit issue.
What? The man is in jail, Phelps. Haven’t you ever heard of criminal fraud?
> The government doesn’t regulate fraud (or else there would be some sort of fraud permitted under the regulations).
What? Regulations can completely disallow some types of behavior.
Please don’t redefine terms.
Yours,
Tom
If it is completely banned, then it is prohibited, not regulated. Words mean what they mean, not what you mean when you say them.
And I am familiar with criminal fraud, I just don’t see a reason for it.
Phelps,
> If it is completely banned, then it is prohibited, not regulated. Words mean what they mean, not what you mean when you say them.
They sure do, and as it turns out my memory for the definition of regulation is working and yours is not. I am relieved, since my memory is not all that good, and I could have been wrong again.
See this definition:
“1. rule or order: an official rule, law, or order stating what may or may not be done or how something must be done ( often used in the plural ). ”
A prohibition is a regulation, but a regulation is not always a prohibition.
> And I am familiar with criminal fraud, I just don’t see a reason for it.
Criminal fraud is theft through deception or subterfuge. You want to decriminalize theft, too?
Yours,
Tom
And civil fraud is theft through deception or subterfuge. Actually, fraud has many elements in most jurisdictions, including a material misrepresentation (or an omission when there is a duty to disclose, such as a fiduciary duty), reliance on the misstatement or omission by the defrauded party, and damages that result from that reliance, but you already know that, being a master of both the English language and English Common Law, right?
You want this fight, I’m your huckleberry.
Phelps,
> And civil fraud is theft through deception or subterfuge.
I guess you do want to handle fraud through civil law. How come?Why not burglary, or lob crawling, or shop lifting? No violence involved.
> being a master of both the English language and English Common Law, right?
My language skills are pretty good, ’cause I’m a fast and obsessive reader. On English Common law I’m a complete ignoramus.
> You want this fight, I’m your huckleberry.
I don’t know this idiom. Are we fighting? Right now we are discussing what sorts of theft should be criminalized.
I think all sorts of theft should be criminalized. I don’t think I should have to hire a lawyer when someone shoplifts from my store. I suppose I could handle it in small claims court. Of course if the shoplifter doesn’t pay I have to go to court again. Eventually the shoplifter will be put in jail if he keeps dodging the claim, right?
People died because of these watered down drugs, btw. Still want a totally unregulated health care system?
Yours,
Tom
Then he should have been charged with murder. I’m all for good old fashioned murder charges.
It’s easy to see an Islamophobic angle to this cartoon. Its variant on the Takbir invites that interpretation. To non-Muslims, that phrase just conjures up the image of “what crazed extremists say just before they blow themselves up”; but to Muslims, it’s a sacred declaration. They’re not happy to see it abused by terrorists, and they’re not happy to see it abused here. In a similar vein, some satirists call President Obama “the Obamessiah” as shorthand for how they perceive his self-importance; but I know Christians who, even if they disapprove of President Obama, also disapprove of that language. They feel it demeans their faith.
But to the non-Muslim who actually studies the matter, the cartoon is a very appropriate expression of the cartoonist’s point. The Takbir (Allahu Akbar) translates as “God is the greatest”; and as used by the extremists, it signifies their willing sacrifice to the glory of the greatest. Substitute President Obama for Allah, and the phrase and the cartoon exactly capture what some pundits see: that some Democrats are willingly blowing up their careers for the glory of President Obama. You can disagree with that point of view, but the cartoon captures that point of view with marvelous conciseness.
With recent stories that President Obama is asking wavering Democrats to save his Presidency, I think this scene (starting at around 2:44) is even more on point; but that was from a simpler time. In today’s post-racial racial hypersensitivity, nobody could make that joke today.
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