If anyone wants to talk about the debates, or anything else vaguely political, have at it here!
Also, I’m not exactly sure why someone wanted to make wax Romney and Obama heads, but I figured I’d put these up in case any of you were ever wondering what that would look like.
As someone who is trying to figure out the best way of helping and supporting a family member who appears to be developing a mental health condition, let me just say, it’s really upsetting to see someone who you know and love losing their ability to function, but be unable to help them until they pull themselves out of the denial that their severe short term memory loss is affecting their basic ability to do things like drive safely or cook food because they keep forgetting important parts of those activities.
I dread getting a phone call from the police saying that my mother in law has accidentally burned down her house and died because she forgot she left the stove on. But there’s no way for me to get her help unless she actually ASKS for it, and therein lies the Catch-22. I don’t want to lock up my MIL or force pills down her throat, but if she refuses to get help for her condition, it’s only going to go downhill from here.
This shit leaves us all scarred.
Diogenes: I was involuntarily institutionalized for three days when I attempted to kill myself. It was a *good thing*. It kept me from swallowing a bunch of pills the second I left the hospital and ending up right back in there. I was allowed to decompress and relax, taught some basic coping skills, and given a treatment plan for when I left.
And you know what? I have a fuckton of mental illnesses, and unless you recognize the signs (self-injurers can recognize other self-injurers freakily often), you’re not going to know. I could live in your neighborhood RIGHT NOW. Next time you walk your dog a mentally ill person could pet it. ~OH GOD THE CRAZY PERSON GERMS ARE ATTACKING YOU.~
Also, dude, government-funded mental health care =/= institutionalization all the time. My therapist is paid for by the government because I’m a college student.
Second, even the polyamorous community is divided about whether we want multiple legal marriages to be legal. And even most of us who believe marrying multiple partners should be legal have no problems with same-sex marriage being legal before us– any more than most GLB people have objections to interracial marriage being legalized before same-sex marriage was.
@ozy- Marriage to multiple people would be tricky from a legal standpoint, but I have no problem with people getting married to multiple people in a ceremony or whatnot. I think that as long as everyone is fully consenting to the union, it should be allowed to exist and people shouldn’t say Boo about it. The legal part is really the complicated thing here. Like, what if both spouses didn’t agree on a treatment option if the third in a tri-marriage was incapacitated? What about tax benefits/breaks? What about the raising of children- would they all be legally tied to all the adults in the house or only the bio-parents (would the non-bio-parents have to adopt said children?), and if so, if there was a divorce, how would custody be properly divided?
It’s a tough idea, but I’m not opposed to the idea of polyamorous marriage. The state should really only intervene in cases of upholding legal rights, protections against unjust discrimination, infrastructure, regulation of companies and criminal activity, emergency response and education. Other than that, the government really ought not to be poking its nose into religion or morality beyond what protects citizens from exploitation or violence.
@gametime
All people should be treated equally under the law. History makes an ass out of anyone who disagrees with this. I am not being disingenuous when I say marriage shouldn’t be regulated. I mean it.
But trying to get that by fighting a culture war is pretty stupid. I don’t have to get all Sun Tsu up in here, but you’re always better off sidestepping away from big battles, and instead fighting to your advantage. Over here it means deregulation would be the path of least resistance for gay marriage advocates.
If I had to credit Obama for anything, it would be him not giving in all the way to the military-industrial complex the way Romney probably would.
Would you give Romney credit for anything? Under a democratic presidency, who suffers?
Who exactly is being kept alive by compromise?
I wouldn’t vote for Jill Stein because I’m not a statist.
I love how you throw around the word racist here. Is he actually racist, or do you just use that word to mean anyone you don’t like?
@duality
Same reason I’m trying to get my parents to switch their kitchen stove from gas to electric. Gotta worry about others, but you can only do so much.
@ozyman
Well, its still unethical to involuntarily institutionalize someone. Because you were helped doesn’t change the fact that society does not have that right.
“crazy germs” haha.
Regardless of if he did or not, letting Romney control the debate would probably be a good thing (well, apart from all the lies, since really those have to be countered). It gives him more chances to say something absolutely fucking stupid and do all Obama’s work for him.
Or maybe that’s a silly plan, I don’t know. 😛
whoooooooaaaaaa duuuuuude diogenes
Katz, what?
Even backwards clocks are right occasionally, I guess.
A backwards clock made of cheese. With eight hands. And the hands are all bent at random angles. And the numbers go up to 15. And the numbers are all pictures of farmyard animals.
Also the clock is racist.
Half past cow? Its crow-45?
Looks like we’ve had a RANDom encounter here.
Someone mentioned cheese and animals in the same paragraph!
Flimsy semi-relevant excuse to post random shit I found on the internet, gooooo!
Also, instead of going ‘tick tock’, the clock makes Don Martin ‘sploink blortle’ noises. And when the largest hand moves past an animal, the clock makes the noise of a different animal.
I think the clock is analogous enough now.
Half past cow? Its crow-45?
Actually it’s exactly chicken o’clock.
Moo.
beyond Uranus
Also, someguy stole the title for my sci-fi porno movie script.
I am confused as to how wanting to ensure all people have access to healthcare is JUST LIKE banning equal marriage, or large drinks.
Why do libertarians always assume that everyone else shares their loathing of centralized government?
@ nat
What, you don’t think that the right to marriage and the right to beverages of unusual size are perfect equivalents? Statist!
@CassandraSays
I imagine it’s related to most libertarians of the internet variety being American. If “socialist” is an insult, because it’s like communism, and having a government that does anything at all is tantamount to communism, then of course statism is inherently bad.
Actually, no. I know exactly what Rand-y McRandderson’s argument will be:
Giving healthcare to everyone is forcing people who don’t believe in wanting other people to live to spend a portion of their income on it, and this is bad, and just like banning equal marriage is forcing people who want to get married to not be married. Because they’re both forcing people to do things.
To which I say
1) Just because the same word (force) is used, does not make those things equal – the harms caused and the harms averted can’t be compared (e.g. the harm averted by providing healthcare is that without it, people die. The harm averted by banning equal marriage is that bigots don’t get their fee-fee’s hurt. The harm caused by providing healthcare is that some selfish people who want people to die if they’re not perceived as ‘worthy’ enough have slightly less cash money. The harm caused by banning legal marriage is that certain people are treated as second class citizens without certain rights).
2) You can be opposed to “the state” and for community co-operation to achieve the goals the state was set out to achieve – the state is, at its essence, a level of organisation to distribute the resources and privileges of a nation. I personally don’t adhere to the idea of a ruling class or Parliamentary democracy, that doesn’t mean I’m going Galt.
3) Lots of people have to spend tax money on things they find distasteful, grow the fuck up. I don’t want to spend money on 99% of the things my government does, so I just pretend the number next to the ‘taxes paid’ box on my payslip has been donated to a family who need it, because in a way it has. The other box of money taken from me (National Insurance) is going towards giving me help should I need it in future – which is handy because my dodgy eye has been playing up for the past couple of days, so I’m considering going to the hospital to get it checked out, and hopefully if it’s fucked we’ll catch it early, which will stop me, you know, going blind. If we didn’t have a free healthcare service, I might have to put it off and get it too late.
4) WHY DO LIBERTARIANS ON THE INTERNET ALWAYS THINK THEY WILL NEVER EVER HAVE A LIFE-THREATENING EMERGENCY?! What would happen if you lost your job, then your house set on fire but OH NO you’d skipped the last fire department payment in order to buy food so they won’t come, and you can’t get treatment for smoke inhalation at the hospital either because of those pesky Ramen noodles and whoops, now you’re dead.
5) Since the answer to pretty much every question for libertarians is either ‘contracts’, ‘insurance’ or a mixture of the two, who the fuck do you think is going to enforce these things if everyone’s only responsible for themselves and as selfish as possible?
As a corollary to 4), can I also add that my NI paid for my Jobseeker’s Allowance when I was unemployed – it was effectively money I’d saved up to survive while I looked for another job. What happens to libertarians if someone decides they don’t want to employ you any more? (I know how they feel about worker’s rights, so why they think they’d be constantly employed is anyone’s guess)
@thenat
Hey, that rymes!
Its an issue of degree. Of course its wrong to ban large sodas, and its more wrong to ban free speech, and the greatest wrong is slavery. You have a spectrum that goes from freedom to greater levels of statism. I want to be on the side of the greatest level of freedom.
Question, do people find healthcare inaccessable the same way I find owning a Rolls-Royce inaccessable, or is there a cabal that actually goes around preventing people from being able to go to doctors?
Question, do people find healthcare inaccessable the same way I find owning a Rolls-Royce inaccessable, or is there a cabal that actually goes around preventing people from being able to go to doctors?
…I can feel my brain cells dying from reading this.
@Cassandra
Its not just centralized government I dislike. Its generally where the government, federal, or local makes a law that I find problematic.
Like in L.A., the city recently banned porn studios from filming without condoms on. I know OSHA exists and all, but if the actors had a problem with the way things were before, why didn’t they get other jobs?
The city also tried to shut down the pot shops. What? Were they trying to bring street dealers back again?
Well Galty, since healthcare isn’t a luxury item, and you won’t die without a Rolls Royce, no. I shouldn’t have to expand further, but I will.
When you have co-pays, prescription bills or emergency costs which are literally forcing people to choose between putting food on the table or being able to physically sit at the table, then YES they are being prevented from going to doctors. You can kvetch about how they should have got insurance all you like, but what about the people with chronic conditions who can’t be insured or can’t afford the premiums? What about people who have been made unemployed so now can’t afford it? Or people who are paying off the last medical emergency &c. &c.
You can provide help and a distribution of resources and still be free, and even without a state! It just requires not being a selfish arsewipe. Or is that the great freedom you envisage, freedom to be a total douchenozzle?