Political Discussion

Chucktshoes said:
I gotta say that every time someone calls the 1/6 capitol riots an insurrection, I giggle. It’s so hyperbolically ridiculous I can’t help it. It’s Russian collusion 2.0.

Don’t get me wrong, I condemn that riot just the same as the riots I spent the majority of 2020 condemning. But to call it an insurrection is stupid. I mean, if that was an insurrection, what was the months long siege at the federal building in Portland? After all, they repeatedly tried to burn the place down while it was occupied.

But hey, I guess it doesn’t matter how factually ridiculous it is if it’s an effective narrative to accomplish the end goal, right?
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Yeah, I mean as it turned out it was agiggle worthy attempt (though people did die), that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an attempt to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Remember the shoe bomber guy? The difference between being a joke and a being a martyr in that case was a faulty detonator. I don’t wanna engage in a “whatabout” type debate in relation to Portland as those things are pretty different in a lot of ways but I will say the stakes in Portland were much lower than what was happening at the Capitol. The end goal between the two the groups in Portland and DC were quite a bit different.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
Yeah, I mean as it turned out it was agiggle worthy attempt (though people did die), that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an attempt to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Remember the shoe bomber guy? The difference between being a joke and a being a martyr in that case was a faulty detonator. I don’t wanna engage in a “whatabout” type debate in relation to Portland as those things are pretty different in a lot of ways but I will say the stakes in Portland were much lower than what was happening at the Capitol. The end goal between the two the groups in Portland and DC were quite a bit different.
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The reason why I bring up the Portland riots isn’t to play a what about game. I don’t view either one as an insurrection personally. The reason why I bring that up is to elicit the exact kind of response I got from you. One can argue the severity of the stakes but at the core each is the same thing. They’re either a protest cum riot, or a directed attack on a federal seat of power.

How an individual views and frames each generally has a lot more to do with their personal politics than with the facts of the incident at hand.

I condemn them both as acts of violence perpetrated by manipulated groups of people fed lies.
 
Chucktshoes said:
The reason why I bring up the Portland riots isn’t to play a what about game. I don’t view either one as an insurrection personally. The reason why I bring that up is to elicit the exact kind of response I got from you. One can argue the severity of the stakes but at the core each is the same thing. They’re either a protest cum riot, or a directed attack on a federal seat of power.

How an individual views and frames each generally has a lot more to do with their personal politics than with the facts of the incident at hand.

I condemn them both as acts of violence perpetrated by manipulated groups of people fed lies.
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I don’t agree with the violence in either instance. I do think the rationale of why each instance occurred and what they were attempting to accomplish at each incident does matter. I think their was higher stakes at the Capitol Riot than than what happened in Portland. All of those factors matter when I assess each circumstance so I have a tough time comparing the two events. I could be wrong, but I don’t think anybody in Portland thought that what they were doing would topple or even disrupt the federal government. I don’t think the same can be said for the people that broke into the Capitol.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
I've just a heard a horror story about something that happened to a co-worker of mine.

Back when she was 18 she was involved in a car accident that resulted in her being transported to the hospital by ambulance. She was under her fathers insurance at the time and that insurance 100% covered the cost of ambulance rides. Her father took care of all the insurance related stuff and bills.

Fast forward 8 years, and when she was 26 out of the blue she had her entire federal tax return garnished to pay for the ambulance ride.

Here is what happened. Apparently they took down her address incorrectly and could not locate her to bill her for the ambulance ride. They send the bills directly to the consumer and not insurance. Once you get the bill you create a claim with your insurance and they cover it. Because they never got a bill and ambulance rides are covered her father never thought anything of it.

The debt was eventually handed off to a collection agency. And that collection agency never made contact with her or her father as well.

They eventually took it to court. But never located her and therefor never notified her of the court date. Since she was a no show at court the judge ordered it to be garnished.

Her father was livid. She described her father as someone who never loses his cool or swears. And when he was on the phone trying to straighten this out he was yelling and dropping f bombs left and right.

His insurance would not help. Too much time has passed and the window to make a claim has long closed. Not to mention his daughter was no longer under his insurance which is another issue in it self.

When contacting the city they too were unable to help. He argued if they never billed him his daughter shouldn't have to pay the bill. They said there is nothing they can do, the debt had already been sold so that the city could recover its money. He would have to contact the debt collector to work this out.

The debt collection agency was only interested in working out repayment plans for the remaining balance. They wouldn't waive the debt or refund what was garnished.

He contacted his lawyer, but because his daughter lost a court case for not showing up, even though she didn't know she had to show up, it would be a tough, long and expensive battle in court to try to resolve this in court. And there is a good chance even still they would not get the money back that was already garnished. His advice was it's not worth pursuing as it will be a long headache and probably cost you more in the long run than trying to recover the money that was already garnished.

She ended up never getting the money back that was garnished, and having to pay off the remaining debt which included legal fees for having to go to court.

She wants to know how they can never find her to bill her, or contact her, or let her know of a court date. Yet have no problem finding her when it comes to taking the money out of her tax return.

This also never hit her credit report until after the IRS garnished her tax return.

The tax return being garnished was the first sign / they ever heard that where were issues with the billing of the ambulance ride.
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Going back to my post here, which I also posted on that other forum with mostly boomers in a thread about the high costs of healthcare, prescription drugs and surprise bills.

The response there was pretty much this does not belong in this thread. This is not a medical insurance issue, a surprise bill or an outrageous medical bill. It was all pretty much this person incurred a debt obligation that had been referred to a collection agency who ended up having to go to court and received a default order. One person said he has now doubt that there may have been a mix up with the address, but it is her personal responsibility to follow up. She or her father should have known they had to pay for the ambulance ride and should have paid closer attention to their EOB's and noticed that the ambulance ride was never paid for. It's their responsibility to sort this out, not anyone else's.

They also have no issue with the insurance company refusing to cover the bill because the claim was not submitted in a timely fashion. That's how it works, too bad.

What a lovely view of "how things are".
 
Indymisanthrope said:
.

Am I drawing the correct conclusion in your view that a community like the one you describe is actually impossible in practice, because any willful violation of the mutually agreed upon rules is by definition a withdrawal of consent to abide by them?
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That sort of thing has to be accounted for and thought out upon the initial agreements. The delineation between what legitimate withdrawal of consent would look like as opposed to breach of contract.
 
Chucktshoes said:
That sort of thing has to be accounted for and thought out upon the initial agreements. The delineation between what legitimate withdrawal of consent would look like as opposed to breach of contract.
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Who arbitrates, how and what mechanisms are there to prevent bias and the apprehension of bias.
 
Chucktshoes said:
That answer remains the same as the one you quoted.
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Your initial agreement, or contract, establishing the community is now becoming an increasingly complex legal document that seems, in the context of a small community of like minded individuals, to be impractical. It also calls into question the equality of arms when a new community member is negotiating their way in.

To effectively answer my question you’d need to have an arbitrator or arbitration process that at the very least has a veneer of independence. That’s why I asked the question. I don’t see how it’s achievable without an outside body.
 
Joe Mac said:
Your initial agreement, or contract, establishing the community is now becoming an increasingly complex legal document that seems, in the context of a small community of like minded individuals, to be impractical. It also calls into question the equality of arms when a new community member is negotiating their way in.

To effectively answer my question you’d need to have an arbitrator or arbitration process that at the very least has a veneer of independence. That’s why I asked the question. I don’t see how it’s achievable without an outside body.
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I do not, and never will, pretend to have all of these answers. That’s because there isn’t a single answer, there are as many as there are people. What I simply suggest is that people should be able to decide and determine what works for them in their communities and as individuals without unaccountable groups exercising a monopoly of violence to determine what life looks like for everyone else.

I don’t offer utopia, I offer choice.
 
Chucktshoes said:
I do not, and never will, pretend to have all of these answers. That’s because there isn’t a single answer, there are as many as there are people. What I simply suggest is that people should be able to decide and determine what works for them in their communities and as individuals without unaccountable groups exercising a monopoly of violence to determine what life looks like for everyone else.

I don’t offer utopia, I offer choice.
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That’s fair enough and it’s refreshing for someone to say that! Also as diametrically opposed as our politics are I do feel that the world would be a much better place with more decentralised decision making.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
I’ll chew on that, but honestly I still just struggle to see this vision of society as much more than “Have friends but know that one day you might have to shoot them before they shoot you.”

The idea that your wealth/property remaining in your possession is more moral than, say, my wife being certain that private insurance won’t cut off her access to lifesaving cancer treatment (she’s not sick, she’s just a much more sympathetic example than I am) is taken as axiomatic when you discuss your conception of rights and ethics, but I’m not totally sure from whence that definition derives, other than maybe scripture. Do you see this whole discussion as an inherently religious one?
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My viewpoint is based very much in the concept of natural law. While much of the writing on that subject (which is very much the underpinning of the foundational documents of the US) refers to rights being bestowed by a “creator” it doesn’t have to be religious in nature (admittedly my faith absolutely informs my views, as it should) you can get to the very same place with one question.

“Who owns you?”

If you believe in the concept of self ownership. If you believe that as a sapient human being, you own a primary claim to your own meat over anyone else. That you possess certain inalienable rights simply for drawing breath, then you can get to the very same place without the need of a “creator”.
 
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