Leland Yee, Super Villain

Senator Leland Yee (D California)
Senator Leland Yee (D California)

I’ve got to hand it to Democrat state senator, Leland Yee. Most political scandals are the typical drug use, hookers, or bribery stuff. This guy reaches for the stars.  He isn’t messing around. There is no half assed corruption here. If Yee had a machine that could control the weather he’d be a Batman villain.

He got busted in an FBI sting, taking millions of dollars in bribes, to smuggle RPGs and machineguns through brutal Chinese tong gangs, through the Ukraine, to rebel insurgents in the Phillipines. No. I’m not making any of that up.

The part that makes this all so awesome and hilarious is that the only reason people like me know who Yee is, is because he’s the primary asshole behind disarming law abiding Californians. Yes. He is the anti-gun poster child. He has an A+ from the Brady Center morons. (Hmmm… Now that he’s been caught smuggling rocket launchers to Muslim rebels, but he’s still a democrat, they might downgrade him to a B).

So, regular Californians can’t own an AR-15, but Chinese drug lords, no problemo. Law abiding citizen protected by the 2nd Amendment, go to hell. Murderous scumbag criminals, good to hook. This plan seems to work for Eric Holder too.

The other part that makes this funny as hell is that he is also the anti violent video game guy… Yee is the crusading liberal who has been out there trying to get violent video games banned. Because won’t somebody think of the children!

Let that sink in for a delicious moment.

Grand Theft Auto? Hell, he doesn’t need to play it. Leland Yee LIVES Grand Theft Auto. If only he hadn’t been exposed to Call of Duty, then he wouldn’t have been so tempted to smuggle machineguns to MILF. And yes. The rebels were actually called MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) So when you hear that a Green Beret bagged a MILF, it really could go either way.

Of coure you probably haven’t seen too much of this on the regular news, because Yee is a democrat, and thus his scandal is totally not newsworthy. I saw a thing where Yee’s bust had gotten a grand total of like 30 seconds of coverage on CNN, in between long reports of how Chris Christe may possibly have blocked traffic.

Think about that. Sure, I know that CNN is basically the marketing department of the DNC, but this story has everything. It is implausible. It is ridiculous. It is Breaking Bad only more absurd. His Chinese mafia contact was named Shrimp Boy Chow! How the hell can you not report on a respected elected official making millions of dollars from rebels MILFs and a mob boss actually named SHRIMP BOY CHOW!

Nope. You’re gonna get long reports about boring ass Chris Christie and his being a jerk. I’m not a Christie fan, at all. He’s a republican electable in New Jersey, enough said. But oh no! He might have shut down a bridge out of spite! That’s worth hundreds and hundreds of hours of coverage…

But, but SHRIMP BOY!

Yee is like the tenth democrat busted recently for corruption, only he is so much more awesome at it than those losers. Mayor with hookers and blow? BORING. Yee smokes those chumps. He is a rock star. And before the moral equivelency police show up to bark at me about how the parties are exactly the same… Holy moly, you must suck at statistical analysis. But democrats being corrupt shouldn’t come as a surprise, since for the last five years their highest echelon has been allowed to totally get away with insane scandals like Fast & Furious, or using the IRS to punish political enemies. When that kind of behavior is excused, why wouldn’t it trickle down? The fish rots from the head. And with the supposed watch dogs of the media not doing their job, what’s a little gun smuggling between friends?

I’ve already seen some democrats trying to explain away Yee, like he was no big deal. He was just some minor little dude… He’s only a state senator after all… (and I believe the 3rd or 4th California democrat state legislator to get arrested recently). Except for the part where he was a state super star, and he was running for Secretary of State. And when Harry Potter finally finds and destroys Nancy Pelosi’s last Horcrux, then Yee was going to take her spot. (I’m actually not sure if California even still has elections or if their godking just appoints the democrat of his choice to oversee the peasants in their various fiefs).

Leland Yee should be all over the news, but since he’s a democrat it will be the duty of us crusading journalist type bloggers to spread the truth. These are the facts I have so far:

– Leland Yee originally came to the FBI’s attention after selling guns to a motorcycle gang known as the Sons of Anarchy. Ron Perlman was unavailable for comment.

– FBI investigated and discovered that an RV registered to one Wynn Duffy was parked in Leland Yee’s driveway. It is believed that Leland Yee was the triggerman who recently shot Chief Deputy Art Mullen.

– Leland Yee is part owner of a chain of fast food chicken restaurants named Los Pollos Hermanos.

– Leland Yee must sacrifice a girl with green eyes so that he may be made flesh again.

– Leland Yee would have got away with it too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids.

EDIT: BREAKING NEWS! It was just confirmed that to replace Leland Yee, California is appointing respected educator and heroic cancer survivor Walter White to take Yee’s seat.

Today is the Deadline for SAD PUPPIES!
The Drowning Empire, Episode 50: Shogun Wedding

280 thoughts on “Leland Yee, Super Villain”

    1. As a general rule, you are correct that they don’t. However, as film-makers are not bound by reality, Big Trouble In Little China made the intended victim a green-eyed girl.

  1. I’m glad you covered it. I wasn’t going to touch it with a pair of Tongs.

    Though I understand when he met with the FBI, he thought he was interviewing for Eric Holder’s job.

    Or maybe he thought he was creating a single payer gun industry.

    And remember: Guns for Yee, but not for thee.

    1. You had me at “pair of Tongs.” If this keeps up, this will trump the great Cookie Monster thread.

      1. On the bright side, this Yee case seems to indicate there are federal agencies that can investigate and enforce federal arms laws without the ATF’s expertise or shooting someone’s dog.

      2. Yeah but if anyone deserved a pre-dawn no-knock raid from the Stosstrupp Eric Holder, it was Yee. He was a gun runner in league with terrorists, for God’s sake!

    1. I was wondering if the CA Ds are cleaning house (and senate) because of an internal political power battle. And Yee and co came out on the losing end. *shrug* I stick at conspiracy games.

      1. It’s possible that this is political payback, actually. The Dems in California’s government thought that they finally had the votes to do away with Prop 209 (the one that officially abolished affirmative action in many state facilities; unofficially…). But at the last minute, the Asian-Americans realized that officially allowing race quotas back in would be a very bad thing (since they’re the one racial minority that quotas always discriminate against). So the Asian-American block of Dem legislators reversed their votes at the last moment. And pretty much immediately after, Yee’s wrong-doing was made public.

        Maybe it’s a coincidence. That’s an awfully serious charge for mere political payback. But maybe it isn’t…

    2. Not crazy at all. Starting in Aug-Sept. time frame, let’s see how many GOP scandals are broken by DOJ.

      Kind of sad that we are now just accepting the idea that pols will be caught with their hands in the till.

  2. “He got busted in an FBI sting, taking millions of dollars in bribes, to smuggle RPGs and machineguns through brutal Chinese tong gangs, through the Ukraine, to rebel insurgents in the Phillipines. No. I’m not making any of that up.”

    Please tell me I’m not the only one hoping this guy makes an appearance in an upcoming Dead Six book?

    1. He might. Or am I the only one who thinks that Salah Jihan is Lo Pan…

      Larry’s going to do it somehow. Yee fits in way too well with Majestic.

  3. He is obviously a gangster who got into politics to cover his crimes. It’s the perfect cover. Who would suspect an anti gun politician of Leland Yee’s stature to be a gun smuggler?

    I think it is brilliant.

  4. The interesting thing is that it’s going to be a long while before he gets acted upon by the California Senate. It seems if they lose one Democrat Senator they will lose their 2/3rds majority and the way the budget works in CA. they’ll have to get a Republican to support those bills. Take Senator Wright. Earlier this year, Wright was found guilty of eight counts of voter fraud and perjury related to charges that he lied about his residence when he ran for office in 2008.

    Republican legislators have pushed to expel Wright from the Senate, but he is on indefinite leave of absence until his sentencing, expected sometime in May.
    So the Democrats still have there 2/3 majority for now.

      1. Larry, I, Expendable Henchman, am in the midst of moving email addresses, so this is a separate account, but it’s still me. The guy who toted the book with machined covers the other day. Thanks.

  5. We MUST obsessively report on Christie! He’s a Threat! He’s dangerous! He’s clearly twice the man Obama is!
    (“By volume.”
    *chortles*
    “Good one!”)

    This other guy is obviously just a patriot Ollie North-ing some Freedom Fighters in some place far away with funny names.

    DID WE MENTION CHRISTIE BLOCKED TRAFFIC BECAUSE HE’S A BIG MEANIEFACE??!!!?!
    (“See? Pointing out the big there again.”
    “Is the meme trending yet?”
    “Do more hashtags.”
    “Gotcha boss!”)

      1. Which is funny b/c it’s not even remotely connected to us (or US, whichever way you want to think about it 😛 ), yet we’ve got to cover it incessently. Granted, I’m darned curious to know what happened (and the sooner they find the data and voice recorders at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, the sonner the conspiracy theories can die the death of being exposed to the light), but it’s hardly our business and can take a major back seat to local issues such as this one.

  6. I’m not sure if the comment about Lee personally being a murderer is serious or not.

    On the one hand, Democrats will be Democrats.

    On the other, it doesn’t quite fit the pattern I’d expect.

    On the gripping hand, I’ve missed enough sleep that I’m not at my best.

    1. Murder for hire certainly does fit the pattern of the corruptocrats in the DNC. Just look at their track record over their history. LOOOONG history of being associated and supporting those people who take pleasure in or professional eliminate people for a living.

      I have to say I was surprise by this thing with Yee, but not really. Shocked that they actually arrested him on the substantial charges, not surprised that a democrat anti-gunner from CA was running guns. Not surprised one bit. I am loving the irony, however.

  7. Sad thing is even here is Cali we are hardly hearing jack all about this case. And of course he wanted guns band from the law abiding citizens easier to have you gang buddies to do business.

    1. Locally, as a Bay Area resident I’m really surprised that this isn’t bigger news. Living 40 miles from San Francisco its the headlines on every newspaper and the top story in the news. Reporters have been making themselves a nuisances at every residence he owns. “Shrimp Boy” is on the lips of every reporter they are loving this story. Its actually pretty disappointing how this story isn’t getting the national attention it deserves. The public locally is ready to stone the man.

    1. COPS: Political Edition

      “Bad boys, bad girls, who ya gonna sue, who ya gonna sue after we’ve got the cuffs on you?”

        1. Yeah, but in the Law and Odor version, it’ll be a R behind his name, and he’ll be trafficking guns to White Supremacist Neo-Nazi Militia members in Idaho. Or something.

  8. This report gives another reason to be glad President Obama was reelected. With a Republican president this would be labeled a right wing political attack, now the left is reduced to arguing against electing crooks to office.

  9. DANG IT! I thought Breaking Bad was fictional, not a documentary! But Walter White is taking Yee’s seat. Now I have to readjust my entire worldview.

    At least, it would be easier than swallowing some of the stuff the media tries to feed us.

  10. I find this hilarious, as just last week I predicted this crap would happen. Hooray for shameless self promotion! http://eccentriccowboy.blogspot.com/2014/03/gun-control-why-it-is-unofficially-dead.html

    But WOW this takes the cake. I thought Philipino bush gunsmiths and Mafioso-esque smuggling were worthy of pause for thought. But now it’s like the democrats are actively trying to prove us right. I don’t even have to come up with well constructed arguments anymore with this kind of crap going on. All I have to do is point to these dudes and say “Told ya so.”

  11. Videogame nerds should immediately assume that this is all the Alternate Reality Game run-up for a sequel to the awesomely violent 2012 release, Sleeping Dogs.

    “LELAND YEE, M**********R!” (leaps onto a BART train in slo-mo while shooting an MP5k)

  12. Meanwhile, at Minitru, the Party members are busy filing stories about Mr. Yee- right down the old Memory Hole.

  13. I actually read the article on Yahoo the other day. The article talked about Mr. Yee and then some Republican Governor from NJ and it wasn’t until I got to the end of the article did they even mention he was a democrat. I still say vote all incumbents out regardless of party. That’s been my voting policy for 25 years.

  14. I suspect that the only reason the feds busted Yee is because his efforts were taking gunrunning business away from the ATF, and they wanted to eliminate the competition.

  15. So um… short version of the plot (I read the entire affidavit so you won’t have to)

    FBI Is investigating a Tong. Donation packager from Yee gets the Tong’s front recognized by a CA Senate proclamation in exchange for campaign donations. FBI is still investigating Tong. Guys with connections to the Tong sell guns and body armor to the FBI (including body armor stolen from the FBI.) FBI guy wants more guns. Yee offers to set up a deal with a Russian arms dealer. (again in exchange for campaign donations) Deal never happens. Yee instead offers to set up a deal with MILF guys because they need money. Yee’s lackey also says that Yee used MILF thugs as bodyguards during his last visit to the Phillipines, and that MILF was being backed by Kadaffi before his demise and thus need money. FBI guy is introduced to the gun runner, who is willing to sell machine guns and RPGs ( and Yee knew FBI guy wanted machine guns and RPGs.) Tong guys are picked up on drug trafficking and money laundering. Yee and his lackey are picked up on taking bribes and gun running.

    Yes, this is the same Yee that proposed a bill preventing us peasants from owning any semi-automatic rifles.

    1. Late breaking news: Philippine Gov’t must have just found out that the MILF has US Democrat backing, because they just signed a peace agreement.

      So apparently Yee isn’t really that unqualified as a secretary of state.

        1. Obama will always support the war against US hegemony.

          In other words, he will always “adhere to their [The United States] enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

          I agree. Where we may disagree (depending on whether you were serious or sarcastic) is in the implications of that.

  16. I am almost unsure if this is real or not just because of the craziness of it, or maybe its just the fun way Larry presents it.

    Anyway, it’s not all that surprising really. Thanks for sharing something awesome about stupid government officials.
    Note if there are any smart government officials reading this than I wish you the best of luck dealing with the stupid ones. 🙂

    1. Apparently, they have to explicitly cover what is legal and illegal for members of the CA Assembly, because they, apparently, assume that normal laws don’t apply to them once elected.

  17. Nancy Pelosi will not meet her end by the destruction of Horcrux. Her end will come by a bucket of water. And she will leave behind a bunch of flying monkeys we will have to deal with. Poo flinging flying monkeys at that.

  18. Yee has been suspended, but is still drawing his almost $100K salary. Anyone out there hear if his accounts (at least the legitimate ones) have been frozen by the FBI yet?

  19. You guys are missing the obvious here. I’m kind of surprised.

    If (as all Dems would have you believe) all conservatives who are against gay marriage are secretly homosexual, then all anti-gun liberals are secretly gunrunners.

    WE HAVE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE NOW!11!1!

  20. I happened to watch “Big Time in Little China” on netflix last night, so I found this post to be exceptionally awesome.

  21. Also, totally OT. I selected funk radio on Pandora, and they are playing Michael Jackson tunes on occasion! Michael Jackson is not, in any fashion whatsoever, funk. Got to down thumb that.

  22. Aaaaaand over on the East Coast, you have the Dem mayor of Charlotte getting busted last week for….well, just read it:

    “Patrick Cannon, the Mayor of Charlotte, NC was arrested today and accused of accepting nearly $48,000 in bribes during a four-year-long FBI sting. A good portion of those bribes came in the form of a quote-unquote investment into one of Cannon’s business ventures: a “feminine hygiene product” called “Hers”.

  23. I’m (re-)writing a P&P RPG setting, the auld game Torg. It’s an action-movie RPG, and as I’m writing the background, I put in the most cinematic material I can. Then the real world insists on either duping it or topping it.

    I wrote about widespread demonstrations and the government collapsing… in Egypt… a month before it happened IRL.

    This story, this exact story, is something right out of Nippon Tech (the Martial Arts Technothriller Reality). Which (in the canon) is set in China, Japan… and California.

    It’s colossally insane, that the real world seems obsessed with throwing up current events that not only top my over-the-top ideas, but sound exactly like a run-up to the game. (Examples here: http://daddywarpig.wordpress.com/tag/countdown-to-armageddon/page/4/ )

    Also, funniest coverage of the Yee story yet. If it wouldn’t cut into your valuable MHI-writing time, I’d suggest forming the CWS (Correia Wire Service) and selling news stories to papers and stations too lazy to investigate these crimes.

    But it would, so I’m not suggesting that. 🙂

  24. The other day I happened to catch an NPR report (it interrupts my classical station) that was apparently about this story. I wasn’t really paying attention, but the only thing I remember is that they tackled the “Shrimp Boy” bit like a human interest story. They had a sound bite from some friend of his, explaining that it was a name his aunt/grandma/whoever gave him wen he was young, because he was really small. Apparently he’s 5’5″ as an adult. Maybe it’s just me, but….. I don’t think that’s really the approach a news organization should be taking on a case like this.

  25. Mr.: Correia, I’ve been a reader of your blog for some time now & like your political essays more than your books even. 😀

    Is there any chance I could get you to help endorse Greg Brannon for NC senate? He’s been endorsed by your senator Mike Lee already but I’d ask anyway as this is really important to me. He’s the first person in 8 years that I’ve been following politics that I believe in enough to campaign for.

    Money is great & useful, but just an endorsement would be swell too. 🙂

      1. Heck it’s gotten to the point where they don’t even need to wait for the accusation. Any time something goes wrong-the boston bombing, a shooting at a mother’s day parade in New Orleans, the navy yard shooting- the default reaction is “it must be those dastardly Tea Party yokels”.

    1. Read the 138 page complaint. It’s a fairly decent thriller, at least by current SF award writing standards.

      Plus, it’s based on a true story! Seriously, he’s screwed.

  26. Democrat, Republican, it doesn’t matter. Nine times out of ten they are rotten to the core. Even the “independents” are the lowest of the low. This country used to elect people fresh from the street who knew the struggles of the “average man” now we are pigeonholed into electing people that come from long lines of wealth, privilege, or general “easy living”.

    How about we start voting for people that might actually know what it feels like to work for crap pay, to work for hours on end breaking one’s back just for a meager paycheck, or that knows that guns don’t kill people, but idiots with guns kill people.

    It’s foolish not to believe one party is more “good” than the other. Democrats enslave with speech, Republicans enslave with brute force. Not one is better than the other and these kind of stories should not come as a surprise.

      1. Well there are always a very small handful of good republicans and good democrats. The issue is those who actually are good are drowned out by the ones who are loud.

        For every Hillary Clinton spouting “Women are the primary victims of war” you have a Todd Akin who says women who are raped can “shut down” their bodies to avoid pregnancy.

        There is always one constant in this country: Those who are the most idiotic are the ones who are the loudest and gain the most attention.

      1. I would say when Rick Scott tried to enforce mandatory drug testing to welfare recipients was a brute force way of adding another ridiculous standard.

        Of course it does show how one sided people can get when the only thing they take from my comment is “We all know Democrats are evil but Republicans are stalwart defenders of good!”

        The simple fact of my post is each side has a majority of terrible people running the show.

        1. I would say when Rick Scott tried to enforce mandatory drug testing to welfare recipients was a brute force way of adding another ridiculous standard.

          The question was “enslaved” by “brute force.” Requiring drug testing as a condition of receiving government funds does not meet either criteria.

          So unless you’ve got an actual example, we’ll just chalk up your post to empty rhetoric, m’kay?

          1. I’ll contest defeat when I see it, but I have noticed a lot of people haven’t really been calling any of my outrageous rhetoric against democrats “empty”.

            If anything I can chalk it up to a social experiment. The fact remains being blindly faithful to either party is not intelligent. A two party system will destroy this country and as far as I can tell for the past 14 years that is exactly what it was doing.

            Bush was horrible. Obama is horrible. The shame is whoever wins in 2016 we all lose.

          2. but I have noticed a lot of people haven’t really been calling any of my outrageous rhetoric against democrats “empty”.

            The democrats want to control my medical care. They want to control how and for what I spend my money. They want to deny me the right to effective self defense. They want to restrict my religious practices. They want to control who I associate with, in particular with whom I can do business.

            And they are working assiduously as a party to accomplish all of those.

            They complain publicly about things like the “Patriot Act” while actually voting for them and voting to renew> them, even when they had a supermajority in both houses of Congress and the White House. They pass ever more restrictions on the people while calling it “rights” and “liberty.” “Rights” that, rather than being something the government is forbidden from taking away, are something you force other people to provide. (Newspeak is with us).

            And then you come in here and try to play the moral equivalence card?

            Does the Republican party have its problems? Absolutely. Is it, actually pretty bad (from my perspective)? Absolutely, particularly when it tries to act like “Democrat Lite” (I’m looking at you John, “tower of jello” Boehner, and you Graham, and you McCain.) Does that make the parties “the same” or even equally bad? Excuse me while I split a gut laughing.

            Maybe your “rhetoric” isn’t as “empty” as you think it is.

          3. The moral equivelence crowd is so BORING. It enables them to be lazy and useless, all while patting themselves on the back about how morally pure they are.

            At least there is a battle going on for the soul of the GOP between establishment big government republicans and actual small government liberty minded republicans, and over the last five years it is the small government types who are making gains. Meanwhile the democrats keep on keeping on, with more bigger government as the answer for everything.

            But heaven forbid people actually reason out that one side sucks a whole lot worse than the other, and that if there is ever going to be any brakes thrown onto this crazy train, there is only one possible place it could come from. But rather than support those that are actually doing good work, it is too easy to lump them all together so you can be pure as the driven snow on the internet.

          4. “The democrats want to control my medical care. They want to control how and for what I spend my money. They want to deny me the right to effective self defense. They want to restrict my religious practices. They want to control who I associate with, in particular with whom I can do business.”

            I will try to take this one at at time but you have to realize you put up a lot of “black and white” areas and no grey. Our medical system SHOULD exist on a single payer system. Right now we are 33rd in healthcare. Not number 1. Our medical system is god awful where it punishes people for even HAVING insurance. The ACA should have never existed, I agree, but I do not think for a moment our healthcare system is even remotely decent.

            How are they controlling how you spend your money? I would like to see some examples of this.

            Your right to defend yourself? Sure, I don’t want to live next to someone who has fifteen assault rifles in their basement. Or a bazooka. I love guns as much as the next person but if you think the average human being is any monster the MHI faces clearly you should not own weapons.

            As far as religious practices go it does irritate me how much we seem to push “tolerate other religions but Christianity/Catholicism” because to me it’s all mumbo jumbo. Absolutely NO religion should have anything to do with politics. I say this mainly due to the fact Republican politicians are about as far from Christian as you can get. I mean cut money for feeding the poor, but pour billions into our already inflated military while simultaneously cutting Veteran aid? Come on now you know that’s silly.

            The Patriot Act has damaged our rights more than anything Democrats have come up with. Do not get me wrong, the fact Obama has continued on with it is absolutely terrible but that act should have been abolished before it even hit the table.

            As far as limiting rights go what about all the filibustering republicans have done to stop aid to Veterans? There have been dozens of bills denied to help veterans of wars Republicans start. Tell me where the sense in that is.

            Do not get me wrong: I realize the dangers posed by democrats getting into office again in 2016 but the fact of the matter is both sides are so comedically villain in what they are trying to push it won’t MATTER who gets in.

            If Republicans win we can expect a large majority of the working force in America to be treated like Chinese workers. Mitt “Corporations are people too” Romney almost ensured that. If Democrats get in we will see more and more “your rights end where my feelings begin” people in this country.

            I’m sitting here telling you to your face that the prospects are scary no matter what and a BIGGER change than “republicans vs democrats” needs to happen.

            Also to be fair Boehner, Graham, and McCain are not democrat lite. They are just batshit insane. They criticize Obama for not invading Russia and then when the idea of invading Russia comes up they criticize how irresponsible Obama is for thinking about taking on Putin. I’m pretty sure that’s insanity.

          5. Did you seriously just defend single payer? Here?

            Next question. Do you also enjoying slathering yourself in chum and then swimming with the sharks?

          6. To be honest what scares me the most is people who want our police, military, and firefighting force to all be privatized. That terrifies me to no end.

            Which right now our healthcare is privatized. If I ever break a bone in my life I’m going to be spending over ten years to pay back the medical costs. If there is an accident, or I need to call the cops I really don’t want the idea of having to pay thousands for a house call to come back on me. That is what scares me.

          7. Mr. Hutton: You say “right now our healthcare is privatized.”

            Our healthcare is in no way “privatized”. Our healthcare system is so highly regulated and controlled, with so many perverse incentives, that it is in no way an example of a private system.

            This is not to say that a truly private health care system is the ideal, but don’t claim today’s system is in any way a failure of private markets.

          8. I even listed out how I system was originally bungled by federal meddling, but it goes in one ear and out the other.

            In brief, our system already wasn’t “privatized” because:
            1. Government meddling preventing free and open competition between insurance companies, by federally mandated artificial boundaries. This is why your state only has 2 or 3 insurance companies available to choose from instead of 20 or 30.
            * Note, on this #1 alone, if they were to change this law that would take care of the vast majority of people who were honestly uninsurable due to preexisting conditions. Because just like no matter how much you suck as a driver there is still somebody willing to sell you car insurance.
            2. Government meddling in salary caps and tax law is what originally forced employers to add employee health insurance as a “benefit” in order to draw and maintain the quality of employees they needed. If it wasn’t for government meddling in the free market, then we’d probably still have individuals buying insurance that best suited their needs, rather than relying on a third party employer.
            3. Now that we’re hosed and we’ve come to unreasonably expect employers to pay for insurance (should we expect our employers to buy our housing and transportation too?) there are artifical government barriers created to keep small businesses from being able to properly negotiate with their artificially limited number of insurance providers. The feds say that small businesses are not allowed to pool their resources. Unions that vote for democrats on the other hand…
            4. The rest of us pay extra to foot the bill for people using services mandated by the government, because the government pays late, and pays less. Your $10 asprin is because you need to cover dead beats who the government pays half their bill, six months late. Outside of fed.gov, the rest of the world has to deal with this thing called cash flow.
            5. Your $10 asprin also goes to pay for the most ridiculous malpractice insurance in the world.
            6. Your actual expensive drugs are expensive because drug companies have to recover the millions and millions of dollars and years and years of time it takes to get a new drug through FDA approval. It doesn’t matter if you have a terminal disease and you will die shortly, and there’s a drug that might help now, because you will die before the FDA gets around to saying it is cool. I can’t even remember the name, but more people died for the lack of one heart medicine than the FDA theoretically saved from bad drugs over its entire existence.
            7. Your medical devices cost more because they also have to go through FDA approval. I actually worked on an FDA approval contract, so I’m familiar with the process. A device which had already been in use in South Korea for several years, to great effect, with no recorded problems or issues, still required the company to spend millions and millions of dollars and a couple years of .gov wrangling before it was approved for sale in the US. And the hospitals who buy it get to pass that added cost on to you! Yay!
            8. Ask any doctor about what they have to do and what they have to spend in order to comply with government record keeping and inspection requirements. Most doctors offices are going to have at least one full time employee where most of what they do is take care of government mandated paperwork. Guess who pays for that?
            9. See 8? For any supplier of medical products, multiply that by 2.
            10. See 9? For any hospital multiply that number by 4.
            11. Almost forgot something else related to insurance! Did you know that it used to be if you had a prexisting condition, you could still get insurance, but you could opt out of them covering that one specific condition? So for example, say you had kidney stones. Because this is considered a preexisting condition you would either pay extra every month or get denied entirely, because the company figures if you’ve had them once, you’ll have them again. So you’d get a contract with the company saying you have insurance EXCEPT for kidney stones. Then you’d stick some money in the bank, if you had kidney stones, you’d pay out of pocket (surprisingly cheap if you’re doing it without insurance by the way), and then you’d have your insurance for all of your other medical needs. OH BUT WAIT… You can’t do that anymore because fed.gov made that illegal. So now it was insure everything, or deny, so because they could do math, it turned to deny. Yet another crisis of the unisurable, directly created by the government.

          9. First, no one asked you about privatizing military, police, or firefighters. I sure as hell didn’t, so you’d best not even try that shit. I’m really not in the damn mood.

            Second. our healthcare system is, at best, barely privatized. However, as for you complaint about how long it would take you to pay off a broken bone? Cry me a fucking river.

            Based on what you said your take home pay is, you make about 50% more than I do right now. You can purchase insurance, but have opted not to because of the cost. Then you come on here saying we need a single payers system?

            So, because your ass has decided not to purchase health insurance provided by you employer (and they typically pay a good bit of the cost), you want the rest of us to take care of you?

            You know what? Kiss my ass. Seriously. I stand to benefit as much or more from something like that, and I’m not about to support shit like it. Have you ever, in your entire life, really talked to the people who live under single payer? I have. Almost every one of them talks about the long waits, in some cases the substandard care, and their sky high taxes.

            The truth is, there is no “single payer” system. In the US, “single payer” is actually 138 million payers…the money just gets funneled through Uncle Sam. You know, the guys who paid $200 for a fucking hammer?

          10. Yep. Cheap ass motherfucker too damned apathetic to stick to a budget, demanding the rest of us foot the bill for his good time. Typical.

          11. Angry much? Tell me what the difference is between your anecdotal evidence and my anecdotal evidence. Your “I know a few people that says it sucks” is automatically validated over the MILLIONS of Americans who can’t afford it? Clearly they should all just get better jobs right?

            Do you think I cry and complain if anyone has to call the cops, or the fire department, when they are needed? I pay taxes in every year just like everyone else does. The difference between you and me, it seems, is that when it comes to health care those who can’t afford it should just die in a ditch. That’s fine, that’s your right to think it.

            If you stand to benefit from a healthcare system that works like our police, road construction, and other government run jobs then why are you so angry?

            We all know the government is incompetent but do not think for a second our current healthcare is anything but abysmal. There needs to be a change so how about you put an idea forward. Should we give 100% of our checks to the insurance companies?

          12. You’re right. I’m fucking angry. Any time an ignorant fuck comes to me and compares health care, that has always been private (relatively) in this country with police which has never been private, I get pissed.

            Of course, I love it when some asshole who wants single payer argues that because I oppose it, I’m somehow in favor of people just dying in a ditch. Nice straw man argument there. Never heard that before. [/eye roll]

            As for why I’m angry, it’s because anytime a cheap bastard who simply refuses to pay for health insurance thinks other people are responsible for his healthcare. Man the hell up, fork out the cash, and quit your bitching. Either that, or keep playing Russian roulette with your health care.

            And seriously Cody, can you do anything but pull the straw man bullshit? 100% of our paychecks? Really?

            Insurance companies will never go that way, because they know people will not work simply for insurance. They have other expenses and they would lose a shitload of customers. You see, this is called “the market”. There are factors that keep businesses (like insurance companies) from doing some of this shit because they want to stay in business. Oh, they want to get as much money as possible, but all businesses do that. Hell, most people want that. Few people work for less they can command, though most of those that do will do it for some outside reasons like better work environment, location, etc.

            Your worry about insurance companies taking all of your pay, but you clearly know absolutely nothing about the real world and how businesses think. I was angry. Now I have sympathy for you. I’m actually amazed you’re capable of using the English language now.

          13. Angry much? Only when I realize that somebody so profoundly ignorant about, well, everything has the same vote I do (more if they live in Chicago or Philly).

            If you are bringing home $1,500 a month like you claim, then no, you aren’t paying taxes like everybody else. You will be part of the half of America that pays no federal taxes.

            Back to the die in the ditch thing again… Coming from the fuckwit promoting leftism. I love how the feel good methods that actually always end up killing people and lowering the quality of life things they get to claim the high road because reality is mean and causes their feelings to hurty hurt.

            Should we give 100% of our checks to the insurance companies?

            The last bit is so filled with nonsense that it is difficult for most regular people to realize that there are actually others in the world, so dumb, so clueless, clinging to such an alien philosophy that what he just said actually makes sense to Cody.

            Econ 101, you half wit, learn it, live it, love it: If the system is actually a free market, then there will be competition between providers of a service. If one provider charges too much, then the users will take their money to a different provider. Competition between providers gives the buyers more choices and increases efficiency.

            The reason this particular system isn’t a free market is because the government has artifically blocked real competition. So now you are complaining about the free market by demanding more government.

            The only system where a provider can demand and receive whatever they want is a monopoly… And single payer is a… wait for it… monopoly. As in the thing that you are promoting because you are a cheap bastard who wants us to foot the bill for your good time.

            Cody is in the hole and just keeps on digging. He’s one of the more shockingly profoundly ignorant commenters I’ve had on here to date.

          14. “If you are bringing home $1,500 a month like you claim, then no, you aren’t paying taxes like everybody else. You will be part of the half of America that pays no federal taxes.”

            Please sir, do tell me that if I’m half of America that pays no federal taxes whose fault is that? Believe me when I say that if over half of the people in this country not paying taxes right now had enough money to do so they would jump at the opportunity.

            Do you really think that is what healthcare would be if it was single payer? That is not how it works. That isn’t even how the fire departments, road construction or the police force work. When was the last time you needed the help of any of those services and you were told that a specific officer or firefighter had to help you?

            You’re calling me ignorant but I’ve got the distinct feeling as soon as you heard the phrase “Obamacare” you were one of those who jumped right on the “death panel” bandwagon.


          15. Please sir, do tell me that if I’m half of America that pays no federal taxes whose fault is that?

            The democrats who want half of the population to have no skin in the game, and entirely dependant upon their social programs so they can be assured of having the poor vote eternally?

            Believe me when I say that if over half of the people in this country not paying taxes right now had enough money to do so they would jump at the opportunity.

            Ha! No seriously. I’m laughing out loud.

            Do you really think that is what healthcare would be if it was single payer? That is not how it works.

            Says the dude who has demonstrated repeatedly that he doesn’t have any idea how anything in the real world actually works, and who insists on working entirely off of really bizarre apples to oranges hypotheticals about police departments.

            That isn’t even how the fire departments, road construction or the police force work.
            Heh… Who saw that one coming? 😀

            When was the last time you needed the help of any of those services and you were told that a specific officer or firefighter had to help you?

            Sorry to burst your imaginary land bubble. You’d better brush up your supreme court decisions. Castle Rock and Warren vs. DC. Just because somebody works for the government does not mean they have any legal obligation to help you.

            You’re calling me ignorant but I’ve got the distinct feeling as soon as you heard the phrase “Obamacare” you were one of those who jumped right on the “death panel” bandwagon.

            No, dumb shit. While you were being spoon fed propaganda I actually had to implement Obamacare for a 200 person company as the finance manager. I read the entire law and went through a couple training seminars on compliance. You can go through my blog and FB feed and find where I picked it apart line by line, going over what was actually in it, while arguing with ignorant fuckwits who were still touting the sales pitch items that never actually made it into the law.

            And hilariously, everything I predicted would happen a few years ago about Obamacare has come to pass, though SCOTUS surprised me by declaring it a tax rather than tossing it, and then the admin surprised me by being even more inept that usual (and that’s really saying something!) Up next is the part where it collapses on itself because of the demographics of the sign ups. 🙂

          16. Please sir, do tell me that if I’m half of America that pays no federal taxes whose fault is that?

            Yours. Your vote has been bought with tax breaks, “earned income credit” and other things that make your “fair share” zero while having other people pay more just to carry you.

            In 2012 Romney said in a meeting that they didn’t need to worry about the votes of 47 percent of the population because no matter what he did those people would vote the party of bread and circuses (Democrats). He was right. You were one of the ones he was talking about.

            Representative forms of government can survive until the electorate learns they can vote themselves goodies that other people pay for. From that point on, they vote for whoever offers them the most goodies leading to more and more goodies being provided to more and more people paid for by fewer and fewer. The result is inevitable collapse. That collapse can be stalled if some of the costs can be shifted elsewhere–small countries relying on a more or less friendly (or at least gullible) superpower to bear the cost of their defense, other countries being willing to front very large loans on the promise of future payment because, well, because the promises have always been good before. Stalled, not stopped.

            I’d like to think that the US might become the first nation in history to turn back from that precipice but, frankly, folk like you give me little hope of that happening.

            Still, little is not none and even if it were, well, I am Asatru. I fight.

          17. I’m not placing any bets that Cody has ever read de Tocqueville. (or anything else that doesn’t fit into a facebook meme for that matter)

          18. The quote from which I created my own variation (“goodies that other people pay for” is a bit more general than “largess from the public treasury”) did not actually come from de Toqueville. It was in an article where someone quoted de Toqueville but that bit was the latter author’s own words. It just got conflated.

            Doesn’t matter though who said it. It remains truth.

          19. What utter dreck.

            Note how nobody here mentioned privatizing any of those things? So imaginary incredibly unlikely things terrify you? That’s super surprising.

            Now when most libprogs talk about privatizing the military, it is because they are bed wetters who don’t understand how military contracting actually works (hint, it is usually a 1-5 year contracted project using civillians to perform a task under military supervision, usually because it requires continuing technical expertise which the military isn’t good at keeping enlisted, or TO SAVE MONEY) and everything they know about contracting comes from biased CNN reports about Blackwater. But it scares people like Cody. And the left just loves people to be scared.

            Cody is also super scared that he might get a broken arm and it take ten years to pay back. How about this, Cody? Go get insurance. If you can’t afford insurance, go get a better job. If you start to whine about how you can’t get a better job, quit sucking, get better at something, then go get a better job.

            As for paying for the cops to come to your house? Seriously. Apparently Cody routinely wanders into Randian utopias.

          20. It’s a by product of the idea that healthcare, as we have it, is a decent system. Do not even think for a moment it is. Explain to me how waiting hours on end right now, as it is, along with paying an endless amount of cash every month to a company that, chances are, won’t cover you because you had chicken pox as a child, is a good system.

            I have to admit I have been blessed to actually own a home on making only around 4k a month, if that. If I were to actually invest in insurance I would have to say that I would not be able to make other payments. Sure, I have sacrificed as much as anyone else and I don’t plan on stopping. I’m not pigheaded enough to think that just because I go into a hospital with the sniffles that I should be pushed to the front of the line because I wave a couple dozen 100’s over some other guy who can’t afford it.

            And is it such a farfetched idea? http://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/local/Firefighters-watch-as-home-burns-to-the-ground-104052668.html

            When cities start running services like a business more and more of these stories will come to light. If you want to call me paranoid that is fine, but it’s just as paranoid as any politician wanting to disarm the entire country.

          21. So, you think our current system isn’t decent, so therefore it’s so?

            Others have shared links illustrating that our system is pretty damn good. So, we have to wait a couple of hours at hospitals? Do you understand how that works?

            You see, hospitals use something called “triage”. What that means is that the people who are at the most risk get seen first. When we were dating, my wife came down with bacterial meningitis. Guess how long she waited to be seen at the ER? About three minutes.

            When people wait for hours, it’s because they’re not really emergencies. Oh, the people who are waiting feel like they’re emergencies, but that’s why trained professionals make that determination.

            Of course, you also argue that insurance companies turn people down for having chicken pox as a kid. Really? Please cite where that’s happened. I’ll wait.

            We’re trying to have a grown up debate, so quit with your straw men. That. Shit. Hasn’t. Happened. Now, unless you can show me otherwise, you need to quit with that crap. Seriously, you’re not doing yourself any favors.

            Now, as for insurance and preexisting conditions, that is a bit troublesome. Of course, we live in a place where someone with a hell of an idea can still get ahead. Why hasn’t someone specialized in insuring these people? Could it be because these people are simply at a much higher risk? Why, yes it is.

            Of course, that’s where charity hospitals come in. Yes, they exist. My hometown hospital is one. No one gets turned away. If you can’t afford to pay, they eat the cost. No one has been dying in the ditch (to use your earlier straw man).

            These hospitals also take paying customers and accept insurance, so it’s not all on the charities. Oh, and these hospitals can actually operate in the black. My hometown hospital does it regularly. They serve as a model for other hospitals in this regard. They’re also award winning for patient care and efficiency.

            Of course, private charity must be bad because Uncle Sam isn’t taking people’s money to pay for it.

          22. I took my wife to the hospital with chest pains (I could get her there faster than an ambulance could get to me, so driving her was a no-brainer). Pulled up at the ER door. Started assisting her into the waiting room. Cop on duty came over, and took over assistance, including getting a wheel chair for her. He told me to go park the car.

            Plenty of room in the lot, no more than two or three minutes later I walked into the ER. My wife was already back in a treatment room, hooked up to a monitor, blood drawn to check for signs of a heart attack. (In the end, it turned out to be an anxiety attack but before running the tests they didn’t know that.)

            This was before anybody even asked us about insurance.

            Another time, I took my daughter when she was complaining of choking. This time I went straight to the parking lot, parked, and carried her into the ER.

            Same deal. We were almost immediately taken to a treatment room and she was hooked up to oxygen and monitors to make sure she was okay until a doctor could see her. (Real choking issue, but turned out not to be life threatening–upper respiratory thing irritating the throat and causing mild swelling. But before checking they didn’t know that.)

            Yet another time I drove myself to the ER with severe pain in the upper right quadrant of my abdomen.

            Same deal. (Turned out to be an inflamed gall bladder that had completely stopped functioning requiring its eventual removal.)

            Of course, I don’t go to the ER just for a hangnail or a sniffle. If I did, I’d expect to wait while they tended to people with potential heart attacks, choking issues, and possible acute food poisoning.

            And you do know that places like Walgreens have walk-in clinics with reasonable prices (visit cheaper than my cell phone bill and I have a pretty basic plan–not even a smartphone) without insurance.

            I’m sure the “horror stories” happen. But they _also_ happen under “single payer” as for statistical “comparisons”, well, Larry’s far better able to dissect those than am I, but the upshot is that they are generally apples and oranges. (Case in point, a lot of deliveries that we count as “live birth” which then soon die are listed as “stillborn” in, for example, Europe which drives both their “infant mortality” rates down in comparison to ours and their life expectancy up–it only takes a few “0’s” to bring down an average.)

            So I dispute the idea that these other places have it better. Simply declaring it so doesn’t make it true and the facts don’t support that claim, not when looked at closely.

          23. Well, there tends to be a wait at my local hospital, but I live in a poor community. People use the ER as their family doctor. That’s on them though.

          24. My brother and I are part of the less than 1% of the population that has gotten chicken pox more than once, as a child, and then I got it again in my early 20s. I’m insurable, and not only that, I’m insured privately and not on a group plan.

            This guy is so incredibly full of shit about everything.

          25. The first paragraph is a complete lie. Somebody else already explained triage.

            Man,you are shockingly bad at this.

            Second paragraph he contradicts his lies from the first.

            Wait a second… Now he makes 4K a month? That’s more than double, almost triple what he claimed to make before when it was the giant pity party about how he couldn’t afford a $500 health insurance payment.

            So, he’s either a liar, a cheap ass motherfucker, bad at math, or all of the above.

            Example doesn’t really make any sense at all. And he cites running services like a business as bad thing, so that tells you he knows fuck all about how bad the government actually is at accomplishing anything.

            And insinuate paranoia about how absurd it is to think a politician wants to disarm the country IN THE COMMENTS SECTION OF A POST ABOUT LELAND FRIGGIN YEE!

            Cody is a very special kind of dumb.

          26. I meant to say 2k but that was just bad proofreading.

            As for my example that came from Tennessee, a republican run state if I remember correctly so it was the city who decided to put that service fee in.

            So it’s absurd to think that the government isn’t trying to disarm the entire country of America, but I am batshit loony toons when I say both Dems and Republicans are trying to turn this country into an oligarchy.

            Pot, meet Kettle.

          27. Bitch please, I took the kettle and smacked you upside the skull with it.

            So it’s absurd to think that the government isn’t trying to disarm the entire country of America, says the guy who didn’t bother to read David’s link compiling dozens of examples to the legally certified subject matter expert, who has talked about gun laws on national news programs, and who has written the most widely circulated article on gun control laws there is. 🙂

            but I am batshit loony toons
            Just stop there. Yes.

          28. Oh by all means go ahead and point out every single way I proved your point. Everyone I meet who uses the “hah you’re so stupid I’m not even going to show you how!” are usually the ones that have no argument left to stand on.

            What I find disturbing is the fact a lot of people cannot seem to admit that their party “affiliation” is absolutely worthless here. I’ve known Mr. Correia to be a Republican from reading the very first MHI but I had absolutely no idea that even offering the idea that Republicans have faults while simultaneously saying democrats have just as many faults would get such a caveman like response from most.

            Can you be brave? Can you admit that your party affiliation needs a ton of work just as much as the other team? I used to be a mindless drone as well, but then I finally admitted to myself that my party is worthless and needs a ton of work. I feel much better for it, but if you think I’m going to raise my sign and say “corporations are people too!” and curbstomp someone who only makes $8.75 an hour I am just not that kind of person.

          29. Can I be brave? Oh fuck off. I routinely argue politics in front of tens of thousands of people.

            And what strawman horseshit. I’ll be the first to say the republicans have problems. Mostly in the form of big government sovles all types like John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Now you’re fabricating crap. What I will not say is that the two are in any way equivelent, because in every way the republican party has problems, the democrats have them far worse. And of the two parties, one is actively having a battle within it between people I mostly agree with and people I don’t agree with, while the other party would make Karl Marx proud.

            Your whole last sentence could have been written by Occupy Wall Street. When I hear a dumb shit libprog spouting off about corporations are people too,all that tells me is that they don’t understand contracts, business law, or tax accounting, because that is what that is about. Yes, dumb ass, corporations ARE people, because guess what makes up a corporation? If one person owns a business, he is a person. If ten people incorporate to own a business, they are still people. If a thousand people pool their money, they are still people too. That’s what it means. Holy shit. Go fetch my latte.

          30. I think there was a disconnection in what was said. Republicans, last time I checked, believed that a corporation should be counted as a vote. Be counted as a tax deduction. Be counted as a LIVING ENTITY ALL ON ITS OWN. Tell me how that makes any sense at all. By that logic I would say my house should be allowed a vote because why not? If the local Wal-mart building is seen as a living person why not?

            That is why that comment is ridiculed and people find it to be ridiculous. Many people may run a corporation but “IBM” is not a person. It cannot be that hard to understand.

          31. Wow. Holy shit this guy is dim and gullible.

            I’m surprised he was able to figure out how to operate one of my books in order to read it.

          32. Don’t be a idiot. Corporations are people. Only a fool would say so. However, corporations are comprised of people. Those people don’t forfeit their basic rights simply due to the structure of their relationship.

            Citizens United was a group of people that wanted to pool their resources to express their right to free speech.

            Corporations are a democratizing force. No more is the power to create a movie, build a monument, etc limited to the wealthy. The ability to fuel the engines of production, commerce, and so on is not limited to the Barons anymore. Common people can pool their resources and compete as well.

          33. Republicans, last time I checked, believed that a corporation should be counted as a vote. Only in your imagination.

            Be counted as a tax deduction

            That isn’t how taxes work… Good hell… I can’t… I can’t even… Fuck.

            As a professional accountant, I weep for the future.

            It has been explained already. If a corporation is made up of individuals pooling their resources, why should those individuals LOSE RIGHTS. The argument at hand, which you apparently know fuck all about, is about people pooling their money and incorporating in order to buy air time to promote their political message… Of course democrats are against this, because since they control most of the media outlets, why would they want to allow competition?

          34. Regarding corporations and speech, as it happens I’ve written a blog about that very thing:

            consider:

            I decide to speak in favor of a politician or cause in which I believe.

            I decide to buy ad space/time on TV, Radio, or Print media to favor a cause I believe.

            I, and some friends who agree with me, decide to pool our resources to buy more time/space, or time/space in larger (or more) markets than we could do individually.

            I, and some friends, decide to donate our pooled resources to someone else to do the kind of political activity I describe above on our behalf.

            I, and some friends, decide to solicit money from others to do the same stuff I’ve just described.

            I, and some friends, decide to organize into an association to do a variety of things, part of which is to make the kinds of political speech I just described.

            I, and some friends decide to “sell” part “ownership” of the association which does a variety of things, including the political activity associated above and give them a vote, weighted on the amount they’ve put into the “pool” for the association, for folk to manage how those pooled resources are used.

            At what point does the First Amendment stop applying and why? Why at all, and why that point?

            People engage in speech, not organizations. When you ban an organization from engaging in political speech, including the speech of buying ad space and the like, you aren’t stopping some faceless entity, but the people of that organization.

            I would say the same thing (and do, in fact) if instead of “corporations” the argument was about unions.

            http://coldservings.livejournal.com/61250.html

          35. You mean to say corporation can’t write off its daughter corporations as dependents? Why do I even bother voting Republican then?

            (Poe’s Law says I need this: 😉 )

          36. Holy shit…

            Well kids, that there is a great example of perception over reality.

            First off, you know dick about “assault weapons”. Read this before you embarrass yourself further. https://monsterhunternation.com/2012/12/20/an-opinion-on-gun-control/ And don’t invoke my imaginary world as some sort of justification for the fact you know shit about the topic.

            Second… 33rd in medical? Cherry picked bullshit stats pushed by people with an agenda. I think you’re using the life expectancy numbers, where we are tied at that position with a dozen other countries only 4 years behind #1.

            Third. Single payer sucks balls.

            Fourth. Cutting veterans benefits was bad… However it was when the democrat lite republicans reached across the aisle to compromise with the democrats. Because they are fucking stupid.

            Fifth. You don’t have a right to my money any more than you have a right make me pick your cotton, and for the same reason.

            Sixth. Wars started by republicans? Now you’re just showing how very little you know about history. Care to take a guess how many of our wars were started by democrats vs. republicans and the total numbers of troops killed or hurt in each. Let me give you a clue. It isn’t even close. The numbers aren’t even on the same planet.

            And finally, your last paragraph shows that you aren’t very good at actually paying attention to current events, but probably get most of your news from Facebook memes. I missed the part where they were going to “invade Russia”. And there are degrees to “taking on” between Nukes and Being a Complete Pussy.

          37. On single payer… Let’s think about this for a moment. That seems to be what all the libprogs are really hoping for now. The ACA isn’t good enough, so now we need single payer.
            1. A majority of Americans already hate Obamacare, so you think you’re going to shove something more intrusive down their throats and it will be just swell?
            2. The democrats bungled the shit out of the ACA, yet you think they are going to do something more complicated, and this time it will work out better?
            3. All of the justification for the ACA turned out to be crap. The justifications haven’t changed to justify single payer. They are the same. Lying to us again isn’t going to make it better.
            4. As an example of typical government efficiency, we supposedly had 30 million people uninsured, so we passed a law that cost trillions, raised everybody’s costs, caused millions of other people to lose their coverage, and now they are bragging that they’ve got 7 million enrolled in Obamacare (though only 850k have actually paid and we dont’ know how many of those were insured before or who would have qualified for Medicare anyway)… And that level of fuckwitery is supposed to justify us turning over something even more complicated and convoluted to them? Screw that.
            5. Single payer sucks. Libprogs say that all stories about the shittiness of Single Payer from other nations is “anecdote not evidence” while simultaneously believing and repeating every single sob story and made up stat about American health care. Yet we’ve got legions of people who have lived under Single Payer talking about how horrible it is, but we’re supposed to ignore them and trust the power grabbing bureacrats instead. Sounds reasonable.
            6. But for the libprogs who are so damned certain that Single Payer is super awesome in other countries, how come you guys keep leaving out that part where those countries aren’t America, or even close to America. You keep comparing this giant, economically, culturally diverse country of 300+ million to these little Eurosocialist utopias that are socially homogenous and would fit inside Idaho. Oh, but wait… Those countries couldn’t afford Single Payer or their other multitude of social programs either if they actually had to have a defense budget, rather than counting on us to protect them. (and if you want to see how that is working out for them, take a look at Euro media’s freak out now that they’ve got a resurgent Russia eyeballing stuff, we’re nowhere to be seen, and their entire air force consists of six planes)
            7. Even though the government has never made anything more efficent, and any program that was once controlled by the government that was then privatized has since become more efficient, we’re supposed to believe that health care is magically different. If the government was in charge of phone service, do any of you honestly believe we’d have super computers in our pockets with instantaneous access to most of mankind’s knowledge and Angry Birds? Nope. We all know that if the government was in charge, we’d have shit service, shit hardware, and it would probably cost more.
            8. Most of the huge problems in medical insurance can be traced back to government meddling to begin with (artificially restricting free market competition between insurance companies, artificially restricting small business’ ability to band together to negotiate, or government pay caps forcing employers to add health insurance as a benefit to begin with causing the industry to move away from individual insurance purchasing) yet now that everything is screwed up because of their meddling, the answer is the blame the free market, and the soultion is more government.

          38. 2. The democrats bungled the shit out of the ACA, yet you think they are going to do something more complicated, and this time it will work out better?

            I have to question this one. What makes you think it isn’t doing exactly what it was designed to do, that is, break the “system” so thoroughly that a great hue and cry will be raised to “so something” leading them to bring forth single payer as that “something.”

          39. Trust me Mr. Correia I am a huge fan but the fact of the matter is as a country we care more about the 2nd amendment than we do about any other amendment at all. I hate the phrase “gun culture” just as much as anyone else, same with all the various “cultures” we have come up with in this nation.

            I am against the idea that anyone shouldn’t be able to protect themselves, do not get me wrong on that, but the line HAS to be drawn somewhere. What I don’t quite understand is why everyone suddenly believes “limited magazine size” is equal to “the government is taking away all our weapons!” It’s that kind of ideology that doesn’t help and it doesn’t get anything done.

            What I still do not understand is why we get up in arms about the 2nd amendment, but to this DAY our fourth amendment keeps getting bent over again and again. This is the fault of both sides and the issue here is I can actually admit when the democrats are wrong, but I have yet to meet one republican that says their party is wrong as well without the “No true scotsman” fallacy being enacted.

            As far as healthcare goes would you like to point me in a direction that says America is great? Every single source I try to find, I feel, will be barked down because of “agendas”. If you can find me an unbiased source then by all means I want to be educated.

            I have to admit I am very lucky to not have to fall back on health insurance. I have not been to a doctor’s office for over sixteen years. This is mainly due to the fact that I know if I get insurance the company will gut my check (500 dollars a month out of a 1500 bring home check if I want to even add one person to my plan is a good chunk of change, and that isn’t even the piss poor ACA one either that would probably charge much less). I would argue about the legitimacy of using a single payer, as we do pay cops, firefighters, and other services on a single payer system but we all know the condition of our law enforcement and firefighting sections. I would have to ask what your thoughts would be on a “privatized” police force for every city and how it would work. Same with firefighting. Would I have to pay the firefighters five hundred up front before the put the fire out from my house? Or would they send me a bill for three thousand dollars first to cover water, fire truck, and travel bill?

            For the veteran cutting I was referring to how democrats put a bill TOWARDS actually getting more money for the VA to assist veterans and Republicans blocked it.

            I agree I do not have a right to your money. I agree absolutely. Though do you not think it is kind of . . . strange that our largest employers in this country are paying workers so very little that they MUST go on welfare in order to make ends meet? I certainly hate the idea of welfare. I do not think any tax payer should foot the bill for people that do not have the greatest jobs in the world yet at the same time do you not think a corporation who employes millions upon millions of people has a responsibility to make sure they keep their workers off of welfare?

            I did some digging and apparently Dems started 16 wars while Republicans started 10. The two world wars involved democrats, but do you believe we should not have interfered with either of them? The civil war, which I thought was arguably the largest American casualty war by definition, was started by a Republican. Though you could argue Republicans back then were the democrats of today if you’d like.

            That being said do you defend the last few Republican wars that have been started? Keep in mind I was all for going after Bin Laden but I cannot agree with going into Iraq nor staying in this long.

            What I do not appreciate is that you’re attacking me like I’m some democrat. I abandoned that party years ago when it was clear that neither they, nor the republicans, had any interest in anything but War and killing the fourth amendment. As I have said 2016 is going to be a very, very scary year.

          40. There’s just so much juicy nonsense there that I sense a fisk coming on!

            Trust me Mr. Correia I am a huge fan
            Appparently good taste in books doesn’t mean you know dick about politics.

            but the fact of the matter is as a country we care more about the 2nd amendment than we do about any other amendment at all.
            First off, not true. I’d say realisitically that is the 1st. Only democrats ane repub lite are busy trying to trample on that with campaign finance reform, hate crime laws, and forcing the religious to do things they are morally opposed to.

            Only about half of us give a shit about the 2nd, but that is because we are smart enough to understand that if it comes down to it, it is really difficult to water the tree of liberty with sticks and rocks, and improvised explosives are messy.

            I hate the phrase “gun culture” just as much as anyone else, same with all the various “cultures” we have come up with in this nation.
            Oh bullshit. I’m part of the gun culture, and proud of it. Most of my regular readers are gun culture and proud.

            You know why people have “cultures”? It is because we like to associate with people who have compatiable philosophies. Is this more of that “no labels” bullshit where we have to imagine that we’re all the same and everything is equal and blah blah blah, boring ass, everybody gets a trophy equality? Libprogs like to divide everybody by race, but that’s stupid. I’ve got way more in common with and would rather hand out with Allen West than Piers Morgan. That’s why we have cultures.

            I am against the idea that anyone shouldn’t be able to protect themselves, do not get me wrong on that,
            If you say that, and it is followed by BUT then no, you don’t think people should be able to protect themselves. You believe that people are serfs, owned by the government.

            but the line HAS to be drawn somewhere.
            Draw it way the fuck away from me and my rights.

            What I don’t quite understand is why everyone suddenly believes “limited magazine size” is equal to “the government is taking away all our weapons!” It’s that kind of ideology that doesn’t help and it doesn’t get anything done.

            Bull fucking shit, you ignorant slut who has apparently never been involved in gun rights or gun laws. I can’t even begin to wrap my head around how profoundly uninformed you are. I already posted the link, go read my article, becasue if you are in favor of artifical magazine limits, then you are against effective self defense and the 2nd Amendment. And yes, asshole, they do want to take our guns. That’s kind of the whole point. And if you don’t believe me, believe them. David Burkhead posts here, I’m sure he’d be happy to compile the link of actual quotes from all the various politicans who do, yes, actually want to take our guns.

            What I still do not understand is why we get up in arms about the 2nd amendment, but to this DAY our fourth amendment keeps getting bent over again and again. This is the fault of both sides and the issue here is I can actually admit when the democrats are wrong, but I have yet to meet one republican that says their party is wrong as well without the “No true scotsman” fallacy being enacted.

            I don’t know if you are a hypocrite, liar, or just that uninformed, but earlier you bitched about republicans and thier fillibusters… DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THE MOST FAMOUS FILLIBUSTER FROM LAST YEAR WAS ABOUT?

            Once again, two parties. One side has some browncoats, the other doesn’t.

            As far as healthcare goes would you like to point me in a direction that says America is great? Every single source I try to find, I feel, will be barked down because of “agendas”. If you can find me an unbiased source then by all means I want to be educated.
            Then you haven’t looked very hard at all. Your profound ignorance isn’t my problem (except you vote, never mind). We’ve talked about it here many times before. I don’t owe you shit. Hell, is your Google broken?

            I have to admit I am very lucky to not have to fall back on health insurance. I have not been to a doctor’s office for over sixteen years. This is mainly due to the fact that I know if I get insurance the company will gut my check (500 dollars a month out of a 1500 bring home check if I want to even add one person to my plan is a good chunk of change, and that isn’t even the piss poor ACA one either that would probably charge much less).

            And as usual, most libprog beliefs come down to greed and shame. You don’t make much money, so that is somehow my problem. But as usual, I find myself being lectured on financial matters by a dude who apparently makes $18k a year. Yay.

            If I made $18k a year (Or $36k if that $500 was monthly, but you get $1500 every two weeks, and you just suck at explaining math) then you probably need to go get better at some skill so that you’ll be worth being paid more money. You’ve been alive long enough to not go to a hospital for 16 years, so I’m assuming you are old enough to get halfway decent at something worth money.

            I would argue about the legitimacy of using a single payer, as we do pay cops, firefighters, and other services on a single payer system but we all know the condition of our law enforcement and firefighting sections. Apples! Because oranges!

            If you think that responding to fires is exactly the same as total management of 1/6th of the US economy… Holy shit. I don’t even know what to tell you.

            I worked for the MOST EFFICIENT part of the entire US government. When it came to waste, fraud, and abuse, compared to the private sector, it was a complete and total joke. Only morons believe the government makes anything more efficient.

            I would have to ask what your thoughts would be on a “privatized” police force for every city and how it would work. Same with firefighting. Would I have to pay the firefighters five hundred up front before the put the fire out from my house? Or would they send me a bill for three thousand dollars first to cover water, fire truck, and travel bill?

            When they’ve got nothing, they drag some crazy shit out of left field and then demand your opponent explain it. Even if it has nothing to do with what you’re talking about, if your opponent doesn’t take a bunch of time to talk about some extraneous oddball theoretical then the libprog can safely Dismiss. I think what we have here is an example of Justify the Moon Ferrets! And if I fail to jusitfy Cody’s moon ferrets, then obviously I don’t know what I’m talking about.

            To be brief, I’m sure that like any other complicated contractual service, there would be an agreed upon legal covenant between the two parties pertaining to services rendered for pay. Or in other words, fuck your moon ferrets, Cody.

            For the veteran cutting I was referring to how democrats put a bill TOWARDS actually getting more money for the VA to assist veterans and Republicans blocked it.
            Becasue of all the extraneous bullshit they put into it… But ever notice to libprogs vets are just another helpless victim class? How about this Cody? If the parties are the same, and you’ve got this great example of how republicans are so evil to vets, why do republicans continually win the military vote by 40+ points?

            Now in reality, I disagreed with Paul Ryan on that. I thought it was a stupid move politically. I agree the budget needs to get cut, but when I’m cutting the budget, I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t be until page five or six, after I’ve fucked over every single democrat social program and fired everyone at HHS and the Department of Education.

            I agree I do not have a right to your money.
            Then quit asking for it.

            I agree absolutely.
            But…

            Though do you not think it is kind of . . . strange that our largest employers in this country are paying workers so very little that they MUST go on welfare in order to make ends meet?
            Bingo. More class warefare bullshit from somebody who’s entire knowledge of business finance comes from reading facebook memes about how evil Walmart is.

            Nobody is forcing them to work at low paying jobs forever, Cody. Unlike democrats, we don’t believe in slavery or a caste system.

            Most sensible people work at a low paying job until they gain enough skills to be worth more money. Most of us have had shitty jobs, only we’re not stupid enough to expect to support a family on burger flipper wages for the rest of our lives.

            I certainly hate the idea of welfare.
            Except for the part where I pay for your healthcare or susidise your poor life choices.

            I do not think any tax payer should foot the bill for people that do not have the greatest jobs in the world yet at the same time do you not think a corporation who employes millions upon millions of people has a responsibility to make sure they keep their workers off of welfare?

            You guys notice a pattern yet? Cody says something something BUT libprog bullshit. Or blah blah blah HOWEVER more libprog bullshit. But he’s like TOTALLY independant…

            A company has the responsibility to pay its employees for their labor peformed. If the labor they get isn’t worth the wage paid, then fire their ass and get somebody better. If the labor they perform is better than the wage, then that employee should take their labor somewhere else where they can get more wages. Duh.

            Your company doesn’t own you. They ain’t your Master, Cody.

            I did some digging and apparently Dems started 16 wars while Republicans started 10. The two world wars involved democrats, but do you believe we should not have interfered with either of them?

            Didn’t say they weren’t justified, I was just responding to your typical ignorant of history libprog posturing about how republicans are the warmongers while democrats are super peaceful. Of those 16, it includes all of our biggest, while the republicans include all of our smallest. Mike Williamson did a great write up comparing all the casualties sustained under both in answer to all the libprog Bush derangement syndrome. 16 vs. 10 doesn’t sound too bad, until you compare the dead, and then they aren’t even in the same realm.

            The civil war, which I thought was arguably the largest American casualty war by definition, was started by a Republican. You mean when the democrats attacked Fort Sumter?

            Though you could argue Republicans back then were the democrats of today if you’d like.

            You mean democrats no longer believe they are allowed to steal the fruits of another man’s labor? Or as Marko Kloos said, you don’t have a right to make me pay for your healthcare, just like you don’t have the right to make me pick your cotton, and for the same reasons.

            That being said do you defend the last few Republican wars that have been started?
            I’m guessing you paid about as much attention to current events then as you do now. You guys remember the part after 9/11 where all the democrats took a super bold stand against going to war and totally didn’t vote to go into Iraq or Afghanistan? Yeah… Me neither.

            But like anything else, as soon as the libprog statists saw an opportunity in the eternal propaganda war, then it turned into quagmires and daily body counts (note that the body counts stop the minute a democrat is in charge). I will hand it to the left, they sure do know how to stay on message. The right is like herding cats.

            Keep in mind I was all for going after Bin Laden but I cannot agree with going into Iraq nor staying in this long.

            Yes, Cody, I’m sure you are an expert on military strategy. No argument about the length of stay, though as usual, once the democrats were in charge, our ROEs turned to shit, my friends spent years fucking about in the desert pointlessly, getting blown up (only those deaths no longer made the news because they no longer served the primary news focus of “make republicans look evil”) then we bailed and lost anything we might have gained. Yay.

            What I do not appreciate is that you’re attacking me like I’m some democrat.
            Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, expects single payer healthcare like a duck…

            I abandoned that party years ago when it was clear that neither they, nor the republicans, had any interest in anything but War and killing the fourth amendment. As I have said 2016 is going to be a very, very scary year.

            Fear, guilt, and shame… Yep. Called it.

          41. I just need to book mark that one about nobody wanting to take our guns… Nobody wants to take our guns… Which was super ironic since the dude needed to tell us that in the comments to a post about LELAND FRIGGIN YEE!! 😀

          42. That was quite the read. Though the one thing that I keep seeing in common with yourself, and your other posters, is that it is fine and dandy for one extreme to be used to throw your facts around.
            screw everyone else. Right?

            I do apologize if my statement about insurance didn’t make sense to you. My company offers health insurance, but to be on that plan I must pay 500 dollars a month. I make 1500 dollars a month. Can you understand why I might not think insurance would be the best idea?

            I put my 40 hours in a week and get overtime every now and then. It would be great to get to the doctor for a check-up but the last time I did that they wanted 200 dollars from my pocket to cover a “no insurance fee” so I just left.

            I suppose saying “privatized” was the wrong word. Apologies for that. Though the same idea of healthcare can be applied to those areas as well. If you don’t pay for police insurance then will you be SOL? Trust me I’ve pissed away about 20 grand in car insurance over the last 12 years and I’m sure you’ve pissed away even more but it still will be a service we have to pay right? So why not get our police and firefighters in on that kind of service? I’m sure the premium won’t be THAT bad.

            “Nobody is forcing them to work at low paying jobs forever, Cody. Unlike democrats, we don’t believe in slavery or a caste system.”

            Though you have to admit an Oligarchy would be awesome, right? I mean no one will be FORCING those people to pick the cotton as you like to say but even if they showed the skills to move up in the world you can only have so many lords and ladies controlling the populace.

          43. The Checklist is a beautiful thing. Though if I ever redo it I’m going to add a subsection for Justify the Moon Ferrets.

          44. Larry, please make “Justify the Moon Ferrets” be David Pitt’s new band in a future MHI novel 🙂 🙂

          45. Nonono! Mosh’s new band will be Unearthly Forces, with Ed on drums (you *know* he can handle sticks!) and Tanya on vocals. They’d be bigger than the Beatles!:-D

          46. David, you may have noted that I too have a problem with swearing whenever the topic is related to statism or stupid people. 🙂

          47. Here we go again.

            That was quite the read. Though the one thing that I keep seeing in common with yourself, and your other posters, is that it is fine and dandy for one extreme to be used to throw your facts around.
            screw everyone else. Right?

            Strawman, shit stain. I gave more to charity last year than you earned.

            I do apologize if my statement about insurance didn’t make sense to you.
            It didn’t make sense to anybody with two brain cells to rub together, so that just leaves the supposed independants like you and the Obama voters.

            My company offers health insurance, but to be on that plan I must pay 500 dollars a month. I make 1500 dollars a month. Can you understand why I might not think insurance would be the best idea?

            Being a retired accountant, auditor, and having owned my own small business, I’m always so happy to take financial advice from a guy who makes around minimum wage. Nothing says your hard earned opinions are just as valuable as everyone elses’ quite like being a fry cook.

            You know what is the best idea? Get decent at something so you are worth more than $1,500 a month. Whether you buy insurance or not is up to you and how safe you feel. Either way, your bad decision shouldn’t be our problem. We shouldn’t have to foot the bill for your bad choices.

            I put my 40 hours in a week and get overtime every now and then. It would be great to get to the doctor for a check-up but the last time I did that they wanted 200 dollars from my pocket to cover a “no insurance fee” so I just left.

            We already went through some of the many, many reasons why health care is over costed, and most of them are directly related to a history of government interference. The difference is most of us realize they suck and you’re still waiting for magical government unicorns to shoot rainbows of free health care out of their ass for lazy dead beats.

            I suppose saying “privatized” was the wrong word.

            Libprogs hate that words have definitions and stuff.

            Apologies for that. Though the same idea of healthcare can be applied to those areas as well.
            Like I said earlier, Blah Blah Blah THOUGH more libprog bullshit.

            If you don’t pay for police insurance then will you be SOL?

            Justify the Moon Ferrets!

            Man, he’s really glommed onto this far out thing that isn’t going to happen, nobody is proposing, nobody has proposed, and there is absolutely zero chance of it ever happening, all while ignoring reality and the stuff that actually does, has, and will happen in the real world about the topic at hand.

            Trust me

            Shit. At this point I wouldn’t trust you to put the beans on my burrito.

            I’ve pissed away about 20 grand in car insurance over the last 12 years and I’m sure you’ve pissed away even more but it still will be a service we have to pay right?

            You’re not super familiar with the concept of how insurance works are you? You piss it away, until you need it. Then the 20k you paid in is chump change…

            But financial analyst hat on, Cody is paying $138 a month for car insurance, which tells me a few things. A. He’s a really shitty driver. B. He’s got full coverage driving a car he can’t afford and making payments. C. If he’s making minimum wage he really should be driving a junker that he bought outright with cash and only carrying liablity insurance.

            Yes. This is the dude I want deciding the financial fate of America!

            So why not get our police and firefighters in on that kind of service? I’m sure the premium won’t be THAT bad.

            Actually, to entertain your hypothetical assclownery, they’d probably be way cheaper and more efficient than what those of us who actually pay taxes get in exchange for our money. Since I pay more in taxes quarterly than you make annually, I could probably live in a community that got pretty damned good service if that was how our system worked, and some jurisdictions actually do have something like this for fire (we actually have an all volunteer fire department), and law enforcement isn’t set up to work that way in constitutionally, but hey, keep on demanding we justify those moon ferrets of yours.

            The idea of paying for these “free” services seems so alien to the guy who gets an earned income credit.

            “Nobody is forcing them to work at low paying jobs forever, Cody. Unlike democrats, we don’t believe in slavery or a caste system.” Though you have to admit an Oligarchy would be awesome, right?

            Oligarchy: Noun, plural. 1. A big word that the Occupy Wall Street crowd like to throw around to impress slutty art majors. 2. A form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique, government of the few.

            Hmmm… It seems like that term doesn’t seem to fit us small government, personal freedom types at all now, does it shit stain?

            I mean no one will be FORCING those people to pick the cotton as you like to say
            Uh, no, actually, the democrats had dudes with whips and guns for that.

            but even if they showed the skills to move up in the world you can only have so many lords and ladies controlling the populace.

            And we come back round full circle to the typical libprog bullshit about how the pie is only so big and can never grow. This is fairly typcial of someobody who doesn’t understand economics or capitalism at all. Once again, we scratch an “independant” and discover a Marxist. Cody like totally doesn’t believe in a caste system, as he lectures us about how there can be only so many lords and ladies… Let that sink in for a moment.

          48. Okay let’s go with your theory that everyone needs to “pick themselves up by the bootstraps” and get jobs that pay a comfortable eighteen dollars an hour. Everyone in America suddenly does not need welfare or financial aid for any reason. What happens to all those jobs you depend on? What happens to the lower end of the totem pole? I’m willing to bet this country’s foundation runs on the very same people you would like to just grind your boot in and say they are worthless. This is why I’m not a Republican.

            So now we are all in agreement that if Republicans run the show the country will be better off right? Well let’s take a look at yearly income averages. You can help me out with this because you’re much better with money than I am: https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr12-02.pdf

            Now I know it’s a government website and it can’t be trusted but bear with me. Look at those states that have a yearly income of 45k or less. Those, I would have to argue, are relatively poor states. Are those run by republicans or democrats?

            So you are in a disagreement that this country is not run by a few wealthy individuals and that the majority of people in this country aren’t working just to barely get by? Republicans say they want a small government, which is fine, but an oligarchy fits right into that definition where only a few very powerful people control everything. I would say you’re getting what you wish, right?

            I would register to be a Republican right now if it didn’t seem like the whole mentality behind the party wasn’t “I’ve got mine now let me see what I can go ahead and do to make sure no one has a similar life”.

            A lot of people define a successful business, for example, as one that brings in a profit. Though wouldn’t a successful business bring in a profit but also ensure that their employees are not draining tax payer money via welfare? We can argue that the single payer healthcare is welfare, but then by that definition as I’ve mentioned the police force and other government jobs are welfare too if someone needs it, but wouldn’t you be happier as an American if less people were on welfare? That would be less money out of your pocket, right? Why is that a bad thing and furthermore why are you advocating that just because someone does work flipping burgers, or stocking shelves, they are worthless and should die in a gutter poor and broke?

          49. What happens to all those jobs you depend on? What happens to the lower end of the totem pole? I’m willing to bet this country’s foundation runs on the very same people you would like to just grind your boot in and say they are worthless. This is why I’m not a Republican.

            First, those jobs would be done by people just entering the workforce…AS THEY WERE INTENDED. Not people in their 30’s with families. It’s not an employers responsibility to make people do better with their lives, yet a great many offer tuition assistance to help employees better themselves.

            However, a burger flipper will never be worth $15 per hour, despite what some people are demanding.

            Second, no one is saying someone who works for a low wage is worthless. They’re working, and that’s awesome. Where they become a problem is when they do nothing at all about bettering themselves, and then expect the rest of society to foot the bill because they’re too lazy to get off their ass and better themselves.

            I work for a pretty low wage. That’s because I bought a business and got slammed by the economy. It happens. As it happens, my previous line of work was essentially closed off to me, so I’m starting over.

            The thing is, I will not stay there. If I don’t make it up the ladder with the company I’m with now, then I’ll find something else. That’s kind of how it’s supposed to work.

            Of course, you seem to be more comfortable with the idea that not wanting to fork over other people’s money to these people is the same thing as “grinding you boot in”.

          50. From all reports, if they keep pushing for $15 an hour then most of the major chains will go to burger-flipping machines. McD’ s out here already has drink-filling machines.

          51. Lordy, that was a dumb post.

            Look the claim that everyone would make… yadayadayada was pure straw man.

            Yes, there are low paying jobs out there. The term used to be “Entry level.” Because people would get those jobs when they were just starting out. They then use those jobs to learn skills, develop good work habits, and act as springboards to better arrangements.

            Look, I’ve worked minimum wage jobs. I’ve worked part time minimum wage jobs. I’ve lived in a rented room in an apartment shared with five other guys. I’ve lived on corn meal and beans. I’ve lived in the back of a car, or crashing on a friend’s couch because I didn’t have a place of my own. I’ve done all this stuff that causes so much hand wringing.

            What I did, was use the opportunities I had to better my situation. I acquired skills beyond those of a dishwasher, skills that gave me some value to potential employers. I got a job, one that, at first anyway, payed less than the $4000 you claimed elsewhere (although more than the $1500 you claimed yet somewhere else. Please make up your mind. Or maybe try telling the truth, it’s easier to remember.) I bought a house on that. I had not one but _two_ cars, both paid for (beaters, but they got me to and from work while allowing my wife–did I mention I also supported a wife–get to school). Oh, and I also bought health insurance, “catastrophic coverage”, so stipulated, but that covered if anything major happened. (And, yes, I had chickenpox when I was a child, also measles, mumps, and various other what used to be called childhood illnesses; yet somehow I was able to get insurance.) Oh, and I bought that insurance with _no_ employer contribution. (Very small company with zero “benefits”. If I wanted it, I had to buy it myself.)

            The people earning minimum wage are, or should be, the people just starting out. Anyone trying to make a career out of a minimum wage are, well, to paraphrase Caesar, “The fault, dear Cody, lies not in the stars but in yourself.”

            For those people I would also apply the words of Lazarus Long (used in a different context, but applies here as well: “Gave you lots of chances. You never took any of them.”

          52. Heh… He’s like the gift that keeps on giving. But hey, as long as the post is still getting traffic, I might as well keep on commenting. This has been a fantastic glimpse into the mind of the chameleon “independant”, and like usual, they’re so super independant and moderate that they start channeling Marx in no time. 🙂

            Okay let’s go with your theory that everyone needs to “pick themselves up by the bootstraps”
            says the loser to a bunch of folks who have actually done so!

            and get jobs that pay a comfortable eighteen dollars an hour. Everyone in America suddenly does not need welfare or financial aid for any reason. What happens to all those jobs you depend on? What happens to the lower end of the totem pole? I’m willing to bet this country’s foundation runs on the very same people you would like to just grind your boot in and say they are worthless.
            Ah, once again we come back to this mystical la-la land of absolute extremes. Now in the real world we understand that people increase their earning potential as they gain valuable experience and learn new skills. As they move up in the job force, the positions they used to fill are now filled with new, less skilled workers. As time goes on the nature of the work force evolves to better serve the needs of the consumers. Some jobs go away, new jobs are created. As wealth is created, new jobs are required. As popultion grows, so does the need for various jobs at various wage levels.

            Come on, Cody, you’re throwing out some basic Econ 101 like it is going to blow our minds or something. Cowboy up.

            This is why I’m not a Republican.

            No. You’re not a republican because you are a leech who does not understand the Constitution, capitalism, or the basic fundamental principles that America was founded upon, i.e. a leftist.

            So now we are all in agreement that if Republicans run the show the country will be better off right? Yep. Except for when they copy democrats. 🙂

            Well let’s take a look at yearly income averages. You can help me out with this because you’re much better with money than I am: https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr12-02.pdf

            Is it sad that he actually thinks he’s being crafty at this point? 😀 We already all know where he’s going with this.

            Now I know it’s a government website and it can’t be trusted but bear with me. Look at those states that have a yearly income of 45k or less. Those, I would have to argue, are relatively poor states. Are those run by republicans or democrats?

            He says, totally unwittingly that he has left out the major reality which is the cost of living? Why yes, Cody, a New Yorker does make a higher average salary than somebody in Utah. Employers who choose to do business there kind of have to pay those wages in order to attract the employees they wish to have. Because for $900,000 a New Yorker can purchase an apartment that a Utahn would consider a closet. A crappy apartment in Manhattan will buy a 7,000 square foot, brand new home, on one acre here.

            You are not familiar with that whole “having employable skills” thing, but way back when I was starting out as an accountant for a Fortune 500 company, I was making about $50k in SLC. I was offered a similar job in San Franciso at $150k. I did not take that job because the cost to live there was so much higher that it was actually a pay cut.

            But hey, if you think that republican or democrat governors set the median wage for their communities, run with that. It makes more sense than your whole private police force phobia.

            If you really want to have some statistical fun (hint, don’t try to throw up links to random stats against a retired auditor and expect it to blow my mind) why don’t you compare the employment rates between red states and blue states?

            So you are in a disagreement that this country is not run by a few wealthy individuals and that the majority of people in this country aren’t working just to barely get by?

            I can’t even begin to diagram that sentence. I singular am in a plural double negative with a positive, huh?

            Republicans say they want a small government, which is fine, but an oligarchy fits right into that definition where only a few very powerful people control everything.

            Wrong again, shit stain. So you didn’t take econ, and you didn’t take poli-sci, and you make $8 an hour, so I think we’ve narrowed Cody’s degree down to gender studies or maybe underwater basket weaving.

            If I’m in favor of free market capitalism with maximum competition, how is that an oligarchy?

            I would say you’re getting what you wish, right?

            I don’t know. You keep on making shit up and creating new definitions, you’re bound to get lucky eventually. But I do kind of want an ice cream cone. 🙂

            I would register to be a Republican

            Uh huh…

            right now

            Wait for it…

            if it didn’t seem like the whole mentality behind the party wasn’t “I’ve got mine now let me see what I can go ahead and do to make sure no one has a similar life”.

            HOWEVER blah blah more libprog OWS talking points!

            Let’s think about this… Republicans, who as Cody has admitted, tend to believe that you can pull yourself up, who are supposed to believe in free market capitalism, the greatest, most successful system in human history, is the side that wants to keep people down… But democrats who believe in permenant victim classes, endless social programs, and an economic system that has failed over and over for the last hundred years, are the ones that want to lift people up… Hoookay then.

            A lot of people define a successful business, for example, as one that brings in a profit.
            That is kind of the definition of a successful business.

            Wait for it…

            Though wouldn’t a successful business bring in a profit but also ensure that their employees are not draining tax payer money via welfare?

            HOWEVER socialist blah blah blah! Now he’s just repeating things we’ve already debunked.

            We can argue that the single payer healthcare is welfare, but then by that definition as I’ve mentioned the police force and other government jobs are welfare too if someone needs it,

            Seriously. One trick pony.

            but wouldn’t you be happier as an American if less people were on welfare?

            Yeah. They should go get jobs or improve themselves so they can get better jobs.

            That would be less money out of your pocket, right?

            Nope. Because one of you fuckers would be there picking our pocket for some other liberal cause of the day. No matter what you give a statist, they’ll always be back for more. That’s the problem with compromising with the side whose inevitable goal is always total control.

            Why is that a bad thing and furthermore why are you advocating that just because someone does work flipping burgers, or stocking shelves, they are worthless and should die in a gutter poor and broke?

            Listen, you boring, repetitive motherfucker. Not one of us have said that those people are worthless and should die poor and broke in a gutter BECAUSE WE HAVE ALL BEEN THEM.

            We’ve all worked the shit jobs, and the long hours, and the back breaking manual labor. Most of the rich who you want to soak were just normal people who worked their asses off until they got good enough at something that people wanted to give them money for it.

            Why are your leftist proposals a bad thing? First, they never solve the actual problem they’re supposed to solve. Look at the Great Society. Hang out in the projects of North Birmingham like I have, and then tell me how awesome endless social programs are.

            Second, they usually have the opposite effect. Most social programs don’t end up lifting up the poor, they end reinforcing bad decisions and poor life choices, and then keeping people there. The leftists in charge actually know their tired old crap doesn’t work, but they keep pushing it because they don’t care about the poor. They want to keep them there, ignorant, needy, and eternally dependant in neatly managed voting blocks.

            Third, no matter how much you bleeding heart useful idiots want to save everybody, some people are going to do stupid shit. You can either continue to enable them to do stupid shit, or you can quit paying for them to do stupid shit.

            Democrats sold Obamacare by telling us there were 35 million poor, poor people without insurance, and how if we didn’t want to help them it was because we were greedy and wanted them to die in a ditch (sound familiar?). Only we passed the stupid law, and as an example of typical government efficiency, millions more people got their plans cancelled, and everyone’s costs went up. Now they’re super happy that 7 million people signed up (only 800k have actually paid) though most of those people had insurance before and weren’t part of that 35 million we just fucked over the entire rest of the country for.

            So you dare come in here and get lippy with us and accuse us of wanting the poor to die, when I’ve given more to charity than you make? All while you are promoting the programs that actually do harm people, and being a useful idiot of a political philosophy that has always ended in gulags? Fuck off. You don’t get to claim the moral high ground.

          53. I am all for getting traffic to your blog, Mr. Correia, but I have actually found out that I am getting some pretty good traffic to my own blog because of this. Now I’m no where near the thousands you bring everyday, which I mean that with no sarcasm, but this little discussion/fight/tift is actually a win win for the both of us. Since I will be self-publishing my very first novel here soon I think you can appreciate why I continue to interact with you.

            When were you when you first started your novel? 28? I mean sure you were an accountant then and probably graduated from college before a certain Republican got into office. By all means I wish I would have been born in 1980. I really do. From what I’m to understand there was a huge divide when the year 2000 hit and I’m not talking about Y2K. For those already in adulthood things were great. For the majority of us still in high school or middle school? Well shit got a lot tougher when we hit that magical age of adulthood.

            Again the last 14 years have been a shitstorm both parties should be held accountable. The truth of the matter is our company stopped being a free market when it was taken over by “trickle down economics”. Sure, a great idea at the time and it could have worked. In fact during that time it was a GREAT marketing ploy: It’s the complete opposite of socialism! We give all the money to the rich and they will surely spread it amongst you all!

            I mean that is how trickle down was suppose to work right? I’ve been brainwashed by democrats too much. I’ve slowly been trying to crawl my way out, especially when it comes to the amount of white hate we see in this country (and really when it gets down to it the only thing I’m liberal about is this shit poor economy).

            I honestly can understand where you are coming from. I’ve read your books and I am thoroughly entertained by your blog as well (even when I douse myself in chum to go swimming with the sharks), but the point I’m trying to make is that no republican and no democrat is going to fix this country.

            This is especially true if one side only sees the poor as constant victims (democrats) and the other side sees them as nothing but lazy excuses for human beings even though you just said yourself we all have been down on our luck and some of us, despite working, just can’t claw their way out.

            Hell I’m actually very interested in the charities you have supported because god damn me I respect you a lot. If you feel like I’ve disrespected you I’ll apologize for that but I fully agree the ACA was shit to begin with, but the system we had was shit too.

            As sad as you think this might be I work security for a university. Not the greatest job in the world but 10 dollars an hour in my town is actually about the most you can make. I also could not afford to get into any computer engineering degrees so I settled with criminal justice and psychology. It’s been a long four years doing full time work and full time school but hey, it was still work.

            But I want to make this work. When the 2016 elections come around who do you actually think will set this country straight? I sure as hell don’t want it to be Hilary Clinton. I’m sure we both can agree on that so point me towards someone that I can get behind because I just cannot find one.

          54. I am all for getting traffic to your blog, Mr. Correia, but I have actually found out that I am getting some pretty good traffic to my own blog because of this. Now I’m no where near the thousands you bring everyday, which I mean that with no sarcasm, but this little discussion/fight/tift is actually a win win for the both of us. Since I will be self-publishing my very first novel here soon I think you can appreciate why I continue to interact with you.

            Yes. Because my average readers is going to be all like “Hey, a novel from that guy who is super proud that he doesn’t understand how reality works, doesn’t think I should own guns, who has declared people like me are hate mongers who want the poor to die, and who is gleeful that I’m paying for his healthcare? Shit yeah! Add to cart!”

            When were you when you first started your novel?

            23. Married with one child, working my way through college with a full time job. Only that novel wasn’t very good so I tossed it.

            28?

            Shit no. 3 kids by then and an auditor at a Fortune 500 company because I have a work ethic. I didn’t finish my first novel until the period when I was working two jobs and starting my own retail business.

            I mean sure you were an accountant then and probably graduated from college before a certain Republican got into office. By all means I wish I would have been born in 1980. I really do. From what I’m to understand there was a huge divide when the year 2000 hit and I’m not talking about Y2K. For those already in adulthood things were great. For the majority of us still in high school or middle school? Well shit got a lot tougher when we hit that magical age of adulthood.

            Bullshit, you obnoxious little crybaby. Absolute bullshit. There’s no generational cutoff where somebody had it magically easy and then suddenly it got super hard.

            I was born in 1977. I’m from a small town in rural California, the son of a farmer, the grandson of immigrants. I grew up on a farm. From your whiny ass tone I am absolutely certain you did not. At the age you were playing Xbox I was doing backbreaking manual labor and milking cows. I had an alchoholic mother and an illiterate abusive father, and we worked our asses off damn near every day so that we could scrape by, but because I also inherited their work ethic, now democrats can tell me how lucky I am to be rich, and how I must have had “privilege”. Fuck you, Cody.

            Again the last 14 years have been a shitstorm both parties should be held accountable.

            Says the guy giving Karl Marx a rim job.

            The truth of the matter is our company stopped being a free market when it was taken over by “trickle down economics”. Sure, a great idea at the time and it could have worked.

            You are so incredibly fucking stupid. You don’t know history, you don’t understand economics. Holy shit, Cody. Just when I think you can’t demonstrate that you are any more ignorant, you go and show that you are more ignorant.

            In fact during that time it was a GREAT marketing ploy: It’s the complete opposite of socialism! We give all the money to the rich and they will surely spread it amongst you all!

            You know who thinks that system worked? The five hundred plus economists from major universities, including 5 Nobel prize winners, who endorsed Mitt Romney. You know who thinks it doesn’t? People who think Karl Marx just didn’t go far enough and the DNC.

            I mean that is how trickle down was suppose to work right? I’ve been brainwashed by democrats too much. I’ve slowly been trying to crawl my way out, especially when it comes to the amount of white hate we see in this country (and really when it gets down to it the only thing I’m liberal about is this shit poor economy).

            If you truly thought you’d been brainwashed, then you would have saved us hours of boring ass talking points that came straight out of Barack Obama’s brain trust.

            I honestly can understand where you are coming from. I’ve read your books and I am thoroughly entertained by your blog as well (even when I douse myself in chum to go swimming with the sharks), but the point I’m trying to make is that no republican and no democrat is going to fix this country.

            He says, as he ignorantly supports all of the democrat talking points, and assigns to repulicans a bunch of inaccurate charicatures straight out of Mother Jones.

            This is especially true if one side only sees the poor as constant victims (democrats) and the other side sees them as nothing but lazy excuses for human beings even though you just said yourself we all have been down on our luck and some of us, despite working, just can’t claw their way out.
            Yes. Please do tell us what we REALLY MEANT TO SAY again.

            Seriously, Cody, if you’re this stupid and uniformed, but you really want to learn. Shut the fuck up and read a book. Your ignorance isn’t endearing. Debating you is about as mentally stimulating as head butting a wall.

            Hell I’m actually very interested in the charities you have supported because god damn me I respect you a lot. If you feel like I’ve disrespected you I’ll apologize for that but I fully agree the ACA was shit to begin with, but the system we had was shit too.
            Did the part where you didn’t mean to disrespect me come before you put words in my mouth about how I wanted all the poor people to die, or the after the part where you realized you were trying to sell books, and you were coming across as an ignorant little waffletwat?

            As sad as you think this might be I work security for a university. Not the greatest job in the world but 10 dollars an hour in my town is actually about the most you can make.
            Then move. Not my problem.

            I also could not afford to get into any computer engineering degrees so I settled with criminal justice and psychology.
            Lovely. CJ prepares you to be a cop. Cops just fucking love welfare and social programs, and they especially love when somebody who hasn’t done anything with his life lectures them about The Way Things Really Are. Good luck with that.

            Psychology is a major mostly populated with people trying to figure out their own mental issues, or so I’ve been told by every shrink I’ve ever met. I have no idea what it pays. Good luck with that.

            It’s been a long four years doing full time work and full time school but hey, it was still work.

            And if you think that school and being a security guard is hard work, then you’re going to LOVE trying to make it as a professional novelist.

            I hate to break it to you, but after listening to you whine about your circumstances and hoping for a somebody to swoop in and save your ass and pay your bills, most of us who actually make it as writers only do so because we work our asses off, produce stuff the market desires, and continually improve our craft. Good luck.

            But I want to make this work. When the 2016 elections come around who do you actually think will set this country straight? I sure as hell don’t want it to be Hilary Clinton. I’m sure we both can agree on that so point me towards someone that I can get behind because I just cannot find one.

            Cody, if you think I’m going to engage you in polite discourse now and provide you some sort of complimentary political lesson at this point, you’re smoking crack. Seriously, fuck off. You’ve annoyed me long enough.

          55. Writing has been hard work. It’s also been one of the most profound learning experiences I have had in my life. You have self-published before so you know the ins and outs of how difficult it is and I am more than prepared to put in the work to get my stuff out there.

            I really do apologize for the inane amount of idiocy that I have brought to the table but I have a feeling that if I would have jumped on the bandwagon and been like most who would just simply agree with every point made I wouldn’t stand out. I would just be another person who was a smiling face and nodding back and forth.

            What started as an argument that both sides are equally to blame for the state this country is in (instead of just going right to what everyone here wants to hear and blasting one side) I was met with firm opposition that if I am not with you guys I am against you. Which is fine.

            It’s still getting me traffic. It might be bad publicity but it is still publicity. I am willing to bet your average reader cares more about your stories than your political affiliation. Hell that’s what I care about.

            I sincerely do care about the charities you’ve donated to and I also am at odds about 2016.

            Despite all of this I am going to be working my ass off. I’m going to do more than my best to actually create work that people enjoy. As much as this may pain you to hear you’re a pretty big inspiration to myself. If I made an enemy out of you that would be a shame but maybe someday, years from now, you come across my own book and figure “what the hell”.

            Because despite whatever my political beliefs are I will work my ass off to become a name in this industry. I promise you that.

          56. I’m only going to respond to one thing there:

            I was met with firm opposition that if I am not with you guys I am against you. Which is fine.

            If you want to take away American’s liberty, then you are against me. If you think the government owns the people, rather than the people own the government, then you are against me. If you are in any way in favor of the most evil polticial idelogy to ever exist, one which has killed more than one hudnred million of its own citizens in the last one hundred years, then you are against me.

            And if you come around these parts talking shit without the knowledge to back it up, don’t be surprised when you get your ass handed to you.

            Now shut up because you are starting to bore me, and the one unforgivable sin, the one thing other than crazy ass death threats that I ban people for is boring me. And you, Cody, are boring the shit out of me.

          57. Okay I have stated several times that in my opinion the fourth amendment is one of the most important amendments and it keeps getting chipped away far more than the second amendment. I do not feel that the second amendment is under that much attack. The fourth amendment is. Because I feel one of our rights are under worse treatment than the other does not mean I’m against you.

            In fact I would say if the fourth amendment gets destroyed THEN I would fear for the second amendment.

            The people should own the government. I agree with you there. No arguments. The government SHOULD fear its people. I also believe that business owners should fear their employees. Without them then they don’t have a business. Right?

          58. I do not feel that the second amendment is under that much attack.

            Not helping yourself with the image of someone who lives in fantasy land. Of course it’s under attack. Just look at the subject of this thread for a simple example. The attacks have lessened, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

          59. First, as you bitch about the 4th Amendment, while also bitching about republican fillibusters, you’re a hypocrite or a fool. You want somebody who has done something on this issue, talk to Rand Paul. Only, don’t, because he’d probabably despise your leftist meanderings as much as I do. Don’t talk. Listen.

            Your last sentence, you did it again. Something something HOWEVER more socialist bullshit.

            No. Business owners should not have to “fear” their employees. If I fear my employee, I fire them and get new ones. There should be respect and professionalism between the two according to their contractual obligations.

            And seriously, don’t respond. Just shut up and go away.

          60. What started as an argument that both sides are equally to blame for the state this country is in (instead of just going right to what everyone here wants to hear and blasting one side) I was met with firm opposition that if I am not with you guys I am against you. Which is fine

            No, you were met with firm opposition because your arguments were shit and you were supporting positions we, almost universally despise.

            However, there are plenty of us here to take issue with Republicans as well. I’m one of them, although there are a couple of Republicans I like. They are, unfortunately, the exception.

            It’s not a “you’re either with us or against us” kind of thing. It’s a “you’re talking stupid” kind of thing.

          61. I’m even getting hits from Korea. I have to admit this has been actually more than productive for me. Thank you for allowing me to play the bad guy in this. If you want to actually use me in one of your blog posts just make sure to indicate where people can go if you could. If not it isn’t a big deal.

          62. Yeah. I get lots of traffic. That’s what happens when you create content that isn’t just parroting Mother Jones.

          63. I’ll take that hit. I’d rather be known for writing than politics. You’re more than welcome to take a look at some of the few shorts I’ve laid out and rip them to pieces. I’d actually welcome it.

          64. Dude, I get hundreds of requests from other writers to take a look at their stuff. I don’t have the time to do it for PEOPLE I LIKE.

          65. Let me tell you what happened the last time a real Republican ( a conservative) ran “the show” in America. In 1986, I was still in college. I was buying gas at 38 cents a gallon and had a couple of jobs to pay my way through college. Both jobs paid minimum wage because it was unskilled labor but it afforded me a wage without killing me to the point I couldn’t study when I got off work. I was driving a 70s era Camero which I promise you made Gaia cry every time it got into third gear. It had the fuel economy of an oil fire. I lived on my own and paid my rent on time. I had no insurance because I was still young and bulletproof. I lived off of ramen and peanut butter mostly. I had a living room populated by a couch that was new when Armstrong walked on the moon. I had a TV that was broke more than it worked and the bed I grew up sleeping in. I didn’t have cable, a smartphone, an Ipad, a laptop, a data plan, a hoopty with 26″ rims, tattoos, piercings, Netflix, or a girlfriend. I was a poor college student and no one raised an eyebrow at my status. Jobs were plentiful because the current POTUS thought that maybe if the government WASN’T taking huge sums of money from rich people, maybe, just maybe, they would use it to grow their business. Witchcraft, huh? And please spare me the reflexive “vampire seeing a cross” reaction to mentions of Reagan. He wasn’t perfect but I’d rather have his toenail clippings as President right now than the current prepuce that sits in the WH. I graduated college a couple of years later, got headhunted by a major corporation, and started paying more in taxes in a year than my parents made in wages. God bless America.

            I see the “working poor” on government assistance all the time. They’re overweight, crass, loud, smelly, tattooed to the point of retarded, pierced in places I don’t want to see, sporting the latest smartphone/Kindle/iPad/laptop, multiple rugrats, a galactic sense of entitlement, and the manners of a goat. And all of this while doing for EBT cards what Bruce Lee did for nunchucks. Pardon me if I don’t get all teary eyed.

            There are real poor in this country alright. I see them in the homeless shelters, missions, and other charities my church donates time and money to. The Dems could give a shit about them, especially the veterans. The overwhelming majority of so-called “working poor” the Dems love to bleat about are in their situation because they couldn’t make a good decision with a gun to their head. I know. I came a from a poor family who put the fun in dysfunctional. My home life growing up was like a Stephen King movie. And as I soon as I graduated HS, I got the hell out of there and never went back.

            And I don’t want to hear about starving kids. We know what causes pregnancy. It’s not a mystery how babies are made. If you can’t feed them, don’t have them. Worried about birth control? Here’s a solution: stop having sex every time there’s an opening in your schedule. Believe it or not, prior to birth control, for millennia, most people could go for days, months, or even years without bumping uglies. I realize that’s a shock to folks who think their every thought and whim must be acted on. Being an adult. Catch the fever!

          66. Yes, apparently we just don’t “get it” and there is the same amount of money now as there was during the Roman Empire.

          67. “Once again, two parties. One side has some browncoats, the other doesn’t.”

            Or put another way, one side has browncoats, the other side has Brownshirts. But I guess that would ‘Godwin’ it…

          68. I am against the idea that anyone shouldn’t be able to protect themselves, do not get me wrong on that, but the line HAS to be drawn somewhere. What I don’t quite understand is why everyone suddenly believes “limited magazine size” is equal to “the government is taking away all our weapons!” It’s that kind of ideology that doesn’t help and it doesn’t get anything done.
            ***

            The line has to be drawn somewhere? Why? To make you or others like you FEEL better? There’s not a shred of empirical evidence that limiting magazine capacity does a damn thing other than make ignorant morons feel better. What exactly gives you, or any other person, the right to decide not only how and if a person can defend themselves but then decide what era of technology they then must use? Don’t follow me? That’s exactly what idiotic bans on magazine capacity accomplishes.

            Take the SAFE Act as the latest example of asswittery. The capacity limits of seven rounds contained in the SAFE act in NY basically means anyone who can lawfully own a pistol in a common self defense caliber is limited to either revolvers (gee, how old are they?) or a semi-automatic model like the 1911, which is a hundred year old design. Not hating on a 1911, I own several, but it sure as shit cancels out a hell of a lot of new technology over the last 4+ decades. But wait! It also excludes the Browning HP, an eighty year old design because it exceeds the seven round magazine capacity. See any sense here? And then there’s places like NYC where practically every gun has been restricted for years but black-powder guns didn’t raise an eyebrow. I could atomize someone’s head with a .58 caliber Miniball but hey, don’t get caught with a S&W Airweight, buddy.

            The first AR-15s were sold in 1963. The first 30 round magazine was made in or about 1968. And you wonder why gun owners look at you like an idiot when you wave around the scary thought of a “high capacity” magazine in 2014. When you pass these bullshit laws on magazine capacity, especially in the case of rifles, vendors like Magpul and others have to scramble around and spend more money on tooling to support the consumer with 5, 7, 10, or whatever jagoff number magazine capacity our betters decide on. All the while looking at a pile of existing 20 and 30 round magazines stacked to the damn moon and back. Because “reality based community”.

          69. I go into a great amount of detail in the link I gave him about why magazine bans don’t make sense, don’t actually stop crime, don’t deter mass shooters, don’t lower the body count of mass shooters, are legally ridiculous, and tactically stupid. But I’m guessing he didn’t read it, because why bother with a well thought out debate that nobody has ever been able to refute when you can just go with facebook memes that scrath your belly and tell you that you’re a good person because you care so hard? 🙂

      2. Well, let’s see. There were the Japanese internment camps– oh wait, that was a Democrat: FDR.

        How about the WWII draft? No, still FDR, a Dem.

        The Korean War draft? Truman. Also a Dem.

        The Vietnam War draft? Johnson, also a Dem.

        Also: Democrat-controlled congresses (both houses) in all cases.

        NDAA in 2012 that restricts the right of habeas corpus? Split Congress and a Dem president (Obama) who signed it.

        Those are the only instances of ‘enslavement’ I can think of in the last 100 years or so (and the last one is a bit of a stretch, admittedly, to be called enslavement). I may be missing some. Not that I’m a big fan of the Republican party either, but they’re hardly equal in their efforts to destroy personal liberties.

      3. So not wanting someone to kick back and use the public dole to get wasted “adding another ridiculous standard.”?

        1. Apparently. Cooercing people to do something or pay for something against their will, is exactly the same as having complications before you give them somebody else’s money.

      4. “The civil war, which I thought was arguably the largest American casualty war by definition, was started by a Republican. Though you could argue Republicans back then were the democrats of today if you’d like.”

        Ummm…no it was started when Carolina opened fire on Fort Sumter.

        “As far as healthcare goes would you like to point me in a direction that says America is great? Every single source I try to find, I feel, will be barked down because of “agendas”. If you can find me an unbiased source then by all means I want to be educated.”

        The fact that The U.S. is in the top 3 countries for cancer survival rates. It was in this little medical journal called The Lancet.

        1. The Civil War, which was started by slave owning democrats suceeding from the Union and opening fire on Fort Sumter? Uh… Sure. And they’ve like TOTALLY switched, which is why the democrats are now the party of individual liberty who doesn’t feel entitled to take the fruits of other people’s labor by force.

      5. Now I could be wrong about this but as I recall there was a major difference in how wars were done back in civil war times compared to today. As such I believe that using death counts to counter number of wars started really is a bad approach towards proving a point.

        Like I said I could be wrong, I don’t remember how the tactics had evolved at that time and I am too lazy right now to go look it up, not to mention the technological advancements that have changed how warfare is done since then. 🙂

        1. Considering that our death toll for a decade of Iraq and Afghanistan together would cover the first 15 minutes of Gettysburg? Fair point. But statistically if you’re an American soldier killed in a war, odds still are that it was in a war started by democrats. 🙂

      6. So for those of us, like myself, who made it to the end of this chain and kept asking our selves what the hell single payer is, here it is 🙂

        Single-payer health care is a system in which the government, rather than private insurers, pays for all health care costs.[1] Single-payer systems may contract for healthcare services from private organizations (as is the case in Canada) or may own and employ healthcare resources and personnel (as is the case in the United Kingdom). The term “single-payer” thus only describes the funding mechanism—referring to health care financed by a single public body from a single fund—and does not specify the type of delivery, or for whom doctors work. The actual funding of a “single payer” system comes from all or a portion of the covered population. Although the fund holder is usually the state, some forms of single-payer use a mixed public-private system.

        As for the “no true scottsman” fallacy (yes i had to look that one up too… don’t judge) it goes something like
        Dude 1. “No one in California likes guns.”
        Dude 2. “I’m California, and I love shooting guns at the local range.”
        Dude 3. “Well no TRUE Californian likes guns.”

        If i got it right it means dismissing someone simply because they don’t fit the stereotypical norm for a given group/region by saying they aren’t a part of given region/group although they in actual fact are a part of said group/region.
        feel free to correct me (like you guys need permission /snicker) on this one, my 5 minutes of google on the scottsman thing may have not been as clear as i would have liked.

        If anything else i don’t know shows up, i’ll be happy to keep sharing,

      7. “Okay let’s go with your theory that everyone needs to “pick themselves up by the bootstraps” and get jobs that pay a comfortable eighteen dollars an hour. Everyone in America suddenly does not need welfare or financial aid for any reason. What happens to all those jobs you depend on? What happens to the lower end of the totem pole? I’m willing to bet this country’s foundation runs on the very same people you would like to just grind your boot in and say they are worthless. This is why I’m not a Republican.”

        Let’s see. I’ve worked plenty of minimum wage retail jobs. Then I started working in the construction field. I started out as a helper. Did that for a number of years. Then I got my license. Guess what, my pay went up.

        Now, I’m a foreman for a company working on the largest construction job in the United States(building the headquarters of Exxon.) I’m a foreman because I busted my ass and proved that I was worthy of such a role. It wasn’t handed to me.

        Also, besides working full time, plus some, three weeks ago, I worked 82 hours, two weeks ago I worked 74 hours, I also go to school to better myself. See, I’m working on getting a degree in a STEM field where I will most likely start out at 6 figures a year.

        If I can do it, what is the excuse of anyone else?

      8. Larry? One thing on your list.
        #6 ” Your actual expensive drugs are expensive because drug companies have to recover the millions and millions of dollars and years and years of time it takes to get a new drug through FDA approval.”

        It’s BILLIONS with a capital *B* . 5 Billion and about 15yrs or so of finding, testing and jumping through gov’t hoops to get it to market per drug.

    1. Vote for me.
      My party platform is a normal work week hiring the best person to do the job regardless of race creed color religion Ethnic or social proclivities and Public beating by a corps of grandmothers who know how give a proper humiliating beating then for two weeks the government will Place a bilboard of current picture and your most embarrassing baby picture on a highway somewhere where you live And what you did wrong. This punishment will be in lieu of putting you in jail where it will be less productive and cheaper than housing you in jail.

      1. You know Joe I could actually get behind all of that.

        Do not get me wrong, however, as I do not believe anyone who is working 40 hours+ a week should receive such little compensation that they need welfare from the government in order to live.

        I also do not believe a secretary should make as much as a cop or someone who climbs up power poles to work with equipment that could kill them in a fraction of a second.

        What this country needs is balance but sadly we are too hung up on “Democraps r sissies” and “Republitards r evil” to actually get to that balance.

    2. Cody Hutton, on March 31, 2014 at 12:05 am said: “What this country needs is balance but sadly we are too hung up on “Democraps r sissies” and “Republitards r evil” to actually get to that balance.”

      Cody Hutton, on March 31, 2014 at 10:36 pm said: “Democrat, Republican, it doesn’t matter. Nine times out of ten they are rotten to the core. Even the “independents” are the lowest of the low. This country used to elect people fresh from the street who knew the struggles of the “average man” now we are pigeonholed into electing people that come from long lines of wealth, privilege, or general “easy living”.”

      Very rarely do you run into someone who’s logic if so twisted that they can actually turn a corner and collide with them self, but you did Cody and in less than 24 hours kudos to your mental contortionist act!!

      1. I’m not too sure how you arrived at that conclusion. As a country we are two halves just butting heads with one another. The fact of the matter is both sides are so twisted that we need a complete and utter reboot so we can start to actually get this country back on track.

        Are there politicians out there who are actually heard that don’t come from wealth or easy living? I am sure there are some but they certainly do not get any floor to talk.

        1. First part is hilarious coming from a guy who wants me to pay for his medical insurance.

          Second part, more class warfare bullshit. Actually there are tons of politicans who didn’t come from wealth or “easy living”. Ironically, all of the ones that actually like worked for a living. And I put easy living into quotes there, because that is typical OWS bullshit about us “rich” folks live this life of ease and comfort, and they seem to miss the bit where the vast majority of us who have wealth only got that way after a long period of working our asses off. And most of us still work our asses off in order to have that there “easy” living.

          Cody lives in a world of stereotypes and facebook memes.

          1. We all pay for the police. We all pay for road construction. We all pay for firefighting services. What would you suggest a better system be because our current healthcare system is absolutely terrible.

            I’d believe about 30 or 40 years ago the majority of politicians (who are still in the game today) did work hard to get where they are at. These new batches coming in? I don’t think so.

            The problem here is I have a feeling you think people working their asses off, but still need welfare to make ends meet, should be shot and killed for being a ‘stain’ on society, no?

          2. Since you claimed not to be a Democrat, I’m sure you can point to some left leaning sites where you went in and ranted against them like you’re doing here, right?

            Go ahead. Provide links. We’ll wait.

          3. Since you don’t actually pay any taxes, no, we don’t ALL pay for the police and the roads. Those of us who pay taxes do. At this point if you start complaining about your taxes I’m assuming you’re talking about sales tax.

            But shit, since he’s still hung up on police and fire, why shouldn’t we have the state PAY for everything! And we pay the state! And the state gives us each what we need! BRILLIANT! From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs! Why has nobody ever thought of this before!

            Yep… Cody is totally not a libprog!

            Next paragraph about politicans then and now… Actually you would be completely ass backwards according to US history.

            Last paragraph, burn that straw man down! Woot! Yes. We want to make the government smaller and less powerful so it can then round undesirables up and put them in camps… Because we don’t want to foot the bill for dead beats and lazy teat suckers, and we are grown ups who realize the government sucks at everything, and money doesn’t grow on trees, we must want to shoot the untermensch. I’m sorry, Cody, you seem to have mistaken us for left wingers (as in the the folks on your side who have actually killed over a hundred million of their own citizens over the last 100 years).

            The only stain here is you. And it is brown and it smells funny.

          4. For every strawman of mine you seem to be great at ad hominids. It balances out.

            You go ahead and attack me because I don’t make a “comfortable salary” but here I am, working 40 hours a week or more. You attack me because I work but I don’t make enough money like it is my issue. As much as you’d love to hear me say it I do not have a degree in women’s studies but I suppose graduating college at 28 is a “bad life decision”. Sure if I get lucky later this year I’ll be making a comfortable 40k to 50k a year and guess what? I still won’t be bitching about taxes then.

            Mainly because I like driving on roads.

            The reason why you seemingly have a stick up your ass about the “poor people being poor” is because you have it in your head that the poor love being poor. I assure you that this is not the case. We want to make more money but it is really not up to us.

            Also yes I have been blessed to have crawled my way out of the pit that is Wal-mart but hey http://www.statisticbrain.com/wal-mart-company-statistics/ it looks like they employ 2 million people in America. This doesn’t make a dent in the 300,000,000 people living in America, sure, but considering every employee there, save for management, makes minimum wage or a few dollars more why is it so evil to expect them to pay a livable wage to their workers so they can get off of welfare?

            You see you and I want the same thing but in different ways. Somehow you want an overwhelming majority of people to “not suck” even though they still do some pretty decent manual labor, but at the same time you think a company that brings in billions worth of profit is all because of a handful of people.

            If that was the case what would happen to a major corporation like Wal-mart if all 2 million of their employees suddenly stopped sucking and got jobs that paid double or triple what they make then?

            I imagine Wal-mart would just hire 2 million more “people who suck” and the machine would keep going and we still wouldn’t get anywhere as a country.

            Would you prefer if anyone who “sucks so hard” make the same wages they do in China? There are millions more over there that seemingly suck so hard they work 25 hour days. I’m not sure how that is possible but I heard one presidential nominee back in 2012 loved the way China’s economy is run.

            But yes for now continue call me a libprog. I did not realize that I had to be 100% republican to badmouth the idiocy of one democrat. My mistake.

          5. You attack me because I work but I don’t make enough money like it is my issue.

            No, we mock you because you whine about it (and is it $1500 or $4000 a month? You’ve used both of those so perhaps you can explain how it is that you haven’t also _lied_ about it?) rather than doing something about it.

            Just about everyone here has been in a situation as bad, if not worse, than you’ve described for yourself.

            You want somebody to save you from your own bad choices (or at least lack of good ones). You want action without consequence. You want to not have to be responsible for yourself.

            Those kinds of attitudes are natural to a child. Part of a parent’s job is to teach them that actions do have consequences and one does have to be responsible for oneself.

            Unfortunately, you never seem to have learned that. You want other people to be responsible for you, other people to fix your problems for you at no cost to you.

            You want to enslave others to your selfish desires.

          6. Honestly, Cody is nearly as bad at this sort of thing as CNN blogger Dean of Comedy, but he’s no Nickwolf!

            For every strawman of mine you seem to be great at ad hominids. It balances out.

            Says the guy insinuating that republicans want all the poor people to die. 🙂

            You go ahead and attack me because I don’t make a “comfortable salary”

            Nobody is attacking you becasue of your salary, we’re attacking you because you are a leftist leech who thinks he has the right to mooch off of the productive to subsidize his good time.

            but here I am, working 40 hours a week or more.

            Whoop.

            You attack me because I work but I don’t make enough money like it is my issue.

            Nope. I’ve been dirt poor myself. But even when I was poor I hated Marxists. I suppose that’s what I get for growing up in an immigrant community filled with people who fled a country that had been taken over by socialists.

            As much as you’d love to hear me say it I do not have a degree in women’s studies but I suppose graduating college at 28 is a “bad life decision”.
            Unless you’re a doctor, it sure as hell isn’t a good one.

            Sure if I get lucky later this year I’ll be making a comfortable 40k to 50k a year and guess what? I still won’t be bitching about taxes then.
            Uh huh… That’s always super easy to claim.

            Mainly because I like driving on roads.
            I like roads to. Since I pay about forty five cents a gallon everytime I put gas in my car, how about the other 17 trillon dollars of debt worth of useless shit the government has racked up?

            The reason why you seemingly have a stick up your ass about the “poor people being poor” is because you have it in your head that the poor love being poor.

            BWA HA HA HAW! snort. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that I’ve probably been poorer in my life than you have, Cody. I know for certain that some of the people here arguing have been far poorer than you have.

            But if you’re not a teat sucking statist with delusions of the generous government helping people, you must want the poor to die. No, really. You can’t make this stuff up. Whatever you say, in one ear, right out the other. 😀

            I assure you that this is not the case. We want to make more money but it is really not up to us.
            What defeatist bullshit. It is almost entirely up to you. Sure, there is a small percentage of people with some horrible misfortune or terrible difficulty that makes it so that they can’t improve their lot in life, but the vast majority of us totally can better ourselves.

            Also yes I have been blessed to have crawled my way out of the pit that is Wal-mart but hey http://www.statisticbrain.com/wal-mart-company-statistics/ it looks like they employ 2 million people in America. This doesn’t make a dent in the 300,000,000 people living in America, sure, but considering every employee there, save for management, makes minimum wage or a few dollars more why is it so evil to expect them to pay a livable wage to their workers so they can get off of welfare?

            Because dumbass, according to history, reality, and basic economics, if Walmart paid all their employees more money then they would have FEWER employees and more people would be out of work. Every single time we raise the minimum wage, companies lay people off and unemployment goes up. That is fairly simple.

            You see you and I want the same thing but in different ways.
            No. We really don’t. You want something impossible and imaginary, and you’re willing to sacrifice your freedom for a placebo.

            Somehow you want an overwhelming majority of people to “not suck” even though they still do some pretty decent manual labor, but at the same time you think a company that brings in billions worth of profit is all because of a handful of people.

            More straw. Boring. Bored. BORING. Always with the theoretical impossible bullshit. “if magic unicorns gave us free everything, would you still be gainst socialism?” Why, yes, Cody, because fuck you is why.

            If that was the case what would happen to a major corporation like Wal-mart if all 2 million of their employees suddenly stopped sucking and got jobs that paid double or triple what they make then?

            They would be replaced by new entry level workers or some of our millions of unemployed.

            I imagine Wal-mart would just hire 2 million more “people who suck” and the machine would keep going and we still wouldn’t get anywhere as a country.

            Except for the 2 million people who just got better jobs and the 2 million others who now have an entry level job.

            Man, you suck at this. You didn’t do well in debate either did you?

            Would you prefer if anyone who “sucks so hard” make the same wages they do in China?
            You mean a country with government control of the economy and single payer health care? It sounds right up your alley.

            There are millions more over there that seemingly suck so hard they work 25 hour days.
            Which is why everybody in the world wants to come to America because of that whole free market capitalism thing we’ve had going for us. 🙂

            I’m not sure how that is possible but I heard one presidential nominee back in 2012 loved the way China’s economy is run.
            You know, if you’re going to insinuate that Mitt Romney said he liked how China’s economy worked, Google is your friend. A cursory search shows that most of his comments were negatives about their currency manipulation.

            But yes for now continue call me a libprog.
            You are in favor of government control of the economy, government control of production, government manipulation of pay scales, and the redistribution of wealth… I’m curious where that would be considered moderate? Cuba?

            I did not realize that I had to be 100% republican to badmouth the idiocy of one democrat. My mistake.

            Dude, you’re not 100% republican. If you are 1% republican it is because you once paid for sex with a free market hooker. You’ve not presented a single thing in all of your posts that anyone could vaugely construe as republican in any way, shape, or form, and you’ve got a fundatmental misundersanding of business, capitalism, the Constituion, how government works, and reality in general. John McCain would be disgusted by you. You haven’t said a single thing that Hugo Chavez would have disagreed with. You haven’t said a single thing that couldn’t have come off an Occupy Wall Street manifesto. You’re the only person under any delusion of you being some sort of bold independant.

            And seriously, you’re starting to bore the hell out of me.

          7. considering every employee there, save for management, makes minimum wage or a few dollars more

            Yeah, about that:
            “Today, Walmart employs more than 1.3 million U.S. associates at more than 4,700 stores and clubs nationwide. Every year, we promote about 160,000 people globally to jobs with more responsibility and higher pay. In the U.S., the average, full-time hourly wage is $12.81. ”

            http://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/locations/united-states

            But, of course, you slip in “or a few dollars more” which gives you all kinds of wiggle room which allows you to ignore that the average wage is actually $2.70 more than the President is asking as a new minimum wage. Also a lot of those workers are older, semi-retired, working to supplement their retirements and cannot, by law, make more than a modest amount without it reducing their social security. This would include a lot of the folk the HuffPo use to get their own breathless “make less than $25,000 per year” figures. Raising minimum wage would simply mean either that these people would have to reduce their hours.

            Now, let’s do a little math. 1.3 million associates. Increase their pay by $5 per hour (so they have a “living wage”). That’s $11.5 billion per year in additional labor costs (same workforce, 2000 hour work year which assumes 2 weeks unpaid vacation, more if the vacation is paid). Wal-Mart netted (http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/wmt/financials) about $17 billion in 2013, a pretty good year. You think cutting its profitability by 2/3 won’t have a dire effect on its viability as a corporation? You think investors won’t take their money elsewhere where they can get a higher return? That’s just the cost of the salary, never mind additional costs that go with the increase in salary. (Not an accountant so I’ll let Larry clue you in on that.)

            Their only option in that case, in order to stay viable as a business, would be to let a lot of those people go, meaning a whole lot of people instead of earning what Wal-Mart pays would now be unemployed. Or, Wal-mart could just try lumbering along, carrying all those people, until the first downturn in sales happened and they went bankrupt, putting all 1.3 million out of work.

            Math, motherfucker. Do you speak it? (Just so you know, that’s a movie allusion.)

          8. Witchcraft, Burkhead! WITCHCRAFT!

            It became stylish a few years ago for libprogs to start hating on Walmart as a tool of their class warfare. Then a bunch of people who can’t balance their own checkbooks started lecturing one of the most successful corporations in human history about how they should conduct their affairs. (because I know when I want business advice, I want it from a liberal who doesn’t understand how business works!)

            Libprogs love to compare Walmart to Costco, because Costco pays a higher average wage and better benefits. Libprogs however leave out the pesky little part where Costcos are all located in upper middle class suburban white neighborhoods, while Walmart is located all over, including rural areas and poor innercities that cater primarly to a much poorer demographic. Walmart also has like 100x the SKUs and an entirely different business model, but hey, don’t let that hold you back.

            Libprogs have now switched to telling McDonalds it needs to pay its burger flippers $15 an hour, and they validate this by a study conducted by a humanities major who didn’t actually understand how to read a balance sheet or P&L.

            And then they wonder why we’re angry? 😀

      2. Cody Hutton, on April 3, 2014 at 4:23 am said:
        “I’m not too sure how you arrived at that conclusion.”

        Because your second statement is the exact behavior you condemn in the first one maybe?
        You are also aware that many of the Founders came from wealthy backgrounds?

      3. How odd Cody… I worked for Wally World too.

        Walmart? They employ over 2.2 million people world wide in just a few dozen shy of 11000 stores in 27 countries. Under 71 different banners aka store names. 1.3 million alone in the US as of their websites last update at the end of February. *Note..I’ve looked that one up so many times to refute anti walmart bullshit I have it fucking memorized…didn’t even have to google it.

        If you didn’t get beyond minimum wage…says something about you I think. See as I said I worked for em too. I STARTED better than minimum wage to begin with and only went up from there. Least til I finally got fired for insubordination. It’s been a decade, give or take but I was at $2.15 over minimum wage by the time I got fired,. something about butting heads with management over having people work over time and then asking you to take off early from work or an extra full day off and change to get you backdown down to 40hrs an under. And those days you were inevitably supposed to shorten by taking off early or flat out taking off…were invariably weekend days which left the store short handed on it’s busiest days of the week. Store management didn’t like it and I made it a point to rub their noses in it by having overtime on my check every week and in a really impolite manner told them to go fuck themselves. They REALLY didn’t like that. OTOH I have the very gleeful satisfaction of knowing that the regional director came into that store 6 months later and within 10 minutes of the RD arriving the GM was gone. Fired. Thrown out the door so fast and hard he probably left skid marks. So yeah like any company Wally World has it’s share of asshats and morons and a number of them are store management but the company ain’t all bad.. I’ve worked for smaller companies that were actually worse.

        1. My brother’s first job was working for McDonalds. Then he worked for WalMart. Went from minimum wage late night shelf stocker monkey to running the night shift in about a year. Why? Because he actually knew how to work. (funny, after doing manual labor on a farm growing up, every other job seems easy). He parlayed that into managing a Sam’s Club. After he had manager experience he got a job managing an Inkleys for more money. Then he decided he hated retail and became an apprentice to an electrician. Now he’s… I can’t remember the rank… but something pretty good paying, once again because he outworked those around him he got better jobs. Now he’s doing pretty darn good, has a few kids, a nice house in the suburbs. Never went to college and got his job experience at Walmart… Man, he must have missed the memo where he was supposed to have just been a victim of all those big corporations.

    3. Apparently Cody has never heard of volunteer fire departments, which exist in places that can’t afford to have full-time fire departments waiting around for fires to start. Guess what? Those volunteer fire departments work just fine.

      As for the rest of his unmitigated bullshit, well, others have already eviscerated him quite well over that. This whole moral equivalence “everyone is terrible” “argument” is ridiculous on the face of it, but I guess it makes it so that people like Cody can just throw up their hands and not have to think for a bare second.

      I cannot get over the fact that people want a government that demonstrably does everything badly to take over their health care! Why in the world do they think it will be any different this time around? Hells bells, I live in a state that can’t even make its state-run liquor stores profitable.

      1. You, too, must live in Virginia. All I can say to advocates of gubmint (yes, the spelling is intentional) is to look at the bang up job that the VA has done.

        Cody, you are either a self aggrandizing cum guzzling asshat, a deluded fucktard without even a passing familiarity with reality, or a Bernie supporter. If not all of the above. And I say this as a heavily tattooed, pierced, long haired Heathen (Asatru, specifically).

    4. Hi Cody! Just wanted to introduce myself.

      You know those terrifying “privatized” public services you fear? Well, i’m working for one.

      I’m a paramedic with a job at a private ambulance service covering a town of around 100k people.

      Sometimes, sick people call us, and we go there. Then, before we can touch the patient, we need insurance and payment information up front. I gotta say, though, things have really taken off since we got Square for our phones. Just a single swipe of the card, and you can be healed!

      Er…no. Wait, sorry, it’s late and i’m confused.

      We treat everyone, regardless of race, creed, religious, socio-economic status and possibility of payment. I, nor my coworkers, give one single, squeaky shit about payment. That’s not our job. You know what our job is?

      Fixing people.

      Being your advocate to the hospital (or, your worst nightmare, depending on how much of an asshole you are), and, most importantly, making sure you get the treatment you deserve.

      What’s more, we run our own insurance. For 50 dollars a year (yes, a year), we will charge whatever insurance you have and, whatever isn’t covered, my company will only charge the Medicare rate (for the record, according to one of the bored billing ladies, is $0.10 on the dollar compared to normal rates). If you don’t have insurance and that’s all you get, it’s the medicare rate for you, regardless.

      But, the only reason i know that is because I asked. The response from the management has always been “You treat patients. You treat them well, you treat them appropriately.”

      Because people come first.

      Bills, if they come, come second.

      If you call me, and then you bitch that you have to have pay the bills, well, frankly, you can fuck right off to whatever goddamned useless hole you came from, you little whiny shit.

      Because, if you can bitch about the bill for the ambulance, then maybe you didn’t fucking need one in the first place.

      *cough* ‘Scuse me, that was rude.

      Same goes for my friends that work in the ER’s. If you’re sick, you get treated. Doesn’t matter if you’re homeless or Larry Correia.

      So, before you bring out this “What if i break my arm and have to *GASP* Pay for it!!” bullshit, spend a bit of time realizing that paying a bill means they system did it’s job. You lived. You didn’t die of an infection due to improper sterilization of the tools used to surgically set your bones in place. You didn’t suffer an overdose of pain medication from a half-trained paramedic who killed you with pain medication. You didn’t have the arm amputated due to lack of ability to treat that sort of injury. You didn’t suffer lack of motion and life-long nerve damage, because the neurosurgeon was able to reconnect the severed nerve endings. And you didn’t spend the rest of your life on disability, because of rehab and physical therapy that was ordered by the doctor, who’s only thought was to get you back to where you were before the accident, not to bleed you dry of every penny or, conversely, not do any of that because you’re poor.

      My advice: Man the hell up, and write the damned check. And be glad your fingers still work the way they did before.

  27. Bah! You all clearly don’t get it. Senator Lee is not a criminal, he is a victim. All the reports I have read say he was literally forced to take bribes because of the debts accumulated in a failed run for higher office.

    He owed these millions to the individual hardworking citizens of California who believed in him. How could he possibly default on the money he owed to the widows and orphans of that great state? The conflicting pressures inside this honorable man built up until, in moment of stress induced weakness, he agreed to accept a bribe – for the children.

    If it wasn’t for the broken political system in America that forces politicians to pay for their own election attempts, a man as great as Senator Lee would not of found himself in debt. If you want to direct your ire at anyone for this event, it should be at the obstructionist Republicans who block common sense proposals like public financing of elections. If it wasn’t for these un-American criminals, an honorable man like Senator Lee would not have been victimized like he was.

    All of the people who have posted comments contrary to this should be ashamed of defiling the reputation of this great patriot! To atone, you should all immediately volunteer at your local chapter of “People for a America Where no Democrat Can Ever be Arrested No Matter What ( PAWNDCEBANMW – PAWN’D for short). If no such local chapter exists, as penance you should start one.

    If you act now, there might still be some hope for you.

        1. If you miss small, then you leave evidence that you tried. Fail big enough, and all that’s left is a smoking crater…

  28. Believe it or not, the LA Times did a front page spread on all three of our corrupt senators yesterday – and it must have just killed them to id them all as Democrats Not only do we have supervillian Yee, but we also have Ron Calderon, who accepted 1 million in bribes (say it like Dr. Evil, it helps), and Roderick Wright, who can’t even be bothered living in his district. But we are going to keep paying them, because, well, would you want them out there loose in the world?

    1. I’m sure some duct tape could fix the loose in the world part. much cheaper to afford also. 🙂

  29. Wild rumor of the week: someone in San Francisco is trying to sell t-shirts with a message on the front:
    “Leland Yee hates California gun owners and likes MILFs!”
    “Re-elect Leland!”

    Any sightings of such a shirt, please advise us ASAP, please.
    Cheers. 😀

  30. What’s ironic about this is that if you put a gun-bashing Democratic senator who sells weapons to terrorists on the side in your books, some left-leaning person is going to start shouting about straw men.

  31. if we are going to complain about the cost of medicine don’t forget EMTALA and HIPAA. then the fact that the FDA requires any equipment for use in a patients care must have a experation date that includes iv poles bed frames wheel chairs and other durable goods. most of wich atr sold in perfectly serviceable shape to other hospitals in mexico and Canada for a fraction of the price.

  32. Nobody is forcing them to work at low paying jobs forever, Cody. Unlike democrats, we don’t believe in slavery or a caste system.

    Except when we become victims of said system. I think the cake makers who were forced to make a cake by a gay couple and their tyrannical state laws and the totalitarian courts that upheld them might have a different opinion on whether or not conservatives believe that slavery exists in America.

    1. Sorry, let me restate. We don’t *currently* have slavery, because the democrats lost the war, but they’d love to bring it back. 🙂

      1. The way we’re taxed in America, I’d have to classify it as ‘reverse-wage slavery.’
        Any working-class stiff knows this is true.

      2. You’re one of the few people who actually note and state that, correia. About how the US Civil War I came from Democrats losing that little privilege, rather than the propaganda later created to make the South vote 95% Democrat sometimes, which is that all the problems with the war and crime came from the North (carpetbaggers) rather than the KKK fighting the Army.

  33. Regarding Cody’s comments about Gov Rick Scott wanting to make welfare recipients take a urinalysis prior to receiving aid: if I have to take a damned pee test to make the money they’re going to get…why don’t they have to take one to get that money?

    And Cody…if you want inexpensive health care, you can always do what a lot of us (myself included) did: join the military.

    1. I have to take a drug test to work so that the government can confiscate a portion of my earnings to give to dead beats, I can’t seem to get up much pity for the dead beats receiving my money.

      1. Hell, piss tests are just foreplay. Many years ago, when the world was formless and without shape, I worked on a USAF munitions contract in Infosec for almost a dozen years. I had to have a TS clearance for most of that time and a Secret the rest. Try having your retired 10th grade homeroom teacher call you one night and ask you what you’ve been up to that a couple of G-men in JC Penney off-the-rack sportcoats want to know what kind of kid you were.

      2. @B Just think how much cooler/scary a background check would sound if written in a world with necromancy….

        No idea why your post made me think that.

        And murder cases… wow, that would be crazy…

        “Mr. Jackson, why did you commit suicide?”
        Jackson in a high sing song falsetto :”i didn’t commit suicide, it was those darn kids and their meddling dog!”

        Ah, the opportunities…

  34. On Cody’s ignorant comment about privatized firefighters – we have them where we live. You either pay a fee up front at the beginning of the year, or you take your chances that your house will not catch on fire. If your haven’t paid the fee and your house does catch on fire, they come out, put out the fire, and bill you for the service. If you don’t pay, they sic a collection agency on you or go after you in court (I don’t know the particulars, because we work for a living and pay the fee each year). Oh, and the fee is HALF of what the taxpayers in the next town pay the same company for the same service. I wonder where all that extra money goes?

  35. Funny how many “no lables” types start out all not-partisan… but press them for details, and you pretty much get straight ahead Democratic Party talking points, every time.
    It would be a lot more honest and just plain come out and say “I’m a Democratic Partisan, and want a single party system”.

    1. Yep… Note that actual conservatives and liberatarians never have a problem with being labeled that way, but the dude spouting Marx is usually a moderate.

      1. Give them some credit, Larry. Both Moderate and Marx start with M. 😉

        Their public education had to be good for something. Right? 😉

  36. And Cody- do try to make an economic argument without once using the word “Walmart” or “McDonalds”.

    Bet you can’t.

    1. Hell, I’d be happy if he could form an economic argument, period. I don’t think he could explain the supply and demand curves.

      1. It is also rather obvious that he has never owned a business, supervised employees, or signed a paycheck. If he had, he just might understand the whole “don’t pay the new hire too much until you find out if they’re worth a damn or not” thinking behind minimum wage.

        Hiring new people for entry level jobs is always a risk, is always a money loss, and is always a drag on your good people until you find out that the newbie can hack it, or that the n00b needs to be dumped ASAP! before he kills himself, or someone worth their wages.

      2. But Joe, you obviously haven’t seen the awesome results the french have been getting with making it near impossible to get rid of a bad employee.
        I mean there economy is doing great as a result, and lets face it, they really do have the lowest unemployment rate in the world and the coolest people, and the bestest food ever.

  37. “Larry, please please pretty please if I start a liberal rant on your blog and make a total fool of myself, could you send people to my blog, because I am about to publish my book and I could really use some negative publicity that makes people discount everything I say before I even open my mouth. That would be very helpful of you.”

    *chortle*

    On a mostly-serious note, I love your fiskings!

    1. That would be like when I was first self publishing, to spend my promotional efforts at the DailyKos instead of The High Road. Hmmm… I wonder if that would have worked out as well. 😀

  38. Sweet and holy Moses, where do you find these people Larry? This is absolutely incredible. First off, it demonstrates the sheer ignorance of my generation, which is why I hate it. Second, it reminds me exactly why I chose to go and educate myself- so I wouldn’t sound like a complete dumbass like Cody here when I chose to exercise my First Amendment Rights.

    Cody, I got out of active duty service in the USMC after 4 years, swore I was done and never getting back in. Factor in the asthma, two bad hips (both of which happened while I was in) and hearing loss (performing artillery missions and mortar fire in southern Afghanistan) and I don’t want to wear a uniform anymore. I need a break. Grew out a helluva beard and had long hair again. 3 months later, I shaved it all off and reenlisted, this time into the Utah Army National Guard. Why? My wife was pregnant and the ACA was not a financially viable option for us. I worked 20-30 hours a week at a retail job, plus attend school full-time, and it was still not enough. So I signed away four more years of my life, my health and my sanity to make sure my wife and my son are taken care of. ACA should supposedly take care of us. It doesn’t.

    I just filed my tax-return. I didn’t even make $12,000 last year. ACA enrollment would’ve left me penniless, homeless, and starving. I can barely afford the 200 a month Tricare as is, but it beats paying an entirely illegal fine for an unwanted, undesired government service. I still work 20 hours a week, full-time student, full-time father, full-time husband, and meet my drill commitments. I’d love a job that pays more than minimum wage, but in a college town like Logan, that’s not possible. Ever watched a wife cry over the bills? I have. I’m trying desperately to get in with the same publisher as Larry so that she doesn’t have to any more.

    But none of this registers in your world, you’re too busy shoving your head so far up your anal orifice on account of your ignorance and logical fallacies, that you can’t see the light of day, never mind the plainly written explanations given to you. To quote an old sergeant of mine “go haze yourself”.

    1. Sadly, Jonathan, they find me.

      All that said, because of your ethics and attitude, I bet we check back later and you’ll be in a far better spot. And years from now you’ll be giving your kids more opportunities than you ever had. That’s sort of how that whole American dream works out. 🙂

    2. Know who’s got two thumbs, a smile, grew up dirt poor (no running water, no electricity, no neighbors, snowed in in the winter) in California, left, found employment with the Army, did a combat tour in Afghanistan, is almost done with college in his mid-30’s but bought a house on E-4 pay and gets by now on E-6 pay with a houseful of kids by driving cars made in the previous millenium because he can fix them himself?

      THIS GUY!!!

      Props, LaForce. Keep it up. Sorry for the run-on rant.

  39. Well Larry, at the midpoint, I went TL;DR because it ended up becoming that sitcom that recycled plotlines every other season.

    I dunno who this guy is, but holy hell. 1500USD a month? I started as a local stagehand and a parking attendant. I then moved into the grocery stores. I earned less than 800USD in those jobs a month.

    I now work for a Government agency, and it’s only because I had this dream of passing the FSOT and being pushed around the world promoting my adopted country. Working for this agency is a plan and a foot in the door. (Sorry Larry, I’m not really in the private sector, it was kinda my dream to be in State when I was a kid.)

    I pay my student loans, rent, insurance, my one credit card, petrol, etc etc. I scrimp and pinch and I found it excessive when I bought a laptop to replace my 2006-2007 vintage Dell that had crapped out on me many times, and a Kindle paperwhite.

    Can I afford insurance? I can if I budget and I am smart. I’m 25 years old and I had more fiscal sense than most of the OWS crowd at 15 when my dad sat me down and explained to me why wasting my birthday money on shit I didn’t need was bad.

    Man I could write more but holy hell it’s almost 3am and I have to go to work.

    That said, this made me laugh:

    (and if you want to see how that is working out for them, take a look at Euro media’s freak out now that they’ve got a resurgent Russia eyeballing stuff, we’re nowhere to be seen, and their entire air force consists of six planes)

    1. I’ve got no problem with anybody wanting to work for the government! Quite the contrary. I worked with a lot of amazing, hard working professionals in .gov jobs. I just also worked with the worst human beings I’ve ever met. So all I ask is be one of the awesome ones that gets stuff done. 🙂

      1. BTW, Cody: in line with my comments earlier about the stupid shit that hyper-“feeling” morons like yourself dream up for gun laws because you can all split atoms with your mind or some such, please cast your eyes on the silly shit vendors have to spend metric fucktons of money on in certain states.

        This is a rifle built to comply with the NY SAFE Act:

        http://www.commdiginews.com/news-2/gun-owners-shop-and-manufacturers-evade-nyc-safe-act-laws-13693/

        Gaze upon the clusterfuckery that Precious Snowflakes like yourself inflict on the Gun Culture. It’s similar to other stupid shit that has been done earlier to comply with other states whose lawmakers are also terrified of loud noises and 500+ year old technology. There’s not a thing on that rifle that does anything from a ballistics standpoint that any of my evil BCM ARs don’t already do. If the little monster at Sandy Hook had this in his hands that day, not a goddamned thing would have changed.

        Since your other hobby horse is “low wages”, has it ever occurred to you Marxist towel boys that maybe businesses could afford to pay better wages if their profits weren’t constantly drained every time some Marxist politician farts and comes up with an idea?

      2. BTW, Larry, props on schooling Cody on Afghanistan and Iraq. Nothing like liberal ROE to make soldiers have faith in their leadership.

        1. If the libs could get away with it, ROE for Iraq & Afghanistan would have read
          1. No armored vehicles. Armored vehicles are scary and make it look like the soldiers are ready for a fight.
          2. No body armor. Body armor is scary and make it look like the soldiers are ready for a fight.
          3. No guns. Those black guns are scary and make it look like the soldiers are ready for a fight.

          (so we end up with a bunch of guys in BDUs driving union-approved utility vehicles with no weapons… or only havign weapons and armor available when ‘clearly threatened’)

      3. Actually, the ROE for liberals is:
        1) Everyone watch Frozen
        2) Everyone go out and emulate the snowman: “My name is Olaf, and I like warm hugs!”

  40. If Cody is being charged about $500 a month for company insurance, (A) He need either to go to work for a different company or (B) Pare it down the next enrollment period. Cause I make about the same amount as he does but my insurance payout is a lot less than his.

    And to get back on subject I think Leland would make a great future villain for either the Grim Noir or Monster Hunter books. 🙂

    1. “And to get back on subject I think Leland would make a great future villain for either the Grim Noir or Monster Hunter books”
      Boring Larry is not the way to go about getting your red shirt 😉

  41. Yikes. Last time I saw a thrashing that bad, it involved a gimp mask. Want some ice for that, Cody?
    Two things, though:

    1- If Cody’s best definition of “Brute Force” is a governor passing an Executive Order, he has no idea on God’s green earth what brute force is….except I have the feeling he defines it as “When a republican does something Cody would applaud if a democrat did it”.
    2- “Privatized police and firefighters”. Hate to tell you, but a lot of big organizations have exactly that (colleges, some of the bigger public buildings, et cetera). They wear uniforms, carry guns, have the same training and legal right of arrest as your bog-standard cop… but their paycheck is from a corporation instead of a municipality. From what I’ve seen, as long as the professionalism and integrity is the same, the results are the same. Prisons and jails have been using privatized guards for a lot of decades now, and the economy has a lot of municipalities are moving to private contracts for all kinds of muni services.
    Only a fool would think that cops bust felons and firefighters run into burning buildings because it’s the STATE that told them to, or that your fire is somehow going to go away faster depending on whose account the fireman’s check is drawn on..
    So blabbing “if you want to privatize medicine, you must want to privatize cops and firefighters too!” isn’t the strawman Cody thinks it is… instead of being, “If you don’t like the new Chrysler, you must want to go back to horses and mules!”; it’s more like, “If you don’t like the new Chrysler, it must be because the new Honda works too!”

  42. Because I had nothing better to do with the last two hours, and I was feeling rather intelligent at that moment today, I decided to dumb myself down and read this ongoing post, after post, after post, from Cody. Others would jump in and my intelligence level would increase, I would chuckle here and there at other comments, Larry blogs are insightful, educational and can be very humorous. But if we were to liken this unto BF4, my health bar would be flashing and my guy would be winded, and I am looking for a health pack, In fact some of the posts I outright am hoping someone comes along and revives me. I think brain is now leaking from my nose or that could just be blood hard to tell now … too weak … can not go on …. stop posting Cody and save us all ….

  43. “When were you when you first started your novel? 28? I mean sure you were an accountant then and probably graduated from college before a certain Republican got into office. By all means I wish I would have been born in 1980. I really do. From what I’m to understand there was a huge divide when the year 2000 hit and I’m not talking about Y2K. For those already in adulthood things were great. For the majority of us still in high school or middle school? Well shit got a lot tougher when we hit that magical age of adulthood.”

    You know, this is incredibly insulting. Yes, I’m going to pull the “I’m offended” card, and bitch-smack him with it. I love using libprog tools against them.

    Anyway, I was born in ’84 to middle class parents who both worked (they are, unfortunately, liberal though) and were school teachers. Yeah, they didn’t get paid all that much. We still were never in heaping debt and they saved enough for me to send me to college with no debt (that’s what comes with having a good financial manager keep socking away money into compounding interest investments for 18 years).

    I haven’t had it easy since college (graduated in dec. 2006), part of which is my fault. I spent 14 months unemployed and looking for work in 2009-2010 when the aviation industry took a slump and my company laid off 30% of the department of engineering in a day, including my early-career self who found himself competing for low level jobs against guys with 5-10 years more experience b/c they were willing to take the pay cuts just to have a job. Guess who got screwed over. c’est le guerre.

    Yes, crap did get tougher. So what? It was staggeringly harder for my grandmother who grew up in the Great Depression. Guess what she and her generation didn’t do (well, her generation DID vote in FDR 4 times… )? They didn’t whine and complain and demand that a crippled economy suckle them for life. They instead scrimped and saved every nickle, dime, and penny and worked their tails off. What was the result? My grandmother died at 96 this past december a VERY rich old lady who never lived like it. But, it was easier for her than you and I in this, she didn’t start off poor and shackled by too much regulation. So, she did get to have a great deal socked away by the time the momentum really got going. Still, the lesson is: people have had it far far worse than you in this country, didn’t complain and bitch and moan and blame the party NOT responsible for it, but instead took personal responsibility for their situations (which may or may not have been of their own making or choosing) and did the best they could with them.

    Larry, maybe we should just stop using the word “capitalism”. It’s gotten to be like “rascist.” So, instead I propose to use the tl;dr definition of “capitalism” as the noun instead: Free-market enterprise.

    Sure, hate on walmart, but you aren’t against free-market enterprise, RIGHT Mr. Libprog? Are you so full of hate, Mr. Libprog, that you want to cripple the mother who runs a business out of her home to supplement her husband’s income while she also raises the kids? 😉

    They want to hijack the defintions, so let’s just use different synonyms. They hijack the dictionary and we’ll beat them over the head with a thesaurus ;).

    1. I’d rather beat them unconscious with the dictionary. But then I’ve got a good sized and only slightly younger than me, encyclopedic dictionary to use.

      1. Hmmm. Larry, care to comment on the various uses of different hardbound literature as close in bludgeoning weapons? 😀

  44. Larry

    This commentary on Yee is absolutely hilarious! I just ran across your site and started reading…glad I did. And I am very happy to hear that you are well, and everything is working out for you. Skar has mentioned you and I have asked him to pass on my best wishes.

    I haven’t seen or spoken to your ex-partner for a few years, but I heard that he had gone off the deep end. Sad.

    If you want to catch up, let me know — my number is the same (If u still have it!). I’m still with the 19th, and I still fly up to UT ever month for drill.

    All the best

    Jojo the Dog Faced Boy

    1. Joe! Awesome to hear from you man. I don’t think I’ve got your number anymore.

      My email is slg2qcorreia at yahoo dot com. (have to mangle that to confuse the spam bots).

  45. I thought he was taking millions in bribes to set up the operation in which they were going to buy the guns from the MILF terrorist sect,smuggle them into Indonesia with the help of the Tongs and Indonesian weapons traffickers,and smuggle them into the U.S via New Jersey.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *