Trump and Metaphysics: A Continuing Thought-stream

Hasn't Turkey declared war on Syria?

Public education in the US is pretty bad. Mostly it's just a military camp for youth, where social gang dynamics are left unchallenged by school teachers or officials, and mindless repetition and teaching to the test takes the place of sincere learning. It is highly appropriate that many public schools now have metal detectors and police or security present, and lock all external doors from the outside during class hours, since this more honestly shows the prison camp/ military nature of these institutions.

Schools (public k-12) teach primarily three things in the US, which are very well learned by the students:

1) Social dynamics are the most important thing in life.

2) How to conform.

3) That learning and knowledge don't matter.


So when Trump wants to expand voucher programs, I am all in favor of that.

Basic gymnastics with some rough sports. We had a lot of 'rough-ball' as we called it. Also wielding heavy tools, at least electrical drills and saws. Swimming too.
No weapons training!!

that must be an acquired taste.
Military schools should become a bit more prevalent though. That is one sector you do not want privatized.

Animal dealings.

From nursing orphan or stray animals to riding or employing them, that is lofty work for a good part of our species.

Growing food.
Why do I arrive at this the last.

Rough ball? Hand eye coordination and timing is crucial. Gardening would help kids connect to Mother Nature and respect her.

Roughball was like rugby but looser.

We also had school gardens. I harvested a dozen different vegetables, scarily big potatoes and herbs I remember.... reflecting Ive had a pretty complete education.

If everyone could be as educated as I am... haha

Maybe thats the standard.

Get well educated on all sorts of matters when young, drop out of college twice and go travel, then take a job requiring your special skill but no responsibility and study philosophy for ten years while still traveling and learning all the arts one encounters.

I quit my school twice and told my parents to put me in a better one. They were happy to comply, as they arent very fond of institutions and trust their children.

My experience was quite different. My parents put me in a school I didn't want to go to and begged not to go to. Since my parents don't trust kids, they didn't care how I felt about it.

Then I went to university and basically got all the self- education and personal subjective growth that I had always lacked from birth to age 18, but at the cost of not really caring about university or whatever degree to get or any of that. But luckily I stumbled upon philosophy while there, and in a desperate last grasp for life I made the decision to extend my university time by one more year so I could get a philosophy degree.

After that I did some traveling too, learning some arts and meeting people, as well as painting and reading/writing philosophy. Then I ran out of money.

Or to be more correct, then I ran out of money and $500 a month in student loan payments started kicking in.

Welcome to America.

There's an article out today by liberal super-apologist Krugman, where he says Trump will end at least 5 million of his own supporters' health insurance. Apparently the fact of ending Obamacare equates to ending health care as a whole, is the way he thinks: without "Obamacare" millions of people with pre-existing conditions wouldn't be covered, and the only way to cover them is to force healthy people to buy into insurance markets, as well as provide government subsidies, is how he thinks.

I'll break this down: health insurance companies are scamming the health care system. We don't need "insurance", for the simple reason that all the money currently paid to insurance companies could be paid directly into the healthcare system with no loss and tremendous gain since the obscene profits of insurance companies would be removed. Health insurance companies are a drain and Middle man in the system. They also limit care, restrict access, game markets, and charge up prices, in addition to extracting from the overall healthcare system and for themselves huge profits.

So just disslove the health insurance companies and then take all that money currently paid to health insurance in the form of premiums and split it as follows: 50% goes back to the individual into a healthcare account they can use whenever they need to go to the doctor, and 50% goes into a government fund marked for providing subsidies as needed to people without jobs or with jobs that don't give benefits, or people who are quite poor or have severe enough medical problems that outpace by significant margin the size of their respective healthcare accounts. Then you also remove barriers to health care access and portability, price gouging and lack of competition and lack of transparency, when you throw out the insurance companies.

Bingo, problem solved.

Oh yeah, and fuck Krugman while I'm at it.

Capable wrote:

There's an article out today by liberal super-apologist Krugman, where he says Trump will end at least 5 million of his own supporters' health insurance. Apparently the fact of ending Obamacare equates to ending health care as a whole, is the way he thinks: without "Obamacare" millions of people with pre-existing conditions wouldn't be covered, and the only way to cover them is to force healthy people to buy into insurance markets, as well as provide government subsidies, is how he thinks.

I'll break this down: health insurance companies are scamming the health care system. We don't need "insurance", for the simple reason that all the money currently paid to insurance companies could be paid directly into the healthcare system with no loss and tremendous gain since the obscene profits of insurance companies would be removed. Health insurance companies are a drain and Middle man in the system. They also limit care, restrict access, game markets, and charge up prices, in addition to extracting from the overall healthcare system and for themselves huge profits.

So just disslove the health insurance companies and then take all that money currently paid to health insurance in the form of premiums and split it as follows: 50% goes back to the individual into a healthcare account they can use whenever they need to go to the doctor, and 50% goes into a government fund marked for providing subsidies as needed to people without jobs or with jobs that don't give benefits, or people who are quite poor or have severe enough medical problems that outpace by significant margin the size of their respective healthcare accounts. Then you also remove barriers to health care access and portability, price gouging and lack of competition and lack of transparency, when you throw out the insurance companies.

Bingo, problem solved.

Oh yeah, and fuck Krugman while I'm at it.

My healthcare premiums in my modest job are around $300 a month, or so, but my employer pays even more. I think the employee pays around $500 a month for me to be insured. So if we go with a plan to dissolve insurance companies and take all that premium money and split it up as I outline above, I would get an annual healthcare account with about $4800 in it, and another $4800 would go into a government account similar to Medicaid (it could just be used to bolster Medicaid directly and expand it).

That's plenty of money. Now, we can retain a small form of insurance for emergencies only, and this could be administered by the government or even by health care systems themselves. Let's say 1 person in 5,000 needs an emergency hospital visit once a year that totals way more than they can pay, let's say average $40,000. Breaking down the numbers:

$40,000/5000= $8 per person per year

Hell, let's up the ante and say one person out of 3000 needs these services twice a year on average and the average emergency hospital stay costs $60,000:

$60,000/3000= $20, x2 for twice a year = $40

So everyone would need to contribute $40 a year into a basic minimal insurance pool, that would cover huge emergency needs only. That amount can just be siphoned off the $4800 a year that I and my employer send to Medicaid.

Now we introduce tiers of healthcare accounts, give people choice how much percentage of their income they want to put toward it. Hell, just let them pic whatever percent they want, like investing in retirement. $40,000 annual salary with a 5% contribution to health care = $2000. Employee marches and were at $4000 a year contributions, half of which I keep and half of which goes into Medicaid. (The ratio can be tweaked of course).

So now we have a four stage system for helping pay for health care:

1) I have a healthcare account with $2000 in it.

2) I can pay out of pocket like any other purchase if I need more healthcare in a year than $2000.

3) I can get Medicaid expanded subsidies if the ratio of my healthcare costs past my healthcare account hits a certain limit of my total income, with progressively increasing subsidies based on income.

4) If I have a suddenly medical crisis and need an emergency room I can draw from the small insurance pool that covers up to $60,000 of costs.


Seems doable to me. And this sort of setup without the insurance companies and all their fuckery would return sane competition and free market into health care, since you could go to any clinic or hospital you want, so they would all be competing for your business and thus have downward pressure on prices. One important point Trump could also help with would be to pass a law forcing health care systems or providers of any kind to display their prices for all products and services before a consumer buys it. Just like any other product or service, you have a right to know what it costs before you buy it.

This is why super-liberals like Krugman are so goddamn irritatingly stupid. They apparently can't come up with anything remotely like this by themselves, and they resist any new ideas beyond their own little pet ideological suckup fuckfest orgy of special interests and politically correct fidelities.

Yeah that's right I just solved America's health care problem. Someone write this up and email it to Trump. Seriously.

Looking at the idea of a basic for emergencies only insurance pool run either by Medicaid or by health systems: this is insane man, we can fucking cover all this shit so easily without the insurance companies:

Upping the ante even more:

Let's say one person in every 1000 needs two emergency room visits a year, each visit costing $100,000. This seems like a very high estimate, but im doing that to prove how doable this is:

$100,000x2= $200,000 a years ER visit cost per 1000 people.

$200,000/1000= $200 a year per person

$200/12= $16.66 per month

So: everyone has $16.60 a month siphoned off their Medicaid contribution amount to fund the emergency only, small insurance pool. Even with the most liberal estimates we only need $16.66 a month to make it work. This covers almost all emergencies, which are part of the massive cost of health care already. And we could have a guideline of "the 5% rule" where it's recommended to put 5% of income into the healthcare accounts, which is way less than the percentage of premiums that we currently pay. My percentage of income I pay to just premiums right now is over 15%, and that doesn't even cover actual healthcare costs if I see a doctor. If I did a 5% plan plus $16.66 a month for the emergency insurance pool, I would pay around $116.66 a month. And most of that is actual money going into an account that I can use on health care when I need it.

And the best part is there is a built in incentive to not overuse health care, because if you have leftover money in your healthcare account you get to get it back in a check as a bonus you pay to yourself a time the end of the year, for being healthy. It's already your money after all.

Eventually health care costs would also go down a lot just by market freedom, and in addition Trump can make some deals with health systems and pharma to get them to reduce costs even more.

Clinton liberal apologists doubling down now, at an ego-massaging orgy media event talking about politics (surprisingly the only guests seem to be either media people or bankers): "The media cares a lot about truth and accuracy, whereas it seems the American people don't so much."

I almost fell out of my seat when I heard that.

Edit: yeah, he said it with a straight face. Not even a glimmer of sarcasm.

Dude, that's really great of you to calculate. Trump might simply shrug and say "tell me why we don't want this otherwise we'll do it" and cause some first changes if you put it in this box of his.

I'm sure he didn't set this box up for nothing.

https://apply.ptt.gov/yourstory/

The other USA medical problem is the lack of MD general practioners, nurses who are less educated are taking over for the non-existent MDs. Every doctor now and days becomes a specialist of this or that to rake in the big bucks. Also medical malpractice insurance is exorbitant for the MDs.

What an exquisite meme.

Thanks. It's fun making these.

I disagree with Trump on this flag burning issue. I understand the sentiment behind what he said, but flag burning (or stepping on a flag) is free speech, which as a value and legal principle is more important than a right to have a flag respected. Of course if you're in the military it's probably a different story, I think laws against disrespecting the flag when you're in uniform or active duty probably make sense.

I think it's a good threat now, as having your flag burned regularly does really derange the soul of a nation. I don't think destroying national symbols is the same as free speech, but I can see your point.

By the way, I posted your healthcare solution on reddit yesterday, it shot up on upvotes, until, as usual, the Clinton goons got wind and massally started downvoting. This happens invariably with potent pro Trump content. They shoot up to double digits upvotes in minutes, and end up at maybe 8.

Safe to say that it has been read.

Yes, this is great!

http://www.corriere.it/esteri/16_dicembre_03/xi-jinping-preoccupato-trump-chiede-consiglio-dottor-kissinger-cc7ef8a4-b92f-11e6-84ac-326d98302b0e.shtml

Italian paper (best press journalists in the world!) mentions Chinas leader Xi Jinping is worried about Trumps endorsement of Taiwan as an independent country, and asks Kissinger for advice!

Now it's clear. They are totally clueless. Theyve been utterly harmless all this time. Their cardhouse is shaking, and crying to the only living American that ever talked to them, Kissinger, is the only thing they can think of to do.

Fuck "A"="A"; Hegemon = Hegemon.

Good to know. With regard to the healthcare post being read I mean.

Fixed Cross wrote:

I think it's a good threat now, as having your flag burned regularly does really derange the soul of a nation. I don't think destroying national symbols is the same as free speech, but I can see your point.

Yes this is true, however the value of free speech is or ought to be as near absolute as any value. Offensive or deranged speech simply must be protected, legally speaking, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't argue against that speech or denounce it.

Some of the media fever is going down as Trump does more things.

Breitbart wrote:

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks commented on President-Elect Donald Trump’s Defense, Health and Human Services, Treasury, and Transportation Secretary picks by saying Trump is “exceeding expectations.”"]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSjHZsw4v6o

Quote :

Brooks said, “I have to say, he’s exceeding expectations. Sometimes, during the campaign, he seemed to be actively trying to misgovern. And here he seems to be trying to have an effective administration. They’re not all my — the people I would pick, but he won the election. Some of them are not only good for Trump, but genuinely good picks.”

Quote :

Yes this is true, however the value of free speech is or ought to be as near absolute as any value. Offensive or deranged speech simply must be protected, legally speaking, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't argue against that speech or denounce it.

In a sense yes, but freedom is speech is lacking in an era where anything against corporate interests can be labeled "hate crime", and where peaceful protesters against oil pipelines get shot by law enforcement.

I'd first abolish these fascistic categories from the law, and then flag burning, which is evidently a "hate act", can be tolerated as well.

Agreed. The right to peaceful protest is absolutely sacrosanct. And corporate rights of personhood are absolutely insane.

Now Bernie Sanders is saying Trump was "duped" by the Carrier deal, haha. I suspected he was just a plant to help the DFL and Clinton, now I'm proven right. Of course he endorsed her, right after calling her (accurately) a corporate sellout with fake liberal values (in so many words).

Sanders says Carrier uses Trump to get special tax breaks. Yeah, that's the whole fucking point of negotiating, you give the other side something they value in exchange for what you want. Fuck Sanders, he has probably never negotiated or achieved anything significant in his whole life. Being a politician doesn't really count as achieving anything unless you actually... achieve something doing it.

Sanders is mad that Trump just saved a ton of jobs and set a precedent that he will work individually with companies to help them keep jobs in the US? Hypocritically Sanders is saying Trump should have been harder on Carrier, but we don't even know the specifics of the deal yet. And it's only the beginning anyway. Seriously, fuck Sanders for this, and fuck Jill Stein for only recounting Trump's states and not Hillary's.