Normally, I would say "don't feed the trolls."  If I ran NBC's Meet the Press, I wouldn't put a Holocaust denier or a young-earth Creationist leader on the show unless I was sure I had a hardball interviewer who wouldn't let them get away with bullshit.  But there's a problem in that the BBC is government-run, and democratic governments don't have the same right to exclude annoying people that private entities do.  If this guy's the leader of a party with a million voters and an MEP, the BBC should let him speak and trust that the marketplace of ideas will laugh his merchandise off the floor.

What you guys have said made sense, there was just a big uproar about it. Also, I read in one of the papers that when a guy from a similar sort of party in France made an appearance on a similar sort of show, support apparently doubled for his party. (This paper was one of the low-rent tabloids, but still).
DerJakob, I was unaware that this was going on in Germany That does indeed sound like an awakward situation. On the other hand, those laws exist for a reason, and on a personal level, even though this kind of contradicts the idea of free speech for everyone, I just think that if they're going to be espousing racial hatred and 'neo nazi rhetoric', it's probably better that the public don't hear from them. :/
Maybe that's imposing my moral values on someonelse, but it's just the way I feel about it.

Don't know much about the guy but the anti-Islamic stance is hardly surprising with the way things are over there.  The thing about Germany surprises me.

In my personal but not-so-humbly held viewpoint, as much as something may bother me, I think everyone should have the same opportunities to voice their thoughts as long as they are not harassing individuals and are not doing anything to promote or engage in physical violence or intended violence against people's minds.  Of course, I realize those can be loosely interpreted. 

If someone is speaking in a way so contrary to your principles, then it is your and your politicians' responsibility to speak out what is important to them/you.  In principle, the censorship of ideas makes my skin crawl no matter who, really, is speaking.  Of course, I am one who was grouped up with 'people who shouldn't speak' in my past so I am sympathetic to even people I cannot stand to agree with.

Psssh, I didn't vote today.






I totally voted a few weeks ago.

I didn't vote either. There's a mayoral election(which has the demographics of a Benetton ad), a few city council spots, and another spot in the city government. There's also some state amendments, but I think 3 or 4 of them are about property taxes, and they don't really even apply to the people in my family who pay them.

So....meh.

My sympathies and sadness go out to Naji, who lives in Maine. So sorry your fellow Maine-ians aren't much more enlightened than my fellow Kansans.

Here's one for you.  The Supreme Court (in a 5-4 decision, naturally) just made campaign finance reform illegal.  More precisely, they ruled that portions of the McCain-Feingold reform law that prohibit corporations from sponsoring electioneering in the days before an election are unconstitutional.  In English: before, corporations couldn't pay for ads that supported or opposed a particular candidate; now, they can.  The court's reasoning is that the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech (including political speech) and freedom of association (including business association), means that you can't make laws that prohibit associations (like corporations) from speaking, pretty much as loudly as they want.  The result is likely to be that presidential elections, which already cost $1.6 billion in 2008 (counting only what the candidates spent), are likely to become even more expensive as corporations fund lots of expensive ads leading up to elections, and that money is likely to become even more relevant to the viability of a political candidate.  (If your opponent has the backing of many large companies that are sponsoring his ads, and you don't have such backing, it takes a lot of private fundraising to make yourself heard.) 

Common sense suggests that the decision is also likely to influence future decisions that might overturn laws involving donation limits.  Individuals are currently not allowed to donate more than $2,400 to a political candidate per election, but if that money is used to fund a speech activity, like an advertisement or a public appearance by the candidate, this decision seems to set a precedent that political donations cannot be regulated.  This would mean that rich people can be heard much, much more clearly than relatively poor people in an election, though in the end they each still only get one vote.  It also suggests that candidates, even more than they already do, should cater to businesses and rich people when they campaign.

The four-justice minority, which is who you would expect it to be (the liberal wing of the court -- Stevens, Sotomayor, Ginsburg, Breyer), said that corporate speech is not subject to the same protections as individual speech.  Details are still being released about their reasoning.

To me this is a tough decision to evaluate.  I believe in freedom of speech and in freedom of association.  I think it's a little questionable for business associations to engage in political speech, but if pressed I guess I would admit that under the First Amendment they should be able to, and I guess I don't see where the government can keep individuals from donating more than $X to a campaign, either.  Yet money talks pretty loudly in politics, and there's simply no question that a candidate who spends a lot more money (or gets a lot more money spent on his behalf) than his opponent will usually win an election, all else being equal.  This seems to me like a fair Supreme Court decision whose result will be unfair.  It seems like we have a valid interest in regulating the part money can play in politics, yet the Constitution may not allow us to carry out that regulation.  What can we do? 

Last edited by satyreyes (01-21-2010 11:00:49 AM)

Can someone politically in the know help me, in an unbiased way, understand this health bill thing? All I have heard is trashtalking recently, and I'm kind of tired of not knowing why people are so up in arms about it. I'd go looking on my own, but I'm kind of scared of what I'd find.

I think that the biggest problem people are having is the fact that it is forcing people to purchase insurance. You will get penalized for not having insurance. Some people believe that it isn't free choice when you force people to pay for insurance. I can understand that... being broke-as-a-joke before, i can't imagine having to pay for an extra cost when it isn't something i need immediately; granted, i am taking a risk fo getting sick and having to pay more; but the fact that i can't choose when i want to purchase insurance is going to hurt people who can't afford it.

I'm thankful enough that my company pays for my health insurance, but they don't pay for eye and dental... Prior to this job i couldn't afford insurance; Hell ic ouldn't afford putting food on my table... i worked as a self employed person last year and i have to pay crazy taxes that i can barely afford on their own. I can't imagine someone whom is self employed and forced to open an insurance policy when they aren't ready...

i dunno... just my 2 cents...

But, i don't argue in politics because i get too upset so i just will say a piece here and there and let it go..

just a perspective for you.

KissFromARose wrote:

I think that the biggest problem people are having is the fact that it is forcing people to purchase insurance. You will get penalized for not having insurance. Some people believe that it isn't free choice when you force people to pay for insurance.

But not until 2014 when the exchanges are set up, as I understand it.  So it's not like after it's signed into law tomorrow that you'll get a letter in the mail on Wednesday asking you to pay up if you don't have insurance.

On that note, I heard on Keith Olbermann's show tonight that the penalty for not having insurance has been struck from the bill... in other words there will be no penalty.  I haven't heard anything other than that on that particular subject yet, though, but I'm sure satyr will offer his insight when he sees this discussion.

At any rate, the first set of "fixes" to the initial bill (such as eliminating the deals made with certain states like Nebraska and Florida) are expected to be voted on in the Senate next weekend, as they already passed the House last night after the initial bill was passed.

Rachel Maddow does a good job summarizing, except for leaving out the individual mandate.

Aine Silveria wrote:

Thanks, IBB, that did help quite a bit, but now I'm very concerned by what Kiss is saying. So, this is effectively making it so it's illegal to not have insurance? I had better have a job by then, or not be out of work again, but if those situations apply, would I be fined something crazy for not being able to afford insurance? That doesn't seem right, and if it is the case, I can start to see the problems people are having with it.

It's not quite as bad as that.  The straight dope on the individual mandate:

- In general, if you live in America, you will be required to carry health insurance.  If you do not carry health insurance, you'll pay a fine that will start (in 2014) at around $90, and eventually rise to $750.
- Important exception: You do not have to carry health insurance if the cheapest policy costs more than 8% of your monthly income.  You also do not pay the fine if for any reason you cannot find health insurance at all.
- Furthermore, if you make less than about $40,000 and your insurance bill is more than a certain percentage of your monthly income (between 5% and 9%, more or less), the federal government will pay the excess.  These are the "subsidies" you may have heard about.  As a result, people who are poor, elderly, sick, or out of work -- that is, people whose bills are often higher than they can afford to pay -- will have less trouble affording insurance.  People who are even poorer can enroll in Medicaid, which is being expanded.  The "cap" on how much of your insurance bill you have to pay depends on how much you make.  You can find a calculator here!  (Quick and sort of fun.)

IBB wrote:

On that note, I heard on Keith Olbermann's show tonight that the penalty for not having insurance has been struck from the bill... in other words there will be no penalty.  I haven't heard anything other than that on that particular subject yet, though, but I'm sure satyr will offer his insight when he sees this discussion.

I haven't heard anything about that, but it could be.  Certainly Republicans plan to bring legal challenges before the Supreme Court about the constitutionality of the individual mandate, but I'm pretty sure it hasn't been removed legislatively.

Edited to fix some numbers.  Apologies to anyone confused!

Last edited by satyreyes (03-22-2010 08:32:06 PM)

I'm happy about the subsidy because I don't really see myself making $40,000/year in my lifetime unless it gets adjusted for inflation.

As for the Medicaid expansion, I'm hoping it'll get expanded to childless households because Texas will not let me have full benefits due to being child-free. Because clearly, single people can afford $200/month insurance.

Prince, I read an interesting article the other day on FiveThirtyEight on a related subject; you can read it here.  It turns out that half of all voters feel the same way you do: if there were a proposal on the ballot to fire every member of Congress and start from scratch, they'd do it.  The article goes on to argue that this would actually be a bad idea, since new Congressmen who don't know how things work are more likely to be influenced by lobbyists from powerful groups.  Empirical evidence backs this up.  Congress was built by the Framers to move slowly; it'd take something even more drastic than kicking individual politicians to the curb en masse to effect revolutionary change!