Trump University

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Kizmet, Sep 15, 2015.

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  1. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

  2. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    For that, there's this.
     
  3. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Only 1077 more days! Oh gee - thanks, Steve.
    Hello, Mr. Mueller? ....
     
  4. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    What, you want Pence in power? No thanks.
     
  5. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Nope - and not Paul Ryan either. But I'm Canadian, so I don't get to decide. I'd settle for a wall and getting whoever is on the US side to pay for it...
    You keep your guns there - and we'll keep our single-payer universal health care here. It saved my ass - well, my heart, actually.
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2018
  6. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Yes yes, zero Canadians have guns, and zero Americans have health care. That's not even slightly tiresome....
     
  7. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    Seven more years, Johann.

    You will just have to stop living vicariously through us and make do with your own own government up there in frozen Ottawa: It's just as disfunctional as ours and it can even get hot on occasion. (And some of them even wear silly costumes, just look at your Speaker in Commons!) Just think, you could build giant heating pipes and send all the Parliamentary hot-air currently being wasted to the other provinces during the winter! Except it would violate all your global warming agreements and might melt all your hockey rinks. (Now that's serious!)
     
  8. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Yes, yes, because reading "universal single payer healthcare system" is so much more tiresome. You don't have to stop reading if your President doesn't.
     
  9. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Shockingly, no it isn't. Liberals at times look like fulfillment of all the negative stereotypes about Democrats (just look at the trust fund baby PM), and yet STILL not as fumbled up as all-Republican government in Washington right about now. Thing to behold.
    And, oh, Parliamentary hot air is a renewable energy source. Fossil fuel crisis, solved.
     
  10. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    This is your one of your stock retorts, Steve - you trot out something of the sort whenever I say anything good (which I usually do) about Canada. Trouble is, what I say is (usually) true, whether you like it or not.

    (1) From the Globe and Mail: "The estimated number of firearms (legal and illegal) in the hands of civilian owners in Canada is about 10 million, about 31 guns per 100 people. The United States has far more guns: about 310 million, almost one gun a person." Gun homicide rates are a fraction of what they are in the US, as well. Go figure!

    (2) Health care - I said single payer. You don't have that. Instead you have a predatory system run by private insurance companies. Here, patients leave the hospital after major surgery owing the hospital and doctors NOTHING. No deductibles, exclusions, $18 aspirins, yada yada. I know, because I've DONE it. Didn't even have to stop at the billing office. Same as years ago, when my kids were born.

    What system you have where you live? Consider the following examples:

    (1) One forum member mentioned that health insurance is costing $900 a month for his family. And the guy's a VETERAN, ffs! Served his country - and THIS is his reward? To have to pay $900 for health insurance?

    (2) I read of an American in his 70s, who had established a successful part-time business. Good thing he did - his entire earnings from it - $1100 a month, went to pay for his health insurance. OML! That's a ridiculous burden.

    (3) Some sage here at DI waggled his finger and said the cost of providing health insurance to each Canadian was something like $10,000 - $12,000 annually. I forget the exact figure. I looked it up - the truth is, it's closer to $6,000 and I figure that's money well spent. I don't have an appetite for living dangerously - I don't even want to think about the cost of NOT providing this kind of health care!

    You just don't like me saying good things about Canada, do you? I remember once I quoted some lines from "I am Canadian" and you thought it was "too nationalistic." It's a BEER COMMERCIAL, for goodness sakes! Did you know that? Besides, it seems Americans can be as nationalistic as they want; they can ballyhoo and vaunt what they see as the essential goodness of American life - without hindrance, let or censure. Well, dammit - we also have free speech here - except for what I think are our excellent provisions against hate speech - so I'll be as nationalistic as I want. Funny thing. When I say stuff about Canada, it's "nationalistic." When Americans do it about their country, it's "patriotic." Hmmm...

    I'm not our leader's greatest fan - but I prefer him vastly to the Very Stable Genius at the helm where you live. Oh, well, now the Dow Jones has lost a couple of thousand points, maybe that'll temporarily shut down the Great Gasbag (as Joy Behar refers to him). Have a nice day. Covfefe.
     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2018
    Abner likes this.
  11. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    You know, I am about the least patriotic Canadian there is. Our Southern neighbours do so many things better than we did. What they do NOT do better is the HEALTHCARE SYSTEM. That's just fact. Canadian slow, overpriced and inefficient healthcare system still manages to provide greater service to more people at less cost that the garbled mess in US.
    Also, immigration. A lot of wrong with it in Canada. Yet, a model of sanity, comparatively. Accepting more than twice immigrants as a fraction of population than US, too. (To be fair, immigration is often the most broken part of government, and US one is not the worst. My cousin is in UK, has a PhD in roughly English Lit, married to a Brit, and is chasing that permanent permission to stay for years. Bloody mess.)
     
  12. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Perhaps expressions of Canadian pride would come across as less smug if they didn't all seem to rely on comparisons with perceived shortcomings of the U.S.?

    Some of my favorite trips have been to Canada, including Quebec City, CBI (where my grandmother was raised!), and most recently Vancouver, a beautiful city which I revisited last year after a twenty year absence. So you all are right that Canada is a pretty great place, it's just that there's no reason it can't be described as such without putting your neighbor down.
     
    heirophant likes this.
  13. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator


    Steve, I think that perhaps our northern cousins are a little bit high on the fact that the Winter Olympics have just started. I'm told they feel they have a great opportunity to medal in the snow shoveling events.
    :emoji_snowflake::emoji_snowflake::emoji_snowflake:
     
  14. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

  15. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    When I was in Spain, I caught a cold! I went to a doctor over there. Afterwards, I took my wallet to pay, and they said "No, you don't owe anything". I was dumbfounded. I wish America had that system in place (single payer).
     
  16. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    I visited Vancouver in 2016 on a family trip (utilizing discounted train tickets for newly naturalized Canadians). We used our new passports to cross over to Seattle on the same trip; frankly, I liked Seattle better. Vancouver is pretty and has better weather, but does not live up to its incessant hype.

    Having said that, I have greatly enjoyed the security a single-payer health insurance system provides; it is objectively better that the mess you guys have down south. Try it sometime. And in the name of everything holy, elect someone better next time. Normally, American President is more impressive then a Canadian PM; it's unsettling that the current poster boy in Ottawa compares favourably to Trump.
     
  17. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    It's like you wanted to prove my point.
     
  18. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Hehehe. You are not wrong; I realise that parts of what I write sound like standard issue Canadian jingoism (and it is always but ALWAYS at the expense of the Americans). I'm just saying that I am not comfortable in this position. I recognise that there are aspects US is and will always be ahead of Canada, as much as a typical Canadian loathes to admit it. Heck, non-trad higher education is one. Also, Canadian supposed liberal superiority is mostly smoke and mirrors: I had a colleague crowing on how Canadian Charter of Rights is so much better than the Bill of Rights, forgetting that Canada was late to the party by 150 years and that an average American cares way more deeply about the Bill than any Canuck about the Charter. And if you want to make fun of our money, our crappy mobile plans, our beer, Tim Hortons' coffee, or the Leafs - go right ahead. However, it won't make American healthcare system mess any less messy, or Trump any less trumpy. Both of these things are eminently fixable, BTW.
     
  19. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Perhaps your cousin is having trouble with the "extreme vetting" phase of British immigration - the part where you have to:

    (1) Bowl a Googly and bat a Century (cricket)
    (2) Blindfold taste-test 9 brands each of 'mild' and 'bitter'
    (3) Write a 25,000 word history of Manchester United - and a 50-year summary of "Coronation Street"
    (4) Prepare your choice of Yorkshire Pud', Bangers & Mash or 'Sausage Toad' to the judges' satisfaction.

    Note: I can say this if I want. I'm a Brit. My passport says so. So there.
     
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2018
  20. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Right - even without snow-shoveling, we're doing OK. Third, so far. We should be good at this - we're a winter-oriented country. I'm thinking of competing myself, in the Geriatric Division: "running for a bus on a frozen sidewalk." Or "racing to Tim Hortons over an icy parking lot." Probably both.

    Results here: https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/other-sports/athletics/medal-table-winter-olympics-2018-12011763
     

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