Being healthy doesn't make you any less ignorant.

EDIT: Good for you. Make no mistake, I'm extremely thankful that there are people who pay for my existence. It's not like I never try - and I spent 2 months living inside a tarp before I accepted any assistance whatsoever. My feet look like a mummies feet because they were mostly wet without any change in socks or boots that whole time.

It's funny because I'm not trying to be mean here at all and I'm pretty sure you are.

EDIT: Ok, let's end this feud. We'll each post nice drawings of each other. I'll go first.

{"name":"607759","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/0\/00a75de88f892897c750fee468aef700.png","w":675,"h":1212,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/0\/00a75de88f892897c750fee468aef700"}

It's already been established by the majority here that's you're ignorant (and an old crank, I added that part for fun - you should try fun sometime) I think I'll trust my own judgement over yours but thanks anyway!

Append: And did you just quote yourself in your sig?

Yes, do.

Is it enough to cover the overhead and bureaucracy of getting it to you? Suppose they paid you directly and were able to deduct it?

If I tell my sob stories the responses imply I'm lying anyway, so I'll stop altogether. You guys know computers more than most, but it doesn't seem to make you smart in other ways.

I think I have this figured out.

Arthur will never accept there are more honest people than deadbeats. Probably some bad experience in his life that got him this irrational belief. I highly recommend Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature. But beware, its actually scientific!

Why he believes Trent is said deadbeat? Because he doesn't accept depression as fact, and because of that Trent can only be lying and mooching.

Or maybe this was already known? I dunno if I made a discovery or not...

I avoided this thread subconsciously because of the title. It wasn't until I was told this is where the Arthur beating was going on that I decided to open it and read it from the beginning (I'm getting "too old" for that).

Maybe it looks rosy from Luxembourg, but as a Canadian citizen let me humbly point out that the Canadian health care system is not one to model yours after. Our system is badly broken in most of the country. Waiting isn't a possibility. It's a guarantee until you're dying. In other words, you don't have that kind of time, don't bother going to the hospital. The politicians take their families to private health care facilities (which I think says it all; perhaps they should prohibit this to force them to fix things). Basically there is a massive shortage of doctors in Ontario (probably nation-wide) so the emergency rooms are packed with non-emergency cases (since those people have nowhere else to go).

I don't make a habit of going to the hospital, but a couple of years ago my dentist told me that there was swelling in my throat and that I should have it looked at by a doctor. I don't have a doctor! Anyway, I let it go for about a week, but I was noticing symptoms too and decided to go to the emergency room (for like the first time in 7 years) to get it looked at. I waited 5 1/2 hours, after which I saw a doctor for all of 45 seconds (I'm not exaggerating). He diagnosed me on the spot and threw me out. I can't really blame him. I'm sure it's infuriating getting walk-in cases like that that are probably usually "run its course" type of things. Nevertheless, for most Canadians, we have nowhere else to go.

I wanted to also ask for a referral to a psychiatrist or psychologist, but honestly didn't feel comfortable doing so. There was basically no privacy. I digress...

Append: For a more real situation, my grandmother has bad knees and basically cannot walk. She has been waiting years for surgery on them, but they just keep rescheduling her. I guess if they wait long enough she'll pass and they won't have to do the surgery.

From the sounds of it European nations seem to have accomplished public health care worth modelling, but trust me when I say that Canada has not.

+1, William, you are awesome.

Honestly, the US should definitely prohibit smoking indoors, including in vehicles or residences where minors coexist. For all intents and purposes, it is an assault on other people to pollute their oxygen supply.

I found this picture quite amusing.

Whoa, temporal anomaly! Everybody just chill the fuck out.

I think you're selling yourself a little short here.

Anyway, I mostly came in this thread to defend poor Arthur because it seems the whole damn community is ganging up on him and for no good reason. The USA is NOT Britain or Australia or whatever country you're from where public health care works. It would not work overnight. There would be far too much resistance to let it work. Half of the country wants it to fail just to say, "I told you so!" It's doomed until the population can be enlightened to not see "socialism" as the enemy. By definition they have to work together for the system to work. That sort of goes against everything they're taught.

Even so, it's doomed until the government is refactored to deter exploitation of power. Canada is currently in bad shape too. Our government is fucking insane right now and Canadian citizens are taking it sitting down. Basically the system needs the right auditing in place to see where and why money is flowing through it, and you need a transparent system that is peer-based to prevent it from being exploited. There needs to be redundancies. If you can buy off one person and exploit the system then it's doomed. The best thing would be for all financial records to become publicly available automatically and irrevocably.

I think that Arthur makes valid points. I personally think that our governments in Canada and the USA are crooked as Hell right now, and I'm afraid for the future because I can't see any way to rein them in. In particular when the majority of the population just accepts it and ignores it. There are bigger fish to fry, I suppose.

I will say this: Americans are far too goddamn obsessed with "liberal" or "conservative". Wipe those terms from your vocabulary. They don't mean fucking anything useful. It's just propaganda and brand loyalty. I don't know how the US system works, but you shouldn't be voting for either party. Personally, I see awesome work being done by the Green Party of Canada. More Canadians need to familiarize themselves with the Greens and all the good stuff that they're trying to do for Canada and tell all of those crooked major party assholes to go fuck a goat.

As for the OP, I'm disappointed that we didn't take the opportunity to make jokes about a guy with massive cojones.

Where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah! The US education system! We all know how well that worked out!

It's the same old story, give somebody responsibility for something and they'll eventually slack off, if nobody is watching them. But who watches the watchmen? More money just means more opportunity for waste unless the Big Boss is watching closely, and for government programs the Big Boss is the public, but an unhealthy percentage of citizens are too lazy to do so. They just want to sit back and enjoy the benefits. Check out the nomenklatura and productivity of workers in the USSR.

Well, in "true" communism (like the communes the beatniks had back in the '60's) there weren't so many people that they couldn't help but notice who wasn't contributing. Once it gets past a certain size, there will always be people willing to sit back and take it easy. Hence, taking care of your own via extended families etc., everybody will know who the goldbricks are. Insurance for the big things, and people have to research who the dishonest insurance companies are. And doctors who have to actually compete on price.

Why not? Because of the government interference?