Michael Moore & the documentary

[Gurdur]

It's true, period.

Nonsense.
I pointed out to you the spirit of your claim is untrue; true to the letter but not the spirit. Go back and read my post.

And you make it sound as if they're being forced into the military.

What TOTAL utter nonsense, luchog. How on Earth did you dream that up?

Where am I supposed by ANY stretch of the imagination to have implied at all that they are "forced" into the military?
______

Oh, and BTW, while we're on the subject of crap claims of yours, I'm STILL waiting for you to clear up the inconsistancies in your little anecdote about your CAT scan / appendix; you just haven't answered the questions, and you contradicted your own story.

 

[luchog]

You stated that you don;t see anything wrong with offering citizenship to illegal aliens in exchange for service. I answered that I think that this is a step in the wrong direction, towards the society I described above. Re-read my post, then try again.

I understood your post just fine. You clearly did not bother to do more than skim any of mine, or read any of the articles or sources referenced.

And nowhere did I even remotely claim that I dont' see anything wrong with offering citizenship to illegal aliens in exchange for military service. Quite the opposite in fact. However, I don't see anything wrong with fast-tracking legal resident aliens, who are serving in the military, for citizenship.

I think at core in our dispute is a diametrically opposed view of military service. You, and many others here, appear to see it as something negative, possibly even detrimental. While I could understand that point of view for a conscription-based system; I strongly disagree with it for a purely voluntary system. In my view, military service is something worthwhile, honourable, possibly even noble. And while I don't necessarily take the Heinleinian view of military service as a requirement for citizenship, I do see those who serve in the military or other, similar public service, as contributing more to this country than those who just sit back and denigrate them out of one side of their mouths, while demanding all the rights and privileges of citizenship out of the other.

In any case, as I've already demonstrated quite clearly, the US military is not overswhelmed with poor people and illegal aliens. The military demographic is a fairly accurate representation of American culture in general. Your scenario is fearmongering unsupported by any identifiable trends or tendencies.

You have no idea where the Cuban inhaler was made, yet you stated as fact that it was different. It could easily have been made in the same place.

No. Is English not your first language? I stated as fact that it was very likely different, because Cuba, like much of Latin America and other developing regions, is well known to have lower standards of pharmeceutical manufacturing quality control than the US or western Europe; and is also well-known as a major source of counterfeit drugs. Since they have their own well-established pharmeceutical manufacturing industry, it's not even remotely a stretch to assume it was manufactured there. Do you have evidence otherwise?

I strongly recommend that you pick up a dictionary and look up the word "likely". I also recommend actually reading the information I provided that substantiates my claim, as it is quite clear that you haven't. Particularly since you haven't provided a single scrap of information that substantiates yours. But then, I don't expect that you will.

And I noticed that you didn't even bother acknowledge, let alone address, the issue of the unrealistically dramatic difference in cost that you claimed. Care to elaborate on how that could be possible?

 

[luchog]

That is a crap claim; the fact is, that in the USA medical care for anything not officially deemed an emergency IS often denied those with no insurance and no means to pay for it otherwise.

It's illegal to do so in my state, and in many others. Do you have actual statistics? Or just a vague claim based on other vague claims?

BTW, luchog, I'm still waiting for you to clear up the contradictions in your own story about receiving CAT scan diagnosis treatment.

As soon as you point out what the supposed contradiction is, which you haven't done. Nor have you answered my question regarding diagnostic CAT scan prevalence in socialize medical systems like Canada or the UK. You certainly don't seem terribly disposed to answering questions, yet continue to demand that others do.

Oh, and just FYI, some of us actually work for a living, we don't spend our entire waking lives online. I respond when I have sufficient break time; which varies day to day.

And just to illustrate the crappiness of that claim of yours, luchog, consider the following story:
Poor Kids Without Dental Insurance Can Suffer Deadly Consequences
Dentists Often Won't Accept Medicaid Because of Low Reimbursement Rates

One single anecdote does not a trend make. Yes, it can be difficult for those on public assistance who live in small communities. My fiance has been on Medicaid, lives in a larger community (moderate-sized city), and had no problem finding dental care. The local DSHS office should have information available on which doctors and dentists accept Medicaid/Medicare funding. As I previously stated, I spent time on assistance as well, so I know better than nearly everyone ranting here how the system works, through personal experience.

Sometimes people fall through the cracks. It's unfortunate, but a fact of life. Even in a socialized system, people fall through the cracks. You can find stories like that anywhere, if you look. Check the UK Child Dental Health Survey, for example. Or NRCAn's Dental Services Utilization report.

As for the numbers quoted in the article, no support is provided. Nor is there any info given on the number of families who have attempted to obtain care through assistance programs, versus the number who simply assumed that they couldn't, and didn't make the effort. Nowhere did I claim that our system is perfect, or even the best. It has flaws, some of them very serious But some people greatly exaggerate the flaws in the US's system, while greatly minimizing the flaws in other systems the want to consider superior.

There are trade-offs in every kind of system, and there's no free lunch, regardless of what system you choose.

 

[jimtron]

Here's a short article that makes some good points about reactions to Moore's work:

Michael Moore elicits a very specific type of status anxiety in mainstream journalists. Moore's product -- passionate, provocative political commentary -- is a close cousin of the media's product -- bloodless, boring political commentary. And Moore is a former journalist, an editor at papers in Flint, Michigan and Mother Jones. What he does is, broadly speaking, in the same realm as what they do. But there are differences between the product he puts out, and what the media offers. A major one is that Moore's releases strike massive emotional chords with the American people, setting off weeks of heated discussion every time he unveils a film. Additionally, he is paid in the tens of million for the production of his documentaries and invited to Cannes when they're released. Nice as the occasional invitation to the White House Correspondents Dinner may be, the two just don't compare.

So there's an acute desire on the part of the press to separate what Moore does from what they do, both in order to explain away his successes and to underscore their own assumed strengths (objectivity, rationality, etc). His failings may be manifold, but that hardly renders him unique. His treatment, however, is unique. The world is full of political provocateurs and public hotheads, but only Moore triggers the media's all-too-absent obsession with factual accuracy. Ann Coulter doesn't, and Al Franken doesn't, and Rush Limbaugh doesn't, and Mitt Romney doesn't. Only Moore. Because he scares them.
Here's a radical thought, though: Maybe if these mainstream media types were as incredulous towards the powerful as they are to Moore, his productions wouldn't pose a threat. After all, there's nothing wrong with fact-checking, and asking hard questions, and raising an oppositional eyebrow towards pabulum and propaganda. The problem isn't that the media is so quick to doubt Moore. It's that they're so trusting the rest of the time. (excerpt from Ezra Klein article from American Prospect. Emphasis added)

I found the comments below the article to be interesting as well.