The thing you have to understand about xeno syndicated is that he's a child with literally no understanding of anything that's ever happened outside of his own front door.

"He could shove to make them more popular...but being a leader of a group is not the Ron Paul brand..."

That Republicrats like you want more government and more promises financed on the backs our children is not an argument against Rep. Paul. Try harder. That half of this country supports socialists is not an argument against Rep. Paul. Try harder.

"You don't want Ron Paul building cooperation with the warmongers and bedroom police."

So what? They're not willing to cooperate, so whether he should or should not give in to unconstitutional practices is a moot point.

"You said I couldn't find one example of a guy more conservative than Ron Paul.
I found one, Tom Tancredo who personally asked for $475,000 for his district compared to Ron Paul's $17 million."

I'm going to be very frank here, because this is very stupid.

You're being a dipshit. I've explained that $1 trillion is more than $17 million, but this is over your head. I've explained repeatedly how Paul is far, far, far more fiscally conservative than Tancredo. It's beyond debate. It's a fact. If you want to pretend to be too stupid to understand basic math, that's on you. But literally anybody reading this thread already knows why Tancredo is not more fiscally conservative than Paul and you're just embarrassing yourself.

"I then personally called for $3.5 trillion in annual cuts, demonstrating that I, not Ron Paul, am most serious about deficit reduction.  Do the math: I've called for more than 3x the cuts as Ron Paul.  The fact that neither I nor Ron Paul am seriously working towards that goal, you have said, is irrelevant to the luster we earn by calling for it."

And I was kind enough to grace this juvenile nonsense with a response and I even went so far as to name the fallacy which you were spamming me with.

Give me a break. Maybe you are this juvenile and childish as to spam me with such fallacious and already-responded-to nonsense, but I would hope that you had the better judgement to realize this and not waste a minute of my time with it.

Try harder. You're boring me.

" I don't feel like I have ignored your arguments, they have just been difficult to find. Up until this last post, which is much more interesting, your previous posts said little more than "you're wrong and you're a retard" multiple times. There was no logic and no actual points in them."

This is the sort of drivel I mock you for. Most of the time it's obvious my points were over your head--You didn't even understand my statements, clear as they were. And it's always very obvious--Unless, again, the points are over your head. Repeatedly you question my tone and supposed lack of arguments, but you cherry-pick what you respond to, and even then tend to respond to straw-man arguments, not what I posted. Here you are questioning my maturity and articulateness, but you don't even understand the simple language I use to make simple points.

"Even if only providing health cover as a safety net for the poor the government, as a consumer, has to choose which medical treatments to fund and which not to."

The government provides the funds, the consumer is the consumer. They can choose any private healthcare they like. The free market provides the best that that level of funding can provide. This is invariably more than government bureaucrats can provide in state-run healthcare systems.

"This is a problem faced by the state whether it is providing the care or purchasing the care, it is not a matter of private vs public health care."

False. By leaving the choice of insurance provider to the consumer, the government has no part in it. All the government determines is the level of financial aid they provide the poor in purchasing insurance.

"I don't know exactly how it works but health care insurance providers must also have to make the same judgment when deciding which treatments they will fund and which they won't. I highlighted a system for making or guiding this decision, which you have dogmatically criticised but you have not backed any alternative."

Why am I even bothering? You have no idea what you're talking about. You have no idea how health insurance in a free market works. Consumers choose from insurers based on pricing and coverage. Consumers and the free market make this decision, with consumers getting more for their money than under any socialized system such as yours. Insurers don't choose what you get--You choose from insurance plans and choose which level of coverage you're willing to pay for from which insurers, who compete with each other for your business.

And you go on:
"It is not arrogant or immoral to say that infinite amounts of money can't be spent on treating patients."

You have NO idea how the free market benefits people. You have NO idea how healthcare is provided and made better by free markets. I'm not going to explain the free market and the principles which it operates under to provide more stuff and better stuff at better prices.

And you continue to miss the point and equivocate:
"When does someone stop being an expert and start being a bureaucrat? If an expert cardiologist assessed the effectiveness of a new treatment for a particular heart condition and made recommendations on its use as a result, would he/she then be a bureaucrat?"

If the people go to them for their expert opinion in the free market, they're an expert. If the government hires them to ration care, they're a bureaucrat.

"I do care about advances in medical science. I am in fact a scientist who works in a healthcare related field. "

If you're a scientist we're all [clucked].

" but this is multi-factored and actually depends a lot on the amount of money invested into academic bodies such as universities to make funds available for research and the fact is that the USA has the richest universities in the world funded in a large part by generous donations from alumni. To suggest that advances in medicine science are down to the system of private health care provision is disingenuous."

To suggest that capitalism rewarding results doesn't advance medicine is ridiculous.

Stop trolling. You can't be serious.

They value welfare more. They'll fold on gay marriage because Obama's still the welfare candidate. Maybe some will stay home.

I say we get legislation together immediately. When it explodes, we'll just blame the banks again.

? Paul argues federal regulations, subsidies, and excessive taxation have led to higher energy prices. He's against laws that impede energy production. That he hasn't sponsored Republicrat "drilling rights bills" doesn't change this position.

[TI] Sitting Duck,

If you want a legitimate response, make a legitimate post. Repeatedly ignoring what I posted and arguing against straw-men and bickering about red-herrings is either trolling or just stupid. Neither trolling nor stupid deserves respect, and I'm not going to pretend to respect either.

"I realised that you had said you supported safety nets for the poor but I believe you are contradicting yourself, which I challenged you on in the previous post but you still haven't rectified."

I told you that I support public funds providing healthcare--from the free market--for those with legitimate need. This is drastically different from government-provided care where government bureaucrats, not the free market, determine what care is available. My position is not complicated. If you repeatedly display that you have trouble understanding this simple position and think it's contradictory, that's your problem. Your willful ignorance does not deserve respect or a more civil response. You're either trolling or not interested in putting any thought into your response, and neither case deserves any sort of feigned respect or civility.

" My point was that whether the state pays for everybody or whether the state just pays for "the poor" however you want to define that is just a matter of degree, and you still require some method to decide who gets treated and how much you are willing to spend on them."

Let the free market decide, is my position. I've been clear on this. It results in better care for more people without hindering free market principles advancing medical science as a whole (ie, improvements in care over time). Catastrophic care is not that expensive, even with the government hindrances in the free market which I have outlined and are a significant problem, raising the price of healthcare. A safety-net for the poor can provide catastrophic coverage for all of those with legitimate need without anywhere near the costs of reductions in quality of government system which you support.

"I thought this was an interesting statement. Firstly, I didn't advocate using their age, I was advocating using the number of years by which life could be extended."

Which is intrinsically tied to age (not exclusively... duuuuhh), so my referencing age did not miss the point.

"I chose an 80 year old and a 20 year old because in most cases the 20 year old would have longer left to live beyond treatment than the 80 year old."

And I said I think you're an arrogant brat for thinking you can legitimately/morally/effectively create any system using such measures to make any judgements.

"I explained why I didn't think your example's cannabis or alcohol consumption should stop them being treated."

Seeing as alcoholism and 0 desire to work are both tied to shorter life expectancy and quality of life, they're inherently tied to your life-expectancy metric. I was just pointing out that what you propose would obviously take those things into account. Contradicting yourself and saying life expectancy and quality of life should NOT be taken into account in the cases of alcoholic deadbeats doesn't really matter.

"If you really think this is the case perhaps you should re-read your "responses" and critically assess whether you have really formulated an argument or whether you have just stated something with no supporting logic."

I generally just read what you post and rip it apart, then berate you for posting so thoughtlessly. People are reading what you post. You just keep repeating that you have this great idea. I criticize your idea and you just ignore my criticisms, repeating yourself as if I hadn't already responded to what you repeat. Nobody is impressed by you being impressed by you.

"This is not showing that the loss of freedom you claim exists by having to pay taxes to pay for healthcare (which you advocate doing anyway to pay for the poor), this is just stating an opinion as fact. Likening paying taxes to slavery is unfounded hyperbole."

The level of taxation you propose by a government-run healthcare system faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar exceeds what I support in government-provided funds for the legitimately poor. If you want citations for this simple fact, you're probably 12 and I'm happy with you thinking I haven't made a legitimate argument. Such a level of taxation inherently limits freedom, which I take issue with. Rather than justify such a loss of freedom, you're just pretending that magically subsidies for the poor require as much money as an entire government-run healthcare system. zzz

"No I'm not, I'm proposing that a group of experts make evidence based judgements on what is or isn't good value for money and what is or isn't affordable given the known size of the total pot of money available."

Yes, you are. Your "group of experts" is, as I said, "government bureaucrats." And them deciding what is a "good value" is them making decisions which the free market, ie the consumer, can make better than they can. Calling government bureaucrats "experts" is an appeal to authority; it doesn't negate the fact that you are, in fact, supporting taking away decisions from consumers in the free market in favor of government bureaucrats rationing care.

"it has to be related to concepts such as pain due to medical conditions rather than a judgement of the decisions the person has made in their life or whether they drink alcohol because that is completely objective"

Alcoholism has known medical effects, which were obviously what I was referencing in regard to quality of life and life expectancy.

"I am not proposing rationing of care, I am accepting that rationing of care is an inevitability because the healthcare budget is finite, and with that in mind I am advocating a method of rationing. I'm sure even your beloved health insurance companies must have some measure of value for money  when deciding what they will or won't pay out for."

But I'm a capitalist who isn't trying to deny the fact that capitalism and economic freedom benefit everybody. About 50 studies have been done on quality of life and economic freedom, and every single one of them has found a positive correlation. I'm arguing that the free market provides more for everybody than socialized care. In conjunction with this, I support subsidies for the legitimately needy within a capitalist system to give them access as well.

You could certainly legitimately dispute what level of care should rightly be subsidized under what I support (I'm not concerned if it doesn't cover nose and boob jobs), but this is beside the fact that what I support (capitalism, free markets, free people) provides better care for everybody and advances in the field of medicine as a whole. Amerika (again, as very flawed as its healthcare system is) makes far more advances in medicine than Cuba and North Korea and many broke-ass European countries combined. Advances in medical care are a good thing. I like them. You obviously don't care about them.

"Frankly I have no idea whether "high end healthcare" is better in the USA or UK or anywhere, but I am not attempting to have a competition."

I'm not pretending that I did anything to earn it. It's no concern of my ego. But if you don't know the facts of healthcare quality and what is afforded to the average citizen living under different systems, you're hardly in a position to argue what produces the best results.

Thank you, this latest response was much more responsive. I don't particularly have a problem with it. I don't take this crap personally, and my use of rather offensive language is out of general disgust and boredom, not emotion.

But I have challenged the hell out of your views. You just don't seem to like it.

Oh I get it, sometimes theft is okay.

I'm not gonna stop busting your balls, man. Have you SEEN what I post here!? At least I respect you. Though you do talk to trolls frequently... This could get ugly!

Ultimately you're weighing "the good of society" the best you can against people losing the value of what they've earned. It's inherently hard to quantify such a measure, if you're going to endeavor to measure it and use that as your basis for Federal Reserve level of meddling. I'm still against theft, though. That's where we disagree.

"Ron Paul's con is to hate big spending very much, publicly, in a way that gets Ron Paul a national audience and a campaign budget -- yet utterly totally fail to reduce spending, year after year. "

Hahahahahahaha okay, at least we can end "discussion" in this thread. You're speaking about 17 million in spending as if it's a problem when Paul supports MASSIVE cuts in spending. You're blaming the lack of progress on real cuts on Paul, when it's the Amerikan people like you responsible for filling Congress with corrupt Republicrats who agree on spending and support unconstitutional spending programs--the real source of the deficit and debt.

You're arguing as if 17 million is more than a trillion. It's just stupid.

You're completely ignoring all of my points which involve amounts of money that actually matter.

Unless you can get over your desire for bedroom police and war-mongering for corporate and NWO interests, the Republicans are the best you've got. They may be corrupt big spenders who get our young men and women and foreign nationals killed for NWO corporate interests, but damnit at least they think government should be involved with marriage to protect us from becoming gay!

Or, if you want a real alternative, you could support Libertarians and Republicans, rare as they are, like Paul.

I've never voted for Ron Paul. This isn't personal to me. I just find it fascinating and bizarre that you're worried about Paul accepting a few million which would go elsewhere anyway, whereas you ignore the MASSIVE cuts (which the Constitution requires) he openly argues for.

Earmarks are a tiny portion of the budget. They're not the [vast majority of the] problem. I don't understand which part of this is hard for you to understand.

Ron Paul has been arguing for years against the real sources of deficits and debt in this country, which are coincidentally openly unconstitutional. I don't understand which part of this is hard for you to understand.

It's certainly legitimate to disagree with Paul, but to claim he's a big spender is just ignorant, stupid, and laughable. That has to be the result of willful ignorance because of some psychological reasons for hating the man, because he's very clearly the most fiscally conservative guy in the room. I'm not suggesting anyone has to like him, but to pretend he's a big spender who's adding to our debt is retarded.

What point do you think you're making here? You're not making any point, let alone doing it well.

The problem is that ignorant shmucks like you vote in representatives who support massive unconstitutional overreaches of Congress' and government's power. Who could he collaborate with to abolish unconstitutional programs? Amerikans have, by and large, been made into sheep. Almost no one else who supports radical changes/abolishment of massive social spending programs gets elected to Congress. There's virtually NO support among elected officials for what Libertarians/fiscal conservatives support--let alone enough for Paul to "collaborate" and get them changed/abolished--because people like you just vote for whoever the corrupt Republican machine puts in front of them.

It's not Paul's fault that you keep voting for Republicans who support unconstitutional, massive deficit programs.