I weep for us all

The question is not whether or not we should have socialism. The question is what degree of socialism we should have and in which direction we should move the needle. We already have socialism:

- Social Security
- Medicare
- Medicaid
- AFDC
- No preexisting conditions, stay on parents' health insurance until age 26
- Subsidies to farmers
- Bailing out Wall Street
- Many other things that I can't think of at the moment

Fortunately, we're still a far cry from spending hours in line to buy centrally planned goods, but the battle against socialism was lost 80 years ago.

For clarity's sake, I think that single payer healthcare would be a disaster in our society. What I haven't heard enough of is some intelligent description of the forms of health care in other countries that many Americans think incorrectly is strictly single-payer. For example, Germany does not have a single-payer system. It has a multi-payer health care system paid for by a combination of statutory health insurance and private health insurance.

Ya, nothing more motivating than a grouwling stomach in a 6 year old. Noting more motivating than a person trying to make a living but cannot switch jobs because they have an illness on the list that won't be covered by a new employer. Let's make all the poor children cry so their parents are motivated to reach higher. No, wait, the chances of increasing your lot in life has never been lower. Is that really what we want?

We are doing so good we don't want to change anything. I mean after all, we are still taking children from their parents at the border. We will show them this is not the country anybody want to come to!. The Commander in Chief still commits obstruction daily so no employees will provide proof of earlier obstruction. He daily breaks the law or directs its breaking about his tax records. What a time to be an American. We can take pride in a pussy grabbing, law breaking president and still get to separate children. And to top it off we get force victims of rape and incest to have their babies. I am so proud.

Shiny,

I believe I said "help those in need," and a 6 year old who's parent won't fix food for the kid is the one that needs to go hungry. The 6 year-old can't change things, the parent can.

Blame government regulation for making health care so expensive. An insurance company that covers pre-existing conditions is like going to State Farm after a crash to open a car insurance policy to fix it.

The chances of making your lot better in life has never been better. It just requires hard work, something lacking in our youth.

I think we should shut the border. Everyone caught not at a port of entry gets kicked back over the border. We now have typhus, bubonic plague, measles and other diseases not seen here in years because these people come here with them. Obama's administration started the separation of "families" (and as we are seeing the children are not related to the adults) so if you yell "TRUMP!" about it, you really need to yell "OBAMA AND TRUMP!!!"

I don't know about obstruction, but there is no law requiring a president or candidate for the office that requires release of their tax records. It's a tradition, nothing more.

I don't like Trump as a person, but he has a spine and stands up to those who want to take advantage of us, internally and externally. More so than the last two presidents. Our economy is doing a lot better and more people are working, especially minorities.

As far as the abortion issue, that is being done at the state level (where it should be handled). I support New York having their abortion laws, just like I do Alabama. As an aside, since you seem up in arms over the preservation of life no matter the consequences of conception, I guess you are okay that a doctor kills a baby after it has been born because the "mother" said "KILL IT!" as he/she is coming out the birth canal?

True, except this time we're not targeting a select group. Perhaps you are focused on that because all of the media coverage of the "wall". Most of the immigration issues are stemming from work visas. There's definitely an element of Mexicans just walking through the borders.

Here's my question, if you are so pro immigration, why have borders, Rick? Open them up! If you think we have issues now with economy and medical coverage, I'd hate to tell you what will happen to what's left of it. Hell, you're in FL which will definitely get an impact.

By the way, and I realize there's many differences but anecdotally, we saw this influx of North Koreans in Far East when I was there. It destroyed anything Soviet Union had in place and realized their mistake of unfettered access to every service for the NK's. They just sat in clinics. Many overnight. Once Militzia moved them, there were more the next day. They ended up closing all the facilities because the doctors and staff just couldn't handle it nor wanted to.

See, I am focusing on the issue, not on the man, Trump, nor Obama. I could care less about each of them but I care how "globalization" -- a Liberal (Jewish) movement was a catastrophe for the American worker. The same worker that pays taxes that pay for medicare, medicaid, and Social Security. All of the services that you rely on today?

If I were to lean and align with anyone in this thread, it'd be Brian. As he stated we already have Socialism, a massive amount of it. Why do we want more of it? And why are we including foreigners in our service hand outs that cost billions of dollars?

There are two kinds of immigration: legal and illegal, and the boundaries between the two have been intentionally blurred by politicians looking for votes. That really bugs me! Now we also have a refugee problem. I suspect some of these people from Central America were encouraged to go to the border by some organizations in the U.S. More politics! Some of them are criminals. Remember what happened in Germany several years ago? We wouldn't be doing these people a favor by just opening the gates to everybody. That's anarchy!

There is truth to that. I was researching the economic quintiles recently and I noticed in the 80's the middle class became smaller, as well as the lower classes. This was because they had moved up on the economic ladder. In recent years, the lowest quintile has exploded, fueled no doubt by these illegal immigrants.

Could this be a new tactic to invoke Cloward-Piven? (that's the collapse of the government from the weight of having to support too many people on government assistance)

Anchor babies are. And when the illegal immigrant mother applies for benefits for the citizen child, the household size is considered, regardless of citizenship status. Then you have the "serial immigration" with the anchor babies. Mama gets benefits because she's the guardian of the citizen baby, then they can apply for visas for the husband, siblings, and as far as they can push it until they hit their fourth cousin twice removed.

Don't give me BS about "jobs Americans won't do." We won't do them for slave wages, but we will do them. Some years ago a meat packing plant that hired only illegals for the line work was busted by ICE. When the plant said "we need people to do the work," there was a line of citizens waiting to apply that ran down the block. I would happily stand hip deep in human waste and shovel it all day every day if it paid enough to support my family.