Constanze: Stopping STDs is related to things like: Men have to go work in a big city to feed the family (because there isn't enough work in the country) and can come home only once a month or less (because of infrastructure, distances). Meanwhile, it's unrealistic to expect the men to stay chaste the whole month. Some men will visit prostitutes. So the prostitutes need health care and condoms to prevent spreading STDs. (one example, there are many others.)
What!?!?! We can't expect men to not have sex for a WHOLE MONTH!?? Oh the horrers. I guess we humans are nothing more than animals who can't help but control our natural urges. O wait, thats a lie. Of course can be expected to go for a month without having sex, it's called "Being Faithfull to your wife". I dont know, this could just be some arcaic judo-christian value, but this whole concept of "Honoring your wife/spouse" seems to me that it includes honoring your marrage enough that you dont go skirting off with some tramp. Anyway, thats just a little rant about morals and ethics from me.
In regards to your comments about the war, Perhaps we have different views about attrocities. I dont view napalm as an attrocity, I dont find war cassualities a war crime. There were rebels starting a war, people would have died anyway, completely innocent people would have died. America, with our policy of stopping the spread of communism everywhere, simply got involoved. We helped the defenseless southern vietnam. Did Innocent people still die? Yes, I will not deny that. But i'm sorry, I will not sit around while some brutal regime deciedes that it needs more land and dominion over someone else. I will NOT appoligize for any of those things. What i will say is wrong is the actions of some of our soilders. I do NOT think that our soldiers ravanging villages and acting like barbarians was acceptable. I do not think that rapping innocent women is acceptable.
Gosh this post is getting long. Okay, the soldiers were not hippies, and i didn't mean to insinuate that. What i was saying is that the general and prevalant culture of the time was one that had a dissrespect for athority. Some people couldn't get out of gain to vietnam. Some people felt that they should, you know, at least obey the law. Perhaps it was because their parents made them, but whatever the reason, you had people who did not want to be in vietman in vietman. The hippies were an extream example of the culture, but i think youth culture as a whole was similar to their thinking in most respects.
MIkeC you are right about Kerry not talking about his time in military vs his anti-war activism. He should have said that he went to war to serve his country, fought and was decorated numerous times, and after having seen his brothers in arms and far too many Vietnamese civilians getting killed for an unjust and corrupt war he decided to go and work to end the war. He should have worn his service to his country in anti-war activism as proudly as he did his service to his country in uniform. He also should have attacked MIkeC you are right about Kerry not talking about his time in military vs his anti-war activism. He should have said that he went to war to serve his country, fought and was decorated numerous times, and after having seen his brothers in arms and far too many Vietnamese civilians getting killed for an unjust and corrupt war he decided to go and work to end the war. He should have worn his service to his country in anti-war activism as proudly as he did his service to his country in uniform. MIkeC you are right about Kerry not talking about his time in military vs his anti-war activism. He should have said that he went to war to serve his country, fought and was decorated numerous times, and after having seen his brothers in arms and far too many Vietnamese civilians getting killed for an unjust and corrupt war he decided to go and work to end the war. He should have worn his service to his country in anti-war activism as proudly as he did his service to his country in uniform. He also should have attacked John O'Neill and his "smear boat veterans for Bush" as the Nixon era dirty tricksters that they were.
Derrick:
It is surely not unreasonable to expect men to be faithful to their wives. However, it is equally unreasonable to assume that one can ever achieve perfect compliance with this simple rule. Not to mention that it's not just married men who visit prostitutes. So yes, people should be faithful, and strongly encouraged to do so. But saying "because they're not obeying the social code, we shall deny health care to prostitutes because they deserve what they get" is quite cruel, and exacerbates public health problems.
Would that be an example of literally circular reasoning from Brian?
Did I say to deny health care to prostitues? I don't think that I did, I don't Propose the government putting the bill for them either. If hookers have the money to pay for their health care, then by all means, they should get health care. But honestly, the government doesn't pay for my health care, why should they pay for the care of prostitues?
Also, constanze did not say anything about single men going to prostitues, and thus my rants about married men and prostitues does not apply to that situation.
Derrick ,... What!?!?! We can't expect men to not have sex for a WHOLE MONTH!??...
If all men were able to stay 100% truthful, then we wouldn't have the prostitutes problem. Men are humans, not saints, and therefore not all of them will remain steadfast. What would be nice is one thing, what happens in real life is another.
If hookers have the money to pay for their health care, then by all means, they should get health care. But honestly, the government doesn't pay for my health care, why should they pay for the care of prostitues?
Because one infected prositute working without condoms can infect dozens of men, who each in turn will infect their wifes, who will infect their children when they get pregnant. Providing them with free condoms to encourage the use, and giving them free treatment for STDs is a better way to stop the spread than expecting the prostitutes to come up with the money when they can't afford it.
As for the govt. not paying your health care ... well, I'm used to a responsible community approach. And in the third-world-coutnries we were talking about, most people can't afford medical treatment if it isn't free. Maybe you haven't heard it, but these people are poor (and not because they are lazy either - but if you work 12 hours a day and the only work available pays 1 $, you can't afford much.)
Guys, in reference to a portion of a post here that contained a comment that I just deleted:
Please keep it civil.
But honestly, the government doesn't pay for my health care, why should they pay for the care of prostitues?
Because, Derrick, your own health problems, whatever they may be, do not contribute to public health crises. The government *does* have a vested interest in preventing these things, if only because, when left unchecked, they deprive governments of citizens to govern.
So, if i want free health care, I just have to sleep with people for money...awesome, this makes as much sense to stopping a horrible and detestable practice as giving children pornography....
Sorry Derrick, your argument is Non Sequiter. Please try again.
How, i dont see it.
I'll we're not even meantioning that some STD's (most) aren't even curable, we can just mask the symptoms, and that you can still give them to people even if you've had treatment. Free health care for hookers makes absolutly no sense. None at all. You are encouraging a hookers life style, thats all.
Constanze: Because, Derrick, your own health problems, whatever they may be, do not contribute to public health crises. The government *does* have a vested interest in preventing these things, if only because, when left unchecked, they deprive governments of citizens to govern.
I disagree, it's very easy to spread the cold, which would make others sick, and limit to their productivity, severly shorting out our working population. If i'm sick, i should get free health care. Wait, I got an even better one. I have the flu, and i just walk around town, purposly caughing on people in hopes of getting them sick, therefore, i think the government should pay for my health care...
Let's see, Derrick. Tax dollars paying for prostitutes healthcare == giving porn to kids. Nope, no non-sequiter there.
Derrick ...If i'm sick, i should get free health care...
Yes, I already said sth. to this effect.
...I'll we're not even meantioning that some STD's (most) aren't even curable, we can just mask the symptoms, and that you can still give them to people even if you've had treatment...
That's why I mentioned condoms and treatment for free: condoms to prevent the spread of incurable ones, like AIDS; treatment for the curable ones.
Do you read my posts or only skim them?
Four more years! : )
You're arguing in two different contexts. I understand Constanze's point; infected prostitutes present a health risk that need to be corrected. I also understand Derrick's point; is there any particular reason that being a prostitute should result in free health care when the average joe does not have it? Constanze's point, however, makes perfect sense if you assume that the society is offering universal health care.
I also understand Derrick's point; is there any particular reason that being a prostitute should result in free health care when the average joe does not have it?
See, I would then argue in favor of greater access to health care, rather than less. Yes, yes, socialism and badness and evil economic systems. I don't really care. It seems like the right thing to do. But we have too many other things to pay for right now.
...such as an unnecessary war in Iraq.
ppssttt...constanze, condoms stopping STD's is almost a myth. Lets think about this, Condoms do not stop all sperm, they stop most, but some slip through, thats why they are 99% effective in stopping pregnancy. Now, Those are sperm CELLS, and they can slip through. Lets think about how much smaller a virus is than a sperm. It's a good 100 to 1000 times smaller. Now, if a sperm can slip through a condom, i would ASSUME that something 1/100th it's size could make it through quite easily. There truely is no such thing as safe sex...
constanze, condoms stopping STD's is almost a myth. Lets think about this, Condoms do not stop all sperm, they stop most, but some slip through, thats why they are 99% effective in stopping pregnancy.
Actually, no, they're 99% effective because they occasionally break, and people occasionally use them improperly. And, I don't know, maybe enough people are having enough sex that eventually probability allows a few sperm cells to tunnel through the condom in quantum mechanical fashion. However, STD pathogens in general do *not* somehow magically make it through some nonexistent hole in a latex condom. (For further reading on the subject, see this report from the Centers for Disease Control.)
There are actually enormous pores in condoms, enormous compared to the size of the HIV antibody.
Pores are known to be 5 microns in diameter. If circular, that is an area of 19 square microns.
An HIV antibody is 0.1 microns in diameter, or seven-thousandths of a square micron. At that rate, packed together, over 2400 HIV antibodies could pass through at once! It is as easy for a single antibody to pass through as a mosquito to fly through an open door.
Sperm cells are far larger. I have not been able to obtain an authoritative figure, but one suggests a head diameter of 5 microns, meaning it could struggle through.
Summation: condoms are somewhat effective at contraception, though not 100 percent reliable (and I have personal experience that they are not).
Condoms are useless at stopping HIV transmission, and in fact contribute to the spread of HIV because the people using them have a false sense of security. If they knew there was no possible way of engaging in sex while blocking the HIV antibody, some people might be intimidated from having sex at all outside of a monogamous relationship in which both parties faithfully practice fidelity.
GCapp, you have any scientific studies on that one, because the CDC one looked pretty offical to me.
But the CDC isn't run by a Right Wing Chrsitofassist so it must be all lies.
Except for the part where the CDC is an arm of the federal government, which for years has been in the hands of Republicans, so...
(Seriously, people, if you're not going to accept the evidence of the most definitive sources out there, then there's simply nothing I can do for you.)
Actually Mpatterson you don't know how right you are about the government and Republicans. The CDC is run by Docitors and Scientists and usualy pretty accurate. When Bush got into office one of his first acts was to have the CDC remove scientific info from the CDC's webpage about condom use.
GCapp, do the antibodies themselves carry the virus? I though it was the virus itself that was transmitted.
An antibody is a chemical developed by your body to fight a disease and/or toxin. HIV-specific antibody molecules in your bloodstream means that your body is fighting off an AIDS infection, but they are not the cause of that infection.
......
I agree that abstinance is surer than any other prophylactic measures, both for STD's and pregnancy, and the more people who practice it or who restrict themselves to monogamous relationships, the healthier society will be.
However, it is unrealistic to rely on abstinence as the only prophylactic measure. To deny people access to and/or information about other prophylactic measures on religious grounds, or on the grounds that they are not perfect, or whatever grounds is far more distructive to society and nature than any increase of the risky behaviour due to "encouraging" it.
If a .01%* chance of catching an incurable, fatal disease is not enough to discourage the risky, but biologicallly hard-wired activity, then deliberately upping the chances to 10% will not suddenly overcome Nature's imperative.
* The percentages are arbitrary. I could have spent half an hour looking up the actual figures, but then they would still be estimates (though estimates by experts in the field), and it would not have changed my point.
I'm going to take the liberty of anticipating Derrick's response to my last post: something along the lines that it is not impossible to abstain, so it is not unreasonable to expect people to abstain.
I have agreed that it is possible and preferable to abstain and to teach abstinance. But it not practical to rely on that alone. You are simply not going to get everyone to agree to your rules. (I know, they're not your rules, but God's rules, but you are the one preaching them.)
And even among those you do reach with the message, there are strong temptations. Humans are weak. Even among the groups that most strongly advocate moral behavior, there is a large percentage of people which cannot truthfully claim that they were virgins when they married and 100% faithful since.
Yes, the percentage is much, much smaller than the percentage in the general public. But even if the general public were as faithful to the same degree, abstinance alone would not be able to prevent a full-scale health crisis
Source?
Quote:Condoms are useless at stopping HIV transmission, and in fact contribute to the spread of HIV because the people using them have a false sense of security.
Source?
Quote:If they knew there was no possible way of engaging in sex while blocking the HIV antibody, some people might be intimidated from having sex at all outside of a monogamous relationship in which both parties faithfully practice fidelity.
Well now, what do we have here? http://www.gnn.tv/headlines/headline.php?id=300
Anyone prepared to comment on the Pope's latest statement on Condoms...?
(Reportedly, the current pope is considering allowing the use of condoms to prevent the transmission of HIV/Aids....).
Re:my last comment
If this report is true, then this will contradict his earlier statement, he made last year, on the subject....
If so, will this mean a change of stance on other issues...?
LOL! This Canadian comedian's bit on Canadian health care was funny.
Funny if it weren't incredibly inaccurate. Not least because we certainly pay for drugs here. His comments on potential drug side effects is ridiculously uninformed. His comments about drug research are similarly ludicrous. It would be insulting if it weren't so stupid.
Can you elaborate on how his statements are inaccurate? I'm curious to know your POV/experiences.
I don't know what the hell he's talking about concerning blood tests, for one thing. These five-hour waiting rooms don't exist. It's a total non sequitur. In the summer, for example, I needed to get my immunizations checked. I might have waiting for 10 minutes in the clinic waiting room, with the entire experience requiring perhaps another... 10 minutes. This is hardly unique.
Not that this has anything to do with socialized health care, which we don't actually have (look up the difference between socialized health care and a single-payer system). Similarly, drugs are NOT in general part of provincial health insurance (though some things are certainly covered; HIV drugs, for example, or embrel for rheumatoid arthritis). We pay for them. If you have private insurance, you'll pay less for prescriptions, usually just via a nominal co-payment, and provincial drug plans are often similar. Now, you don't pay for drugs you receive in hospital, but that's rather a different situation entirely.
As for the cost of drugs, they are - on average - cheaper here, but the differences are exaggerated. Certainly the newest drugs are still quite costly. I'm not sure what he's talking about re: "federal price cuts". The primary reason why Walmart has "$4" drugs is because the relevant patents have expired and said drugs are generic in origin. Again, hardly unique.
So, what's his point, apart from some hackneyed Russian accents?
Reform opponent tries to make point, fails spectacularly.
I found this take on Scott Brown election and his stated views on Obama's health care bill to be interesting.
I saw a piece of a speech by the newly-elected governor of Virginia this morning, and part of his speech stated 'a 1000-page healthcare bill that nobody has read...' .
Ummm.........
What???????????
How the H can anybody protest a health bill that they haven't read themselves?!?!?! There's no basis for a protest if you don't know what the heck you're talking about! That was my problem with alot of the people at the so-called Tea Partys and protests-- did you, Average Joe, actually read the bill (doubt it!) or did you just go along like a sheep and listen to pundits and critics that did not read it and just want to scare you (probably) ?
1000 pages? Big deal...the length of 3 Star Trek novels! Oh, boo-hoo! If somebody thinks it'll take them all year to read 1000 pages and it's not worth it, then I say get out of politics and let somebody in that understands that part of the job is READING!!!
The point is that Congress hasn't read the whole thing either.
Disclaimer: I have no opinion on the bill. I am not a Teabag-partyer, nor am I a Democrat.
Updated somewhat changed version to the present corona epidemic of the Yes, Prime Minister discusson on smoking related diseases :
Jim Hacker: "It says here, not quarantining might cost the us 280.000 lives and that more than a dozen have already died."
Sir Humphrey Appleby: "Yes, but it has been shown that if those extra 280,000 people lived on, it would have cost us even more in pensions and social security than it would do in healthcare and burial services. So financially speaking, it's unquestionably better that they continue to die at their present rate." Think of saved public expenditure year by year, the projected income from inheritance taxes and the vastly increased number of housing units becoming available"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGlrE6oQ39o
COVID 19 is a wet dream to corrupt politicians everywhere, who would use it to suppressed our democratic rights.
They talk of Emergency Powers and such, you know, the kind of powers that were given to a certain man in Germany, 88 years ago.
A few days ago, Ontario Premier, Doug Ford, tried to give the police forces powers to stop people at random, ask where they live, and where they were going, And if the person refused to comply, said person would be slapped with a fine, or even hauled off to jail.
You know, kind of like what the Gestapo used to do.
This did not go well with many people. Human Rights advocates were up in arms, worried about racial profiling and where this could lead. No one wants another George Floyd (and law enforcement really took a beating over that one).
Thankfully, wiser heads prevailed, when all the Ontario police forces told Ford to get stuffed, and he was forced to pull back. God bless all those police forces who helped abort another Fascist Ford scheme.
While COVID is serious, we cannot risk giving up out rights and freedoms many of our ancestors fought and died for. If we did, we might not get them back (it's easy to give corrupt politicians, Emergency Powers, however, it's when you try to take those powers way that problems can arise).
So long as the pandemic continues, we must remain vigilant. The next Adolf Hitler could be just around the next political corner.
Too many people think that Hitler types will be obvious monsters and easy to spot. But Hitler began as a humble street painter, Himmler was a farmer, Mao worked in a University library and Ho Chi Minh was a waiter at a restaurant.
Exactly, none of those guys had a sign that said, "Hi, I'm gonna be a ruthless dictator."
That's why vigilance must be maintained.
quote:a virus that people mad up to make an orange narcissist look bad
You know, I bet the Venn diagram of “kids today are wimps who don’t deserve to live in the same country as the Greatest Generation” people and the “how dare they make me wear a mask in the middle of a deadly pandemic because masks destroy freedom” people consists of almost completely overlapping circles…
I wear a mask.
Small sacrifice to make, IMO.
Tim, this ••••••• ruined things for his workmates just because he didn’t want to go to work. https://au.yahoo.com/news/tradie-charged-fraud-faking-covid-result-avoid-work-003218475.html
You can't cure stupid, it seems.
I know one should not gloat about these anti COVID vaccine people meeting their much-deserved fate, but then I think about all the poor simpletons who have believed their lies and died as a result.
As I said, can't cure stupid.
Liberty University, the Falwells’ mega-school in Lynchburg, VA, is going online for a “temporary mitigation period.”
You will be shocked to learn the university does not require vaccinations.
Or perhaps you won’t be. Because, can’t cure ••••••••••
Nope, you can't.
I don't know where else to put this, but - Florida's jerk weed governor, Ron DeSantis, is at it again. He's levying $5,000 fines against businesses who require proof of vaccination against Covid -19. I don't know about you, but I feel more at ease knowing that a business requires proof of vaccination. Like restaurants, gyms and theaters here in New York. (Although at the James Taylor/Jackson Browne show I attended last week, no proof of vaccination was requested.) What else would you expect for the governor who had flags in Florida lowered to half staff to honor bigot and blowhard Rush Limbaugh? More here.
What an idiot.
The (ultra-right) Supreme Court, and particularly Clarence Thomas (who, as I compose this, may be taking yet another vacation, courtesy of GOP mega-donor Harlan Crow 
) will be chomping at the bit over this one. The FDA has approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill, named Opill. More on that here. Any court case involving this drug just may be fast tracked toward the Supremes. Where Thomas, and possibly the other right wingers, are almost certainly looking to restrict access to any form of birth control. Not just pills, but condoms, IUDs and possibly contraceptive surgeries as well.
The SC should be abolished.
Who's going to rein in Congress then?
Plus, that means scrapping the Constitution.
That Constitution was written for a world that no longer exists.
Would scrapping it be such a bad thing.
And allow potential dictatorial tyrants like Donald Trump or one of his cronies to walk in and take a position he/she believes he/she is entitled to? No thanks. (Trump wanted to eliminate the Constitution before he assumed the "presidency", and believed he was a dictator anyway, but that's been delineated here and elsewhere.)
Plus, to paraphrase Sterling Archer,
You want an OFFICIAL* RWNJ Christian Theocracy in the US? Because that's how you get an OFFICIAL RWNJ Christian Theocracy in the US!!!
* as opposed to the unofficial one the RWNJs are trying to impose
And allow potential dictatorial tyrants like Donald Trump or one of his cronies to walk in and take a position he/she believes he/she is entitled to? No thanks.
Let me rephrase. The Constitution should be scrapped and replaced with a modern version. A Constitution that reflects the world of 2023, not 1787.
Sterling Archer
Who??
The Constitution should be scrapped and replaced with a modern version. A Constitution that reflects the world of 2023, not 1787.
And with today's political situation, do you really think that whatever they come up with would be better than the Founders did?
Sterling Archer
Who??
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_Archer
Guess we'll never know.