Goodness, you think that before Bush Sr and Jr people liked America? What fantastic dimension did you come from? Why don't you read the thread like the rules says you're supposed to? Please? These kinds of silly outbursts aren't appreciated in Debate.

that was an accident. We have spies in their country. They're our spies. If we pull funding we cripple them. The thing is we won't pull funding. We are their big brother and they're an equally supportive little brother. They're our only ally in that part of the world. We're at war with that part of the world. They have common enemies. Enemy of my enemy is my friend. We can just eliminate them as a suspect for enemy.

We have soldiers and spy sat's watching over every country.

Where exactly do you get all this information about our intelligence operations abroad?

Let me explain myself:



The greed of a few takes precedence over the needs of many. That is how the world works now and has worked for many, many years. This I know. This Is An Overview Of One Opinion That I Hold About The Environment. Chemtrails, nasty buggars I believe. It is entirely possible that the government could be putting chemicals and biological weapons in the air. I'm not saying that they do or that they have in the past, but they could be and that messes with me. Example: Government Weapons

Water pollution is another thing that I'm suspicious of. Now, I do know that despite all of the illnesses caused by contaminated water and the chemicals that are put into drinking water in the US, that our water and sewage systems are one of the best in the world. So what I'm not saying is that the US has failed miserably and that we should hate them for our water being "bad" or that this is the EPA's fault. What I am saying is that we have problems here and I'm not happy with the ways that they are being dealt with by the EPA and government officials...Example A, Example B (from the EPA website), Example 3 [more strange than informative] and Example 4

Drilling for Oil: Let's not beat a dead horse. It happens, Shit happens, The Government makes it happen and that's it...



Some items have been brought to my attention:
1) Tests are only given to the best and brightest or the most wealthy and promising (in most industrialized nations). If the tests are only given to those who are the top of the crop anyway, that illiminates the lowest scores right off the bat. Let's consider for a minute that in the US, higher precentages of students who take standardized tests (such as SAT, ACT, and international exams) come from lower income backgrounds and may not speak English as a native language, which can have an impact (sometimes significant) on test scores.

2) None of these exams (SAT, ACT, TIMSS) are required in the US or in other countries. There is NO single exam that is taken by every student in every industrialized country with a public educational system. Right there, is a big hole when comparing them. There's no common factor to compare all students against. TIMSS Homepage TIMSS is an internationally administered exam that measures science and mathematics knowledge and profiecency of students from various nations all over the world. No third world nations are included in the exam and participants are chosen carefully so that a full range of students from every nation is tested. (That is subject to debate, I think that 2003 is the first year that they really monitored the types of students they tested.) [note: following resources require Adobe Acrobat reader to view] Page 9, Look For United States on the Chart. That's just mathematics, take a look around and read the report....






I'm included. I have no insurance right now. I got sick last fall, twice. Guess how much I owe the hospitals where I was interred at? $8000!!!! I didn't stay overnight or anything....just ER visits and some tests. It's out-f*ing-rageous.



Did I single out Canada as an example? No. But, since you've mentioned them, let's look at their system for a moment. "Free" healthcare, subsidized by taxes and open to any citizen who wants to take advantage of it. Sounds good in theory, looks good in print, but doesn't really work the idealistic way people seem to think that it does, correct? Yes. A look at this system is in order: Someone gets sick...they go to the emergency room because she is having chest pains and can't breathe...she waits for an hour in the waiting room because the hospital they live nearest to is understaffed...she finally gets taken into the ER...they are there for about 3 hours...the doctors do an MRI, take X-rays, and give her oxygen...follow-up care and medications are available and paid for....she may have to wait for these things, but she doesn't mind because at least she knows that her problems will be taken care of at some point.

Now let's take a look at the US. Someone gets sick...they go to the emergency room because she is having chest pains and can't breathe...she waits for an hour in the waiting room because the hospital they live nearest to is understaffed...she finally gets taken into the ER...they are there for about 3 hours...the doctors do an MRI, take X-rays, and give her oxygen...a month later, a bill for $5000 arrives in her mailbox....follow-up care and medications are not available because she cannot afford them out of pocket...that's superb medical care right there, I tell ya.

Maybe I'm just bitter, maybe I'm not right in the head, but the things I listed irk me greatly and make me dissatisfied with the country I live in.

There was a debate about israel earlier that brought up some interesting questions. So i did some research including several books that brought me to that conclusion. About where we have troops, that stuff is on the news. Bush even said there are things being done in north korea and libya. Whether or not there are troops in NK for sure or not i dont know, but since their declaration there has been constant surveillance. Possibly even before it hit the press. It's just stuff that has been televised. No secret source or speculation it's all there.

Getting rid of pollution isn't some all-encompassing goal that must be the first priority of our society. It has to be balanced with other things. Like if a fertilizer that has some bad effects on the environment can relieve mass hunger, it's probably a good idea--depending on HOW MUCH harm is done to the environment versus HOW MUCH hunger it relieves.

I think the balance we have now is sensible.



Pretty much everyone in the US takes the SAT. The stats for the SAT come from single test dates, so the bias of rich kids taking it more is really eliminated.

In countries like China and Germany, most students aren't even allowed to enter high school--so naturally, those in high school will score higher than average American high school students.



IOWAs? If you live in New York State, the Regents Exam?

The SAT isn't strictly required; but just about everyone takes it. It's our best school comparison method. The reason it's so effective is because, even if not everyone takes it, the number of people who don't are statistically insignficant.



Maybe; but that still doesn't change the fact that those foreign students who do the best on math and science tests are applying to come to college in the United States, and not vice versa. Even if you argue that our primary education system needs improvement, there is no questioning that the massive advantage we enjoy in our higher education more than offsets that fact.



Define "sick". Did you have a runny nose? Did you have cancer?



Let's say that same patient has a heart attack and will die if not treated in the first half hour.

But the cardiologists in the room are treating someone who simply had a cold (having a cold can cause your heart rate to increase massively in the short term). The person who had a cold would ordinarily just sleep it off, but because of free healthcare, is instead clogging up the system.

The supply of doctors is relatively inelastic. In a situation like that, increasing demand for healthcare is the worst thing you can do--it raises the price without raising significantly the quantity of healthcare provided. And that price always exists--whether in the form of an insurance bill or wait lines and higher taxes.



If a hospital is understaffed, people would go to another one, yes? Unless the person in question lives in an extremely rural area, there is no reason she couldn't take the public bus to the next hospital down.

Moreover, understaffing in the United States is only a problem because of the AMA and their residency requirements. In a completely open system, the supply of doctors would be less inelastic and an increase in demand would result in more people attending medical schools and becoming doctors.



America still has the highest survival rates for cancer and best treatment for heart disease in the world.

People are also overmedicated. Combining massive amounts of drugs would lead to massive amounts of unhealthy side effects. If people don't have to pay for their drugs, they'll take as many as they want--even if they can have bad effects. There's a funny clip about this (and by a supporter of NHI, nonetheles!) http://www.jibjab.com/167.html



But on further analysis, those are the least of America's problems, and some of those aren't even problems to begin with.

I don't think that pollution is one of most significant issues right now either. I am just advocating some education on the public's behalf and more responsibilty on the EPA's behalf. I don't think that we should ruin our land to make way for oil and highways, but in the end, the need for oil and highways are greater than need of empty land. Compromise is key, I just don't want the compromise to be one-sided, where we destroy land and 20 years later, when we're looking for a place to go camping, you have to drive 2000 miles of highways to go there.



I grew up Missouri and I still live here. Here in Missouri, the IOWAs are not given as a requirement past 1st grade I believe. After that, students take MAP exams, which are a state accessment exam. They take them in the four cores and health. Here in the Midwest, (at least the part I live in), only the really smart kids and driven overachievers take the SAT. Everyone else takes the ACT and AP Exams. The SAT is not as accurate as some would like to believe, at least as an academic measure for nationwide achievement.



Only because they can afford to come here on student visas and get their education paid for by the alumni or a scholarship fund. Very few foreign students pay out of pocket for their education. Instead, they eat up scholarship dollars that could go to American students. The cost of tuition for citizens is skyrocketing as I type this reply. The average American can't afford to pay for their children to go to college. The students have to work (which cuts time they could be spending on something school-related) and after they graduate, they enter the dog-eat-dog coporate world with a load of student debts to pay off. Those debts, I might add, can take a long time to pay off and eat up income that could go to funding other things in the US.

I pose this question: wouldn't you take advantage of a place that offers you not only a great education, but at practically no financial cost? I would. It would be hard to leave your old life behind, but it's a sacrifice that most students will make for their future.



That person is me. That's my first hopsital visit out of pocket right there. I had viral infection that had started in my throat and spread to my lungs. It had caused my heart to become swollen and put pressure on my lungs, which in turn filled with fluid, making it where I couldn't breathe. I was sick for weeks with an infection that wouldn't go away. It was a horrible experience that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. The second time I went to the hospital, I had pink eye in both eyes and a bronchial infection. Next time you say "define sick", don't automatically think the only real illness is cancer. If my infections had gone untreated, (which my pink eye did for a week because I didn't have the money to pay for a hospital visit) I could have ended up blind and possibly brain-damaged from lack of oxygen and poor circulation. I am lucky to be able to view my computer screen and to still have my lungs intact.

And as for me not going to another hospital, yeah, I'm real sure that my mother and boyfriend wanted to drive an extra 15 miles to another hospital when I was starting to turn blue in the backseat.

I think that America can do better on healthcare, that's all. Case in point: no system is perfect.

[quote=antix10_kos,Jul 28 2005, 9:45 AM]
I don't think that pollution is one of most significant issues right now either. I am just advocating some education on the public's behalf and more responsibilty on the EPA's behalf. I don't think that we should ruin our land to make way for oil and highways, but in the end, the need for oil and highways are greater than need of empty land. Compromise is key, I just don't want the compromise to be one-sided, where we destroy land and 20 years later, when we're looking for a place to go camping, you have to drive 2000 miles of highways to go there.[/quote]

Actually, I think building more highways and expanding further in the suburbs will force people to spend more money on renewable energy, since the relative price of gas will increase, so people will buy more energy-efficient cars.

[quote=antix10_kos,Jul 28 2005, 9:45 AM]
I grew up Missouri and I still live here. Here in Missouri, the IOWAs are not given as a requirement past 1st grade I believe. After that, students take MAP exams, which are a state accessment exam. They take them in the four cores and health. Here in the Midwest, (at least the part I live in), only the really smart kids and driven overachievers take the SAT. Everyone else takes the ACT and AP Exams. The SAT is not as accurate as some would like to believe, at least as an academic measure for nationwide achievement.[/quote]

The ACT and the AP Exams are usually regarded as harder than the SATs aren't they? I know the ACT is more popular in the Midwest, but in the rest of the country, the SATs are.

[quote=antix10_kos,Jul 28 2005, 9:45 AM]
Only because they can afford to come here on student visas and get their education paid for by the alumni or a scholarship fund. Very few foreign students pay out of pocket for their education.[/quote]

My point is, they still come here. Very few Americans go overseas. The fact that foreigners are willign to spend that much money to come to college in America, but the reverse isn't true, shows that American colleges are the world's best.

[quote=antix10_kos,Jul 28 2005, 9:45 AM]
Instead, they eat up scholarship dollars that could go to American students.[/quote]

Nope. Most colleges don't offer financial aid to foreign students, or offer very little. I know, because I was helping my friend from Romania plan, and a lot of the schools he wanted like Penn and Chicago clearly said that foreign students should plan on meeting all financial obligatiosn first.

And non-citizens don't get government aid, which is 70% of total college aid.

[quote=antix10_kos,Jul 28 2005, 9:45 AM]
The cost of tuition for citizens is skyrocketing as I type this reply. The average American can't afford to pay for their children to go to college.[/quote]

Thanks to government aid. Harvard only cost $2,000 a year (in 2000 dollars!) in the 1940s before tuition aid became widespread. It was the GI Bill and the universal tuition aid that followed that drove up prices.

The reason is obvious: The supply of higher education is almost completely inelastic. Harvard was accepting just as many people in 1940 as it is today. There are just too many problems with increasing the sizes of the graduating class. Thus, when you subsidize higher education, you are just increasing the demand--which means that it will cost more, but not necessarily more will be provided.

I'm not saying this is an entirely bad thing; poor kids can actually afford to attend school more if tuition prices are high, since they have a redistributing effect as the poor kids get aid. In the old system of low tuition prices, the best schools were usually stocked with kids from the best families.

However, like anything, tuition aid has to be taken in moderation. We have to avoid the sort of slippery slope that would lead to the ridiculous prices that we see today.

The solution, in my opinion, is to build good public schools, and then cut all, or nearly all, aid for private schools. Private schools, which now have to compete with good lower-cost public schools, would slash their tuitions. Demand wouldn't be overinflated, and it would be easier to get into the best schools, and you could go for much lower prices.

[quote=antix10_kos,Jul 28 2005, 9:45 AM]
The students have to work (which cuts time they could be spending on something school-related)[/quote]

Work (and extracurricular activities in general) is proven to raise student grades, since they get to have a life outside of school. Students have to work to keep up with the

[quote=antix10_kos,Jul 28 2005, 9:45 AM]
and after they graduate, they enter the dog-eat-dog coporate world with a load of student debts to pay off. Those debts, I might add, can take a long time to pay off and eat up income that could go to funding other things in the US.[/quote]

A person's income should primarily "fund" his own enjoyment, not "other things in the US". It's just as bad for a person to have to pay half his paycheck to the bank as it is for a person to have to pay half his paycheck to the government.

Once again, everything in moderation.

[quote=antix10_kos,Jul 28 2005, 9:45 AM]
I pose this question: wouldn't you take advantage of a place that offers you not only a great education, but at practically no financial cost? I would. It would be hard to leave your old life behind, but it's a sacrifice that most students will make for their future.[/quote]

Foreign schools are cheaper than American schools. A year at Harvard can cost $45,000, but a year at Oxford is only about $20,000.

BEsides, you claim earlier that there isn't enough financial aid. Now you claim that there's too much. Which one is it?

[quote=antix10_kos,Jul 28 2005, 9:45 AM]
That person is me. That's my first hopsital visit out of pocket right there. I had viral infection that had started in my throat and spread to my lungs. It had caused my heart to become swollen and put pressure on my lungs, which in turn filled with fluid, making it where I couldn't breathe. I was sick for weeks with an infection that wouldn't go away. It was a horrible experience that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. The second time I went to the hospital, I had pink eye in both eyes and a bronchial infection. Next time you say "define sick", don't automatically think the only real illness is cancer. If my infections had gone untreated, (which my pink eye did for a week because I didn't have the money to pay for a hospital visit) I could have ended up blind and possibly brain-damaged from lack of oxygen and poor circulation. I am lucky to be able to view my computer screen and to still have my lungs intact.[/quote]

I had pink eye once too. I went to the hospital. The doctor did a little checkup. He prescribed some medicines. We went on webmd.com to look up what pinkeye actually is. We decided not to take the medicine, and I got better by myself in a week and a half. Pink eye cannot make you blind or have any adverse effects on your vision.

See, one of the ways doctors make so much money is because they have an informational advantage over you. They have their best interests at heart (i.e. making the most money), the same way that you do. Thus, they're prone to overstating a lot of things. The key for you is to reduce that informational advantage. The Internet makes this extremely easy.

[quote=antix10_kos,Jul 28 2005, 9:45 AM]
And as for me not going to another hospital, yeah, I'm real sure that my mother and boyfriend wanted to drive an extra 15 miles to another hospital when I was starting to turn blue in the backseat. [/quote]

15 miles? Do you live in the Ozarks?

Even in the Pittsburgh ghetto, hospitals are just two or three miles away from each other.

[quote=antix10_kos,Jul 28 2005, 9:45 AM]
I think that America can do better on healthcare, that's all. Case in point: no system is perfect.
[/quote]

I'm sure we can. But the government is already responsible for 55% of total healthcare spending. Our problems come from too much intervention. The legal power of the HMOs and the AMA should be checked; public spending reduced, and then our healthcare system will be fine.

Your health is, after all, a private good--just one with a lot of externalities.

america doens't need better health care. the actual care is quite good. what america needs is a government subsedized medical insurance for people without medical insurance.

i guess i'll say both good, and bad. america can be really ignorant at times. but then again most of the time i guess they make the better choices.

Tennessee is trying that, with TennCare. The problem is, it's ruining the state's healthcare system by overworking doctors and collapsing the budget (Tennessee's income tax only applies to interests and dividends, if Tennessee were to want to raise money by putting an income tax on wages like every other state, it would be even more harmful to the poor, who rely on wages to get by, whereas rich 'capitalists' rely more on capital--i.e. interests, rents, and dividends).

ahh, well, both options have thier faults.

Everyone has their own views, everyone will hate a president, it's all about views. I personally think George Bush did a good job in invading Iraq.

FACT: Saddam Hussien's killings are being compared to those of Stalin and even an early Hitler

Found that in the New York Times online...

And about healthcare, we have the best in the world, so, who's complaining?

Only real problem is Social Security, and no one wants to even think about fixing it, so we're screwed.

Saddam killed one million of his people tops, and he was already pretty much maxed out. Stalin was responsible for twenty million deaths at his max out, and Hitler killed twelve million, and he was just getting started. A comparison between Saddam and Stalin/Hitler. So we have Saddam, who is at 1/20th of Stalin. Saying that Saddam is like Stalin is like saying that someone in poverty is someone in the top 1% of American wage earners.

George Bush wanted to invade Iraq because of the oil supplies and power in the Middle East he would gain. He then forced himself to believe that he was doing it for the good of the people there; that he was helping them. If he wanted to bring democracy to people in need, why did he choose Iraq and not some other country? Iraq isn't even on the list of the top 25 most impoverished countries. If you ask me, there were plenty other places in need of some foreign aid. The US could have helped them. However, they picked Iraq.

Saddam Hussein's been killing his enemies for a long time, and America's government didn't give a shit then. In 1991, he decided to invade Kuwait-which controlled much of the world's oil supplies-and it was only then that we decided to fight against them. Sure, killing multitudes of people with illegal weapons or horrifying devices of torture is fine, but taking away our oil? Never.



The government invaded Iraq for power. WMD and freedom my ass.

Oh, and the number of people murdered by Saddam cannot compare to the genocides of Stalin and Hitler. Whoever said that is an idiot.



We can always do better. We shouldn't be content with what we have already when there is room for improvement. :/


Oh, and check this out. It's hilarious.

FACT:

SADDAM HASN'T KILLED ANYONE SINCE THE LATE 80s.

Before I start, I just wanted to say that I agree with you that better public education is definately needed here in the US.



Ok, this is my bottom line on this argument. It is unevenly distributed. Through and through. Scholarships should NOT go to just ANY student. They should go to students who NEED them, not those that have the highest grades. Of course, you should have to earn your scholarship through hard work and all, but if a student's family can afford to pay their way, they should have to pay. No scholarships for the wealthy.

Secondly, reguarding financial aid, it's out there, but it's hard to get and once you get it, you'll paying for it for awhile afterwards. Right now, I am in the process of getting a tribal scholarship from the Cherokee tribe so that I can attend school. (I am half-Cherokee.) Like I said, it's out there, but it's taken me awhile to get everything and I'm not even half-way finished.

Lastly, foreign students are sometimes (but not always) invited to study at certain schools here in the US based on their academic performance and devotion to their studies. They earn them, and that's a positive thing. I'm not here to demean foreign students and their efforts. Also, I don't really know what you're trying to say about making the difference between the costs at Harvard and Oxford. If the price given for Oxford is in US dollars, then that's a deal and half right here. But if the price listed is in GBP, well, then it's not quite as good a deal $35,178 US vs $45,000 US, plus the costs of long distance calls, plane tickets and living expenses (let's not forget that the 1 British Pound is equal to about $1.50 in US currency.) Still, I see your point about people from other countries coming here and not vice versa.


Let's move on:




Don't mistake my hospital visit and my bills as simple misinformation. My bronchial infection was causing me to run high fevers and was also causing me to not recieve enough oxygen. My eyes were also infected with pink eye, but the high fevers were what was causing my eyes to go bad, not the pink eye. I know that pink eye isn't deadly, I even tried to treat it with herbal remedies before going to the doctor. Nothing worked because my immune system was so weak from the other problems.





15 miles? - No, actually 12, but I had to go look that one up. That's the rough distance between my town's hospital and the next hospital, 15 minutes to get from one to the other by car, give or take for traffic since you've got to get on the freeway to get there.

Just to respond to your question: Do you live in the Ozarks? - No, but I once did and let me say, you'd better hope that nothing deadly ever happens to you there because if it does, you're dead.

Pleasure debating with you but this topic is fading.

I'm going to college next year. You have no idea how much financial aid advisors crammed into me that 95% of all scholarships are need-based. (Government need-based 70%, College need based 25%, College merit based 4%, independent merit based 1%)

In fact, at the best schools (like Ivy League), 100% of scholarships are need-based.

There are very few merit-based scholarships. The most common merit-based scholarship, the NMSQ, is only a few thousand dollars. Almost everyone who gets large amounts of college aid is getting it based on need.



Let's say a student gets accepted into Harvard and to a second-rate school that is attended by more low-income students. It helps lower-income students to have some good students at their school, so the second-rate school might give the kid a little more money to attract him away from Harvard. That's a merit-based scholarship, and it's not necessarily a bad idea.

The bottom line is, the number of merit-based scholarships is so little that it has no real effect on need-based aid.



Some people at the University of Rhode Island started a white scholarship, for white kids only. It drew a lot of fire and those kids were accused of racism. Yet people openly admit to getting black-only and Cherokee-only scholarships? Okay.

If you do your paperwork, it's not hard to get unless you make enough money to pay your own way. But a full ride at a top private school is worth close to $50,000 a year; that's almost double what an average American makes. Obviously, you should have to do some work or pay back some of it.



Really? That's odd; because I have three foreign friends applying to schools in the United States. One from Romania applied to 11 and was accepted at 3. Both of my friends from China were rejected across the board.

The people who are invited to study in the US are graduate students who have already made some name in their own country. Almost all undergraduate, and even most graduate students, apply to come here.



It was in US dollars. My point was that people would rather pay more to come to Harvard than get a comparatively cheaper education at Oxford, because Harvard is better than Oxford--two hundred years ago, Oxford would have been better. But the irresponsible financial practices of the British government have severly weakened their college system, which leaves America as the world's undisputed leader in higher education.



15 miles here takes you from Downtown to the edge of the county. If you're going North, there's no fewer than four hospitals that I Know of in those townships. There's even more further east.

It's not the hospitals and technology we lack; it's the doctors.



Well, you probably get enough exercise farming that you don't really need teh care ;).

errm,

What do you call Desert Storm...? No one can prove he hasn't killed anyone in the late eighties...

Here is the article...and here is a quote:



Sorry, i misread that before, but the fact is, he's killed 1 million innocent people, even IF he HAS had WMD's before, and even though we THOUGHT he had them, you can't just base your opinions on the whole media, what if they were smuggled elsewhere? It's not like he didn't have connections...

late eightys, mayhaps spilling inot early ninties.

the point is, depose him WHEN he kills a million people, don't LET IT GO, and this 11 YEARS LATER, use it as an excuse to ATTACK him.

Wrong. These photos show mass graves shot in 1998.

unearthed in 1998, or killed in 1998?

in my opinion, desert storm should have seen the end of saddam. However, doing it ten years later in the name of WMDs is incorrect.

if the bush admin had said "he's killing tones of people now (and he actually was) then such a war at this time would be justified).

what's happening now is akin to a grown man seeking revenge on another grown man because he was the bully in high school.

right, umm...you know, he was a tyrant and all, and he hated america, and he HAS had WMDs before, and HAS threatened with them before...so...if he did it again, and we knew he could and would kill, why let him stay in power anyway?

^ because he was not an immenent threat. we could have, with those reasons, waited for UN action.

of course, UN action wouldn't come, because in other countries where we have not attacked, people are being killed every day. and yet we choose to attack a country in which there haven't been mass murders for a while, there are no WMDs, and poses no threat to us.

Don't kid yourself. If that was Bush's reason you'd call him a hypocrite for intervening in one country when we "ignore" others. [cough] Sudan [cough].

People would just bring up Pol Pot and argue that he killed on a higher level while the U.S. remained idle.

There's always a way to make a Republican look bad.



Excuse me? You trust the UN? I'm trying to understand what your argument aims to say... are you implying that no action is being taken against genocides because the UN has everything in line except the United States' help?

Please tell me you're not that ignorant.