There is no disputing the incredible piles of cash that the insurance industry invested into Washington over the past several decades. Other than that capital investment (which helps to keep the "right" elected officials elected to office) what did the government have to gain by giving this giant gift to the insurance industry?

From my vantage point this was a killer ROI for the industry. And a massive anal probe for the people.

I guess that depends on how one defines large. For example few people would argue against Saddam Hussein being a tyrant, but neither his kingdom nor his government were that large. Now, if you were to instead define large in terms of what fraction of the country's wealth is consumed by the state, then I would certainly agree that his state was enormous. And indeed pretty much every highly militarized state in recent history could be qualified as large in that way.

There, fixed that for 'ya. You're welcome.

The insurance industry didn't get the largest corporate handout to come from any federal government, ever by accident.

... that is, unil the insurance companies get another fantastic handout from the federal government, this time requiring google to release the information to them so that they can raise your rates. Google has no power in comparison to the insurance industry.

First of all, that was not my post. You don't tend to read what I write with much accuracy anyways so it is not particularly meaningful to point out specific examples of where you cherry pick biblical concepts as you most likely won't regard them.

Your own bit on

Is exactly what I'm trying to get you to do.

You - incorrectly, I will again point out - offered the Nazis as examples of socialists. That certainly meets the criteria of

Particularly when you were trying to group all socialists together, does it not?

I did not state that you were calling me a Nazi. I stated that you, in desperation, explicitly brought up the Nazis in your comments.

If you were only trying to say that they were using the word, then you would have been factual. You were, however, plainly trying to call them actual socialists - which is completely inaccurate. As I have stated multiple times now over the past several days, politicians can place whatever words they want in their (or their party's) description, but that doesn't mean they are accurate.

Quite honestly, if you wanted to discussion socialism, you would just abandon this distraction. You opt to bring it up fairly regularly instead. I presume that is a result of the fact that you know quite nearly nothing about socialism and for some reason take pride in that fact.

It may be that we are using different definitions of war. I include the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as wars started by democracies. If you want to exclude them due to the fact that the US did not declare war (and indeed it is well known that we haven't done so since WWII) then you might be closer to accurate in your statement.

What does that have to do with anything? That number on its own is also meaningless as it tells us nothing of how long those 56 million would have lived had they not been aborted; that number almost certainly includes the termination of non-viable fetuses.

Exactly the opposite. The countries that some people have been failing again to label as socialist - based on only their use of the name in their PR - are not socialists in any meaningful way.

Stalin was not a socialist. Period.

We still don't know how many have been killed in our war in Iraq. We have only a general idea of how many have been killed in our war in Afghanistan.

That might be overly discounted discount LASIK, probably the kind done in a van with a laser pointer. I would not advise taking up that offer.

My eyes are actually beyond sensitive, an eye phobia is probably a better way to describe it. When I go to my ophthalmologist they occasionally have to bring in additional people to hold my eyes open so I can take the dilation drops (even though I do that every year and have for decades).

So no, I am not a candidate for Lasik. Not now, and likely not ever.

Oh, come on. You've done the "I know you are, but what am I" punchline before. Applying it in the third person doesn't make it original. You can do better material than that!

Only someone as arrogant as you would claim themselves as a source. Just because you use a word in a particular way does not mean that your use of the word is correct.

In fact, your repeat butchering of the English language is the common thread throughout this discussion (at least, since you injected yourself into it). There really isn't any reason to respond to anything else you wrote in your latest comment as everything you wrote was just more drivel in your futile attempt to twist and distort the English language under nothing but the force of your own will.

But go ahead, take the last word. We both know you're wrong, and we both know your ego won't allow you to walk away from yet another discussion where you have managed to make yourself look like a total buffoon without getting in the last word (even if it is also wrong). Say what you will, you didn't have a point when you started and I don't expect you will later either.

How many wars have been waged or led by democracies in the past 200 years? Quite nearly all of them.

How many wars have been waged by actual socialist countries - not just ones who were playing with words - in the past 200 years? Almost none of them.

Hell just the number of people that our democracy has killed in war in the past 15 years is likely larger than the total number killed by all the military actions of all actual socialist states in the past 200 years.

Hey friend! Are you here to drive this all home with a good joke? We've even brought Pudge out of hiding if you want an easy target. I see you have warmed up by responding to an AC, can you bring your A game out now?

Without a common source on the meaning of words, how do words have meanings at all? You can argue for a different source - and I have noticed that you have not yet done so - but the dictionary is a generally agreed-upon source for the meanings of words. And as I demonstrated, the definition that is given by one of the most commonly cited dictionaries of the English language agrees with me and not you. Your hatred of facts is - again - noted.

Wrong. It means that the dictionary needs to be updated. You have not yet however demonstrated your interesting alternate use of the word "democracy" to be used by anyone other than yourself, hence your attempt to replace the dictionary is - like pretty much every argument you have attempted to present counter to the facts that I have presented here over the past several years - a complete failure.

I see that you didn't bother to present that definition. Did you actually look it up there or are you just pretending to have done so? Considering how much you openly despise the dictionary (likely as part of your war on facts and truth), I rather highly doubt that you looked up anything there.

It appears to be - again - you versus the dictionary.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democracy:
a form of government in which people choose leaders by voting

So you fail again.

Too bad he didn't refer to a dictionary, or he could have known what democracy actually means.

Except it is. I'd ask you to stop lying but that would be a futile request.

There are plenty of countries with socialist leanings, but none that you have mentioned in this discussion so far (for that matter one you mentioned not only was not socialist but is not an extant government at all at this time).

I'm sorry that your inability to read has lowered you so quickly to slinging silly insults at me. Try reading some time, it might help you to some day present an argument of your own.

Now you're making shit up out of thin air, that you could never even hope to try to support. Hell, the length of your perma-hate list would be a good place to start looking for other people who can vouch for the lack of knowledge you routinely exhibit on matter of both national and international politics.

Your ego is fragile as you've already demonstrated by lowering yourself so quickly to silly insults. I don't need to do anything special to hurt it, as it is hurt gravely just by the presentation of facts.

If you had demonstrated either I would happily have a discussion with you. Instead you demonstrate neither and offer up hatred in their place.