Well, as Lefties say, "we're all in this together" now, and we gotta cut costs for the collective, because it's the system that's important, and not individuals' lives. So, breathing is optional. (I.e. you may have to take one for the team here.)

It occurs to me, Lefties decry capitalism in part because of the unfairness of the "survival of the fittest" aspect of it. Yet that aspect is only absent in socialism in pie-in-the-sky theory. The Left is just offering a trade for a different kind of "some do well and some get screwed".

In capitalism, your wealth determines the quality of your care. In Leftism, Leftists determine the quality of your care. I'll take the impartiality of it being a factor of my earning potential.

IIRC they were paying their full-timers a minimum of double the minimum wage, and even part-timers were getting 30% more than the state's arbitrary minimum. Probably not even due to market forces, per se; that surely enables it, but I assume it's the Christian outlook of its closely-held close-holders*.

An organization that values its workers and voluntarily pays them good wages; something the Left ought to approve of. Except for the fact they're a corporation (evil!), in the private sector (more evil!), non-union (super evil!), and pay for the 16 out of 20 birth control methods that aren't abortifacients (like conservation, taxes, and regulation, it's never enough**).

*Sorry for the dribblage, but Lefties are making a federal case out of the phrase "closely-held" lately.

**Progressives are like Wall Street analysts/company growth obsessed. It's never enough to progress to a good place, and then maintain that. There always has to be more, more, more.

But what if I don't sell to foreign nations, to other states, or to Native American tribes? Then according to that, the feds at least, have no grounds to get involved in my commerce.

I suppose then your idea of communities is that they be what I'll call right now "trade immunity" zones, where as long as it's intra-community, it's sans regulations (besides things like fraud laws)? And only trade outside the community would be where, in a sense, "foreign policy" considerations would come into play/get factored into trade regulations?

Too much acknowledgement lately of Leftie assertions that they don't even believe so are not worth (semi-validating by) acknowledging...

...beyond groups and individuals seeking unfair advantage through government, are necessarily Leftists' goals for America. Crony capitalism because capitalism unmolested is horrifically "unfair". And oligarchy because the unwashed masses can't be trusted to make the right decisions, so they need them to be made for them by a more enlightened elite guard.

Movement of wealth up out of the middle classes, moving us into the lower classes, in conjunction with our illegal^Wundocumented immigrant policy, is exactly what the Left needs to upend this evil economic system and convert America into supporters of a much more "fair", socialist future.

For "unnecessary" treatments or procedures?

Today we hear, from all media outlets, that annual pelvic exams are no longer necessary for most women. Shazam! Gee, that little gamble should save the government a bunch of money (in the short term).

Kind of like the story of some years ago about how women no longer need annual mammograms beginning at age 40. Some "U.S. Preventive Services Task Force", an "independent panel of experts" you see, declared they can wait until age 50, and then only get it every other year. Because:

Ya, that's much worse than being sure you don't have something that can frickin' kill you.

But it's worse for the collective, and that's what's important now. Expect more occurences of widely-disseminated news reports of treatments and procedures that we're all used to, being declared unnecessary as we progress further with DemocratCare*.

*(No Republican voted for it.)

MH42 said something similar recently, that with his social positions he couldn't get elected to a water board. So anyone who's socially Conservative shouldn't bother running for office/we should only have the morally misfiring to choose from?

(And you disdain wielding power over people, but you'd do it to enforce your social views? That's not much disdain then.)

How odd. I suspect a lot of my pessimism comes from my faith, from knowing why things are the way they are, and that they could only be that way, and that they're supposed to be that way.

And you would have a problem casting Right-wing votes if you ran on that and won a majority in your area of representation? That's not tyranny, that's representative democracy. Very odd.

You have the optimism necessary in a politician. I wish people who had their good sense intact would run for public office. Except for the clergy, what could be a more important job in times like these where America is in shambles and Americanism is crumpling fast.

I'm finding it harder and harder for me to shake off the feeling that this is mostly incompatible with a free society. And I choose an insecure, free society.

Thank you! And who do you think is driving the godless in all their godless pursuits? Nothing? It's just coincidence that it's what the Devil would want?

Human beings aren't evil, but we're prone to tremendous foolishness. I didn't get to the point of filtering out Lefties here because I think they're evil, they're just thoroughly compromised, and why would I want to subject myself to almost nothing but a bunch of lies. It does not profit a man.

Part of the problem is that our Founding Fathers were onto something, but didn't take it far enough. A lot more decentralization is required to stave off tyranny. And that's not what the American system has been, so change is probably limited to only restoring the limited amount of checks and balances that were originally designed in.

(In all seriousness, I do recognize that as one of my flaws, and that I'd fit in better for example in the workplace if I learned better to hide that about myself. (Because I think going forward it's mostly about fitting in, and not how well you can do the job.) But don't expect me to hold back here! :)

Well, okay, "misinformed" (knows things that aren't true) is close to "uniformed" (does not know things that are true). And all such gradations of deception can loosely be called "lies", which was your beef with the former WH Press Sec.

I was just thinking, put yourself in Lefties' shoes for a minute, as it's an interesting (and disturbing) but enlightening exercise. Some "lying" is more direct than others. For example our culture has distinctions like "only" fibbing. Or "little white lies".

I look at them collectively and call the whole intention immoral and against human dignity (for both the lying and the lied-to). But Lefties separate them and rank them, towards being able to group crises and injustices of enough magnitude with them to outweigh the negative connation of using them.

For example the need for nationalized health care was so severely great, it totally justified even the most bald-faced lying. It was for the greater good. Whereas on more mundane issues, the Left will just opt for lies of omission. Or maybe go a little stronger and go with insinuation of falsehood, without directly saying falsehoods.

But then to put all that disgusting stuff in context, wouldn't you lie to, for example, save lives? Even to the nation? Even complete untruths, if the stakes were what you considered to be high enough? Lefties, as religious zealots of their faith, Leftism, just consider advancing and implementing it so spiritually and morally important that most of it outweighs in need and importance any tactics used to sneak it into being.

Whereas I care about my country and the world and the people in it, but I already have a religion, and it's mostly about post this place. But the godless and the humanists and the dirt worshippers recognize only the here and now, and elevate it to make it their belief in something larger than themselves.

More concentrated brilliance from yourself. I've thought the tax system should be a strict chain up the hierarchy, with higher-up levels of government with no power to directly address in taxation anything but its next lower level. No doubt influenced by MH42's thinking and posting on concentric levels of governance and less power over the individual as you get less local.

So I would pay taxes only to my city, for what it needs to operate plus whatever its share is to the county, which would be determined by what the county needed to operate plus its share to the state, etc. Then while dumping the 16th Amendment, get rid of the 17th as well and set the Senate back to a body of juggling states' interests, and determining what the federal apparatus needs to operate.

And yes, we are a republic of states of governance that are also united into a whole, and not supposed to be a monolithic, 2-level nation, of the rulers and the ruled. Barring your exceptions, the federal level should not even legally be able to contact individuals, as not federal citizens but as the city citizens that we should be. Each level of government should only be able to legislate in units of the level of government below it.