Gruber said in another comment in 2012 that the reason why you can't get subsidies for the federal exchange is so that states will be encouraged to make their own exchange.

How does "sycophant" work here?

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

Or none of them. The ones democracies participated in, were started by dictatorships invading their neighbors. But even if you add up all the dead in all the wars of the last 200 years- you're still at only a fraction of the 56 million that we've lost to abortion in America alone since 1973.

"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."

By playing with words, do you mean the ones who have actually claimed to be socialist? Plus, of course, socialism and democracy does have a rather strong overlap.

"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."

Hmm, larger than the 15 million Stalin killed outright? Not in war. But abortions, yes.

Your average modern war kills a few hundred thousand tops.

If you want to see my surgery from the surgeon's end of things, Here you go!
Yes, they gave me a DVD of it.

iLASIK is done with all lasers, one to make the flap that was previously done by blade, and the usual LASIK after that. Fewer reported complications than with the older blade style. At my six month checkup I was seeing 20/10 from my left eye and 20/15 from my right. I'm 48 and previously wore progressive lenses. They adjusted my right for a closer focal distance.

It all just works, I love it.

Only someone who doesn't understand language would assert that I am not a source. Everyone who uses language is a source of meaning of that language. That's how our language actually works.

We both know you're lying, because I quoted other sources agreeing with me, and you pretend I didn't, just like you pretend I didn't reference Madison in regards to "democracy."

This may help: http://cathleenfalsani.com/obama-on-faith-the-exclusive-interview/

"Democracy has a body count many orders of magnitude higher than socialism."

Only if you take abortion into account.

Actually, in fact, I did. I was very explicit. You just don't understand language, so you missed it. But because I am so generous, here it is again: common usage. That determines the meaning of all words. We can be prescriptive in a given context -- for example, "organic" has a specific legal definition when applied to food for sale -- but generally, we simply have to go with how words are commonly used. We use dictionaries to discover common usage if we don't know it, but not to prescribe it.

Not by anyone who understands language or dictionaries, no, it's not. Even Wikipedia says you are full of shit: "Large 20th-century dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Webster's Third are descriptive, and attempt to describe the actual use of words. Most dictionaries of English now apply the descriptive method to a word's definition ... the meanings of words in English are primarily determined by usage."

You're a liar, of course: I referenced a very important person in the history of the word: James Madison himself. And it's not an "alternative," it's the original meaning. The original use of the word "democracy" was in reference to Athens, where all citizens collectively made all legislative decisions. You're just being completely idiotic, as usual.

I presumed you were capable of taking your URL and replacing "democracy" with "socialism". My bad.

You're a liar. I simply use dictionaries properly, and criticize their improper usage. Using a dictionary to settle a discussion about the proper meaning of a word is obviously stupid, if you understand that dictionaries are descriptive, and therefore prone to error. Even without understanding how dictionaries work, the fact that we have many English dictionaries with sometimes conflicting definitions should clue you in to the fact that you can't use one dictionary to settle the discussion.

Nope. Just here to note that your idiocy is on another level these days -- which for you, is really saying something. It's past the point of you just naturally being a little slow on the upkeep, it's degenerated to the point where you really have to try to be as willfully ignorant as you are. I'm just here to applaud your effort, it takes a lot to remain so oblivious to overwhelming facts that shatter your world view. Your psyche must be hanging on by a thread, when it finally shatters it'll be amusing to watch.

... the idiocy over there has really ramped up.

Congratulations, AC, you're written what may possibly be the dumbest post in slashdot history -- and considering the general idiocy of the lefty trolls around here, that's really saying something.

A Christian who "takes the Gospel more seriously than anything else" would interpret those words as never responding to aggression with violence or legal defense. The latter implies you wouldn't even go after government who is violating the Constitution.

HOW ON EARTH DID YOU MAKE THAT LOGICAL LEAP?

Just because Christians are commanded to not respond to violence with violence does not mean that we cannot seek a peaceful, legal remedy. Christians are not commanded to be doormats, AC. Seeking legal (or criminal charges) against someone is vastly different from smacking some dude back.

In other words, a true Christian would not be bothered by the evils of the Progressives, the federal government, etc. Those are merely Kingdoms of Man.

Wrong again. Christians are called to be defenders of innocent life, and for true justice to be merited on earth. Take abortion -- you're making the statement that Christians shouldn't care about abortion because it's part of a Kingdom of Man. Well, if Christians are called to be the Light of the World, how can we stand idly by while innocents are getting slaughtered by the millions?

not being political and telling people how the president is a rodeo clown (that's judging, against what Jesus taught)

What Jesus was talking about was not discerning whether or not an action is sinful, we can judge that all day. Jesus would not object to any Christian saying homosexual contact is sinful. Jesus would strongly object to the Fred Phelps crowd saying all homosexuals are going to Hell. THAT'S WHAT JESUS MEANT WHEN HE SAID DO NOT JUDGE. He meant that He, and only He, through God the Father, is the Judge of Humanity that decides our ultimate fate - Heaven or Hell.

You know, AC, you should really have logged in. You should own your idiocy in this post.

Once again, you do not know how dictionaries work: they do not prescribe definitions, telling us what words must mean; they merely describe how words are commonly used. Dictionary authors are reporters, not dictators. And if we identify common usage that is not captured by the dictionary definition, that is proof that the dictionary is wrong or incomplete. Further, if we can identify common usage, we literally have no need for a dictionary at that point, because it would at best be redundant, and at worst mislead the less-educated among us who have been tricked into thinking that dictionaries are authoritative.

And too bad you didn't look at that same dictionary for "socialism," because under that entry, you see definitions that well-describe the Soviet and Chinese regimes of the 20th century that you say are not socialist. So by your own logic, you proved yourself wrong.

Do you ever tire of being a tool?

False. In fact, "democracy" means people making decisions collectively. As Publius wrote in Federalist 10, it's a society of people assembling and administering the government in person. For example, in Massachusetts, the residents, at a town meeting can pass any rules they wish for the town (subject to state and federal law, etc.). That's, arguably, actual democracy. But voting for your leaders is not. We call it "representative democracy," to highlight the fact that we're collectively voting for people to make decisions for us, but that's not a "type" of democracy, it's actually a different thing. We have small pieces of democracy -- town meetings, voter initiatives, and so on -- but not much of it.

You can make an argument for their being different degrees of democracy, but there are plenty of democracies in this world including the country you currently live in (unless you finally moved away from the USA).

Only in the exact same sense that there are different degrees of socialism, and there are plenty of socialist regimes in this world.

It only seems that way to morons like you. Really.

Literally no one agrees with you on this, no matter their opinions of my beliefs. I don't even believe you believe this. I can tell you're trying to hurt my ego, but you'll have as much luck doing so by attacking my intelligence and knowledge as you would for calling me short or hairless.

Translation: "crap, you caught me in a lie again, so I'll just lie some more and pretend that I wrote it and you just ignored/missed it."

Of course, this is the same idiot who lied about Democracy being responsible for more deaths than Socialism, even though the essentially socialist regimes Soviets and Chinese in the 20th century killed many times more than all democracies put together. Right, right, they aren't True Socialists. Well, there's never been a True Democracy either -- thankfully -- so it's a dishonest claim no matter how you slice it.

Not that we're surprised.