I might have misunderstood something, but I thought part of the point of the last bit:

was to indicate that GOP opposition to it was motivated by partisanship and not just by ideology? If that makes sense? I suppose it depends on how you think about the counterfactual (does it just barely pass with minimal GOP support or with substantial GOP support?), but the example of Medicare Part D seemed instructive to me, because then it's not hypothetical.

My feeling is there is a lot of ideological opposition to the ACA in the GOP, and it's definitely true that we shouldn't conflate MA with the national Republican party. But the ideological opposition is probably not so strong as to make the hypothetical of Bush proposing it completely ludicrous. And it does also seem like the GOP decision to campaign so hard against it was as much or more about trying to make sure it wasn't a victory for Democrats than about firm ideological opposition.

I don't get why it would be cheaper. The cost is passed on to the paying customers either way, except now, you have a for profit company in the middle. Whether you want expanded government sponsored health care, or not, we can at least agree on the fact it's going to expand government, and increase spending/cost.

I'm def. no expert--but I think the argument is that having that group of people uninsured ends up costing us/the govt(who was already contributing anyway) more overall(when you really add up the losses/who ends up paying and all the ways they can arise) than by having them insured.

I would like to submit a formal request to have Flywf reinstated in politics and society.

Is this the right place?

You can add tooth as a package deal

Take it to atf probably.

If you're serious, I would like to submit a request that you be admitted to a mental hospital.

Also, I was thinking this might be a good addition to the sticky:

People like you would spend hours telling me the world was flat.
I wouldn't buy into it because there's too much evidence that it's round.

Same here, Romney adopted a GOP, Market based plan. It was put forth by the Heritage Foundation of all places.

Obama went with it because he considered himself a GOP like politician and just assumed it would be an easy win. lol @ him. He had no idea how stupid the average GOP voter is and how well they could be played by their masters.

That's not to say the average Dem isn't played but the whole ACA thing was stellar.

Props for the GOP for understanding there's a sucker born every minute and they vote red.

It's much cheaper on that score.
It also cuts out the administrative costs and takes out the profit which means the money that is spent goes towards health care. So even if you don't save any money on your premiums you get more value for your dollar.

Trying to explain value to a conservative is like trying to explain algebra to donkey. They may actually be still and listen to you for a while but in the end....you're getting kicked.

There used to be GOP plans, but since Obama adopted the Republican more "market oriented" approach vs more centralized Medicare for All-lite plans, Republicans really don't even have a theory of the healthcare marketplace anymore.

AFAIK the only vague theory that conservative think tankers have is that people need more skin in the game and the government spending on healthcare on poor people doesn't really do much for them. That's about it, but they're also very unpopular ideas. How many times have people b*tched about their deductibles going up? Like that, but step on the gas would the be Republican think tank opinion. Also stop giving poor people healthcare.

So Republicans are kind of SOL when it comes to theoretical ideas about healthcare.

I like that! I certainly need to be more mindful of a number of those points in my own posting here.

Is Evolutionary Psychology Possible?

Should go in the citations needed thread IMO. I'd like to look at that later.

The irony of Wookie posting this article now is that with this pandemic we are living through a real life example that is giving some insight into part of the reason why xenophobia and disgust towards outsiders may have evolved in the first place; that is because it was adaptive in protecting populations from exposure to exotic diseases.

And here you go and prove the article correct. Thanks, Kelhus.

It's not really research as much as a lit review and criticism.

If I'm not mistaken, the donkey represents the Democratic Party.

Indeed, a party of jackasses.

eh. i'd still take a conservative over a libertarian. libertarians are the dumbest of all political believers/activists/involved.

I think I'm maybe a Conservatarian.

Edit: Maybe I'm closer to Rand Paul than Ron Paul.

That's true. Andrew Jackson was called a jackass by his political opponents and he was so amused by it that he adopted it as a symbol.


Of course that's back when they were a conservative party.

I only have access to the abstract, but from reading the abstract it seems like mostly pedantic mumble jumble. It seems the goalpost is moving every sentence and honestly it is hard to tell exactly what the exact argument even is.

But I look forward to you giving your thoughts when you have the chance.

I mean it is pretty self-evident that evolutionary psychology can't be definitively proven, just as we can't definitely prove how the moon or Saturn's rings were formed (I have been on an astronomy kick lately); but that doesn't mean it doesn't have any value as a model for understanding the present and even predicting the future.

Seemed pretty clear to me.

Full text. Still haven't looked at it...

A critical underlying assumption in evolutionary psychology is that behaviors that underwent selection in early humans have been conserved in modern humans, but "behaviors" are not biological things that can be conserved. What can be conserved are genes and morphologies. Ergo, to suggest that evolutionary psychology is a real thing, it is necessarily dependent on identifying brain morphologies that underlie the behavioral patterns in question, which is difficult enough, but then also that those morphologies (or the genes responsible for that organization) existed in antiquity and actually resulted in the behaviors that you like to presuppose must have been performed by people in antiquity.

Your first response to the article was to nakedly assume that early humans were just as xenophobic as people are now, that the xenophobia was selected for based on disease, and that the portion of the brain responsible for it is largely unchanged from that time. None of those things are based on scientific inquiry and instead are just things you'd like to be true so that you can justify the existence of xenophobia as something innate rather than learned.