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$15 is absolutely a living wage in the midwest. And we are talking basic needs only. I'm not paying for people to get a big flatscreen TV. I could survive off $15/hr easily.

my 2 goals in life are pretty much to not be fat and get pussy.

"The worker who votes the Democrat or Republican ticket does worse than throw his vote away. He is a deserter of his class and his own worst enemy." Eugene Debs

Oh, something I previously forgot to mention. Kirsten Gillibrand also failed to make the debate and has decided to drop out of the race. If you want to see rigged though, just watch CNN... They, very often, during election talk put up the top 5-6 candidates in the polls... Except for the fact that they leave Andrew Yang off who is consistently at 3% right now and put Beto up instead who is at 1% lol. Fuck Russia, the media plays such a huge role in who becomes President. It's really ridiculous.

1. We literally push people to a) think in partisan terms politically=never happy b) run away from the idea of healthy, committed relationships= never happy c) choose to feel like a victim for our misfortunes when they're brought on by our own personal failings= never happy. Essentially, we no longer push personal accountability. 2. Traditional family values are the nuclear family. Mother and father married, raising the children. Nearly every single mass shooter was fatherless. That's caused by 2 things--shitty men, and women who choose shitty partners. Raise your sons to be good men, raise your daughters to desire good men. It's really that simple. It shouldn't take til after 25 or 30 for a woman to realize she probably shouldn't fuck somebody who wouldn't make a good father or partner, and it shouldn't take til 25 or 30 for a man to grow the fuck up and realize that there's more to life than having as much meaningless sex as possible. 3. Do I really have to explain how we're moving away from living with a moral compass? Look around. Listen to the news. I'm much, much more well-spoken than some overweight slob on Fox News blabbing on about the good old days. I don't care about reverting back to anything other than teaching young people what really leads to happiness, and that is purpose. And the simplest way to have purpose is to have a family. Most people won't get to work in a field that they love, so they should worry more about a healthy, stable home life than anything.

Its absolutely true. I am surviving on $12/hr. I would thrive on 15. Wear jackets indoors, use electric blankets instead of heating a room, and invest in good insulation. I do agree with you on buying a home though, I think its one of the fastest ways to get out of poverty actually. They are cheaper than apartments, so as long as you can somehow come up with the down payment, you should absolutely buy a home that you can afford.

Guns causing suicides to be more frequent is not an agree to disagree thing. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/ It's simply a fact. Also wrong is the idea that most people who want to commit suicide, will. There are 45 attempted suicides for everyone one that succeeds. I admit I was wrong on the funding thing, I was looking at what funds science, and not medicine in particular, article was lumping them together. I thin, however, we're just going around in circles here. You're stuck on not taxing rich guys more, you'd rather have poor people not have insurance, when it comes down to it, though you'd really prefer a system that does neither, which frankly, IMO, is a pipe dream. You still don't explain why everyone has to pay for firefighters and police but not for medical care, as in what the difference in logic is. Doctors and nurses are already overworked because the hospitals, in their infinite wisdom, decide that they need to do 12-16 hour rotations so the patients deal with the same people? I'm not sure on the logic here, that's what I've been told is the logic. Insurances and hospitals already literally make up prices for shit, so yeah I'm okay with not paying the hospital $10 for a single tylenol pill. I'm not arguing that medicare isn't ass, all insurance is ass. I deal with the fuckers every single work-day. They are all a bunch of money-grubbing, corner-cutting, how can I fuck the patient over to save my company money, scumbags. All of them. To argue that since the current medicare is ass and therefore medicare for all will be ass is just not really an argument. They're two entirely different entities. I really don't get where you're talking about your insurance getting worse. It would be taken out of your taxes, the vast majority of people that pay for health insurance would pay less. If we want to have like a ranking system or something where you can pay more for more service or something, that's fine. I really don't think its a tough sell at all if you have empathy for your fellow humans. I never said you owed society something, I said you had a responsibility to it. That's pretty different to me. Everyone in this country has a responsibility to others. It's great that you've created 83 jobs for people. If you're unwilling to wait a little longer for a cold to get some antibiotics, in order so that other people can see the doctor at all, that's just something that yes, is hard for me to grasp. We would rather have a society where people who are unsure about whether or not something is worth going in for just sits on it and hopes its not life-threatening? Really? The current status quo is insane. We have people rationing insulin and dying because they don't get enough. But god fucking forbid the government "steals" more money from people who can afford it to literally save other people's lives. I deal with this shit every day, as I said. It makes me upset that people lack empathy so much that they dont want to pay a bit more so that other people can afford the medicine they need to be healthy.

We will have to agree to disagree here. Most people who are suicidal will try multiple times and if a gun isn't present they will try other methods. I think most people that are truly suicidal will find a way to get it done. Personally I dont give a shit about suicide or people who commit suicide. My disdain for them is well documented on this site, and I dont think it needs to be rehashed here. Not all insurance is ass though. That is my point. What you are saying, or at least what I am hearing, when you say medicare for all is," Pay more for a shittier product." It is really hard to sell me on that. Patient satisfaction surveys who have medicare are also hating it. I can tell you from what I hear that Hospitals try to get people with Medicare out the door because there is no money to be made there. Medicare is paid off of how the patient feels they are treated, which if we are being fair, if you are in a hospital you are probably not in the greatest of moods. This is a true statement medicare has patient satisfaction as a methodology for deciding how much to pay a hospital for their services. How insane is that? There is a reason hospitals just want to do the minimum required and get them out the door and down the road to the next hospital. Imagine what is going to happen to doctors and hospitals if their reimbursement for services is on the whim of a patient. Not good. "You cant throw money at things" might be the battle-cry of the right, but you have to admit they are right. This result would be shocking, even if we had not spent $21.5 trillion “fighting poverty” over the past 50 years. Here’s why. Between 1967 and 2012, U.S. real GDP (RGDP) per capita (in 4Q2013 dollars) increased by 127.3%, from $23,706 to $52,809. In other words, to stay out of poverty in 1967, the two adults in a typical family of four had to capture 26.9% of their family’s proportionate share of RGDP (i.e., average RGDP per capita, times four). To accomplish the same thing in 2012, they only had to pull in 12.1% of their family’s share of RGDP. And yet, fewer people were able to manage this in 2012 than in 1967. https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2014/03/19/the-war-on-poverty-wasnt-a-failure-it-was-a-catastrophe/#1dc3dbbf6f49 I am not going to make you the argument that Republicans are right often, but they are right here. I use this so often because it seems like such a simple solution doesnt it? There is a lack of money here, lets throw money at it (21.5 Trillion) to balance it out. It fails. If throwing money at a problem works then how the hell did all that money from taxes and put into supplemental programs create our current economic climate of wealth distribution at the top. This is insane when you think about it. Telling the government to throw money at a problem is never a fix. WE are fixing a symptom and not the cause, but to many people are out for the rich guys blood. They want to see him murdered in taxes, that is how you excite a base. If we did all the things I said we would save money for better healthcare. I dont see the need for shitty insurance at that point. I dont think poor people cause insulin prices to go up. I also dont think I did either so it shouldn't come off my back. See what I am saying? You are taking money from people who did not create the problem so you can throw more money at it. If we didnt create the problem, how are we the solution. Fix the problem at its source, and dont just take the easy option of taking from people who worked their ass off to get where they are only to fail at fixing it. Medicare sucks. Medicare tells you it sucks, the patients tell you it sucks, doctors and hospitals say it sucks, I dont know why we ignore all that and tout it as a good thing. It simply isn't. WE are not looking at attacking the SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM, we are looking at ways to make the rich guy pay for the poor guy who isnt his responsibility. When something is free people use it for menial shit. Instead of going to the doctor for a sore throat, buy some cepacol and move on. It is not so much the waiting lines for me though. It really is the standard of care. I dont want to see some tired doctor and overworked staff at the end of the day who are just waiting for their shift to be over because they have been getting inundated with bullshit all day. Then think about how overworked a system will become. Do you think that when they start taking this out on doctors that more people are going to sign up to go to school for the better part of two decades, to become overworked and make less? I doubt it. The real problem here is America is never going to go full liberal and if thats the case you will never solve the real problem because people are to affixed on the wrong thing. As to the lack of empathy. Thats fair. As far as owing society...I dont OWE them anything. People in society owe themselves. It is not up to me to help you and change your life, that is up to you. This whole, "The bootstraps thing is outdated" is horseshit. I did it. I have given society 83 field jobs as of yesterday, over 100K in taxes, 4 office jobs, and a reliable service that everyone needs. My job is done. Those 83 people earn every cent of over 1,000,000 dollars I put into the economy every year. AS far as I am concerned if you havent done more than that dont tell me that I owe society anything. I have given society enough, and yet its idea is to tax me more. Get fucked. Or at least until you can prove to me it wont be a fiasco like our social nets now. AS to funding. You are wrong. The money that colleges get is funded in large part by big pharma. Gasp, those evil people doing research and funding it to create new medicine. https://thevaccinereaction.org/2018/04/big-pharma-pays-universities-for-most-medical-research-in-u-s-today/ https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2475454 Private sector pays for most of it https://www.berkeleywellness.com/healthy-community/health-care-policy/article/who-pays-medical-research https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/data-check-us-government-share-basic-research-funding-falls-below-50 The materials of CRISPR is cheap. The two decades of research is not. IF we all pay for healthcare now, why would I be interested in still paying for healthcare for everyone and having my insurance get worse. DO you understand how this is a tough sell? The taxpayer picks up ER visits for people who cant pay anyway, as well as a host of other services. The only thing we dont really cover right now is mental health, which we should take more seriously. I got 70 percent because that is the number that people cite when talking about the 50's and the American dream and so on. WE should NEVER make a guy pay more than half of his wealth through government sanctioned theft. I dont CARE for what reason. I also think you would be surprised how much philanthropy pays for. And the last statement is my point. We handed the penal system over to the government from the states and BAM its privatized anyway. So if that is the end game why not fix the real problem and leave our corrupt government out of it? There is no good to come from a corrupt government interfering in anything.

"Nuanced": 2. I understand it for sport, competition, and the crazy wildlife defense Thanatos mentioned. Should be a lot of restrictions here, though. 7-10.I didn't like the wording choices here. Too much of a grey area between "major factor" and "not a factor". I believe that all of these are contributing factors of varying degrees, but not much in this world can be boiled down to one cause.

It is one of my favorite members birthday. Solid dude, glad to hear your beginning your post scholastic journey. I hope it serves as a springboard to your success. Happy Birthday man.

I think the difference being applied her is that psychiatrists often don’t provide much, if any, actual therapy. They are, generally, there to diagnose and prescribe.

They should definitely get help. What I am saying is even with medication I am very dubious about telling people the cure is a pill. Using your analogy if someone is on the same plane as everyone, they still have to do the work. There are millions of people who have medication and are still depressed. Those people are not doing the work in most cases. And sometimes you do have to man up and get through. Sometimes it really is that simple, but it's hard. I also have a problem with medications though. Not saying they are all bad or even most, but consider this. Imagine being diagnosed young and life sort of being numbed for you with meds, and then you get off for whatever reason and now life is coming at you full force. That is why I think a lot of people break and eventually commit suicide. No proof just a theory. I think how we treat mental health is poor. So.e people need medicines, sure. Others need coping skills, support structures, confidence or a whole bunch of things that cant be cured with pills.

Mental illness isn't your fault, but it is your responsibility. And I think it takes a combination of what Bware is saying and what Thanatos is saying. People that require help and assistance shouldn't have the added pressure of everyone else just assuming they put themselves in a situation to be sick. As Thanatos said, telling someone who is depressed to just wake up and be happy isn't plausible or actionable in anyway. But I think seeing a therapist and not just a psychiatrist who is willing to pump drugs into you is a big help. Just having someone there to actually listen is a great first step. But learning different coping mechanisms to get beyond (even a little) bouts of depression or anxiety or whatever it may be is also important. I am not anti-medication but what happens if you just go to a psychiatrist, get a bunch of pills without learning any coping skills / habits and then.... you run out of meds... your brain adapts to the current meds and the dosage is no longer effective... you take the meds, but you still have a bad day... etc etc for any number of scenarios. Even on medication, people can and do still suffer. And by no means are those coping solutions a "cure" -- that's naive. But it does prepare the individual to better deal with their disease beyond the medication. It's just an extra precaution that, IMO, should be taken to better (even slightly) your life.

Little too late.

Dick.

That last line wasn't a shot, just illustrating how crazy I would have to be.

I agree that there's a lot of hyperbole around the impact of minimum wage on small business. I would still contend that it's an overall negative for those businesses though. And it's not that they can't pay them... A lot of that hyperbole is that they will be forced to close or they're gonna leave the city. Most of them don't. They just... cut hours. Like cited up above. Those small businesses... Wages went up, overall payroll is DOWN. Most of them are saving money by hiring less people and cutting the hours of the part timers they already have. They are making it work. Still, i contend that the reaction as a small business is still negative. Just because they make it work doesn't mean it's a satisfactory solution (at least in my mind). I am FINE with states who feel like they need to go above and beyond. If in California they want to pass a $20 minimum wage because a small studio apartment can go for more than $2k a month... go for it. I am not in or near California at all. Not my business and not my place to tell them how to run their state. For the most part, anyway. I know you said you're for the freedom dividend, so there's no argument here. But 12k a year (effectively $6 an hour doing a 40 hour / week job all year) has way more benefits across the board. I actually don't know if there is a negative other than government cost -- which Yang has planned out well enough for me to jump on board. Doesn't have the negative impact on small business, people working those part time jobs COULD ACTUALLY QUIT (if they want). Give people the freedom to pursue things they actually love and enjoy rather than having to work all the damn time. We agree here more than we don't, I just had to get that out there.

If you want to stabilize the American family, give people healthcare and a living wage. If you're feeling suicidal you should be able to just walk in and talk to a doctor. Stuff like that would go a long way to preventing mass shootings. By all accounts you seem opposed to this.

Even when it comes to trauma, we all have different ways of coping (or not). Every situation (person) is completely 100% unique. Stabilizing the American family is a big part of fixing that. And for those instances that we can’t prevent, we have to get better at identifying the troubling patterns and get people help. So I think we agree there.

I understand your point but childhood trauma is so common. More common than people realize. I personally think we need to intercept these individuals when they're developing as awkward, socially inept, bitter, angry adolescents and teenagers.

The only point I was trying to make was that there are some things that we have to make laws against people owning or restrict ownership of certain things. JD was saying it's not the government's role to tell you how to live but that just simply isn't true. Maybe we should do away with drivers licenses and do away with traffic laws. Who the fuck is the government to tell me I can't drive just because I have narcolepsy? Again, I wouldn't ban assault rifles. I have already said what I would do. I actually agree with much of what you and JD say.

I love guns, more specifically handguns, more specifically revolvers. A revolver is old school technology, but for a real self-defense situation, you can't beat a J-Frame Smith and Wesson or a small Ruger in .38 special. People call the .38 special weak, but to this day nobody has volunteered to stand in front of me while I shoot it. Other people can do whatever they want, for the most part. But my little 5-shooter is all I need to feel safe. If I'm too far away to use it, I'm in a good position to do the right thing in a dangerous situation: run.

Colombia's doors are open to you, Zack. And anyone else who wants something different. Speaking of Colombia and different, I'm moving to a totally different part of Colombia in 2 weeks. I don't have a new job lined up yet, but I have plenty of savings. It won't be hard to find work anyway.

I agreed with you until the last few sentences. I'm not one of those people, we can address health care all day long, just because I don't believe in raising taxes for everyone for some convoluted plan that isn't going to work, does not mean I don't believe in health care reform. I believe there are many ways to do it without having to do that. As far as both parents having to work, you're absolutely right there. I am certainly for a living wage, I have also said several times over that I believe every job in this country should be unionized. I'm not saying that so that way everybody here can see how woke I am saying it because I truly believe that that would drastically change with the outlook of our country looks like. There would be more time at home with parents, now hopefully these parents are engaged, but under ideal circumstances we will be able to raise better kids, we would be able to have kids around their parents enough to know that they're there for them. We would have parents who would know there something wrong with their child. These are things I absolutely believe in. Any amount of money you wanna spend on repairing the American Family, spend it. I would donate 90% of my wealth if it meant the American Family were repaired. Now I'm not that rich, but I would certainly be all for the government taxing people like me and who make more than me over 90% of our wealth to repair the American Family. Well to a point, the US government has proven that throwing money at something doesn't really work Look at the war on poverty. In simple terms you would think it would work. These people have no money, let's throw more money at them. And yet poverty has risen. Although in principle I would be for a tax for the American family. That is the one thing in my life I could not live without. If we recognize we have a mental health problem, why do we lash out and decide to take guns from millions of people? It doesn't make any sense. There are some gun control measures I'm all for. If you wanna have universal background checks, all for it, you wanna have the gun show loophole closed, all for it, you wanna have a centralized database for people who have mental health issues or felony records, all for it. That being said, for law abiding citizens who have no mental health issues, there is absolutely no reason I shouldn't be able to own 1 because 3 or 4 assholes in this country don't know how to behave per year.

I can't tell you exactly why they look down on us if I'm being honest. However, I do know that every time they get a chance to run their Yap it's always about how, "well in our country we had 1 mass shooting and we shut it down for everyone." Look at us we're so enlightened, you poor neanderthals will never figure it out. Numerically speaking mass shootings really on a problem in this country. Are they terrible, absolutely. Is it something that happens every day like we're led to believe common were scared into repeating? No. They're not. The worst year for mass shootings on record was 2016, 432 people died in a mass shooting that year. There are 330 million people in this country alone, do you know what that math works out to? .000000129% Of the population. Would you support prohibition? 80000 people a year die from alcohol related incidents. That means in this country you are a 188% more likely to die from alcohol then an assault style weapon, even though that's not really a thing. 188%. Why don't we start banning alcohol? Is it because it's a giant government over reach into our private lives, to take away something we enjoy? Of course it is. As a general rule people find alcohol more enjoyable than guns, I do not. I don't need an assault rifle with a 100 round capacity magazine, even though that really really wouldn't be a magazine that would be more of a drum, but either way that's neither here nor there. The Point is I may not need one, but I'm constitutionally guaranteed the right to own one, and I nor anyone else should have my rights trampled on because 426 people die in a mass shooting in 1 year. Especially if the people who are banning it enjoy alcohol considering that kills far more people. You cannot nerf the world, bad things are going to happen to good people. They're going to happen to kids, they're going to happen to loved ones, and these are all terrible things. I'm not standing here advocating for mass shootings, I am saying don't take away my rights without due process when I have done nothing to deserve it. You can't really call an executive order due process, but if you choose to go that route, what stops an executive order from reenacting prohibition? When you start manipulating the Constitution like that you open yourself up for a can of worms. Now I'm not going to change your mind, I am aware of this. You probably have rebuttal after rebuttal of why people like me should have our rights trampled on. That being said, I don't think most people look at it from the other point of view, I certainly don't think they put it into context of exactly the size of the problem we're dealing with here. It is very small. That's not even getting into the overwhelming black market that we would create. You remember the war on drugs? How many drugs that that stop from entering the country? In an age where machine is can order parts off of Amazon, we can 3-D print, and inmates can make guns in prison do you really think we're not going to figure out a way to get them anyway? Mark my words, more people will die from an assault rifle ban then will be saved by them.