Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Ty's last gasp.

You've more strawmen than all historical stage productions of The Wizard of Oz combined.

Let's go line by line.

Listen, Sebby, absolutely nothing in this conversation turns on the difference between "almost entirely" and "entirely." Nothing.

Actually, no. That's entirely what tripped you up in this conversation. Which is why you're reframing the conversation. Which is what you do when you're confronted with being incorrect about something.

You are arguing, perhaps without realizing it, that the immigrants we are talking about do not deserve healthcare because they don't pay for it, "almost entirely."

This is a new low, even for you. Here you are not only using a strawman, but attempting to preempt observation of that fact by telling me what I'm subconsciously arguing.

I'm not arguing that point at all. You are trying to say that I am arguing that point so you can counter it because you've failed to counter the point I actually made.

As I argue below, and previously (which you conveniently ignore), undocumenteds do deserve health care.

Maybe you don't really believe that immigrants should be treated as an underclass, but are advising Democrats to do it out of political expediency.

This is unclear, but I think you're saying I think immigrants are an underclass. I don't think they're an underclass at all. I think they're underpaid. That was my point. My argument for subsidizing their care is primarily economic. I also think it's inhumane to turn away people in need of acute care.

In terms of spending power as a demographic, undocuments are, in purely economic terms, an underclass. They are paid far less in most instances (yours, mine, and GGG's outlier anecdotes aside). On average, eleven million of them each pay $2k in state and fed taxes. Given there are outliers paying far more than that, we could postulate that there's a hockey stick distribution, and 80% of undocuments are in dire economic circumstances, paying far less than $2k per year, while a small fraction of fortunate ones pay far more than that.

If that's not what you really think, say so, instead of relying on debating tricks like complaints about sophistry.

You were engaged in sophistry. Your argument that I'd used the term "entirely" where I used "almost entirely" can only avoid being labeled as such by asserting it lacks requisite cleverness to qualify as sophistry.

Cornered, you do this sort of thing every. single. time.

You make it very difficult to tell what you really do believe, and when I quote you, you bitch and moan about it. Stand for something.

I made what I stand for abundantly clear: Calling out politicians for bullshitting, in the vain hope they'll stop doing so if sufficiently flagged for it.

The Ds in that debate know damn well that the HC plan for undocumenteds they're behind, in whatever form it takes, will be overwhelmingly paid for by govt subsidy. That's just simple math. And yet they offer the canard that through magical accounting, these undocumenteds will somehow be able to pay for something that most documented immigrants and citizens cannot afford. This offends basic math and logic. It's bullshit. And the Post was right to look right through it and call it what it was - a massive subsidy.

And why not call it a subsidy? What's wrong with arguing that undocumenteds contribute to keeping the costs of numerous goods and services low, so subsidizing medical care for them is not a "giveaway" of any kind? Why do you have to lie? Why do you have to hew to the fiction that most undocumented immigrants can afford to pay for HC insurance? You're the one standing facts on their ear here.

I'm standing for elimination of bullshit. And I don't need to stand for anything more. The problems at hand are incredibly complex, and my views shift on them all the time. I don't have a fix and I'm not sure one is politically possible, but I do believe that to find out whether one may be possible, the necessary first step is destroying "narratives" and "bullshit." And as I noted earlier, this applies to the Rs as well, who are lying through their teeth about immigration in endless regards.

(I think you want me to stand for something else. This need you have for people to pick sides as you'd desire people to align, or be stereotyped, is a pathology in your thinking we can address elsewhere.)