Joining the AARP: Right or Wrong?

Greg, my links happen to be FACTS. It is a FACT that AARP has supported Planned Parenthood. It is a FACT that socialist governments do a lousy job of providing needed goods and services—that’s why we have a million Cubans around Miami, after all. It is a FACT that HIDA has taxpayer support of abortions.

You are entitled to your own set of opinions, Greg, but (per Thomas Sowell) you are not entitled to your own set of facts. Per that, NAME a Department of Energy program for alternative energy that works without subsidies or mandates. Look up the history of SAT scores since the Carter administration. Look at the history of the urban poor since the Great Society started.

The person who is not getting it is you, Greg. I am simply presenting facts regarding AARP, HIDA, and the like to which Biblically, Christians ought to object.

I used to be like you Bert. But then I figured out:

1) I am not an expert in everything.

2) Things are invariably more complicated than an armchair quarterback thinks.

3) There are people more informed than me on both sides of the issues that I have strong opinions on. That does not mean they are both right but it does mean I should pause before I elevate my opinions to facts in my own mind.

You know, Greg, there is such a thing as “Google” and you can look up these facts. They are independently verifiable, and from reputable sources no less.

Sorry, but humility about what one knows does not mean that one is an “armchair quarterback” if one cites reputable sources about a matter of fact. In fact, humility means that one ought to do his best to learn the facts of the matter and stand firm with them.

Besides, if we vote—and I’m proud to have voted against Mr. Soetoro twice, and against his policies many more times—how are we “armchair quarterbacks”? We are in the game whether we like it or not.

Ah, I had forgotten about the Google. Now with the Google tool, all of us can be experts in such areas as foreign policy, health care, welfare, energy, and economics. It puts us on a level playing field with those with say 40 or 60 years of experience in those areas.

Oh wait, am I sounding postmodern???

:)

Greg, if you’re going to argue that there is some fallacious issue with finding something by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, or other reputable source via Google and becoming basically informed, yes, you are arguing what is in effect a postmodern ethic. You’re saying that the known facts that can be easily verified with a quick search of reputable sources really qualify as opinions….and that is pure, unadulterated nonsense.

You don’t need half a century in expertise on a five year old law to understand that a maximum 3:1 ratio of insurance rates between the old and young will, given a natural 5:1 or 8:1 ratio of insurance rates, force the young to subsidize the old. You don’t need half a century of experience to figure out that “AARP” is on lists of donors to Planned Parenthood. You don’t need decades to figure out that AARP did support HIDA.

You just need to be able to read. Honestly, you’re using about the same argument that Catholics use against Sola Scriptura, just with a different target. All the bishops with half a century of experience told us that the Pope was Christ’s vicar and devoted himself to poverty and chastity—ignore that monstrous palace and all those papal “nephews” you see, folks! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

Let me give you a quick lesson in the difference between facts and opinions Bert.

Fact: No energy renewal source in US history has been self-sustaining without subsidies.
Opinion: Christians should not support renewal energy because it is a failure.

Fact: Many Cubans have attempted to migrate to the US.
Opinion: Socialist governments do a lousy job of providing needed goods and services.

Fact: ObamaCare forces the young and healthy to subsidize the older and/or sickly.
Opinion: That subsidy is morally wrong.

You can go ahead and keep refusing to see the difference between facts and opinions if you want but I will continue to refuse to engage your opinions because I am just modern enough to think it takes more than the Google to make one qualified to be an expert on a level where their opinions mean very much.

Greg, I really think you need to get out there and learn some things. Let’s walk through:

1. Since when is is Biblically acceptable to discriminate against the poor to benefit the rich? That is exactly what HIDA’s provision of a maximum 3:1 ratio between insurance rates for the old and for the young is doing, Greg. Not opinion, fact.

2. If you look up living conditions in Cuba—meat and vegetables strictly rationed, automobiles nonexistent, people freezing to death in tropical mental hospitals—you will find what conservatives were telling you about the Warsaw Pact in the 1980s, what conservatives told you about high (~10% ) unemployment rates in Western Europe in the same time (nations that abandoned this boomed, by the way), and what conservatives will tell you about places like Venezuela. They’re having a heck of a time getting basic goods and services to their people because they’re removing markets and profit from the equation, just like all sound economists will tell you. So it is a historic fact, backed by sound economic theory, that socialist governments can and do have problems providing needed goods and services.

3. Never argued that we shouldn’t support renewable energy. I argued we shouldn’t subsidize it through the government, because it doesn’t work. And that is a fact—see point #2. If you’ve got to subsidize it forever, you have either a true public good, or you’ve got socialism—which consistently fails to provide what we need.

Sorry, but you’re not the teacher here. You’re the student, if you will but learn.

You are right. I am the student. I know what I don’t know. I am just not interested in being your student. I would rather be the student of true experts rather than armchair quarterbacks who have spent some time on Google.

[GregH]

Let me give you a quick lesson in the difference between facts and opinions Bert.

Fact: No energy renewal source in US history has been self-sustaining without subsidies.
Opinion: Christians should not support renewal energy because it is a failure.

Fact: Many Cubans have attempted to migrate to the US.
Opinion: Socialist governments do a lousy job of providing needed goods and services.

Fact: ObamaCare forces the young and healthy to subsidize the older and/or sickly.
Opinion: That subsidy is morally wrong.

You can go ahead and keep refusing to see the difference between facts and opinions if you want but I will continue to refuse to engage your opinions because I am just modern enough to think it takes more than the Google to make one qualified to be an expert on a level where their opinions mean very much.

Would you be willing to admit that perhaps Obamacare is a bit more complex and nuanced than you have presented it on this thread? Also, do you have any reputable sources to refute the specific information Bert has presented? No one’s arguing that there isn’t a range of opinions on Obamacare, even among Christians. But to act like anybody who is against Obamacare is against it because they are against helping needy people is just absurd.

[Greg Long]

GregH wrote:

Let me give you a quick lesson in the difference between facts and opinions Bert.

Fact: No energy renewal source in US history has been self-sustaining without subsidies.
Opinion: Christians should not support renewal energy because it is a failure.

Fact: Many Cubans have attempted to migrate to the US.
Opinion: Socialist governments do a lousy job of providing needed goods and services.

Fact: ObamaCare forces the young and healthy to subsidize the older and/or sickly.
Opinion: That subsidy is morally wrong.

You can go ahead and keep refusing to see the difference between facts and opinions if you want but I will continue to refuse to engage your opinions because I am just modern enough to think it takes more than the Google to make one qualified to be an expert on a level where their opinions mean very much.

See this is what you do, Greg. You summarized the entire Obamacare issue as “ObamaCare forces the young and healthy to subsidize the older and/or sickly.” Well, who couldn’t be for that! You paint with such a broad brush and stereotype Christians on issues, putting them in your nice neat and tidy boxes, all the while complaining that Christians stereotype others.

Would you be willing to admit that perhaps Obamacare is a bit more complex and nuanced than you have presented it on this thread? Also, do you have any reputable sources to refute the specific information Bert has presented? No one’s arguing that there isn’t a range of opinions on Obamacare, even among Christians. But to act like anybody who is against Obamacare is against it because they are against helping needy people is just absurd.

Seriously Greg L, you need to read my post again rather than climbing on your soapbox so soon and getting out your strawman. I was not making any statements of my own. I was just quoting and summarizing Bert’s thoughts. Not for one second have I suggested I am an expert on Obamacare. I have just said that none of us here are experts and thus, the dogmatism is overrated.

Speaking of statements, this was your first statement in this thread:

I did not realize it was potentially a sin to join an organization because they supported Obamacare. I had no idea that true Christians could not support an attempt to provide health care to needy people.

No one said it was a “sin” to join the AARP. No one said that “true Christians” don’t join the AARP or support Obamacare. Mark shared his personal opinion that he wouldn’t join AARP for the reasons he cited, and didn’t think Jim should either, but he never said it was a “sin” to do so or that “true Christians” wouldn’t do so.

Then when confronted with what a ridiculous summary of Obamacare this was, you said you were only interested in facts, not opinions. When Bert wrote a lengthy post with links to his sources, you dismissed it yet presented no alternative arguments or sources.

If all you are asking for is that we note that some Christians support Obamacare and that supporting Obamacare shouldn’t be a test of true Christianity…so noted. I really don’t see anyone arguing against that, however.

If it is “dogmatic” to quote sources and defend points of fact, let us all be so dogmatic. By the way, my ultimate sources about AARP support of prenatal infanticide and HIDA are….within the AARP. So I would be surprised, to say the least, to find any expert who could successfully contradict that!

And if you want to defer to experts, you are welcome to….say….actually cite some of them.

[Bert Perry]

If it is “dogmatic” to quote sources and defend points of fact, let us all be so dogmatic. By the way, my ultimate sources about AARP support of prenatal infanticide and HIDA are….within the AARP. So I would be surprised, to say the least, to find any expert who could successfully contradict that!

And if you want to defer to experts, you are welcome to….say….actually cite some of them.

Bert, pardon me for turning you down in choosing not to debate your views on health care, economics, welfare, and all other areas you consider yourself knowledgeable in. I don’t have time to invest in debating the opinions of everyone that keeps up with the news. I have made my point over and over and I fear I am wasting my time repeating myself.

GregH,

To me it sounds a little like you are uninterested in spending the time to try to refute views — you just want to write off those holding them as completely uninformed drones commenting on talk radio. I agree with Greg Long that your first comment tried to portray those opposed to Obamacare as not supportive of needy people. Talk about a straw man. You did write “attempt,” but by definition, an attempt is not necessarily worthy of support. Good intentions are not enough.

None of us can ever have all the facts. That doesn’t mean we can’t find enough information to have a valid opinion or to stand on it.

[dcbii]

GregH,

To me it sounds a little like you are uninterested in spending the time to try to refute views — you just want to write off those holding them as completely uninformed drones commenting on talk radio. I agree with Greg Long that your first comment tried to portray those opposed to Obamacare as not supportive of needy people. Talk about a straw man. You did write “attempt,” but by definition, an attempt is not necessarily worthy of support. Good intentions are not enough.

None of us can ever have all the facts. That doesn’t mean we can’t find enough information to have a valid opinion or to stand on it.

Well yes, I am indeed uninterested in debating Bert’s opinions on energy, etc because that was not my original point and I am not sure why his opinions are worth a lot of investment. Maybe he is qualified to speak on those things but to date, his qualifications brought forward are that he reads WSJ and the NYT. My original point was simply that it is absurd to try to force all Christians to toe the conservative political line. For example, there actually are Christians who see universal health care as a moral thing and Bert and company might be interested to know that they would consider him immoral for objecting to it.

I do find the post modernism that is so prevalent in these discussions (where anyone that reads a newspaper is qualified to be dogmatic on the most complex of issues) to be very distasteful. I am not going to say I am an expert on those areas either but I am at least able to recognize the complexity and admit what I don’t know. That is the first step of learning: knowing what you don’t know.

In regards to the perceived strawman regarding my initial post, I understand why you took it that way but that was not my intent. My intent was to suggest that there are Christians who just flat out feel that taking care of needy people with health care is a noble thing. I fall into that boat though I am not going to claim that Obamacare is the perfect solution.

It’s worth noting that not only is “it’s about healthcare for the poor” not only a strawman, misrepresenting conservative arguments against Obamacare, but it’s also false. The poor already had healthcare through Medicaid, and Obamacare doesn’t change that. What it primarily does is to provide incentives and penalties for the middle class to get insurance to Mr. Obama’s taste whether they wanted that product or not. This was the issue of the first Supreme Court case where John Roberts rescued the “Health Insurance Deform Act”; can the government impel people to purchase a product they don’t want via a fine, or tax.

And I’ve got to admit that I really don’t see what’s all that complex about the AARP and HIDA supporting abortion and euthanasia. They clearly do—I documented that—and I would at least hope that the thought of butchered innocents would clear our heads from the fog of political nuance. Do we protect innocent life, or do we not?

Same thing, really, with the 3:1 rule’s pillaging of the poorer by the richer, the web of deceit and bribery used to get HIDA passed, and for that matter the web of executive orders by which President Obama spared his buddies the burden of HIDA. Christians ought to be united against this kind of nonsense—there are places where nuance is appropriate, but this is not one of them.

Bert, honestly, in spite of your bluster and dogmatism, I don’t think you know much about the health care crisis. Mark me down as one Christian who is proudly not united with you against that “nonsense.”

Greg H, your bluster is amusing, somewhat depressing, but not edifying at all. I posted a truth claim; that the truly poor were already covered by Medicaid, and therefore the truly needy did not have their condition materially improved by the passage of the “Health Insurance Deform Act”. I would suggest that you might, say, look it up and learn if this is indeed true.

If it is, then what you have been repeating ad nauseam is yet another of the lies that were used to pass HIDA, and you have confirmed by your own testimony my 5th objection that all Christians ought to have to Obamacare; the series of lies (“if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, period”) and bribes used to pass it. You’ve been repeating one of those lies.

Really, what would our forefathers in faith—the ones who shut down the Circus Maximus and ended the practice of postnatal infanticide (Rome’s form of abortion)—say to us about this matter? They certainly didn’t mince any words about the atrocities they knew of!

[Bert Perry]

Greg H, your bluster is amusing, somewhat depressing, but not edifying at all. I posted a truth claim; that the truly poor were already covered by Medicaid, and therefore the truly needy did not have their condition materially improved by the passage of the “Health Insurance Deform Act”. I would suggest that you might, say, look it up and learn if this is indeed true.

If it is, then what you have been repeating ad nauseam is yet another of the lies that were used to pass HIDA, and you have confirmed by your own testimony my 5th objection that all Christians ought to have to Obamacare; the series of lies (“if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, period”) and bribes used to pass it. You’ve been repeating one of those lies.

Really, what would our forefathers in faith—the ones who shut down the Circus Maximus and ended the practice of postnatal infanticide (Rome’s form of abortion)—say to us about this matter? They certainly didn’t mince any words about the atrocities they knew of!

Bert, I think I won’t do any research on Medicaid right now. I spent several years of my life working on the administration of Medicaid at the state level. I know a great deal about health care not only from that angle but from others which I will not discuss here. I am glad you are an expert after reading some stuff on the Internet but again, I am not interested in debating your opinions or the various spin you put forward. I will say this: I will not disagree with you that the abortion coverage is sinful. However, all lives are valuable, not just babies and providing insurance to those who need it is valuing life. In other words, I am saying this is more complex than you want to make it. You don’t really know enough to understand the complexities and that is OK though it does make your dogmatism (albeit predictable) more annoying.

I do have a question for you: have you ever had to buy insurance yourself on the open market or has it always been provided to you via the government, a job, etc?

Of course I’ve gotten my own insurance, multiple times. I’m very grateful as well that “Glitch girl” (the HIDA portal) wasn’t involved, and in general the private market takes much better care of me than does the government. I can, after all, stop doing business with a company that mistreats me. No such luck with the government unless I emigrate somewhere.

And honestly, if indeed you believe that it is hugely complex that the AARP has been caught supporting abortion, euthanasia, Obamacare, and Planned Parenthood, you ought to explain why it is so instead of simply appealing to your own authority without evidence.

Moreover, if indeed you have been involved in Medicaid, you should have known that Obamacare does bupkus for the poor. Why did you repeat the lie, Greg? What kind of testimony is that?

I apologize profusely for lying Bert. Now I think I will move on. You win.