Spam Land

Watch an ep before you judge. No wiki page or screeny can do this show justice.


And yes, it is drawn as a western cartoon roughly 90% of the time, which is part of the joke.

 

You know, I always find it funny how American newspapers call Wilders (the bigoted Dutch politican) a far-right politican, to suggest a nazi analogue. He is far-right by Dutch standards. By american standards, he is about en-par with the democrats.

 

Not really.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Wilders#Political_views

Aside from education and healthcare, he's pretty much on par with America's right wing.

Some examples:

• Considerable reduction of taxes and state regulations.
• Introduction of minimum penalties, and higher maximum penalties
• Replacement of the present Article 1 of the Dutch constitution, guaranteeing equality under the law, by a clause stating the cultural dominance of the Christian, Jewish and humanist traditions. (lolwtfracist?)
• "I don't hate Muslims, I hate Islam".

Verrrrry not Dem, unless you think our Dems are racist, bigoted folk who live in Texas.

Really, are you sure you're not mixed up?

 

What's the difference? I don't mean the majority power over the minority vs the protection of individual rights(if I'm correct on the theoretical difference), but having had both types of parties leading the US over the years, what difference did it make to the american people?

In greece we've been rotating between 2 parties a "conservative" and a "socialist" which while in theory might be completely different, in effect are exactly the same thing. The "socialist" party currently in power is nothing but socialist. They both try to take back things the people have earned through struggle, and depending on the situation and how good they can lie they can do more or less damage in a given period of time...

Btw, is it true that there are no other parties in the elections appart from Reps and Demos in the US? I heared somewhere that it's even against the constitution for more parties to be allowed to enter the elections, but I considered that a little bit too far-fetched, tbh... Not that quantity equals quality in any way, but at least greece has a proper communist party(unlike the rest in the EU which are worse than the ruling party in greece) which has done a very good job on predicting the way greece was heading and warns the people in time - even though people are afraid/reluctant to support it, mostly because of the insane anti-communist propaganda out there. Still the majority of other parties in greece(not all of them of course - but the ones that get more votes) converge in effect to the 2 parties that rotate in power, despite claiming otherwise{For example, a leftist party that's condemned quite a few choices of the goverment in the past has ended up voting for them in the end - and another conservative party is supporting whichever of the ruling duo it feels has the most chances of cooperating with them in a government, be it the "socialist" or the other conservative one, despite differences in theory - and despite their thesis being racist/fascist the "socialist" party that's now in power has declared they'd cooperate with them in a government, lol


What I want to say is: If elections change the ruling party in the US, will the american people feel the change in a good or bad way? Haven't stuff like health care, education, insurance etc been becoming progressively more distant/expensive/difficult to have for the average american citizen over the past 30 or so years regardless of the party in power? Isn't there a tendency for such things that should be cheap and accessible from all to go under corporate ownership and thus getting more and more expensive for people to have them?

I don't know, but things in greece have been going that way, and from the little I've read about the US, things are not much different there... There might be some slight differences in effect, more so in the external politics, but I haven't seen much of a difference in the effect a change of ruling party has in the people's everyday life as it keeps getting worse no matter who's in charge...


I was reading some of the questions to the US president on that youtube thingie, and some that I noted are that health care and insurance is too expensive to pay in contrast with wages which aren't raising in the same way and if things are gonna change. Has there been a consistent change to the better under a certain party and a consistent change to the worse under the other or are all changes dictated by the current situation in economy/global politics/etc that both parties would have pretty much taken similar choices?

I'm asking stuff I'm seeing in my own country, without knowing how things are in others, but I'd like to learn from someone who actually lives there...

 

what has become of my beloved spam land

 

Ask it's Lord. He knows...

 

He wants to reduce taxes and state regulations.... to a level still above that of the democrat goals. Something similar for the second point.

And I meant aside the bigotry.


@stirlitz. There are far more parties than just the democrats and the republicans. Sometimes, a single one even gets a single seat! Also, both health care and insurance are privatized in the US, and the market for them has taken a small dip in the last three years, but before that the situation didn't worsen. Education is also partially privatized, so the public schools still kinda blow.

 

But both parties have helped progress that privatization, haven't they? Having fundamental areas like Health care, Education and insurance on private hands as a means to generate profit and not serve the people, how can that be in any notion democratic?

I also don't get why should public schools blow compared to private ones. I mean, when one thing needs to produce profit and another thing doesn't then when a sum of money goes into any of them the thing that does not need to produce profit for the owner will do a better job since all the money goes to it performing well, isn't this reasonable? But if the public schools were equal(not better) to the private ones, that would mean noone would go to the private schools to pay for the same thing, so you have to somehow **** up the public education to push the people that wish-AND can- get a proper education to the private school... I mean, the whole reasoning behind this is rotten... Private education is only the last few years showing up in greece and it came in just at a time when the ministry for education made some big changes in what and how public schools taught at certain subjects, and therefore a need rose for private education.

Same goes for health care and insurance. Putting a person's life in the garbage bin because it doesn't benefit another person's pocket is murder, raw and cold-blooded.
I mean, humanity does huge research and progress in technology, in medicine etc and instead of improving the life of all humanity it's used to improve the life of a few that got a surplus of money and fill the pockets of some others with more money than they or their great-grand-children can spend...

In the soviet union - a land that lost 20 million during the world war 2 and has been at war almost all the time since it was created, and spent tons of funds in retarded armaments competitions against he us after the 50s - education, insurance and health care were free for everyone, housing was extremely cheap and up till the late 60s/early 70s people had their minds free of such fears like health, housing, living etc. Yes there were other kinds of problems, but the ussr produced some great scientists, made extraordinary technological and industrial progress(It started off at the far end of the ladder at the early 1900s and reached the top of it in like 40 years) and people had such basic, fundamental needs covered without paying, and that was 70 years ago!

I mean, how is it even concievable that humanity progresses so backwards, and is not providing for stuff that were taken for granted more than half a century ago?

So many countries have taken such steps backwards: A friend of mine's doing his master's at the Imperial college in london and we were talking about how things are there and he told me that theoretical departments are almost dead because they don't produce profit, and that there are lots of students that drop off their studies because they can't pay the fees...

I mean since when is it profitable for humanity to not have a possible scientist and researcher in order to fill in someone's pocket?

The old ussr had free public education with incredible programms including computer training and assistance in learning, laboratories and other stuff I've never seen at a greek school and they produced so many great researchers... Greece has had free public education for the later half of the last century and compared to the population has an astounding amount of scientists and researchers in many of the world's top universities, and that was a product of non-privatized education. Our profs at university keep saying that the past 10 years the quality of students has decreased dramatically - and that was about when the privatized schools were making their first steps in greece -...

Mine is the generation that will have no public insurance in greece. We're seeing old people starve because their insurance does not provide them with enough to EAT for the month, and old people also need medication which costs, and man, that is depressing. Private hospitals are also starting to appear, and people are having to start paying for health - many times more than they did in an indirect way in the past via public insurance - and their wages are not enough for that. You get unlucky with a health issue in the family? There goes the money you saved up for education. Young couples are almost unable to start a family because if they have kids they have no way to tell if they're gonna be able to feed them, educate them or keep them healthy... And the worst part is that the society as a whole is sitting idle and wathing this poison kill it slowly...

Anyway, sorry for bringing such a matter up, I was just thinking a bit aloud here... Gotta go back to my studying >.<

 

FLY AWAY NOW! FLY AWAAAAAAAAAAY!~ (to those who watched Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt)

Sorry couldn't help it.

 

Reducing taxes and governmental regs is totally a Republican thing.

The second point I took to mean prison sentences, yes? Dems are generally against death penalties.

 

ARGGHH!!!
Loss of blood. My only weakness!

 

Why would anybody be against the death penalty?

 

Yeah, he wants longer prison sentences. Asking for death sentences in the Netherlands is pretty much political suicide.

Reducing taxes is totally a republican thing, sure. When compared with the dems, or the 3rd party. The tea party wants to reduce taxes and government reg more than the average republican. The American populist party wants to reduce it more than the reps.

Similarly, the dems want more than wilders, wilders wants more than the dutch right, the dutch right wants more than that old hippie college professor, the old hippie college professor wants more than the dutch left. Its not just reduction of taxes and regulations, it is reducing it to a certain point. For an example, he also wants more government control of banking bonusses and top-level employment in an effort to be fair to the people re banking crisis.

again, aside from the bigotry.

let me guess, you read an article about medical patents and the fact that they are not immidietly distributed, despite the fact that it is the few years delay that actually funds the medical research in the first place? This method of working probably saves a lot more people in the long run than just doing everything on government funding.

Except that private schools get far FAR more money, through private payments, and thus have far better results. The quality of public schools often directly correlates with the height of taxes, although there of course are other factors. Public schools might try to focus more on quality, but even if private schools only spended 1/3rd on education, they would still put more money in education. Furthermore, parents have to pay for the private schools, and often motivate their child more to do well.

Just wait three years, until after the financial crisis has fully subsided.


In an ending note

Also, when was the last time quantum physics or astro-history profited humanity?

 

v.v you didn't take my bait.

 

I dunno if that's rhetorical, but.

If I was convicted, I would MUCH rather get the needle than live every day for the rest of my life in a 6x8 foot cell with the possibility of being raped, beaten, shanked, maimed, etc.

 

It was intended to purposefully enrage somebody. But seriously. Are there any arguments beyond the "right to live" against the death penalty? Just wondering.

 

The fact that if you give the wrong person the death penalty you can't release him later on. The fact that, due to retrials, it is actually more expensive than life imprisonment. The fact that we waste their bodies afterwards and should make coats out of them.

 

Well, the whole idea is that there is no second chance after a death penalty, right? It's for "unforgivable" crimes? So why do they get retrials?

 

I haven't looked at it lately, but in 2006, states who's primary method of execution is lethal injection spend more on execution than life with parole.

Then there's the fact that death penalty trials cost 3x as much.

What drie said is the more humanitarian side I guess.