KMAN wrote:
"Tinkerntom" wrote in message
oups.com...

KMAN wrote:
"Tinkerntom" wrote in message
oups.com...

KMAN wrote:
"Tinkerntom" wrote in message
oups.com...

KMAN wrote:
in article , KMAN at
wrote on 2/28/05 12:59 AM:

in article
,
Tinkerntom
at wrote on 2/28/05 12:40 AM:


KMAN wrote:
in article
et,
rick
at
wrote on 2/27/05 5:10 PM:


"KMAN" wrote in message
...
in article
,
Tinkerntom

snip..



Tinkerntom, I'm actually surprised that a man of your
high
moral stands has
not jumped in to criticize rick for being a liar and a
coward.
Why is that?
================
MAybe for the simple reason that I have not lied. Of
course,
you
cannot make the same claim.
Why not at least back up one of your claims, fool?

If just one Canadian died in a waiting line for health
care
it
would
be a
national scandal featured on the front page of every
newspaper
and
the lead
story of every television and readio news program. It
hasn't
happened
rick.
You made it up. You are a liar. And a coward for
refusing
to
admit
it.

To his credit, Tinkerntom has added his name to the list
of
those
who
have
never seen you prove your claim.

I Did? Where did I say such a thing? TnT

Eh?

Sorry, my mistake. When I first read...

"I agree, that you claim, that he made the claim, and
failed
to
support
it. No mystery here after watching this squabble for the
last
week!"

...I missed out on the weasel words you threw in there. I
guess
you
really
are afraid of rick!

While you are still up, Tinkerntom, let me see if you are
not
too
big
of a
coward to give a straight answer.

Have you seen rick provide any evidence to support a claim
that
Canadians
are dying in waiting lines for health care?

[] Yes

[] No

What if I vote, and I get a hanging chad? Do we call
Katherine
Harris,
Jeb Bush, Florida Supreme Ct. or US Supreme Ct. to get this
mess
straightened out? TnT

Coward!

So what must I do to get off your Coward list, I'm waiting to
hear?
TnT

Answer the question. It's not like I suddenly gave you a label
with
no
foundation, Tinkerntom. You know exactly what this is about.

Have you seen rick provide any evidence to support a claim that
Canadians
are dying in waiting lines for health care?

[] Yes
[] No

Ok I'll try to answer you! Last night, I spent several hours going
through the archives of this discussion, reading several hundred
post
by Kman, frtwz, Mike D, Wilko, Scott W, and of course our good
friend
rick. I do not know whether rick will abide by my arbitration in
this
matter though so I am not sure whether I should wait for him to
agree.
However, he did say in one of his post even this AM, that he stands
by
his record, and that he posted as he claims evidence of Canadians
dying
while on wait list for medical procedures and Tests. I am assuming
also
that being on a wait list is the same thing as being in a wait
line. If
they are different, I did not find any claim by rick that people
are
dying in an actual line while waiting, or evidence to support any
such
claim.

Right. That's all I am saying.

You should have simply ticked "yes" instead of babbling on, but oh
well.

He has not provided any evidence that Canadians are dying waiting in
line
(or waiting on a list) for health care.

However, on 2/20 at 9:32 Rick presented 4 links as evidence to
support
his claim that Canadians were dying while on wait list, and
receiving
late, slow, and inadequate medical procedures. That if a Canadian
had
the funding, that he could go to the USA and receive prompt medical
attention, and that in Canada, such outsoursing was considered
illegal,
and subject to a substantial penalty. Rick was not comparing the
advantages or disadvantages of the two systems, nor even saying
that
the American system was good at all. He was only commenting on the
Canadian system that resulted in long wait times for certain
procedures

In certain rare circumstances, particularly in geographically
isolated
areas, or for unique specialty tests, yes.

and tests that at times resulted in people dying before they could
receive the medical attention that could have served to save their
lives.

There is no evidence of that.

He was not saying that once the people actually received the
medical attention, that the medical practices themselves were
inadequate or non-professional. The 4 links are as follow:

http://www.nupge.ca/news_2000/News%20May/n12my00a.htm
http://www.cato.org/dailys/07-24-04.html
http://www.utoronto.ca/hpme/dhr/pdf/Barer-Lewis.pdf


http://www.angelfire.com/pa/sergeman...oysplight.html

Yes, I saw all of them.

None of them say that Canadians are dying waiting for health care.

The main objection to one of the links at the time was regarding
the
Frasier Institute, and its supposed backers, as being anti-Canadian
medical system. Whether this is true or not, I can not determine.

The Frasier Institute are a bunch of whackos, and not a reliable
source of
objective information, but even they aren't saying Canadians are
dying
waiting for health care.

Rick
also offered that there were many other links to support his claim,
data that came from Canadian universites, labor unions, think
tanks,
that would not supposedly be anti-Canadian. He did not list any
other
specific link that I found.

No, he didn't.

Regarding your question, unless there is a distinction between
waiting
list, and waiting lines, and irregardless of the credibility of the
links provided as evidence, I believe that rick did provide
evidence to
support his claim. So my vote is yes, and I believe you KMAN owe
rick a
public apology.

Please provide me with the precise quote from one of his links where
it
states that Canadians have in fact died waiting in line for
treatment.

Now I hope this can bring and end to the acrimony, and I would note
that though I believe rick provided the evidence, that I understand
better after reading maybe a hundred post by him that his style can
be
abrasive. My only suggestion is that in the future if you want to
avoid
the abrasion, don't engage him in debate. TnT
TnT

I would suggest that you be more careful in evaluating the question
at hand.

If you saw evidence provided by Rick (or anywhere else) that
Canadians have
died waiting in line for treatment, please post it.

KMAN, your question was whether rick posted any evidence, not whether
that evidence was valid! I tried to strain out the knats about the
lines and lists, because you kept talking about lines, and he talked
about lists. His links appear to support what he was saying, and from
his perspective were offered as evidence that some Canadian had died
while on a wait list for medical test and procedures. Those folks may
have died anyway, and maybe not due to being on the wait list which is
his implication. His implication may have been beyond the scope of the
data provided, and your understanding seems unwilling to consider
unfavorable data. Probably both of you are faulted, for your own
reasons. I do not see that it was a lack of care on my part answering
the question, but on yours asking a poorly framed question. Evidence is
submitted in court, tagged and labeled, and added to a case file. It is
evidence whether it is good evidence, pertinent or not. You have your
evidence, when do we hear your apology? The question of its validity is
another issue! TnT

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Weiser says:
=================
As to the USA, perhaps the 20% decline is due to the dot-com economic
explosion under the careful stewardship of President Clinton.

Huh?
=====================

Hey, it was my attempt at humor. I was trying to yank your chain. With
10,000 comedians out of work, I'll stick to my day job.

Weiser responding to my thesis that there is a causal link between
unemployment and crime:
================
Sorry, but no. I dispute your thesis and your conclusion.
==================

As with most of the "relationships" we're going to talk about in regard
to crime statistics, I think the causal link will be difficult to
impossible to prove.

I don't dispute that there is some causal link, I dispute that it is THE
causal link to the exclusion of all others.


Nonetheless, I'll stick with my position that there will generally be a
strong relationship between poverty and crime. More specifically, I'll
argue that "relative" poverty (related very closely to income disparity
within a society) will show a very strong correlation to crime. Give me
a few hours, and I'll find you the statistics.

You may well continue to dispute the relationship and, I guess, that'll
be the end of the argument as neither of us will be able to prove or
disprove causality. But, the same goes for your supposed gun-ownership
vs lower crime rate causality.

Problem is that causality in re gun ownership and crime has been pretty
thoroughly established by the careful studies of Lott et al. It's not the
only factor, but it's the major one.


Weiser again:
===============
Japan is a surprise at +49%. But perhaps not. If we note that the
decade in question was not particularly kind to Japan economically,
we
ought not to be surprised that crime was up in Japan.

Which has exactly what to do with the issue?
================

We were looking at increasing and decreasing crime rates. Japan had a
fairly significant increase in crime over the decade in question.
That's what it has to do with the issue. It is a nation. It has a crime
rate. Did I miss something? I thought that's what we were talking
about.

Further, given my thesis, the increased crime rate is easily explained.
Does your thesis do as good a job explaining crime rate changes in
Japan?

I wonder just how "unkind" the decade really was. Do you find a correlation
between the economy in Japan and crime rates other than supposition? Is the
crime rate in Japan declining with increased prosperity?

How then do you explain the rising crime rates in England during a time of
economic recovery?


Weiser says:
=================
While economics may play some part in the rates of crime, and in the
rates
of change in crime, your argument fails because despite improvements in
the
economies of the US, GB, Canada and Australia, the rate of change in
violent
crime STILL goes up in nations where guns are banned,
=================

Please note: crime rates in Scotland and Canada`went DOWN.

Don't know specifically about Canada, but the Scotland claim is simply
false. In particular, Glasgow is one of the most dangerous cities in all of
GB right now. London is high on the list as well.

I think you're going to have difficulty refuting the "economy as causal
factor" in crime thesis.

I can accept it as a "causal factor," so long as you don't try to argue that
it is the only causal factor or that the gun issue is not a causal factor.


Further, how do the former communist regimes fit your model. It seems
to me, that people now have much greater access to guns than under the
commies.

Not really. While more illegal guns are found (or are being displayed)
Russia still tightly controls access to guns for Ivan Average, and there is
no "right" to keep and bear arms in Russia, much less widespread legal
firearms ownership. Most of the firearms in use are illegal and in the hands
of organized criminals.

Or are these going to be statistical outliers in your model?

Partly, yes. The change from a tightly-controlled gun environment to little
or no control is usually associated with anarchy and is fraught with danger
for everyone. We in the US went through our "wild west" phase (which was
actually pretty mild, unlike popular fiction) early on, and since then gun
ownership has become an ordinary part of life. There is risk associated with
injecting guns into a previously tightly controlled environment,
particularly in nations where tribal or ethnic tension is close to the
surface.

In such situations, to get the benefits of guns in society, you have to arm
pretty much everybody at the same time, so that no one group controls the
access to arms and can therefore victimize another group that it keeps
unarmed.

I figure massive parachute drops of firearms and ammunition throughout such
nations is about the only way to ensure that every person has the ability to
use armed defense at the same time.

Perhaps your model only has applicability in the USA. Perhaps what
works in Florida is irrelevant in Florence.

Not so far as any credible research can determine.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 2/27/05 5:15 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

KMAN says:
================
There's no way that even a gun nut really believes that a community
without
guns is going to have more gun deaths than a community with guns.
Right?
===============

I think you're being overly optimistic.

Indeed. The problem with this utopian ideal is that it is functionally
impossible, anywhere in the world, to have a community without guns.

That being the case, the argument is fallacious at its core.

There are lots of communities in the world where no one has a gun. And
amazingly, no one gets shot there!

Prove it. Show me one community that you can certify does not have a gun in
it, and then show me how you can prevent a gun from being brought into that
community from outside.

You can't. Fact is that guns exist, and because they do, no place is safe,
not even a prison or courthouse protected by metal detectors.

And since no place is safe, it is arrogant and evil in the extreme to
propose to disarm SOMEONE ELSE because of YOUR fear of guns. You may disarm
yourself, but your authority ends there, because you cannot (and will not)
provide for the safety of those you disarm.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Tinkerntom
at wrote on 2/28/05 12:39 AM:


KMAN wrote:
in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 2/27/05 5:15 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

KMAN says:
================
There's no way that even a gun nut really believes that a
community
without
guns is going to have more gun deaths than a community with guns.
Right?
===============

I think you're being overly optimistic.

Indeed. The problem with this utopian ideal is that it is
functionally
impossible, anywhere in the world, to have a community without
guns.

That being the case, the argument is fallacious at its core.

There are lots of communities in the world where no one has a gun.
And
amazingly, no one gets shot there!

Could you give me a short list so that I can understand what type of
communities you are speaking of? Thanks, TnT

Howsabout the Amish?

Can you certify that there are no guns in Amish communities? Can you prevent
me from taking a gun into an Amish community?

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:


"Tinkerntom" wrote in message
oups.com...

KMAN wrote:
in article ,
Tinkerntom
at wrote on 2/28/05 12:39 AM:


KMAN wrote:
in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 2/27/05 5:15 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

KMAN says:
================
There's no way that even a gun nut really believes that a
community
without
guns is going to have more gun deaths than a community with
guns.
Right?
===============

I think you're being overly optimistic.

Indeed. The problem with this utopian ideal is that it is
functionally
impossible, anywhere in the world, to have a community without
guns.

That being the case, the argument is fallacious at its core.

There are lots of communities in the world where no one has a gun.
And
amazingly, no one gets shot there!

Could you give me a short list so that I can understand what type
of
communities you are speaking of? Thanks, TnT

Howsabout the Amish?

The Amish in North Texas deer hunt with rifles, and would sure run you
off their land with a shotgun in hand! Maybe your Amish are nicer. TnT

Sigh.

There are Amish communities that don't have guns.

Are you sure? Which ones? Or is it that you are making assumptions based on
ignorance.

I was not aware of the
North Texas Amish.




--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 26-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

But, the point is that I get to fight to the death

Do that. You won't be missed.

Which "gay rights" would you be referring to? Gays have exactly the same
rights as any other individual citizen under the Constitution.

12 states in the US make it illegal for homosexuals to make love.

Yes? What's your point? They have exactly the same right to make love as any
heterosexual couple. That they don't have an EXTRA right to make love to a
same sex partner doesn't mean their rights to have sex are any less or any
different from heterosexuals.

There is
no state that makes it illegal for heterosexuals to make love.

Actually, there are many that make it a crime for unmarried heterosexuals to
engage in sex. It's not often enforced, but it's on the books. There are
some others that make any sexual activity, either in or out of wedlock,
involving other than penile/vaginal contact a crime.

So, once again, homosexuals have exactly the same rights that heterosexuals
do. Granted, they may not have EXTRA rights to practice homosexual sodomy,
but then again neither do heterosexual couples.

Homosexuals
cannot marry in most US states - heterosexuals can marry in any state.

Well, not quite. Homosexuals cannot marry same-sex partners, but then again
neither can heterosexuals. Homosexuals most certainly CAN marry a person of
the opposite sex, because the marriage process does not inquire into one's
sexual proclivities. Thus, once again, homosexual rights are identical to
heterosexual rights. And again, it is true that homosexuals do not have
EXTRA rights to marry to the same sex.

Hardly examples of how gays have the same rights as non-gays.

Sorry, but your analysis is feeble. What you are talking about is
preferences, not rights. Homosexuals PREFER to have sex with members of the
same sex, and they would like society to recognize that as a "right to
choose." But that preference does not yet exist as a "right," and
homosexuals are subject to exactly the same laws that heterosexuals are. If
a heterosexual pedophile male has consensual sex with another male, in some
states he commits criminal sodomy just as if he were a homosexual. The law
does not proscribe sexual orientation or preference, it criminalizes
SPECIFIC ACTS, and it doesn't matter who commits those acts or what their
sexual preferences are.

Thus, the "rights" of homosexuals are precisely equal to the "rights" of
heterosexuals. Neither may engage in proscribed sex acts.

Now, the question of whether or not such sex acts SHOULD be proscribed is an
entirely different matter. But in this segment of the debate, you are
confusing a desire to engage in a specific behavior with a "right" to do so.


The worst sorts
of genocides and mass killings only take place where the oppressed minority
has been disarmed.

Armed minorities are still outnumbered. Guns are not an equalizer.

Incorrect. They are the "Great Equalizer." More importantly, your statement
suggests that minorities ought to remain disarmed merely because they do not
instantly achieve force parity with their oppressors. Sorry, but this is
shallow logic. If anything, you support my thesis that MORE and BETTER arms
are needed by minorities to ensure that they have sufficient force to defend
against a numerically superior oppressor.

That's exactly correct.


But they don't, they increase it.

Just because they haven't been, doesn't mean they can't be used to
reduce freedom. When someone puts a bullet thru your skull, you
lose all your rights.

Indeed. But the solution is not to disarm people and make it easier for
criminals and tyrants to put bullets through people's skulls, it's to give
them sufficient arms so that they can prevent that eventuality.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:


On 26-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

And what precludes God from manifesting himself as a human born of a human
woman? He is God after all, he can do pretty much anything he wants, by
definition

But that is not God manifesting himself as God. Which is what I said
in the first place, idiot.

Sez you. Fortunately, you don't get to dictate to God how he/she/it chooses
to manifest.


You don't think that a burning bush that's not consumed is not God revealing
himself?

Still not God manifesting himself as God.

Sez you. How do you know what "God" is or how God manifests? Are you
presuming to dictate to God what acceptable manifestations are? That's
rather rude, not to mention potentially dangerous...


According to whom? What makes their judgment infallible.

Uhh, they can _read_ Hebrew. But that's in the realm of reality,
where you are at a loss.

Non sequitur.
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Weiser rejects thesis that there is a causal link between poverty and
crime:
==============
one fairly well-established cause of crime is unemployment,
underemployment, and poverty (Scott, as you so eloquently said in
your
"What I'd do to lazy welfare Queens" treatise, idle hands do the
devil's work).

Sorry, but no. I dispute your thesis and your conclusion.
======================

Reject my thesis and my conclusion if you will. May I offer up the
conclusions of Chinese economists and Chinese leaders on the topic of
income disparity and crime (and revolution):

"SOURCE:
http://www.macrochina.com.cn/english...10002002.shtml

Aug 10 2001

Income disparity in China


Well, Scott?

You offer anti-capitalist propaganda from Communist China about "income
disparity" as evidence? Are you not aware that this is but thinly veiled
justification for taking rich Chinese out and putting a bullet in the back
of their heads because they have presumed to make a profit in a
Communist/Socialist society?

You're going to have to do MUCH better than that.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself Wilko wrote:



BCITORGB wrote:

Weiser says:
==================
The facts are quite clear: In nations where guns are banned,
victimization
by violent criminals increases dramatically. In the United States,
crime
victimization by violent criminals is dropping.
===============

I'll not dispute your sources and data.... except, as you well know,
because you presented this data, the definitions of various sorts of
crimes vary considerably from country to country. What may be deemed an
assault in one country may not be recorded as an assault in another.
Thus, the stats may not be comparable.

Talking about guns, one of the main issues that the NRA and similar
pro-gun organisations here wipe under the carpet is the counting of
bee-bee guns and air rifles under the "fire arms crimes" header in some
countries, that have relatively few firearms crimes overall.

Do you have proof of this? In most US communities, BB guns and air rifles
are classified as "deadly weapons," and even pointing one at someone can be
considered a felony menacing.


Thus, whether I'm trying to "bend" the debate is hardly the point. The
point is, more or less, a murder, is a murder, is a murder, no matter
where we are on the globe. Murder stats are comparable. The others
aren't.

If you're murdered, it doesn't really matter if you're shot, strangled,
stabbed or killed in one of the multitude of other ways that are
available.

Well, here we agree. The objective however is to AVOID being murdered, by
any implement. One of the best ways to do this is to carry, and be
proficient in the use of firearms, so that when attacked, you have force
superiority. In nearly 70 percent of cases in the US where a gun is used for
self-defense, no shots are ever fired, and the mere display or presence of
the firearm is sufficient to thwart the criminal attempt.

The thing with guns is that they make killing someone a lot
bigger, stronger or better able to fight hand to hand than you pretty
easy.

Indeed. That's the WHOLE POINT. A gun carried by grandma makes her the force
superior of the unarmed strongman after her Social Security check. And where
thugs know that the next random grandma they try to mug MIGHT have a handgun
in her purse, they tend to take up other, less dangerous lines of work.

That's where the U.S. outranks most western nations: the available
means to kill someone (i.e. guns) are available all over the place in
huge quantities and the people willing to use them are also plentiful.
The result is very high murder rates.

And much higher rates of self-defense use of arms to PREVENT crime
victimization. Estimates of the lawful use of firearms for self-defense vary
from the FBI approved number of more than 80,000 per year (which is almost
twice the incidence of violent assaults) to more than two million per year
by Kleck, Lott et al.

The true number is probably higher than two million because most
self-defense incidents that don't result in shots being fired are never
reported, and the statistics ignore the number of crimes that simply never
take place because lawful concealed carry creates a strong deterrent to
street crime.

So yes, you are sort of correct, but for the wrong reasons. Guns in the US
are used far, far more often for lawful self defense than they are in a
criminal episode, which is precisely the reason we so jealously guard the
individual's right to be armed for self defense.
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

in article , rick at
wrote on 2/28/05 6:49 PM:

snip

Is there a coroner's report that says Mr X. died because he was
waiting?
=====================
Read the sites fool. As you know, patient info is not released.

There are stories about health care issues in the media all the time.
Something as serious as someone dying while waiting for care would
definitely make the front page.

Plus, the Canadian health care system has been voted the most
secretive, non-responsive group by Canadian journalists.

I guess that doesn't say much for our spy agency.

How can one crappy article by a union looking for money be
considered evidence?
================
Why are you relying then on what I posted. Go get the info
yourself. Try any nimber of other sources, universities, union,
Canadian medical journal...

The info does not exist. If someone died waiting for health care it would be
a major scandal with an inquest and a coroner's report.

The type of trash you are quoting is nothing but political posturing by
groups using weasel words (just like you).