We all pay. That's what Social Security is for, while becoming insolvent in the process. Medicaid is also an option. Or at a very last resort, rob a bank, and get free health care through the prison system.
My heart goes out to those people that truly need the help, but at the same time no one paid for my medical bills when my heart went crazy on me. I paid for it myself. 50 or 100 years ago you sucked it up and paid for shit and didn't look for the government to bail you out. This is just perpetuating people that suck off the government teat. When I was working as a carpenter 60-80 hours a week I was in line at the grocery store. The woman in front of me had a cart full of meat and brand name foods, I had a couple boxes of generic Mac and Cheese and some Ramen. She paid with food stamps and I checked out quickly behind her and saw her wheel her cart full of food to a late model Cadillac while I wheeled my meager purchases to a 20 year old AMC Gremlin. There's something really fucked up about that. I was working my ass off trying to survive and she was using MY money to live better then me. It was about that time I thought something might be wrong with this free ride, everyone has a right to free food and health care system.
Look, man. I'm not calling you out specifically. Based on your drunken, hilarious posts here and over at the old board, I think you're a pretty good dude. But this part of your post really fucked me off. I live in Michigan. We have led the nation in unemployment for years. Remember that recession that hit in 2001 after Sept. 11? Well, we never really came out of it. We've been in a recession (depression) for almost a goddamned decade. There simply aren't any fucking jobs to be had here. Take this article in the Wall Street Journal, for example. As far as my post is concerned, here's the nut graf: Three THOUSAND (3,000) applications for 75 available jobs at a fast food joint. This isn't in some backwater town in the middle of nowhere. This is a city with a population of 50,000 in the eighth most populous state in the fucking country. These are people with ten, twenty, thirty years of experience working in the plants, using heavy machinery requiring specialized knowledge. People whose livelihoods disappeared. Applying for fast food jobs so they can provide basic necessities for themselves and their families, let alone health insurance. Maybe it's because I'm young or whatever, but I never understood this, "I ain't payin' for no lazy got-danged Welfare Queen" stance. Are there people who are going to abuse the system? Yes. If what you saw happened in front of me at the grocery store I'd be every bit as pissed. But the honest, hard-working people fucked by the economy far, FAR outnumber them. At least in my (admittedly limited) experience. For every one of these people, how many families are there quietly suffering, families you never hear about on the news or notice in grocery stores who don't have the means to pay for the cost of medical care, who don't want to be a burden on anybody? (Seriously, I mean no disrespect. But I'm a little drunk and, well, you of all people can understand that. Sorry to the mods if this is too off topic. By all means, beat me and send me on my way if you deem it necessary.)
We can talk about whether or not health care is too much government intrusion into the citizens live, or hypothetical situations, or anything else about the health care reform issue until we're blue in the face. And we would just be going in circles where the same problems and solutions are cycled through in a series of catch 22s. To me, the biggest issue about this... issue.... is the cost of it. I recently heard the president say that the current Senate bill wouldn't add to the deficit. I believe he said that it would actually reduce the deficit. I don't know what numbers he is looking at, and, frankly, I don't need to know. I simply don't believe that for one second. The government's track record on these things is not very good. When it was created in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. At the time they made a few projections: - House Ways and Means Committee projected that in 1990 the cost, assuming inflation, would be $12 billion. The actual cost in 1990 was $107 billion. In 2008 it cost $462 billion. - They also had a payroll tax of %1 on the first $6,500 in 1966. They projected that in 1990 the tax would be 1% on the first $135,000. It turns out that the tax in 1990 was 2.9% on ALL income. One of the problems with calculating the cost of the current bills is that people will pay taxes on it for 3 or 4 years before they will be able to use the services. To simplify this (and I don't have any idea what the actual numbers are. I'm not sure anyone does), let's assume in those 4 years the government collects $600. Then the next 6 years it costs the government $200 a year to provide those services. In the ten years total, they would have raised $1,500 in taxes and spent $1200 on services. SLAM DUNK! They just reduced the deficit by $300. But that kind of math only works for politicians. Simply put, any government option is going to lose money at some point. You will not convince me otherwise as pretty much all government run programs lose money. I don't think another entitlement program that is going to add more red ink to a $12 trillion debt is wise on any level. I don't care what our moral obligations are as a country, if we can't afford it, we shouldn't provide it.* From my understanding the current Senate bill has no government option. That would be a good thing in terms of making it affordable. But what does it do? How is this bill going to reduce costs? I haven't heard anyone explain what is actually in this bill that would help solve the problems with health care. Maybe it has more government oversight and involvement in how insurance companies and hospitals operate. Let's have that debate then, I guess. But I'm probably not alone in my belief that government tends to create more problems than it fixes, regardless of how magnanimous the intentions are. I'm also worried about giving the government a little bit of power and expecting them not to drastically expand that power at the first opportunity. When they passed the 16th amendment, and granted government the power to charge an income tax, the people were told that this would be used in a very limited way. The president at the time (Taft maybe?) said that if taxes ever rose above 7% there would be rioting in the street (Going on memory here. Don't have sources). In effect, citizens were told not to worry. Government won't exploit this power if you give it to them. Originally only one-half of one percent of people paid any income taxes at all. The lowest bracket was 1% and the highest bracket was 7%. 5 years later the lowest rate was 6% and the top rate was 77%. Link. Top rates went into the 90% range for many years. That's a far cry from the 7% ceiling the people were promised. My point is that there are a significant amount of people who would settle for a foot in the door bill, knowing that they will be able to expand it in a few years. They're basically lying to the public. I'm sure people who were pushing for the 16th amendment knew damn well what would happen if the people gave them just a tiny little sliver of power to tax. But they couldn't be honest with the public and tell them that, they had to be deceptive about it in order to gain that power, and subsequently abuse it. That doesn't sit well with me. And I'm sure the same is going on with the current health care bills. If you want a government run system, then let's have that conversation. If you want no government involvement at all, we'll talk. But don't sneak around the public's will just to push your political agenda. I think that a very small government option only available to the extremely poor members of society, and used in a very limited way, would ultimately be a good thing. But I would still not be in favor of it because it wouldn't take long for that program to grow into a gigantic program that covers 80% of the people and costs $10 trillion a year. That pisses me off more than anything. Many people are probably in favor of the former and very few in favor of the latter. Don't use a popular, but small program to expand your reach and power into a large, and unpopular one. That's my never-gonna-happen Christmas wish. *I realize that the government already pays a shit load of money that it can't afford to the people who use services without insurance. That's why I think that steps should be taken to make insurance more affordable to everyone while keeping the government out of it. I'm sure that can be done somehow.
So things got bad in 2001, and there are no jobs to be had? Then move the fuck out and find a job. Plain and simple. If you can't see that, you don't deserve health care. Edit- I don't think people should have to go sick or injured. But seriously, there comes a point in time where if you can't find a way to support yourself (and contribute to society) it is time to look elsewhere. I would start by finding a skill more valuable than pulling a lever and wearing an auto workers union hat. Then moving somewhere that the skill is needed.
You live in Michigan, I live in Mississippi. Would you like to compare earned income for the past 4 years? Other then the stock market (Which lost me well into 5 figures over the past 4 years) my income has been $450. That is not a typo. $450.No zeros. $450. Or just over $100 a year. I have lived off my earnings from when I was younger and I've sold shit to survive. OK, let's break this down. I make roughly $100 a year or about $80 per month. I do believe that puts me at the bottom .001 percentile of the country in earnings. Hell. that probably puts me lower then the GNP of Ethiopia for one minute. I could go mow lawns and earn more then that. Yes, I do have some assets, assets that I EARNED by working my ass off when I was younger and by making wise investments. I'm not asking or demanding any one help me, I put myself in this situation and I'll deal with it. Should someone with an income of $100 a year in the US have to foot the bill for someone drawing $20K yearly from the government? I don't think so.
Well, let's see. I need a medical procedure to rule out cancer and an autoimmune disorder. Our insurance only covers a portion, leaving me with an amount I can't exactly afford right now. Oh sure, I could get on a payment plan to pay off the procedure but I'm already in enough debt from medical bills. Meanwhile, our shit insurance covers 100k of fertility treatments with no questions asked. That is some fucked up shit, since I never plan to use that coverage. I admit this is purely personal, but I'd rather have an option of using gov't insurance. However, if I get the state job I'm hoping for in the spring, I'll drop this post since state bennies are awesome.
I really hope that Obama's health care reform changes things for the better. As far as taxes go, will I notice what the feds spend the money on? I think not. I'm a simple man and I'm pretty lazy about most shit. So, I'm indifferent about the whole thing. If there was something I could do to change the way things are, I'd do it. Tell me where to sign. America's whole problem about this topic boils down to our innate sense of entitlement about all things. Why shouldn't we have health care? Why shouldn't I own a house and a couple of cars? That other guy has it all why shouldn't I? Look at our society, everyone has a cellphone, i-pod and computer service. And yet, there are still people in this country who cannot read. I'll leave it up to the smarter people to figure this one out. But, my gut tells me they'll fuck this one up pretty good.
The procedure is to rule out cancer and an autoimmune disorder. So is your doctor already assuming that it is neither of those conditions? With what probability does your doctor believe he will rule those two out? If it does rule out cancer and autoimmune (is this an episode of House?) what is your doctor's next course of action, how many diseases are there left to check? If your doctor discovers it's cancer or autoimmune, what are treatment options for those conditions? What kind of insurance coverage is available to you under these various scenarios? Basically, what is the value of this procedure to you. Don't treat this as linear. You are faced with a decision tree, each decision carries its own probabilities conditioned on the outcome of prior events.
I was having a blast, reading through a great discussion, and learning a fair bit from this thread. Even got a few laughs. Then this springs up. Vague generalizations are bullshit. You try moving somewhere else, completely uprooting, with an income of zero, when the banks won't touch you with a ten foot barge pole while your ass is unemployed because of something that wasn't your fucking fault. Let me know how that works out for you. I'm all for taking care of oneself to an extent, but it's complete bullshit to expect someone who's actually been bent over and fucked good and deep to be able to recover from such a thing. Yeah, there's plenty of clowns out there who jump on the wagon and take the free ride. No argument there. But what happens if you're one of the few who got fucked legit? What happens then? This isn't cut and paste. It certainly isn't fucking preschool.
It's the sense of entitlement that pisses me off. I have stuff because I worked my ass to the bone for it and I don't really feel I need to share it with others because they are jealous. I grew up dirt fucking poor and placed myself in my position by working while watching a lot of my money go to forced charity to people that refused to work. Yes, there are people that take advantage of the system and there are people such as Pink Candy who are dealt a raw hand in life and are doing their best (Presumably) to make the best of it and I salute those folks. But when it comes right down to it, it's really not my problem. When I was earning money I kind of turned a blind eye to the situation and just payed my taxes. Now that I'm making diddly shit I get a bit upset that I'm still paying even though the people I'm supporting make way more then me and I'm having to sell off the shit I worked hard for to keep a roof over my head and give them benefits I was never privy to. This health care reform bill is going to nail my ass to the wall and quite possibly cause me to lose everything I've worked for my entire life to give people that have never worked something I've never had. Tell me how that's right. In the past 4 years my tax filings are a joke. I don't even need to file them seeing as my income reads per year as $0, $0, $450, $0. Have I claimed an earned income credit to get free money? No. Have I collected food stamps? No. Have I accepted a single government handout? No. But I have paid over $15K in taxes on my property to pay for schools (I have no kids) and whatever else my property taxes go for, not to mention the taxes for my vehicles for registrations and the fuel that goes into them. I've had to pay a road tax for the diesel fuel that went into my tractor, back hoe and road grader that never saw the road to supplement the assholes that drive on our roads without paying registration or insurance. I am supplementing a bunch of people's income by proxy and it's bleeding me fucking dry. Think about it for a second, you make $0 a year and you are paying almost $4K a year for superfluous shit for other people that you can't afford for yourself, now the government wants you to pay even more, sell off what you worked for, and get on the gravy wagon yourself. That's a brilliant fucking plan.
Guys - I probably shouldn't jump in here and say this, which is completely off topic. But I feel I should. I live in Australia, which has both a public health system and a private healthcare system. Almost an entire year ago, on the 8th of January my girlfriend at the time went into labour. It was a perfect natural birth, albeit it lasted 16 hours. My Daughter -Willow - came to this world in perfect health. She couldn't hold her body temperature at norminal levels so they put her under a sunlight, she also had Jundice for some time after her birth. However - within 2 days she was home and is now happily turning 1 in less than a fortnight. Everything, fucking everything from councilling to doctor checkups every week, to immunisations and post natal depressions and birthing classes was paid for, by everyone who pays tax. The system works. In fact, we got PAID 5,000 to have my child and more to immunise her. But If I think you want to solve the whole debate fast as possible, with the a simple legal solution. You have to do two things. 1. Legalize cannabis, in every form of ingestion. So many people will drink less alcohol with this readily available. 2. Make every pharmaceutical company pay for every radiotherapy treatment, and anything involved in treating the symptoms of treating cancer for everyone in your country. That way, they the companies will be more interested in profiting from curing malignant cells rather than treating the symptoms of the radiotherapy. As you know its always about profit not people. If you want to put it into perspective here's a graph showing the attributed deaths across the globe in 300 days. It's got nothing to do with whats yours and how hard you've worked or what you've overcome and what you've achieved. When you have terminal cancer it means fuck all to god, or whatever diety you believe in. Health is the ONLY thing you EVER own and its every single persons responsibility to look after anothers' well being. If you're that apathetic as to consider that money is an object when it comes to saving a life of someone be it anyone. In my eyes - your a fucking oxygen thief.
This is mostly in response to Toytoy88's stance, because he seems to be articulating it the most clearly and he has one of the more extreme views. However, his view probably reflects many of the lurkers reading this. I've lived in countries where you don't have to pay taxes. Where, if you want a road to your house, then fucking build it yourself. Where if you get sick you can either pay for the doctor and the pills, or you can (literally) die on the street. Where the politicians are not linked to the people by any sort of money trail other than bribes, and were if you are lucky enough to find a job then they pay you cash and they don't deduct for unemployment insurance, health care, etc. etc. It fucking sucks. People who live and die in these countries would give their eye teeth for 1/10 of what we enjoy here. Those countries are hard, quite often dangerous, and all-around shit holes that no one would want to live in if they had a choice. I'm not advocating throwing the government into the situation. Was it Ronald Reagan who said the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."? In fact, I don't have the first clue what the answer is, since I don't feel comfortable advocating even my country's health care system (I posted earlier, waaay back, if anyone wants to read it again). I disagree strongly with the notion that "I'll work for what I get and that's it," mainly because I've spent years of my life seeing it in action. I've met a lot of Americans. I grew up an hour from Detroit, and throughout my life have traveled extensively through the States. The people I meet are decent and hardworking, and would simply like a wage that allows them to provide for themselves and their family. Now, granted, I don't hang around Welfare offices, but I'm comfortable saying that most Americans just want to be successful providers. Try doing that in Michigan, or Mississippi. And please don't tell me "Well, just move!" I "just moved" provinces for work, and it really can't be done for under $5000, when you factor in moving expenses, first and last month's rent, any hotel stays, new utilities, etc. There has to be some balance between private wealth and public good. If you don't believe me, go check out Sierre Leone, or Darfur, or any other Podunk nation where they don't have taxes and you're on your own in a depressed economy.
Dcc, thank you for helping me calm down enough not to light into toytoy. Toy, you should be ashamed of yourself. Your taxes pay for a helluva lot more than welfare moms and other sick people's problems. Your taxes pay for the police officers that keep peace so you can enjoy your 40 acres. Your taxes pay the salaries of the firefighters (some of whom volunteer but have to be trained by somebody) that will come a risk their lives to save yours. Your taxes afford you the freedom to sit at your house and drink moonshine and rant about the lazy scary poor people and act all holier than thou because our government said that monopolies were bad and access to telephone lines and internet activity should be relatively affordable to most. All the taxes you've paid in since you started working paid for the funerals of the thousands of men and women that died serving this country. No you don't have any kids but guess what? Your taxes paid for scholarships for some of the men and women who went to MIT and learned how to make your car/house/boat/guns better/safer/cheaper. Your taxes pay for victim recovery assistance and because 1 of 6 women will be victim to a sexual assault in their lives it is a real possibility that it could happen to one of your nieces, baby cousins, etc. of whom you're so fond. Your taxes pay to keep people in this country healthy and safe because our government tries to offer all a measure of happiness. Yeah, sometimes our leaders fail. But hundreds of thousands flock to this country, sometimes risking life and limb, and how many Americans emigrated to another country last year? Yeah, exactly. So I guess our government is doing something right. Maybe this healthcare plan is the worst thing ever (I haven't read the bill, only the biased interpetations of each side, so I respectfully won't comment until I read it myself). But if you think they are doing it wrong, if you think your way is better, if you want to effect change get off your computer and go run for office and DO SOMETHING. This is America. Be glad you paid your taxes and have that right.
All of those things are wonderful and I think many of the people who are on the receiving end of the tax benefits (victim recovery, scholarships, etc) are truly grateful for the assistance they are receiving. However there are some people who feel that they are entitled to the benefits they are receiving and I think they end up misrepresenting everyone.
This is an excellent point, and I think that there's a tendency to use the extreme case (i.e. a 300lb, chain-smoking, welfare-supported woman with five kids from four relationships who's never worked a day in her life an didn't graduate grade 8) as a valid excuse for not having socialized systems. Does that person exist? Most definitely. Are they the majority? Sorry to all the people who are insisting that Americans are lazy free-loaders, but no...I don't think they are. Before we can answer questions regarding cost, reform, etc, I think the following question first needs to be addressed: What kind of society do you want to live in? Majority rules, and rightly so. Does the majority want a stand-alone, eat what you kill, pay for what you use, self-made person system? Then fine - don't have social programs. Does the majority want a society where no one is allowed to fall through the cracks, where there is a safety net, and where even freeloaders are allowed, if it benefits the whole? Then that's fine, too. But trying to solve Health Care Reform from such two drastically different paradigms is like trying to imagine two people that are taller than each other. It will never happen.
This is the set-up I've been waiting two pages for, so thanks again Dcc. The Health Care debate is a great prism through which to examine two schools of thought in American Society today. I will refer to them as such: "America: The Land of Opportunity." This was the 'mission statement,' if you will, of America for the first 150 years of its existence. Personal responsibility, personal choice and non-interference by the government in those choices was the ideal. This, of course, is not to say that there weren't such intrusions, and such tensions, between the government and the people. However, the basic default of the government was 'unless it's absolutely necessary, and mandated by the Constitution, we're not getting involved.' It was left up to the States to determine if they wanted to get involved. Some did, some didn't. "America: The Land of Guarantees." This has been the mission statement of America since the FDR administration. Spurred on by a Great Depression, at FDR's urging, lots of legislation was passed - much of which was initially found to be unConstitutional by the Supreme Court (resulting in several threats from FDR to 'pack the court' and require mandatory retirement by Justices, among other threats) - but eventually took hold. Public works, public education, public health care, and public welfare are among the direct descendants of this school of thought. Essentially, it is a societal model wherein there are basic guaranteed services so that no one in the population falls below a certain level. The second has been the predominant model for the last 70 years, so many of us have not actually witnessed what life was like before guaranteed minimums. Dcc's previous post about third world countries would give you a taste of what the prior model can yield - if you have shitty leadership. The Health Care debate highlights the above. A person that ascribes to the first theory, and I'll use toytoy as an example, would say 'you have an opportunity to work to make money to pay for your own health care.' Therefore, you have an opportunity for access to health care. Not a guarantee. It's up to you, and your choices, to determine if you can actually take advantage of the opportunity afforded. Violations of this model would be if people were denied access due to race or gender. A person ascribing to the second view says 'hey, no matter what, we're not going to let you die in the street.' Violations of this model would be if someone did not actually receive the care they needed. There are costs, and repercussions to both models, but as with any ideology, you need to take the good with the bad. As far as health care, and the current health care debate, if you guarantee minimum levels, you are setting the government up to have a large say in the health care industry (not that they don't, they already do through Medicare, which I think folks need to pay more attention to because we have an example right in front of us as to how public health care would work, or not work, depending on your view, as all we're really doing is dropping the age requirement from Medicare, and to some degree the income requirement from Medicaid). What we do know is it's going to cost a lot of money. What we also know is that people are going to get pissed when their taxes go up (and based on Medicare's history, you can pretty much bet that this will happen as Medicare was not only underfunded from day one, but it was the favorite piggy bank of many administrations to crack into to pay for stuff that had nothing to do with Health Care). A pessimist would you say that you are inviting a vampire into your home. And we all know what happens then. An optimist would say, hey, that vampire is necessary because of what he brings along with it. And what he brings is beneficial to all, even if there is an inherent intrusion in getting your blood sucked every now and again (i.e. taxes). So while toytoy may well be vilified, he does have a point. And deriding him for it? Certainly within the purview of this place, as well as American society at large. But I will say this: it is high time in this country this debate be permitted to take place. Opportunity versus Guarantee. What do you want? And what are you willing to pay? And remember, the cost will be more than monetary. He who pays the bills will often attach conditions on payment thereof. And are you willing to comply with all those conditions - even though you don't know what they are right now, and may not know for decades? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I would submit a large part of the problem with the current Health Care paradigm is the government's intrusion into, and regulation thereof, the Health Care system. Just my two cents. Criticize away. I think lots of folks here are making very good points, on both sides of the issue by the way. Edit: My bad Dcc, I'm not as up on quotes codes as I should be - and I know you were kidding, but credit should always be given where it's due...
To be clear: No person in this country has started paying taxes to the new health care reform so my comments were in response to Toy's rant about his taxes for the last five years. Right now, I have great private insurance. I can go to the doctor every time I sneeze and see him in less than 10 minutes. Thanks to my well baby visits twice a month I had a healthy baby boy and it cost me the grand total of $10 out of pocket at the time of his birth. I'm in a higher tax bracket so yes, I'm worried about what reform will mean to my bottom line and about how it will impact how much I am able to enjoy the fruits of my labor now and save for the future. Admittedly, I'm going to be really super mad if I'm taxed to the point that I can't travel with my son or save for his college education. But I haven't read the bill and will reserve all my "the sky is falling!" terror until I read and understand the impact. I think it is fair and fine to engage in intelligent debate on these points, VI. But it is ignorant and untenable to make the argument that one shouldn't have to pay taxes because his all of his tax dollars are being used in a way with which he disagrees. I'm positive that Toy and most of Americans enjoy the benefits of safety and security and basic education provided in this country. The majority of Americans benefit from those services. The majority of Americans are NOT on welfare. The majority of Americans are NOT abusing the system. And if you want to get your panties in a wad about those that are? You want to be angry and that is unhealthy. Somebody above said if there was a way to change things, he'd sign up. There is a way: Vote. Run for office. Become an teacher or professor and influence through education. Those are ways to make changes. Ranting on the internet about some woman with Cheerios and Velveeta getting in a Cadillac? Not so much.
Isn't the above the very basis upon which this country was founded? (VI checks his history books for the phrase 'taxation without representation. Yup, there it is.) And yes, theoretically toytoy is represented, but he is exercising one of his most important rights: the right to say 'I don't want to pay for that.' But let me abandon the political side and go straight to the economic side of things. Quite right, but so what? We all enjoy some 'benefit' that the 'government provides.' That means we lose the ability, or the right, to say 'hey, assholes, I don't want to pay for X!' Here's the economics of the situation. Up until around 1916, the US derived most of its funding from tariffs (taxes imposed on foreign goods). Today, the US treasury derives its funds from taxpayers. You and me, and begrudgingly toytoy. Now, if I hire someone to come and fix up my house, and they do a great job in the kitchen, and a shitty job in the living room, do I have to shut up and deal with it? No, I don't. Now, of course, this analysis is not exactly akin to paying taxes, but bear with me. I pay X dollars to the government every year. Actually, strike that, they take X dollars from me every year (whether I want them to or not). Now, through elected officials they spend the money that they took from me. I must admit, I do enjoy having police and firefighters, but I could do without an 8 year war in Afghanistan. Following your economic argument, I have absolutely no say in how my taxes are spent if I enjoy any benefit thereof. I disagree. And in fact, most elections turn on this idea. People usually don't get all ideological in elections, they get economic. Who is going to raise my taxes? (Or in the current climate, who is going to raise my taxes more?) So most voters do precisely what you are advising. Which is vote. Unfortunately, what do you do when the person you vote for doesn't do what they said they would? Like, for instance, ending certain wars? Your recourse is to stick it out and wait for the next election cycle, however, in the interim, you are now paying for something you didn't want (and in fact, voted for the guy who said that it would end only to find 'ooops, just kidding, more troops to be sent...and ca-ching...). Yeah, as the past several elections have shown, economically speaking, voting isn't going to save you any money. It just gets spent in different places. You know, I was actually going to do this, but the application to register to run was over 1,000 pages (for city council, no less) - I'm not kidding, there was an article about in the Philly Inquirer. Does anyone seriously pay any attention to these people (outside of university students?) Also known as the 'Fourth Estate' and deemed vital for a democracy, hence that whole bit about 'freedom of speech.' If speech wasn't a powerful tool, why would anyone bother to stifle it? Or more importantly feel the need to protect it from government censorship? Because for all the vaunted 'tools' at the citizenry's disposal, speech is about the only one that seems to have any impact (see Vietnam War - and I hate to give the goddamn dirty hippies any credit...hurts...to...type...that...).