Bigfella

Fly that double standard high.

I could care less if bluesman respects me or not. I don't even care about OCCASIONAL abuse. I do care about the frequency of his abuse to ALL posters.

I yell at one poster for his worthless contributions to an important topic and you are already on my back. When I see you ticking off Blues & others every time they are abusive I'll take what you have to say seriously.

Oh, and if I qualify as a 'liberal nut' then you are clearly living at considerable remove from reality.

Bigfella

Julie,

I was employing a bit of hyperbole to make an important point. People like Huckabee actively encourage & support policies that result in unecessary death & suffering. They are rarely called on it. He gets a pass while people with AIDS can still be demonized & marginalized by the bigoted & the ignorant.

As for heart disease, it is about more than just Big Macs. I have never found rigid proscription to be a persuasive strategy except with some highly addictive & dangerous drugs. With heart disease only education will be effective, but never 100%. With HIV a cure is possible. In the meantime education & harm minimization are the most effective way.

Skull6

HIV = virus. What virus has mankind "cured" versus merely is still controlling? Polio? Making a comeback--to the confusion of all those parents who felt the vaccine was more dangerous than the threat anymore, & therefore didn't vaccinate their kids against it? Leprosy? Still here. Never went away either.

The problem with finding HIV's "cure" is that it affects that which we have manipulated in the past to help control other diseases--the human immune system. Scientists are finding it damned difficult to create a vaccine to help the body's immune system fight off a disease that all but completely shuts down the immune system. Its like dumping higher octane into your gas tank, in hopes of making it faster in a race, but finding out that your engine has seized. & their attempts at a "cure" are being focused more on a type of vaccine to safeguard those who haven't contracted it from getting it in the future. I'm afraid my bets will be on this vaccine-finding effort being successful long before an actual "cure" for those already infected will be found.

__________________
If you know the enemy and yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles. - Sun Tzu

Bigfella

For someone who claims a lack of interest in this topic, you seem determined to waste time on it.

[quote=dalem;436110]
As I already stated, a timely response to any epidemic is crucial. HIV was allowed to get loose & kill hundreds of thousands before Washington acted. Misplaced puritanism made the 'safe sex' message much harder to get out, while it is apparently still illegal in some states to hand out clean needles. These policies work.


Yeah, its called 'the rest of the world'. Try looking it up.


I have already shown you the best way. And guess what? IT WORKS. the UK adpoted the exact same policies as Australia and has the same rate of HIV infection. It is SIX times, I'll repeat that, SIX times lower than the rate in America. This doesn't require speculation. The facts are there. American policies, or the lack thereof, resulted in a much larger epidemic than necessary.

And back to my original point, it was people like Huckabee who prevented an effective response in America. Fortunately Australia was not cursed with a powerful evangelical/conservative segment of society to stand in the way of our policies. We implemented them. They worked. End of story.

Parihaka

*cough*Eve Van Grafhorst*cough*

__________________
In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

gunnut

What a great model of diversity we have here. We ignore an entire segment of the population and implement something they completely oppose all in the name of progress. The result is preordained to be working. No opposition needed or wanted. No debate necessary.

Of course when leftist socialists practices dictatorship it's called progressivism. When the conservative right practices sound policies it's equated as nazism.

And that's why I love openminded liberals.

__________________
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

dalem

I said I was sick of hearing about it, not that I didn't have a position or that I can't defend it.

Actually the needle thing doesn't necessarily work. I just read an article on that the other day, and I'm flipped if I can remember where, darn it. And why should I pay for some junkie to have a safe nod anyway? Screw 'em and their stupid hobby. And likewise, why would anyone encourage behavior that they think is wrong?

Except for Commie Rumania's old blood transfusion policy, China's current rural blood transfusion policy, and Africa's nutty "screw a virgin" policy, it's the same. Stop the stupid behavior and the disease is stopped in its tracks.

How did these evil people implement their evil policies then?

-dale

smilingassassin

Thank you for confirming a point I already made...

Then kindly apply your own morality towards these same posters you don't want to see abused. Or is it simply Dalem doesn't matter because he happens to share the same opinions as Blues?

You are the one crying foul on others for being abrasive and yet in your very first reply have done exactly what your advocating against. Thats the point I'm trying to make. Cool it.

Thats your opinion, you know what they say about opinions....

__________________
Facts to a liberal is like Kryptonite to Superman.

-- Larry Elder

Bigfella

Pari,

I don't recall her being driven out by evangelicals, just by the same sort of braindead rednecks who pretend that ignorance & selfishness qualifies as a philosophy of life.

I have not & will never clamed that our response was perfect, just that the response to AIDS from Government was good by any standard & stellar by that of people like Huckabee.

Bigfella

When did this become a discussion about models of diversity. We were presented with a potential health crisis. We found a way to deal with it that protected the basic human rights of the victims while also preventing the wider spread of the epidemic. It HAS worked. Speculation is unnecessary, the results are in.

My point was simply that we were not cursed with a powerful political lobby more interested in implementing its moral agenda than effective health policies. You were, and hundreds of thousands are dead & dying as a result.

There were plenty of debates, and the side with the policies that worked won them. We still managed to hold lots of free & fair elections all over the place AND save tens of thousands of lives. Democracy thrived, people lived who otherwise would have died. The only thing damaged was the moral sensibilities of people who were never in danger to begin with. By all means explain to me how this is a bad thing, but it looks like a win to me.

gunnut

You call christians "nutjobs" and disregard their moral considerations outright. Is that not closeminded?

Do you call muslims "nutjobs?" Do you tell them to take their moral considerations and shove it? Do you have the balls to?

I'm happy for you.

We had a solution too. That is to tell people to stop their risky behavior. They were presented with information and a choice. They chose risky behavior. The result is inevitable.

It's like telling people seatbelt saves lives. Don't whine when people who don't buckle up get tossed from a car and die. There's no need to make laws about it. Just so you know, I am against this law and the law that makes motorcycle riders wear helmets. And yes, I do buckle up when I drive. I know that's good for me.

So a bunch of people won the Darwin award. I think that's good.

Our freedom and democracy is a bit different than yours. Your democracy is to have government live your lives for you. Our democracy is to have the government get out of our lives.

If you like the government to live your lives for you so much, why is it that you want the government out of a woman's womb?

Bigfella

[quote=gunnut;436399]You can always tell someone has lost an argument when they have to put words in someone else's mouth. I'm not going to accuse you of deliberately misrepresenting me, because that would presume that you actually read what I wrote & understood it.

BTW some Christians are 'nutjobs', and the more fundamentalist they get, the more likely they are to fit the bill.

Although this is premised on something I haven't actually done, yes, when their ideas or behaviour fit the bill I do.

Fortunately I live in a secular society, so I tell them to take their moral considerations & practice them on themselves. I tell Christians the exact same thing. I tell both (and any others obsessed with metaphysical entities) to keep their moral considerations out of my life & the lives of anyone else who doesn't share their beliefs.

First you want to put things in my mouth, then you start talking about my genitals. I think SOMEONE is suppressng. (BTW you're not my type, but compliment accepted).

I'll skip the bit where you try hard to convince us that it is good for people who behave in any way you don't like to die. An eloquent example of the conservative worldview.

I'm betting that what you usefully understand about Australian Government would fit comfortably on the back of an envelope.

As for the womb reference, I'm not sure its even English, but I'm damned sure I'd need a degree in psychology to understand what motivated you to attempt it.

Unless any of you actually have something above the level of 'they deserved it' to contribute on the subject then I've wasted enough time here. I'm sure you will have ample opportunities to prove your lack of basic humanity elsewhere. No need for me to facilitate it.

gunnut

In that case, either I have a reading comprehension problem or you can't express yourself without other people jumping into the wrong conclusion.

Some are. But not the majority. And what exactly is "fundamental" christian?

Good. At least you're fair.

I guess the American slang is lost on you. Unless that hit too close to home and you had to play some cute word game to look cool.

Conservatives practice real democracy. We don't like to use the government to tell people how to live.

That's odd. You're the Australian who started to criticize AMERICAN political scene and an AMERICAN president.

Playing word games again. You know what I'm refering to.

Quick, I'm disengaging from the debate because I can't back up my statements with logic and have to play word games. Then I have to belittle my critic because that makes me look smart.

dalem

Look here, Mister Bigfella.

My mind was made up on this way back in '91 when I was helping collate data for a longitudinal survey of gay men and AIDS suffers in the Chicago area.

Survey after survey came back with "yeah, I know it's risky to backdoor strangers and share needles, but I'm not going to stop."

Anyone who got it or still gets it by accident, by dint of sheer outlier chance, or by being born to someone who has it, sure, they have my sympathy.

But the MAIN vectors of this thing since Day One, at least in this country, are NOT trying to avoid it or stop it, so to hell with them.

-dale

Martin

Perhaps someone should kidnap him, analy rape him and infect him with the HIV virus and see if he still has that kind of ridiculous biggot attitute?