The US Healthcare Mass Debate

[mistermack]

White woman speak with forked tongue.

[Brian Peacock]

... But, I will clarify - I don't know what her motivation was for saying she was Native American when she just clearly isn't.

Sure, but because of it you'd like to accept that whatever she has to say on Trumpcare is fatally prejudiced by her previous claim, no?

[Forty Two]

... But, I will clarify - I don't know what her motivation was for saying she was Native American when she just clearly isn't.

Sure, but because of it you'd like to accept that whatever she has to say on Trumpcare is fatally prejudiced by her previous claim, no?

No. This Warren discussion was a tangent.

Her claim about Single Payer being the next step is not something I dispute. I recognize it's something that she and her side have been shooting for. The sneaking suspicion that some folks had that Obamacare was built to fail, so that we can take the next step to single payer is somewhat supported here. Oh, gee, things suck ass under Obamacare - the only way to fix it is to go single payer. How convenient.

[pErvinalia]

I can't remember exactly, but didn't the Dems have the numbers to get single payer through if they wanted?

[Brian Peacock]

... But, I will clarify - I don't know what her motivation was for saying she was Native American when she just clearly isn't.

Sure, but because of it you'd like to accept that whatever she has to say on Trumpcare is fatally prejudiced by her previous claim, no?

No. This Warren discussion was a tangent.

Her claim about Single Payer being the next step is not something I dispute. I recognize it's something that she and her side have been shooting for. The sneaking suspicion that some folks had that Obamacare was built to fail, so that we can take the next step to single payer is somewhat supported here. Oh, gee, things suck ass under Obamacare - the only way to fix it is to go single payer. How convenient.

I'm not one for that brand of conspiracy theory. I think the ACA was the best negotiated solution possible at the time given the inherently corporatist complexion of the US healthcare environment.

[Hermit]

So Elizabeth Warren claimed to be part Cherokee on the grounds that her grandfather had high cheeks and some rather iffy research results regarding her ancestry. None of the three Cherokee tribes will have a bar of it. I feel quite embarrassed that a whole bunch of people whose political opinions I am sympathetic to now attempt to shift the onus of (dis)proof onto those who realise that credible evidence in support of Warren's assertion is yet to appear. What on earth happened to the time-honoured "You made a claim, you provide the evidence that supports it"? Why should we skip the claim that set this particular discussion into motion?

[Brian Peacock]

I don't think we should skip it, but we should see it in context. Hey, who hasn't made an arse of themselves when they were young eh, and who doesn't roll with the family lore about stuff? The reason this cropped up is because Trump referred to her as Pocahontas - which has more than a whiff of the ethic slur about it whether she's Cherokee or not. Now some might suggest that his reference was fine because she started it by claiming to be a member of a particular group, but while the spat continues about whether that is OK or not nobody is really talking about what she said - all we're doing is scrutinising her presumed character.

[L'Emmerdeur]

I still haven't seen any evidence that Warren "falsely claimed to be a native American in order to help her Ivy League career path."

I don't know why she did it. I know she falsely claimed to be Native American, and she did so as part of her professorship at Harvard where she was billed as a native American professor.

If you have access to evidence that conclusively shows that there are no Indians among her ancestors, then please present it.

That's not the test. She made an assertion and she can't back it up. That's the test. I can't prove "conclusively" that shows there are no Mongolians among my ancestors, but that doesn't justify me claiming to be Mongolian. I'm not Mongolian, moreover, even if there was an ancestor 5 generations ago who came from Mongolia.

Elizabeth Warren is not American Indian because she does not have a single ancestor for many generations that was Native American, and you can look far enough back that even if there was one, that would not make her Native American. Being 1/32 something doesn't mean you get to say you're that. If I am 1/32 Nigerian, I don't get to say I'm a "Black Professor" at Harvard.

Come on people.....

Come on yourself. You still haven't presented any evidence showing that she has no Indian ancestors. She apparently believed family lore, which isn't illegal nor unethical. As far as we know she does have Indian ancestors.

We know she's not an official member of any tribe,

We do? We "know" that? Just checking. You can't "conclusively" prove that, though, can you? Or, can you? How did you "conclusively" prove it?

The issue has been extensively investigated by several media outlets. She is not an official member of any tribe. I could 'conclusively prove' that by writing to each and every recognized tribe to enquire whether she's a member. You on the other hand apparently have no way to 'conclusively prove' that she has no Indian ancestors, yet continue to carry on as if you know that she doesn't.

but if you're going to categorically state that her claim is false, then the burden of proof is on you.

Not at all. I categorically state that the Christian claim to the deity of Christ is false, even though I don't have "conclusive" proof that the Christ is not a supernatural deity of magical powers who can alter the laws of nature. Islam is false, in that Mohammed did not receive a message from a divinity and transcribe it into Arabic, and he did not fly a winged horse to heaven. Mormonism is false, in that Joseph Smith did not read the Book of Mormon off of golden plates with seer stones and transcribe it into English.

I know this because those folks can't prove their claims - at all. Neither can Elizabeth Warren. Also, even the amount of information given by Elizabeth Warren - her high cheekbones and her family lore that one relative about 1/32 ancestry was a Cherokee -- even if that information is true, it doesn't make her Native American.

You don't know what you're talking about. The Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation is 1/32 Cherokee.

(Snipped bullshit that will be addressed below.)

Saying she's not native American is "slander?" LOL. Amazing.

Why are you trying to weasel around this? Your slander is here: "[Elizabeth Warren is] the one who falsely claimed to be a native American in order to help her Ivy League career path." That is the statement that I've been addressing, and none other.

She doesn't have a single identifiable ancestor that is Native American, and she bases her belief on unverifiable family lore that a 1/32 ancestor was Cherokee (even though there is not a shred of evidence that such is the case) -- and she is smart enough to be a Harvard law professor -- to believe she honestly believes she is native American would require us to believe that Harvard law professor thinks that a Caucasian person with no identifiable ancestors who are native American but whose family lore claims 1/32 Cherokee status, with not a shred of evidence, and high cheekbones (even though looking at her, she doesn't have high cheekbones), is enough to claim native American status. You think she thinks anyone who is 1/32 Cherokee is native American? She's that dumb?

The family lore includes a Delaware among her ancestors. See above regarding whether people who are 1/32 Cherokee can qualify as Native American. Your assertions to the contrary don't carry any weight, and you still haven't shown that she's lying.

I was referring there to the fact that she put it in her bio at Harvard University, claiming to be a minority professor - a Native American professor.

Cite evidence for this 'fact' then. I am unaware of any 'bio at Harvard University' in which she claimed to be 'Native American.'

I assumed that she would do that to help herself in some way. I can't say, obviously, that she claimed to be native American to help her get hired or get promoted through affirmative action. But, inserting it herself in her biographical material at Harvard is done for the same reason everyone puts biographical information into their material -- students and others read it and draw conclusions from it.

But, I will clarify - I don't know what her motivation was for saying she was Native American when she just clearly isn't.

You're ignoring unequivocal statements from more than one reputable person involved in recruiting her that her heritage had nothing to do with the recruitment efforts. Even if you have any evidence that she 'inserted' a reference to her heritage in biographical material at Harvard, that ipso facto would have occurred after she had become a professor there. As you yourself admit, you had no basis for your slander, however you've tried to weasel around it. You were just parroting a Republican talking point.

[L'Emmerdeur]

So Elizabeth Warren claimed to be part Cherokee on the grounds that her grandfather had high cheeks and some rather iffy research results regarding her ancestry. None of the three Cherokee tribes will have a bar of it. I feel quite embarrassed that a whole bunch of people whose political opinions I am sympathetic to now attempt to shift the onus of (dis)proof onto those who realise that credible evidence in support of Warren's assertion is yet to appear. What on earth happened to the time-honoured "You made a claim, you provide the evidence that supports it"? Why should we skip the claim that set this particular discussion into motion?

Her claim to Indian ancestry is irrelevant, in my opinion. She may have Indian ancestors, or the family lore (which is more extensive and explicit than "her grandfather had high cheekbones") may be incorrect. I don't know which and neither does anybody else, but I don't fault her for accepting what her mother told her.

On the other hand, there is no evidence that she used her ancestry to gain advantage of any kind, though that is the charge made by her opponents. It was used by candidate Trump as a way to discredit her in a disgraceful manner by use of a crude stereotype. He still carries on with that as president. Forty Two's posts on the topic in this thread could be interpreted as showing implicit approval of what Trump did and continues to do, but he can speak to that himself.

[pErvinalia]

So Elizabeth Warren claimed to be part Cherokee on the grounds that her grandfather had high cheeks and some rather iffy research results regarding her ancestry. None of the three Cherokee tribes will have a bar of it. I feel quite embarrassed that a whole bunch of people whose political opinions I am sympathetic to now attempt to shift the onus of (dis)proof onto those who realise that credible evidence in support of Warren's assertion is yet to appear. What on earth happened to the time-honoured "You made a claim, you provide the evidence that supports it"? Why should we skip the claim that set this particular discussion into motion?

What you seem to missing is that 42 made a claim that he can't back up. I guess we could spend our time asking Warren to substantiate her claim, but since she isn't a member here it would be a decided waste of time.

[Tero]

GOP failed to get horror stories. It was not failing till Trump tampered with it.
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_595c3 ... 6c0a8d138a

[Hermit]

I don't think we should skip it, but we should see it in context.

Quite so, but let's look at the discussion in this thread over the past ten days. Tero initiated the derail here. Nothing came of it until L'Emmerdeur blew into the embers three days later: "Nah, it's just that "hopeless Pocahontas" shooting off her mouth again.", and this is where Forty Two took the bait: "She's the one who falsely claimed to be a native American..." EIght minutes later pErvin was the first cab off the rank trying to reverse the burden of proof: "How do you know it is false?" And the pile-on began. Even you could not resist: "So what you're saying here is that there's no proof she isn't Native American, either by culture or ancestry?" And on it went like this ever since. It's fucking embarrassing.

Stop it please.The situation is as if Galaxian came along claiming he lives on Mars, someone saying there is no evidence he lives on Mars, and then a bunch of people asking the objector what evidence he has that Galaxian does not live on Mars.

[JimC]

Not quite - we can be pretty certain that Galaxian (actually a pimply teenager living mostly in his bedroom, which he painted black...) does not live on Mars, but the Native American ancestry (or not) of a given North American individual are both straight forwardly possible...

And anyway, all that needs to be said is that 42 (as he often does) is just on his anti-Democrat hobbyhorse rather than focusing on substantive issues (which he can do quite well when he puts his mind to it...)

(by the way, do I use brackets a little too often?)

[Hermit]

Not quite - we can be pretty certain that Galaxian (actually a pimply teenager living mostly in his bedroom, which he painted black...) does not live on Mars, but the Native American ancestry (or not) of a given North American individual are both straight forwardly possible...

And anyway, all that needs to be said is that 42 (as he often does) is just on his anti-Democrat hobbyhorse rather than focusing on substantive issues (which he can do quite well when he puts his mind to it...)

(by the way, do I use brackets a little too often?)

You are not (despite your presumed competence with statistics) the arbiter of certainty. At any rate (in my opinion anyway) certainty is not a determinant for shifting the burden of proof (on to someone who questions someone else's assertion). You are (I am aware that I risk breaking the play nice rule with the rest of this sentence) a blithering fucking idiot of the first water. And (to make sure I overstepped the mark I add) a fink! (<-- In the first meaning listed in the Oxford Dictionary of the word.)

Also, 42 was goaded into discussing that issue. (Twice. First by Tero, then by L'Emmerdeur)

(Though you have not sunk to the level of nesting them yet, yes, you do use brackets (a little) too often.)

[JimC]

Although saying 42 was goaded into posting nasty things about Democrats is like saying the Pope has to be goaded into saying nice things about Mary...