[In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. --L.]
- tales of adventure – what really works my nerves about avatar.
- Much like people keep fantasizing about how they would have treated indigenous people in the us/western hemisphere differently than their great great grandpappy did (?), people keep talking about how they'd help the na'vi <b>now</b>, if avatar was really actually happening, or something like that.
What this sort of deep seated savior fantasy ignores is all the ways in which the situation affecting the na'vi is happening right here, right now, on planet earth, and many of these same folks who were moved to tears (and beyond) by the plight of fictional characters are completely ignoring it.
trying to relocate native people for unobtanium is happening right now on hopi lands, except the unobtainim is coal.
- Fatshionista
- The truth is that this is how insurance works: we all pay, so that the some of us who require healthcare at any given time can access it. That is the purpose of insurance, to pay into a collective system that we can then draw on if we require it. This means some of us will pay in more than we take out, and some of us will take out far more than we put in. But that’s how insurance operates and how it always has. There’s a term for putting money into a system that only you can access, and only when you want to: it’s called a savings account.
Now, if you want to punish the fat because you truly believe that all fat people are necessarily and irredeemably ill at all times, even though I disagree with you, we should think about that proposition. Because ultimately, if that’s what you believe, you’re talking about punishing sick people for using health insurance for the purpose for which it is intended: to pay for medical treatment.
Let’s just mull that over for a minute here.
[...] Should healthcare only be made available to the virtuous and conventionally-attractive among us? Or to people who aren’t poor and who can therefore afford such things as quality food and gym memberships? Would you argue that only people who are well-educated, or people who are Christian, or people who are able-bodied should get full insurance coverage? Should healthcare only be offered to people who have never failed to report a symptom that resulted in a late diagnosis of a treatable disease? Is healthcare only for people who get themselves screened for breast cancer or colon cancer or prostate cancer at the appropriate ages and as often as recommended?
Is healthcare only for the physically perfect and morally pure?
- Sanguinity – Towards an Intersectionality of Atheism and Race
- So here's a thing that I want to see: atheists standing up and showing support in cases like this: here we've got a school superintendent who thinks that his religion can be "proven" but that other peoples' can't; who thinks that their religious practices are "just a personal choice" and his aren't; and who privileges religion as a legitimate reason for having different cultural practices, but does not accept having a different culture as a legitimate reason for differing cultural practices. Is this or is this not a sterling example for some of the primary atheist critiques of Christianity's cultural hegemony? So why did I only see it on the race blogs, and not on the atheist blogs?
Do we only care about the problems of white people? Really? (Okay. Fine. Don't answer that.)
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