[tomder55]

I have no intention of living off SS. But then again ,the government has no intention of having me live off of it . The die is already cast for some reforms that include means testing .

As for Medicare . .... again opt out after I have paid for it my whole working life ? No one gave us the option BEFORE we started paying for it . Besides ;I'm happy to have money taken out of my paycheck to pay for transgender operations .

Medicare Ban on Sex Reassignment Surgery Lifted - ABC News

[smoothy]

I have no intention of living off SS. But then again ,the government has no intention of having me live off of it . The die is already cast for some reforms that include means testing .

As for Medicare . .... again opt out after I have paid for it my whole working life ? No one gave us the option BEFORE we started paying for it . Besides ;I'm happy to have money taken out of my paycheck to pay for transgender operations .

Medicare Ban on Sex Reassignment Surgery Lifted - ABC News

Yeah Tom.. imagine how many older people that worked their whole lives paying inot the system could have gotten basic medical care for the cost of one HE-SHE transmorgification...

[talaniman]

The assumption is that transgendered people have never worked hard or paid taxes?

[tomder55]

transformer surgery is elective

[paraclete]

transformer surgery is elective

so now it is possile to become a metal object? I want to be a Transam seriously Tom providing a benefit and someone actually using it are two different things and you would benefit from living on SS, you might see how the other half lives

[tomder55]

there were many years of denying myself the things the "other half" take for granted .

[smoothy]

The assumption is that transgendered people have never worked hard or paid taxes?

SO.. are they offering John Holmes or Dolly Parton Surgery for the other old folks that lived their lives without the ample endowments they always wanted but didn't want to pay out of pocket for it their entire lives untl then? If they don't then they are denying the rest equality.

[talaniman]

Vacuum Therapy Penile Pumps | Medically Approved and Insurance Covered

You want breast too?

[paraclete]

it is marvelous how these arguments go from the sublime to the rediculous I have never questioned whether our medicare provided gender realignment surgery, so long as I get what I need when I need it, I'm not interested if they meet the needs of others, but then we don't have a large population of such people. The idea that a system that serves the general population should only serve the needs of a few is very undemocratic and very orwellian

[smoothy]

You can get a boob job if you already have a penis and plan to keep it or get it lopped off... but not if you were born with girl parts already.

That's patently unfair to women... and the old guys that live in old folds home. Unless they plan on killing off a few of the old guys with heart attacks from what they find in the depends.

[paraclete]

this trivilises the debate but then I should be used to that, back to the OP which afterall is about whether disaffected youth should be able to kill at will and whether a responsible society should be enablers of such actions

[smoothy]

THe disaffected youth... need to be dumped off on a remote island and left to fend for themselves.

Its cheaper than jail... and gets them away from innocent people.

[paraclete]

ah yes the ultimate solution....Lord of the Flies and all that, didn't work there and doesn't work now. Until people get serious about the issues and stop just decrying the symptoms you will remain a society which is a training ground for terrorists, becuase this is exactly what these people are. McVieh was trained in a gun totin society in Michigan before he became a bomber and why because the ideas he had were nurtured in that society and it had nothing to do with liberty, defense thereof or whatever and a whole lot to do with just lettin it all hang out

What young people need is discipline, the discipline of a couple of years in the armed forces after high school doing useful work, reconstruction, relief and gaining some life skills and even some trade skills, then they can go to college and get some other forms of learning they can apply. What you have is a namby pamby system that allows these problems to hide in academia whereas they would be spotted in the military

[smoothy]

ah yes the ultimate solution....Lord of the Flies and all that, didn't work there and doesn't work now. Until people get serious about the issues and stop just decrying the symptoms you will remain a society which is a training ground for terrorists, becuase this is exactly what these people are. McVieh was trained in a gun totin society in Michigan before he became a bomber and why because the ideas he had were nurtured in that society and it had nothing to do with liberty, defense thereof or whatever and a whole lot to do with just lettin it all hang out

What young people need is discipline, the discipline of a couple of years in the armed forces after high school doing useful work, reconstruction, relief and gaining some life skills and even some trade skills, then they can go to college and get some other forms of learning they can apply. What you have is a namby pamby system that allows these problems to hide in academia whereas they would be spotted in the military

YOu had too many resources, too much space... and too many people. Something a remote island isn't going to be overly abundent with. And we are talking totally different categories of people... back when that was done in Australia... people actually knew how to do things... your average punk these days would have a hard enough time finding food in a supermarket... without an iPhone app to tell them how and where.

[paraclete]

YOu had too many resources, too much space... and too many people. Something a remote island isn't going to be overly abundent with. And we are talking totally different categories of people... back when that was done in Australia... people actually knew how to do things... your average punk these days would have a hard enough time finding food in a supermarket... without an iPhone app to tell them how and where.

What do you mean what was done in Australia? transporting people to a remote place and treating them like animals? What was done in Australia was a response to your revolution, they could no longer dump the dregs there so they found another place. But you see it over two centuries breeded an unique ethos
, one which actually says "stuff you"

All you are doing is reinforcing my view of your society. I'm suggesting that the young people don't need to be shunned by your society, which is what you are suggesting but taken off the streets and put through the mill, obviously they would be paid for their work and actually grasp the concept rather than be left to behave like punks

[smoothy]

What do you mean what was done in Australia? transporting people to a remote place and treating them like animals? What was done in Australia was a response to your revolution, they could no longer dump the dregs there so they found another place. But you see it over two centuries breeded an unique ethos
, one which actually says "stuff you"

All you are doing is reinforcing my view of your society. I'm suggesting that the young people don't need to be shunned by your society, which is what you are suggesting but taken off the streets and put through the mill, obviously they would be paid for their work and actually grasp the concept rather than be left to behave like punks

Punks shouldn't have their bad behaviour rewarded... doing so gives them an unfair advantage those others that did behave correctly and did the right thing didn't get.

And it's a matter of fact... that even 30 or 40 years ago the average person had a far greater skillset than the people of today have. And the people of 200 years ago would have died off if they didn't have significantly more skills than today's people have.

Example... how many kids tody even know how to plant a garden? Build anything with their hands using basic tools?

Animals deserve to be treated like animals... and in fact... many animals behave better than many people do. THose people don't deserve better treatment than the average person. Otherwise bad behaviour is being rewarded.

And given a choice of being dumped on of a remote island that has limited food and water resources... and the Australian continent. ANyone would be better off on the Australian Continent. They were starting with more... and get enough people with diversified actual work skills... you have a chance at building something... put your average group of punks today in that same situation... they are going to be lost without the internet, and bellyaching there isn't a Starbucks nearby... and wouldn't know what to do with a pile of lumber and a hammer and nails if you handed it to them... much less how to cut their own from trees.

Considering what the norm was in UK prisons back in the day... or wha taverage life was like for the average wretch... being sent to Australia wasn't much different than what people who first came to our country to colonize it. They didn't have much more if any more resources available but what they could make for themselves.

[talaniman]

This is the 21st century, and not the good old days when you were growing up when the jobs were abundant and the schooling much cheaper. We have done a lousy job giving our kids the same opportunities that many of us had and take for granted. The skillsets we grew up with and the and the hard work ethic no longer is as adequate for success as it was when I came out of school.

Small wonder they have no outlets to the piss and vinegar of youth when we have not given them direction, and guidance, but criticism and the backward look at how hard we had to work to get where we are.

Still they strive, but we can only pick out the bad examples and broad brush their idiocy with all of them and that's not only unfair but inaccurate and goes nowhere in solving the basic problem of less opportunity to be gainfully employed.

[paraclete]

Smoothy you have no more idea of life on the Australian continent than you do of the moon. The people who came here were like your Jamestown mob, they couldn't survive here but they were fortunate they had supplies. They actually landed in a basin from which there was no escape, it took them many years to get off the coast with it's poor, acid soils and no wild life to speak of. I have seen my grandchildren want to plant a garden it is a natural instinct which must be nurtured.

The people who came to Australia had the lash for company, many were political prisoners it wasn't until fifty years had elapsed that free settlers began to come here in any number if they built anything it was under compulsion

You fail to understand that it is your modern society that has poisoned the youth with your letcherous behaviour and its emphasis on electronics and self. You blame the youth, but it is you. it is your greed that took their employment away and left them desititute in the streets. You dare to say to these people rise up get off your arse and follow me because I'm better than you. the fact is the problem is you and those like you

[smoothy]

This is the 21st century, and not the good old days when you were growing up when the jobs were abundant and the schooling much cheaper. We have done a lousy job giving our kids the same opportunities that many of us had and take for granted. The skillsets we grew up with and the and the hard work ethic no longer is as adequate for success as it was when I came out of school.

Small wonder they have no outlets to the piss and vinegar of youth when we have not given them direction, and guidance, but criticism and the backward look at how hard we had to work to get where we are.

Still they strive, but we can only pick out the bad examples and broad brush their idiocy with all of them and that's not only unfair but inaccurate and goes nowhere in solving the basic problem of less opportunity to be gainfully employed.

If that's the case Tal... then why has the average quality of education been getting worse to the point few graduates from high school are even ready to enter college today?

THat wasn't the case when WE graduated....and they where wasting a lot less money doing it then too.

THey don't even have a skillset to speak of... and they are too lazy to work hard... neither of those are inadequate for success... they are both indespinsible and today's youth in general lack both... then whine its not fair they have to work their way up the ladder.. they expect to be appopinted CEO out of high school and they actually believe they already know everything they will ever need coming right out of school...

When they actually don't.

If Illegals can sneak in, and manage to find jobs and make enough money to support not only themselves and families here they brought with them... but to send money home to support people back there... then what excuse do millinials have to mooch off their parents YEARS after they become adults? THEY have a better education and actually speak the language (well some of them do at least).

[smoothy]

Smoothy you have no more idea of life on the Australian continent than you do of the moon. The people who came here were like your Jamestown mob, they couldn't survive here but they were fortunate they had supplies. They actually landed in a basin from which there was no escape, it took them many years to get off the coast with it's poor, acid soils and no wild life to speak of. I have seen my grandchildren want to plant a garden it is a natural instinct which must be nurtured.

The people who came to Australia had the lash for company, many were political prisoners it wasn't until fifty years had elapsed that free settlers began to come here in any number if they built anything it was under compulsion

You fail to understand that it is your modern society that has poisoned the youth with your letcherous behaviour and its emphasis on electronics and self. You blame the youth, but it is you. it is your greed that took their employment away and left them desititute in the streets. You dare to say to these people rise up get off your arse and follow me because I'm better than you. the fact is the problem is you and those like you

Listen... its not us... its the lazy youths fault... everyone is responsible for what they make of their own life... or if they decide to waste it like so many do... with the freedom of choice comes responsibility for those choices.

I've seen kids born to weathy parents, that attended private schools... piss away every advantage they had handed to them... while thoses of us that attended public schools from poor parents managed to do far better with what we had available to us.

And try and twist it as you wish... the first settlers in our country weren't much different than prisoners... they were fleeing abject poverty and persecution where they came from... only a few had money or connections... you either busted your bum and succeeded or you starved to death... they really had no other options. They likely would not have survived if they remained in their home countries for any number of reasons.