Life Expectancy in Red States vs Blue States

[iluvatar5150]

I guess I don't understand your bewilderment. If the plan is to get kids to eat healthier in schools by requiring schools to serve healthier foods, but the healthier foods just end up being thrown away and therefore not achieving its goal, doesn't that indicate there is a flaw in the plan?

Not necessarily. It could merely be a flaw in the execution, like poor cooking or ineffective marketing. It could take time for kids to get used to the food when they've been habituated to high-fat, high-salt junk food. Conservatives' response was to discard the program altogether instead of trying to tweak it to make it more effective. We had folks on here complaining that it was bad because the caloric limits were for insufficient for kids on the football team, as if they're somehow representative of the whole.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

The whole liberal idea of civil liberties is that, in the interest of liberty, I wont permit the govt to outlaw all manner of activities that I might choose not to indulge in myself, so long as others arent harmed.

In other words, I may conduct my personal life in a very conservative manner, while politically I'm a pro civil liberties liberal.

There's many other ways that con/lib dont map well across domains. But thats an instructive one.

Really, you should know better. The terms "conservative" and "liberal" are ripe for argumentative equivocation when you apply them to different arenas of life and pretend they mean the same thing. Dont do it!

I'm not as generous as you are.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Evidence?

Conservatives tend to take better care of themselves.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

From one study:

After controlling for poverty rate, percent African American and Latino populations, educational attainment, and spatial autocorrelation in the error term, we found that higher county-level obesity prevalence rates were associated with higher levels of support for the 2012 Republican Party presidential candidate.

Many of those votes were 'protest votes' by people who lead pretty liberal lifestyles health wise.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Even if we grant this, the main difference seems to be between conservative versus liberal government approaches to healthcare in these states. Not lifestyles.

I assume you mean state government, re Medicaid.

 

[durangodawood]

Conservatives tend to take better care of themselves.

"Blue" states people are healthier and more economically productive that "red" state people, on average.

Given that contemporary Republicans can hardly be called "conservative" anymore, you may be right.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Should use of motorcycle helmets and car seatbelts be mandatory by law?

Nanny state liberals prevent children from chewing on lead paint, when children can make that decision for themselves. If lead tastes sweet, who's to stop them from exercising their person freedom to choose lead paint?

Give people the information needed to make such decisions. If they still choose to engage in dangerous activities they are likely liberal. If they play it safe, conservative. That's what those terms imply. A person's voting habits are not necessarily indicative of their basic liberal or conservative nature.

I am conservative by nature, but sometimes vote for the so-called liberal candidate because he or she is proposing more conservative policies than the so-called conservative candidate.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Because, as a public policy, it's often ineffective at achieving its goals. People are flawed. Good, effective policy seeks to mitigate the impact of those flaws.

Why not address the 'flaws'?

Except that few people really treat their health that way.

So why the brewha about healthcare?

And yet, every time conservatives try to go their own way on education, they produce worse results.

When did conservatives ever control education?

I don't doubt the notion that kids threw away more food. What bewildered me was that conservatives took this as a way to show that the flaw was with the plan and not with their kids' behavior.

Now you're talking. We can reduce many problems by educating our kids in regard to their bad behaviors. Of course teachers aren't allowed to do that.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

The numbers don’t lie. Oddly, liberals seem to more often treat their bodies as a temple.

I identify conservative/liberal by lifestyle, not politics. Based on our problems there are few real conservatives around.

 

[essentialsaltes]

A person's voting habits are not necessarily indicative of their basic liberal or conservative nature.

I am conservative by nature, but sometimes vote for the so-called liberal candidate because he or she is proposing more conservative policies than the so-called conservative candidate.

It's hard to have a conversation if you're going to rely on your own personal definition of liberal and conservative rather than the common one. Anyway, the thread is about red and blue states, which does have a specific meaning based on voting habits. So if we look at where helmet laws are mandatory for all, it includes all your typical blue states (CA, HI, OR, WA, NY, VT, MA, NJ) along with much of the red south. Places with laxer laws are generally all red: TX, OK, AZ, UT, ID, all the other plains, along with the purple rust belt and a few blue New England states.

 

[durangodawood]

I identify conservative/liberal by lifestyle, not politics. Based on our problems there are few real conservatives around.

"Liberal" as a lifestyle defining word is pretty much your own private language.

Maybe you mean libertine?

 

[DaisyDay]

>>WE<< subsidize their national defense. That's right... if they get attacked, we pay for it and physically go defend them. Sounds like they have a great self-sufficient system going on there... ever consider moving?

How do you figure that? Sweden is not a part of NATO.

"Going to war without France is like going hunting without an accordion."

That's pretty ungrateful considering how they unquestioningly fought alongside us in Afghanistan after 9/11.

 

[Sparagmos]

I was about to say I agree, but you can purchase health care on a market. Insurance payments may be rationed, but the care is not.

Either way, "universal healthcare" is a lying euphemism for "govt. rationed"

Not true - insurance companies deny claims, treatments, and certain drugs all of the time. The effect is the same as rationing since only a very wealthy person can afford to pay out of pocket. If you want to say universal healthcare is worse than our system, you’ll need to provide data showing the health outcomes are worse, not just make empty claims.

 

[cow451]

Many of those votes were 'protest votes' by people who lead pretty liberal lifestyles health wise.

LOL. That’s cute.

 

[cow451]

I identify conservative/liberal by lifestyle, not politics. Based on our problems there are few real conservatives around.

Based on your definition, the Blue areas are more conservative. By your definition I am on the really conservative track.

 

[BigDaddy4]

Not necessarily. It could merely be a flaw in the execution, like poor cooking or ineffective marketing. It could take time for kids to get used to the food when they've been habituated to high-fat, high-salt junk food. Conservatives' response was to discard the program altogether instead of trying to tweak it to make it more effective. We had folks on here complaining that it was bad because the caloric limits were for insufficient for kids on the football team, as if they're somehow representative of the whole.

Perhaps. But you don't cook salads or fresh raw fruits (apples, oranges, bananas, grapes, etc) or veggies (raw carrots, celery, etc.). Ineffective marketing? In a school? Uh ok. Not much marketing going on there regardless of the program.

I live in a blue state, in a liberal blue county, with lots of liberal and progressive democratic supporters. Many of these non-conservatives were calling to discard the former First Lady's program due to high costs to implement, high waste, and overall ineffectiveness. So, my experience in my area differs greatly from the perception you are projecting here. I'm not saying yours is necessarily wrong, just that my real life experience is different.

I was a high school athlete many years ago and the serving sizes were insufficient back then. I ended up having to buy 2 lunches during the sports season, which was pretty much year round for me, just so I wouldn't get hungry during practices or games. I don't know what the answer is, but different kids have different needs, and I think there needs to be some greater flexibility in these "healthier" programs. Also, I think these programs are trying to correct a deficiency in the homes, where access to unhealthy foods, beverages, and snacks are more likely to be readily available. Childhood obesity does not start with school lunches, IMO.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

"Liberal" as a lifestyle defining word is pretty much your own private language.

Maybe you mean libertine?

Liberal, libertine. Pretty much the same. No laws, no rules.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

LOL. That’s cute.

Why do you think Wisconsin, a very liberal state, voted for Trump? Do you think we stopped pigging out on brats and beer in 2016?

We just tossed out our conservative governor for a liberal one.

 

[DaisyDay]

NY Times economist Paul Krugman, a fact-fudging incompetent

It's not slander when it's true.

That said, you can't back up your claim. It's either universal or it's not.

On top of that, delayed care is denied care. In Canada people are dying in waiting lines to get treated for cancer. Although delayed care is denied care, governments are corrupt and don't record it as such. Until they do, you can't make an honest and accurate comparison.

Your linked hit piece contains no links and no quotes - nothing that can be checked - just slanderous crap. Most the "false facts" mentioned were nothing more than wrong predictions - and there were surprisingly few given the length of Krugman's career.

New York Times was forced to issue a correction in 2010, when it came to light that Krugman falsified a quote by Newt Gingrich.

What quote and when exactly? He doesn't bother to say. I finally found the great retraction and it turns out that Krugman did NOT falsify the quote, but he wrongly attributed it to reference LBJ's civil rights legislation when the quote was actually referring to LBJ's Great Society (anti-poverty) policies. Nine years ago and that's the big lie?

Editors’ Note: March 23, 2010
The Paul Krugman column on Monday, about the health care bill, quoted Newt Gingrich as saying that “Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation. The quotation originally appeared in The Washington Post, which reported after the column went to press that Mr. Gingrich said it referred to Johnson’s Great Society policies, not to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Link to 2010 column with "correction"

Note the quote itself was not disputed.

Meanwhile, the source you choose is unreliable with strong bias and failed fact-checks:

• Overall, we rate Bizpac Review Right Biased based on story selection and editorial position that almost always favor the right. We also rate them Mixed for factual reporting due to use of poor sources, misleading loaded language and three failed fact checks.

Bizpac Review - Media Bias/Fact Check

All that said, in the particular article of the OP, what did you find wrong besides the author of the piece? He does name his sources so you can check them out.

 

[Ken Rank]

I think there are two important things to consider:
1) how high the net income is and what are average prices of living
2) how much of those money that go to "government" get back to you in form of public services, higher social security, lower criminality, more happy and healthy people generally etc

Your quality of life can be higher with less money and vice versa. You may have more money to have 3 cars instead of one which is usual in the EU, but then you give your children to school and all your money are lost. And then you may need some more expensive medial treatment and you will become... homeless?

Your trust for the government(s) based on a world history of governmental control over people is much higher than mine. We won't see this eye to eye based on that.