American Conservatives have been lying to you about universal healthcare.
Socialized Medicine operates within capitalism. Healthcare isn’t “free” its paid by with taxes. Doctors are still paid, they’re just paid by the government instead of by private hospitals.
However wait lines are real, but because of Canada’s triage system, those who need care the most get it faster. So if you have 2 people, one with a broken leg and one with mild back pain, the person with the broken leg will get care immediately. Both will get care. Canada’s healthcare system isn’t perfect, but it is world’s better than US private system.
If my family lived in the USA, my disabilities and the surgeries they required would have bankrupted my family. I’ve never paid a dime in Canada for seeing a doctor or a hospital, and because of my low income I do not pay any additional income taxes for that care. Our taxes scale with income so those who can afford it most pay more for things like healthcare (which everyone receives).
Don’t trust me, let experts and doctors explain how it all works:
This Doctor SHUTS DOWN Every Argument Fox News Has Against Medicare for All:
Also *bangs on drums* IN THE US SYSTEM YOU ABSOLUTELY DO NOT “PAY FOR WHAT YOU GET”!
You pay insurance premiums even if you never ever use your health insurance, just like how in countries with universal healthcare you pay the taxes even if you never use healthcare. The main difference is that in their system, the total amount taken in needs to be the total cost of everyone’s care + cost of administering the program, whereas in ours it’s those two things + a profit margin for the insurance company! This is why the US spends far more on health care per capita than almost any other country while having worse health outcomes.
The insurance companies are also banking on most people not using it so they can maximize their profits, which is why they like to deny claims they should cover (in the hopes that you won’t challenge it) and kick people off who do rack up a large medical bill. The government isn’t trying to maximize profits, just cover costs. So the main concern is getting everyone’s medical care paid for and then if that turns out to be too much you raise taxes to cover it instead of not paying for some of it.
Nationalized healthcare is no more communist than the Post Office (and conservatives are gunning for that, too). Imagine there was another country with no postal system. Citizens had to pay companies like UPS and FedEx to mail a simple letter (which currently costs several dollars minimum through those companies), and rural areas might get service once or twice a week or not at all. That’s what the US healthcare system looks like to most other countries.
the argument they’re pulling on lately is “But consumers should have a CHOICE in their healthcare,” and the thing I keep arguing is that unless you can afford the top tier medical plan that would cost my family more than half our mortgage payment every month (which means obviously we cannot afford that sort of luxury), your choices are incredibly limited… The specialist your primary care physician insists you need to see doesn’t accept your insurance? Too bad, you pay full price for necessary care. The doctor recommends ten physical therapy appointments to recover from an injury? Too bad, the insurance company thinks you only need three. You need this particular medication? Too bad, it’s still $300 a month even with your insurance coverage and you have to decide if you REALLY need lifesaving medication more than you need food or electricity or your car payment. It’s just… for anyone not able to afford those “cadillac” health insurance plans, we really have zero choice and take what we’re given while stressing over what we can afford to go without if we actually need to use our choiceless default basic care plans for anything more than annual checkups and getting a flu shot.
Because otherwise we’re just seen as a drain on profits, and the #1 priority of US Healthcare corporations is maximizing investor profit, and sick people are a liability to their bottom line.
It’s *evil*
Not only all of the above, but let me add the artificial limits on what you need and when you need it.
Insurance companies, not doctors, now decide in the US how often you need any standard of care item. Blood tests, gynecology, colo-rectal and reproductive health exams of all kinds that used to be once a year (or every two years for young, healthy people) are now once in five years, unless you’re a high risk patient.
They get to pick what meds you should have, what should be prescribed or recommended for your condition, how long you have to be in moderate to severe pain before you can have the surgery instead of whatever palliative care they think might work if you’re just whiny (you probably are, what do you know, you went to a doctor about it).
The old joke “are you okay?” And the doctor says “how would I know, I’m a doctor, not a lawyer.” Today’s version would be “I can’t say, I’m a doctor, not an insurance company.”
I’ve had insurance plans where you had maybe… 3 doctors to “chose” from. And 2 lived in other cities over 100 miles away (work provided “insurance” btw)
“choice” is bullshit. I can’t go see this amazing doctor i want to be sure she’s not in Network for me. Too bad so sad for me.
I could “choose” to see her anyway… And wipe out my savings in 3 visits by paying out of pocket.
A choice between a cliff and a fire is NOT A FUCKING CHOICE.
Our choices are fabricated. The illusion of choice. It fucking sucks.
Earth is still enjoying an interglacial period of an ice age
…so we’re gonna get HOTTER?
No wait. We’re gonna get colder?
No, we’re almost certainly going to get hotter, we’re only technically interglacial now because we still have large ice caps… but rather than another glacial period, we’re heading towards a greenhouse period.
…has there ever been a greenhouse period on earth….like you got me going down a google spiral of historical temperature graphs….
Oh, yes! The most recent one ended about 33 million years ago. The “Eocene Thermal Maximum” was the hottest portion of that period, and during that time, horses were fucking tiny:
Clearly we need to breed larger horses to prevent earth from warming further.
you’ve done it, you’vs solved the climate crisis
actually Equus gigantus was a species of enormous horse that lived in North America towards the end of the Pleistocene, alongside woolly mammoths and camels and smilodon
it went extinct at the end of the last glacial period along with most of North America’s other megafauna, but it was fucking huge
both horse and camels originally evolved in North America… all native species went extinct and are now known only from relatives that spread to other continents
Don’t we still have horses that big?
You just skipped over the most important bit, the most terrifying bit.
…..“Mega fauna”
Just means animals over about 90-100lbs—roughly the size of a human or bigger. Towards the end of the last glacial period, a large portion of Earth’s megafauna died out. In North America, that included mastodons, woolly mammoths, smilodons, horses, camels, giant sloths, giant beavers, short-faced bears, stag-moose, dire wolves, cave lions, and cheetahs.
Obviously not all mammalian megafauna died off in that window of time—in NA, we still (technically) have bison, bears, wolves, deer, elk, puma, and others.
Camels are from North America??? Never would have expected that.
Yep! The ancestors of both modern camels and South American llamas/alpacas/vicuñas/guanacos evolved here. Some lived as far north as the Yukon and Ellesmere Island and Beringa:
Can we talk about Australia’s apparent invasive camel population???
Camels were brought to Australia in the 1800’s because they were well-suited to the hot climate of the outback, but largely abandoned in favor of cars. They flourished in the wild with no large predators and there are now hundreds of thousands of feral camels roaming wild throughout Australia. They cause so many problems that they are culled by the thousands.
The USA also had some feral camels in the late 1800’s. They were imported by the Army in the 1850’s or so, and after the Civil War there were some small feral populations roaming around—there’s even a wild legend about the Red Ghost, which claims that a feral red-furred camel wandered the desert of Arizona in the 1880’s attacking and killing people, with the dessicated corpse of its rider still strapped to its back.
We’re going to need a little more information than that…
Please see the following maps of South Asia:
Image description: Two maps of South Asia. The top map depicts the South Asian region, including Afghanistan with color-coding of different regions by 8 color-coded language groups. The bottom depicts the official state/ province/ languages and scripts for countries in the South Asian region, excluding Afghanistan. See end of post for detailed image description under the cut.
Names in South Asian cultures are primarily dictated by religion and language. While there’s some overlap between cultures, we can make an educated guess of someone’s ethnicity & religion based on their name. For example:
Simran Dhillon … is a Punjabi Sikh.
Priyanka Ghosh … is a Bengali Hindu
Maya Srinivasan … is a Tamilian Hindu.
Harsh Patel … is a Gujarati Hindu.
Amin Usmani … is a Muslim from a traditionally Urdu speaking community.
Teresa Fernandes … is a Goan Christian.
Behind the Name is a good place to start looking as they state the specific language the name is from. As for religion, there are more factors to consider.
Sikhs
Sikh first names are gender neutral. The 10th Sikh guru designated Singh (meaning lion, for men) and Kaur (meaning heir to the throne, for women) as Sikh surnames. These surnames were designed to be equalizers within Sikh communities. However, many Sikhs keep their Punjabi surnames (many of these surnames are now primarily associated with Sikhs) and use Singh and Kaur as a middle name (eg. Ranjit Kaur Shergill, Amrit Singh Cheema). More devout Sikhs use only Singh and Kaur or use the same format legally but do not share their surnames.
Sikh first names are derived from gurbani (Sikh holy texts), so they are often uniform across cultures. Most Sikhs who aren’t Punjabi use Singh & Kaur or cultural surnames in the same format. The latter is usually seen among Afghan & Delhiite Sikh communities. While most changed their surnames to Singh & Kaur, some families still kept the surnames they had before they converted from Islam and Hinduism (eg. Harpreet Singh Laghmani, Jasleen Kaur Kapoor).
If you’re stuck on a surname for a Sikh character, Singh for men and Kaur for women is the safest way to go regardless of ethnicity.
South Asian Christians naming conventions depend largely on who brought Christianity to the region and when. For example, Christianity was largely brought to Goa by Portuguese Catholics so you’ll see Portuguese surnames, while many Christians in the Seven Sister States didn’t change their names. South Asian Christians will also often have Christian first names, either in Portuguese or in English.
Hindus, Jains, castes and gotras
Hinduism is the majority religion in India and the South Asian region overall. A key thing that many newcomers overlook when writing about Hindus is that rather like feudal Europe, a person’s last name can also tell you what their family used to do because of the caste system. Both Hindus and Jains employ gotras (or lineage systems) designed to keep people from the same patrilineal line from marrying each other. Thus, if your Hindu character is a Vaishya (tradesman/ merchant class), but you have chosen a last name for them related to farming, or if your Kshatriya (warrior) character has a last name that means bureaucrat, you’ve made a mistake. Most Hindus and Jains will have last names derived from Sanskrit, or a language with Sanskrit roots.
A note on middle names: in South India, Hindus will often use the father’s first name for the child’s middle name.
For what it is worth, South Asia is hardly the only region to have these particular features. Japanese society until the end of the Edo era was heavily segregated by caste, and to this day, many families with samurai last names occupy relative positions of privilege compared to other castes, even though the Japanese caste system ended with the Meiji Restoration.
A note of caution: Baby name websites tend to be inaccurate for Hindu names, often confusing Farsi and Arabic-derived Urdu names with the more traditional Sanskrit-derived names. Behind the Name is by far the most accurate website, but it doesn’t hurt to check multiple sources. For Hindu and Jain surnames associated with different castes, regions and gotras, Wikipedia is surprisingly thorough.
Muslims
Islam is the majority religion in Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as the second largest religion in India, but the differing ethnicities and arrival periods of Muslims in South Asia over the course of history can have a significant impact on a character’s name. For example, think of when your character’s family will have arrived in South Asia or converted to Islam:
During the Delhi Sultanate, when Hindustani would have been spoken?
Under the Mughals when Persian was more common?
Are they from Bangladesh and thus speak Bengali?
Do they have ancestors from Afghanistan or Swat Valley, and thus have Pashto last names?
Does the family speak Urdu?
All of these will impact what their name might reasonably be. As a general rule, Muslims will have last names that are in Farsi/ Persian, Urdu, Arabic and Bengali. Bangladeshi Muslims may have Hindu names (both first and last) as well.
Buddhists
When discussing Buddhists in South Asia, we are primarily talking about Nepal and Sri Lanka. The majority languages in these countries are Nepali and Sinhala, respectively. Both languages are part of the Indo-Aryan language family, and like many Indo-Aryan languages, show heavy Sanskrit influence.
Others
Don’t forget that India also has a large number of lesser known minority religions, including Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Tibetan Buddhism and a host of indigenous religions.
Judaism: There are a number of historical Jewish enclaves in India, as the result of specific waves of migration. Like South Asian Muslim names, Jewish last names will vary depending on the ethnicity and arrival period for each particular wave of Jewish diaspora.
Zoroastrianism: People who practice Zoroastrianism are likely to have Farsi last names.
Tibetan Buddhism: Tibetan Buddhists will obviously have Tibetan names and are often a part of the Tibetan diaspora who entered India as refugees during the Chinese government’s invasion of Tibet.
In Conclusion
An in-depth coverage of name etymology in South Asia would probably be the size of an encyclopaedia. The above is hardly exhaustive; we haven’t scratched the surface of the ethnic and linguistic variations in any of the South Asian countries displayed on the maps above. We hope, however, that it motivates you to research carefully and appreciate the cultural diversity South Asia has to offer. Just like in any setting where issues of lineage are plainly displayed by a person’s name, names in South Asia tell stories about where a person is from, what language they speak, and what their ancestors might have done, even if this has little bearing on the character themselves. It may seem a little elaborate to try and imagine the ancestors of your character before you even decide who your character is, but the reality is that most South Asians know these things instinctively, and whether or not you do your due diligence will be part of how we judge your work.
Name a thing to fight over, and South Asians have probably fought over it at one point or another, whether it be religion, ethnicity, language, or caste. However, one thing many South Asians have in common is pride in our individual origins. Respecting this love of identity will be invaluable as you plan your story.
At the end of the day, there is no substitute for actually talking to people who share your character’s background. We will always recommend having someone from the community you’re writing about check your naming.
do you ever read a ‘callout post’ where the summary on top is like ‘they EAT BABIES and RUN A COFFEE SHOP FOR MURDERERS and they HATE GAY PEOPLE’ and then you scroll down and actually read the post and it’s like, they posted about lamb chops once, they work at starbucks and one time someone who killed someone had a coffee at that starbucks, and they made a ‘fruit (derogatory)’ joke once
some of the time it’s this, some of the time it’s shit like “six in-depth paragraphs about problematic opinions on Steven Universe followed by an offhand mention of the time they faked their own illness and death in order to pose as their own fictional partner and crowdfund medical and funeral expenses”
Shitven universe is full of problematic writing though. It is a problematic show. Large perceptage of post calling it out are not problematic.
No offense, but if someone is committing real world crimes, I could not give one molecule of a shit about their opinions on a children’s show about rocks that sing and punch each other. Do not bury receipts of actual crimes or dangerous behaviors under punchy rock discourse. Too many times I have seen callout posts about genuinely reprehensible things “padded” heavily with trivial greviances about liking the wrong cartoons. If I have to scroll through your essay about [spins wheel] rock boobies to get to the sexual assault receipts then your callout fucking sucks and you should be ashamed.
@glumshoe So you are perfectly willing to excuse the fact that shitven universe made genocidal fascist space nazis. And because they were arbitrarily “family”, decided that they should be reformed with no punishments for their crimes.
And then the sequel series depicted mental illness as something that makes you physically and violently destructive to everything and everyone in your surroundings. That mental illness can be insta fixed with having a hug and saying you are there and feel better.
Btw I usually block people who try to divert the conversation away from shitven universe being a bad show. Because it show’s they encourage writing like that. And don’t think critically about problematic themes finding their ways into shows meant for kids.
People really don’t like hearing this. But serious problematic issues in the real world can often find their way into fiction, and it’s not a good idea to put those into kids shows as minor things that are forgivable. When discourse surrounding stuff like that says it is excusable or not worth dying over. The responses show just how people think and care about issues like that. A piece of media having the audacity to show completely heinous actions or horribly handled representation as forgivable.
[shakes you vigorously by the lapels]
I don’t know how to tell you this in a way you will understand but committing crimes is worse than watching cartoons.
Maybe my priorities need to be reassessed but I am pretty confident that someone who enjoys South Park and doesn’t sexually abuse people is a better person than someone who exclusively enjoys media that’s beyond reproach and is a rapist.
Like, Jesus Christ, it literally doesn’t matter whether or not Ted Bundy listened to John Lennon. He killed people!!! He literally killed people!!! Hurting people and committing crimes is worse than having bad taste! My god!!!!
It’s just fiction is not an excuse for bad writing. It’s not an excuse for tell children abusive family should be forgiven, that genocidal nazis should be forgiven, or that mental illness is harmful to everyone around them. Contrary to what people on the internet tell you. Fiction reflects reality and vice versa. The excuse that they are completely exclusive is ignorant at best. What you enjoy and produce content about says a lot about you and what you believe, and is worth self reflection when callled out that what you like is reflective of you.
IF YOU STAB SOMEONE TO DEATH IN AN IKEA YOUR OPINIONS ON PINK DIAMOND COULD LITERALLY NOT BE LESS RELEVANT
wait I’m sorry
I don’t fucking go here and I think cartoon discourse is an embarrassing waste of time in this the cosmically forsaken year of 2021, but… Hazbin Hotel? Isn’t that the cartoon that like 50% of tumblr is on a moral crusade against…? The sword of irony pierces my heart, killing me instantly.
man I couldn’t do twitter. on tumblr nobody gives a shit if u bully celebrities, on twitter it becomes a fucking national conversation for three days
john green’s cock monologue never could have happened on twitter
god I wish that were me: a compilation
For anyone who wasnt on tumblr back in 2013 or whenever this happened, john green used to have a tumblr. @fishingboatproceeds which still seems to exist, but is no longer actively used. It was an inoffensive account realistically, but the fault in our stars movie was coming out. And people who never read the books got het up that a story about high schoolers had a sex scene in it. It was not remotely graphic, and was mostly there to acknowledge that yeah teens have sex with each other sometimes and the teens reading the book shouldn’t feel like they are bad people for having sex lives (if they do). But people got it in their heads that because an adult man wrote a sex scene in a book for and about teens, he must be some kind of pedophile. So they set about bullying him off tumblr.
Back in those days, you could edit other people’s posts on the reblog. Mostly people did harmless shit like switching out the word vampires for Danny devito in a post about the OP’s childhood fear, and we all had a good laugh. This time someone took an otherwise innocuous post of Green’s and made it an extremely graphic speech about how much he loves cock. And like, the guy writes ya romance novels, makes some wholesome educational videos on youtube with his brother, and is pretty het. So the level of explicit sexual content is not really what he wanted associated with his name, and the use of accusations of gayness as a way to mock him was pretty off color. So he made a statement where he talked about how it was not ok to do this to someone’s post, and basically called for civility. People then flooded his inbox with cock this and cock that, and further allegations of pedophilia until he had to stop using the platform.
People on here are weirdly proud of that whole exchange. It was extremely cringy to watch though tbh.
God I fucking hate Olaf the snowman so fucking much holy shit. Holy shit, every frame he’s in, every scene, every gif, every jpeg, he’s got this painfully vacant, stupid as shit, fuckass look on his stupid lumpy face. Absolutely no part of his ugly as sin piece of shit character design is endearing. His stupid fucking legs? Who the hell makes a snowman with legs. His dumb flaily fucking twig arms? His shitty, lumpy bastard head? The three thousand percent unnecessary dumbass shitass fucking SNOW BUCK TOOTH that no snowman has EVER FUCKING HAD IN tHE HISTORY OF GOD’S GREEN FUCKING EARTH? God, I hate him. I hate him so much. So FUCKING much. Every time I see a stuffed toy Olaf or an Olaf gif or a shitty goddamn commercial, it ignites my primal rage response and I’m overcome by the need to punt this shitty little homunculus into the fucking sun. “Bhurr blur, I’m Olaf the fuckshit snow fucker, I like warm hugs”. Fuck you. Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you. You look like Tow Mater summoned a patronus. Your dumb fucking twig hair makes your whole shitty head look like a hairy skin tag. I hate your dumb fucking lumpy carrot nose and your stupid, empty googly eyes and your over-the-top goofy ass upbeat asshole personality. Any scene he’s sad it invokes all the wrath and fury of a spoiled child having a meltdown over a chocolate bar in a w*lmart checkout line. And I know its irrational. That’s the worst part. I know he’s just a shitty fucking side character in a stupid fucking children’s movie, I know it doesn’t matter, I know I shouldn’t care. But that’s part of the problem. The part where no matter the might and fury of my hatred, the locus of my homicidal intent is alltogether inconsequential. I find myself laying awake in the dark in the early hours of the morning consumed by the spirit of Wrath itself, all the force and might of a flaming hurricane directed at a bottle of piss in a ditch by the highway. The absurdity of it all burns me to my core. What better things could this energy be directed towards? And yet my disdain for this stupid, useless, insubstantial failure of endearing character design utterly eclipses the intrigue of all other pursuits. I hate him. I hate him on a level of my mind reserved for the worst of the world’s array of sinners, and I can’t even begin to justify it. Shitstick the snow dick is, for all intents and purposes, the animated corpse of all of humanity’s saccharine pretenses- every condescending, passive-aggressive statement of meaningless upper middle class suburban drama distilled into a single, hateable form. The fucking. Fuck. I have no words. There is no cuss or epithet in any language that can encapsulate the height of the emotions I am experiencing. God, I hate him so much. I hate him so, so fucking much. I want to light his ugly little dumpster body on fire. I want to graphically beat him to death with his own stupid fucking nose. I want to punch him to death. You know that weird feeling you get, when you see a picture of something so cute you find yourself overcome with the bizarre, inexplicable urge to squeeze it? It’s EXACTLY like that, except instead of cuteness it’s disgust. The wordless knowledge that his existence as a fictional work is evidence of all the failures of mankind. I find myself possessed by the will of a Holy Angel gone rogue with the belief that God has made a mistake, and I alone must correct it. This is the trial by which Samael himself fell from grace. This wild, meaningless rage. A thousand blades of shining steel cast with inhuman force in the direction of a plastic grocery bag floating on a breeze. What horrors must I have committed in a past life to be plagued by this torment now? I must Unmake this fictional snowman
holy shit you’re not wrong
I’d feel better about this whole rant if Olaf weren’t queer-coded. It might be largely the voice acting – the lisp, the inflection especially – but he’s got massive “harmless gay sidekick” vibes. And if you’re actively critiquing that? Sure, great, go all out. Hate whom you will. Say whatever you want about how “gay” is equated with “harmless silly sidekick used for comic relief, with no serious bearing on the plot, literally inhuman and treated by Serious Human Characters as… well,a sidekick, peripheral to your life and safe to ignore.
But if you’re not engaging critically with that aspect of his character and are just overwhelmed with hatred whenever you see or hear or think about the queer-coded character and his mannerisms make you feel violent, that is a little bit. Uncomfortable. At best.
what on God’s green earth are you talking about
See sometimes I wonder why I’m still on this website, and then posts like this come along. Amazing.
ifesbob 
