personally i am paying 90 to fill up my truck every week and i wouldn't trade that for any 4 banger. i don't have a lot of money but i am in an ok financial position. i really don't care if gas does cost $10 a gallon, i would never give up my truck. hence the screen name dodge for life.

 

I mainly drive my truck on the weekends so I tend to spend approx. $20 a week to drive to my girlfriend's or whatever on the weekends and sometimes a little more. I usually spend around $50 to $60 in my 86 T-bird which gets me around 24-25 mpg for my daily commutes. I drive 80 miles round trip to get to work and school so I am driving about 400 miles Monday through Friday. I had to have some work done on my car and drove my truck everyday for about two weeks and was spending like $120 a week, which really hurt. There's no way that I would drive this as my dd, but I love it for the weekends. It allows me to save up some money and do little things to it. Maybe one day we'll have Hydrogen powered vehicles that emit water and cost next to nothing to run, until then I'll continue to bite the bullet.

 

Hopefully not in my lifetime. I love gasoline.

 

Oh I love the sound of gasoline engines and the power, but if they can come up with something similar that is much much cheaper, I'm game. I won't settle for a Prius or anything that even remotely looks like one. When they start to make something that looks cool, is powerful, and fuel efficient everything will be okay. As is, they can make some vehicles efficient, but I don't think the styling is there, which to most people is a big difference.

 

If I use names as references to what I'm talking about, or if I use the words if, and, or but; thats just rhetoric so get over it. You've never cited outside references to back up your statements before?

If my maturity level is below yours, why even comment when you have to stoop to my level? Can't you just be the bigger man and walk away from the issue? If you haven't already, it's because there is room for logical debate upon the same level. Don't try to insult my inteligence with hooplah about my mentality. Only reason I use such language is because I get sick of using words such as, hooplah, nonsense, flippin, and ish that just don't have enough flavor to fully express my sentiment. You feel me?



If i lived within 5 miles of my work or school you wouldn't see me driving either. Hell if the distance was under 10 miles I'd still probably ride my bike. However, if you can only find a decent paying job 20-30 miles away, you have children to attend to, you've got to go shopping, and who knows what else, it's practically essential to living in this country that you have a car. Otherwise if not, a person might just find themselves spending 3-4 hours a day or more riding the bus just to do what one would normally be able to do in 30 minutes with a car. Thus, yes, people don't have the right to have a car, they have a privledge. People don't have the right to get a car for free from the Govt., but in order to live a normal life people need and require cars. However, if my statement hasn't settled things as of yet for lack of clarity, what I meant was that the Govt. has taken so much from the people of this country, it is justly deserved that they give something back such as monetary funds in form of tax relief, low interest loans, etcetera. A free car would be nice, but that by all means, was not what I had in mind.

My language is spot on, and the end had quite a twist to it, yeah?... No gramatical errors where you quoted me huh? Pretty nice, yeah? And when it comes to how the Govt. operates, no matter where in the world your living, when your at the bottom of the food chain the Govt. eats you for breakfast, however if your at the top of the food chain like that stupid F*** of a president we have now, (I know your not going to argue with me on that one) that's, by the way, not my president since I didn't vote for his dumb ***, or his cronies everything is served to you on a plate. The problem about how the Govt. isn't where you are in the world, it's like everything else. It's who you know, and what you can use to blackmail them if need be. Plus it never hurts when your part of the wealthy ruling class of society in which your able to buy your education and career no matter how much it costs especially when your the son of a thief who robbed and broke that back of the savings and loan industy for approximately 650 billion during the 80's.

First and foremost, " The World Is What You Make Of It." If everybody just ran to another country when conditions didn't suit them, people such as you and I would probably not be living here in this country because of either the Indians, English, Spanish, French, diseases, or whatever.

So if your telling me to get out of this country if I don't like it, I'll use my constitutional right to tell you to do me a favor and just push yourself off a cliff if you have a problem with what I'm saying. I'd much rather stay out of spite and make changes to the world around me to suit my tastes rather then listen to hasty advice such as what your giving.

And by the way, the last time a firetruck, ambulance, or helicopter came to your house to come and help you out, when was it when you didn't recieve a emergency service bill? The last time I experienced such a thing when my father was taken to the hospital in the middle of the night, the bill for the firetruck and ambulance was around $1300. That is far from free. Emergency room by the way, also isn't free. You may not have to pay up front but people are always billed soon after they leave.

About food stamps now, if the cost of living wasn't so high in this country and there were more jobs left in this country for poor citizens rather then illegal immigrants and outsourcing, maybe those people wouldn't need financial assistance. And don't forget that those people aren't given a free ride for life. They are given enough just to survive and anything else they want they, like most anyone, work hard for if they ever want to improve their lives instead of continue to live in a miserable existance for the rest of their lives..

About the long waiting period for surgery in Europe, you may very well be right. But if your having a heart attack and you don't have insurance, it's seems highly unlikely that you won't get treatment because there is a 6 month waiting list. My guess is that if you want some surgery that isn't life threatening, that's where there is a wait. Otherwise, just like anywhere else, a person could always pay for things out of their pocket to get immediate results with one's wealth or health insurance, thus the red tape could be cut over there just as easily as over here if you can afford it. If not though, at least in 6 months something will be done which isn't what happens here if people can't afford the bill and insurance doesn't cover the expense leaving the person stranded.

 

I'm not saying the debate is immature, I'm saying you were, at least for that moment, by using language like that in a pretty civil debate. You can use whatever language you want, but a bad mouth means one of two things: A, you are pissed off, or B, you don't know how to express yourself without using vulgarities. The latter means immaturity and/or the lack of intelligence.


Then we at least partially agree on this point. Is it very convenient to have a car, especially in this nation? Of course it is. If you can only find a decent paying job 20-30 miles away, and you can't afford a car, MOVE. Thats what my point is. You move where the money is, or don't complain about how you have none/not enough.

A couple points here:

1. Your language is not spot on. Its uncessary.
2. Yes, I will argue with you on the President's intelligence level. Not saying he's the best one we've had, but I will argue with you about him. However, thats another topic for another time and another place.
3. Maybe I misunderstoond you there but... he is your president whether you like it or not, regardless of your vote. He is our leader, whether we like it or not, until a new president elect replaces him, because a majority voted him in. Just because you didn't win doesn't mean you get to throw out the result until the next match. You respect the result and prepare for the next round.


One of the reasons you and I do live here is because people "ran" to another place on the globe because they thought this place would be better than any other place in the world, or because their situation was so dire they had no other choice. And the reason they didn't run again when things got tough, like the reasons you mentioned, was because they decided this place was worth fighting for. At least you and I agree in that regard.

I wasn't telling you to move, I was telling you, basically, if you thought conditions here were bad, try out those other places and find out how much worse they are.


Only if you can afford to do so. If you can't, there are ways to prove that you can't, and you don't have to. Or there are payment plans. There are many ways to not pay if you can't. Trust me, my wife is a RN, I know.


Cost of living in this country is far lower than any other I've ever heard of. Thats first. One reason for outsourcing and lack of jobs, especially non-degree ones, is because people here demand too much pay and because corporations don't do a check for illegal immigration most of the time.

I think you need to spread the word about "not given a free ride for life". I'll use food stamps for an example. I've worked at a grocery store before, so did my wife, both of us for several years before we graduated high shool, and every person we saw on food stamps used them all the time, repeatedly, for the entire time we worked there (we've discussed food stamps before). I knew two people who would work less hours at their job because, if they worked as many as they normally would have, they would have made too much money and not qualified for food stamps. The government rewarded them for working less.

I am sure you get treated for immediate threats, like a heart attack. However, not for long-term life-threatening diseases, almost regardless of your wealth (unless, I'm sure, you are the Prime Minister or someone higher-up in the gov. like that). I was reading in a local newspaper when I was over in the Twin Cities last year about how a man from Canada had life-threatening cancer, and was predicted to have about six months to live. He was put on a waiting list and told he'd have to wait at least eight months for treatment. He had the money for treatment, but couldn't get it in Canada, paid or not.

He came down to the states and had surgery within weeks.


This is my last post on this topic regardless whether anyone responds or how they respond, simply because this is not a political debate forum and this has gone on long enough. I enjoy debating this stuff with you guys, learning your opinions, but this is not the place.

And please don't PM me with them either. No offense, but again, this is a Dodge forum, not a Conservative vs. Liberal ideas forum.

 

Never said anything about that, so please strike that from the record.

 

And I can't agree with you more on the point of dropping this topic like the president should be. Arguing is not something I enjoy doing thus, I don't work for FOX news, the conservative propaganda news corporation. When it comes to the things you've last stated in your post, I can, but will withold my arguements because I feel it's, like you said, not the place nor time, and plus these long posts take too much time for an end result that's hardly worth talking about. So, I'm glad to end the conversation and my personal rant. For now at least...

 

Well, let me say this Slomojo... it was a pleasure debating with you.

As far as what I spend a week... approximately $50-$75 for both my wife's Jeep and my pickup. The hospital she works at is less than 2 miles away, the Best Buy I work at is less than 3 miles away.

 

Hey, my Mom's been using my truck for the last 3 weeks so I got everyone beat! I don't pay anything per week. And even when I do have my truck, I'm out of a job so I still ain't going nowhere! HA, how do you like that!?![sm=icon_rofl.gif]