blaen99

iTrader: (6)

My advice? Put on your big boy pants and get over it. The majority of the discrimination stories are heavily exaggerated, with a surprising amount being made out of whole cloth. See: Not being able to pray in schools or not being able to say Jesus in a public school.

Check out the discrimination the Muslim's face in this country if you want to see something to actually complain about. Seriously, we have states making laws banning Muslim practices. The difference between "Young people openly discriminating" (Yeah, what did they do exactly? Refuse to buy at Chic-Fil-A? ) and entire states openly banning religious practices is enormous.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

well, to be fair, you cant use religion as a front for training terrorists.

Ryan_G

iTrader: (8)

Obvious troll is obvious.

You keep trying to argue something that was not even the point being made. I am in no way upset or even concerned about discrimination against Christians. I am not religious and really don't give a **** either way. I am not even stating that discrimination against Christians is growing or is in anyway harmful. I was making a point by using a previous example. I have no idea what you are trying to achieve but you are so far off topic.

P.S. discrimination is discrimination no matter how small or insignificant it may be and is a perfectly legitimate reason to not support a business.

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

We'd better ban Christianity then, considering it's the leading cause of terrorism in the US to date. (See: Church bombings, abortion clinic bombings, abortion clinic assassinations, even ******* McVeigh was Christian)

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

cool story. logic doesnt fit.

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

Brainy: You can't use religion as a front for training terrorists
Me: Well, the leading cause of terrorism in the US is Christianity
Brainy: That's unpossible.

Seriously Brainy, you can't use the terrorism argument when it comes to US soil. Especially not when trying to use the religious extremism (See: Terrorism) argument. Arguing (Or, in your case implying) that extremist outliers are a reason to ban or do anything means bad results for Christianity here.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

you're too jaded to understand.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

blaen's right -- I remember how I and all my fellow Christians crowded into the streets and cheered and rioted for hours when al-Zarqawi was killed. We had signs printed up and everything. The effigy-burning was my favorite part of the Christian riots. Islam and Christianity are 100% analogues and there's no important distinctions to be made between them.

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

Did you say....jaded?

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Thank you for understanding.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I should have known i'd have been misinterpreted there. I was trying to be brief, as typing lengthy responses on this phone frustrates me.

By "bad" and "worse" , I did not mean "discrimininating against black irish jews is bad, and discriminating agaist Christians is worse." Companies can discriminate against whoever they want for all I care- even those damn dirty hispanics.

What I mean was "if you change your consumer spending habits solely on the basis that some company's founder claims to be pro-skub or anti-skub, then you are an idiot and you are harming only yourself." (eg: it is bad for you, the person doing the boycotting.)

Frankly, I don't care if the owners of the gas station across the street from me worship Satan and contribute 20% of their profits to directly fund late-term abortions for 16 year old girls without parental consent. None of those things affect me, so long as they continue to charge 5 cents less per gallon than the other gas station, they will continue to get my business.

icantthink4155

iTrader: (12)

So moral of the story is "Be the uninsured driver, and get free representation"?

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

I think you were understood; the discussion drifted later, but I think several people (including myself) are disagreeing with exactly what you're saying above.

Evaluating purchasing decisions by a criterion other than (or in addition to) price doesn't make one an idiot, so long as one believes the personal benefit gained by using that other criterion offsets the financial loss incurred by the less advantageous prices.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Certainly. it's a personal choice. I won't buy Geico Insurance because they dontate heavily to law inforcement and give out free radars/lasers so cops can give more speeding tickets and thus raise rates. That would effect me. They are also anti radar-detectors, but this does not effect me; my state is an odd-ball and has outlawed them.

Our cops have it easy in VA.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Ok, I'll grant you that I overstepped on this. Personally, I tend to make financial decisions based on what makes sense financially, but if you feel that you can influence corporate policy by choosing whom you will do business with based on their political or religious points of view, then this is entirely your prerogative.





Consider for a moment what your auto insurance covers. If you look at your policy, you will see a number of different categories. The most basic, mandatory coverages are:

Bodily Injury Liability. This means that if you hit someone else and cause them injury or death, and you are found to be at fault, your insurance will pay for that person's medical costs, lost wages, pain & suffering, etc.

Property Damage Liability. As above, this coverage pays for damage caused to the property of others caused by a wreck in which you are at fault. This would include not just hitting someone else's car, but driving through the front wall of their home, running over their prize-winning dog, etc.

Both of the above are not limitless- they will pay for damages only up to a certain dollar value, and this limit can be selected by you, the insured. Higher limits mean slightly higher premiums, but are not without value. If you have a Property Damage Liability limit of $10,000 and you crash into somebody's brand new Ferrari 458, your insurance will pay $10,000 and you'll be left on the hook for the remaining $220,000.

The same goes for Bodily Injury- if I put somebody in the hospital and they rack up $300,000 in medical bills (this isn't as outrageous as you might think), I'd better hope that my Bodily Injury Liability limit is at least $300,000, or else the court is going to be seizing my assets. Thus, people who have a large quantity of assets (house, money in the bank, etc) tend to buy insurance with large liability limits.


Of course, some people like Pusha have no assets at all, and are already in debt up to their eyeballs in order to pay for the appearance of a lavish lifestyle. They couldn't care less about an extra 300 grand in judgement against them- it'll just make the bankruptcy filing all that sweeter. If Pusha were to hit me with his little shitbox and put me in the hospital to the tune of $300,000, I'd be pretty screwed. Well, not screwed exactly. I'm rich enough that I can cover that out of pocket, but it would REALLY **** me off. A normal person who doesn't have an extra $300,000 lying around, however, would be screwed


Which is why I elect to carry:

Uninsured / Underinsured Motorist Coverage.

This is the coverage at issue here. If Pushy hits me and I wind up with a huge medical bill, I'll have no problems because I have Uninsured / Underinsured Coverage. So even if some cockbag with no insurance at all (or insurance with too low of a liability limit) crashes into me, my insurance will cover the costs even though it's the other guy's fault.


And that's the issue here.


The Pretty White Girl had Uninsured / Underinsured motorist coverage, and the guy who hit her was in fact underinsured. So if it turns out that he is at fault, Geico will have to pony up the policy limit to PWG's family to cover the difference between actual expenses and whatever inadequate amount of insurance the other guy had.

However, if the accident turned out to be PWG's fault, then Geico doesn't have to pay anything. Nothing in her policy pays for HER OWN medical costs / lost wages / etc which are caused by an accident which is HER fault- that's what health insurance and life insurance are for. (And no, this isn't unique to Geico- that's how auto insurance in the US normally works.)

JasonC SBB

Hmm, seems to me a major issue here is that, from the original link:

Sounds like, gov't protecting said corporations.

??? "Breaking capitalism"? Every customer can choose where to spend his money, for any reason. I spend a bit extra for a gas station across the street because they actually have windshield cleaners.

This Progressive fuckup is gonna make them lose customers. The lawyers made the company lose way more money than they save with this stupidity. That's the beauty of Capitalism. People vote with their wallets. Do you think whenever the gov't, a city gov't or whatever, does something odious like this, there is any form or retribution like customers taking their business elsewhere?

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

Considering you posted the original article, I don't mind being a bit harsh on you about this Jason. You are substantially distorting what was said, let me quote the full text of which destroys your argument:

The distasteful part for me is that you have forced me to defend a position I don't like to defend. But it makes no legal sense to sue Progressive when Progressive was not the negligent driver.

Let's say you run a red light and t-bone Brainy's fictional sister, Jason. So, Brainy goes to sue her insurance company (Progressive). But wait, Progressive didn't do it. You did.

Now, on the other hand, if Brainy sues you and your insurance company, and you are found to have killed his fictional sister, then Progressive is irrevocably on the hook for the policy assuming you are underinsured and all the facts in the story are identical.

What is so disgusting to me isn't Progressive's actions here - this is common insurance law. In fact, this is simple and basic US law - you sue the person who is either directly or indirectly responsible, not a third party with no culpability*. This has nothing to do with the existence or nonexistence of government protection beyond what our legal system is based on. The disgusting part is Progressive paid a lawyer to defend the guy who killed their client. Up to that point, everything is fairly cut and dried legally and you see it regularly in insurance proceedings - but that part? Yeah, that's the part where they abandon all common decency. And then the actions they took after to cover their ***? Oh, it only keeps getting worse.

(Edit) *: This makes the notable assumption that Progressive is not insuring you in my example, and that Progressive is not involved in operation of the vehicle that you hit Brainy's fictional sister with. If Progressive has no connection whatsoever with you or your vehicle, then they are a third party with no culpability.

PiazzaT

iTrader: (1)

What I find astounding is that no one in the loop at Progressive connected with the odds that this would turn inn to a **** storm for them. Then again they might just be counting on the goldfish memories of the common consumer.

But this sort off behavior is on par for norwegian insurance companies to.

Tommy

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Yes, I overstepped here. And you'll note (from reading post #35 above) that I have recanted that statement in the face of cogent arguments put forth by Braineack and Ben.



blaen99 has already explained in a satisfactory manner why this is not actually the case.

To that, I will add that you seem to be engaging in a similar logical fallacy to that of the fellow who wrote the original article. His entire argument is predicated on the assumption that activity such as described is somehow unique to Progressive, ignoring the fact that it is standard practice within the insurance industry.

Likewise, you seem to presuppose that laws such as the one you are referring to above are unique to Maryland, and are furthermore somehow unfair or unjust. None of these facts are in evidence.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

Pot, meet kettle. lol.