After seeing all the fuss over Doug Quance’s post about A Governmental Takeover of Real Estate Brokerages, I thought a more thorough answer from my perspective to his question might be appropriate. Last week, a couple of sentences from a superb article by Yaron Brook at the Ayn Rand Center literally twisted at my thoughts. The sentences are:
- Rights, as the Founders conceived them, are not claims to economic goods, but to freedoms of action.
- The rights of some cannot require the coercion and sacrifice of others.
Those sentences are basic premises of the Constitution, of human dignity and of what freedom and liberty are based on.
But apply those thoughts to the current maelstrom swirling about health care, and one’s “right” to health care has a wholly different meaning. In Mr. Brook’s own eloquence:
The solution to this ongoing crisis is to recognize that the very idea of a “right” to health care is a perversion. There can be no such thing as a “right” to products or services created by the effort of others, and this most definitely includes medical products and services. Rights, as the Founders conceived them, are not claims to economic goods, but to freedoms of action.
You are free to see a doctor and pay him for his services–no one may forcibly prevent you from doing so. But you do not have a “right” to force the doctor to treat you without charge or to force others to pay for your treatment. The rights of some cannot require the coercion and sacrifice of others.
Real and lasting solutions to our health care problems require a rejection of the entitlement mentality in favor of a proper conception of rights. This would provide the moral basis for breaking the regulatory chains stifling the medical industry; for lifting the tax and regulatory incentives fueling our dysfunctional, employer-based insurance system; for inaugurating a gradual phase-out of all government health care programs, especially Medicare and Medicaid; and for restoring a true free market in medical care. – http://www.aynrand.org
Our entire national debate is absolutely perverted. People speak of “rights” that are nothing more than stealing other people’s sacrifice. Our government forces others to pay for the mistakes of automobile company executives, unions, banks and insurance companies. On our sweat and labor, others are given a pass for their mistakes. Stimulus, primarily benefitting the political base of a single political party, taking your labor, your breath, your sacrifice to give ACORN $8.5 billion of your dollars so they can create more political mayhem to further enshrine their ability to take even more in the future.
Your labor and sacrifice is being forcibly taken by your own government. This is nothing if not a new slavery, not of a people to wealthy plantation owners, but of a nation to wealthy ruling elites determined to fleece the populace of their prosperity. Are politicians, many of whom are lawyers, speaking of cramming down fixed rates for services for the legal “right” to representation that everyone “should” have? Of course not. Certainly, if you need it, legal representation can be just as important to your life as a root canal and just as much fun.
We had the right to freedom of our actions. We had the right to prosper from our own labors and sacrifice. We had the right to the limited government our ancestors created. Yes, we even had the right to fail and learn from our failures. These are the same rights that were fought for in the Revolutionary War, again in the Civil War and are the basic rights that were sought in the first Civil Rights Movement.
Just because they are rights doesn’t mean they are free. Unlike the discussion going on about health care where a supposed “right” is free to some or many at great cost to others, the rights I want back don’t come at a cost to others. To keep and reclaim our rights we need to take action like those before us. We need a new public movement to take back our Civil Rights.
These civil rights movements are already happening around the country under various names. Tea parties are one example. I don’t know what history will eventually name this movement, but it is all about the same civil rights that Americans have fought for in the past. Freedom of action, thought and communication and freedom to enjoy the fruits of our labor are what this is all about.
Last November a nation’s freedom was unwittingly given up due, in part, to the people’s own ignorance of what they were doing. The argument for taking that freedom back peaceably is a moral one. That argument can easily stand up to anyone’s argument to the contrary about their “right” to health care or their right to take over your business. Doug, if the government tries a governmental take over of real estate brokerages, it is our obligation to speak out until we stop it.
Greg Swann says:
I love this argument — but you knew I would. Well said.
August 10, 2009 — 3:42 pm
Missy Caulk says:
BRAVO !!!
August 10, 2009 — 4:02 pm
Doug Quance says:
It was our obligation to speak out against TARP, the Stimulus, and all other ill-conceived notions of providing “rights” by the use of force.
Wait until the producers quit producing…
August 10, 2009 — 4:05 pm
Gary Frimann says:
I guess I don’t have the right to my safety after the government gets out of the military business. I also probably don’t have the right to any Airport security, whether a body pat down or a FAA control tower.
August 10, 2009 — 4:45 pm
Al Lorenz says:
Thanks Greg!
Doug, yes it was and is. The producers are leaving states like California. They will only shoulder so much!
Al
August 10, 2009 — 4:46 pm
Al Lorenz says:
Gary,
You’re correct, you don’t have a “right” to security, at least not for free. You have a responsibility to help shoulder the costs and obligations of the society you choose to participate in. Democracy is not a spectator sport.
Al
August 10, 2009 — 4:55 pm
Don Reedy says:
Al,
You stand above the crowd, speaking with clarity, about a word (Rights), once the foundation of patriotism, now the footstool of politicians.
Remember this exchange from the Vice-Presidential debate?………….
“Quayle: Three times that I’ve had this question — and I will try to answer it again for you, as clearly as I can, because the question you are asking is, “What kind of qualifications does Dan Quayle have to be president,” “What kind of qualifications do I have,” and “What would I do in this kind of a situation?” And what would I do in this situation? […] I have far more experience than many others that sought the office of vice president of this country. I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency. I will be prepared to deal with the people in the Bush administration, if that unfortunate event would ever occur.
Judy Woodruff: Senator [Bentsen]?
Bentsen: Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy: I knew Jack Kennedy; Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy. (Gasps from audience.) What has to be done in a situation like that is to call in the —
Woodruff: Please, please, once again you are only taking time away from your own candidate.
Quayle: That was really uncalled for, Senator. (Shouts and applause from audience.)
Bentsen: You are the one that was making the comparison, Senator — and I’m one who knew him well. And frankly I think you are so far apart in the objectives you choose for your country that I did not think the comparison was well-taken.”
Al, metaphorically, Obama is no Jack Kennedy, as neither are most of the politicos currently running our “rights” amuck.
Thanks for reminding all of us once again where rights were conceived. If we choose to forget the objectives our Founders had, and coercion and sacrifice become political chains around our Republic, then that which was conceived in Liberty will fall to its death in Tyranny.
August 10, 2009 — 5:01 pm
Dave G says:
Hi Al,
I appreciate your honesty and thoughtfulness on the issue.
>There can be no such thing as a “right” to products or services created by the effort of others”
I would like to know your thoughts on government funded police and fire departments. Do you believe they should be privatized and run as for-profit businesses?
August 10, 2009 — 6:18 pm
Greg Swann says:
> I would like to know your thoughts on government funded police and fire departments. Do you believe they should be privatized and run as for-profit businesses?
Speaking only for myself: I do. The roads, too. Everything people seem to think can only be done by pushing their neighbors around at gunpoint would be much better done by free-market producers — stipulating that anything should be done at all, given that most of what is done by the police would be considered prima facie crime if done by an ordinary person. There is a corollary: By taking up arms against his neighbors, the advocate of coercive monopoly dispute-resolution becomes the greater enemy to the peace — the criminal before all other criminals, the criminal unrestrained by mere avarice or malice. We are so much enmired in the pandemic crime that is government that we cannot even see how much better off we would be without it. It is one thing to observe that we are at least 40% slaves by now — proudly chained in a circle, each the property of all the others — but it were well to reflect upon the opportunity costs — and the long-term compound-interest value of those opportunity costs — occasioned by our puerile dalliance with tyranny. It takes a profound refusal to face facts to argue that we are enriched by our petulant auto-impoverishment.
August 10, 2009 — 7:07 pm
Erion Shehaj says:
Good question.
August 10, 2009 — 6:31 pm
Al Lorenz says:
Dave,
Personally, police, fire protection and national defense are things I am fine with a citizenry agreeing to fund and pay for as government services. But, I don’t go much further than that. Whether the government provides them all directly or contracts out of some of that is not important to me as long as the focus is on providing those necessary services efficiently and effectively. In other words, profit is not an issue for me.
In private enterprise, someone makes a profit but that profit is limited by competition in the marketplace. If the government provides a service, there is still a “profit” since the services aren’t provided for any less when the all the costs of providing the services are included. From what I’ve seen, Medicare doesn’t pay out any higher, or even as high, of a percentage of all the money that goes into it than insurance companies. In the government, what you call non-profit scenario, the “profit” appears to go to buying influence and inefficiency.
Post offices, Wind mill research, roads, education, agriculture subsidies, railroads and many others are beyond what I support being in the government’s purview.
August 10, 2009 — 6:42 pm
Brian Brady says:
“I would like to know your thoughts on government funded police and fire departments. Do you believe they should be privatized and run as for-profit businesses?”
They already are. Wintess the Rural Metro Corporation which supplies EMT and Fire protection to over 400 municipalities. There are over 1 million security personnel and 700,000 sworn peace officers in this country.
Local governments and private businesses can and do contract for police, fire, and emergency services quite successfully.
PS: A brilliant thesis ,Al. I knew when I met you, up in Seattle, from your reaction to my teasing, that you were something special.
August 10, 2009 — 6:45 pm
Dave G says:
>Local governments and private businesses can and do contract for police, fire, and emergency services quite successfully.
Brian, you just described medicare.
My question was about “privatizing” these government services – not government contracts. Big difference.
August 10, 2009 — 7:17 pm
Dave G says:
Greg – I kind of thought you would say that. -=)
August 10, 2009 — 7:24 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Greg – I kind of thought you would say that.
Most of what people take for granted in everyday life is a side-effect of government. To see the world with every veil stripped away is to catch a glimpse of life as I can envision it. I know — or know of — everyone who matters in my little corner of the political spectrum. Almost none of them can make a clean exit from the cloying idea of coercion. It just seems so easy to imagine that people “must” do the things required to make your theory of justice work — even though the “must” part of the equation is the aboriginal injustice.
It is much simpler to come at things from the other direction: A just polity could only work — could only be truly just — if it were entirely based in mutual consent. Therefore, the structure of such a polity, whatever it might be, is guaranteed to be almost nothing — since there is almost nothing that all people are willing to agree to — universally and all the time.
From that base premise, I can extrapolate a number of types of structures that might work. But the one I like best doesn’t bother with a structure all, instead basing all positive action with respect to other people in that subset of human actions that can always be taken without anyone else’s consent. This is the way normal people already behave with one another, so it’s not at all hard to understand how it would work, in the absence of a mafia of superior firepower.
I’ve been thinking for months that I should write another book about this one idea — the simple perfection that is human liberty and the relentless nightmares that ensue from liberty’s abnegation — but there is hardly any shortage of Cassandras on this particular topic. In any case, I expect you have never run into anyone as committed as I am to the absence of coercion in civil society, so, if you are curious, you might prowl my larger corpus, which is never farther than a Google away. Statism not only does not work, it ultimately results in the murders of millions of innocents. I’m at the other end of the continuum.
August 10, 2009 — 8:04 pm
Brian Brady says:
“My question was about “privatizing” these government services – not government contracts”
Okay. Go to an NFL game (or a concert). You’ll find privatized police (security) and contracted health-care providers everywhere. Ticket prices fund those services.
I liked in a Rural Metro area and loved it. I paid the subscription and my taxes were lower by much more than the subscription fee. We privatized public policing through a Neighborhood Watch program.
HOA’s have private police services at the gate. This really isn’t that hard to accomplish
August 10, 2009 — 8:15 pm
Al Lorenz says:
Greg & Brian,
Sometimes I think “to see the world with every veil stripped away” is challenge enough! I know I am so steeped in the ideology of our society and our time that which seem possible often obscures the ideal. I sure appreciate the conversations on BHB where suppositions are vetted so well!
Al
August 10, 2009 — 8:39 pm
Dave G says:
OK. I know I am not going to convince anyone here to agree with me on a government option in health care so I will leave you with some facts and some questions and then go away.
While the United States spends more money per capita than any other country in the world, our health care system is ranked behind Malta (#5), Singapore (#6), and Saudi Arabia (#26) with the #37 health care system in the world (way behind all of the European countries with “socialized medicine”). The skyrocketing costs are making our businesses less and less competitive every day. Our life expectancy is among the lowest in the westernized world.
In the United States, 18,000 people die every year because they did not get the health care they needed. 18,000 people (including children) die of a treatable illness in the wealthiest country in the world. Personally, I can’t just quote Adams or Jefferson and turn away from the problem.
Surely, we can agree that something has to change.
Health care in our great country is broken, and it needs to be fixed. So what do we do now? Let’s not talk about what we shouldn’t do, let’s talk about what we should do, tomorrow.
August 10, 2009 — 8:53 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Personally, I can’t just quote Adams or Jefferson and turn away from the problem.
You are free to do whatever you want with your own money, your own mind, your own time and your own property. As soon as you attempt to force other people to do your bidding — either directly or by proxy — you are the problem.
> let’s talk about what we should do, tomorrow.
Dismantle the state. There is no problem beyond the power of the human mind to resolve — provided the path to reason is not obstructed by thugs with guns.
Do you understand that the compound-interest on the opportunity costs of the accelerating statism of the U.S. government since 1789 is a sum of money so vast as to be incalculable? It is stunning to consider how much farther along we could be, technologically, had we not wasted so much time and intellectual capital trying to figure out how to steal more and more wealth from each other.
Progress is not arithmetically accretive, nor geometrically. Human progress accelerates logarithmically — unless there is an artificial drag imposed upon it by force. Could cancer have been cured, by now, if we had had the sense to get the hell out of the way? How about mortality itself? What other great gifts of the mind have we done without because we taxed away zeal and commandeered genius? That is what we have wasted by trying to live as thieves, as parasites.
Do you truly love people — for what we actually are? If you want for more people to live, especially the people least able to pay for medical care, you’ll join me in the battle to permanently evict their killers from our midst. The greatest enemy of human life is government. If you want more people to live longer, happier, more prosperous lives, the course of action is obvious: Dismantle the state.
August 10, 2009 — 11:07 pm
Teri says:
Dave G-
Site your source?
>Surely, we can agree that something has to change.
Diet.
There. Health care problems solved.
Next.
No, I’m not being flippant. We are the fattest, laziest, junk-food eatin’-est country in the world. An apple a day and eat yer veggies and watch the difference. Wait. That would require personal responsibility, wouldn’t it? (okay *that* was flippant)
August 10, 2009 — 9:36 pm
Brian Brady says:
“Diet. There. Health care problems solved.”
That wasn’t so flippant, Teri. It goes back to Greg’s bumper sticker, “Stigmatize Failure”. If doctors call people fat and demonize them for driving up health-care costs, it could have a positive effect. Of course, I would avoid the doctor until I’ve eaten my veggies and hit the treadmill. (kind of like cleaning your house before the housekeeoper shows up)
August 10, 2009 — 10:02 pm
Greg Swann says:
>> Diet. There. Health care problems solved.
> It goes back to Greg’s bumper sticker, “Stigmatize Failure”.
No, there’s more. We are what we are now because we are a welfare state. Justice is a piece rate and a toll road — you get what you pay for and you pay for what you get. Americans waste their capacities for two reasons: The costs of bad behavior are borne by others and the rewards for good behavior are expropriated.
When you see a seemingly inexplicable pursuit of disvalues, ask yourself how the incentives are structured. Far worse than the diet of Americans is the universal waste of human intellect occasioned by the Welfare State.
I can’t bear to look at most young people, so proud are they of their profound ignorance, but it remains that their response to the universe aligns with the incentives presented to them: If you work hard, study hard and learn something useful, you are a sap from the outset — and an “un-American” if you dare to complain about your fate. Make noise, make jokes, make trouble all your life, and you will be the beneficiary of the state’s boundless largesse — either on welfare or in prison. I think the latter choice is a stupid bargain, even so, but there is a reason so many young people choose that mode of life rather than the other one.
The best benefit of true capitalism is that it makes everyone a better person. The pursuit of profit is the pursuit of the good, of the constant embetterment — of product, of process and of character — that is so much a part of what we talk about here. Socialism is nothing more than a reification of crime, an elaborate philosophical camouflage drawn over plunder to fool the victims of those thefts into accepting their repeated despoilings. But a necessary secondary consequence of Socialism is that it makes everyone morally worse. As virtue is penalized, it is evidenced less and less often. As vice is rewarded, it becomes not just more common but far more vicious.
That’s what is most interesting, really, about every sort of argument of health-care as a right-to-steal other people’s money and other people’s minds: The more systemic crime there is in a particular society, the worse individual members of that society, in general, will behave. Socialized medicine will have as an unintended secondary consequence the acceleration of the suicidal behavior Americans already exhibit with their diet and exercise habits. The incentives are already aligned against an appropriate response to life. Further skewing them towards vice, further penalizing virtue, cannot but result in even worse habits for most Americans.
August 10, 2009 — 10:39 pm
Teri says:
>If doctors call people fat and demonize them
It’s not just fat/weight, it’s the ingredients we use- that stuff is poison. Our bodies are not equipped to dump that much toxic waste. We have food issues that no other country has. We don’t need better health care, we need to take better care of our health.
August 10, 2009 — 10:13 pm
Doug Quance says:
>Greg: I’m terribly happy I opened this can of worms, for only you can find all the words that truly express my sentiments on the subject.
For that, I thank you.
August 11, 2009 — 5:01 am
Erion Shehaj says:
God forbid we let reality get in the way of our ideology …
August 11, 2009 — 5:41 am
Thomas Johnson says:
Erion: “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary….”
August 11, 2009 — 7:49 am
Al Lorenz says:
Erion,
Just because the choice you are being presented with may be “A” or “B” that doesn’t mean the better answer is not something else altogether.
August 11, 2009 — 9:24 am
Al Lorenz says:
I am surprised that nobody called me on “Last November a nation’s freedom was unwittingly given up.” The reason I’m surprised is that we allowed our freedom to be given up well before last November.
In fact, if the country had made the other choice last November, in the major sense things may not be all that different. Plus, I don’t think there would be as great of an awakening happening.
August 11, 2009 — 9:40 am
Doug Quance says:
No change = more of the same.
Reminds me of a story from WWII. The soldiers in the trenches had been there for weeks – pinned down with few provisions making it in. The stench of acrid smoke and dead bodies filled the air.
Eventually, the enemy was beaten back – and the General rode in to speak to the weary troops.
“Men, I’ve got some good news… and I’ve got some bad news. What do you want to hear first?” he asked.
“Sir, give us the good news!” the men shouted in unison.
“Boys, you’re going to get to change underwear!” the General cried out.
Having fought in the same smelly, raunchy clothes for weeks with not a single shower – the men couldn’t be more ecstatic, and started dancing around and hollering.
From the back of the ranks, a lone voice yelled out, “What’s the bad news, sir?”
The General struck a serious pose with a furrowed brow and said, “Johnson, you change with Davis – Davis, you change with Johnson… Smith, you change with Williams – Williams, you change with Smith…”
The moral of the story is – all that glitters is not gold, and all change is not good change.
August 11, 2009 — 11:46 am
Erion Shehaj says:
I find it absolutely hilarious that those who supposedly worship at the altar of freedom, are unwilling to respect its outcomes when it doesn’t suit their agenda. Sounds like pretty selective freedom to me.
August 11, 2009 — 12:03 pm
Greg Swann says:
> I find it absolutely hilarious that those who supposedly worship at the altar of freedom, are unwilling to respect its outcomes when it doesn’t suit their agenda. Sounds like pretty selective freedom to me.
Slavery by plebiscite is not freedom. Words have meanings. The “freedom” to vote away your own liberty — and everyone else’s — is not freedom but a pantomime devised to gull the gullible. Works great, to all appearances. Panem et circenses.
August 11, 2009 — 12:48 pm
Erion Shehaj says:
Al
I respect your right to refuse the premise that health care reform is needed (although I’m not in agreement). Most importantly, I respect your openness about your position. I can’t say the same about many on the same side of the debate that are opposed to reform but still claim to be for it because some poll told them the majority of this country wants it.
August 11, 2009 — 12:08 pm
Erion Shehaj says:
Greg
In that case, why even have elections? Let’s have a council of Illuminati who know better decide what’s the best course for the rest of us Illiterati. Wait, that’s Iran…
For the record, I consider an insurance company having the power to deny coverage after years of collecting premiums a form of slavery.
August 11, 2009 — 1:28 pm
Al Lorenz says:
Erion,
I don’t know what I said that you think I don’t favor health care reform. I am very much in favor of health care reform, just not the options that are out there being touted as reform right now.
I want a thriving private health care market. I want the government to get completely out of the 50% of health care expenditures they currently control. I don’t want any mandated coverage that makes me pay for coverage I don’t want or need. I think the employer based system we have, due to distortions from the tax code (government) is broken. Private individuals should be able to get their health care with the same tax treatment as any other entity.
So, I am very much in favor of health care reform.
Also, for the record, in a thriving private market I would purchase health care insurance from a company that had strong contract language that did not allow them to cancel if I had a claim. I would have choices, like I still have with car insurance, of buying from a reputable company that has a good record and an enforceable contract of payment of their claims.
Al
August 11, 2009 — 2:44 pm
Erion Shehaj says:
I stand corrected. Finally we are talking about specifics and not ideology and I’m all for that.
First. Would the current lobbying arm of the healthcare industry allow a reform bill to pass that would allow “strong contract language that does not allow them to cancel”? Because, I’d very much like to see that. I seriously doubt that “strong contract language” wouldn’t become a socialist… no scratch that.. marxist or engelsian concept overnight.
Second. Health Insurance in its current form is at best a forced savings plan administered by the health insurance industry. And that’s very different from car insurance. If you get in a car accident, you pay your deductible and all the rest is covered. In you get sick, you pay your deductible and 40% of what’s left of an overbloated bill. Insurance company pays 60% of a special wholesale price they work out with the care providers. If you add up your premiums, deductible and co-pay you’re virtually self insuring for most common procedures and treatments. It only makes sense if the disease is catastrophic.
I don’t want free healthcare nor do I think I or anyone else is entitled to it. Give me real, affordable health insurance that won’t kick me off when I get sick or get laid off. However that gets achieved, is no concern of mine.
August 11, 2009 — 3:28 pm
Al Lorenz says:
I think I am still talking about ideology. I don’t care what healthcare industry lobbyists want. I care about allowing a market where companies actually compete for customers. My health insurance doesn’t work the way you claim. We live in different places. Currently, even if you forget all the federal regulations, the states have such a maze of regulation that there is no consistency about how things in one area work as compared to somewhere else. No company can offer a policy that crosses state borders either. Part of the point of the post is to step back and not get stuck in the choices that are being debated. I think we deserve and need to demand, the best choice.
August 11, 2009 — 3:39 pm
Teri Lussier says:
>However that gets achieved, is no concern of mine.
Oh, but it is your concern, Erion. The method, the ideology involved, is crucial to your precious child’s future. You can pay for this yourself or you can allow your baby to pay for it for the rest of his life.
August 11, 2009 — 4:28 pm
Erion Shehaj says:
Teri
>However that gets achieved, is no concern of mine.
I meant I wasn’t hung on a particular ideology so long as the goal of real, affordable health insurance was achieved. And that does not mean at any cost either. How this will be paid for is absolutely important to me.
And that’s exactly my point. Simply because you are set, doesn’t mean all is well. Millions out there face the “coverage” I described as the only option besides taking a chance on an illness free life.
The current healthcare system is the antithesis of a free market system. Four or five mammoth companies colluding and fixing prices on the backs of consumers with no other options, is no free market system, Sir. You want a system where companies compete? How will that be achieved? It’s not like you or I can take out a DBA tomorrow and compete on a level playing field with this oligarchy. Where will the competition come from?
I’m open to a wide open debate. Medical Malpractice Reform will bring costs down for doctors and patients? Get it done tomorrow. Allowing companies to compete across state lines will significantly bring prices down? Get it done tomorrow. But also, if those measures come up short and competition does not materialize, we should consider a public insurance option. After all, competition has failed to materialize in this non-socialized system in a hundred years.
August 11, 2009 — 7:18 pm
Don Reedy says:
Erion,
I was “enjoying” the conversation until your last post. Here’s what you wrote at the end, and my comments for you to follow…..
“I’m open to a wide open debate. Medical Malpractice Reform will bring costs down for doctors and patients? Get it done tomorrow. Allowing companies to compete across state lines will significantly bring prices down? Get it done tomorrow. But also, if those measures come up short and competition does not materialize, we should consider a public insurance option. After all, competition has failed to materialize in this non-socialized system in a hundred years.
I added emphasis to the phrase you used that bothers me. That would be your use of the phrase Get it done tomorrow.
You see, in the context of all the conversation here lingers Al’s imperative. You can’t, I submit, get it done tomorrow, and the reason for your (and my)inability to do so is the premise that we have indeed lost our ideology, that which at one time bound us together for a common purpose, bathed us in the knowledge of the Golden Rule, and generated the society you now see lying on the operating table today.
You said also “Give me real, affordable health insurance that won’t kick me off when I get sick or get laid off. However that gets achieved, is no concern of mine.” Again, respectfully, it ain’t gonna get done unless you, I, and a whole lot of other folks share an ideology that allows us to communicate, think together, and act thusly.
Want to take a shot at telling me, since “however that gets achieved is no concern of mine”, how you expect to actually make this happen? And before you just begin to create a list of action items, I think you should read once again all of Al’s comments, and Teri’s, regarding why and how ideology is the glue that will makes any solution work.
August 11, 2009 — 7:39 pm
Erion Shehaj says:
…
I don’t mean “get it done tomorrow” in the literal sense, Don. There are different proposals from both sides of the isle and I was simply making the point that I’m open to any measure, regardless of the political ideology that proposes it, so long as it achieves the goal of a better system.
That said, I believe ideologues start with an end in mind and mold their illusions to fit that end. That impairs their ability to discuss issues in a realistic framework. If you want to talk specifics, I’m game.
August 11, 2009 — 8:14 pm
Teri L says:
>I believe ideologues start with an end in mind and mold their illusions to fit that end. That impairs their ability to discuss issues in a realistic framework. If you want to talk specifics, I’m game.
Sounds like you simply want to know what you are going to get and who is going to pay.
Under the current system- “both sides of the isle”- what difference does it make? Either way you are strapping a huge debt onto the back of your child, and quite possibly your grandchildren.
What’s the difference in bits and pieces if the ideology is the same? Who cares, Erion? We’ll take from her to give to him or we’ll take from them to give to us. It’s all by force, by coercion, but it’s legal so that makes it okay, and our children are now enslaved, but who cares about that because we are enslaved, and that’s the way it’s always been so it most work just fine… Right? Rhetorical. Don’t answer.
That’s the reality that you want to hear about. Do you see what you have bought into? Do you see what you are offering up as a future for your children? It could be so much more than what is, it could be so much better. Think about it. Throw out what you cling to as reality and really look at this for what it is.
You want specifics? Each person works out with a private insurer exactly what they need. We all learn about contracts then, don’t we? It’s simple. There are no huge programs in place because it’s an open system of individuals putting individual contracts into place. It doesn’t require expensive oversight that my offspring will be paying for.
Now. If you want everyone to have the exact same coverage, mandated by government- talk about ideologies!- then no. I have no specifics for that, and, AND, refuse to participate in any discussion that would create such a horrific system. ::If I say that I will not willingly offer up my children as sacrificial lambs to such a system, would that be overly dramatic? I wonder::
August 12, 2009 — 7:57 am
Greg Swann says:
> What’s the difference in bits and pieces if the ideology is the same?
Precisely. What we have now — in every aspect of our lives, not just health insurance — is based entirely in theft and coercion. The solution to theft is not to mitigate it but to eliminate it. The answer to slavery is not better working conditions for the slaves but abolition. The real curse of Obamacare will hit us when the Republicans (Rotarian Socialism on the cheap!) get involved in “reforming” slavery. We’ll get the worst of all worlds — the DMV with kickbacks to well-heeled campaign donors. Why do I traffic only in absolutes, whether the topic is health care or real estate licensing? Because when you bargain with criminals, you sanctify crime.
August 12, 2009 — 8:49 am
Michael Cook says:
All,
I dont really fall in any particular corner in this debate, but no one has addressed the fact that the most capitalist country seems to have the worse health care statistics. We spend more per person and provide less than our socialized neighbors. It would seem based on the things everyone mentioned above we should have the best stats by far since we are the closest to this Utopia that Greg, David and others so readily support. Any ideas why the most socialist countries are beating us?
I find it interesting that we do really expensive things well, i.e. major surgury, but we do really cheap things poorly (preventable disease, immunizations, etc.). How do we make simple care profitable?
August 12, 2009 — 2:52 pm
Greg Swann says:
In the America I grew up in, the answer would have been, “None of your damned business!” And without getting into these inane debates about statistical minutiae, where you know nothing without vetting the entire process, it is much more informative to compare Norwegians from Norway with their cousins in Minnesota, rather than Norwegians with “Americans” — a vast category that means whatever you want it to mean. In any case, none of this means anything. There is no valid rationale for crime, period.
August 12, 2009 — 4:42 pm
Brian Brady says:
“If doctors call people fat and demonize them”
This doctor did just that!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32405418/ns/health-more_health_news/?GT1=43001
and lost his job. Here’s the problem; we all want to have our cake, eat it, and not get fat (and we want you to pay for our Type-Two Diabetes).
August 13, 2009 — 6:53 pm