DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: sirs on June 14, 2007, 01:05:13 AM
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Compassion Versus Reality
BY WALTER E. WILLIAMS
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2007
Dr. Thomas Sowell, a distinguished economist and longtime friend and colleague, recently wrote a series of columns under the title "A War of Words." He pointed out that liberals succeed in duping the public because they are so clever with words that they give the appearance of compassion. Liberals talk about the need for "affordable" housing and health care. They tarnish their enemies with terms such as "price-gouging" and "corporate greed." Uninformed and unthinking Americans fall easy prey to this demagoguery.
Politicians exploit public demands that government ought to do something about this or that problem by taking measures giving them greater control over our lives. For the most part, whatever politicians do, whether it's rent controls to produce "affordable" housing, or price controls to eliminate "price-gouging," the result is a calamity worse than the original problem. For example, two of the most costly housing markets are the rent-controlled cities of San Francisco and New York. If you're over 40, you'll remember the chaos produced by the gasoline price controls of the 1970s. Socialist agendas have considerable appeal, but they produce disaster, and the more socialist they are, the greater the disaster.
Liberals often denounce free markets as immoral. The reality is exactly the opposite. Free markets, characterized by peaceable, voluntary exchange, with respect for property rights and the rule of law, are more moral than any other system of resource allocation. Let's examine just one reason for the superior morality of free markets.
Say that I mow your lawn and you pay me $30, which we might think of as certificates of performance. Having mowed your lawn, I visit my grocer and demand that my fellow men serve me by giving me 3 pounds of steak and a six-pack of beer. In effect, the grocer asks, "Williams, you're demanding that your fellow man, as ranchers and brewers, serve you; what did you do to serve your fellow man?" I say, "I mowed his lawn." The grocer says, "Prove it!" That's when I hand over my certificates of performance -- the $30.
Look at the morality of a resource allocation method that requires that I serve my fellow man in order to have a claim on what he produces and contrast it with government resource allocation. The government can say, "Williams, you don't have to serve your fellow man; through our tax code, we'll take what he produces and give it to you." Of course, if I were to privately take what my fellow man produced, we'd call it theft. The only difference is when the government does it, that theft is legal but nonetheless theft -- the taking of one person's rightful property to give to another.
Liberals love to talk about this or that human right, such as a right to health care, food or housing. That's a perverse usage of the term "right." A right, such as a right to free speech, imposes no obligation on another, except that of non-interference.
The so-called right to health care, food or housing, whether a person can afford it or not, is something entirely different; it does impose an obligation on another. If one person has a right to something he didn't produce, simultaneously and of necessity it means that some other person does not have right to something he did produce. That's because, since there's no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy, in order for government to give one American a dollar, it must, through intimidation, threats and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American. I'd like to hear the moral argument for taking what belongs to one person to give to another person.
There are people in need of help. Charity is one of the nobler human motivations. The act of reaching into one's own pockets to help a fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into someone else's pocket is despicable and worthy of condemnation.
Article (http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/articles/07/compassion.html)
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Well, Sirs, I hope you don't have to ever get on that awful Social Security. Or take money from people who are on that devil Medicaid.
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Me too, especially when there are so many on your side that refuse to to allow anyone to fix it, as we all watch it deteriorate, and eventually go bankrupt :P
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<<There are people in need of help. Charity is one of the nobler human motivations. The act of reaching into one's own pockets to help a fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. >>
I guess the 45 million Americans (including 9 million children) without health insurance can just wait around another few years until sirs and a few like-minded friends just "reach into their own pockets" to help them out. (NEWSFLASH: They're in for a long wait. Ain't never gonna happen.)
<<Reaching into someone else's pocket is despicable and worthy of condemnation.>>
What's "despicable and worthy of condemnation" is that the country is chock-full of rich bastards who DON'T reach into their own pockets and as a consequence have left the U.S. with one of the worst health-care systems in the entire industrialized world. High time that somebody (the "evil" U.S. government reached into their pocket for them, took the fucking money and established a health care system worthy of the wealthiest country on the face of the earth. I'll tell ya, if anything is "despicable and worthy of condemnation it's the fate of 9 million American children without any reliable health care - - only the hope of public charity if their parents will forgo their dignity and beg for it. Guess it all depends on how dire the need, eh? While this sack-of-shit apologist for the greedy, selfish rich - - who give in tax-deductible "charity" a tiny fraction of what should be taxed off their ass, leaving the biggest health-care mess on the planet - - has the God-damn fucking balls to castigate anyone who dares to ask that, as in any civilized society, the rich be made to pay their fair share of the national health-care bill.
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I must confess to a certain ambivalence about the general proposition, roughly, "that we should reach into pockets of the rich to pay for what we (the deserving poor, which is most of us) really and truly need." Not only do my political instincts and moral precepts drive me inexorably to that conclusion, but with my underfunded retirement over the horizon (though not yet in view), I can begin to feel the pinch personally if obliquely. Balancing this store of needs and aspirations is the fact that I have many well-heeled friends, whose company I treasure, who nonetheless never pick up the god-damned dinner check!
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So split it down the middle. We have two kinds of friends - - The "Your-turn-my-turns" and the "50/50s." Wouldn't put up with anyone who never picks up the check unless the guy had the wit and the wisdom of Bertrand Russell or George Bernard Shaw. Then it would be the price of his company and well worth it.
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<<Reaching into someone else's pocket is despicable and worthy of condemnation.>>
What's "despicable and worthy of condemnation" is that the country is chock-full of rich bastards who DON'T reach into their own pockets and as a consequence have left the U.S. with one of the worst health-care systems in the entire industrialized world.
Minus the abstract jealousy Tee appears to have for people who have money but don't give it to who & where he dictates, I'd pick our "worst health-care system" every single frellin time over ANY other "in the entire industrialized world". It's a quality thing for me
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<<Minus the abstract jealousy Tee appears to have for people who have money but don't give it to who & where he dictates, I'd pick our "worst health-care system" every single frellin time over ANY other "in the entire industrialized world". It's a quality thing for me>>
Fine, that's your choice. And what's the choice of the 45 million Americans without health insurance? More to the point, what's the choice of the NINE MILLION kids without?
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<<Minus the abstract jealousy Tee appears to have for people who have money but don't give it to who & where he dictates, I'd pick our "worst health-care system" every single frellin time over ANY other "in the entire industrialized world". It's a quality thing for me>>
Fine, that's your choice.
Hey, you're finally catching on
And what's the choice of the 45 million Americans without health insurance? More to the point, what's the choice of the NINE MILLION kids without?
Best talk to their parents on that one. Apparently many are making the wrong choices in life that help exacerbate those #'s. That can include how best find work that either provides health insurance, or when you have developed enough income to simply purchase it oneself, or heaven forbid you hold off having children until financially more stable to access 1 of the above 2 choices.
An UNACCEPTABLE & completely irresponsible choice is to have as many children as one wants, then demand that taxpayers pay for their healthcare.
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<<An UNACCEPTABLE & completely irresponsible choice is to have as many children as one wants, then demand that taxpayers pay for their healthcare. >>
Unacceptable and completely irresponsible it may certainly be, but not on the part of the kids themselves, who are not at fault in any way. And in no way does the irresponsibility of the parents relieve you of your obligation to see that those kids receive the exact same quality of medical care as the richest citizens of the country.
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<<An UNACCEPTABLE & completely irresponsible choice is to have as many children as one wants, then demand that taxpayers pay for their healthcare. >>
Unacceptable and completely irresponsible it may certainly be, but not on the part of the kids themselves, who are not at fault in any way.
As I said, that'd be the fault of the "parents", not the kids NOR the taxpayers.
And in no way does the irresponsibility of the parents relieve you of your obligation to see that those kids receive the exact same quality of medical care as the richest citizens of the country.
I have no OBLIGATION. You have no OBLIGATION. You do have a CHOICE however, and you can CHOSE to help out where folks need help. That doesn't give you the right to demand MY money to help those who have made bad choices. It's all about that "choice" concept you were starting to grasp in the beginning
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Free markets, characterized by peaceable, voluntary exchange, with respect for property rights and the rule of law, are more moral than any other system of resource allocation.
Then why doesn't it seem to work that way?
Say that I mow your lawn and you pay me $30, which we might think of as certificates of performance. Having mowed your lawn, I visit my grocer and demand that my fellow men serve me by giving me 3 pounds of steak and a six-pack of beer. In effect, the grocer asks, "Williams, you're demanding that your fellow man, as ranchers and brewers, serve you; what did you do to serve your fellow man?" I say, "I mowed his lawn." The grocer says, "Prove it!" That's when I hand over my certificates of performance -- the $30.
There's a sophomoric example.
Now let's do the one where De Beer's purchases diamonds from a child who was forced at gunpoint to mine them. The money from De Beer's goes to buy weapons for a civil war, while the diamond goes to London to be sold in lots. It is bought by jewelers in Antwerp who cut it and set it in a beautiful engagement ring that some dopey young man must buy for his fiance because you know - "diamonds are forever."
Oh wait, that doesn't fit the polyannish definition of "free market" does it? Let's all run through an alpine meadow, holding hands, and singing songs of praise to the free market ;)
The only difference is when the government does it, that theft is legal but nonetheless theft -- the taking of one person's rightful property to give to another.
Only if you don't accept Locke's social contract theory. This "tax is theft" thinking is really an exercise in weak political philosophy.
Liberals love to talk about this or that human right, such as a right to health care, food or housing. That's a perverse usage of the term "right."
Not at all. There's nothing perverse about it, in fact it is far more of a practical and pragmatic view of the term than the definition given afterwards. The definition that follows the above quoted sentence is very esoteric.
The so-called right to health care, food or housing, whether a person can afford it or not, is something entirely different; it does impose an obligation on another. If one person has a right to something he didn't produce, simultaneously and of necessity it means that some other person does not have right to something he did produce.
Some people call this positive and negative rights. Others will begin to discuss Kantian notions of perfect and imperfect duties.
Me, I like to call it society. Maggie Thatcher was wrong, we aren't a collection of individuals and there is such a thing as society.
in order for government to give one American a dollar, it must, through intimidation, threats and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American. I'd like to hear the moral argument for taking what belongs to one person to give to another person
Matthew 22:21
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<<I have no OBLIGATION. You have no OBLIGATION. You do have a CHOICE however, and you can CHOSE to help out where folks need help. That doesn't give you the right to demand MY money to help those who have made bad choices. >>
Yeah well in this country and in yours, the people who had the CHOICE didn't step up to the plate, and so here in Canada they don't have a choice any more. This country and most others had the basic decency to realize that children don't make bad choices and that they can't be penalized for others who do. Further that every adult has a RIGHT to basic health care and every citizen an OBLIGATION to see that that right is met.
You people are so sunk in selfishness and greed that it's disgusting. If someone makes a "bad choice" the penalty, in effect, is sickness and death. Leaving aside the moronic conception that all those mired in poverty are there by choice, I don't even want to get into it. I'll deal with the ones who ARE there by choice, the addicts, the gamblers, the lazy parasites, the criminals - - every god-damn one of them our brothers and sisters. If the consequences of their collective stupidity were limited to their not getting to take that Caribbean cruise or not getting that million-dollar home in the country, well and good. When the consequences are sickness and death, that's going a little too far for me and most other Canadians to stomach. That sticks in our craw.
Having these exchanges with you and others like you makes me so PROUD to be a Canadian, to live in a country with the basic goodness and decency to see that while "poor choices" can be expected to have certain material consequences, loss of health and life is not one of them. We look after each other a little better than that. In Biblical terms you people are nothing but a bunch of hypocritical (for pretending that all the victims of the system have "chosen" to be its victims) and self-righteous Pharisees. I'm really glad to exchange views with you, sirs. It makes me want to get down on my knees and kiss this good Canadian earth under my feet every single morning.
<<It's all about that "choice" concept you were starting to grasp in the beginning>>
Yes, isn't it? We chose to be our brother's keeper. And you chose to pass by his suffering and dying and look the other way.
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This "tax is theft" thinking is really an exercise in weak political philosophy..
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Why would you say this?
Would a strong political philosophy be disinterested in taxes or indiffrent as to how they are used , or care nothing how much or little power and choice was left in priviate hands?
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You people are so sunk in selfishness and greed that it's disgusting.
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No you are , every time anyone looks it is conservatives wh do more volentary giveing , and liberals are not shy about useing tax dodges to avoid paying their maximum.
If Philanthropy is a matter for the state , what will keep it from dieing out in the people?
Remember it was he unreformed Scrooge who refused to give to a charity and insisted that the taxes he paid should be enough. After Scrooge leared to appreaciate other people and to love life , he became a conservative and was more prone to generosity.
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<<Remember it was he unreformed Scrooge who refused to give to a charity and insisted that the taxes he paid should be enough. After Scrooge leared to appreaciate other people and to love life , he became a conservative and was more prone to generosity.>>
And yet somehow, after the conversions of all the Scrooges in all the states of the U.S.A., the country remains today with 45 million Americans includnig 9 million kids without any health insurance and one of the worst public health-care records in the industrialized world.
Maybe the problem is in people who take the lessons of 19th century romantic fiction and try to apply them to a 21st century real world.
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<<Remember it was he unreformed Scrooge who refused to give to a charity and insisted that the taxes he paid should be enough. After Scrooge leared to appreaciate other people and to love life , he became a conservative and was more prone to generosity.>>
And yet somehow, after the conversions of all the Scrooges in all the states of the U.S.A., the country remains today with 45 million Americans includnig 9 million kids without any health insurance and one of the worst public health-care records in the industrialized world.
Maybe the problem is in people who take the lessons of 19th century romantic fiction and try to apply them to a 21st century real world.
This is your opinion, and I doubt its accuacy.
But for the sake of the argument lets assume the worst in boh directions.
Would I rather give up all the rights to choice I am accustomed to , or give up my health care?
NO two ways about it ,I want the liberty .
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<<NO two ways about it ,I want the liberty .>>
That's EXACTLY what I mean about selfishness and greed. YOU got the liberty, THEY got the sickness.
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Why would you say this?
Would a strong political philosophy be disinterested in taxes or indiffrent as to how they are used , or care nothing how much or little power and choice was left in priviate hands?
No, it has nothing to do with public versus private, it never gets that far.
It is weak because it lacks any intellectual basis. There is no foundation on which the state is built. It is simply an individualist notion turned into an oxymoron about tax collection.
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I think JS is being, at once, a tad simplistic and a tad ignorant. There is no precept I know of that can't elevate any given notion to preeminent standing in the organization of a state -- hypothetically. It can be a solid principle breeding prosperity or it can be a foolhardy pretender that leads to calamity. Assuming that whatever the deciding body is in that state (or community) insists on adherence to a foolish organizing idea, then it will persist until it brings ruin. Also, as people actually are, which for the most is engaging in the pursuit of their own interests, no matter how broadly and morally defined or narrowly defined they are, the result more often than not, I'd say, is a state that can persist until external factors over which they have no control cause the enterprise to fail. Roughly, but not entirely or even necessarily, in ways I won't expand upon, the first-mentioned mode of organizing the state is "ideological," while the second (begging latitude) is "anthropological."
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<<NO two ways about it ,I want the liberty .>>
That's EXACTLY what I mean about selfishness and greed. YOU got the liberty, THEY got the sickness.
Yea, those evil founders, starting this country on such a greedy concept as liberty. The nerve
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<<Yea, those evil founders, starting this country on such a greedy concept as liberty. The nerve>>
Uh, not exactly, sirs. Those "evil founders" left it to the citizens to decide what purposes the general revenues should be put to. They never explicitly said the public revenues should or should not be used on public health and welfare. They gave you a Constitution, a taxing power, and the freedom to decide what to do with them.
So it looks like you can't blame them after all for your own greed and selfishness. Nice try, though.
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<<Yea, those evil founders, starting this country on such a greedy concept as liberty. The nerve>>
Uh, not exactly, sirs. Those "evil founders" left it to the citizens to decide what purposes the general revenues should be put to.
No, your revisionist rationalizations aside, they actually founded this country on Life, LIBERTY and the PURSUIT of Happiness, (which interestingly does not equate to a right to happiness.) It's been subsequent congresses & Presidents mutating the founders' intent and constitutional boundries that were intended to inhibit, NOT facilitate government intervention on the populace
Nice try though
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<<No, your revisionist rationalizations aside, they actually founded this country on Life, LIBERTY and the PURSUIT of Happiness, (which interestingly does not equate to a right to happiness.) >>
We both know what's in the Constitution, sirs. And we both know that the Constitution allows a framework for citizens to elect representative who will pass legislation on various subjects with various objects. Unless you are totally insane, I don't think you will argue that it would be unconstitutional for the elected representatives of the people to enact a national health scheme like Social Security or Medicare, only broader in scope, taking in citizens of all ages.
So the real issue does NOT involve the Constitution or its framers, but really what the citizens want their representatives to do for them within the framework already established by the Constitution.
<<It's been subsequent congresses & Presidents mutating the founders' intent and constitutional boundries that were intended to inhibit, NOT facilitate government intervention on the populace>>
Well, I'm sure that from time to time, unconstitutional legislation has in fact been passed, and when it did, the courts dealt with it appropriately. Your statement is broad and general and really has nothing to do with this one issue, unless of course you mean to say that a universal health care scheme enacted by Congress would somehow be unconstitutional, which I don't think even you would be crazy enough to argue.
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<<No, your revisionist rationalizations aside, they actually founded this country on Life, LIBERTY and the PURSUIT of Happiness, (which interestingly does not equate to a right to happiness.) >>
We both know what's in the Constitution, sirs. And we both know that the Constitution allows a framework for citizens to elect representative who will pass legislation on various subjects with various objects.
We both know this was tangent was about the framers of the Constitution, and the framework it was to provide in order to govern this country. Just becasue the Constitution has been stomped on, legisated around, and redefined by 20th century congress critters, depending on the current political wind, still does not refute that the original intentions of the founders, as WRITTEN in the Declaration of Independence & in the Constitution, was a country founded on Life, LIBERTY, and the Pursuit of Happiness, not to mention the RESTRICTIONS it was to impose on the Fed, not on the populace. So just say it.....the founders of this country were greedy bastards, adovating this liberty garbage. That is the tangent we've been referencing.
So the real issue does NOT involve the Constitution or its framers, ....
Actually, it was. Try going back to where I entered the conversation, and you'll see that's precisely the issue I brought up
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Try to put those last thoughts into intelligible English, sirs, and I'll try to respond to them.
<<We both know this was tangent was about the framers of the Constitution, and the framework it was to provide in order to govern this country. >>
??????????????
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If you can't understand simple English, I can't help you Tee. Let's go to the Teeictionary
Framers = Greedy bastards supporting the asanine notion of liberty
Constitution = the Framework by which the Framers put together their diabolical scheme of pushing liberty on us folks, who simply want the Government to take care of us cradle to grave. Written just vague enough to turn the intentions of the framers 180degrees thankfully
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Thanks for defining "framers" and "Constitution<" sirs, but I was referring more to your unintelligible sentence structure than to your vocabulary, sirs.
<<We both know that this was tangent . . . >>
To what does "this" refer?
<< . . . was about the framers of the Constitution>>
What is the subject of the verb "was?"
<< . . . and the framework it was to provide in order to govern this country>>
Am I correct in assuming that "it" refers to the Constitution?
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Thanks for defining "framers" and "Constitution<" sirs, but I was referring more to your unintelligible sentence structure than to your vocabulary, sirs.
<<We both know that this was tangent . . . >>
To what does "this" refer?
Apparently in Tee's alternate universe, every sentence is perfect, in every way shape and form, and folks aren't allowed to make any grammatical errors or ommissions. Apparently the inadvertant absense of an "a" between was and tanget completely bamboozled even the all-knowing Tee, with this being the current thread
<< . . . was about the framers of the Constitution>>
What is the subject of the verb "was?"
The current thread topic Tee.
<< . . . and the framework it was to provide in order to govern this country>>
Am I correct in assuming that "it" refers to the Constitution?
To most rational people it would. For you, who knows. And why we're even having this current irrelevent Q&A is beyond me as well. Time to move on, I do believe
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I think JS is being, at once, a tad simplistic and a tad ignorant. There is no precept I know of that can't elevate any given notion to preeminent standing in the organization of a state -- hypothetically. It can be a solid principle breeding prosperity or it can be a foolhardy pretender that leads to calamity. Assuming that whatever the deciding body is in that state (or community) insists on adherence to a foolish organizing idea, then it will persist until it brings ruin. Also, as people actually are, which for the most is engaging in the pursuit of their own interests, no matter how broadly and morally defined or narrowly defined they are, the result more often than not, I'd say, is a state that can persist until external factors over which they have no control cause the enterprise to fail. Roughly, but not entirely or even necessarily, in ways I won't expand upon, the first-mentioned mode of organizing the state is "ideological," while the second (begging latitude) is "anthropological."
That is a good point , President Lincon compared his own statesmanship to rideing a raft , one can choose to follow the left, the right or the center but the river is really chooseing your direction.
There is a strong diffrence between an Idealist and an idealoge , one is the bunch on my side and the other is the sort on yours.
The American way is lost with out Liberty and liberty can be lost in several ways , one of the ways is to be tied down to taxes till there are no choices in life and the ambitions of our individuals are frustrated till the whole of the public is frustrated.
Is being sick so important that we must give everything entirely to the government in order to cope with it? Even if we do ,we will all sicken and die but with no chance to persue happyness in the meantime.
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Well, thanks for taking the time to explain the post to me, sirs. Sorry I didn't get the meaning the first time round.
You're wrong, of course, as usual.
plane, for the sake of argument, assumed that government-assured health care for all meant a choice had been made between freedom of choice and health care. He preferred freedom to health care. I said that was greedy (because it forced others to forgo health care for the sake of plane's freedom.)
At this point, you entered the thread with a little bit of sarcasm. "Those greedy framers . . . ." As if the framers' guarantee of liberty was based on greed. Also reminding me that whatever the framers' guarantee of liberty was based on, it was Constitutional and could not be subordinated to lesser goals, such as universal health care.
Well, of course the Constitution guarantees freedom (in the abstract) and of course that freedom is abridged without violating the Constitution in many different ways. Laws are passed for example that prevent American citizens from trading with Cuba. From selling nuclear technology to North Korea. From posting child porn on the internet. I am suggesting that a law creating Canadian-style universal health care could pass constitutionally in the U.S. Whether it does or not is due to whether the citizens and their elected reps want it, not on the fact that it would limit Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms against the wishes of the framers. The framers left in place a Constitution that is broad enough to allow for the abridgment of freedoms such as those claimed by plane for a wider goal, in this case health care, if the elected representatives so decide.
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Well, thanks for taking the time to explain the post to me, sirs. Sorry I didn't get the meaning the first time round. You're wrong, of course, as usual.
LOL......like I said, those bastard Founders, daring to push liberty on us common folk when the end goal is of course for the Government to take care of all us, such as universal healthcare for all. We, including the middle to low middle classes, all paying for the healthcare of George Soros, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Gates for crying out loud. Funny how liberty is so repulsive when people dont voluntarily do what you conclude they must do, yet jump all over the term when you're grossly misrepresenting & distorting the Justice Dept's wiretapping program. Then again, I've gotten used to the tact....ends (the complete vilification of anything & everything Bush) justify the means (distort, misrepresent, ignore reality and facts contradictory to one's already made up mind, even lie when need be). SOP
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<<like I said, those bastard Founders, daring to push liberty on us common folk when the end goal is of course for the Government to take care of all us, such as universal healthcare for all.>>
No, the goal of the founders was not universal health care for all. Nor was it a Darwinian race for survival where the economically unfit and their children would sicken and perish for their inablility to purchase the costly necessities of medical care in the 21st Century in a free-for-all competition with the whole populace participating. The founders probably weren't even thinking about health insurance and its affordability, because there was no such thing in their time. What they did was bequeath to you a system wherein arguments could be made for and against any kind of health care system imaginable and the people through their elected representatives would decide.
<<We, including the middle to low middle classes, all paying for the healthcare of George Soros, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Gates for crying out loud. >>
Well, means tests for eligibility have been investigated and they are just not cost-effective. People with the financial clout of those you mentioned are relatively rare amongst 300,000,000 Americans. Since they usually don't have to earn their daily bread in coal mines, night shifts at the convenience store in the ghetto, putting out fires or erecting buildings, their demands on the health-care system are probably less than the average Americans and in any event are statistically speaking a drop in the proverbial bucket.
<< Funny how liberty is so repulsive when people dont voluntarily do what you conclude they must do, yet jump all over the term when you're grossly misrepresenting & distorting the Justice Dept's wiretapping program. >>
Funny how you seem to equate a doctor's freedom to charge exorbitant fees for his services with the freedom of every citizen to express his thoughts freely without worrying that Big Brother may be listening in.
<< Then again, I've gotten used to the tact....>>
What, to logic and common sense? To reliance upon fact instead of hyperbole? Good, sirs, you are making progress.
<<ends (the complete vilification of anything & everything Bush) justify the means (distort, misrepresent, ignore reality and facts contradictory to one's already made up mind,>>
Oh, like the breach of international law in invading Iraq and the deaths of 600,000 is justified by the ends of bringing them "democracy? " Or were you referring to the ends of national security justifying the means of torture? You really should be more specific, sirs.
<<even lie when need be). SOP>>
I don't lie. Ever. Perhaps through some extreme dysfunction of normal brain function common to crypto-fascists, er, I mean conservatives like you, you have managed to confuse me with your "President" or some member of his administration.
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<< Then again, I've gotten used to the tact....>>
What, to logic and common sense? To reliance upon fact instead of hyperbole?
LOL.....Tee, you wouldn't know logic and common sense if it was injected into you, thru a central line. The complete asanine conclusions you come to using your version of dot connecting would confuse even Freud. The examples you provide of such are endless........but alas I concede, entertaining in an acutely twisted way. I can see why not just I, but so many other rationally minded folks, actually spend substantive time "debating" you and your morally superior intellect. And yes, when you perpetuate a DNC lie or some MoveOn.org lie, you are indeed lying. I realize how sincere your belief may be in whatver lie is being bandied about, as being the gospel truth, but repeating it adnauseum still does not bring not a grain of truth to it.
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What they did was bequeath to you a system wherein arguments could be made for and against any kind of health care system imaginable and the people through their elected representatives would decide.
And the people's representatives have turned down all previous plans for a national health care system.
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<<And the people's representatives have turned down all previous plans for a national health care system.>>
Which I am well aware of and which has absolutely nothing to do with the argument here.
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<<LOL.....Tee, you wouldn't know logic and common sense if it was injected into you, thru a central line. The complete asanine conclusions you come to using your version of dot connecting would confuse even Freud. The examples you provide of such are endless........but alas I concede, entertaining in an acutely twisted way. I can see why not just I, but so many other rationally minded folks, actually spend substantive time "debating" you and your morally superior intellect. And yes, when you perpetuate a DNC lie or some MoveOn.org lie, you are indeed lying. I realize how sincere your belief may be in whatver lie is being bandied about, as being the gospel truth, but repeating it adnauseum still does not bring not a grain of truth to it.>>
Nice rant, but it does nothing to get you out of the hole you dug for yourself, that a universal health care system was contrary to the Founders' intentions. I guess you agree with my basic point that the Constitution in fact allows the voters and their elected reps to decide such things for themselves, without being bound by what the Founders intended should be the ultmate result of the debate.
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Nice rant, but it does nothing to get you out of the hole you dug for yourself, that a universal health care system was contrary to the Founders' intentions.
The hole is the notion that we sacrifice liberty for the sake of everyone having healthcare (YOUR words, when you were decrying Plane's daring to chose liberty over funding healthcare for someone else) The Hole is trying to rationalize why low middle & middle income familes, barely able to provide for themselves should be saddled with the additional burden of paying for the uberrich's healthcare and their families. The hole is the asanine notion that the Founders intended a Government to take care of everyone, when all the original Bill or Rights provided were to RESTRICT & LIMIT what the Fed could do.
No my friend, the hole to China is sitting at your shovel.
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<<The hole is the notion that we sacrifice liberty for the sake of everyone having healthcare (YOUR words, when you were decrying Plane's daring to chose liberty over funding healthcare for someone else) >>
Well of course a small amount of liberty (the doctors' liberty to opt out of the public system, the rich man's liberty to buy his health care where he wants to buy it by outbidding competitors for the same provider) is sacrificed. This sacrifice in no way contravenes the Founders' intentions since there are many instances of the infringement of liberties for the greater good. Indeed government could not function if everybody's liberty was held sacred. If you need examples of freedoms curtailed or abridged under perfectly valid and constitutional laws, just ask me. I think you're smart enough to see the examples yourself without my holding them up. So the suggestion that the abridgement of liberty necessary to create universal health coverage is against the intention of the Founders is total bullshit. They expressed no opinion either way, or at least if they had an opinion (hard to see how, there being no health insurance at the time) they certainly did not enshrine it in the Constitution.
<< The Hole is trying to rationalize why low middle & middle income familes, barely able to provide for themselves should be saddled with the additional burden of paying for the uberrich's healthcare and their families. >>
Well, I've been through that. First of all there is no reason in theory why there couldn't be some kind of means test. Or even a claw-back, where persons declaring over a million dollars a year or ten million dollars a year in income have to pay back all health benefits received in that year. However, means tests are largely un-economical and the system will function without them. The injustice of Bill Gates getting a free ride is not seen as serious as the injustice that 9 million children are without coverage. This is just another instance of conservatives having their heads stuck up their asses. They just don't live in the real world. In the real world, Bill Gates getting a free ride is not terrible but 9 million uninsured kids is terrible. Conservatives don't seem to realize that they are dealing with real people and real lives. A theoretical blemish (Gates' free ride) is equated with real-life hardships.
<< The hole is the asanine notion that the Founders intended a Government to take care of everyone, when all the original Bill or Rights provided were to RESTRICT & LIMIT what the Fed could do.>>
Quite honestly the Founders did not consider a universal health care system, it did not exist at the time and to claim they would have been against it had they seen detailed studies of how the alternative systems actually perform in the real world is just pure speculation. The fact is that the Constitution they designed does in fact permit such a system to be created if the Legislative Body will vote for it. So therefore they could not have been as dead-set against it as you claim.
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<<And the people's representatives have turned down all previous plans for a national health care system.>>
Which I am well aware of and which has absolutely nothing to do with the argument here.
Most Americans feel that they are taxed plenty , and everyone in the world knows tht nothing the government can do will stop death from happening once for each of us.
So if we elect Representatives who know better than to saddle us with a system that is possibly a marginal improvement to public health and possibly a major loss to liberty this is not wrong and it is pertanant to the arguement.
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<<Most Americans feel that they are taxed plenty , and everyone in the world knows tht nothing the government can do will stop death from happening once for each of us.>>
I believe that among industrialized nations, they are either in the middle or at the low end of the range of per capita taxation.