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On February 04 2012 06:00 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 05:51 kwizach wrote:On February 04 2012 05:48 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 05:46 kwizach wrote:On February 04 2012 05:40 Kiarip wrote:On February 03 2012 15:04 red_b wrote:On February 03 2012 14:34 Rabbet wrote:
But what I am arguing against is the theft of my hard earned dollars, through taxation, to support a mandate that government has no business being in(healthcare).
such short sightedness, such selfishness, such ingratitude. your "hard earned dollars"? what a joke. even if you went to private school, rode through the woods on a bicycle you made your damn self and killed/grew all of your own food the people you work with who make your income possible use the public infrastructure, public safety and public health. you are NOTHING without society and if you want to see how fast your little fantasy evaporates take it to a country where the government really doesnt do anything, including taking your money. I hear Etheopia is nice. Somalia, too. whoever taught you about government and/or history failed miserably to instill in you an appreciation for the social contract and what it means to be a good citizen. you speak of theft? someone seems to have robbed you of your common sense. That's a ton of trash. The money that he pays that goes to public health-care does absolutely nothing for his ability to participate in the marketplace and make hard-earned money that he's got. Just because some people want a free-hand out and don't understand how prices work when government starts pouring on the money doesn't mean that the government all of a sudden has the power to ignore the constitution. Actually, his post is factual. You, on the other hand, consistently base your posts on ideology rather than reality, as red_b himself showed in your exchange on healthcare. By the way, Kiarip, since you never replied to my last post in our previous exchange, I take that as an acknowledgment from your part that your initial statement, which I rebutted, was indeed wrong. I replied to it. The "right to health-care" as you defined it wasn't a right, if you would have used quotations you could have avoided the misunderstanding which resulted in you arguing semantics, but yeah you're right in the fact that we're done with that now, because like I stated, I have no interest in arguing about semantics with you. No, you did not reply to it, and that's not what we were arguing about: we were arguing about your assertion that the rights of healthcare providers would be violated, while YOU were trying to derail the discussion into a debate about semantics and what constitutes a right. Nice to see you're still trying to avoid having to defend your claim! I said that a right to healthcare would violate the rights of the health-care providers. However, since there's no actual right to healthcare anywhere right now I can't give you an example of the rights of health-care providers being violated, because there's no such right. I can only give you an example of the risks and expenses being socialized amongst the general population as a result of the government trying to deliver on their promise of this privilege.
Erm, at no point in our discussion did I ask for an example of the rights of healthcare providers being violated today. Did you originally stop replying to me because you couldn't rewrite our discussion when it was still going on? In my last posts I defined very precisely what kind of right to healthcare the people you replied to were referring to, and I explained why it would not violate the rights of the healthcare providers. I consistently refused to let you derail the discussion into a debate about what constitutes a right or about taxation. You then stopped replying.
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On February 04 2012 05:58 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 05:47 mcc wrote:On February 04 2012 05:35 Kiarip wrote:On February 03 2012 10:37 aksfjh wrote:
With the exception of housing, which is widely under debate at this moment, the programs you list do things cheaper than the private sector. Education tuitions rose because state budgets have refused to increase funding based on demand for nearly a decade. Military costs went through the roof because we turned to the private sector to help fight the war, instead of sticking to tradition and conscripting. My argument is that when private sector is forced to the compete with the government the prices go up disproportionately to the quality. So all my examples basically on point. I'm talking about costs both private and public. Government drove up the price of education with easy credit, housing with easy credit, medicine with guarantees and subsidies, and military with contracts. These types of economies don't work, you either need to have the whole thing nationalized or privatized without government incentives, and when you're dealing with a situation of individual customers private sector tends to be better, while for something like the military, you obviously want that fully nationalized, but the point is that when you have the two compete you get basically the worst possible situation. I might agree with you on this partially. But I would add that private sector tends to do better only if the customer has at least some ability to actually judge the service at least somewhat objectively. Healthcare is one of those where that is not true and consequences of error are often fatal. Education also but for somewhat different reasons. The extremity of the consequences is what let's people judge the comparative quality of the services in these cases where the immediate clarity isn't there. If you have two competing services A, and B, and the difference in quality isn't immediately obivous, but the consequences are also very mild, there is basically no way to determine which is better, so they're practically very similar in quality. if you have two competing services A, and B, and the difference in quality is immediately obvious, than people pick the one that's better unless it's way more expensive, and in general the consequences of picking the thing that's worse are probably not so bad, because if they were no one would ever pick the thing that's obviously worse. If you have two competing services A, and B, and the quality in difference isn't immediately obvious, and the consequences ARE extreme (the case you're talking about,) the only real way to judge what's better is based on how often this extreme consequence occurs. That's just how life is. If you're doing experimental treatment, there IS a good chance that something may go wrong, that's one of the reasons that someone may decide AGAINST experimental treatment. On the other hand if it's something as simple as getting aspirin, then you're not very likely to be dying because you bought the wrong one. If you think the government can at all hedge the risks on this more effectively than the private sector using studies you're grossly mistaken. All it takes is a lobbyist to push a new treatment through the regulations that can possibly be fatal, and all of a sudden you have a situation where a certain treatment that has no competitors is fatal, which means that all the orders for it the government made is going to get destroyed (hopefully not repackaged,) and new legislature is going to have to be passed, and new research is going to have to be done, and meanwhile there's no alternative treatment out there.
First you did not really get what I mean. I mean that people have no way to determine who is a good doctor. Most people have no idea about medicine. They do not have and cannot have enough information to make an informed choice. Not only that, they even do not know what criteria they should use or what is the choice.
Also your idea about how public healthcare must work is rather naive. Just one glaring error is when you think that only one treatment per ailment is permitted or even wanted. Or that public healthcare is incompatible with competing research or private pharmaceutical firms.
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On February 04 2012 04:45 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 04:32 GoTuNk! wrote:On February 04 2012 04:30 Hider wrote:On February 04 2012 04:25 GoTuNk! wrote:On February 04 2012 04:12 Hider wrote:On February 04 2012 03:38 junemermaid wrote:On February 03 2012 21:09 Hider wrote:On February 03 2012 18:00 Stratos_speAr wrote:On February 03 2012 15:33 Rabbet wrote:On February 03 2012 15:04 red_b wrote:
[quote]
such short sightedness, such selfishness, such ingratitude.
your "hard earned dollars"? what a joke. even if you went to private school, rode through the woods on a bicycle you made your damn self and killed/grew all of your own food the people you work with who make your income possible use the public infrastructure, public safety and public health.
you are NOTHING without society and if you want to see how fast your little fantasy evaporates take it to a country where the government really doesnt do anything, including taking your money. I hear Etheopia is nice. Somalia, too.
whoever taught you about government and/or history failed miserably to instill in you an appreciation for the social contract and what it means to be a good citizen.
you speak of theft? someone seems to have robbed you of your common sense. Social contract? Ok, so if I have to hold up my end of this contract why doesn't the government have to hold up its end? It comes down to who has the power and as it stands the government has the power. If I take someones money, I go to jail. Yet the government takes my money unwillingly ever tax year, and so what? The government was never created by the people for the people to intrude on our lives and force us into doing things we do not want to do(giving away my own money). I don't disregard the social contract, I don't steal from people and I don't use violence against people, but it is quite hypocritical that government abuses the powers that we have given them and people like you try to contort the view that keeping what is rightfully ours into a negative thing like shortsightedness, selfishness and ingratitude. Taxes are not theft. They are your dues for enjoying the benefits of society. If you don't like it, move. That's how a social contract works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_HoodRobin hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Whether there are benefits to this, and whether this creates a better world is another discussion. Nevertheless taxes are theft. You could however argue that its a nessacary theft for the greater good. The ability to earn money is predicated on the government establishing a stable society. Without that, you cannot earn a single dime. Taxes are part of that operating cost, not theft. But even if you needed a little govenrment to secure property rights, then the taxes would still be theft. But of course the theft would be nessarcary in this scenario to secure individual rights. The libertarian principle is that government's job is to protect people's liberty, freedom and property from others. That has a cost, however many countries (such as mine) can afford this easily by taxing the usage of common property, aka natural resources explotation by private enterprises. That said, while I agree that this job is necessary and taxes should be collected FOR THIS PURPOSE in case its needed, just because it works, I'm not sure what's the moral principle that allows it other than "it works", and that makes it different from other taxes to increase government expenditure even further, which I do consider theft. Well the minimalistic state approach vs anarchy(capitalistic) debate is an endless discussion. In anarchy your rights doesn't get guaranteed (you have to pay for them). But there is no "legalized" theft. Anyway from a pragmatic approach I favor the anarchy, as I am not sure whether the minimalistic approach can work long term (government tends to expand unfortunately). Maybe a non democracy/non dictatorship minimalistic approach could work. Don't really know. I think government needs to keep force monopoly. Any political science study done in the last 30 years will tell you when this doesn't happen, there will always be a bully with guns and not the free market required for wealth creation. The bully can come from somewhere else aswell. I don't think your right, but I haven't read enough about this subject to have a serious debate. But my last point is that there hasn't really been anarcho-capitalism in the last 30 years.
We don't have any example in recorded history of a society where there was no governing body...
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On February 04 2012 06:09 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 05:46 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 05:39 mcc wrote:On February 04 2012 05:21 Kiarip wrote:On February 03 2012 18:20 Focuspants wrote:On February 03 2012 15:33 Rabbet wrote:On February 03 2012 15:04 red_b wrote:On February 03 2012 14:34 Rabbet wrote:
But what I am arguing against is the theft of my hard earned dollars, through taxation, to support a mandate that government has no business being in(healthcare).
such short sightedness, such selfishness, such ingratitude. your "hard earned dollars"? what a joke. even if you went to private school, rode through the woods on a bicycle you made your damn self and killed/grew all of your own food the people you work with who make your income possible use the public infrastructure, public safety and public health. you are NOTHING without society and if you want to see how fast your little fantasy evaporates take it to a country where the government really doesnt do anything, including taking your money. I hear Etheopia is nice. Somalia, too. whoever taught you about government and/or history failed miserably to instill in you an appreciation for the social contract and what it means to be a good citizen. you speak of theft? someone seems to have robbed you of your common sense. Social contract? Ok, so if I have to hold up my end of this contract why doesn't the government have to hold up its end? It comes down to who has the power and as it stands the government has the power. If I take someones money, I go to jail. Yet the government takes my money unwillingly ever tax year, and so what? The government was never created by the people for the people to intrude on our lives and force us into doing things we do not want to do(giving away my own money). I don't disregard the social contract, I don't steal from people and I don't use violence against people, but it is quite hypocritical that government abuses the powers that we have given them and people like you try to contort the view that keeping what is rightfully ours into a negative thing like shortsightedness, selfishness and ingratitude. The government ends up representing the majority. The VAST majority are for the system we have in place. You are an EXTREME minority (thank god for that). You either take part in what the majority of society wants it to be like, or get out. A country ruled by private enterprise, one where the dollar is the most important thing in any and all situations, and self preservation, without a sense of unity is prominant, is not my type of country. Almost everyone in Canada would agree with that stance. You dont like it, get out. Period. The government isnt stealing your money. You are free to pick up and leave if you dont like the lifestyle this country provides you. Im just letting you know, it will be almost impossible to find somewhere your selfish naive ideals are the standard, that has a higher quality of life. Actually this is exactly why we have the constitution, to avoid tyranny by majority. Maybe it's people who want mob rule should get out. the "selfish naive" ideas were the standards of the founders of our country, and pretty much all of them were actually great humanitarians, and had uni-vocal support from the general population, it's just that they also had the common sense to realize that a body that has a monopoly on force (the government) needs to have very strict restrictions on how it can use this force within the law REGARDLESS of how many people support it. No constitution will prevent tyranny of determined majority. There is no societal order that would prevent it. You can only try to minimize the chance of that happening. You're arguing a strawman, I'm saying the constitution limits the legal power of the government. Of course in an absolute sense anyone can do whatever the hell they want, but we're talking about the power that the Government is supposed to have according to the document that establishes its existence. if that was you point, then it was completely not related to what he meant.
I think it's related. He's talking about one's obligation to pay the high taxes. My obligation to pay the taxes should be similar to the government's obligation to follow the constitution. So he's saying I should leave the country if I don't want to pay taxes, I'm not planning on leaving the country, but on the other hand if he wants to use the logic of "it's the rule so you should do it," I can apply the same to the government, and if THEY followed the rules then a lot of these taxes wouldn't exist in the first place.
Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 05:46 Kiarip wrote:
As for your founders, they were progressive for their time, today they would be called immoral or misguided in many aspects. They also did not have uni-vocal support from the population. Far from it.
George Washington won the re-election with 100% Electoral College vote, and basically 100% popular vote. Progressive for their time? I guess if you use a the dictionary definition of progressive, and not the political one. They would only called immoral and mis-guided by the people in the actual government because the current government is basically a police state in comparison to the functional government we've used to have, and of course it doesn't want to give up all this power. Oh, one of them got elected with 100 electoral votes of his fellow high class countrymen in election where 0.5% of the population voted. Color me impressed. Not even whole population was for independence for f's sake.
Well yeah, there were a lot of voting restrictions back then, but it doesn't change that he was insanely popular amongst the people.
But to say that the founding fathers are immoral or misguided in their politcal views, when they basically established all the indvidual freedoms that allowed America to succeed afterwards is very much off-base.
Anyway of course I am using dictionary definition, I am not an American to use it as an insult when it is a positive word.
I don't think that saying someone is a progressive politically is an insult, I just don't think it would at all describe the early American political stances.
From current point of view slavery and women not having voting rights are quite immoral. They were misguided, because of the fear of tyranny they made the political system so extremely ineffective. I do not know if they also came up with majority voting system, but that was also rather bad decision.
Well they were still men of their time, slavery was widespread everywhere and socially accepted.
Do you prefer minority voting system? or unanimous voting system? Or having a king/emperor? How do you get around voting in general?
Does that mean they did not achieve a rather great thing, no, it just means they were no shining beacons of morality or eternal geniuses that need to be worshiped for 300 years.
Well I agree and disagree, I think the concept of personal/individual freedom is a rather timeless virtue for the human race, not to say that the idea has always existed, but meaning that this concept argues for the defense of people's right to try and be happy within very reasonable borders.
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On February 04 2012 06:04 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 05:49 mcc wrote:On February 04 2012 05:40 Kiarip wrote:On February 03 2012 15:04 red_b wrote:On February 03 2012 14:34 Rabbet wrote:
But what I am arguing against is the theft of my hard earned dollars, through taxation, to support a mandate that government has no business being in(healthcare).
such short sightedness, such selfishness, such ingratitude. your "hard earned dollars"? what a joke. even if you went to private school, rode through the woods on a bicycle you made your damn self and killed/grew all of your own food the people you work with who make your income possible use the public infrastructure, public safety and public health. you are NOTHING without society and if you want to see how fast your little fantasy evaporates take it to a country where the government really doesnt do anything, including taking your money. I hear Etheopia is nice. Somalia, too. whoever taught you about government and/or history failed miserably to instill in you an appreciation for the social contract and what it means to be a good citizen. you speak of theft? someone seems to have robbed you of your common sense. That's a ton of trash. The money that he pays that goes to public health-care does absolutely nothing for his ability to participate in the marketplace and make hard-earned money that he's got. Just because some people want a free-hand out and don't understand how prices work when government starts pouring on the money doesn't mean that the government all of a sudden has the power to ignore the constitution. His point is I think, how would you earn anything without the society, not necessarily without the government. Without other people you would earn nothing. Well without a society money is worth nothing, and without division of labor he probably would never have all the material things that he's got, which is just another argument for the market, and capitalism, as it makes people a lot more productive. But the taxes aren't collected for the good of the society, it's actually quite the opposite, a small portion of the money collected from the people is given back out selectively to the groups from which the government thinks it can get the most votes per dollar spent. Not only is this not an optimal way to redistribute wealth, but redistribution of wealth in the first place undermines property rights, which undermines an individual's incentive to work their hardest, and yes a society in which everyone is waiting for a hand-out and slacking off will definitely collapse.
Now I see the frustration others have when talking to you. Why are you creating all these red-herrings and strawmen. The objection was to the phrase "my hard earned money that are mine and I owe nothing to anyone". The point is that it is not like you could get the money without the other people and all the people that came before, so you in fact owe a society as a whole. No one is crying for the end of free market in all circumstances. I have no idea how you came to the topic of societies with people waiting for handout or whatever.
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On February 04 2012 06:18 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 05:58 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 05:47 mcc wrote:On February 04 2012 05:35 Kiarip wrote:On February 03 2012 10:37 aksfjh wrote:
With the exception of housing, which is widely under debate at this moment, the programs you list do things cheaper than the private sector. Education tuitions rose because state budgets have refused to increase funding based on demand for nearly a decade. Military costs went through the roof because we turned to the private sector to help fight the war, instead of sticking to tradition and conscripting. My argument is that when private sector is forced to the compete with the government the prices go up disproportionately to the quality. So all my examples basically on point. I'm talking about costs both private and public. Government drove up the price of education with easy credit, housing with easy credit, medicine with guarantees and subsidies, and military with contracts. These types of economies don't work, you either need to have the whole thing nationalized or privatized without government incentives, and when you're dealing with a situation of individual customers private sector tends to be better, while for something like the military, you obviously want that fully nationalized, but the point is that when you have the two compete you get basically the worst possible situation. I might agree with you on this partially. But I would add that private sector tends to do better only if the customer has at least some ability to actually judge the service at least somewhat objectively. Healthcare is one of those where that is not true and consequences of error are often fatal. Education also but for somewhat different reasons. The extremity of the consequences is what let's people judge the comparative quality of the services in these cases where the immediate clarity isn't there. If you have two competing services A, and B, and the difference in quality isn't immediately obivous, but the consequences are also very mild, there is basically no way to determine which is better, so they're practically very similar in quality. if you have two competing services A, and B, and the difference in quality is immediately obvious, than people pick the one that's better unless it's way more expensive, and in general the consequences of picking the thing that's worse are probably not so bad, because if they were no one would ever pick the thing that's obviously worse. If you have two competing services A, and B, and the quality in difference isn't immediately obvious, and the consequences ARE extreme (the case you're talking about,) the only real way to judge what's better is based on how often this extreme consequence occurs. That's just how life is. If you're doing experimental treatment, there IS a good chance that something may go wrong, that's one of the reasons that someone may decide AGAINST experimental treatment. On the other hand if it's something as simple as getting aspirin, then you're not very likely to be dying because you bought the wrong one. If you think the government can at all hedge the risks on this more effectively than the private sector using studies you're grossly mistaken. All it takes is a lobbyist to push a new treatment through the regulations that can possibly be fatal, and all of a sudden you have a situation where a certain treatment that has no competitors is fatal, which means that all the orders for it the government made is going to get destroyed (hopefully not repackaged,) and new legislature is going to have to be passed, and new research is going to have to be done, and meanwhile there's no alternative treatment out there. First you did not really get what I mean. I mean that people have no way to determine who is a good doctor. Most people have no idea about medicine. They do not have and cannot have enough information to make an informed choice. Not only that, they even do not know what criteria they should use or what is the choice. Also your idea about how public healthcare must work is rather naive. Just one glaring error is when you think that only one treatment per ailment is permitted or even wanted. Or that public healthcare is incompatible with competing research or private pharmaceutical firms.
Of course you do, you ask your neighbors, in this age of mass information you can go online and read reviews, like I can for my professors, or for car rental services, etc etc. And in the end if you somehow don't trust a doctor you can easily change your doctor to a new one, but if it's a command economy system like if you are assigned to a district doctor, or something similar you don't have this freedom.
And yes, I'm over simplifying, but in the end that's what it boils down to, because the government is going to subsidize/support research, so there will always be research that's supported and that's not supported, so the decision that of what is supported will be made by politicians rather than by the marketplace of supply and demand.
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On February 04 2012 06:27 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 06:04 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 05:49 mcc wrote:On February 04 2012 05:40 Kiarip wrote:On February 03 2012 15:04 red_b wrote:On February 03 2012 14:34 Rabbet wrote:
But what I am arguing against is the theft of my hard earned dollars, through taxation, to support a mandate that government has no business being in(healthcare).
such short sightedness, such selfishness, such ingratitude. your "hard earned dollars"? what a joke. even if you went to private school, rode through the woods on a bicycle you made your damn self and killed/grew all of your own food the people you work with who make your income possible use the public infrastructure, public safety and public health. you are NOTHING without society and if you want to see how fast your little fantasy evaporates take it to a country where the government really doesnt do anything, including taking your money. I hear Etheopia is nice. Somalia, too. whoever taught you about government and/or history failed miserably to instill in you an appreciation for the social contract and what it means to be a good citizen. you speak of theft? someone seems to have robbed you of your common sense. That's a ton of trash. The money that he pays that goes to public health-care does absolutely nothing for his ability to participate in the marketplace and make hard-earned money that he's got. Just because some people want a free-hand out and don't understand how prices work when government starts pouring on the money doesn't mean that the government all of a sudden has the power to ignore the constitution. His point is I think, how would you earn anything without the society, not necessarily without the government. Without other people you would earn nothing. Well without a society money is worth nothing, and without division of labor he probably would never have all the material things that he's got, which is just another argument for the market, and capitalism, as it makes people a lot more productive. But the taxes aren't collected for the good of the society, it's actually quite the opposite, a small portion of the money collected from the people is given back out selectively to the groups from which the government thinks it can get the most votes per dollar spent. Not only is this not an optimal way to redistribute wealth, but redistribution of wealth in the first place undermines property rights, which undermines an individual's incentive to work their hardest, and yes a society in which everyone is waiting for a hand-out and slacking off will definitely collapse. Now I see the frustration others have when talking to you. Why are you creating all these red-herrings and strawmen. The objection was to the phrase "my hard earned money that are mine and I owe nothing to anyone". The point is that it is not like you could get the money without the other people and all the people that came before, so you in fact owe a society as a whole. No one is crying for the end of free market in all circumstances. I have no idea how you came to the topic of societies with people waiting for handout or whatever.
ummm... no wtf? Look at the quote the quote is:
"But what I am arguing against is the theft of my hard earned dollars, through taxation, to support a mandate that government has no business being in(healthcare)."
So he's actually being very clear and correct with what he means, and I'm defending this statement accurately. He's not saying that the government has no business ANYWHERE, he's saying the government has no business in health-care, and the argument that "without society you won't have anything" doesn't apply here because public healthcare ISN'T one of the government-provided services which allowed him to earn his money.
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Voluntary cooperation is the basis of a functioning society, not judeo-christian inspired, government-enforced ideals that people have become complacent about after being reamed for hundreds of years.
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I like the direction the economy is going.
The Republicans are going to have to change their line from "Obama ruined the economy" to "We could have don't better... seriously!"
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Edit: nvm. Sorry for posting.
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On February 04 2012 06:16 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 06:00 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 05:51 kwizach wrote:On February 04 2012 05:48 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 05:46 kwizach wrote:On February 04 2012 05:40 Kiarip wrote:On February 03 2012 15:04 red_b wrote:On February 03 2012 14:34 Rabbet wrote:
But what I am arguing against is the theft of my hard earned dollars, through taxation, to support a mandate that government has no business being in(healthcare).
such short sightedness, such selfishness, such ingratitude. your "hard earned dollars"? what a joke. even if you went to private school, rode through the woods on a bicycle you made your damn self and killed/grew all of your own food the people you work with who make your income possible use the public infrastructure, public safety and public health. you are NOTHING without society and if you want to see how fast your little fantasy evaporates take it to a country where the government really doesnt do anything, including taking your money. I hear Etheopia is nice. Somalia, too. whoever taught you about government and/or history failed miserably to instill in you an appreciation for the social contract and what it means to be a good citizen. you speak of theft? someone seems to have robbed you of your common sense. That's a ton of trash. The money that he pays that goes to public health-care does absolutely nothing for his ability to participate in the marketplace and make hard-earned money that he's got. Just because some people want a free-hand out and don't understand how prices work when government starts pouring on the money doesn't mean that the government all of a sudden has the power to ignore the constitution. Actually, his post is factual. You, on the other hand, consistently base your posts on ideology rather than reality, as red_b himself showed in your exchange on healthcare. By the way, Kiarip, since you never replied to my last post in our previous exchange, I take that as an acknowledgment from your part that your initial statement, which I rebutted, was indeed wrong. I replied to it. The "right to health-care" as you defined it wasn't a right, if you would have used quotations you could have avoided the misunderstanding which resulted in you arguing semantics, but yeah you're right in the fact that we're done with that now, because like I stated, I have no interest in arguing about semantics with you. No, you did not reply to it, and that's not what we were arguing about: we were arguing about your assertion that the rights of healthcare providers would be violated, while YOU were trying to derail the discussion into a debate about semantics and what constitutes a right. Nice to see you're still trying to avoid having to defend your claim! I said that a right to healthcare would violate the rights of the health-care providers. However, since there's no actual right to healthcare anywhere right now I can't give you an example of the rights of health-care providers being violated, because there's no such right. I can only give you an example of the risks and expenses being socialized amongst the general population as a result of the government trying to deliver on their promise of this privilege. Erm, at no point in our discussion did I ask for an example of the rights of healthcare providers being violated today. Did you originally stop replying to me because you couldn't rewrite our discussion when it was still going on? In my last posts I defined very precisely what kind of right to healthcare the people you replied to were referring to, and I explained why it would not violate the rights of the healthcare providers. I consistently refused to let you derail the discussion into a debate about what constitutes a right or about taxation. You then stopped replying.
and once you finally described what you were talking I agreed that this doesn't infringe on rights of health-care providers, because what you were describing wasn't a right, but a government guaranteed privilege.
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On February 04 2012 05:21 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2012 18:20 Focuspants wrote:On February 03 2012 15:33 Rabbet wrote:On February 03 2012 15:04 red_b wrote:On February 03 2012 14:34 Rabbet wrote:
But what I am arguing against is the theft of my hard earned dollars, through taxation, to support a mandate that government has no business being in(healthcare).
such short sightedness, such selfishness, such ingratitude. your "hard earned dollars"? what a joke. even if you went to private school, rode through the woods on a bicycle you made your damn self and killed/grew all of your own food the people you work with who make your income possible use the public infrastructure, public safety and public health. you are NOTHING without society and if you want to see how fast your little fantasy evaporates take it to a country where the government really doesnt do anything, including taking your money. I hear Etheopia is nice. Somalia, too. whoever taught you about government and/or history failed miserably to instill in you an appreciation for the social contract and what it means to be a good citizen. you speak of theft? someone seems to have robbed you of your common sense. Social contract? Ok, so if I have to hold up my end of this contract why doesn't the government have to hold up its end? It comes down to who has the power and as it stands the government has the power. If I take someones money, I go to jail. Yet the government takes my money unwillingly ever tax year, and so what? The government was never created by the people for the people to intrude on our lives and force us into doing things we do not want to do(giving away my own money). I don't disregard the social contract, I don't steal from people and I don't use violence against people, but it is quite hypocritical that government abuses the powers that we have given them and people like you try to contort the view that keeping what is rightfully ours into a negative thing like shortsightedness, selfishness and ingratitude. The government ends up representing the majority. The VAST majority are for the system we have in place. You are an EXTREME minority (thank god for that). You either take part in what the majority of society wants it to be like, or get out. A country ruled by private enterprise, one where the dollar is the most important thing in any and all situations, and self preservation, without a sense of unity is prominant, is not my type of country. Almost everyone in Canada would agree with that stance. You dont like it, get out. Period. The government isnt stealing your money. You are free to pick up and leave if you dont like the lifestyle this country provides you. Im just letting you know, it will be almost impossible to find somewhere your selfish naive ideals are the standard, that has a higher quality of life. Actually this is exactly why we have the constitution, to avoid tyranny by majority. Maybe it's people who want mob rule should get out. the "selfish naive" ideas were the standards of the founders of our country, and pretty much all of them were actually great humanitarians, and had uni-vocal support from the general population, it's just that they also had the common sense to realize that a body that has a monopoly on force (the government) needs to have very strict restrictions on how it can use this force within the law REGARDLESS of how many people support it.
Great humanitarians who owned slaves, believed the definition of "person" that is used in the constitution only included white males that owned property, etc... The constitution is an old document. It is a much more complex world, and the problems and issues we have now couldnt have even been predicted at the time it was written. Its time to get with the times, and go for changes that make sense in a modern landscape.
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On February 04 2012 05:47 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 05:35 Kiarip wrote:On February 03 2012 10:37 aksfjh wrote:
With the exception of housing, which is widely under debate at this moment, the programs you list do things cheaper than the private sector. Education tuitions rose because state budgets have refused to increase funding based on demand for nearly a decade. Military costs went through the roof because we turned to the private sector to help fight the war, instead of sticking to tradition and conscripting. My argument is that when private sector is forced to the compete with the government the prices go up disproportionately to the quality. So all my examples basically on point. I'm talking about costs both private and public. Government drove up the price of education with easy credit, housing with easy credit, medicine with guarantees and subsidies, and military with contracts. These types of economies don't work, you either need to have the whole thing nationalized or privatized without government incentives, and when you're dealing with a situation of individual customers private sector tends to be better, while for something like the military, you obviously want that fully nationalized, but the point is that when you have the two compete you get basically the worst possible situation. I might agree with you on this partially. But I would add that private sector tends to do better only if the customer has at least some ability to actually judge the service at least somewhat objectively. Healthcare is one of those where that is not true and consequences of error are often fatal. Education also but for somewhat different reasons.
The first part is definitely true. However you underestimate the effiency of the free market. When its difficult for the consumer to understand how the industry works, they have a need. The market can satisfy that need, and new companies will (probably) specialize in explaining how the health care industry works, and how they minizimze their costs in relation to their needs.
However when government is in involved in the market, consumers tend to feel "safe". Like believing that government will fix their problems, and hence their isn't a strong enough demand for private companies to deliever a product that makes it easy to judge the services of the health care sector.
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On February 04 2012 06:41 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 06:16 kwizach wrote:On February 04 2012 06:00 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 05:51 kwizach wrote:On February 04 2012 05:48 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 05:46 kwizach wrote:On February 04 2012 05:40 Kiarip wrote:On February 03 2012 15:04 red_b wrote:On February 03 2012 14:34 Rabbet wrote:
But what I am arguing against is the theft of my hard earned dollars, through taxation, to support a mandate that government has no business being in(healthcare).
such short sightedness, such selfishness, such ingratitude. your "hard earned dollars"? what a joke. even if you went to private school, rode through the woods on a bicycle you made your damn self and killed/grew all of your own food the people you work with who make your income possible use the public infrastructure, public safety and public health. you are NOTHING without society and if you want to see how fast your little fantasy evaporates take it to a country where the government really doesnt do anything, including taking your money. I hear Etheopia is nice. Somalia, too. whoever taught you about government and/or history failed miserably to instill in you an appreciation for the social contract and what it means to be a good citizen. you speak of theft? someone seems to have robbed you of your common sense. That's a ton of trash. The money that he pays that goes to public health-care does absolutely nothing for his ability to participate in the marketplace and make hard-earned money that he's got. Just because some people want a free-hand out and don't understand how prices work when government starts pouring on the money doesn't mean that the government all of a sudden has the power to ignore the constitution. Actually, his post is factual. You, on the other hand, consistently base your posts on ideology rather than reality, as red_b himself showed in your exchange on healthcare. By the way, Kiarip, since you never replied to my last post in our previous exchange, I take that as an acknowledgment from your part that your initial statement, which I rebutted, was indeed wrong. I replied to it. The "right to health-care" as you defined it wasn't a right, if you would have used quotations you could have avoided the misunderstanding which resulted in you arguing semantics, but yeah you're right in the fact that we're done with that now, because like I stated, I have no interest in arguing about semantics with you. No, you did not reply to it, and that's not what we were arguing about: we were arguing about your assertion that the rights of healthcare providers would be violated, while YOU were trying to derail the discussion into a debate about semantics and what constitutes a right. Nice to see you're still trying to avoid having to defend your claim! I said that a right to healthcare would violate the rights of the health-care providers. However, since there's no actual right to healthcare anywhere right now I can't give you an example of the rights of health-care providers being violated, because there's no such right. I can only give you an example of the risks and expenses being socialized amongst the general population as a result of the government trying to deliver on their promise of this privilege. Erm, at no point in our discussion did I ask for an example of the rights of healthcare providers being violated today. Did you originally stop replying to me because you couldn't rewrite our discussion when it was still going on? In my last posts I defined very precisely what kind of right to healthcare the people you replied to were referring to, and I explained why it would not violate the rights of the healthcare providers. I consistently refused to let you derail the discussion into a debate about what constitutes a right or about taxation. You then stopped replying. and once you finally described what you were talking I agreed that this doesn't infringe on rights of health-care providers, because what you were describing wasn't a right, but a government guaranteed privilege.
It had been defined in the original posts you decided to reply to as well.
It was a right. See? You're trying to argue semantics again. You seem to forget that I quoted the Merriam-Webster entry for "right", which supported my (and the other poster's) position and invalidated your claim that it would not qualify as a "right". That's probably one of the reasons you stopped replying - you couldn't even argue semantics anymore.
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On February 04 2012 06:49 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 06:41 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 06:16 kwizach wrote:On February 04 2012 06:00 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 05:51 kwizach wrote:On February 04 2012 05:48 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 05:46 kwizach wrote:On February 04 2012 05:40 Kiarip wrote:On February 03 2012 15:04 red_b wrote:On February 03 2012 14:34 Rabbet wrote:
But what I am arguing against is the theft of my hard earned dollars, through taxation, to support a mandate that government has no business being in(healthcare).
such short sightedness, such selfishness, such ingratitude. your "hard earned dollars"? what a joke. even if you went to private school, rode through the woods on a bicycle you made your damn self and killed/grew all of your own food the people you work with who make your income possible use the public infrastructure, public safety and public health. you are NOTHING without society and if you want to see how fast your little fantasy evaporates take it to a country where the government really doesnt do anything, including taking your money. I hear Etheopia is nice. Somalia, too. whoever taught you about government and/or history failed miserably to instill in you an appreciation for the social contract and what it means to be a good citizen. you speak of theft? someone seems to have robbed you of your common sense. That's a ton of trash. The money that he pays that goes to public health-care does absolutely nothing for his ability to participate in the marketplace and make hard-earned money that he's got. Just because some people want a free-hand out and don't understand how prices work when government starts pouring on the money doesn't mean that the government all of a sudden has the power to ignore the constitution. Actually, his post is factual. You, on the other hand, consistently base your posts on ideology rather than reality, as red_b himself showed in your exchange on healthcare. By the way, Kiarip, since you never replied to my last post in our previous exchange, I take that as an acknowledgment from your part that your initial statement, which I rebutted, was indeed wrong. I replied to it. The "right to health-care" as you defined it wasn't a right, if you would have used quotations you could have avoided the misunderstanding which resulted in you arguing semantics, but yeah you're right in the fact that we're done with that now, because like I stated, I have no interest in arguing about semantics with you. No, you did not reply to it, and that's not what we were arguing about: we were arguing about your assertion that the rights of healthcare providers would be violated, while YOU were trying to derail the discussion into a debate about semantics and what constitutes a right. Nice to see you're still trying to avoid having to defend your claim! I said that a right to healthcare would violate the rights of the health-care providers. However, since there's no actual right to healthcare anywhere right now I can't give you an example of the rights of health-care providers being violated, because there's no such right. I can only give you an example of the risks and expenses being socialized amongst the general population as a result of the government trying to deliver on their promise of this privilege. Erm, at no point in our discussion did I ask for an example of the rights of healthcare providers being violated today. Did you originally stop replying to me because you couldn't rewrite our discussion when it was still going on? In my last posts I defined very precisely what kind of right to healthcare the people you replied to were referring to, and I explained why it would not violate the rights of the healthcare providers. I consistently refused to let you derail the discussion into a debate about what constitutes a right or about taxation. You then stopped replying. and once you finally described what you were talking I agreed that this doesn't infringe on rights of health-care providers, because what you were describing wasn't a right, but a government guaranteed privilege. It had been defined in the original posts you decided to reply to as well. It was a right. See? You're trying to argue semantics again. You seem to forget that I quoted the Merriam-Webster entry for "right", which supported my (and the other poster's) position and invalidated your claim that it would not qualify as a "right". That's probably one of the reasons you stopped replying - you couldn't even argue semantics anymore.
Well I dunno some of the definitions are this
the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled
&
something that one may properly claim as due
and this doesn't quite sound like what socialized medicine actually is.
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On February 04 2012 06:22 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 06:09 mcc wrote:On February 04 2012 05:46 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 05:39 mcc wrote:On February 04 2012 05:21 Kiarip wrote:On February 03 2012 18:20 Focuspants wrote:On February 03 2012 15:33 Rabbet wrote:On February 03 2012 15:04 red_b wrote:On February 03 2012 14:34 Rabbet wrote:
But what I am arguing against is the theft of my hard earned dollars, through taxation, to support a mandate that government has no business being in(healthcare).
such short sightedness, such selfishness, such ingratitude. your "hard earned dollars"? what a joke. even if you went to private school, rode through the woods on a bicycle you made your damn self and killed/grew all of your own food the people you work with who make your income possible use the public infrastructure, public safety and public health. you are NOTHING without society and if you want to see how fast your little fantasy evaporates take it to a country where the government really doesnt do anything, including taking your money. I hear Etheopia is nice. Somalia, too. whoever taught you about government and/or history failed miserably to instill in you an appreciation for the social contract and what it means to be a good citizen. you speak of theft? someone seems to have robbed you of your common sense. Social contract? Ok, so if I have to hold up my end of this contract why doesn't the government have to hold up its end? It comes down to who has the power and as it stands the government has the power. If I take someones money, I go to jail. Yet the government takes my money unwillingly ever tax year, and so what? The government was never created by the people for the people to intrude on our lives and force us into doing things we do not want to do(giving away my own money). I don't disregard the social contract, I don't steal from people and I don't use violence against people, but it is quite hypocritical that government abuses the powers that we have given them and people like you try to contort the view that keeping what is rightfully ours into a negative thing like shortsightedness, selfishness and ingratitude. The government ends up representing the majority. The VAST majority are for the system we have in place. You are an EXTREME minority (thank god for that). You either take part in what the majority of society wants it to be like, or get out. A country ruled by private enterprise, one where the dollar is the most important thing in any and all situations, and self preservation, without a sense of unity is prominant, is not my type of country. Almost everyone in Canada would agree with that stance. You dont like it, get out. Period. The government isnt stealing your money. You are free to pick up and leave if you dont like the lifestyle this country provides you. Im just letting you know, it will be almost impossible to find somewhere your selfish naive ideals are the standard, that has a higher quality of life. Actually this is exactly why we have the constitution, to avoid tyranny by majority. Maybe it's people who want mob rule should get out. the "selfish naive" ideas were the standards of the founders of our country, and pretty much all of them were actually great humanitarians, and had uni-vocal support from the general population, it's just that they also had the common sense to realize that a body that has a monopoly on force (the government) needs to have very strict restrictions on how it can use this force within the law REGARDLESS of how many people support it. No constitution will prevent tyranny of determined majority. There is no societal order that would prevent it. You can only try to minimize the chance of that happening. You're arguing a strawman, I'm saying the constitution limits the legal power of the government. Of course in an absolute sense anyone can do whatever the hell they want, but we're talking about the power that the Government is supposed to have according to the document that establishes its existence. if that was you point, then it was completely not related to what he meant. I think it's related. He's talking about one's obligation to pay the high taxes. My obligation to pay the taxes should be similar to the government's obligation to follow the constitution. So he's saying I should leave the country if I don't want to pay taxes, I'm not planning on leaving the country, but on the other hand if he wants to use the logic of "it's the rule so you should do it," I can apply the same to the government, and if THEY followed the rules then a lot of these taxes wouldn't exist in the first place.
Note that first half of his response has nothing to do with taxes, but with the point that majority (through government) realizes its vision of the society and that it is a good idea that it is so. You for some reason hijacked it into unrelated discussion about specific problems about how government wields its power.
On February 04 2012 06:22 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 05:46 Kiarip wrote:
As for your founders, they were progressive for their time, today they would be called immoral or misguided in many aspects. They also did not have uni-vocal support from the population. Far from it.
George Washington won the re-election with 100% Electoral College vote, and basically 100% popular vote. Progressive for their time? I guess if you use a the dictionary definition of progressive, and not the political one. They would only called immoral and mis-guided by the people in the actual government because the current government is basically a police state in comparison to the functional government we've used to have, and of course it doesn't want to give up all this power. Oh, one of them got elected with 100 electoral votes of his fellow high class countrymen in election where 0.5% of the population voted. Color me impressed. Not even whole population was for independence for f's sake. Well yeah, there were a lot of voting restrictions back then, but it doesn't change that he was insanely popular amongst the people. But to say that the founding fathers are immoral or misguided in their politcal views, when they basically established all the indvidual freedoms that allowed America to succeed afterwards is very much off-base.
Being popular amongst the wealthy population is not uni-vocal support. And I am not disputing that he was probably popular also among other demographics but far from uni-vocal. Not even mentioning that you made much stronger claim about all the Founding Fathers having uni-vocal support. As for the being immoral and misguided and establishing some freedoms, those are not exclusive.
On February 04 2012 06:22 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +
Anyway of course I am using dictionary definition, I am not an American to use it as an insult when it is a positive word.
I don't think that saying someone is a progressive politically is an insult, I just don't think it would at all describe the early American political stances. Show nested quote +
From current point of view slavery and women not having voting rights are quite immoral. They were misguided, because of the fear of tyranny they made the political system so extremely ineffective. I do not know if they also came up with majority voting system, but that was also rather bad decision.
Well they were still men of their time, slavery was widespread everywhere and socially accepted. Do you prefer minority voting system? or unanimous voting system? Or having a king/emperor? How do you get around voting in general?
Actually progressives (in current US political sense) would describe them in the context of their time quite well. Slavery being socially accepted does not mean it is not immoral. I said from our point of view they would be immoral. I am not judging them too hard (although slavery is such a clear case even at that point in time that it is hard not too judge them quite a bit). I know they were men of their time and that is my point, they were men of their time limited by that. Their ideas were slightly ahead of time (if at all), but today a lot of their ideas are misguided. And we should judge that legacy by our current situation and throw away that which is bad and do not fear throw it away altogether if we find it prudent.
By majority voting system I mean that you divide the country into a lot of small areas and then discard the votes of even 49% of population in worst case scenario as only the winner gets to represent the voters. Of course such system is necessary for singular positions like president as you cannot have 0.4 Romney and 0.6 Obama as president  . But for Senate/Parliament/Congress proportional system is better (or at least more fair). Basically if party A gets 30% of total votes they get 30% of seats and so on. In reality you still want to divide the country into areas, but the basic principle stands.
On February 04 2012 06:22 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +
Does that mean they did not achieve a rather great thing, no, it just means they were no shining beacons of morality or eternal geniuses that need to be worshiped for 300 years.
Well I agree and disagree, I think the concept of personal/individual freedom is a rather timeless virtue for the human race, not to say that the idea has always existed, but meaning that this concept argues for the defense of people's right to try and be happy within very reasonable borders.
So, it is not like they were the first or that we should not move on to some better implementation.
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On February 04 2012 06:58 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 06:49 kwizach wrote:On February 04 2012 06:41 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 06:16 kwizach wrote:On February 04 2012 06:00 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 05:51 kwizach wrote:On February 04 2012 05:48 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 05:46 kwizach wrote:On February 04 2012 05:40 Kiarip wrote:On February 03 2012 15:04 red_b wrote:
[quote]
such short sightedness, such selfishness, such ingratitude.
your "hard earned dollars"? what a joke. even if you went to private school, rode through the woods on a bicycle you made your damn self and killed/grew all of your own food the people you work with who make your income possible use the public infrastructure, public safety and public health.
you are NOTHING without society and if you want to see how fast your little fantasy evaporates take it to a country where the government really doesnt do anything, including taking your money. I hear Etheopia is nice. Somalia, too.
whoever taught you about government and/or history failed miserably to instill in you an appreciation for the social contract and what it means to be a good citizen.
you speak of theft? someone seems to have robbed you of your common sense. That's a ton of trash. The money that he pays that goes to public health-care does absolutely nothing for his ability to participate in the marketplace and make hard-earned money that he's got. Just because some people want a free-hand out and don't understand how prices work when government starts pouring on the money doesn't mean that the government all of a sudden has the power to ignore the constitution. Actually, his post is factual. You, on the other hand, consistently base your posts on ideology rather than reality, as red_b himself showed in your exchange on healthcare. By the way, Kiarip, since you never replied to my last post in our previous exchange, I take that as an acknowledgment from your part that your initial statement, which I rebutted, was indeed wrong. I replied to it. The "right to health-care" as you defined it wasn't a right, if you would have used quotations you could have avoided the misunderstanding which resulted in you arguing semantics, but yeah you're right in the fact that we're done with that now, because like I stated, I have no interest in arguing about semantics with you. No, you did not reply to it, and that's not what we were arguing about: we were arguing about your assertion that the rights of healthcare providers would be violated, while YOU were trying to derail the discussion into a debate about semantics and what constitutes a right. Nice to see you're still trying to avoid having to defend your claim! I said that a right to healthcare would violate the rights of the health-care providers. However, since there's no actual right to healthcare anywhere right now I can't give you an example of the rights of health-care providers being violated, because there's no such right. I can only give you an example of the risks and expenses being socialized amongst the general population as a result of the government trying to deliver on their promise of this privilege. Erm, at no point in our discussion did I ask for an example of the rights of healthcare providers being violated today. Did you originally stop replying to me because you couldn't rewrite our discussion when it was still going on? In my last posts I defined very precisely what kind of right to healthcare the people you replied to were referring to, and I explained why it would not violate the rights of the healthcare providers. I consistently refused to let you derail the discussion into a debate about what constitutes a right or about taxation. You then stopped replying. and once you finally described what you were talking I agreed that this doesn't infringe on rights of health-care providers, because what you were describing wasn't a right, but a government guaranteed privilege. It had been defined in the original posts you decided to reply to as well. It was a right. See? You're trying to argue semantics again. You seem to forget that I quoted the Merriam-Webster entry for "right", which supported my (and the other poster's) position and invalidated your claim that it would not qualify as a "right". That's probably one of the reasons you stopped replying - you couldn't even argue semantics anymore. Well I dunno some of the definitions are this the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled & something that one may properly claim as due and this doesn't quite sound like what socialized medicine actually is.
There you go - Kiarip uses a straw man again. The words "socialized medicine" never came out of my mouth. You tried arguing semantics when confronted with the fact that your original statement was invalid: you started to argue the "right to healthcare" we were referring could not be called a "right". The definitions featured in the Merriam-Webster dictionary proved you wrong. Don't try to switch the subject of the debate again, to "socialized medicine" or anything else.
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On February 04 2012 06:29 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 06:27 mcc wrote:On February 04 2012 06:04 Kiarip wrote:On February 04 2012 05:49 mcc wrote:On February 04 2012 05:40 Kiarip wrote:On February 03 2012 15:04 red_b wrote:On February 03 2012 14:34 Rabbet wrote:
But what I am arguing against is the theft of my hard earned dollars, through taxation, to support a mandate that government has no business being in(healthcare).
such short sightedness, such selfishness, such ingratitude. your "hard earned dollars"? what a joke. even if you went to private school, rode through the woods on a bicycle you made your damn self and killed/grew all of your own food the people you work with who make your income possible use the public infrastructure, public safety and public health. you are NOTHING without society and if you want to see how fast your little fantasy evaporates take it to a country where the government really doesnt do anything, including taking your money. I hear Etheopia is nice. Somalia, too. whoever taught you about government and/or history failed miserably to instill in you an appreciation for the social contract and what it means to be a good citizen. you speak of theft? someone seems to have robbed you of your common sense. That's a ton of trash. The money that he pays that goes to public health-care does absolutely nothing for his ability to participate in the marketplace and make hard-earned money that he's got. Just because some people want a free-hand out and don't understand how prices work when government starts pouring on the money doesn't mean that the government all of a sudden has the power to ignore the constitution. His point is I think, how would you earn anything without the society, not necessarily without the government. Without other people you would earn nothing. Well without a society money is worth nothing, and without division of labor he probably would never have all the material things that he's got, which is just another argument for the market, and capitalism, as it makes people a lot more productive. But the taxes aren't collected for the good of the society, it's actually quite the opposite, a small portion of the money collected from the people is given back out selectively to the groups from which the government thinks it can get the most votes per dollar spent. Not only is this not an optimal way to redistribute wealth, but redistribution of wealth in the first place undermines property rights, which undermines an individual's incentive to work their hardest, and yes a society in which everyone is waiting for a hand-out and slacking off will definitely collapse. Now I see the frustration others have when talking to you. Why are you creating all these red-herrings and strawmen. The objection was to the phrase "my hard earned money that are mine and I owe nothing to anyone". The point is that it is not like you could get the money without the other people and all the people that came before, so you in fact owe a society as a whole. No one is crying for the end of free market in all circumstances. I have no idea how you came to the topic of societies with people waiting for handout or whatever. ummm... no wtf? Look at the quote the quote is: "But what I am arguing against is the theft of my hard earned dollars, through taxation, to support a mandate that government has no business being in(healthcare)." So he's actually being very clear and correct with what he means, and I'm defending this statement accurately. He's not saying that the government has no business ANYWHERE, he's saying the government has no business in health-care, and the argument that "without society you won't have anything" doesn't apply here because public healthcare ISN'T one of the government-provided services which allowed him to earn his money.
The point is that he owes to society in general. What society decides to do with that money might not have directly anything to do with how he earned the money. Society might decide that since public healthcare will help people earn money once implemented and also will be cheaper and more effective alternative it will use the money he owes it to do so.
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On February 04 2012 06:19 bOneSeven wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 04:45 Hider wrote:On February 04 2012 04:32 GoTuNk! wrote:On February 04 2012 04:30 Hider wrote:On February 04 2012 04:25 GoTuNk! wrote:On February 04 2012 04:12 Hider wrote:On February 04 2012 03:38 junemermaid wrote:On February 03 2012 21:09 Hider wrote:On February 03 2012 18:00 Stratos_speAr wrote:On February 03 2012 15:33 Rabbet wrote:
[quote]
Social contract? Ok, so if I have to hold up my end of this contract why doesn't the government have to hold up its end? It comes down to who has the power and as it stands the government has the power. If I take someones money, I go to jail. Yet the government takes my money unwillingly ever tax year, and so what? The government was never created by the people for the people to intrude on our lives and force us into doing things we do not want to do(giving away my own money). I don't disregard the social contract, I don't steal from people and I don't use violence against people, but it is quite hypocritical that government abuses the powers that we have given them and people like you try to contort the view that keeping what is rightfully ours into a negative thing like shortsightedness, selfishness and ingratitude. Taxes are not theft. They are your dues for enjoying the benefits of society. If you don't like it, move. That's how a social contract works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_HoodRobin hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Whether there are benefits to this, and whether this creates a better world is another discussion. Nevertheless taxes are theft. You could however argue that its a nessacary theft for the greater good. The ability to earn money is predicated on the government establishing a stable society. Without that, you cannot earn a single dime. Taxes are part of that operating cost, not theft. But even if you needed a little govenrment to secure property rights, then the taxes would still be theft. But of course the theft would be nessarcary in this scenario to secure individual rights. The libertarian principle is that government's job is to protect people's liberty, freedom and property from others. That has a cost, however many countries (such as mine) can afford this easily by taxing the usage of common property, aka natural resources explotation by private enterprises. That said, while I agree that this job is necessary and taxes should be collected FOR THIS PURPOSE in case its needed, just because it works, I'm not sure what's the moral principle that allows it other than "it works", and that makes it different from other taxes to increase government expenditure even further, which I do consider theft. Well the minimalistic state approach vs anarchy(capitalistic) debate is an endless discussion. In anarchy your rights doesn't get guaranteed (you have to pay for them). But there is no "legalized" theft. Anyway from a pragmatic approach I favor the anarchy, as I am not sure whether the minimalistic approach can work long term (government tends to expand unfortunately). Maybe a non democracy/non dictatorship minimalistic approach could work. Don't really know. I think government needs to keep force monopoly. Any political science study done in the last 30 years will tell you when this doesn't happen, there will always be a bully with guns and not the free market required for wealth creation. The bully can come from somewhere else aswell. I don't think your right, but I haven't read enough about this subject to have a serious debate. But my last point is that there hasn't really been anarcho-capitalism in the last 30 years. We don't have any example in recorded history of a society where there was no governing body...
Somalia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Somalia_(1991–2006)
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On February 04 2012 06:46 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2012 05:47 mcc wrote:On February 04 2012 05:35 Kiarip wrote:On February 03 2012 10:37 aksfjh wrote:
With the exception of housing, which is widely under debate at this moment, the programs you list do things cheaper than the private sector. Education tuitions rose because state budgets have refused to increase funding based on demand for nearly a decade. Military costs went through the roof because we turned to the private sector to help fight the war, instead of sticking to tradition and conscripting. My argument is that when private sector is forced to the compete with the government the prices go up disproportionately to the quality. So all my examples basically on point. I'm talking about costs both private and public. Government drove up the price of education with easy credit, housing with easy credit, medicine with guarantees and subsidies, and military with contracts. These types of economies don't work, you either need to have the whole thing nationalized or privatized without government incentives, and when you're dealing with a situation of individual customers private sector tends to be better, while for something like the military, you obviously want that fully nationalized, but the point is that when you have the two compete you get basically the worst possible situation. I might agree with you on this partially. But I would add that private sector tends to do better only if the customer has at least some ability to actually judge the service at least somewhat objectively. Healthcare is one of those where that is not true and consequences of error are often fatal. Education also but for somewhat different reasons. The first part is definitely true. However you underestimate the effiency of the free market. When its difficult for the consumer to understand how the industry works, they have a need. The market can satisfy that need, and new companies will (probably) specialize in explaining how the health care industry works, and how they minizimze their costs in relation to their needs. However when government is in involved in the market, consumers tend to feel "safe". Like believing that government will fix their problems, and hence their isn't a strong enough demand for private companies to deliever a product that makes it easy to judge the services of the health care sector.
Operation of healthcare industry is the easier part to explain. The medicine is the hard part. Those meta-companies will be as useless to the consumers as the original ones. And as all private companies in a market where consumer is not able to judge the product even after he used it, they will just be ripping everyone and most successful will be the ones with best PR department that provide least service, but make it look good. It is easily seen in the privatized parts of the healthcare sector all over the world. Of course you can take a hardcore libertarian stance, that the consumers get what they wanted, no matter if they got totally ripped off compared to the "forced choice" of public system. But if you think that displayed preference is always equal to the real preference I do not think we have any common basis to continue without getting into an even bigger tangent.
People complain all the time about healthcare system, so no, people are not complacent, but their complaints are mostly totally wrong and just highlighting my point.
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EPT
