Just about every wants-something-for-nothing airhead in the country, including most elected officeholders who know better, advocate some form of government paid health care. Costs are so high, they say, and very few can pay for the care they sooner or later will need.
What they are really saying is, "I want my medical bills sent to you."
In fact, if government was completely kept away from medicine, in compliance with the US Constitution, medical costs would be a small fraction of what they are today. Although, even if this were the case, the airheads would still want you to pay their medical bills.
MK, an Australian blogger, writes Down Under On The Right Side, a conservative blog from the Aussie perspective. He also posts on The Midnight Sun and A Western Heart. Below, he links a couple of stories from Aussie news sources on the subject of socialized medicine in Australia. They are well worth a read.
It might give an indication of our future, should the airheads prevail.
SMH - The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney is to close its women’s health ward in a move to cut costs. RPA executives on Thursday told doctors the 20-bed ward would close on November 1, while the children’s ward was also at risk of being shut, Fairfax reported on Friday. The move could see patients recovering from gynaecological surgery in mixed-sex rooms, while children who need emergency admissions could be forced to go to Randwick or Westmead if that ward is closed down. The move is designed to cut $8 million from the hospital’s budget, after then treasurer Michael Costa revealed a $300 million blow-out in health spending last month.
Daily Telegraph - A NURSE had to borrow bandages from a veterinary clinic and a doctor forked out $1000 from his own pocket for urgent medical supplies because companies have refused to supply Dubbo Base Hospital because of unpaid bills. Surgeons at the hospital have had to use gloves which are the wrong size, while patients needing X-rays were turned away because Kodak had refused to supply vital products. The hospital has run out of handwashing liquid and garbage bags in recent months.
…… “In the past, it’s been unpaid food bills, unpaid transport bills, now it’s effecting patient safety and that’s of extraordinary concern.” …… Dubbo MP Dawn Fardell said the Greater Western Area Health Service - which covers 50 per cent of the state - owed $66 million. …… Steve Miller, who runs Country Fruit Distributors, was owed $20,000 but most of it had been paid by early this week. “The Government expects us to pay our taxes on time and yet they don’t pay their bills on time,” he said.
Obama will tell you it’s be wonderful, healthcare for all, social justice and what not, but ultimately, these few examples of many are what you’ll end up with. Not only will your taxes have to be paid on time, they’ll have to keep going up and up to keep up with the rising demands of the public who insist that it’s all free. You already have socialized medicine in your emergency rooms and it’s a roaring success isn’t it. Imagine what it’ll be like when it’s full on socialized medicine, and you’ll get just that in Obama.
The text printed in red is MK's commentary.
This could happen to you!
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
86 comments:
Thanks for the link back C.H.
Read is and remember it folks, also remember that once you go down the road of socialized medicine, you'll never turn back, no matter how bad it gets. As it is you folks are paying for the care of illegals and what not and your waiting times are getting longer, and what do the politicians propose? That's right, more of the same socialized medicine that got you in this mess in the first place.
Out here it's not as bad as the U.K. but in neither country is there any support for turning back and privatizing it, we just want more state intervention and for them to fix it no matter how many times they've screwed it up and no matter how much money they've burned through.
Because of the economic downturn, in the near future, you'll start to hear more and more stories about rationing and poor quality as tax dollars start to dry up and our respective populations age.
If they bring in socialized medicine in America, it'll be the start of a long, downward spiral. Be very worried.
Folks who for years were proud to stand on their own two feet have been caught in the trap of something for nothing, or let the younger generation pay for it because "we've earned our right to sit back and collect". When confronted with the idea of becoming free loaders, the "greatest generation" gets indignant because they have bought into the idea that someone else should pay for the golden years. Dangerous territory for a free people to enter.
MK,
Thanks again for pointing out some important real world facts about health care down under. I've read that you can go with a private physician, but how easy is it when you already pay the heavy taxation that supports your government's failing system?
I'll hope news reports of this kind circulate through the world's media so that this hideous trend can be reversed.
TF,
Yeah, and the Boomers, aka ex-hippies, are even worse!
No problem C.H. Yeah we have both private and public health. Only thing is your taxes still have to contribute to the public system, no matter if you have full private care. And the current government (socialist off course) wants more people out of the private system and into public health. They are more like the UK system where they hate a two-tiered system.
Over there i've even heard of people who are refused life-saving drugs by the public system and when they decide to pay for it themselves, the government turns around and denies them further care in the public system. Effectively telling them to just die off or else.
Luckily I'm pretty healthy and for the little things, I fix them myself. When I do go to a doctor, I go to one I have to pay extra for...most of the ones in the Medical Centers are useless. The maddening thing is that I'm paying for the visits to the Medical Centers out of my taxes anyway. It's just that nobody bothers to manage all my hard earned tax dollars cuz well, hey, they didn't have to earn them themselves and those dollars just keep rolling in just like in the good ole U.S.S.R.
Listening to the radio this am I heard this fellow asking "why, since I am a healthy American with few medical problems, should I have to pay for a liver transplant for someone that has had a questionable lifestyle for years"?
My first thought was, of course, because you have money and the other person doesn't. Or doesn't want to spend his own.
My second thought was, you will have to be somebody that is of the correct mindset, lean the right direction, be a major league ballplayer or some such. The transplant will not be available for the commoners.
Such as it goes for all major medical. Yup, you'll get your splinter pulled for free, but fall on your head and need an operation...you are SOL.
Even if every person was equally healthy or ill, the concept of a vast reservoir of funds coming into government employed managers who can't use those funds efficiently to save their lives is abhorrent. Things never run well under socialized management.
Aurora,
When I was a youngster, and when there was very little government involvement in medicine, My dad had major med insurance from his work. That's all. Routine illnesses and injuries meant doctor bills. Or, as you suggest, Mom took care of us.
When we had to go to a doctor, he sent a bill, and Dad paid it. The bills seemed high (Dad said), but he was able to pay them.
Government interference makes med bills so high that most can't pay them without insurance, even for routine office calls.
But, unlike under socialized medicine, we still get the care.
Steve,
This is the kind of stuff that happens because of government interference. Get the government out, and costs just might go down to the point that the average guy with the average health insurance might actually be able to get a transplant of that kind--and it'll be less likely the elite will have such a big edge.
Aurora,
They can't. when government interferes with the market, the distortions are like ripples in a pond--they travel from one end to the other.
Free markets are self-deprecating economic mechanisms. Markets can start out free, but can never remain free. Completely unregulated markets inevitably result in greater and greater capital concentration, which then ends up dominating and regulating the market. Effectively, a privatized government (isn't that what we are seeing in America?). Your choices are two, and only two: regulate the market in social interest, or have it regulated automatically in VERY LIMITED private interest -- aka free market.
You can completely de-regulate the medical industry, that will only eventually lead to a medical mono-corp. A private bureaucracy which would fix prices, engage in sub-optimal practices, provide poor service, muscle startups out, and generally extort and hold the consumer hostage by its monopolistic might. We would have no choice but to submit to this medical emperor, since basic medical goods and services are not elective, they are a necessity.
If you really want to objectively demonstrate how socialized health care doesn't work, you might want to go beyond mere individual anecdotal instances of failure. A little acorn thud on the noggin does not mean the sky is falling. For each of the alleged horrors of socialized medicine you cite, I could cite a story demostrating dysfunctionality in private medicine. Neither amounts to much as evidence. For useful, convincing evidence, you'd want to show the average condition of the population at large in a socialized medical environment, as compared to a privatized one. Then you'd be comparing apples to apples, instead apple pies to kangaroos.
Well, Como se Llama, I could begin with my favorite anecdote about Canadian socialized medicine, which is arguably nearer collapse than that of Australia.
When you get sick, you go to the clinic and get in line. The only way to move up in the queue happens as those in front of you die off.
It's damn hard to discuss capitalism rationally with one who seems to use undefined terms, used in a way very different from their actual definitions. For example, a government is an agency, presumably with a popular mandate, which has a monopoly on the right to initiate force. If anyone else within the society initiates force, he becomes a criminal.
Businesses do not initiate force against the public. They depend 'pon creating good will and good quality and/or low priced products and services to attract buyers.
Having very little time to go into a lengthy economics lesson (with a minor in philosophy) with you, your homework is to study the above and see if you can put it together with what you already know and can observe, to find some of the errors in your economic thinking.
I'd also recommend Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt and just about anything by Ludwig von Mises.
Typical. Can't handle it, so instead be dismissive and condescending. Judging by comments from your other readers above, you are clearly preaching to the choir, so you'll get away with it too. This is exactly why democracy is such a sham. With voters like these who needs dictators. Sheesh!
njmalhq speculates:
"Completely unregulated markets inevitably result in greater and greater capital concentration, which then ends up dominating and regulating the market."
Give an example where that has happened in a completely unregulated market. At least the anecdotes have some reality behind them. Your marxist theory (just so you understand, this isn't ad hominem, it's just the proper term to match your definition, and is rather non-condescending considering your "acorn analogy") has never been proven to be the case. One of the closest monopolies we had in the US was Alcoa and it exhibited none of the 'behavior' that you project. All of the so called 'natural monopolies' (no such thing) that have existed - the utility companies - were set up by the state or (with cable eg.) by local governments and with more than enough regulations not to fit your 'free market' description.
The idea that an unregulated business that might approach monopolistic status would price itself out of business is simply marxist fantasy. As is the idea that a gov't can "regulate the market in social interest," with "social interest" becoming one of the philosophical (or definitional) problems to which the Col. may have been referring. And if you want to define 'social interest' I think I can 'handle it'.
And, oh yeah, you can't conflate 'democracy' (a political system) with the free market (an economic system). IOW, don't change the subject, when you run out of ideas.
Kent C
Kent,
Thanks for the input. While I think I can argue these issues fairly well in rational terms, I not only feel a mite inadequate to dissect the fuzzy thinking and ill-defined terminology of irrationalists. That, and as I get older, I realize that life's too short.
Your citing of the Alcoa "monopoly" is probably the one I'd have chosen, had I decided to engage.
The idea that all of the hospitals, clinics, medical associations and small town doctors would, outside the confines of government regulation, conspire to increase their prices beyond the reach of the vast majority of their clientele is worse than ludicrous. It's malevolent, not to mention just wrong.
Como se Llama,
The writings of free market economists will give you the insight that can answer your arguments, such as they are.
I'm not being condescending, rather I'm confessing my own inadequacy to discuss the beer-soaked arguments of disgruntled union members during the commercial breaks of a foopbaw game.
kent c said:
"Give an example of where that has happened ... "
eBay. It now has a natural monopoly (new startups can't get started, because they don't get sellers on account of lack of buyers, and they don't get buyers on account of lack of sellers. Even yahoo couldn't defeat that catch-22. Google didn't even bother trying) on net. auction market. As their absolute dominance of the auction service market has emerged, they've been taking bigger and bigger chunk of their customer's pie simply because they have nowhere else to go.
col. hogan said:
"The idea that all of the hospitals, clinics, medical associations and small town doctors would, ... conspire to increase their prices ... is ... ludicrous."
I think you should re-read the original argument. Monopolization isn't the same as cartelization. Although the latter would be a problem too, but that is a more complicated topic for another day.
How about we allow some reality to impinge upon fantasy? Some stats:
USA:
http://www.nationmaster.com/red/country/ca-canada/hea-health&all=1
Australia:
http://www.nationmaster.com/red/country/as-australia/hea-health&all=1
Canada:
http://www.nationmaster.com/red/country/ca-canada/hea-health&all=1
Feel free to make these numbers work out for you. I am sure you'll figure out a way. To me it is clear that my chances, and especially my kid's chances, are way better in two of the countries above. Unfortunately it ain't the one I live in.
(Infant Mortality specifically:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_inf_mor_rat_tot-health-infant-mortality-rate-total)
anon cites ebay.
There's quite a few auctions online:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=auctions+online&aq=4&oq=auctions
I'm not familiar with the actual numbers in your statement about how ebay has increased fees but I'll take your word for it. Pertinent would be how those increases compare to the market as a whole. And I see some are attemtpting to do something about it:
http://www.petitiononline.com/ebayfee/
And they list, correctly, imo, the effects that the increases would have on ebay - typical market activity, which tends to correct without intervention. Again, ebay will not price themselves out of the market.
Ebay _is_ the market vs. any specialized product or service, and people still are voluntarily trading. I'll acknowledge that they are the ultra dominant company in (almost) all generalized products and services auctions, although there are numerous specialized auction sites (guns, wine, and other specialties banned or not by ebay). And unlike, say the 'Alcoa monopoly' that didn't actually 'act' in the manner that socialists think a monopoly acts, where it was almost the only place where one could buy aluminum, there are 'alternate sources' to gain goods or services offered by ebay - ie the _whole rest_ of the market :-)
Now, how about addressing your point in your initial false dichotomy:
"Your choices are two, and only two: regulate the market in social interest, or have it regulated automatically in VERY LIMITED private interest -- aka free market."
Toward what 'social interest' are you talking about (and why is that 'important') and how does regulation achieve it?
Kent C
Col. said:
"Thanks for the input. While I think I can argue these issues fairly well in rational terms...."
I know you can ;-) The 'can handle it' was directed at anon not you.
And, yeah, this is probably a useless endeavor.
To kent c:
Your google search is irrelevant. Just because someone can set up a site doesn't mean that it works. Reason already stated.
Thank you for bringing up the eBay sellers petition. It is almost 4 years old (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.petitiononline.com/ebayfee/). 31569 signatures later, the trend has not changed. Clearly all those reasons stated in the petition matter zilch to eBay.
Don't bother bringing up Alcoa. Just because one company didn't abuse the market when it could doesn't mean NO ONE will (assuming that their alleged innocence isn't just corporate PR or libertarian propaganda). eBay isn't the only counter example to Alcoa. Microsoft. Powell's Bookstore. Walmart. The list goes on and on.
Social Interest? One example: Every child should have maximal access to life saving services that a society can muster. Even though children can't pay for these services (parents paying for it is also just socialism on a smaller scale). Why is that important? Oh, I dunno ... something about being human, and caring for and looking after each other. How does regulation achieve it? Depends on the regulation. For example a society could mandate that a hospital simply can not deny a child access to health care. Should be clear how that works.
I like the way the Col. repeatedly dodges the issues by alluding that economic theory has his back. However, he never actually explains this excusing himself with "life's too short."
The reality is that economic theory does not back him up on the health care market. A simple minded view of the health care industry is that markets self regulate as a result of the self interest of individuals. This is a cookie cutter perspective resulting from an oversimplified economics 101 course. Further study and thought towards applying economic principles to the health care market will unavoidably uncover a whole host of very troubling incentive issues leading to more market failures than exists in any other industry.
It's not about doctors and hospitals conspiring, it's about the divergent self interests of all the actors in the market (e.g., doctors, insurance companies, patients) that leads to over bloated costs and unnecessary waste. One example: Doctors want to over-provide to stave off lawsuits. Insurance companies want doctors to minimally provide to stave off costs. As a result, US doctors now spend a great deal of their time justifying care and insurance company's hire armies of people to deny responsibility for the cost of "unnecessary care." Just this incentive divergence alone has lead to overhead costs being a greater percentage of overall health care costs in the US compared to any other industrialized nation. Shouldn't the health system be spending money of peoples health needs rather than paperwork? For other examples of market failures relevant to the health industry, I suggest a reading on the following: moral hazard, adverse selection, imperfect information, externalities and barriers to entry.
The painfully obvious and unmentioned fact in this whole conversation is that the US health industry is not serving the needs of US citizens. Costs, health data and the sheer number of the uninsured conclude this and the picture looks worse by the quarter.
anon bleets:
" Why is that important? Oh, I dunno (cough, cough- I know you guys) ... something about being human, and caring for and looking after each other."
I'm all for caring for and looking after people that _I_ choose to, not those that _you_ choose me to care for. YOU care for those.
As usual you're side always wants to use violence and force, under the guise of 'caring', to achieve your ends. That's the difference here. We advocate voluntary actions and consider the use of force a crime against individuals. And _that_ has to do with the nature of being a rational and volitional human being.
When you continue to advocate force and violence, we have nothing else to talk about. I don't associate with criminals - and again that's not ad hominem, that's definitional.
Read the books the good Colonel suggested. That's your only hope.
susang wrongly suggests:
"The reality is that economic theory does not back him up on the health care market."
It's one of the most regulated businesses in the US and no conclusions - none - about a 'free market' can be made about it.
Kent,
"Thanks for the input. While I think I can argue these issues fairly well in rational terms...."
I know you can ;-) The 'can handle it' was directed at anon not you.
That's the way I took it.
Philosophical relativists are always willing to ignore facts, to assume rights that don't exist and to advocate the enslavement of others to take care of their own precious nalgas.
Every time I run into these looters I think of the reason Dr Hendricks closed his medical practice and retired. I've known (and been treated by) four or five doctors who retired very early because, as one told me, "the paperwork takes up too much of my time." This in spite of his being part of an association with a (largely unnecessary, except for the government regulations) six-person office clerical staff.
Now, these louts want you and me to pay the whole of their medical bills!
Col.,
My doctor/pcp quit too. Wrote a long letter to Congress about the regulations and limitations. He became an electrician!
Kent C
Susan,
"Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it." Or something like that.
As Kent says, you're speaking in terms of a period after government began weaving its evil tentacles into the medical industry.
I grew up in a period in which the only medical insurance was "major medical" which covered, with a fairly high deductible, major medical problems only.
Government had very little to do with this, beyond encouraging it, and doctors were mostly free to conduct their practices as they saw fit within the rules of their profession.
The patient was assumed responsible for his bills, and after the insurance did its bit, the patient remained responsible for the rest. Patients were responsible for routine office visits and minor treatments that didn't rise to the level of triggering a claim to the insurance.
It wasn't easy, as my dad told me, but we lived with it, and it was doable. Mom treated us most of the time for minor childhood illnesses.
The cost of an ordinary office visit was about $5, which would equate to about $50 or $60 in today's government inflated dollars. This tells us that about half of the $100 office visit is government-caused waste.
I include the cost of the extra treatments and tests in this waste. Medical people have to protect themselves because just about any assertion can get one into court and there is little or no downside for the accuser. More rational judges used to be more careful to toss out frivolous law suits.
So, my question is, why is it that the world's looter types and irresponsible parasites insist that they can require the productive to pay their bills? What do you think you're going to get in the clinic and hospital after the whole of the medical profession is enslaved?
Kent,
That reminds me of a young woman in her late twenties, who had been a staff GP for a fairly large northeastern medical association. She had the big house, the nice car and all the stuff, but was working 12 to 16 hours a day, not all of it seeing patients.
She quit, sold all her stuff, moved to Georgia and got a job as a waitress.
She was fairly careful of her personal info, as we all are over the internet, but she got married, did other similar jobs for about eight years, then suffered a sudden divorce.
She picked up again and moved to Colorado, at which time I lost track of her.
I certainly hope she's happier now, since she really is an impressive individual, but she's also an example of the government's destruction of the American medical industry.
(In the interest of brevity, I've left out a lot, but suffice it to say that my communications indicated that she would've remained a better than competent medic had she chosen to remain inthe field.)
kent c spews:
"Read the books the good Colonel suggested. That's your only hope."
The book that the col. suggests is a self-serving oversimplified midiocre tome written by an idiot for philosophical morons (If anyone reading this does bother to read that book, don't buy it, get it from the library [another social institution]).
You are right, you shouldn't be forced to care for people you don't want to care for. But you can only make that choice BEFORE you have obtained such benefits for yourself. If you conveniently make that choice AFTERWARDS, you are just a dishonest, selfish THIEF. A common criminal. An embezeller of social Someone who obtains goods, but doesn't like to pay for them. Letting you get away with that would be unjust. Unjust societies collapse.
I have news for you. By simply being born into a functioning society you are endowed with social obligations. These are the obligations of citizenship. You should look that term up sometime. Citizenship. Your citizenship begins at birth, because you begin to obtain communal social benefits righ away. "But my mommy is taking care of me" you whine? Your mommy could die off. Then it is the society that is stuck with footing the bill of your pathetic existence. If your potential orphan is covered, you're gonna have to cover someone else's orphan. That is social security.
Such social insurance exists in all communities. It is the age-old backbone of human social organization. In small communities statement in the form of cultural norms and customs are sufficient to ensure that everbody knows and does what is fair and equitable. In larger communities it is necessary to make things formal, otherwise people like you will take back alleys out of their obligations. A legally mandated soclaized health care system is nothin more than a formalized agreement to have each other's backs.
I have never advocated the pre-emptive (and shame on you for the calumny), offensive use of violence. However if you pick up a gun, and try to "defend" property that didn't belong to you in the first place, then yes I will raise a posse against you and give your ass a collective kick. Believe it or not, it is you who is advocating violence. Otherwise I'd just settle for confiscating an equitable portion of property that you falsely claim as yours, and banish you.
What property am I talking about? Here in particular, taxes. That portion of your income that is to be used to cover the cost of shared amenities. Socialized health care being one of them.
Kent,
Looks like you drew out anonymous to show his true colors: a sometimes screaming, sometimes whimpering looter who wants you and me to pay his freight through his miserable life.
The difference between he and we is that he wants to be a parasite, while we'd leap at the opportunity to live in a fully free society.
He uses the fact that we were born into slavery to the state to emote that we ought to just sit back (or rather, keep producing) and accept our slavery.
He's a sad, sad, little man.
anon, in a rare moment of sanity says:
"You are right, you shouldn't be forced to care for people you don't want to care for."
So.... I'll just declare victory.
She relapses back to advocating force with the "posse" comment, and as for that, bring it on, ours is bigger (and better armed) than yours. It will eventually come to that. I just hope it happens in my lifetime.
Col.,
"He uses the fact that we were born into slavery to the state to emote that we ought to just sit back (or rather, keep producing) and accept our slavery."
Right. I had post that picked apart each point and it got lost ;-) So went with the above...
Our posse
(from some shots I took at the Nationals)
And then there was my late father. A paediatrician who worked as a socialized medicine provider in a certain country in Africa way past his retirement all the way to the end. Whatever challenges the quitters you folks are referring to faced, can not compare to the challenges faced in Africa. Maybe your friends just weren't cut out to be medical service providers. Electricians, plumbers, janitors, waiters whatever. Not doctors and nurses. Good thing they quit before they killed someone.
Col. Hogan, you shouldn't pay for my medical bills, or that of my community members. We'll just agree amongst ourselves to do that for ourselves. Unfortunately since we have a common tax system, we'll have to remove you from it. We can't have us paying for your medical bills can we? So we'll just have to kick you back to where you came from, so you can be as selfish as you want. Back to Europe with you and your selfish lot. Oh ... I forgot, those guys already have socialized medicine. Maybe they'll kick you out too. Where will you go? I hear there is lot of breathable vacuum on the moon.
This is too funny for words! First the dude kent c says : "We advocate voluntary actions and consider the use of force a crime against individuals. And _that_ has to do with the nature of being a rational and volitional human being," then goes on to say: "bring it on, ours is bigger (and better armed) than yours. It will eventually come to that. I just hope it happens in my lifetime." Wait a minute! I thought you guys believed the user of force as criminal! So you are now criminals on both counts!? You will steal, and do it with guns!?
Then, this self proclaimed Colonel who supposedly doesn't believe in use of force posts a picture of some military semi, to show how powerful his force machine is. Ha ha ha ha. This is just too funny. I knew these guys are just Nazis in disguise. That explains the picture they posted at the beginning of this post. Where did you get this? At a Mexican border post? I am simply cracking up.
Here is our army. And also here . And here. Notice they are not armed? Given the numbers, they don't need to be. Be afraid, be very afraid. Numbers can be very powerful. Much more than weapons. As this picture might remind you.
BTW, kent c, Obama's is bigger.
anon, not understanding the difference between initiating force and the defensive use of force blurts out:
"then goes on to say: "bring it on, ours is bigger (and better armed) than yours."
And assumes that after she threatens:
"I will raise a posse against you and give your ass a collective kick."
... that my response wouldn't be self-defensive... she obviously has much trouble with concepts. Likely a product of public schools.
"Then, this self proclaimed Colonel... posts a picture of some military semi, to show how powerful his force machine is."
That was me you idiot.(that's ad hominem, but still definitional ;-) You couldn't follow the yellow brick road you're on.
As to your posse, there were a lot of people in Nagasaki and Hiroshima too. As far as Gandhi goes, I would have let him die of starvation. I don't intervene on people who aren't initiating force, and I don't fall for that banana in the tailpipe - don't eat, it's your choice, I could care less. However, I'd highly recommend that road for you, since you're just wondering around here with no direction.
I'm done with your idiocy, you get the last word.
One more thing for anon:
"BTW, kent c, Obama's is bigger".
His ears?
kent c lashes out:
"That was me..."
Ok. If I was offering prizes to the most violence spewing individual, I'd definitely give it to you now. Apologies to the other guy. It is difficult not to associate militancy with a name like "colonel."
W.r.t. your comments on the Japanese nuclear holocaust, you are actually proud of nuking hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians? First, that in itself says something about the sick and degenerate culture you are a product of. Secondly, you can't repeat that today. Other people have nukes now. And on the scale you are talking about, it is also suicide. Without the other guy ever getting to his nukes.
See, here is the problem. You watched way too many cowboy movies. Your parents bought you too many toy guns, and GI Joe toys. But playing cowboy with the kind of weapons modern science has created is plain insanity. You believe nukes are a defensive weapon, when in reality they are murder-suicide tools. The rest of America be ware. It is very dangerous to let people as criminally insane as you to be running around unrestrained (here is what is really scary, there are other idiots like you on "the other side.")
Carrying on, I observe that once again you are pretending that you are being defensive. No sir, you are not being defensive. You are being extremely offensive. Here is how that works: (1) First you steal from the commons. (2) Then you guard it with weapons. That is aggression against society, against the collective interest. Society should and would respond to you. That does not necessarily require the use of brute violence. Aim would be to recover the stollen goods, and to expell you from the commune. Even more generally, the aim would be justice. However that can be brought about.
I think you missed the point of the picture with Gandhi in it. In the context of this discourse, that picture wasn't about Gandhi per se. That picture was about the relevance of numbers. About the effectiveness of tides of humanity turning against thieves of social goods. Even when those thieves are armed and dangerous.
kent c falls right into it:
"His [Obama's] ears [are bigger?]"
No. What is bigger is that part of him that makes you pull out compensatory pictures of big, long, black, glistening trucks. Like the one you posted above, as your "posse."
Col.,
I'm just wondering now, how many people lurking on this mainly libertarian site are thinking there's just a dime's worth of difference? :-)
Kent,
I've never had over forty comments until now--even though several of them are from society's nonproducers. It's always interesting to see the vitriol ooze out when the Marxist bromide "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" is challenged.
Were I a wealthy individual with organizational skills, I'd be happy to set up a self-contained enclave for myself and like-minded individuals. I can live without the parasites a lot more successfully than the reverse.
Col.,
I'm at your enclave! :-)
"It's always interesting to see the vitriol ooze out when the Marxist bromide "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" is challenged."
When you have a "truthful" ideologue - truthful in the sense that they lay out the plans, not just in their intent, but also as history has recorded their failed attempts, then the stark reality of their 'world' sounds more like, in today's terms - Alinsky, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dorhn, rather than the spin of the Obama campaign that he's a JFK, when JFK would be considered, today, a neocon at the very least. IOW, "this is not your father's Democrat." This is Ivan's grandpa's comrade general.
the col fantasizes:
"...even though several of them are from society's nonproducers..."
Really. You know that for a fact? I make over 120k/yr. I am sure that really screws with your head. That someone can be productive and co-operative/fair minded at the same time. So you'll tell yourself, "he's lyin'." Dream on. The world will change, and you won't be included.
Como se Llama,
Well! I don't make that much. Why don't you take care of society's bums then. You know, the IRS won't turn away a check written for more than they wish to steal from you.
The thing that seems to run true with socialists is that they are very tight with the purse strings. They're always trying to get someone else to be charitable. Sounds like that would include you.
The painfully obvious and unmentioned fact in this whole conversation is that the US health industry is not serving the needs of US citizens.
They should take lessons from VA health care system. Now THAT's how you run a medical business.
Just as a casual drive by observation, The US does not have a free market system of health care. There are three huge swaths of the market that are completely and totally socialized, care for the elderly, care for the poor, and care for the military (active duty and retirees). Added to that mix is the bastardized system of government reimbursements to private providers on behalf of the rest of the nominally poor and you have at least half the citizenry participating in government run health care.
That's not market failure. That's government destruction of the market.
Sr. "Anonymous The Wine Commonsewer said..."
What you are talking about is not an indictment of socialism. It is an indictment of the corrupt kleptocracies you American's elect to office. Your thief government steals your money over and over again, and you keep re-electing them. Then you want to pass on the blame on to socialism, which you have never practiced. What kind of fools are you?
Col.,
I know this is counter-intuitive to your libertarian conditioning, but hear me out, I'll try to simplify things. You are confusing socialism with charity. Charity is sacrificial, which is admirable in itself, but it is not the same as socialism. Socialism is about consolidation of resources, of distribution of costs, and sharing of the consequent surplus benefit. Ultimately, it is about making the conglomerate count for more than the sum of its parts.
Maybe an analogy will help clarify things. Consider the plight of the basic human creature. Bereft of claws, of fangs, of speed and agility, of muscular might, and cursed with poor sensory acuity, by himself he would exist as little more than a foraging scavenger. Yet he can topple the mighty mastodon. How? Through combining his puny endowments with those of his fellow creatures. But his strength is more than simply summative. His supremacy comes as much from distributing the risk of the hunt, from sharing its spoils. Without these elements, of consolidation and equitable distribution, the lot would be significantly weaker. In the worse case scenario, too weak to even survive.
In a socialist world, the group shares the cost, the risk and the loot. Everyone does what they can, and watches out for everyone. If one of the members gets cornered, the others do the best they can to rescue him. By sharing the task of scouting the hunting grounds, they cover the largest area possible. When food is scarce, the advantage of this is obvious (therefore the hunting gathering bushmen of Africa are socialists). Whatever these activities yield, belongs to everyone, not just the guy whose arrows happened to have dealt the death blow, or the guy who got lucky and first spotted the prey.
Coming back to the real world, you unfairly denigrate socialized medicine by painting it as some kind of free lunch proposal. I don't know what kind of socialized medicine you have quarrel with, the kind that I would like to see is the so called single-payer system. That is exactly the kind of consolidation and sharing I am talking about in the analogy above.
Whether that is done in the context of a welfare state or not is another question all-together. It is possible to conceive of a socialized single-payer system that is subscription based. Sort of like current social security, where eligible benefits are proportional to contributions. Now I know you'll complain about the government trying to steal our social security, or mismanage it at the very least. That too is a separate issue. To address that we need to figure out how to put better, more honest public officials in office.
To add some contrast to your stories, I live by a college that sees a lot of transient traffic from across the Atlantic. I often hear statements from people about how they love this area, even like their job ops. but are scared to commit to moving here for good for one reason and one reason alone. Non-existence of socialized health care. Only last night I ran into a young lady from England who was actually born here, but refuses to claim her citizenship because she is scared of losing access to the British NHS. I'd trade places with her any time.
This is despicable. What arrogance to call all the victims of this country's vicious health care system lazy and parasites. There are real, good, hard working people with families getting hurt. For example this family: http://www.hugotribe.com/ . I wouldn't wish this upon anyone, but some day you libertarians and republicans will pay for your inhumanity and your sins. Your own words and deeds will come back to haunt you.
In the words of a Facebook friend, "We've got a socialist running as a democrat, a democrat running as a republican, and a republican running as a libertarian. Too bad there's not a libertarian running. For the first time in 40 years, I'll be voting 'none of the above' for president."
Were I to speak to any of those foreigners seeking to become Americans, I'd say, "Yeah, you have to pay for your health care here, but unlike your country, you get the health care."
Como se Llama,
You're still playing very fast and loose with your definitions.
Charity is, by definition, voluntary.
Taxation is, by definition, theft.
Sacrifice is the world's worst evil. It's the giving up of a value for a nonvalue, or a negative value.
Food is almost always scarce because government is 'stealing the seed corn to feed herr kommissar and his army.
I'd hoped we've moved past rattle-shaking tribalism some time past. Man is able to conquer the world's beasts by use of his mind. You seem to be equating early humans with a pack of hyenas.
In a socialist world, there is no incentive to do anything, except stand in line for food. Do you think USSR had great health care? When Sweden, Britain, Canada, Australia, and the other socialist countries have bled their industrial base dry, they'll be the same way. The single payer I advocate is, the individual, paying for his own needs and wants.
Socialized medicine is a free lunch program for those who are recipients; who don't pay for their own insurance or get gainful careers that pay part or all of your insurance.
Your young English lady is presumably going to college in preparation of a good career. Once she has it, her employer will offer to pay, likely, half or more of her health insurance. Then, at least, she'll get health care. That is if, as The Wine Commonsewer says, we can get government out of it. Otherwise, it's VA hospitals for all!
Ralf,
First, I don't do sin. It's not my thang.
As I told Mr Mxystplk above, I'd hoped we've progressed past the naked savage, rattle shaking tribal thing. It's not becoming, and the clothes are sooooo icky.
If every individual takes good care of his own lonely solitary self, and maybe his kids if he and his wife can afford them, he's good. It's not really very hard but it is work.
Everyone should try it some time.
As for those very few who legitimately can't care for themselves, there's private charity. I know that socialists loathe private charity, which is the reason why they're always trying to forcefully extract money from others, but it has always worked, when tried.
If you're so twisted that you think normal working people are inhuman, and stupid, lazy sloths are the good folk of the world, I'll renounce my humanity in favor of something like, oh, supersentient rings a bell, no?
As for your unfortunate friend, in a capitalist world, without thieving politicians, we'd all still have enough money to help him generously.
TWC,
Thanks for bringing up the VA hospital thing. I hadn't thought of it. My dad, who was never in the army but who was a lifelong railroad man, was sent to a VA hospital by his rr insurance for a hernia operation. They performed a perfect surgery on his left side. Unfortunately, the hernia was on his right side.
Just another of those wonderful anecdotes telling us what we can look forward to with socialized medicine.
Cuban,
I'll agree with you that taxation is theft, and we ought not put up with it, but the government children's prisons have propagandized most of us for so long that a relative few get exposed to America's founding principles, an its founding documents, and what they mean.
Still, we don't (so far) have a dictator-for-life, as you do.
Col.,
Living in California, you have the luxury of not voting. Where I'm from, it might make a difference between full blown socialism or mixed economy :-) If you have no choice of which car to take that's headed for a brick wall, I'd rather be in the one driven by an old man at 35 mph than one driven by a marxist nutcase driving 150mph.
Socialism cannibalizes the producers until they either quit producing or leave. That's why millions of tons of grain rotted in Kiev, while people were starving to death in the USSR -despite the caring, humanitarian, love and peaceful "good intentions" of the commissars, who did nothing to fix the situation and whose last gasp and sorrya$$ excuse is always 'we meant well'.
And it's why there aren't any more Yugo's. :-)
When there's no producers left, _from whom_ do the parasites demand 'their rights'? lol
....by himself he would exist as little more than a foraging scavenger. Yet he can topple the mighty mastodon....
They had that picture in my 8th Grade social studies textbook too!
Sr. "Anonymous The Wine Commonsewer said..."
Click my name, Baby, and the veils of anonymity will be lifted.
All the Cubans I know are still pissed that there's a district in San Francisco called 'Castro'.
BTW, Gloria Estefan says if you want sheets on your hospital bed in Cuba, you bring them from home.
Oh shit Col, I hate the VA's version of socialized medicine.
I've got dozens of stories, the worst of which was Ray Farmer, a fine career Marine who showed up at Long Beach Naval Hospital in such pain that his two grown sons had to hold him up.
Diagnosis?
Go home and take Metamucil.
What he really had was pancreatic cancer, but the dog dicks couldn't figure that out despite the fact that the civilian doctors were able to make that diagnosis from the Navy Xrays.
Col. Hogan said:
"Sacrifice is the world's worst evil."
Forgive them father, for they know not what they say.
Sr. Hogan,
Your picture clearly shows that you have had more than a few burgers in your life. By your own definition, you are a parasite. Not because you eat too much meat and potato, but because you take up extra space in the bus. Your double chin is warning me that pretty soon (if you are not already doing so) you will be one of those people who will need the driver to lower the bridge for you. By your definition, that would be too much for the rest of us to sacrifice. Maybe you should stay off our bus.
jaycee said...
Col. Hogan said:
"Sacrifice is the world's worst evil."
"Forgive them father, for they know not what they say."
I suppose you think that sacrifice is the greatest virtue??
Kent C
All,
Collectivists don't think. They emote. If you try to reason with one of them, he always starts with the talking points, then to the slogans, and when he runs out of these, and the rational argument can't be countered, collectivists invariably start the the ad hominem attacks and the name calling.
This is the reason argument is a waste of time. This, and the fact that collectivists warp definitions to suit their purposes.
Behold, if you will, those who cannot see the individuals for the crowd!
Kent,
Sacrifice is what socialists preach because they want to con others into sacrificing themselves--the better to loot them.
They're the same types who would be on top of the pyramid cheering the shaman as he removed the beating heart from the sacrificial slave.
I would say that accusing someone of being a socialist because they support socialized medicine is quite a stretch. But... Let's not kid ourselves. These programs WERE started by socialists. Libraries, public education, etc. these are all socialist projects that have been integrated into a capitalist economy. So if you think socialized medicine is good, why not socialized banks? Why not socialized housing? We already have socialized war. We already have socialized pollution. We have what I call Lemon Socialism. Where we, the people, have to bear the cost, socially, of everything we don't want like war, etc. but we can't reap the benefits (eg: profits that industry makes off of the war). Yet at the same time we are not allowed to own and control, socially, the good things that we do want like communications, sports teams, hospitals, etc. We only get the 'lemons' of capitalism/socialism but none of the choice fruits.
As for Libertarians, they are idiots and don't know it. I call it a faux ideology because it claims to be one thing but really is another. It's only half a theory rather than a full theory. They want some liberties for some but not other liberties for others. Some freedoms take priority over other freedoms. Guess whose freedom is more important: a business owner or a worker? The business owner is free to treat workers with malice given the protection they get from the state, yet workers are not free to fight collectively? Rubbish. Why is food not a right? What kind of freedom does a person have if they are not sure where their next meal is going to come from? You see libertarians are just business owners and republicans that dress up their ideas as new and different but really its just half-way thinking.
anon says:
"Why is food not a right? What kind of freedom does a person have if they are not sure where their next meal is going to come from?"
They have the freedom to go out and earn it. No one is stopping them.
Food is not a right in the sense you mean it, because it entails someone else providing it - iow, it enslaves someone else's labor. It violates their natural right to liberty.
If there were no one to provide the 'victim' food, from whom to they demand their right to food?
To afford a person their natural rights to life, liberty and property imposes no burden on another other than to leave that person alone. That's what a 'right' is.
Hope that helps....
Oh I seeeee. NATURAL right to PROPERTY he means. Property as defined by? Gun. Very natural. Man with biggest gun has most right. Has most property. This I seeeeee. Very natural indeed.
Kent,
See what happens when parents abuse their children by sending them to the government children's prisons instead of giving them an education? Not only can they not read what is actually written, but they don't even know their definitions.
Property? What's that? What'll he say when he sits down to a porter house steak and someone takes his plate and eats the steak in front of him?
Rights? Another mystery. Apparently anything one wants, but doesn't want to pay for becomes a "right." What happens when his employer says he has a "right" to the fellow's labor without pay? Like they want to do to medical doctors......
What a convenient fantasy!
Idiot says:
"Property as defined by?"
Locke - mixing of one's labor with the land. Originally owed by no one, until someone took responsibility for making it into something useful.
After that, yes some property was aquired by force - all the land of the Russia in 1918, Cuba after Castro, East Germany, most of Africa, and most of Europe during WWII - by socialists whether national or world socialists, but socialist non-the-less.
When it's the "People's property" no one cares for it, which is why the greatest polluters are the socialist states, like the former Poland where coal dust was ankle deep, just for one example. Much like China, that is building 3 coal plants a week, will be for decades to come, until they free their economy and people begin to be able to rise above subsistence level. _That's_ when they start to think of clean air and clean water. Up until then it's all survival.
I'm guessing you're the same Obama idiot from before, following campaign orders to attack any 'anti-Obama' ideas, so this will be my last post to you. You'll have to make your dirty money somewhere else because you're running up against a brick wall here. You have to influence voters toward Obama and you are actually making the case for McCain to people that, before you came along, might not have voted at all.
So keep it up if you want. Tell every productive person posting or lurking how you want to make them a slave to those who won't work even to feed themselves. That it is the 'duty' of the productive to give up their value to people that don't even have a concept of value unless it is someone else's... that don't have the ability or willingness to even keep themselves alive. I'm sure that's a winning ploy. lol
Yeah, kent and wayne, you two rock! You go bros. Teach these commie russian chinese sobs a lesson. Woo hoo! Yeah!! We got guts, and we are one! We are together! We are gonna put everything we got together, and just like we conqd the indian, we gonna conq their ass too. Yeah!! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!Go! Go! Go!
Who owns the air?
Every individual owns whatever air he can catch and hold. Why ask silly questions? Who owns a surgeon's brain and hands?
I'll take you up on that in ascending order of relevance.
1. Judging by your answer, you carry an oxygen tank around and breathe exclusive out of it? So in a Libertarian paradise everyone will carry such tanks? That also implies a widespread utilization of certain methane dis-insinuating "plugs," so to speak.
2. Depends on how the surgeon came to possess the brain and hands. Presumably the surgeon didn't pre-existentially conjure him/herself or materialize out of thin air.
3. It is either that insult is your weapon of first resort, or that a question you cannot understand the full implication of appears to you as silly. Either way it is very understandable, I suppose.
hogan: "Taxation is, by definition, theft."
Not it is not my Son. Give unto Caesar ...
Mr Mxysptlk,
#1 really is silly.
#2 shows a disturbing degree of ingnorance 'bout the "birds and the bees."
#3 points out that you need to learn to distinguish the difference between insult and disbelieving laughter.
JC,
I don't buy into any of that witch doctor nonsense. Caesar was a thief, and a murderer.
You think Jesus was a witch doctor? Is that standard Libertarian position, or is that just your personal inclination?
PP,
Jesus was who he was--a preacher much like Martin L King. He was probably a fine man, but he was no god.
I don't really discuss superstition here very often, because because it draws nut cases (not to be confused with real religious folk) out of the woodwork.
Very transparently deflected. Nobody asked you if he was god or not. Nobody asked you if he was a fine man or not. You didn't answer the question. I think you are hiding something. Do you believe Jesus was a witch doctor? You have pretty much said as much, but just to be clear.
Hey, Wayne, you are an intellectual property thief. You stole that picture from FOX News ( http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,255023,00.html ). This is just very typical of Libertarians. What is theirs is theirs, and what is mine is also theirs. Shame on you Wayne, for your double standard and hypocrisy.
Incidentally, the picture has nothing to do with socialized health care. It isn't even American or Australian. It is from Peru. The story is about Tuberculosis, and air circulation. I think you trolled the net for crowded hospital pictures, and picked this one because there are dark skinned people in it, and you are at heart racist. Through the Freudian slip of your mouse, you have exposed yourself. Your kind isn't really against socialized medicine, if a bunch of white people got together, pooled their money and got a collectively purchased health care facility for themselves, you'd fine with it. You just don't want to enter into such an arrangement with Mexicans, African Americans, Native Americans and other people who are not white. Because somewhere in your racist mind you believe that these people are parasites, more than you skin heads swastika lovers are . Like I said earlier, you crackers are just Nazis in disguise. Right now you are afraid that a black man will be your big boss, and you are scared out of your mind.
peterpatter,
'Witch doctor' is Rand's term for believers, basically. There's a further explanation that you wouldn't understand but that should suffice.
Como se Llama,
Interesting how some use bold type or caps to make their words seem more important than they actually are.
After doing a bit of checking, I found the photo on Fox News, however that's not where I initially found it. Were I sufficiently interested, I'd inquire whether Fox News actually has the right to use that photo. I don't really care, and I don't think they do, either.
The photo was simply an illustration of the look of a medical waiting room in places where medicine is already socialized. It could've been a London hospital, one in either Montreal, Cairo or Stockholm.
It was you who noticed the apparent race of those depicted, not I.
PP,
I'm old, but I'm not that old. I wasn't there. If he tried to convey to those to whom he spoke that he was a god, then he was the moral equivalent of a witch doctor.
If he was simply teaching others his views on how to live a better life, then he was a philosopher.
What survived the centuries, if indeed it has anything to do with his actual words, is painfully obsolete.
"...It could've been a London hospital, one in either Montreal, Cairo or Stockholm..."
But it wasn't, you liar. Your whole thesis is an illusory concoction of absolute falsehoods and half truths. If this picture is anything, it is an illustration of poverty, of limited resources in a country with burgeoning population. Never a demonstration, not ever, of your sick ideology. That whole crap about health care collapsing in the socialized medicine world is entirely in your imagination (or, you are on health insurance company payroll). You didn't find pictures from Montreal, or Sydney, or London because they don't exist. I bet you've never even been to any of those countries, including the one pictured in your picture. Or if you have, you've never enjoyed the benefit of their medical system. I have, and you know what, it isn't anything like the way you like to imagine it. You just dream this shit up because you need to justify having read the only big book you've ever read, that stupid worthless pile of wasted tree pulp by that moron Ayn Rand.
I read it, and it made me want to barf. Atlas Shrugged reads like a bad Chinese movie where a viewers ability to suspend disbelief is severely challenged. Funny thing is she was against religion, but the way her fanatic followers spew her ideology verbatim without an ounce of critical consideration reeks of faith, irrationality and every aspect of religious cults. I bet you two sleep with her picture under your pillow, and kiss her book good night every night.
Unfortunately, I didn't stick to my decision to quit arguing off-topic with collectivists who, having no rational arguments against my thesis, descend into ad hominem and simple idiocy.
Never has anyone attempted to justify the enslavement of those who choose, but are increasingly deciding not to choose, the medical profession.
Never has anyone attempted to justify the theft of wealth from productive individuals to redistribute it to the nonproductive.
They have simply whined that rather than involve themselves in voluntary charitable aid to the disabled, they'd rather bring the able down to their level.
The fellow above bleats that the photo is really of a group of victims of a South American banana republic. In that, he's right. They are in the straits in which they find themselves because of the very ideas he idealizes--collectivist destruction of the productive class, with all the country's wealth in the hands of the dictator himself and a few of his top minions.
He foolishly imagines himself one of those minions. He won't move to one of these countries he idolizes, because deep inside, he knows they'd have him out in a rocky field with a short-handled hoe.
But I run on. This has gone on long enough.
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