A Usenet persona calling itself Frederick Burroughs wrote:
Scott Weiser wrote:
A Usenet persona calling itself Frederick Burroughs wrote:
Scott Weiser wrote:
Quit worrying and get to work figuring out how to cut expenses and start
putting money aside for emergencies. Try a catastrophic health care plan
that excludes anything related to diabetes and has a high deductible. Such
plans are available at very reasonable costs. Of course, it does mean you
don't get to run to the doctor every time you or your kids get the
sniffles.
But that's a good thing. It forces you to work hard at staying healthy
(like
teaching your kids to wash their hands and keep their fingers out of their
noses) and it encourages you to save money.
Or, suck it up and die if necessary. It happens to all of us eventually
anyway, and you'll be making room for somebody else with better genetics.
Most of our "savings" are going into my son's college fund. So, should
we short his education in order to stuff more into "my" rainy-day
health care mattress?
That's a decision you should have made before having children. Why should
society bail you out of your lack of foresight and planning?
Sir, you have no ****ing idea at all about the foresight and planning
my wife and I put into bringing a life into this world.
Quite right. Please recognize that I'm speaking abstractly, I'm not
intending to impugn you or your family. I merely use your statements as as
platform for debate, not a personal attack. It's not intended to be
personal, please don't take it that way. This is the Usenet, after all.
Humans are
social animals, we find ourselves in families, extended families,
neighborhoods, communities, towns, regions, nations, SOCIETIES.
Societies are a give and take arrangement. Personal deficits in
foresight and planning can be supplemented by society. Personal
strengths are shared with society for the benefit of others. Observe
humans in a cold, rational, alien light. You will see a natural
tendency for interdependancy. Simplistic darwinism has evolved into a
more complex social structures.
Look at socialization from an individualistic, developmental level. A
human is born totally dependent on its parents. He ages and becomes an
integral part of his family. He matures and becomes an integral part
of his community. At the most integral and mature stage, a person is a
contributing part of the community. As an infant, a person is almost
independent of community, but totally dependent on his parent.
Socialized medicine does not cater or promote infantile sloth and poor
health habits, it signals a mature and integrated society willing to
share strenths and weaknesses.
I disagree. The very nature of socialism is that the society forcibly
extracts "from each according to his ability" and gives "to each according
to his need." Forcible extraction of either labor or the rewards thereof
does not prove that a society is "willing to share strengths and
weaknesses." It's pure force.
The society that you describe is not a socialist one, it is a capitalist
one. It is a society in which those who excel are rewarded, thus providing
the opportunity for them to altruistically contribute to the community.
Making everyone equally poor and oppressed, which is what socialism does,
only makes everyone equally unhappy.
Socialism always fails because it cannot cope with the "free rider"
conundrum. Neither, in fact, can pure democracy. This is because both
systems (along with pure-form Libertarianism) depend upon a human trait that
is, at best, unpredictable and unreliable: altruism.
Besides, your son ought to be able to work his way through college, as many
millions of young people have done for a very long time. He'll be a better
student if he has to work for his education, just ask any party-girl at CU
who isn't smart enough to change a light bulb but gets to go to college and
party for four years because daddy's paying for it.
Students who work their way through college understand the value of a dollar
and the amount of hard work it takes to earn the educational privilege
college offers. Do you children a BIG favor and spend their inheritance and
college fund on yourself. Force them to become responsible, intelligent,
hard-working citizens, not self-indulgent, selfish, lazy layabouts with no
work ethic. You'll be doing society a favor too.
I expect my son to provide for himself, at school and in life. But,
I'm going to do my best to assist him if he needs it.
Good for you. He'll be a better man for it.
Really, I don't
understand the conservatives fixation on lazyness.
We have nothing against being lazy, we just object to the lazy expecting
others to support their chosen lifestyle.
Every single person
I know works. Youngsters are working on schoolwork and chores. Adults
are working at jobs. Even retirees work to supplement their income.
Everybody's working their asses off.
Go hang out in Watts for awhile. You'll meet a lot of people who donąt.
Though admirable, it's akin to
some manic madness. For all the work being done, most have suprisingly
little to show for it, being only a paycheck or two from financial
disaster. And, spiritually, they're bankrupt.
I don't disagree, but again, why would they expect someone else to work that
much harder to provide them with the lifestyle to which they would like to
become accustomed? Life has never been easier. Life was much, much harder
for most of history...and pre-history.
If I require hospitalization and don't have
insurance, then I become indebted to the hospital and doctors for the
entire bill.
Yup. That's life. Life sucks sometime. Why is that my problem?
Sufficiently shared, problems diminish significantly. Life sucks less.
Indeed. Altruism is to be revered and rewarded with social approval.
However, forcible extraction of resources is not altruism, it's theft.
There goes my son's education, again.
Is your son disabled? Can he get a job? Is society going to have to take
over for you after you're gone because you didn't give your son the proper
work ethic and understanding of the costs of a college education.
My son isn't in high-school yet. Hopefully, society values higher
education and realizes the return from an educated citizenry. Again,
work ethic anemia is a common misdiagnosis; every one I know works his
ass off.
You live among an admirable group. Unfortunately, your experience is hardly
universal.
And, what happens
if I lose a foot (or suffer some other debilitating complication from
diabetes; heart disease, kidney disease, stroke...), and am unable to
work because of a disability? I guess we can sell the house and other
personal property to help pay the bills. My wife can get a 2nd and 3rd
job, and my son can kiss college good-bye.
That could happen. It would be unfortunate, though hardly unique. Again, why
is that my problem? Perhaps you should have bought a smaller house, a
cheaper car and saved more money. Your best bet is to invest your son's
college fund in an emergency medical account and tell him he'd better look
forward to working his ass off to be worthy of the privilege of a college
degree. If your son truly understood the situation you're in, and if he was
an ethical and compassionate son, he'd decline to take your money and offer
to go to work to help you save enough to provide for your future medical
needs. After all, he's lived on-the-cuff his whole life so far, right? Time
for some payback. Sounds like you need it.
My son understands his situation very well, and mine. And, though his
mother spoils him, I don't think it will subtract from his character.
He's developing into a sharing and community minded individual.
Good for him. Good for you. Still, you avoid the fundamental question of why
anyone else should be required to make up the deficit you suffer, or may
suffer from?
Or, maybe my wife should
take the financially sound course and divorce me?
Why not? In today's society, she can do it and you can still live together
just as you do now. Once more, why is that a problem for which I should be
required to pay?
Look around you. How much of what you own did you actually *build*.
Most of it.
Did you create the dirt under your home, the air you breath, the water
in "your" stream? You are part of webs, cycles, networks, societies.
There are universes swirling around you, unrecognized and
unacknowledged.
True, but how does that impose a liability on me to pay for your health
care?
You should be required to pay because you will pay
less,
Will I? I say I will pay more, and what's more, I will be paying more for
other people's health care. Right now, I can pay NOTHING AT ALL for health
care if I so choose. Why should I be denied that right?
and you will gain the genuine freedom of having a health care
system that will be there for you, your family and your neighbors.
That's rather like saying it's okay to put me in prison unwillingly because
I'll have the freedom of three hots and a cot...and free health care...which
is not really free at all, but is funded by other people.
Along with my choice
of being the recipient of bad genetics (or, was it the immunoglobulin
shot I got when I was 8 years old, to hyperactivate my immune system
against the measles going around the neighborhood at the time.
Life suck sometimes. I felt the same way when I was diagnosed. How is that
your problem?
We're a social animal, remember? If my taxes help fund a discovery by
NIH, or make medicine more affordable, or make health care in general
more affordable, I'm all for it.
And you are free to contribute any amount you choose directly to the
government to fund it. But if I don't want to, why should YOUR altruistic
instincts be forcibly imposed on ME for something I may not ever use?
I don't know, a
single-payer, national health plan sounds like the more sensible,
manageable, efficient and affordable system.
Except that they don't work, ever. And, they are immoral, unethical and
fattening.
Not according to the people who have it.
Welfare queens are happy to get a check too. That doesn't make it moral,
ethical or non-fattening.
One shouldn't judge the program based only on the opinions of those who
benefit from it.
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser
"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM
© 2005 Scott Weiser
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