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A Usenet persona calling itself Frederick Burroughs wrote:
Scott Weiser wrote: A Usenet persona calling itself Frederick Burroughs wrote: BCITORGB wrote: Scott cites: ============= The average Canadian family pays about 48 percent of its income in taxes each year, ============= And, Scott, exactly how much tax does the average American pay? My son and I are covered by a group insurance plan provided by my employer, of which my employer pays 1/3. My wife is covered by her employee insurance plan, which suddenly increased by 25%. She shopped around for personal coverage, and inquired about coverage for the entire family. Every insurance company she asked said they wouldn't cover me (diabetes). She chose a BIG health insurance company for herself, but they doubled her premiums when they found out she was taking lipitor (statin for cholesterol). Our monthly health insurance payments are now more than our monthly mortgage payment. For us, health insurance is our single most expensive monthly expense, and that doesn't count the co-pays and deductibles we must pay before insurance kicks in. Oh, we live in the good-ol U.S. of A. Wah. I can't get health insurance either (for the same reason as you) and had to give up my company health insurance after the COBRA period expired because I couldn't afford (nor could I justify) the $385 per month in premiums plus the $200+ per month in prescription co-pays. So what? Big deal. It's my life, and my responsibility. If I get sick, either I come up with a way to pay for it, or I die. My choice. I don't blame the government, nor do I expect the government to bail me out or take care of me. Doing so is just socialistic whining. People have to take responsibility for themselves, and sometimes you die. Suck it up and accept that funding your health care (not to mention your retirement) is your responsibility, not the government's. Like I have, you need to figure out how to save for a medical emergency and not try to foist your inability to budget and save off on everyone else. Perhaps you could forego that new playboat and SUV, drive a ten-year-old car, cut back on the beer and cigarette allotment, wear last season's clothes and quit going to the movies and put that money aside into an interest-bearing savings account for emergencies. Or, you could get a catastrophic health care policy with a large (like $10,000) deductible that costs far less each month and forego the "convienence medicine" premium inherent in HMO coverage and put the balance of what you're paying now into a savings account to pay, in cash, for minor medical issues. It's entirely up to you, but nobody said it was going to be easy. The good news is that *I* don't have to pay for *your* health care problems like they do in Canada. That's good, because I see no reason on earth why I should be required to do so. You make a whole lot of typically incorrect assumptions. No one in my family smokes, or drinks in excess of healthy moderation. I was being allegorical, not literal. Our newest car is 5 years old. My canoe and kayak were bought having recreation and exercise equally in mind. As you know, exercise is especially important for diabetics. Along with hiking up and down the mountains around our home, I paddle. There are two wonderful rivers just a 10 minute's drive, and paddling is a quick, enjoyable, effective and addictive form of exercise. Hell, I don't even know I'm exercising except for slightly sore muscles at the end of the day. I will also utilize the kayak to fish. If I limit my fish take to the river free of mercury & pcb pollution, and to the local ponds, these will be a healthy addition to my diet. (Thanks to government monitoring for alerting the public to this health concern.) There's no need to justify your lifestyle. I wasn't intending to actually impugn your lifestyle, I merely wished to make a general point about personal responsibility. If I was healthy, and lived alone in the woods, and didn't give a **** about others, your health care suggestion might be an option worth consideration. However, family obligations and demanding health conditions make insurance the prudent choice. There are others besides myself involved in the calculations. I understand the analysis, and I don't disagree with your conclusions, however, the point remains that such planning is YOUR responsibility, as is the responsibility of paying for it. It's not MY responsibility (in the abstract sense) to help you fund your medical insurance needs, nor should the government act as your proxy in extracting such funding. Also, I'm happy that a small percentage of my local and state taxes go to support our local hospital, and supply our local emergency medical volunteers, and help to distribute vaccines and medicines to the community. And you are perfectly free to be happy. You're free to gladly pay those taxes. You can even give the government MORE than you "owe" in taxes or direct donations to your local hospital. There's nothing at all wrong with that. But it's immoral of you to demand that ANYONE ELSE do the same, particularly when the Mace of State is used to enforce compliance. Bizarre that any one would object to the socialization of health care since much of it works and is already based on a socialized, community-based model. It's coercive socialism, no matter how you look at it. Coercive socialism is evil. Profoundly, ineluctably evil in its every manifestation, no matter how glossily covered, prettily dressed up or facilely excused. It always and inevitably ends in oppression, tyranny and terror. -- 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 |
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. 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. 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. Really, I don't understand the conservatives fixation on lazyness. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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*. 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. You should be required to pay because you will pay less, and you will gain the genuine freedom of having a health care system that will be there for you, your family and your neighbors. 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. [Should I sue the doctor and/or the pharmaceutical company who manufactured the immunoglobulin [[or, the donor(s) of the virus infected blood from which the immunoglobulin was derived?]]]), Probably a little late, but you can try if you want. You know, it's interesting. I knew of 4 other diabetics, my age, going to my school, all contracting the disease in a one-year period. I was given the immunoglobulin injection six months before my diagnosis, in 1966. No one else in my family has diabetes. there was my personal decision to be born in a modern industrial and "civilized" country that lacks a civilized health care system. So sue your parents or emigrate to Canada. I'm not the type to sue my parents, and I hear it's cold up north. 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. -- "This president has destroyed the country, the economy, the relationship with the rest of the world. He's a monster in the White House. He should resign." - Hunter S. Thompson, speaking to an antiwar audience in 2003. |
On 21-Mar-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:
Take a pill, your blood pressure is spiking... **** off, dickhead. You are still posting nothing but lies and bull**** and still wouldn't know a fact if it bit you in the ass. Nope, not for hospitalization or surgery. Bull**** again. Not all medical care is covered by government health care and you _can_ buy insurance for the rest. I live here and I have such coverage. You haven't got a clue what you're talking about, as usual. Funny, a credible AP reporter says Canadians are prohibited from buying outside insurance for hospitalization and surgery. Yer credible AP reporter is wrong. Tough ****. Mike |
On 21-Mar-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:
You're nitpicking. Forty percent is still a lot to pay for somebody else's health care. Yer still both math and fact challenged. Why don't you give up, dickhead? Mike |
On 21-Mar-2005, Scott Weiser wrote: In the US, if you pay for full coverage, you are at least only paying for YOUR coverage, not for covering some chain-smoking, 450 pound diabetic with emphysema and heart disease. Proof positive that weiser doesn't have a clue how insurance works. Mike |
On 21-Mar-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:
considering how often I have to personally deal with rude mother-****ers like you who illegally intrude on my privacy by trespassing on my private property. Hey dickhead - if you have a problem with trespassers, deal with them and leave the rest of us out of it. Mike |
BCITORGB wrote:
Wilko, why do I not listen to you?! grin Good question, why don't you? :-) I thought rick's instance on sticking to a dead issue was like baby **** clinging to a blanket. Now we have a different thread, and he brings the same old blanket, with the same old **** still stuck to it. I know how hard it can be, but just stop responding, even with reasonable responses there is no way you gain anything but frustration. Use that energy for positive responses in threads and to people that do care. And maybe this helps: http://wilko.webzone.ru/troll.html Wilko -- Wilko van den Bergh wilko(a t)dse(d o t)nl Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe ---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.--- http://wilko.webzone.ru/ |
"Wilko" wrote in message ... BCITORGB wrote: Wilko, why do I not listen to you?! grin Good question, why don't you? :-) I thought rick's instance on sticking to a dead issue was like baby **** clinging to a blanket. Now we have a different thread, and he brings the same old blanket, with the same old **** still stuck to it. I know how hard it can be, but just stop responding, even with reasonable responses there is no way you gain anything but frustration. Use that energy for positive responses in threads and to people that do care. ==================== His next reasonable response will be his first. I have done nothing but prove that there were lies bein\g told. He didn't like that, as apparently the truth means nothing to you either. And maybe this helps: http://wilko.webzone.ru/troll.html =============== I suggest you learn the meaning... Wilko -- Wilko van den Bergh wilko(a t)dse(d o t)nl Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe ---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.--- http://wilko.webzone.ru/ |
"Scott Weiser" wrote in message ... ...It's coercive socialism, no matter how you look at it. Coercive socialism is evil. Profoundly, ineluctably evil in its every manifestation, no matter how glossily covered, prettily dressed up or facilely excused. It always and inevitably ends in oppression, tyranny and terror. As good an argument for refusing the services of firefighters as one could ever hope to encounter. Wolfgang who never did like those oppressive tyrannical terrorists. :( |
A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:
No wonder you are a gun nut. Your utopia would obviously be everyone living in a self-sustaining dwelling with a giant electrified fence to protect them from having to be in contact with other people or even - gasp - where people might care about each other. I see. Respecting other people's right to live their lives as they wish without having the government or one's nosy neighbors interfere is anathema to you? Living without a concern for others is anathema to me. One can have concern for others without being compelled by law to enable their bad decision making and behavior. Nobody's asking you to live without concern. You can have as much concern as you like. You can give all your goods to the poor and spend your life serving the poor while wearing sackcloth and ashes if you like. You may not, however, compel anyone else to join you unwillingly. That would be immoral and repugnant. Each individual gets to choose how much concern he or she shows to others. It's not the government's duty or authority to compel it. Contributing to public education and public health is a simple and effective means of showing concern for others. Indeed. However, being compelled to to contribute to those causes by force of law is morally repugnant. My "utopia" is a land where people get to do what they want, so long as they don't harm others The fact that a system of private sector health care will cater only to those who can afford to pay means that supporters of said private sector health care are indeed harming others. It's a rather large logical leap to blame those who dislike coercive socialism and favor free-market health care for "harm" that others might cause themselves through bad planning or misfortune. -- 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 |
A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:
in article , Scott Weiser at wrote on 3/22/05 12:06 AM: A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote: in article , Scott Weiser at wrote on 3/21/05 8:19 PM: A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote: "Scott Weiser" wrote in message ... A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote: Tink: ================ Hey frtzw, sounds like we got another dance going on, and someone got your hot button. I'll probably set this one out, but I like to watch. ==================== Tink, it's not a hot button at all. It is simply disingenuous of Scott to pop off with some one-off example and thereby try to discredit an entire system. It's hardly "one-off." It's pervasive and ubiquitous in every socialized medicine system in existence because by its nature, socialized medicine cannot provide effective on-demand health care to everyone. Why do you have socialized education? Because there's a lot of socialist swine down here too. We have to fight them all the time. Ah. So you would favour the total elimination of public education? No, just public education financed by the forcible extraction of money from people who don't have children in school. My model requires the actual parents of children to pay for their children's education. If you can't pay, don't have children or your kids might get to flip burgers, dig ditches and harvest onions for a living. Dirty work, but somebody's got to do it, and at least those kids will be citizens, as opposed to illegal aliens. Ah. So you start holding a child accountable for their own future starting with infancy. No, I hold the parents accountable. Born to parents who could not afford to send you to school? Tough titties for you, this ain't the land of opportunity. You confuse equality of opportunity with equality of outcome. My, what a beautiful world you would build. There's no better way to stimulate parents to be successful than to make them realize that the future success of their children depends on their willingness to work hard and provide for them. We've seen for many years now the result of granting the poor and uneducated "entitlements" that does nothing but bind them and their children ever deeper into economic and social poverty and degradation. The one million illegal immigrants who come to this country each month know this full well, which is why they come here and go to work in those jobs that "Americans won't take," so that their children will have the opportunity to prosper. What's successful for the poor is denying them the public dole that binds them to the public teat while forcing them to advance themselves in the workforce. It builds self-esteem, character and gives them skills that will serve them well in their lives. America is indeed the "Land of Opportunity," but the opportunities are not all positive opportunities. You have an equal opportunity to FAIL as well as succeed. That's what causes people to strive to excel and advance. As Linda Seebach said once, "The only way to make everyone equal is to squash everyone flat." "Pay-to-play" seems to be the new paradigm for everything from trash collection to access to federal lands, why not education too? It's just that usual nonsense about trying to give all kids a reasonable opportunity to access what the world has to offer. Public education is, by and large, a dismal failure, particularly in poor communities where an education, free or otherwise, is not viewed as necessary to one's future...mostly because welfare dwellers see the future of their children as being merely a repeat of their parent's failures. There is no stimulus to succeed, and generational failure is inevitable. Only when one has to work to succeed is one likely to value the education one gets and wish it for one's children. Parents are not stimulated to encourage, assist, stimulate, enlighten, browbeat, badger, threaten and otherwise require scholarship on the part of their children if they see no future for them because the dole is all they know. Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish, and he can feed the world. Then again, there's nothing to prevent the altruists and charitable contributors from voluntarily funding public school programs. Heck, even businesses have gotten into the act, recognizing that it's good policy for them to support education for the next generation of workers they will need to stay in business. And they understand that vocational training may be far more valuable in the majority of cases than a college degree in a non-technical field. A "liberal arts" degree is about as useless as an appendix. The worst thing about a liberal arts degree is that some of the graduates might be capable of thinking. True, but sadly, almost universally, they fail to realize that potential, largely thanks to the pervasive leftist/liberal apologetics of failure and muddled thinking taught to them on most of our college campuses. Rare indeed is the student who is able to rise above the leftist propaganda and demagogary to reach a state of enlightenment and understanding, and every one who does is universally a conservative thinker. -- 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 |
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 |
A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:
On 21-Mar-2005, Scott Weiser wrote: Take a pill, your blood pressure is spiking... **** off, dickhead. You are still posting nothing but lies and bull**** and still wouldn't know a fact if it bit you in the ass. How erudite. How scholarly. How persuasive. Not. Nope, not for hospitalization or surgery. Bull**** again. Not all medical care is covered by government health care and you _can_ buy insurance for the rest. I live here and I have such coverage. You haven't got a clue what you're talking about, as usual. Funny, a credible AP reporter says Canadians are prohibited from buying outside insurance for hospitalization and surgery. Yer credible AP reporter is wrong. Tough ****. And we should take YOUR word for it because....??? -- 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 |
A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:
On 21-Mar-2005, Scott Weiser wrote: You're nitpicking. Forty percent is still a lot to pay for somebody else's health care. Yer still both math and fact challenged. Why don't you give up, dickhead? Because poking Netwits like you through the bars of your cage is so much fun! -- 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 |
A Usenet persona calling itself Wolfgang wrote:
"Scott Weiser" wrote in message ... ...It's coercive socialism, no matter how you look at it. Coercive socialism is evil. Profoundly, ineluctably evil in its every manifestation, no matter how glossily covered, prettily dressed up or facilely excused. It always and inevitably ends in oppression, tyranny and terror. As good an argument for refusing the services of firefighters as one could ever hope to encounter. Well, not quite. Firefighting falls under the general heading of services made necessary by the concept of "exported harm." Because there is always a danger that a fire on one person's property can (and often does) spread to other property, and because no individual property owner is adequately prepared to deal with a fire once it's out of control, it is reasonable for government to provide skilled and equipped resources at public expense to prevent exported harm, and it's also reasonable for government to spread the costs of such specialized training and equipment over all of those who contribute to the risks involved. This is the same rational for taxes for military spending. The link between the harm of uncontrolled fire and the extraction of money from the public is quite direct, and the risks are shared by all persons in the community equally because everyone is placed at risk by an uncontrolled fire. On the other hand, the link between one's private health care issues and some sort of overall public harm is extremely tenuous at best, and doesn't justify the forcible extraction of money from everyone in order to provide health care for some. The risks are not equal. -- 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 |
"Scott Weiser" wrote in message ... A Usenet persona calling itself Wolfgang wrote: "Scott Weiser" wrote in message ... ...It's coercive socialism, no matter how you look at it. Coercive socialism is evil. Profoundly, ineluctably evil in its every manifestation, no matter how glossily covered, prettily dressed up or facilely excused. It always and inevitably ends in oppression, tyranny and terror. As good an argument for refusing the services of firefighters as one could ever hope to encounter. Well, not quite. Firefighting falls under the general heading of services made necessary by the concept of "exported harm." Because there is always a danger that a fire on one person's property can (and often does) spread to other property, and because no individual property owner is adequately prepared to deal with a fire once it's out of control, it is reasonable for government to provide skilled and equipped resources at public expense to prevent exported harm, and it's also reasonable for government to spread the costs of such specialized training and equipment over all of those who contribute to the risks involved. This is the same rational for taxes for military spending. The link between the harm of uncontrolled fire and the extraction of money from the public is quite direct, and the risks are shared by all persons in the community equally because everyone is placed at risk by an uncontrolled fire. On the other hand, the link between one's private health care issues and some sort of overall public harm is extremely tenuous at best, and doesn't justify the forcible extraction of money from everyone in order to provide health care for some. The risks are not equal. Cholera is private? Diphtheria? Malaria? Dysentery? Influenza? Typhus? Typhoid? HIV? Syphilis? How much risk does a burning farmhouse in the middle of a section of wheat or corn represent to the body politic? Is this not a private home care issue? How about municipal water treatment? Where is the "exported harm" in allowing anyone who wants it to drink polluted water? Stupid as you are, you've missed the one bit of equity hidden in all your twaddle. The rest of the world cares every bit as much about your wellbeing as you do about theirs. Wolfgang who, deriving a great deal of satisfaction from annoying one nitwit at a time, cannot understand why anyone would go to all the trouble inherent in wholesale. |
A Usenet persona calling itself Wolfgang wrote:
"Scott Weiser" wrote in message ... A Usenet persona calling itself Wolfgang wrote: "Scott Weiser" wrote in message ... ...It's coercive socialism, no matter how you look at it. Coercive socialism is evil. Profoundly, ineluctably evil in its every manifestation, no matter how glossily covered, prettily dressed up or facilely excused. It always and inevitably ends in oppression, tyranny and terror. As good an argument for refusing the services of firefighters as one could ever hope to encounter. Well, not quite. Firefighting falls under the general heading of services made necessary by the concept of "exported harm." Because there is always a danger that a fire on one person's property can (and often does) spread to other property, and because no individual property owner is adequately prepared to deal with a fire once it's out of control, it is reasonable for government to provide skilled and equipped resources at public expense to prevent exported harm, and it's also reasonable for government to spread the costs of such specialized training and equipment over all of those who contribute to the risks involved. This is the same rational for taxes for military spending. The link between the harm of uncontrolled fire and the extraction of money from the public is quite direct, and the risks are shared by all persons in the community equally because everyone is placed at risk by an uncontrolled fire. On the other hand, the link between one's private health care issues and some sort of overall public harm is extremely tenuous at best, and doesn't justify the forcible extraction of money from everyone in order to provide health care for some. The risks are not equal. Cholera is private? Diphtheria? Malaria? Dysentery? Influenza? Typhus? Typhoid? HIV? Syphilis? Excellent questions all, and the answer is "no, they are not." That's why public health efforts funded by involuntary taxation to prevent and control such outbreaks are perfectly acceptable. All people are placed at risk by this exported harm, all people pose a risk of transmission (exportation) of this harm, thus all people may be required to pay to prevent it and may be compelled to be innoculated and/or isolated as necessary to prevent the spread of such diseases. That's one of the contracts people agree to when they live together. However, diabetes, broken ankles and heart disease are not a public health threats, which means that the government has no call to impose the costs of treating such individual illnesses on others, because there is no exported harm that justifies imposing this burden on others. How much risk does a burning farmhouse in the middle of a section of wheat or corn represent to the body politic? Rather a lot, actually, something you'd know if you lived on a farm. Range fires kill more firefighters every year than forest fires do. But the point is that fires don't just occur in farmhouses in the sticks. Municipal fire companies were originally set up in this country because of severe problems with urban fires and the ineffectiveness of "subscription" based volunteer brigades in places like New York and Chicago. More harm was exported by the Great Chicago Fire than has ever been exported by all forest fires combined since 1700. Is this not a private home care issue? No, it's not. Now, whether or not the farmhouse owner chooses to demolish (or build) his house with his tractor is not an issue of exported harm, and therefore the government has no reason to interfere. How about municipal water treatment? Where is the "exported harm" in allowing anyone who wants it to drink polluted water? The same reasons you cite above: Cholera, Diptheria, etc. Again, it's a public health issue. Contaminated water can spread disease. The same is true of municipal sewage systems. Treating effluent is done to eliminate the public health threat inherent in untreated sewage. All members of the community contribute to the sewage and consume the water, and thus all members can be legitimately required to share in the economic burdens involved in keeping both sanitary. But now we come to the question of when are water quality treatment standards legitimate and when are they illegitimate? Standards that water be non-infective are appropriate because of the risk of exported harm through disease outbreaks. Standards that control contamination that is NOT contagious, such as lead or arsenic are NOT legitimate, at least insofar as being imposed as an unfunded mandate by the federal government, because, provided citizens have adequate notice, they can choose not to drink the water and thus not be exposed to the hazard that only harms those who consume the water. Certainly citizens are entitled to KNOW what the quality of their water is, and whether harmful chemicals or substances are in the water, and in what quantity, but beyond that, it becomes a matter of individual assumed risk, not a matter for federal interference in local water provider policy and practice. If people want to drink pesticide-laced water, that's their right. The classic case is the Clinton Administration's charade of lowering the federal standard for acceptable levels of arsenic in water just before Clinton left office, purely in order to hand Bush a "hot potato" that was factually unnecessary and factually imposed a crippling financial burden on tens of thousands of rural water system operators for no credible reason. Arsenic levels were set properly before, and there was no objective evidence of a risk of exported harm that justified changing them. Stupid as you are, you've missed the one bit of equity hidden in all your twaddle. The rest of the world cares every bit as much about your wellbeing as you do about theirs. So what? I didn't ask them to care for me, nor do I accept their "caring" if financial strings are attached. The "rest of the world" cannot decide it "cares" about me and then force me to pay for their "caring" if I don't want their help. Wolfgang who, deriving a great deal of satisfaction from annoying one nitwit at a time, cannot understand why anyone would go to all the trouble inherent in wholesale. Economies of scale and viral replication theory. -- 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 |
"Scott Weiser" wrote in message ... A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote: No wonder you are a gun nut. Your utopia would obviously be everyone living in a self-sustaining dwelling with a giant electrified fence to protect them from having to be in contact with other people or even - gasp - where people might care about each other. I see. Respecting other people's right to live their lives as they wish without having the government or one's nosy neighbors interfere is anathema to you? Living without a concern for others is anathema to me. One can have concern for others without being compelled by law to enable their bad decision making and behavior. Nobody's asking you to live without concern. You can have as much concern as you like. You can give all your goods to the poor and spend your life serving the poor while wearing sackcloth and ashes if you like. You may not, however, compel anyone else to join you unwillingly. That would be immoral and repugnant. Each individual gets to choose how much concern he or she shows to others. It's not the government's duty or authority to compel it. I disagree. I think there are basic human rights that should be afforded everyone. This includes education and health care. Contributing to public education and public health is a simple and effective means of showing concern for others. Indeed. However, being compelled to to contribute to those causes by force of law is morally repugnant. Not to me. I'm proud to do it. I'm not proud when government does a poor job of it, don't get me wrong on that. But I am proud to be a part of a society that sees education and health care as necessities of life. My "utopia" is a land where people get to do what they want, so long as they don't harm others The fact that a system of private sector health care will cater only to those who can afford to pay means that supporters of said private sector health care are indeed harming others. It's a rather large logical leap to blame those who dislike coercive socialism and favor free-market health care for "harm" that others might cause themselves through bad planning or misfortune. Or having the audacity to be born poor. Talk about repugant. You define selfishness. |
"Scott Weiser" wrote in message ... A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote: in article , Scott Weiser at wrote on 3/22/05 12:06 AM: A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote: in article , Scott Weiser at wrote on 3/21/05 8:19 PM: A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote: "Scott Weiser" wrote in message ... A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote: Tink: ================ Hey frtzw, sounds like we got another dance going on, and someone got your hot button. I'll probably set this one out, but I like to watch. ==================== Tink, it's not a hot button at all. It is simply disingenuous of Scott to pop off with some one-off example and thereby try to discredit an entire system. It's hardly "one-off." It's pervasive and ubiquitous in every socialized medicine system in existence because by its nature, socialized medicine cannot provide effective on-demand health care to everyone. Why do you have socialized education? Because there's a lot of socialist swine down here too. We have to fight them all the time. Ah. So you would favour the total elimination of public education? No, just public education financed by the forcible extraction of money from people who don't have children in school. My model requires the actual parents of children to pay for their children's education. If you can't pay, don't have children or your kids might get to flip burgers, dig ditches and harvest onions for a living. Dirty work, but somebody's got to do it, and at least those kids will be citizens, as opposed to illegal aliens. Ah. So you start holding a child accountable for their own future starting with infancy. No, I hold the parents accountable. But the child suffers. Born to parents who could not afford to send you to school? Tough titties for you, this ain't the land of opportunity. You confuse equality of opportunity with equality of outcome. No, I don't, actually. There is no equality of opportunity for a child born into a poor family who cannot access education or health care. My, what a beautiful world you would build. There's no better way to stimulate parents to be successful than to make them realize that the future success of their children depends on their willingness to work hard and provide for them. We've seen for many years now the result of granting the poor and uneducated "entitlements" that does nothing but bind them and their children ever deeper into economic and social poverty and degradation. The one million illegal immigrants who come to this country each month know this full well, which is why they come here and go to work in those jobs that "Americans won't take," so that their children will have the opportunity to prosper. What's successful for the poor is denying them the public dole that binds them to the public teat while forcing them to advance themselves in the workforce. It builds self-esteem, character and gives them skills that will serve them well in their lives. America is indeed the "Land of Opportunity," but the opportunities are not all positive opportunities. You have an equal opportunity to FAIL as well as succeed. That's what causes people to strive to excel and advance. As Linda Seebach said once, "The only way to make everyone equal is to squash everyone flat." You can't have an equal opportunity to anything if you are hungry, uneducated, and without access to health care. "Pay-to-play" seems to be the new paradigm for everything from trash collection to access to federal lands, why not education too? It's just that usual nonsense about trying to give all kids a reasonable opportunity to access what the world has to offer. Public education is, by and large, a dismal failure, particularly in poor communities where an education, free or otherwise, is not viewed as necessary to one's future...mostly because welfare dwellers see the future of their children as being merely a repeat of their parent's failures. There is no stimulus to succeed, and generational failure is inevitable. Only when one has to work to succeed is one likely to value the education one gets and wish it for one's children. Parents are not stimulated to encourage, assist, stimulate, enlighten, browbeat, badger, threaten and otherwise require scholarship on the part of their children if they see no future for them because the dole is all they know. Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish, and he can feed the world. How ironic, to use the "teach him to fish" analogy while saying that poor people should not have access to education. Can someone draw me an irony meter please! Then again, there's nothing to prevent the altruists and charitable contributors from voluntarily funding public school programs. Heck, even businesses have gotten into the act, recognizing that it's good policy for them to support education for the next generation of workers they will need to stay in business. And they understand that vocational training may be far more valuable in the majority of cases than a college degree in a non-technical field. A "liberal arts" degree is about as useless as an appendix. The worst thing about a liberal arts degree is that some of the graduates might be capable of thinking. True, but sadly, almost universally, they fail to realize that potential, largely thanks to the pervasive leftist/liberal apologetics of failure and muddled thinking taught to them on most of our college campuses. Rare indeed is the student who is able to rise above the leftist propaganda and demagogary to reach a state of enlightenment and understanding, and every one who does is universally a conservative thinker. In your fantasy world. Is George W. Bush one of your elightened right-wing graduates? LOL. |
"KMAN" wrote in message .. . "Scott Weiser" wrote in message ... A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote: In your fantasy world. Is George W. Bush one of your elightened right-wing graduates? LOL. KMAN, Why on earth do you engage such a moron? Mark --just curious-- |
In the end I believe we will be judged by how we treat the poorest in society, not the wealthiest. I am pleased with Canada. Fine by me, just don't try to export your socialism down here, we don't want it. You mean, YOU don't want it. Our military is not the most powerfull ( I would like to see it better funded. ) But we have not fely a need to reach out and touch someone in the way GW has. And the reason you have a minimal military is because the US protects you, just like it protected all of western Europe during the Cold War, which freed you from having to spend more money on defense. You're welcome... That would be your opinion, of course. Our medical system is fine. Unless you're a teenager needing knee surgery... Strangely enough, the Canadians who live under the system so oppresively described by you seem happier and healthier than most Americans. |
However, diabetes, broken ankles and heart disease are not a public health threats, which means that the government has no call to impose the costs of treating such individual illnesses on others, because there is no exported harm that justifies imposing this burden on others. You don't think so? There are many ways that society pays the price for illness beyond the obvious issues of contagion and health care costs. The economic costs of so many Americans sitting at home because they're sick or injured is astronomical when you consider things like lost productivity, overinflated payrolls forced upon employers (which transfer those costs to consumers), etc. When you're a small business owner and your employees are home sick instead of working, you lose money. So does the national economy. It's been a long time since I've seen estimates of the figures, but they're enormous. |
"Scott Weiser" who appears to be a wrote in message [...] Fine by me, just don't try to export your socialism down here, we don't want it. And just how do you imagine we'd try to export our "socialism"? And who elected you as the spokesperson for all the "we"? Parham "bemused, but bound to be none the wiser" |
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Frederick observes:
================= 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. =================== You're right. As I explained to Scott earlier, I too once bought into this "rugged individualist", "tough ****" on others, pay-your-own-way nonsense. And THEN I GREW UP! That's what most people do developmentally. Scott's vision is just that -- a vision. It's an abstraction. It's a theoretical curiousity. BUT IT DOES NOT WORK IN REALITY. Just like the communism he loves to hate was a theoretical curiousity that did not work in reality, so too is his version of human, social, and political relationships an unworkable abstraction. Cheers. frtzw906 |
A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:
One can have concern for others without being compelled by law to enable their bad decision making and behavior. Nobody's asking you to live without concern. You can have as much concern as you like. You can give all your goods to the poor and spend your life serving the poor while wearing sackcloth and ashes if you like. You may not, however, compel anyone else to join you unwillingly. That would be immoral and repugnant. Each individual gets to choose how much concern he or she shows to others. It's not the government's duty or authority to compel it. I disagree. I think there are basic human rights that should be afforded everyone. This includes education and health care. Well, that's a reasonable argument to make. But are they basic human rights? I say no. In essence, a human right is something that society is compelled only to respect and not infringe upon. The right to life, the right to liberty, the right to own a gun, the right to freely exercise religion, even the right to obtain an abortion...if the service is available. All are things with which others, in particular the government, may not *interfere.* But in no case is anyone compelled to participate or facilitate the exercise of those rights. What you refer to, however, are called "entitlements," not "rights." The difference is that rights are inherent to a person's humanity, they are not "provided" to them by someone else. No burden other than the respecting of the exercise of one's rights is imposed on either society or individuals. No affirmative act is required by another person to effectuate or enable those rights. Education and health care, however, require the active participation of others if the "right" is to be exercised. In so doing, an affirmative burden or duty is placed on someone else to provide or facilitate the enjoyment of that right. In order to exercise the "right" to health care, someone must be compelled to provide that health care, otherwise the person's "rights" are "violated." Never has our society imposed an affirmative burden on another in the exercise of a right by an individual. There is great danger in doing so, because it leads to impositions on the rights of those compelled to provide the services, who have a right of free association...and disassociation. Should the Catholic doctor be compelled to provide an abortion because not to do so would violate the "rights" of the woman requesting it? Should the Jewish teacher be compelled to teach a neo-nazi college student because the student's "right" to an education outweighs the teacher's right to not associate with neo-nazis? Should the gun store owner be compelled to give a gun to anyone who asks because failing to do so would infringe on a person's right to own a gun? I think not. You may have a right to own a gun, but no one is compelled to provide you with a gun as an affirmative act in facilitation of your rights. The UN believes that housing is a "basic human right," which means that someone is going to be compelled to provide that housing, perhaps against their will and likely at their own expense. Such "entitlements" pose a serious threat to the rights of people who do not choose to facilitate those "rights." Medical care and education are fundamentally the same. Using your plan, anyone who refuses to provide medical care or education is violating the rights of the person who wishes to exercise the franchise. That's neither reasonable nor fair, nor would it comport with the Constitution or the understanding we have of fundamental precepts. And imagine the flood of lawsuits that would result. It would paralyze the legal system. No, you cannot impose an affirmative burden on others in the exercise of your rights. If you must, it's not a right, it's something else. Contributing to public education and public health is a simple and effective means of showing concern for others. Indeed. However, being compelled to to contribute to those causes by force of law is morally repugnant. Not to me. I'm proud to do it. I'm not proud when government does a poor job of it, don't get me wrong on that. But I am proud to be a part of a society that sees education and health care as necessities of life. Which is fine. What about those who don't want to do it? Are their feelings to be considered, or should they just shut up and pay for whatever you happen to think they ought to pay for? My "utopia" is a land where people get to do what they want, so long as they don't harm others The fact that a system of private sector health care will cater only to those who can afford to pay means that supporters of said private sector health care are indeed harming others. It's a rather large logical leap to blame those who dislike coercive socialism and favor free-market health care for "harm" that others might cause themselves through bad planning or misfortune. Or having the audacity to be born poor. Again, you finally make a reasoned argument. Should society provide free health care for poor *children* whose parents cannot afford proper health care? I'd say yes, because the children are innocent in the matter and have no control over how they live or plan their lives, and simple compassion dictates that the innocent be protected. Adults are a different matter entirely, however. Talk about repugant. You define selfishness. Selfishness is a civil right, that's rather the point. You may not admire or like it, but you don't get to dictate how other people live their lives...at least down here in the US, which is a *good* thing. -- 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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A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:
Ah. So you start holding a child accountable for their own future starting with infancy. No, I hold the parents accountable. But the child suffers. Then perhaps the state should take custody of the child, award custody to someone better able to raise the child, and garnish the parent's wages to pay for the child's care...after eliminating any welfare payments to the parents to stimulate them to get a job. Born to parents who could not afford to send you to school? Tough titties for you, this ain't the land of opportunity. You confuse equality of opportunity with equality of outcome. No, I don't, actually. There is no equality of opportunity for a child born into a poor family who cannot access education or health care. Wrong. In this country, opportunities are abundant. There are millions uponn millions of success stories of poor people who have persevered and succeeded. That's WHY a million people a month illegally enter this country. In the Sudan, there are no opportunities for education or health care, but in North America there are opportunities everywhere. All a parent has to do is go and seek it out and resolve to be successful. America is indeed the "Land of Opportunity," but the opportunities are not all positive opportunities. You have an equal opportunity to FAIL as well as succeed. That's what causes people to strive to excel and advance. As Linda Seebach said once, "The only way to make everyone equal is to squash everyone flat." You can't have an equal opportunity to anything if you are hungry, uneducated, and without access to health care. Sure you can. Go to a shelter, get a meal, go find a Catholic hospital and seek medical care and go find a job to pay for your education. Parents are not stimulated to encourage, assist, stimulate, enlighten, browbeat, badger, threaten and otherwise require scholarship on the part of their children if they see no future for them because the dole is all they know. Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish, and he can feed the world. How ironic, to use the "teach him to fish" analogy while saying that poor people should not have access to education. I didn't say they shouldn't have access to education, I said that public education is a dismal failure and that nobody should *expect* a free public education as a "right" to be paid for by somebody else. There are nearly unlimited educational opportunities out there, even for the very poor, that either cost them nothing (charitable institutions) or merely require some nominal input to qualify. There are vocational programs sponsored by industry specifically targeted at the disadvantaged explicitly to teach them a valuable skill that will be of use to the industry. The opportunities are everywhere. All one needs to do is reach out and grab one. If you want to learn to fish, go to the dock and demonstrate to a ship captain that you are eager and willing to work hard in exchange for his teaching you how to fish. Quid pro quo. As simple as that. The worst thing about a liberal arts degree is that some of the graduates might be capable of thinking. True, but sadly, almost universally, they fail to realize that potential, largely thanks to the pervasive leftist/liberal apologetics of failure and muddled thinking taught to them on most of our college campuses. Rare indeed is the student who is able to rise above the leftist propaganda and demagogary to reach a state of enlightenment and understanding, and every one who does is universally a conservative thinker. In your fantasy world. Is George W. Bush one of your elightened right-wing graduates? LOL. His college grades were much higher than Kerry's, and slightly more than half the voting population of the country find him to be sufficiently intelligent to be President of the United States. Pity we can't say the same about you. -- 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 |
A Usenet persona calling itself Mark H. Bowen wrote:
"KMAN" wrote in message .. . "Scott Weiser" wrote in message ... A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote: In your fantasy world. Is George W. Bush one of your elightened right-wing graduates? LOL. KMAN, Why on earth do you engage such a moron? Well, evidently he's smarter than you are... -- 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 |
A Usenet persona calling itself Franklin wrote:
In the end I believe we will be judged by how we treat the poorest in society, not the wealthiest. I am pleased with Canada. Fine by me, just don't try to export your socialism down here, we don't want it. You mean, YOU don't want it. Indeed, me and 200 million others. Our military is not the most powerfull ( I would like to see it better funded. ) But we have not fely a need to reach out and touch someone in the way GW has. And the reason you have a minimal military is because the US protects you, just like it protected all of western Europe during the Cold War, which freed you from having to spend more money on defense. You're welcome... That would be your opinion, of course. Nope, a fact. Our medical system is fine. Unless you're a teenager needing knee surgery... Strangely enough, the Canadians who live under the system so oppresively described by you seem happier and healthier than most Americans. And they will continue to do so right up until the entire system collapses into chaos. Nothing surprising about people getting freebies not complaining about it...till the gravy train derails. - 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 |
A Usenet persona calling itself Franklin wrote:
However, diabetes, broken ankles and heart disease are not a public health threats, which means that the government has no call to impose the costs of treating such individual illnesses on others, because there is no exported harm that justifies imposing this burden on others. You don't think so? Nope. There are many ways that society pays the price for illness beyond the obvious issues of contagion and health care costs. The economic costs of so many Americans sitting at home because they're sick or injured is astronomical when you consider things like lost productivity, overinflated payrolls forced upon employers (which transfer those costs to consumers), etc. And who is responsible for inflated payrolls? The government. When you're a small business owner and your employees are home sick instead of working, you lose money. So what? That's just part of the cost of doing business. Why should government bail out the business owner? Why should I? If the business owner fails to properly plan for sick employees, how is that MY problem and why should I be required to pay for that employee's health care in order to protect the business owner? If the business owner feels the employee is essential, then the employer should purchase health insurance to keep him healthy, not the government or the rest of us. If his business fails because he plans and manages badly, why, that just provides an opportunity for some new businessman to try to do it better. So does the national economy. It's been a long time since I've seen estimates of the figures, but they're enormous. Not really. You falsely presume that the economic impacts of absenteeism are the responsibility of the government to ameliorate or prevent. That responsibility lies with the employee and the employer and no one else. Such things are only an impact because the government interferes with the employer's ability to avoid or reduce those impacts. -- 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 |
A Usenet persona calling itself Eddy Rapid wrote:
"Scott Weiser" who appears to be a wrote in message [...] Fine by me, just don't try to export your socialism down here, we don't want it. And just how do you imagine we'd try to export our "socialism"? By breeding legions of little socialists. And who elected you as the spokesperson for all the "we"? Me, of course. Parham "bemused, but bound to be none the wiser" -- 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 |
A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:
in article , Scott Weiser at wrote on 3/22/05 11:41 PM: A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote: One can have concern for others without being compelled by law to enable their bad decision making and behavior. Nobody's asking you to live without concern. You can have as much concern as you like. You can give all your goods to the poor and spend your life serving the poor while wearing sackcloth and ashes if you like. You may not, however, compel anyone else to join you unwillingly. That would be immoral and repugnant. Each individual gets to choose how much concern he or she shows to others. It's not the government's duty or authority to compel it. I disagree. I think there are basic human rights that should be afforded everyone. This includes education and health care. Well, that's a reasonable argument to make. But are they basic human rights? I say no. I know. Becuase you are a selfish prig. No, because unlike you, I have a reasoned argument to support my assertion. In essence, a human right is something that society is compelled only to respect and not infringe upon. The right to life, the right to liberty, the right to own a gun, the right to freely exercise religion, even the right to obtain an abortion...if the service is available. All are things with which others, in particular the government, may not *interfere.* But in no case is anyone compelled to participate or facilitate the exercise of those rights. What you refer to, however, are called "entitlements," not "rights." The difference is that rights are inherent to a person's humanity, they are not "provided" to them by someone else. No burden other than the respecting of the exercise of one's rights is imposed on either society or individuals. No affirmative act is required by another person to effectuate or enable those rights. ROFLMAO So owning a gun is a fundamental human right, but a child getting medical care is not? Yup. Well...the right to keep and bear arms, including guns, is. Heehee. Now I know you are just putting me on. Nobody is that stupid. And yet you're the one who doesn't have the wit to formulate a rational rebuttal. Stupid is as stupid does. Education and health care, however, require the active participation of others if the "right" is to be exercised. In so doing, an affirmative burden or duty is placed on someone else to provide or facilitate the enjoyment of that right. In order to exercise the "right" to health care, someone must be compelled to provide that health care, otherwise the person's "rights" are "violated." Never has our society imposed an affirmative burden on another in the exercise of a right by an individual. There is great danger in doing so, because it leads to impositions on the rights of those compelled to provide the services, who have a right of free association...and disassociation. Should the Catholic doctor be compelled to provide an abortion because not to do so would violate the "rights" of the woman requesting it? Should the Jewish teacher be compelled to teach a neo-nazi college student because the student's "right" to an education outweighs the teacher's right to not associate with neo-nazis? Should the gun store owner be compelled to give a gun to anyone who asks because failing to do so would infringe on a person's right to own a gun? I think not. You may have a right to own a gun, but no one is compelled to provide you with a gun as an affirmative act in facilitation of your rights. The UN believes that housing is a "basic human right," which means that someone is going to be compelled to provide that housing, perhaps against their will and likely at their own expense. Such "entitlements" pose a serious threat to the rights of people who do not choose to facilitate those "rights." Medical care and education are fundamentally the same. Using your plan, anyone who refuses to provide medical care or education is violating the rights of the person who wishes to exercise the franchise. Er. No. It means as a society agreeing that education and health care should be available to all. If not infringing upon the religified is something important to a certain society, but they still believe that health care is a basic human right, then they will negotiate the situation. Sorry, but once again, anything that imposes on others a burden or duty to affirmatively act in furtherance of the exercise of the "right" is not a right, it is, at best, an "entitlement," which is an entirely different thing. In Canada most people think of health care as a basic human right. But a doctor who doesn't want to perform abortions doesn't get forced into the job. What about the doctor who doesn't want to treat the indigent patient? Does he violate that person's "rights" by refusing to do so? Your definition of "rights" says yes. This affirmative burden nonsense is so...so...goofy! Only because your fractional wit is incapable of understanding the subtleties of my argument. Any society will have "affirmative burdens" all over the place. Indeed, but are the underlying precepts that impose those burdens characterized as "rights" which accrue to an individual, or are they instead merely societal obligations created as a part of the social contract under which people live in community, according to some method of ratifying those obligations, such as democratic voting? I say the latter. You have yet to rationally explain how my thesis is wrong. That's neither reasonable nor fair, nor would it comport with the Constitution As you are aware, I don't give a fig about that. Indeed. Therein lies the root of the problem: expedience and selfishness over the rule of law. or the understanding we have of fundamental precepts. And imagine the flood of lawsuits that would result. It would paralyze the legal system. No, you cannot impose an affirmative burden on others in the exercise of your rights. If you must, it's not a right, it's something else. Whatever you want to call it, I believe in a society where a child can get help when they are sick and can go to school no matter what the financial status of the family they are born into. Then provide the funding for such a society and be called a hero. I am 100% comfortable with viewing health care and education as fundamental human rights, and I will gladly accept the "affirmative burden" that comes with it. Which you are free to do. You are not free, however, to impose that burden on others without their consent. Contributing to public education and public health is a simple and effective means of showing concern for others. Indeed. However, being compelled to to contribute to those causes by force of law is morally repugnant. Not to me. I'm proud to do it. I'm not proud when government does a poor job of it, don't get me wrong on that. But I am proud to be a part of a society that sees education and health care as necessities of life. Which is fine. What about those who don't want to do it? Are their feelings to be considered, or should they just shut up and pay for whatever you happen to think they ought to pay for? Selfish prigs are a part of every society, and you can't worry much about their feelings, or you'll soon have a society of paranoid freaks walking around with concealed weapons ready to shoot at their own shadow. Classic socialist swill: "Shut up and do what we tell you..." Talk about repugant. You define selfishness. Selfishness is a civil right, that's rather the point. You may not admire or like it, but you don't get to dictate how other people live their lives...at least down here in the US, which is a *good* thing. It's ugly. And so are you :-/ And therein lies the difference between us: I respect and treasure individual liberty and freedom, while you have no problem forcibly imposing your worldview on others. It's only a short journey from where you are now to the Gulags and the Highway of Bones. -- 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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in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 3/23/05 12:23 AM: A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote: in article , Scott Weiser at wrote on 3/22/05 11:41 PM: A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote: One can have concern for others without being compelled by law to enable their bad decision making and behavior. Nobody's asking you to live without concern. You can have as much concern as you like. You can give all your goods to the poor and spend your life serving the poor while wearing sackcloth and ashes if you like. You may not, however, compel anyone else to join you unwillingly. That would be immoral and repugnant. Each individual gets to choose how much concern he or she shows to others. It's not the government's duty or authority to compel it. I disagree. I think there are basic human rights that should be afforded everyone. This includes education and health care. Well, that's a reasonable argument to make. But are they basic human rights? I say no. I know. Becuase you are a selfish prig. No, because unlike you, I have a reasoned argument to support my assertion. No, your just a selfish prig who for some reason feels the need to try and justiry your selfishness through goofy arguments. Do you actually experience guilt, or what is it that drives you to such foolishness? In essence, a human right is something that society is compelled only to respect and not infringe upon. The right to life, the right to liberty, the right to own a gun, the right to freely exercise religion, even the right to obtain an abortion...if the service is available. All are things with which others, in particular the government, may not *interfere.* But in no case is anyone compelled to participate or facilitate the exercise of those rights. What you refer to, however, are called "entitlements," not "rights." The difference is that rights are inherent to a person's humanity, they are not "provided" to them by someone else. No burden other than the respecting of the exercise of one's rights is imposed on either society or individuals. No affirmative act is required by another person to effectuate or enable those rights. ROFLMAO So owning a gun is a fundamental human right, but a child getting medical care is not? Yup. Well...the right to keep and bear arms, including guns, is. LOL. That's so pathetic. I feel sorry for you. I really do. Heehee. Now I know you are just putting me on. Nobody is that stupid. And yet you're the one who doesn't have the wit to formulate a rational rebuttal. Stupid is as stupid does. You're right, I can't think of a "rational rebuttal" to someone who thinks having guns is a fundamental right but an infant who is dying should fend for themselves. Education and health care, however, require the active participation of others if the "right" is to be exercised. In so doing, an affirmative burden or duty is placed on someone else to provide or facilitate the enjoyment of that right. In order to exercise the "right" to health care, someone must be compelled to provide that health care, otherwise the person's "rights" are "violated." Never has our society imposed an affirmative burden on another in the exercise of a right by an individual. There is great danger in doing so, because it leads to impositions on the rights of those compelled to provide the services, who have a right of free association...and disassociation. Should the Catholic doctor be compelled to provide an abortion because not to do so would violate the "rights" of the woman requesting it? Should the Jewish teacher be compelled to teach a neo-nazi college student because the student's "right" to an education outweighs the teacher's right to not associate with neo-nazis? Should the gun store owner be compelled to give a gun to anyone who asks because failing to do so would infringe on a person's right to own a gun? I think not. You may have a right to own a gun, but no one is compelled to provide you with a gun as an affirmative act in facilitation of your rights. The UN believes that housing is a "basic human right," which means that someone is going to be compelled to provide that housing, perhaps against their will and likely at their own expense. Such "entitlements" pose a serious threat to the rights of people who do not choose to facilitate those "rights." Medical care and education are fundamentally the same. Using your plan, anyone who refuses to provide medical care or education is violating the rights of the person who wishes to exercise the franchise. Er. No. It means as a society agreeing that education and health care should be available to all. If not infringing upon the religified is something important to a certain society, but they still believe that health care is a basic human right, then they will negotiate the situation. Sorry, but once again, anything that imposes on others a burden or duty to affirmatively act in furtherance of the exercise of the "right" is not a right, it is, at best, an "entitlement," which is an entirely different thing. Any society can declare whatever rights they want to declare. This can be as bizarre as the "right to bear arms" and can certainly extend to fundamental needs like health care and education. In Canada most people think of health care as a basic human right. But a doctor who doesn't want to perform abortions doesn't get forced into the job. What about the doctor who doesn't want to treat the indigent patient? Does he violate that person's "rights" by refusing to do so? Your definition of "rights" says yes. Sounds good to me. What kind of a dickhead doctor would let someone die because they are poor? This affirmative burden nonsense is so...so...goofy! Only because your fractional wit is incapable of understanding the subtleties of my argument. It's not subtle at all. Any society will have "affirmative burdens" all over the place. Indeed, but are the underlying precepts that impose those burdens characterized as "rights" which accrue to an individual, or are they instead merely societal obligations created as a part of the social contract under which people live in community, according to some method of ratifying those obligations, such as democratic voting? I say the latter. You have yet to rationally explain how my thesis is wrong. Your thesis, in English, is nothing more than "Scotty wants certain things to be rights and other things not to be rights." That's all there is to it. You like guns, so you want the right to carry one. You don't give a damn about children in poverty, so you don't want them to have the right to education or health care. That's neither reasonable nor fair, nor would it comport with the Constitution As you are aware, I don't give a fig about that. Indeed. Therein lies the root of the problem: expedience and selfishness over the rule of law. I've notice you yourself don't give a damn for the "rule of law" if it doesn't meet your needs. If some "rule of law" says a child born into poverty should die because they can't get health care, then I say to hell with that rule of law and the society that would support it. or the understanding we have of fundamental precepts. And imagine the flood of lawsuits that would result. It would paralyze the legal system. No, you cannot impose an affirmative burden on others in the exercise of your rights. If you must, it's not a right, it's something else. Whatever you want to call it, I believe in a society where a child can get help when they are sick and can go to school no matter what the financial status of the family they are born into. Then provide the funding for such a society and be called a hero. I do provide the funding, as do the rest of my fellow citizens. But it has nothing to do with being a hero. I am 100% comfortable with viewing health care and education as fundamental human rights, and I will gladly accept the "affirmative burden" that comes with it. Which you are free to do. You are not free, however, to impose that burden on others without their consent. In some societies it is simply something people want. You don't seem to understand that not everyone views helping other people - by supporting fundamental rights such as access to education and healthcare - as a burden. Contributing to public education and public health is a simple and effective means of showing concern for others. Indeed. However, being compelled to to contribute to those causes by force of law is morally repugnant. Not to me. I'm proud to do it. I'm not proud when government does a poor job of it, don't get me wrong on that. But I am proud to be a part of a society that sees education and health care as necessities of life. Which is fine. What about those who don't want to do it? Are their feelings to be considered, or should they just shut up and pay for whatever you happen to think they ought to pay for? Selfish prigs are a part of every society, and you can't worry much about their feelings, or you'll soon have a society of paranoid freaks walking around with concealed weapons ready to shoot at their own shadow. Classic socialist swill: "Shut up and do what we tell you..." No, grow up, and stop being a selfish prig, an infant born into poverty should not be denied access to health care. Talk about repugant. You define selfishness. Selfishness is a civil right, that's rather the point. You may not admire or like it, but you don't get to dictate how other people live their lives...at least down here in the US, which is a *good* thing. It's ugly. And so are you :-/ And therein lies the difference between us: I respect and treasure individual liberty and freedom, while you have no problem forcibly imposing your worldview on others. It's only a short journey from where you are now to the Gulags and the Highway of Bones. ROFL. I want innocent children to get medicine if they are sick and have a chance to learn how to read. You are already a prisoner of your selfish beliefs. |
"KMAN" wrote in message ... Scott is a moron. He's just clinicall selfish. Sort of fascinating, really. It's like witnessing societal devolution. Ok, now I understand! It's all in the name of science. I learned one thing from reading Scotty's posts: If I was to come across him and he was drowning, it would be ethically alright to let him drown, as there would be no chance of harm being transferred to others. Mark |
"bearsbuddy" wrote in message . .. "KMAN" wrote in message ... Scott is a moron. He's just clinicall selfish. Sort of fascinating, really. It's like witnessing societal devolution. Ok, now I understand! It's all in the name of science. And typos. I meant to say: Scotty is NOT a moron. He IS clinically selfish. Sort of fascinating, really. It's like witnessing societal devolution. I learned one thing from reading Scotty's posts: If I was to come across him and he was drowning, it would be ethically alright to let him drown, as there would be no chance of harm being transferred to others. Mark What you mean, of course, is the idea that you must save another person (e.g. throw them a life presever) is an affirmative burden on you, and therefore the starting point on the slippery slope to gulags and other nasty commie stuff. |
Scott thinks:
=============== The link between the harm of uncontrolled fire and the extraction of money from the public is quite direct, and the risks are shared by all persons in the community equally because everyone is placed at risk by an uncontrolled fire. On the other hand, the link between one's private health care issues and some sort of overall public harm is extremely tenuous at best, and doesn't justify the forcible extraction of money from everyone in order to provide health care for some. The risks are not equal ================= United States spends about $35 billion per year to provide uninsured residents with medical care, often for preventable diseases or diseases that physicians could treat more efficiently with earlier diagnosis (Bloombert/Hartford Courant, 18 June 2003: "Hidden Costs, Value Lost: Uninsurance in America" "Earlier diagnosis"! What a unique concept. No! Wait! I believe it's one of those socialist (and Canadian) concepts. Even if we accept your lack of "overall harm" thesis (which I don't -- see Wolfgang's response to you), perhaps you'll be moved by the extent to which this affects your pocketbook.... frtzw906 |
"BCITORGB" wrote in message ups.com... Scott thinks: =============== The link between the harm of uncontrolled fire and the extraction of money from the public is quite direct, and the risks are shared by all persons in the community equally because everyone is placed at risk by an uncontrolled fire. Nonsense Scott! I have my own firefighting equipment and can protect my own property and I'd never be responsible for starting an uncontrolled fire! Why should I have to pay because people like you are careless and can't take care of their own property! |
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