A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott claims:
============
It's just that I haven't seen a system which works better
than what we have in the US (including Colorado) anywhere in the world,
and
I've seen many that are much, much worse, including, notably, every
socialist state on earth.
============

WOW! You've "seen" every socialist state on earth?!

Don't pettifog.


Scott boasts:
===========
Hey, we've got a great system here, why shouldn't I use it as a
touchstone?
===============

One those issues on which we agree --sort of. You have a pretty good
system and it makes for a good touchstone. But, there's also plenty
wrong with it and, guess what, occasionally other nations have figured
out how to do things better.

Really? Name one.

--
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 BCITORGB wrote:

Scott:
============
I don¹t recall either, but that's an easy one: Yes, but with some
reservations...

Good to see you coming over to the bright side GRIN
============

I'll bet we could explore plenty of issues in the realm of social
libertarianism and find common ground... waddya think? Do you fancy
yourself a social libertarian?

Not really. I do admire some libertarian principles, but not all, or even
most of them. They unfortunately mix in some really stupid ideas with some
very good ones. Libertarian dogma has one prime failu it presumes the
universal existence of something that is in fact pretty rare in human
behavior: altruism.

I don¹t think there's a category for my political beliefs. I subscribe to
some parts of many different philosophies. If I have a core belief, it's one
of ordered individual liberty that recognizes some vital truths of human
nature, combined with a strong belief in personal accountability and
responsibility, and a disdain for whining, excuses and avoidance of
consequences.

--
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 BCITORGB wrote:

Scott:
===========
The argument made in the various letters from the Health Ministers of
Canada
worrying that a two-tier system would cause problems because the
clinics
would "cherry pick" the easy cases while leaving the hard, expensive
cases
to the state is idiocy.
============

Idiocy to you, but true. If one believes in a universal program of any
sort (I know you may not), then that program needs to be protected
against exactly that: cherry picking.

Why? What harm is caused by "cherry picking?" All it does is reduce the
costs of medical care for the poor, thus allowing them to get better care by
reducing the demand on the public system, while allowing individuals to
exercise personal liberty and seek out (and pay for) whatever medical care
they can afford.

"Cherry picking" is only bad when reducing the pool denies those excluded
access to the benefit.


Here in BC we have a "universal" auto insurance plan: if you want to
drive, you MUST have insurance.

What kind of insurance? Liability or personal injury?

Allow me to paint with a broad brush to
make my point -- there are minor and trivial exceptions to what I'm
about to say. And the insurance you buy MUST be provided by a
Provincial Crown Coporation. You may not buy your BASIC coverage from
anyone else. Why? Because, if the corporation is to gain the benefits
that come from having this monopoly and is to be able to provide the
blanket, global coverage the corporation was set up to provide, then it
cannot afford to have private insurers cherry-pick the low-risk
clients, leaving the crown corp to pick up the difficult, expensive
clients. [BTW, the premiums compare quite favorably to other
jurisdictions across Canada that use the private model]

Correct. This is true of insurance plans that are allowed to exclude people
and are allowed to control risks by excluding (by price or otherwise) those
who pose higher risks to the actuarial pool.

However, this problem does not apply when *everyone* is in the pool, by law,
and when the premium payments are extracted equally from everyone by
taxation, not by individual premium payments for those who are "in the plan"
or based on their perceived position in the actuarial risk tables.

In this case, people who choose voluntarily NOT to take advantage of the
coverage by buying and paying for their own insurance *which is additional
to the mandatory government coverage, for which they have to pay anyway* do
nothing but BENEFIT the members of the pool by NOT extracting money from the
pool when they can, and choose to pay the bills themselves.

"Cherry picking" is only a problem if the *individuals* in the pool are
allowed to opt out entirely and thereby not have to pay into the pool.

If, however, they remain in the pool, and have to pay into the pool
irrespective of whether they buy supplemental insurance or choose to pay for
the incurred debts in cash from their own assets, there is ABSOLUTELY NO
HARM to the pool as a whole, and in fact it benefits the pool by reducing
payouts.



Further, an anecdotal example of cherry-picking (that really ****es me
off): in the elementary school my daughters attended, there were two
sisters, one of whom was severely handicapped. The parents,
dissatisfied with the education their daughters were getting at this
school, took the daughter who was not handicapped, and sent her to a
very expensive private school. By doing so, they further diminished the
academic calibre of the school by taking a very bright girl out, and
leaving a handicapped one. This sort of cherry-picking diminishes our
ability to provide quality to everyone.

Hold on a second! You cannot compare the economic effects of insurance
cherry picking with some sort of "intellectual premium payment" that you
suggest a parent or child owes a school. What you suggest is that
exceptional children must be "leveled out," or required to suffer an
educational environment that does not best exploit their learning abilities
merely in order to provide some kind of egalitarian "level playing field"
for other children.

What you suggest is akin to educational slavery. You suggest that a bright
child, who can benefit from a higher quality, more expensive education that
her parents can both afford and wish to give to her, ought to be forced into
an inferior (for her) school in order to benefit *other* children. That's
just wrong. No parent, and no child, should be required to sacrifice
educational opportunities at the altar of socialist egalitarianism. Children
ought not to be made into sociopolitical pawns to salve what I intuit as
your bruised academic ego.

As for the "handicapped" one, she has a RIGHT to that education, by your
own argument, and to suggest that her presence drags down the educational
environment for other children, which ought to be balanced out by forcing
her sister into academic slavery, is astonishingly uncaring and dismissive
of the fundamental value of each child, no matter how handicapped. I can't
believe you really mean this.

I understand that you may not ascribe to that philosophy, but I do. If
one ascribes to that philosophy, then cherry-picking can not be
permitted.

What I see as implicit in your argument is that you believe that no one
should be allowed to excel or enjoy individual success above any other. This
is the essence of socialistic oppression, and it's why socialism always
fails.
--
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 BCITORGB wrote:


Scott:
===========
Hey, there are *lots* of opportunities to make a profit, even in police
departments. Do you think the police officers, or the professors and
custodians work for FREE?
============

I'm not clear on what you're trying to say.

You're right, I don't work for free. But that still doesn't explain how
a university (a state university) makes a profit.


I didn't say the university made a profit, I said, quite specifically,
"there are profits to be made."

Universities are profit generators. That the university itself doesn't show
a profit is irrelevant, they are a huge part of the economy of most
communities, not just from wages and compensation for employees, but to the
community that serves the students and faculty. And then there are the
scientific discoveries that universities foster and patent. They, and the
public, share in the profits accruing from such things.

People support universities not simply because they provide advanced
knowledge, but because they are massive profit-generating engines for the
communities and the nation as a whole.

================

Man Scott, you're sounding more and more left-wing by the hour. Have you
finally started taking your meds? ;-)

You sound just a tad weaselly what with: 'I said, quite specifically,
"there are profits to be made.'"

But, you are quite right in your assessment of the impact of
universities on their communities. However, that still leaves us with
your initial assertion that med school respond to market demand for
doctors.

The answer is still "Nope." They respond to "political" or government
demand for more admissions into med school. Simply because, from a
purely market perspective, there's "nothing" in it for the university to
invest in all that is involved in running a med school. Much cheaper to
open another 20 section in the MBA program. But "society" (read
government) recognizes that we sure as hell don't need more MBA's (or
lawyers), but we (USA and Canada) do need more nurses and doctors. So,
as per my previous post, the government mandates (recall that direct
line between the governor's mansion and the University president's
office -- via the Regents) that admissions to the med schools be increased.

This is all part of the non-private, not-for-profit part of the economy
(polity) that you like to deny and disparage.

But, it seems, from this post, you do GET IT! WELL DONE!

frtzw906

Scott Weiser wrote:
A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:


Scott queries:
================

Well done Scott! Good research. Your editorials, however, most often
missed the mark. I'll take these points up with you at a later date
(there's just WAY TOO MUCH you interpreted incorrectly!).

The question you should ask yourself is whether that "incorrect
interpretation" is deliberate or not.
============

Well the options that spring most immediately to mind are (a) yes, you
are deliberately misinterpreting so as to continue to cling to and
spread false information or (b) no, but you're not bright enough to be
able to understand what was written.

Are there other options?


Indeed. There's (c) as well. Can you figure out what it might be? I've given
you many clues.


=============
I'm not in the mood for guessing games.

frtzw906

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:


If I may, for many a person with a disability, "handicapped" is like the
n-word to many a person with black skin. I realize no offense likely
intended frtzw906 :-)

I agree. I see his statement as being poorly thought out and articulated,
not calculatedly insulting.


Now to your point, that is exactly what will happen. It's so obvious...poor
people and/or those more difficult to work with will be left behind. What is
the incentive of a profit-driven school to serve them? None.

The incentive is exactly the same as it is for any student: money.

So long as poor children are given a stipend by the government (collected
from society as a whole through taxation) to provide for schooling, they
will be just exactly as welcome as any other student.

Yes, some students will be able to afford better schooling, but so what? The
intent is to provide an adequate education, not a perfect education, for all
children. Some children will excel, some will be average, and some will
fail. All will have a reasonable and fair opportunity to get a basic
education. No more ought to be expected by anyone.

Indeed, such a private system is more egalitarian than what exists now
because it *requires* those who have the means to pay for their children's
education to do so, thus taking the burden of educating those children off
of the public, leaving that much more money available for the truly needy.

--
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 BCITORGB wrote:


Scott claims:
============
It's just that I haven't seen a system which works better
than what we have in the US (including Colorado) anywhere in the world,
and
I've seen many that are much, much worse, including, notably, every
socialist state on earth.
============

WOW! You've "seen" every socialist state on earth?!


Don't pettifog.


Scott boasts:
===========
Hey, we've got a great system here, why shouldn't I use it as a
touchstone?
===============

One those issues on which we agree --sort of. You have a pretty good
system and it makes for a good touchstone. But, there's also plenty
wrong with it and, guess what, occasionally other nations have figured
out how to do things better.


Really? Name one.


We've been down this road before, so I won't spend too long on it, but
so far as "elections" are concerned, Canada, for example does a better
job -- no hanging chads, etc. AS far as "system" of government
(bicameral, judiciary, etc), Germany is a nation that has taken the
American model and improved on it. Any number of nations do a better job
of educating their children... Need I go on?

frtzw906

Scott Weiser wrote:
A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:


Scott:
============
I don¹t recall either, but that's an easy one: Yes, but with some
reservations...


Good to see you coming over to the bright side GRIN

============

I'll bet we could explore plenty of issues in the realm of social
libertarianism and find common ground... waddya think? Do you fancy
yourself a social libertarian?


Not really. I do admire some libertarian principles, but not all, or even
most of them. They unfortunately mix in some really stupid ideas with some
very good ones. Libertarian dogma has one prime failu it presumes the
universal existence of something that is in fact pretty rare in human
behavior: altruism.

=============
I lean to libertarian views when it comes to "victimless crimes". I find
that, as a society, we cause ourselves all sorts of headaches by trying
to impose "moral" values on everyone. Values that intrude into the
bedroom. Values that presume to know what people ought to (or not)
ingest. etc

frtzw906


I don¹t think there's a category for my political beliefs. I subscribe to
some parts of many different philosophies. If I have a core belief, it's one
of ordered individual liberty that recognizes some vital truths of human
nature, combined with a strong belief in personal accountability and
responsibility, and a disdain for whining, excuses and avoidance of
consequences.

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Thanks to KMAN:
============
If I may, for many a person with a disability, "handicapped" is like
the
n-word to many a person with black skin. I realize no offense likely
intended frtzw906 :-)
=============

You're right, none intended.

As I was writing, I occasionally was about to write "disabled" but
wasn't sure if that was perhaps the taboo expression. In another
lifetime, I was in the public school system, and was more "aware". Now
I occasionally get caught using n-word equivalencies... Sorry!

It's not the "handicapped" that bothers me...people can be handicapped and I
don't subscribe to the pressure to use "politically correct" speech, what
offended me is the compartmentalizing of the handicapped child as a debit to
the system and your presumption that this debit ought to be leveled out by
abusing her sister out of egalitarian zeal.

As to the anecdote in question, you can't begin to imagine how the
hypocrisy of those parents ****ed me off.

There's nothing in the least bit hypocritical about what they did. Their
handicapped child is entitled to a public school education, according to
your own vociferous arguments, and the parents are perfectly entitled to
exercise that right. Her sister, however, is fortunate enough to get a
better, private education at her parents expense, who, by the way are *still
paying for her public school educational right!* Thus, while the bright
sister's private education reduces the burden on the public school system,
thus freeing up resources for other students, her parents are now, in
effect, paying DOUBLE for the handicapped sister's education. What on earth
is your complaint? It's not only no skin off your nose, it's actually
beneficial to the school system as a whole.

Your complaint sounds remarkably like sour grapes to me.

And for them to malign the
public system as they were in the process of diminishing it!

How did they "malign" the system? By wishing to give their gifted daughter
an education commensurate with her abilities? By exercising their
handicapped daughter's fundamental right to a public school education while
paying double what you pay for your child? Please enlighten us as to how
they "maligned" the system.

It stills
makes my blood boil! If I were king for a day, private schools would be
on the chopping block.

Why? Because YOU can't afford one for your own kids? You would bind gifted
children, or even ordinary children lucky enough to have wealthy parents to
academic slavery merely in order to assuage your own guilt and anger over
not being able to provide a premium education for your own children?

How unbelievably arrogant. How astonishingly selfish and petty.

[I might be persuaded that "choice" in education
*might* be a good thing through some sort of voucher system so long as
-- ditto the medicare program -- nobody could spend more than the
voucher amount. I'd have to think this one through.]

I think you ought to examine your motives first.

--
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:


"BCITORGB" wrote in message
oups.com...
Thanks to KMAN:
============
If I may, for many a person with a disability, "handicapped" is like
the
n-word to many a person with black skin. I realize no offense likely
intended frtzw906 :-)
=============

You're right, none intended.

As I was writing, I occasionally was about to write "disabled" but
wasn't sure if that was perhaps the taboo expression. In another
lifetime, I was in the public school system, and was more "aware". Now
I occasionally get caught using n-word equivalencies... Sorry!

As to the anecdote in question, you can't begin to imagine how the
hypocrisy of those parents ****ed me off. And for them to malign the
public system as they were in the process of diminishing it! It stills
makes my blood boil! If I were king for a day, private schools would be
on the chopping block. [I might be persuaded that "choice" in education
*might* be a good thing through some sort of voucher system so long as
-- ditto the medicare program -- nobody could spend more than the
voucher amount. I'd have to think this one through.]

frtzw906

The challenge is to promote flexibility and excellence in education without
ending up with nothing but elite schools for the gifted/rich and slums for
everyone else.

Well, the free market, combined with stipends for the genuinely poor solves
that problem.

However, in the present system, if "slum schools" happen, the blame falls on
the government, not on the parents who put their children in private
schools...while usually simultaneously paying for a by-right public school
education for the same students.

The fact is that the more students who are moved to private schools, the
more money and resources available to those remaining in public schools.
What on earth could be wrong with that?

--
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