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Old 2012-11-12, 02:03   Link #3147
GundamFan0083
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Join Date: May 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Solace View Post
I'm aware of the older proposals for healthcare. There is no way you can push through single payer without everyone on board. You're fighting HUGE amounts of money and people swayed more by opinion than facts. You have to make inroads. The public option could have gone in, and liberals were a bit miffed at the idea that all of this stuff was negotiated away to get Republican votes, they didn't vote for it, so you're just going to pass it as is? It's a bad taste. The behind the scenes stories are interesting though. The bill really is a deal made between government and corporations. *cue dramatic music here*
Which is odd considering it wasn't that long ago that the GOP wanted a universal healthcare system.
That's how you know both of them want the same thing, they just play this game of "us verses them" to whip up support from their bases and pay off their handlers/backers.


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That's why I said you're big on it, not that you are one. You frequently advocate similar positions to libertarianism, not that you're wrong for it or anything. It's just what you believe.
I see.
Well, let me point out some major differences between Libertarians and myself.
Libertarians don't believe in Jefferson's Government Healthcare system.
Many of them (though not all) don't believe in government police, fire departments, or paramedic services.
Whereas a classical liberal sees those as the exclusive jurisdiction of government.
In fact, many classical liberals see the public-private military industrial complex as offensive, and I'm one of them.
There shouldn't be private companies like McDonald-Douglas, Northrop-Grumman, Colt, Bushmasher, or other military contractors supplying the US government (unless there is an emergency like WWII).
That's not to say there shouldn't be private military producers for the civilian market, just they shouldn't be supplying the government.
However, outside of such an emergency, government shipyards, weapons manufacturers, and armories should be the only suppliers to the Federal and State armed forces.
It used to be that citizens could buy weapons directly from the old Springfield Armory in Springfield Mass. Springfield Armory was a government arsenal.

Unlike some Libertarians, I'm not for minimal government per se, I'm for minimal government intrusion into the lives of the citizenry and in the free market.
I wants limits on what government can tell us we can own, who we can have sex with, what we can do with our bodies, what we can put in our bodies, and what we can do with our property.
Unlike some Libertarians, I believe government should crush monopolies with an iron fist, and it should not allow for the creation of corporations.
Many classical liberals also don't believe in intellectual property rights (which is something some socialists agree with us on).

Classical Liberals are also completely opposed to Objectivism.
Something that many Libertarians embrace.

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Healthcare isn't a product, it is needed for basic survival of the species. We could have put it into the Constitution, but since that never happened we got it as this mess. The marriage of corporation and state is the problem, certainly. The insurance industry is a middle man that should never have existed to begin with.
No Solace.
If healthcare were necessary for survival we'd have gone extinct as a species thousands of years ago since it didn't exist in its modern form prior to the 19th century.

If you mean that in the modern world it has become necessary for survival, then so is a house, a car, I'd argue a computer, self-defense, and yes health care.
So in the sense that in our modern society it is something necessary to survive, I would agree.
But not from a historical standpoint.

FDR's "2nd Bill of Rights" should have been passed and ratified, but the corporate influence in the 1930s was already well established thanks to Woodrow Wilson.

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Bear in mind I don't have many issues with what the bill is trying to fix, but rather the way it attempts to do so. There just isn't enough political capital yet for a true single payer system, unfortunately.
There's a reason that John Roberts didn't strike it down, and it has more to do with what you posted earlier about insurance companies being the benefactors than anything else.
Thus we again agree, though from different angles of the issue.
I really wanted to see the mandate struck down and the bill reworked into an actual tax and/or expansion of medicare/aid to cover people making less than 30,000/year.
That would have made more sense then forcing people to buy insurance or pay a fine.

BTW if you want to read the entire PPACA, here is the PDF of it.
http://www.workplacefairness.org/lin...-as-passed.pdf

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This is a bit of a strawman. You aren't incorrect, but it's not the whole picture. Companies are nothing more than a way to profit from goods and services. They are self serving before all else. It is not in the interest of a company to fix a problem, unless it becomes a matter of life and death for the company. Problems mean opportunities for more profit. Why cure diseases when you can treat them? Why prevent pollution if you can profit from cleaning it up? In a world driven by money, is it any wonder we find it so difficult to solve problems? It takes forcible change, through policy or technology, to make progress. I wish this wasn't true, but that's our history so far.
I don't disagree.
However I'll go one step farther and say that money isn't the problem per se.
Money is just labor in a tangible form that can be traded for poducts or services.
These large companies aren't motivated by profit as much as they're motivated by power.
I'd submit that power is the problem, and/or the lust for it on the part of both corporations and government.
Look at Fox News or MSNBC.
Both lust for the power to influence and manipulate the population into their view of the world. Profit is a factor to keep their businesses going, but the motivation is power.
I say this because governments are just as guilty of colluding with the very mega-corps and monopolies we've both mentioned here. Power corrupts and it is no wonder the US government has become corrupt due to its level of power.

Healthcare is no different.
If you control a person's health, you control that person, and there in lies the danger.

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Washington was never a fan of the party system, but it is only natural for them to form when extremes in interests appear. I wouldn't say we had a fantastic government (that's too much rose colored goggles for my taste), in fact it's always been rather dysfunctional and full of special interests - especially rich ones. It's been punctuated by moments of people and leadership giving the finger to the establishment to a large enough degree that things change for the better, but progress happens in fits and starts.
Compared to socialist states, it's divine.

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Government is what you make of it. It is the people that determine the government they want, but they have to be invested in that change to see it through. It is not the duopoly and force of government that people should fear, it is themselves. They are the instruments of change. It's the very purpose of a representative democracy - send the guy who advocates what you believe, and fire him if he doesn't represent you satisfactorily.
That's a nice notion, but history has proven that is not the case, Solace.
Stalin proved beyond any doubt that one man can hold so much power as to be able to apply deadly force against a population at his whim. North Korea is the same way right now.
That is why I say government is force, because it intimidates the populus into doing what the leaders want, that's how dictatorships operate.

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Big or small, it doesn't matter. Taken to the extreme, the only good government is one that doesn't exist at all. Since that's an unpalatable concept to most, it's up to the people to determine what they want the government to do for them, and to pull it back when they think it goes too far.
Anarchy will degenerate into despotism quickly, survival of the fittest and all that.
Moderate, effective government in the sense of one that serves its people rather than the people serving it, is the most desirable form.


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You will always be told, your entire life, how to live. Much of it will be subconscious. You won't even think about it. Do you use a chopstick or a fork? Do you wear jeans or a toga? Do you speak English or French? Even without government, society enforces the norms of the group. True freedom is an illusion. The better question to ask is "within this framework, can we solve problems with more freedom instead of less?". Sometimes the answer is no, and you move on.
Told, yes.
Listen? No.
I'm a rebellious SOB who does what he wants and doesn't listen to outside influence.
I don't watch the TV.
I think the last show I watched on TV was the X-files when it was brand new.
I do watch anime (like all of us here), but probably not as much as most people here.
Mostly I like to read.
As to your questions.

I wear both a toga and jeans, as well as sweatpants.
I use both chopsticks and a fork depending on the meal.
I speak English, some French, and a little Japanese (which I suck at ).
True Freedom is an idea.
Mortimer J. Adler explained it very well in his book "The Idea of Freedom."


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Remember, even the Founding Fathers had slaves. Women and minorities couldn't vote, or even own property. Workers had no rights. For much of history, people just thought this was the way things were, and that they had no reason to change, or that it couldn't change. It's amazing to think back on all the change in the last 236 years, really.
Some of the founders worked very hard to end slavery.
Jefferson being one of the most outspoken.
Breaking the bonds of mercantilsm was certainly a difficult task, but things aren't better now.
We're now at the mercy of corporations.
Workers' rights are a joke if you can't even start a business or compete with the monopolies.
Being your own business owner is vastly superior to being a worker, which is why Marx was full of shit in Das Kapital.
As you know, I hate Marx. The dumbassitude he perpetuated on the world is still conning people into believing it and corporatism has benefited on a level that idiot never dreamed possible.
I'd like to go back in a Tardis and beat the snot out of him with a copy of R.J. Rummel's book in one hand and a copy of David Korten's book in the other.
I hope Lenin is kicking his ass in some other dimension right now.

So while the "good ol days" weren't always good, the "progress" over the last 236 years has brought with it a whole new slew of problems.


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Not quite. The decision was to determine if the classification of the mandate as a tax was constitutional under the commerce clause. They said yes. It's a tax, according to the highest court of law.
Doesn't change how it functions.

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I'd rather it just be "Medicare for all"; but I also recognize the complex issues of the matter.
As do I, but you're right, Medicare for all under the poverty line, would be far better than what was passed into law.

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The men in black show up. They don't ask questions.
See, that's the oppressive force of government I'm talking about.
In proper constitutional republic, the gestapo isn't even supposed to exist, let alone show up at your door.

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But it is just a piece of paper. What you're clinging to are the ideals of the paper, the symbolism, and those change. Contracts only hold meaning when everyone agrees with them. We all agree on "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"....but the details, not so much.
No one is clinging to anything.
A contract is an agreement between two parties.
The constitution is an agreement between the people of the states and the federal government.
If political parties abuse their positions of federal power and seek to impose their agenda on states that don't want it, then they've violated the constitution.
The constitution protects minority rights (all minorities now with the amendments) in opposition to the whim of the collective.
That's why it matters so much, Solace.
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Last edited by GundamFan0083; 2012-11-12 at 02:15.
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