theslickvik
Senior member
Because most of those idiots live paycheck to paycheck
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How come most Americans are poor?
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Matthias99
Diamond Member
You also pay lower premiums than the people with the Ferraris. 😛
I should have specified that I assumed such a universal plan would probably have everyone paying the same premium, since you'd be responsible for paying for a significant chunk of your own care. But you could try to do assessments based on various risk factors and have higher-risk people pay higher premiums too.
So what you're saying is that for essentially random occurrences that have to be paid out of pocket by the insurance company, they spread the costs over everyone?
Those damn commie pinkos. 😛
AMDZen
Lifer
QFT
This is the epitome of truth right here
AND BTW, your income tax is among the highest in the civilized world. The only countries that are higher then your 45% Individual Income Tax rate are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland. So in case you can't count, that mean's your in the top 10 of all 1st world countries - although just barely.
exdeath
Lifer
Yup, which is why it pisses me off and just one of the reasons I am against illegal immigration. Get rid of the problem at the source, don't just make everyone else pay more.
And there is always someone offering insurance 10% lower than the next guy, and my rates decrease over time as I prove that I don't abuse the system by being careless. Or I could just not drive. Also the insurance company will cancel my insurance if I don't make a payment, they don't care why I can't pay.
Forced payment to the government is essentially like your auto insurance company putting a gun or jail term to your face and saying you have to pay 200% higher rates now, like it or not, even if you decide not to drive anymore.
Vic
Elite Member
Uhh... they have rich and poor in Europe too. And Australia even.
In fact, the founder of Ikea, Ingvar Kamprad, is arguably richer than Bill Gates. And Rupert Murdoch is Australian.
In the meantime, there is great deal of unemployment and poverty in Europe, especially among the non-white immigrant classes (remember last year's riots in France?).
I suggest you try reality, not agenda.
Matthias99
Diamond Member
That would be great, but your insurance company really can't control it directly. Are they supposed to eat the losses and not make money?
From the insurance company's perspective, everyone is at risk of being in a hit-and-run accident, and they have to pay out when it happens. While it sucks that it happens (and illegal immigrants may in fact cause more than their fair share of them, but certainly not all) -- if you want to get an insurance payout in that case you have to have the premiums to cover it.
...to a point, and it depends where you are and what choices you have.
Even if they're a not-for-profit organization they can't pay out more than they take in over time. If statistically 1% of people wreck their car or have it stolen each year, overall people will have to pay at least 1% of the payout value of their policies. Lower-risk customers might be able to pay only .5%, while high-risk ones pay 2% or 3%.
Again, to a point. Driving a car has risks even if you do everything perfectly; no-fault accidents can and do happen.
You would only be "forced" to pay if you didn't have some other kind of coverage, in which case you would be a liability to everyone else if you got sick or hurt. Just like how many (all?) states force drivers to carry some minimal amount of auto insurance so that everyone else won't have to pick up the tab if they are stupid or unlucky.
You can eliminate your need for auto insurance by not driving, or reduce it by driving a cheaper car, etc. You can't eliminate your need for medical care if you get sick or injured. With insurance that is capped (like auto insurance, which usually won't pay out more than your car is worth) you can do a better job of estimating people's costs. But anyone might be diagnosed with cancer next week and end up needing a million dollars in care that they can't afford (or at least would need a long time to pay off). Everyone has that kind of risk, and societally we've decided to cover people when that kind of stuff happens, so everyone needs to hedge against it to make the system work.
exdeath
Lifer
Cheap auto insurance is available and readily accessible to anyone (even thought some choose not to have it, so they can live more beyond their means and spend on other things). Even with thousands if not in the millions, of cars being stolen and crashed daily, and people buy new and multiple cars all the time (you only have one body). People who drive illegally without insurance who claim they can't afford it have no problem smoking 10 packs a day and going to parties on the weekend.
What about situations where you have 1 worker in a family of 8+, yeah, health insurance IS pretty expensive and not accessible when you are paying for more people than just yourself isnt it 😉 How can people say that one person can't be expected to pay higher costs for large low income family of 8 but we can make one person pay more to support a country of 250 million? Note now, that I am no longer talking about unexpected or unfortuneate circumstances involving ordinary responsible people who I agree need help from time to time.
Should we start 'fixing' people who have more kids than they can afford? Or is it their right to have as many kids as they want despite knowingly burdening society and using more than their share of the system? Would shoving a cocaine rock up your nose or sleeping with a hooker or having too many kids be considered fraud of the public healthcare system and punished accordingly? Lets say I was in favor of socialized healthcare, I know I wouldn't support it unless it had a "Stupid Healthcare Recipient" law that punished, jailed, fined, and executed people for frauding the system in this way which is supposed to be in place to help kids with cancer and elderly folks with brittle bones.
Why do you think communism is synonymous with Stalin like government police forces and brutal treatment of its people? Because in order for it to work there has to be some incentive for everyone to put in their fair share, or at the very least, not take out when it can be avoided. As such there must be a device in place which strongly discourges and eliminates avoidable practices that cause excessive and completely needless strain on the system (such as having more kids than you can afford to feed). If personal gain and success is not allowed or it is not desired, what else is there but loss of rights and life?
You can't control who gets cancer or who gets into a bad accident, true, but you can control your pants and what goes up your nose, not getting involved with gangs and getting shot, etc. Why should I pay more out of my pocket because they cant keep their dick in their pants for more than 5 seconds or keep crap out of their nose? The part about letting people die on the street? These people I could do it to easily. I'd rather pay for some kids cancer bills or some elderly womans hip replacement than someone who voluntarily CHOOSES to inflict known harm to themselves. In that context, can we really afford healthcare for everyone in the country? No.
People supporting mandatory socialized healthcare are quick to point out unfortunate and unpredictable circumstances that could happen to any of us in order to garner sympathy and support for their stance. But why don't we talk about the every day stuff that is NOT unpredictable and unfortuneate? What puts more people in the ER and costs the most money every year, people who discover they have cancer or people driving drunk and causing accidents?
Should the public healthcare system pay for these perfectly intentional and avoidable circumstances regardless? I don't understand how the group that opposes the 'every life is sacred' line from the right regarding abortion can turn around and say the EXACT same line when it comes to saving every drug dealer and crack whore at my expense.
Back to auto insurance, all auto insurance companies are privately owned and run, and it is easily affordable and accessible to anyone, despite the insurance company totalling out $30,000+ cars all the time. Why does auto insurance work and health insurance not work? One contributing factor I will guess is probably because most people don't purposely look to get into accidents, they prefer to avoid them (unless you are illegal from Mexico TRYING to get hit so you can sue or file a claim and make easy money). People on a mission to have as many kids as possible and collect every STD known to man, those things are NOT 'unfortunate random circumstances' that they try to avoid, and I will not pay for them.
Auto insurance also makes certain things cost prohibitive. People avoid accidents because their rates will go through the roof thus prohibiting them from driving, thus incentive not to let it happen. Sixteen year old kids can't afford insurance premiums on a brand new Corvette. Can we stop 16 year old kids from having sex/kids because they can't afford it as well? There are consequences to bad behavior. If rates didn't go up and people didn't get thrown in jail, people would be more careless and put into the mind set of 'whatever man, I'll just get another car I don't care'
At what point to we make endless sex and the production of unwanted children cost prohibitive to people who can't afford it and how do you propose we enforce it? What cost prohibitive incentive is there to not having too many kids you cant afford, especially when you can get a fatter tax return if you can pop that 3rd baby out before the end of December? "They are going to have them anyway" is not an acceptable answer. Where do we draw the line of personal responsibility and say "if you do this bad thing that you know is bad, you are on your own with your self inflicted suffering" ? Debt, prison, and death are three pretty good incentives for somebody who doesn't care about causing themselves poor quality of life in the first place.
I'd rather we start there and figure out just what is going on and get costs under control period, instead of getting government involved. More government is never the answer, as has been proven time and time again.
PS: for all the crack whores, drug dealers, gang bangers, cocaine snorters, drunk idiots, and minimum wage sex addicts who can't keep their pants on, etc.: by all means do whatever you want on your own time in your own homes, thats the beauty of a free country. Nobody has to agree with what you do and you don't have to justify it.
Just don't involve me, make me responsible for it, or expect me to pay for it.
Matthias99
Diamond Member
I can say that truly "cheap" auto insurance is not always available. However, almost anyone who could afford a car could afford to insure it.
A big part of it is that it's a lot easier to figure out how much liability an auto insurance policy has. People who get into a lot of accidents or get lots of tickets are probably bad drivers and should pay more. For insurance that covers your car's value, the worst-case value of the policy is known (they just buy you a new car). Auto repair work is a commodity, and it's usually easy to determine what needs to be done and how to do it, so the insurance company can be reasonably sure they are not getting ripped off.
Even when you talk about policies that cover damage to other people's cars or property -- it would be difficult (but not impossible) for you to cause millions of dollars of property damage in a car accident. Frequently such policies are also capped, so even an umbrella policy that was there to cover injuries to people you hurt might only pay up to a million dollars or something.
Healthcare in general is a lot more complex, and it's much harder to pick out people at risk for many conditions. Yeah, that old fat smoker with high blood pressure is at higher risk of heart attack and stroke -- but what about the young, healthy guy who has an undiscovered congenital heart defect? Modern medical care gets exceedingly expensive for some conditions, and people (understandably) usually want the best care they can get.
Health insurance companies can also pick and choose their customers -- people with serious preexisting conditions are frequently uninsurable, whereas even a fairly bad driver can usually get auto insurance (albeit with higher premiums). That uninsurable person then gets pushed off to Medicare or Medicaid, and everybody but the insurance company has to pay for them.
exdeath
Lifer
Sure I can, discounting a catastrophic system failure that renders me unable to function properly. I never see a doctor for things I can wait out or treat myself. In fact, most times I do make an appointment, I already know, or have a good idea, what I need, but simply have to get a confirmation and a signed prescription for an antibiotic or something I can't buy myself. When I get strep for the tenth time in my life I can either phone in a request for a antibiotic prescription or have a 5 minute visit with my doctor. I don't go camping out at the ER demanding premium high cost service like my life is in danger.
Perhaps we should teach anatomy and personal hygene and personal responsibility in public schools again so people are aware of how their bodies work so people can make reasonable effort to take care of themselves as much as possible. Then they aren't scambling for the ER or some free drugs at the first hint of discomfort. It would be alot more effective at correcting some problems in American society, such as healthcare, than teaching kids that owning private property is wrong 😀 But thats what happens when you let the lefties take over the education system with free reign, where among other things, they brainwash kids to be submissive weaklings to authority or violence and that its never ok to hit back no matter what even if you didn't start it, so they grow up prey to anyone who wants to victimize them... including their own government. And don't forget, how to put a condom on a cucumber at age 11 is more important to teach kids than being self sufficient... But I digress, these are topics for another thread.
Even a $50 ER copay for me, a person reasonably well off for my age who wouldn't even notice it, is enough to make even me second guess and constantly weigh tradeoff decisions: Does it really hurt THAT bad that I need to drive 30 mins to the ER at 4am and spend $50? Can I continue to function with reduced capability and, *gasp* handle some discomfort, until I can see my doctor? Or is it predictibly getting worse to the point that I will be immobilized? Could it wait to see my doctor this week or do I need to go to the ER right this minute?
The ER is a fine example of another overly abused victim of the instant-gratification-for-zero-cost cost phenomena that is largly responsible for the majorty of our nations problems.
9 times out of 10 the problem is momentary and goes away, or it's something the ER can't help you with anyway, like the flu. Or after spending thousands of dollars and several hours to diagnose you they concur that you have X, here, take some tylenol for the pain and go and see your doctor tomorrow. Now we have $3,000 less in our healthcare fund for life saving emergency transplants because someone was too lazy or cheap, or simply ignorant of their own body, to keep a bottle of tylenol in their cabinet.
Go visit a ER in Tucson, Arizona in the middle of the night and see what we have flooding the lobby like a plague non stop and what kinds problems they have... I'll give you a hint, it has to do with illegal immigration and free service. And they aren't there to discover they have life ending cancer or because they are in immediate need of a blood transfusion because of an auto accident.
Repeat after me: As cost tends to zero, demand tends to infinity 😀
And you can make it as cheap and affordable as you want in order to say "they still have to pay *something*", but there will be people out there that still say it's too expensive, because $0 a month < $20 a month. Make it free and not only will we have more people than the system can handle, but they will start demanding courtesy gift certificates to Red Lobster when they go to the ER. Then what do you do, since we don't want to alienate them and let them suffer!
Matthias99
Diamond Member
Messing with people's bodies without their permission gets into all sorts of very thorny ethical issues, and then you have the religious nuts weighing in whenever you get into discussions about procreation.
This is a problem with or without some kind of universal healthcare -- since most people would not let the kids starve to death, or die if they get sick, the financial burden ends up on other people anyway. But so far as a society we seem to have decided that it's better to potentially take on that burden than to prohibit people from having children. I don't know if that is a good decision overall or not, or if only prohibiting poor people from having kids would be "right" either.
If it were solely up to me -- beyond a certain point, take the people that did egregiously stupid things to themselves and let them suffer. You get tanked every weekend and drive home from the bar, and tonight you wrapped your car around a tree at 120mph? Should have thought about that beforehand.
The problem with trying to extend this sort of logic beyond really obvious and trivialized cases is that it's never black and white. The 'drug dealer' who got shot has two kids and a job and sold pot on the weekends to make some extra cash. The 'crack whore' who got beaten half to death made some stupid decisions and got hooked on meth, but wants out and just doesn't know where to turn. If the drunk driver is an otherwise upstanding citizen with a wife and kids and is .01 over the legal limit, do you still let him bleed out? If that poor person with "too many" children gets in an accident and needs expensive surgery and rehab, will you deny them because you think you've paid enough to support that person's lifestyle already? Who gets to make that decision?
Logistically it's also impossible to handle during any kind of emergency situation. If someone comes into an ER with a gunshot wound or pulled out of a car crash, you don't have time to run credit and background checks on them before you start treating them. Even if you say that you won't let them die but you'll make them pay back the medical costs -- what if they can't or won't? You lock them up (at taxpayer expense, mind you)? Make them do forced labor? Or you kill them?
It's really, really hard to draw a line and say "everyone on the other side of this line deserves it if something bad happens to them", or to put a sliding scale of dollar values on human lives. There are few situations where I would feel comfortable doing that. Some people would say that morally, you can't do that at all (this is the "all life is sacred" argument).
You can get into slippery slope territory quickly; maybe the majority of people agree that repeat criminal offenders shouldn't get free or subsidized healthcare. That doesn't seem so bad; nobody accidentally commits a whole bunch of felonies. What if the majority then decides that some currently unpopular minority group (Muslims? Arabs? Homosexuals?) doesn't deserve a healthcare safety net either, since they are "bad for society"?
I realize I'm drawing a lot of extreme situations here, but I'm trying to illustrate that it's not just as simple as saying "I'd rather let people die than pay for their mistakes if they do X, Y, or Z". Certainly, letting people die when they do stupid crap and you would rather not pay for it would discourage other people from doing the same things. However, many people would consider it to be morally abhorrent.
It's only a zero cost if you don't have any money. If you have insurance, and you keep billing them for $3000 ER visits for a cold -- your premiums will go way up, and at some point they'll decide to stop paying for it.
As for broke people going to the ER for non-emergency services -- maybe they wouldn't go to the ER for their sore throat if they had coverage that would let them go to a doctor's office without paying them $100 out of pocket to walk in the door, and then another $100 for a course of antibiotics? If you're not going to start turning people away, society ends up paying for them anyway, and it would be cheaper and more efficient to direct them to more appropriate resources.
You make them pay what they can, and you cut down as much as you can on the frivolous crap.
exdeath
Lifer
Exactly, the problem is universal to people, period, and new government systems to address the symptoms and not the cause will not help. Different people have different values and scales for different things, so how will a universal system run by a government agency accomodate everyone?
$50 a month from my checkbook into a healthcare system might seem reasonble to you or I, but I assure you there will be many who think that even $10 is too much and that they deserve it for free. Others might feel that it is not enough, that you should give everything and keep nothing for yourself.
Who gets to arbitrarily draw that line, among all the other 'lines' weve discussed these last few pages? Can I make those decisions? You? If you have a problem with letting people die who are dumb and abusing the system and therefore depriving genuine patients in need of quality healthcare, then I'll take that job of drawing that line, and you won't have to worry about it. That way I can make sure there is always money for cancer patients.
That is why I would rather people be left with the ability to decide for themselves what their moral values are. There are too many conflicting moral values all across the board. The best way to is to leave people alone to make those decisions for themselves and by themselves. If you think that crack whore shouldn't die, nobody is stopping you from donating your money.
You mention that society as a whole gets to make a choice? You said:
No, only you decided, and maybe a few others.
If society on its own has decided to take on that burden, why isn't that society opening their checkbooks and making payments to these families on their own? You see, by not doing that, society has spoken for itself and decided that it DOES NOT want that burden. If you think then, that means that government needs to force people to pay because they don't do it themselves, you are in fact ignoring what society has decided because it is not in agreement with your own personal moral views or what you think society should be doing instead.
The last paragraph here is important. It is what is fundamentally wrong with this whole debate.
Just because we run on debt doesn't mean we are poor.
So I racked up all my Credit Cards and buy a spankin new BMW. But I'm living paycheck to paycheck @35k a year in Boston and it'll prolly cost me 10 years to pay the debt.
Does that make me poor? Not necessarily. We just create a new meaning of poor.
So I racked up all my Credit Cards and buy a spankin new BMW. But I'm living paycheck to paycheck @35k a year in Boston and it'll prolly cost me 10 years to pay the debt.
Does that make me poor? Not necessarily. We just create a new meaning of poor.
Matthias99
Diamond Member
I didn't decide anything (and I didn't really say that I thought that was the best plan either, just that it's what we do now.) We've got ourselves a democracy here; if a majority of people felt that this had to change, it would.
"Want" is the wrong word. Of course nobody "wants" to be burdened because of someone else's bad decisions. But society is implicitly accepting that burden. Let's say that family that can't afford to take care of their kids relies on food stamps (since the parents are lazy bums who won't work, or work just enough to pay for subsidized housing). The government decides that food stamps are costing them too much money and they won't give them out anymore.
You think the people around that family would sit there and do nothing if they really couldn't afford to feed the kids? I'm thinking people would chip in and pay for food and shelter for the kids if their parents couldn't or wouldn't, since most people (I hope) are not heartless animals. That's what I mean by "society has decided to take on that burden"; the vast majority of people would choose to make some sacrifice to prevent the alternative (the kids starving to death). If a majority of people weren't willing to make the financial sacrifice, but also weren't willing to let the kids die, some other solution (such as involuntary sterilization) would have to be found.
Again: democracy. Like I said before -- I honestly believe that a vast majority of people would prefer to live in a society where, when the ****** hits the fan, other people will make sacrifices to help them or their loved ones when their life is on the line. For that to work, everyone needs to chip in to shoulder the load of other people when they really need it.
If a large enough majority of people decide that being stupid or shortsighted beyond a certain point is reason to cut you loose, that's what will happen. If a large enough majority of people decide that we need to cut back on other spending and raise taxes so there are enough resources to save the crack whores too, that's what will happen. If a large enough majority of people decide they'd prefer "every man for themselves", and if you can't pay you die, we'll have that too. It's not me or you that makes that decision. It's everyone, hopefully arriving at some kind of sane consensus.
I don't believe people's values are that conflicted in this area. Few people would choose the alternative of a dog-eat-dog society unless keeping that healthcare safety net in place (at least for truly life-threatening situations) was truly unsustainable.
exdeath
Lifer
What society "decides" is just the automatic outcome of the sum total of every individuals actions combined. Of all the people who say we need to accept the burden of supporting others, who actually in that group has ever contributed to any kind of private healthcare charity for poor families? I'm bet zero.
If society 'accepted' the burden the problem would have resolved itself. But the fact that people do not willingly pay out of their pocket to support other people shows that society has automatically rejected that burden and believes either that greed is good or that those people simply should be left to fend for their own choices. Just because you or I may feel differently gives neither of us the right to spread our values forcibly onto others using our system of law.
It is claimed that the majority of Americans are fat overweight lazy people who eat McDonalds three times a day and live unhealthy lives. Does that make it a majority decision that I am forced to take part in? No. I am not part of the group, majority or not, because I make the willful choice not to be.
Why would those people rather see "N.H.C. $50" on their check stub rather than "health clinic donation $50" in their check registry?
This all boils down to exactly what I described in that last paragraph and you didn't seem to get the message.
To clarify, it went something like this:
You or I or anyone else have no right to tell someone else what they can and can't do and what their moral values should be provided that they do not actively infringe on someone else.
So while this means I shouldn't have to pay into something I don't support, it also means just because you may feel that chinese people are the scum of the earth and should be removed from the country, doesn't mean you can force them. One is infringing on another's free will, one is not. Digressing for a moment, as for how this applies to immigration, I believe everyone has a right to the chance to come here and become Americans. I just don't support lawless mass illegal immigration and social chaos and cultural dillution and displacement, or leeching off others for a free ride.
Just remember no matter how right you think you are or what you think other people SHOULD act like, there is always someone more liberal than you or more conservative than you who thinks otherwise, even what you would consider extreme in your own party.
That is why those types of things are best left to individuals to decide.
If 70% of people in society would willingly donate money, those 70% can get together and form a private charity that that fund, and they can choose whether or not they want to be generous and share it with people who didn't pay in or not. Omish communities do it, Native American communities do it. That is also why we have states where different people with different views can reside together with people of similar views.
What you said about people chipping in to shelter those kids, that is exactly what I mean. They do so out of their own concern and compassion, they are not being forced. If they didn't step in, someone else will. I know I would, as I have done so before. But I like having that choice, because I know better than the government how my finances are and when I can spare to help someone out and when I cannot. I am also free to make my own individual moral judgement as to where to draw those lines that you agree that not everyone can agree on. I may only feel I should help people with cancer, and children. Someone else may feel that treating people with cancer is a waste, but that a crack whore should have a fair chance to chance.
How many people eat hot food at a salvation army? None of that is government run or funded. When a problem gets bad enough, communities will always find a solution to help their own people... unless you wait around waiting for the government to bail you out with polititians making promises with an 'unlimited' supply of money... or promising "to take from the rich and give to the poor". :roll:
It's the same for every hot issue in this country and it comes down to individual freedom of will.
If you don't like guns, don't buy them and shoot them.
Don't like religion? Nobody is forcing you to go to church.
Don't believe in abortions? Don't get one.
Don't believe people should go hungry? Volunteer your time and money to a charity or food bank.
Don't feel that anybody should be homeless? Volunteer your home.
Why is it so important that your views of what 'should be' get forced down everyone elses throat?
People that say they can't get help are like students saying they can't get money for college. There is money all over the place from private scholarships, grants, etc, if you look in the right places.
Society is made out of individuals with free will, not a collective controlled by a few people who enforce their favored views on everyone else by threat of force.
You want to 'save money and lives' by going with public health care. What will you do if I refuse to pay? Kill me even though you want my money to save lives? I need not point out the irony. Throw me in jail? That would cost more money than what you would be losing by my not paying.
Democracy is majorty rule with respect for minority rights. If the majority rule that they want national healthcare, good for them, but they must also respect my rights to opt out of it. It's no use arguing 'you can't opt out of social security, this is no different' because I don't support those things either, and I am on the side that wants to make it go away. What if society decided 51 to 49 that we didn't wan't any black people in the country anymore? Could we rightfully kick them all out? No, regardless of majority rule, there is still recognition of minority rights. Our democracy is based on a very strict and basic set of guidelines spelled out in the constitution, and the rest left to indivdual choice within those basic common guidelines. While there is no mention of abortion for example, the right to bear arms is one of those ensured guidelines that is written in stone. Because our government got out of control and started regulating and legislating moral issues it had no business getting involved with and enforcing them on everyone as a whole as if everyone shares the same views does not mean it's right, and doing it more will not make it more right.
Society is NOT implicitly accepting that burden, they are being forced with that burden against their will through higher taxes, hidden costs, etc, without being told directly what they are paying for. You never here about most people griping that they have to pay out of their pocket to support a crack whore and her 8 kids, you only hear about 'more taxes'. Maybe that is why people want that "NHS $50" on peoples check stubs, it abstracts what people are really paying for so they forget to question it. I really wonder how many people would be as happy paying their taxes if they realized what some of their money actually went to, and if their actually had the money in your hand and had a tradeoff decision to make. Automatic deduction gets people used to the idea that its not theirs to decide. Again, instead of having it taken out of your pay by government, why not write a check yourself every month? Scared that not everyone else will pitch in and it won't work? You seem pretty confident that 'most Americans' would be willing to support such a system, so why don't you ask them to write the check themselves instead of having the government force it?
Bottom line: Live your life to the best of your ability and make your own moral choices. Nobody has any right to impose what they think is best for society on others against their will. They have a right to assemble amongst people like them in communities that share their views, but they have no right to infringe on someone elses free will, even if it's only one person vs. 250,000,000. The term today that is often thrown around and misused, that describes what I am talking about, is freedom.
What I do with my money in my back yard should not concern you as long as I my actions do not interfere with your right to do what you please in your own back yard.
I'm not trying to be greedy here, I believe in helping people as well, but I'm not talking about helping people here as being the fundamental problem, I am talking about national policy, systems of government, socioeconomic systems, freedom of will, etc.
If someone wants to be greedy, thats their choice. I'm sure they don't give a ****** that others are more compassionate and donate their money.
Summary and conclusion of my point of view (as interesting, enlightening, and informational as this thread is, it has started consuming vast amounts of my time and energy...):
To each their own... so long as you uphold another's right to the same
The only, and I mean ONLY fundamental right that anyone in this world has, is to freely be who they are. Ultimately this means that the individual retains all rights over the use of their own body as their own property, and any property thus gained by the life and labor of that body. Everything else, every concept of law, justice, punishment, and government, is derived from that one fundamental law for the purposes of protecting it. Every crime and punishment ever devised by man since the dawn of time, at the lowest possible level, will be found to be a direct violation off that rule. And punishment discouragement and justice for a prior and initial willful violation of a persons freedom with intentional ill will is the only time it is rightful to violate that rule. (For example, it is only ok to take a persons property if that person has stolen in order to repay the person that was stolen from, execute someone who has murdered or as proven to be so vile and a grave threat to society and has proven they cannot live by the above rule, etc.)
You put up some genuine concerns, many that I was aware of and even expected, and alot of them based on personal value and moral judgements. But like we agreed, you don't have an answer, I don't have an answer, and its most likely there simply is no perfect answer, and for good reason. Different people have different moral values and will draw the line at different places. The reason these issues are 'grey' is because there are so many lines at so many places represented by those various moral opinions of individuals, and as a whole, there is dithered grey. There is a reason these issues have never been settled and never will be. There may have been rulings one way but like a pendulum they are temporary, and soon swing the other way as different people come along and have different values, or change their mind based on the outcomes. Allowing individuals to make those choices on their own without intervetion or force of will is the only real solution, as any single line being set at any time will undoubtably be a violation of someone elses rights to choose for themselves. This is the sole reason I do not support policies like national health care.
Now that I've made myself out to be selfish, greedy, etc. in support of my fundamental views that taking from someone without consent is wrong, let me share something close and personal:
Right now we have a teenage girl living with us who had a bad life with a bad mother who was basically the kind of abusive trailer trash crack whore type person I keep refering to. She has a place to stay rent free, food to eat, etc, and it costs us next to nothing other than having another lightbulb in the house turned on at any given time and slightly more food to buy, etc. One big factor is that she shows potential and willingness to succeed. After living on her own for a while and being a typical rebelling teen and doing things the hard way on the streets, and making choices we don't agree with, and didn't follow our advice. We left her alone to her own means to learn lifes lessons and make her own choices as she rejected us. She recently had a change of heart and realized she didn't know what she was doing with her life and wanted help to get right. We had conditions of course, such as no smoking (our carpet alone cost $8000, don't need that crap in my house and I don't like the smell anyway). She decided to stop smoking, get a GED and a job, bought her own car, etc. She couldn't have done those things without the stable platform we provided for her. Sure some people say we have a house way bigger than needs to be for two people, but we've taken advantage of that to help someone now. Sure she is just a friend and you might not see it as anything special because everyone helps their friends right? But in reality, she is not my kid, she isn't even my family. If I didn't know her as a personal friend she would be one of those uneducated girls on the streets, etc., who would have nowhere to turn in a time of need. No government intervention here. No tax increases. I'd doesn't cost you or anyone else a dime and it makes our excessively large and empty house useful for a change to help someone else by allowing us to have the room to accomodate someone in need of support. You could even say that we are doing our share to support 33% of the US population (2 people supporting 1 extra person) and last I checked there aren't even that many people who are poor and in need. She is in the other room watching her anime on our 106" HDTV, laughing her ass off and having a blast. She is an incredible artist. She wants to go to college if she can do so with a GED. We don't charge her a dime, though for personal things like auto insurance and cell phones, she will have to wait until she can pay for those things on her own; personal responsibility and all that. Can't give someone everything or they will never learn, she understands that now and is greatful.
If our other adult friends with 4 kids died in a car accident tomorrow, we would probably be the ones to take them in as well because we care for them. People will find a way to take care of their own if left to their own means. Does it matter if they are friends and we know them? Four kids in need that are not my responsibility that would otherwise become part of the system if we didn't know them, who would be taken care of without owing anybody anything, and they wouldn't be taking from you or anybody else. And with our guidance (and every game system made hooked up to that 106" HDTV) they will be provided for better than any government institution could ever hope to take care of them at any cost to taxpayers.
Oh and as for the smoking? Completely over it. The smell of cigarette smoke on another person is in fact quite repulsive to her. There is always an avenue for those who look for it and wish to change or succeed if they put forth the effort. It won't be fair or proportional to someone elses effort, but nobody can stop them from trying. Try that in a communist country or in a caste system.
With that said, I enjoyed the debate, peace out.
Cuz all of the good paying jobs are going to different companys.. its stupidd, we send the good paying jobs outa the country so the prices can get lower on items... but the people that want to buy the chap stuff wont have money cuz their living off of $150 a week on unemployment..
ITS STUPID!!
ITS STUPID!!
otispunkmeyer
Lifer
yeah its the same here, in the UK the population owes over £1 trillion in debt off of loans and credit cards and the like.
i think it also doesnt help when less than 1% of the population earns 25% of the UK's income.
otispunkmeyer
Lifer
yeah
were not a poor country either, really poor people get job seekers allowence...money to look after kids (which you will find people having 10+ kids to rake in the cash and get free housing etc)
its just people being stupid with money and stupid with life choices
ie living beyond their means, keeping up with the jones' and getting knocked up at 14
otispunkmeyer
Lifer
i think america seems to do enough defense spending for the whole western world. you guys pretty much are the defacto military force. i know the iran thing is over now, but lets say it turned into a war between us and iran, im pretty sure you guys would be there to help us out.
otispunkmeyer
Lifer
im not sure if its changing but at the minute, they get child benefit and other such benefits, and they arent required to look for a job until the youngest child is 16 years old.
every few weeks theres stories in the paper of yet another family with 12 kids, who have just been given the keys to a big council house becuase the previous council house couldnt fit them all in
i mean its still not all rosy for them, a council house isnt exactly a palace, and the £30-£40k they eventually rake in in benefits doesnt stretch very far when you have 12 kids to feed and cloth. but thats how it is.
gun crime and knife crime is on the rise too, people are now starting to get shot over such trivial stuff as parking spaces.
so you have the poor guys sponging off the state, then you have the rich guys who couldnt care less about the level of tax they pay because they have so much money they dont notice, and then you get the working middle classes....who get squeezed.
honestly i have heard people say that its actually more beneficial for some young girls to get knocked up and have a couple of kids than it is to basically fail school and get a crap job serving pasties in gregs.
DrPizza
Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Okay, you've contradicted yourself a few times in this thread. You don't mind paying for a child to have cancer treatment, but you mind paying for children from people who keep having kids while working minimum wage jobs. So, I take it that your view is that having children is a priviledge for only the wealthy? Anyways, in regards to this post:
9/10 times, it does turn out to be nothing. That leaves the 1 time out of 10 that it DOES turn out to be something. Do you propose that everyone should go to med school so they can tell the difference between a heart attack and just really bad indigestion? I went, no, make that I was taken to the ER for severe pain in my chest - by a medical professional. That person thought there was a significant chance that the symptoms I was feeling were actually a heart attack (pain in the chest, and I was sweating from the pain.) When I got to the ER, they had me on a bed, with needles stuck in me and probes stuck all over my body before I could say "uncle." They thought there was a significant chance that it was a heart attack too. Happy to say, after all the tests came back, it wasn't. Something about my esophogus and stomach or something; basically, indigestion. So, my trip to the ER cost thousands of dollars and turned out to be indigestion. But, do you realize how many cases of "indigestion" actually turn out to be heart attacks?
There's a saying: "better safe than sorry." Sometimes, delaying medical treatment can have dire consequences. When did you pass your medical boards which would allow you to tell people that their symptoms can wait? Since when did you start doing cultures of what's in your throat which will tell you it's actually strep throat? And, do you go back to work, likely infecting others, before you've been on the antibiotic a sufficient amount of time?
"As cost tends to zero, demand tends to infinity 😀 " No, costs won't trend toward zero, because you're ignoring some of the other costs. As demand goes up, response time decreases. People have to wait longer. Time is a cost. People are not going to go to the ER if there's a 7 hour wait; or rather, they're going to evaluate whether or not their condition really merits possibly waiting 7 hours. Even the illegal immigrants. (The cost to them is zero... I don't see an infinite number of them in the ER's, do you?)
I've spent plenty of time in the ER (as a patient, and visiting my wife who once worked in that part of the hospital.) So, I do know that some people will go to the ER with the most minor, non-emergency symptoms. But, when walking in and discovering that they'll probably have to wait several hours, many people without life-threatening injuries will turn around and leave (usually to go to a different hospital.) Last May I was lucky that I waited - I had a *very* painful infection in my elbow. It ended up that every day of treatment really counted - the infection turned out to be an anti-biotic resistant staph infection. By the time this was determined, my elbow was huge and swollen. Had I delayed the initial treatment, it likely would have progressed to the point where I'd have to have taken off a significant amount of time from work - at taxpayer's expense. (It marks the only time in 7 years that I took a sick day at my present job, and the 3rd time in 20 years.) Heyyy, there's another reason for the ER for me: I don't have to take time off from work!
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