Bizarre Health Care Reactions

[Cops]

lol thats funny that a socialist is using 'ideal world' as an argument against someone else's point of view. How are other socialized programs like social security doing in America? They're great right? lets have more like it!

You're arguing the use of 'certain' social programs based on one single country. A country I might add, which is not the best example of how to effectively run any sort of government program.

[Jerome Scuggs]

They have swept away all other forms of possible organization.

And the methods which they use to do the sweeping - violence and coercion - is exactly what the problem is resting at the core of the argument. In an argument of logic versus the gun, the gun will always win.

Your ss analogy is flawed - a government would force people to cram, against their will. Unless someone decided that the line was best and then enforced that. The fact that the capitalist does not commit immoral/unethical acts by his very nature of existence, as opposed to the politician, makes it a morally superior option. It means that decisions reached are of a voluntary nature.

If you went around asking people what their political views were, 80% of them would admit to not caring either way. They do not 'want' or 'not want' government - they are just busy living life. The only time government comes into question is when one asks themselves a question concerning certain actions - "if i do this, who will catch me and bring me to justice?". That is a question that can, and even now sometimes does, have an answer that does not end with "government". When you go somewhere such as a restaurant, you behave out of fear of being kicked out by the owners/managers. And there's an example of order without government. The argument could be made that, at the very least, government serves as some sort of psychological finality - that it has the final say, and is therefore the root and source of order. That would lead to a psychological exploration, which I'm not up to par with. But I am reading a fascinating book by Butler Schaffer, where he makes a very, very compelling case for the idea that modern society has actually 'hyper-individualized', and that most people view the government as a hindrance or minor annoyance. It's the 21st century, and people can be people and achieve things without a massive, monolithic framework of coercion.

Shaffer argues is that we are living in a world of glorious upheaval, managed in an orderly way by virtue of individual volition and property ownership. The state is not part of this path of progress and only works to impede it temporarily and at terrible cost. Meanwhile, the political is ever less relevant for people in the course of their daily lives. It does not help us accomplish the ends we seek to achieve. In this way, he strengthens the case against the state, and intensifies it in our times: the sheer complexity of the social order stands to utterly defy any attempts to control it.

The life of a society is found in its relations of its individuals and their property-based associations. But property always has a social end, he argues. Our lives are bound up with each other within the division of labor, while our individual interests are unavoidably intertwined. If we are to live as free individuals, we must cooperate with others in voluntary association.

He further discusses the albatross of collectivism and its grave consequences, but he understands the collective in a different way. He views it as a pyramidal model that is forced to fit on a diffuse and changing social order; it relies most fundamentally on violence but cannot achieve any socially useful end. The analysis applies not only to socialism but all models of top-down management, even that which relies on the myth of limited government.

The state, in contrast, is always working to strangle this life. If a society is to change and thrive, it cannot and will not tolerate the state. The state has no creative purpose, only a destructive one. The great accomplishment of Shaffer here is to crystallize existing knowledge about how society works in real life and to cut through the propaganda on the state to show how the state everywhere operates as an enemy of society.

[Jerome Scuggs]

No capitalist nor government is inherinately better than the other, both offer relatively good and bad things. I was arguing that any level there has and will always be some form of government, even at the tribal level. Epinephrine summed it up by pointing out the fallacies in your beliefs, you can't say that humans should be left to their own devices and let the natural progression take place then bitch when the outcome is something that you don't approve of.

You should try out the phrase "there will always be some form of order". That I agree with. Let me crystallize epi's contradiction for you: I believe that humans should be free to their own devices, but if a situation occurs where people are not free - as in the case of government - then I am completely free to disapprove, as it is not a "free" or "voluntary" outcome.

If you can't see the irony of you volunteering at a soup kitchen then opposing almost all forms of social programs, then that's your fault. It's like you care enough to feed people so they want die, but when it comes to helping them reestablish themselves in the job market, see a doctor, get psychiatric help, or anything that I see a decent person wanting for all other human beings you feel it is not your duty to help. I'm glad, you put some water and broth in someone's belly but you didn't do any more than that, so I'm sorry if I'm not jumping in the air cause you volunteered 2-3 hours of your time.

Clearly I did not see the irony - I saw your flawed reasoning and explained your flaws.
Am I a doctor? Am I a psychiatrist? Then why should I help people in those areas? And yet. Other people do, people who are able to help. Do you not see that there are six billion people on this world, and that of those, there are people who can do the things you blame me for not being able to do? You're blaming me for not being some ubermensch who can save the world. My bad, broseph.

I do not have a 'duty' to help anyone except who I consider it a duty to do so. You are the same. My stints at the kitchen I do not because it is my duty, but because it is an opportunity to help. If you feel it's your duty to save all the sick, then go empty your bank savings to do it - don't take mine.

When I begin teaching, I may decide to volunteer at places which offer tutoring and other educational things. Until then, I will just keep 'filling bellies with broth' because that's wat I can do within my limited powers. If you'd like me to do more, I will gladly let you paypal me a cool 5 grand to start a "give everyone in the world a free jacuzzi" fund or whatever it is you think people deserve.

This goes back to this idea you will never seem to grasp - not everyone can do it themselves, not everyone is able to be a functioning member of society.

And I see no reason as to why this provides a unique justification for government programs, or government at all. Here is an idea which you cannot grasp: that just because I oppose government programs, I do not oppose programs aimed at helping those who one might consider underprivileged. I support those programs which are voluntary because they do not depend on benefiting some at the expense of others.

[Epinephrine]

And the methods which they use to do the sweeping - violence and coercion - is exactly what the problem is resting at the core of the argument. In an argument of logic versus the gun, the gun will always win.

Your ss analogy is flawed - a government would force people to cram, against their will. Unless someone decided that the line was best and then enforced that. The fact that the capitalist does not commit immoral/unethical acts by his very nature of existence, as opposed to the politician, makes it a morally superior option. It means that decisions reached are of a voluntary nature.

If you went around asking people what their political views were, 80% of them would admit to not caring either way. They do not 'want' or 'not want' government - they are just busy living life. The only time government comes into question is when one asks themselves a question concerning certain actions - "if i do this, who will catch me and bring me to justice?". That is a question that can, and even now sometimes does, have an answer that does not end with "government". When you go somewhere such as a restaurant, you behave out of fear of being kicked out by the owners/managers. And there's an example of order without government. The argument could be made that, at the very least, government serves as some sort of psychological finality - that it has the final say, and is therefore the root and source of order. That would lead to a psychological exploration, which I'm not up to par with. But I am reading a fascinating book by Butler Schaffer, where he makes a very, very compelling case for the idea that modern society has actually 'hyper-individualized', and that most people view the government as a hindrance or minor annoyance. It's the 21st century, and people can be people and achieve things without a massive, monolithic framework of coercion.

I'll try one last time, and I really hope you can see my point. Before I start, I really want you to understand that I am approaching this from the most neutral value-free way I can. I am not approaching this by saying I support one system over another, but merely showing you that your line of thought is both contradictory and impossible.

We will start with your two suppositions:
A) You state that most people don't 'want' government (your opinion, but let's just say you're correct).
B ) You state that most people are forced against their will to have government anyway

Thus this implies two things:
C) There exist people out there who WANT government and WANT that control (i.e. take the inverse of supposition A)
D) People who WANT government are usually able to get what they want, and they are good at getting their way considering how many people actually oppose this (i.e. extrapolate from point B).

Finally one extra point:
E) Government is merely the word we ascribe to the formal system and institution to which society is given it's rules and to which these rules are thus enforced. This can take many forms from tribal elders, to a university government, to our Western Liberal Democracies, to kings, to large corporations which have significant control over their employees.


We follow from these points that your dream is actually contradictory and impossible.


1) Why it's contradictory:
If we create the Jerome world of no government, we are actually going against the wishes of those people who actually WANT government (See C), people whom you do acknowledge exist. So if we take your own stance, we can both agree that there will be SOME people at the very least who really want government.

Therefore, a world where 'everyone can do what they want', isn't actually so. Because for those who actually want government and want it to exist, they do not get what they want.

Their wishes may be prevented by any number of ways which need not be discussed here, but regardless their wishes will never be respected, and the tyranny of the government haters ruins it for everyone else.


2) Why it's impossible:
In a world where everyone gets to do whatever they want, the realistic endpoint is that the people who want government will go about establishing government using any means necessary, since having a belief is always stronger than not having a belief. They will succeed (point D), because as you so eloquently argue, these people will use any means necessary:

And the methods which they use to do the sweeping - violence and coercion - is exactly what the problem is resting at the core of the argument. In an argument of logic versus the gun, the gun will always win.

So taking the two points together we have the most plausible scenario, if the world of governments was suddenly abolished. First of all there will be a group of people who as part of being allowed to do whatever it is they want to do, will want to establish a government. Secondly these people will succeed in forcing everyone else to live within their government.

This has been shown in human history time and time again if you want examples.

Therefore the Jerome world where people can do whatever they want but for some reason in this world government would not exist is both impossible to achieve and contradictory in it's very essence.


In the final analysis, your world cannot possibly exist. Therefore it must be acknowledged that government will likely exist no matter what, and will exist because of the individual action of people, not because it simply exists. If we look at the chicken (people) and the egg (government) the chicken (the people) definitely exist first, and these people will choose to create government, rather than government existing before people and somehow ensnaring people in it's grasp forever.

Therefore the subspace analogy is very accurate.

People created the cram (people created the government), and the cram is here to stay because it beats out the non-cram every time (governments are here to stay because that method of organization will beat out other methods every time as we have shown), so we must learn to live with it.

The most constructive thing to do is to realize the reality of the world and work within that framework. The goal would be to create the most just and equitable government that can possibly exist, rather than putting one's head in the sand and just saying 'well it sucks anyway so unless it's abolished, I'll just oppose everything!'.

[Ara]

If anyone here really thinks that any public system would never be efficient if
measured in productivity doesn't realize that any system can be improved and
what really is the point is in making it work and not obeying some principles.
Finnish education system as mentioned before is a prime example of a public
egalitarian system that is free and open to everyone and supported by tax payers.

The Finnish education system is an egalitarian Nordic system, with no tuition fees for full-time students. Attendance is compulsory for nine years starting at age seven, and free meals are served to pupils at primary and secondary levels, where the pupils go to their local school. In the OECD's international assessment of student performance, PISA, Finland has consistently been among the highest scorers worldwide; in 2006 Finnish 15-year-olds came first in science and second in mathematics and reading literacy, in 2003 Finnish came first in reading literacy, mathematics, and science, while placing second in problem solving. In tertiary education, the World Economic Forum ranks Finland #1 in the world in enrollment and quality and #2 in maths and science education.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland

Also here's an article from Wall Street Journal about What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart

[Cops]

Avoid the the field of education, if you can.

Your taxes indirectly help others - so no it is explicitly not your choice who you help. You can work towards finding an individual that mirrors your beliefs, and in tern puts forth policy that reflects your own beliefs. But you Jerome, are a contributor whether you like it or not. Your taxes pay for the streets you drive on, and the police that work to maintain social order, the fireman that fight your fires, as well as many other aspects of your society you take for granted.

The problem with your 'ideal' government is that it works on the theory that people would voluntarily help others, or put forth their own good and services to help others. I'm living in a real world with idealists who don't really understand human nature. So, no we force people to care by taking part of their income to help others, and yes on the surface this seems unjust but there's a lot more injustice about letting your neighbor die because he doesn't have health insurance, or not giving children in your society a decent chance at an education. I'd rather we take your 15 percent a year and provide society with the the needs to run itself, instead of you know letting anyone create a toll booth for driving through their land (See Mattey for further details).

Taxes can be a good thing, and there is a lot of positives (See Ara and most of Europe for further details). Bitch all you want, but you're only asked to contribute 15-20 percent of what you make each year to live in one of the best countries in the world.

[Nycle]

If anyone here really thinks that any public system would never be efficient if
measured in productivity doesn't realize that any system can be improved and
what really is the point is in making it work and not obeying some principles.
Finnish education system as mentioned before is a prime example of a public
egalitarian system that is free and open to everyone and supported by tax payers.

My god, this Finland being the land of honey and milk show is starting to hurt. First of all, what the hell does tax-financed education have to do with universal health care? Just because they are both publicly financed doesn't mean that they can be compared so easily like that. There is a flipside to the coin you know. For all how wonderful free education is, last time I checked it were still privately funded, mostly American universities who have produced some of the most innovative technologies and respectable scientific papers that are in use by our socialist universities today. Most of the books that I use on my crappy but otherwise very accessible university are of American origin, so it says something about this oh so flawed system.

Maybe you were just eager to flaunt some numbers and wiki links to obvious definitions to stress just how great the Finnish system is? If that's the case then just say it up straight and don't make comparisons that don't make any sense. It's a very narrow-minded thing to do and doesn't tell the whole story.

[Jerome Scuggs]

I'll try one last time, and I really hope you can see my point. Before I start, I really want you to understand that I am approaching this from the most neutral value-free way I can. I am not approaching this by saying I support one system over another, but merely showing you that your line of thought is both contradictory and impossible.

We will start with your two suppositions:
A) You state that most people don't 'want' government (your opinion, but let's just say you're correct).
B ) You state that most people are forced against their will to have government anyway

Thus this implies two things:
C) There exist people out there who WANT government and WANT that control (i.e. take the inverse of supposition A)
D) People who WANT government are usually able to get what they want, and they are good at getting their way considering how many people actually oppose this (i.e. extrapolate from point B).

Finally one extra point:
E) Government is merely the word we ascribe to the formal system and institution to which society is given it's rules and to which these rules are thus enforced. This can take many forms from tribal elders, to a university government, to our Western Liberal Democracies, to kings, to large corporations which have significant control over their employees.


We follow from these points that your dream is actually contradictory and impossible.


1) Why it's contradictory:
If we create the Jerome world of no government, we are actually going against the wishes of those people who actually WANT government (See C), people whom you do acknowledge exist. So if we take your own stance, we can both agree that there will be SOME people at the very least who really want government.

Therefore, a world where 'everyone can do what they want', isn't actually so. Because for those who actually want government and want it to exist, they do not get what they want.

Their wishes may be prevented by any number of ways which need not be discussed here, but regardless their wishes will never be respected, and the tyranny of the government haters ruins it for everyone else.


2) Why it's impossible:
In a world where everyone gets to do whatever they want, the realistic endpoint is that the people who want government will go about establishing government using any means necessary, since having a belief is always stronger than not having a belief. They will succeed (point D), because as you so eloquently argue, these people will use any means necessary:





So taking the two points together we have the most plausible scenario, if the world of governments was suddenly abolished. First of all there will be a group of people who as part of being allowed to do whatever it is they want to do, will want to establish a government. Secondly these people will succeed in forcing everyone else to live within their government.

This has been shown in human history time and time again if you want examples.

Therefore the Jerome world where people can do whatever they want but for some reason in this world government would not exist is both impossible to achieve and contradictory in it's very essence.


In the final analysis, your world cannot possibly exist. Therefore it must be acknowledged that government will likely exist no matter what, and will exist because of the individual action of people, not because it simply exists. If we look at the chicken (people) and the egg (government) the chicken (the people) definitely exist first, and these people will choose to create government, rather than government existing before people and somehow ensnaring people in it's grasp forever.

Therefore the subspace analogy is very accurate.

People created the cram (people created the government), and the cram is here to stay because it beats out the non-cram every time (governments are here to stay because that method of organization will beat out other methods every time as we have shown), so we must learn to live with it.

The most constructive thing to do is to realize the reality of the world and work within that framework. The goal would be to create the most just and equitable government that can possibly exist, rather than putting one's head in the sand and just saying 'well it sucks anyway so unless it's abolished, I'll just oppose everything!'.

Congratulations, you just justified murder as ethical. You're actually taking the position that I supposedly take - that people can have whatever they want, so long as thy want it. Your position opens up the potential for violence and coercion. Yes, this is a very 'value-free' observation you make, but I'm thinking some values do in fact exist, such as "murder is wrong". Governments gain, and maintain, their power via violence and coercion. They are not the most efficient, only the most violent. I am so, terribly, terribly sorry that these people do not get what thy want. I suppose you'd like to say that in my world, rapists don't get what they want either? Poor rapists, Cops can shed a tear for them.

Logic can be used to prove and disprove anything; beyond mere rhetoric is the assumptions from which you derive your logical conclusions. Being 'value-free' means that 1) you're a liar, and 2) your argument has no relevance because it has no valid assumptions to rest on.

[Jerome Scuggs]

As an addendum, Nozick wrote a book in which he (correctly) makes the argument you're attempting to make - which is that basically, people do tend to organize in a 'trickle-up' fashion, and eventual geographical 'monopolies' of private law agencies would eventually morph into state-like institutions.

The anarchists' response is simple: that's fine, because such an arrangement would emerge out of a completely voluntary arrangement. There's no problem with order, only involuntary coercion.

[Ara]

Nycle's personal attacks must come from lack of pot, I hear they get angry
there if they don't get any, with one exception of Bram. Yes our best ranked
University is ranked #91 and we have work to do, no system is perfect. We
lack some of the peak achievements we should be able to produce but that
does not undermine the fact that we have a solid base that enables
competitive education for everyone. Nycle you must realize how much easier it
is for a central European country or a major seaport country such as
Netherlands to gather the necessary funds to achieve a high level of education
by private funding, now think of the coldest and darkest place up here in north
surrounded by Russia and cold water. Yes I'm not being totally serious.

[Jerome Scuggs]

Avoid the the field of education, if you can.

I'm not going to toot my own horn, that would be useless, but I will ask this: Or what? Will you cut me?

Your taxes pay for the streets you drive on, and the police that work to maintain social order, the fireman that fight your fires, as well as many other aspects of your society you take for granted.

Such as the tuxedos for politicians, pay raises for politicians, debt increases for politicians' policies, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the weapons used to destroy other populations, the wiretaps used on American soil, the weapons used and deployed on American soil against its own citizens, the funding of prisons for people who may or may not have committed an actual crime, and of course tons of subsidies for the very corporations that you attack.

Nah, I'd prefer that I choose where my money went.

The problem with your 'ideal' government is that it works on the theory that people would voluntarily help others, or put forth their own good and services to help others. I'm living in a real world with idealists who don't really understand human nature. So, no we force people to care by taking part of their income to help others, and yes on the surface this seems unjust but there's a lot more injustice about letting your neighbor die because he doesn't have health insurance, or not giving children in your society a decent chance at an education. I'd rather we take your 15 percent a year and provide society with the the needs to run itself, instead of you know letting anyone create a toll booth for driving through their land (See Mattey for further details).

"Force people to care". This sums up your "realistic" worldview quite well. I don't know anyone who has ever claimed that taxes made them a better person. What?

I do in fact have a neighbor without health insurance, and I feel that you have an obligation to pay pal him that cool 5 grand. I'll send you my email, if you'd like. Or I can send some people to Canada to retrieve this money by force, if need be. It will make you care.

Taxes can be a good thing, and there is a lot of positives (See Ara and most of Europe for further details). Bitch all you want, but you're only asked to contribute 15-20 percent of what you make each year to live in one of the best countries in the world.

So noone in europe pays more than 20%? at all?

What it boils down to is, you profess compassion for people - I get that. But you want to force people to be compassionate? How is that not completely paradoxical? I mean, with your 'limited understanding' of human nature and all, how can you conclude that what people really need is a big, good dose of gun-to-the-head-and-do-what-i-tell-you?

I mean - what would life be in your ideal world? Where everyone had everything - where would our humanity be? We'd literally be reduced to functioning components within your orderly system. Free to do... what? How is that humanistic at all?

[Nycle]

@ Ara: no you're getting it wrong. I'm not an advocate of private universities taking charge in such a way that a good education will only become something for the elite. And apparently nor does the majority of the population in this country because we don't even have private universities. I'm just saying it's wrong to downplay a system that's able to produce things that we're unable to produce, or otherwise at a significantly slower rate. This is an inherent property of public universities. To make groundbreaking research and innovation possible you need money, a lot of it. And you need to take risks. Both of those don't fit well within a bureaucratically organized way of dispensing money fairly over all universities. There are limits to which you can spend a proportion of the tax income to education and people don't like tax payer's money to be put into high risk research projects of which the returns are uncertain. And they have the right to feel that way, but private universities don't have that problem. It's therefore a good thing that they exist and it would be hypocritical to put forward a system that might improve accessibility, equality, and all of those things that we like in our socialist motherland, but would put a natural brake on research, innovation etc. most of which eventually flows back to society to be used on a broader scale. Whether it's a truly social thing to hold this kind of progress back remains to be seen.

[Epinephrine]

The anarchists' response is simple: that's fine, because such an arrangement would emerge out of a completely voluntary arrangement. There's no problem with order, only involuntary coercion.

Thank you for agreeing with my point. We seem to both believe that such creations are completely voluntary and will emerge if you let people do whatever they want.

The only difference between you and me right now, is that I believe that under such a completely voluntary arrangement, someone eventually will take advantage of it and thus take advantage of other people. You don't actually think that under such an arrangement such a thing could ever happen.

Thus you don't even want to think about any consequences that would happen if someone were to take advantage of a completely voluntary arrangement for their own ends, because to you, this is impossible. This means you're doing yourself a disservice in these beliefs and are setting yourself up to get taken advantage of.

Naive indeed.

[Epinephrine]

Congratulations, you just justified murder as ethical. You're actually taking the position that I supposedly take - that people can have whatever they want, so long as thy want it.

I never said that people can't do whatever they want. I merely state that the result of people doing whatever they want is that people have created government for themselves. I'm a firm believer in evolution, and human societal evolution has created government for good or bad.

As for my 'justifying murder'? LOL? Really? You're going to go there? That's a sign of intellectual desperation on your part to resort to such lowball tactics. I could easily say that your world of capitalism and doing whatever people want without regulations, means that you've just justified the slave trade. So let's not go there.

[Galleleo]

@ Ara: no you're getting it wrong. I'm not an advocate of private universities taking charge in such a way that a good education will only become something for the elite. And apparently nor does the majority of the population in this country because we don't even have private universities. I'm just saying it's wrong to downplay a system that's able to produce things that we're unable to produce, or otherwise at a significantly slower rate. This is an inherent property of public universities. To make groundbreaking research and innovation possible you need money, a lot of it. And you need to take risks. Both of those don't fit well within a bureaucratically organized way of dispensing money fairly over all universities. There are limits to which you can spend a proportion of the tax income to education and people don't like tax payer's money to be put into high risk research projects of which the returns are uncertain. And they have the right to feel that way, but private universities don't have that problem. It's therefore a good thing that they exist and it would be hypocritical to put forward a system that might improve accessibility, equality, and all of those things that we like in our socialist motherland, but would put a natural brake on research, innovation etc. most of which eventually flows back to society to be used on a broader scale. Whether it's a truly social thing to hold this kind of progress back remains to be seen.

We have Nyenrode, that's a private university.

Also, the US system does make all the advancements possible, but you can't forget that they recruit people from all over the world to get it done.