An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:
1. Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
2. Person A makes claim C about subject S.
3. Therefore, C is true.
This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.
It's not a fallacy to appeal to authority, only if they aren't an authority.
As I said time and time again that real expertise doesn't make the fallacy, but you say differently.
I said it was the only assumption in a given statement,
That's the problem, it was the only assumption in that logical argument.
not that it is my only assumption.
but it was your only assumption there.
And even if it was my only assumption -- and it certainly is not, as I also assume that math exists, for example, that 2+2 must always equal 4 -- it would not stand to reason that nothing other than life exists, which is what you said I assume.
I didn't say you assumed that only life exists in all parts of the world, but rather, only for that argument.
You now make another stab at logic:
How do you get to liberty [from life existing?]
Obvious deduction. How do you NOT?
I already explained that you need more assumptions and deductions, which you failed to provide. It's not obvious. If it were obvious, you'd have made a two-column proof and the debate would be settled.
Indeed, it is entirely irrational to come to any OTHER conclusion.
Actually, it would be rational to generalize it and say that if you exist, then at least one person exists if you have the property of being a person.
Oh, wait, is that another conclusion? I'm just joking here though, I know you actually mean that I couldn't come to the conclusion that liberty doesn't exist from life existing. You meant to say it would be irrational to come to the opposite conclusion.
But then, you just fell to the false dichotomy, which you earlier accused me of doing. Way to go. Actually, just like my argument wasn't really hurt by the accusation of false dichotomy when taken in its best light (which you fail to do in order to understand the points of your opponent), if I merely break the dichotomy into what you actually meant, and make a reasonable response, my argument is ten times stronger, since it's anticipating the response.
But of course, you're just a troll, disinterested in a reasonable discussion. You just want to "win points", even if the arguments aren't sound.
Guess what? People just think you're an asshole when you do that.
If nothing else, liberty must be deduced by process of elimination.
The more accurate term is proof by contradiction, or reductio ad absurdum, since you have said that depriving one of liberty also deprives them of life, which _contradicts_ the earlier premise of life (this also falls to the fallacy I'll mention below, as well as your reductio ad absurdum arguement here).
That is not necessary, but it would stand just the same. If I exist, and I know I exist, and am capable of controlling my own thoughts and acts -- all necessarily true, both by deduction and observation -- that necessarily means I have the liberty to think and act as I choose.
This Cartesian/rationalist converse is just as pointless as his, but I'll assume what you say here is true just because it's actually incomplete. All you've shown, if somebody buys your argument, (which I don't, because I don't think you actually control your own thoughts as completely as you think you do,
Fair enough, but your first clue should've been when he mentionned the Bush administration;) I was making a joke on his joke by interpreting his post literally as if the most recent antecedent of his pronoun (which he meant to refer to the typo creator, the second antecedent) was accurate (the most recent antecedent being the typo fixer).
I appealed to my information through my expertise. You have no expertise in both health care and logic. You're not qualified to discuss either issue. It shows here. If you had information that helped your cause, you'd be qualified, but you refuse to discuss the actual particulars of health care, so you're using a philosophical argument for ignoring the real issues to ignore real issues.
Then I questioned your philosophical arguments and you came back with absurd unsound reasoning.
You assume only life exists. That's your only assumption: you say so yourself. How do you get to liberty, something not identical to life without any other assumptions by which to base your logical inferences (if you had any)? There's no way in logic to do that, and any logician knows it, so I'm waiting for you to prove me and all the logicians of the world wrong. Come on, just do it.
The assumption was that I have life. The rest is deducted. f = life p = rest (right to liberty, right to property)
assume: f conclusion: p
Tell me again how do you get p with f as the only assumption (f -> p)? The key word is "again." I already did it. Read. You can outline a two-column proof here right now and end the debate with your powerful mastery of logic.
I already showed how your proof is flawed. The burden of proof is on the one trying to prove their proof. All you did was assert that my representation of your proof into a two-column format was wrong without giving any reason other than that a premise wasn't a premise at all. All you have to do is show where that non-premise comes from other premises and you'll have given a logical reason for dismissing my refutation of your proof, but you didn't. Instead you dug yourself into a deeper hole and asserted the conclusion in response to a request to formulate a two-column proof.
If you're unable to formally prove it, just let me know, I'll let up and wait until you've read a book on the subject.
So you know, I asked you for a two-column proof because I really was confused what you were taking as premises and what your rules of inference were. It turns out that was the correct move to make, because you clearly have no grasp of how to do a logical proof. That clarifies many of your earlier responses.
If you were drunk or high when you were replying -- or temporarily incapacitated in some other way, say that too, and we can start fresh and hopefully use logic. Maybe I should wait until you sober up, as well. I have a cousin up in the Darrington/Arlington area, and I know the favorite past-time up there is rural-poverty-induced intoxication. I'll just chalk it up to that if you would like.
I'm trying to give you an out here. Just say the word.
I'm the elections administrator of the Pacific Green Party of Oregon, and I've followed your campaign with interest. A number of our members have donated to your campaign as a strategy within the Democratic Party as a hedge that the Democratic Party will still restrict ballot accessibility and continue to suppress third parties. I know we both despise what the Democratic National Committee and their DLC/New Democrat-types have done to your party, and the Green Party has gained a lot of traction as a voice for those made voiceless by the DNC's corporate takeover, but if we can get a commitment that you'll champion Section 16 of the Oregon Constitution with your fell Democrats, which enables preference voting and proportional representation, in particular, preference voting, perhaps the Greens can gain some traction in getting preference voting implemented at the local level. Bill Bradbury, our Democratic Secretary of State has been opposing our local campaigns vigorously to get things like IRV into local jurisdictions like cities and counties, and even a bill in the state legislature, which he was instrumental in killing.
I'm not old enough to run for U.S. Senate against the Dems, but I can find somebody who will, particularly if you fail in the primary.
If you're really part of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, then the Green Party needs your help to help keep the Democrats honest to their core values without having to force Democrats to "spoil" our elections against Republicans. As you know, if there are only two viable parties in a first-past-the-post system, they will get as close to indistinguishable as possible in an effort to grab the middle of the political gamut. That's basic game theory. A preference voting system would enable people like you to take back your own party. If you fail in this effort, know that the Green Party is here for people like you. We're the ones out trying to change the system so that people like you can get elected without being gamed by centrists.
I'll get to my point, though. We're inclined to stay out of the race if you win the primary, but if we don't hear anything from any of the candidates on the ideas of election reform, including you, we will run a candidate. Teresa Keane (I was on her campaign committee) got fifty thousand votes in a two month campaign against Ron Wyden and Al King. If it comes to it, we'll run another candidate and point out that we need election reform, now.
Regardless of what we believe in, without election reform to enable true representation of the people, regardless of view or party, nothing we believe in will get traction, because the game theory shows us that it's really just centrists that get elected and never any outside voices.
You've spent your life fighting for the little guy. Well, the little guy has no voice because Oregon won't enact Section 16 of the Oregon Constitution, which was put in place in 1908 to enable us to be truly representative. You can help by making it a part of your public view. You don't have to make press releases or anything, but if people view your website and it covers this issue, it would greatly help inform people of the eventual need to be more open and accessible about their voting system, without any of Phil's absurd open-primary lunacy.
Seth Woolley, Secretary, Parliamentarian, and Elections Administrator Pacific Green Party of Oregon
This is downright comical how illogical you are.
The assumption was that I have life. The rest is deducted. f = life p = rest (right to liberty, right to property)
assume: f conclusion: p
Tell me again how do you get p with f as the only assumption (f -> p)?
If you can do that without adding any assumptions (which you state you don't have), you'll have revolutionized symbolic logic and we'd now have a proof for everything!
You said you were so logical that when I decided to get to a technical proof, I hoped I would get a well-done proof. It turns out you're just talking out of your ass when it comes to logic. Based on your previous responses, I figured that your prose was just a weak spot and that your logic might actually be fine underneath. It turns out, that was too much to hope for.
I'm sorry Pudge, but you'll have to actually read up on symbolic logic this time. You can't just use the last word as your protection.
Hah, I shot holes in your logical proof and you told me that your first statement (which is always an assumption) was "necessarily deducted". Dude, Pudge, you don't understand how these things work. When you prove something, you start with assumptions and work to a conclusion. If my two-column proof formatting was incorrect, then please, provide your own, and outline your assumptions explicitly. The whole point of the exercise is to tease out your hidden assumptions by making everything explicitly and formally logical. Moreover, when you're going to use terms like "necessarily deducted" while not in the context of modal logic and modal qualifiers, you're going to look like an idiot to any logician.
And if you're going to use a modification of the term liberty to include "liberty unless it impinges upon the liberty of other white male humans", then you need to be explicit. Does it apply to living animals, for example? Women? Blacks? When does the right to life take place? Such things are not "self-evident", but are to their very core questions any political philosophy needs to answer. The framers even answered it incorrectly 232 years ago.
Thirdly, your entire line revolves around the idea that insurance companies need the flexibility to decided what not to cover. The whole idea of health insurance coverage implies that you're covered for health reasons. They are merely saying if you want to be in the business of providing health insurance, so as not to be considered fraudulent in what you market, you have to include X. You're opposed to fraud, yes? If they didn't include X, if somebody needed help for X, the system would have failed for them anyways, and the private system would have failed them. Failure of insurance is not how you go about making sure everybody has the insurance they need. But of course, you don't think that people should have to have health insurance, and the whole point of your philosophical reasoning is to say why those who suffer should be suffering despite the excesses and greed of those who could ease their suffering but refuse to do so.
Thanks, geekoid. The typo has been fixed, and in the spirit of the Bush Administration, the person responsible has been given a raise and promotion. Just like a politician to give the person who fixed it a raise and a promotion and not the person that found and identified the problem.
No disagreement about drug patents, but that's not about health care delivery, it's about patent policy that effects costs that then cost the insurance companies.
Secondly, it's not "designed" for the employer. You can buy health insurance on the open market right now. Are you saying the government intervenes to make employer coverage cheaper? If anything, things like cobra and hippa prevent insurance companies from dropping people who have continuous coverage inside and outside their work. That's intervention that keeps people insured where the market would tell them to get lost and they'd be fucked.
If you think that "increased competition" would reduce costs, you also don't seem to understand that insurance companies aren't the main drivers of increased health care costs. The costs they add is essentially a fixed overhead of around 25%. Their profits are in the low single digits. There are three main drivers of cost increases -- increased drug prices and aggressive marketing of patented drugs vs generics that work just as well, increased technology and diagnostic tests capable of increasing diagnostic accuracy requiring things like vascular MRI scans for a couple grand a pop just to rule something out without running the machines full-tilt 24/7 to keep costs down, and lastly, an aging population. If we gave breaks on MRI scans for people who come in at 2am or simply scheduled people who wanted an earlier appointment in the middle of the night, that would reduce the cost increases in half. This country is also extremely slow to implementing electronic medical records systems, and the EMR companies have demonstrably failed to standardize on intercommunication formats (HL7 is a joke). Paper and faxes are the main way the medical community still communicates.
What a universal system would do is ensure that: 1) drug prices can be set reasonably based on cost to recuperate expenses and public welfare, not fleecing people. 2) Advertising of drugs would be eliminated again (that's the stupidest deregulation ever). 3) technology would be used consistently and more thoroughly. 4) Standardized protocols and EMR would save paper, 5) single-payer system eliminates the process of manual EOB entry. 6) EOB auditing can be done programmatically due to a standard EOB format and interpretation. 7) Deciding what is and isn't covered becomes a medical decision with less bias. Preauthorization would be eliminated.
But that's not even the important part. Cost savings are just a tiny fraction of the importance of a universal health care system. The main benefit is that everybody gets it, for free. There aren't any haves and have-nots. Entrepreneurs pop up because they don't have to fear their medical risks any more. Old people don't have to make sure they have enough saved for all the pills they might have to take.
Absolutely. My property is the product of my liberty. To deny my right to property is to deny my liberty. My liberty is the result of my life. To deny my liberty is to deny my very existence. So to deny my right to property is a direct assault on my right to exist.
You are denied your existence because you shouted fire in a crowded room and were charged with a crime?
Do you actually believe your failed attempt at syllogism?
Let's put this in a two-column proof format, assertion, reason, form, so we can tease out the hidden assumptions.
assertion: My property is a product of my liberty (l -> p) reason: assumed assertion: To deny my right to property is to deny my liberty reason: ~p -> ~l (contrapositive) assertion: My liberty is the result of my life. (f -> l) reason: assumed assertion: To deny my liberty is to deny my very existence. reason: ~l -> ~f (contrapositive) assertion: So to deny my right to property is a direct assault on my right to exist. (~p -> ~f) reason: ~p -> ~f (syllogism of ~p -> ~l and ~l -> ~f) unstated assertion: I have a right to life (f) reason: assumed
Government doesn't require anybody to raise their prices for people without insurance, but everybody does it. Why?
It's their freedom to do so. If you don't have the ability to do collective bargaining through an insurance company, you have to do the bargaining on your own, and of course, most people aren't effective at negotiating on their own. I know how the system works so I can walk in, and as long as it's not an emergency room visit, I can tell them I'm going to go elsewhere if I don't get a rate comparable with an insurance company contract. Most young people only show up at the doctor for emergency room visits, though, so there's no room to bargain. Even if you could bargain, if you don't have insurance, you'll often go bankrupt.
Illness and medical bills caused half of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies in 2001, according to a study published by the journal Health Affairs.
The study estimates that medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans annually -- counting debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children.
Surprisingly, most of those bankrupted by illness had health insurance. More than three-quarters were insured at the start of the bankrupting illness. However, 38 percent had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy.
Most of the medical bankruptcy filers were middle class; 56 percent owned a home and the same number had attended college. In many cases, illness forced breadwinners to take time off from work -- losing income and job-based health insurance precisely when families needed it most.
None of that involves government intervention. How are you going to blame all that on government intervention?
It's also curious that you make a distinction between "being right" and "holding" of the law, while complaining that interpreting the law in disagreement with your idea of "rights" implies lawlessness. If what's right is not held, then their interpretation would be lawless, but they're legally able to hold such an opinion. It's lawless and lawful? How do you work yourself out of that antinomy?
For what it's worth, I've heard your shitty arguments from other right-wing idiots about the Supreme Court not being the final arbiter of the constitution. They simply don't hold water:
The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court... The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States,
It doesn't say that the judicial power doesn't apply to some cases, like, when you think their decision was wrong under the Constitution, it says it extends to all cases. If the judicial power didn't have a say about the constitution, then all their decisions about the constitutionality of inferior laws are mooted, since one could just follow the constitution instead in each of those cases and then it would get up to the supreme court and their decision would simply be wrong if they decided against it. The argument you make is that the court is only able to decide laws inferior to the constitution, but not the constitution itself. If any law contradicts the constitution and remains upheld, since the constitution is the supreme law of the land, the inferior law is overridden by the constitution.
But the justices decide things in many ways contradicted by the constitution's plain reading. Free speech? Not in case of public endangerment, for example. Legal theories aside, the Supreme Court effectively interprets the constitution. Are they thus lawless?
About rights, I was arguing against their transcendent status, but it seems you're in agreement that they aren't transcendental, that instead they are merely "self-evident", which to me means thei
If you're going to accuse me of a false dichotomy whenever I make a comparison between a proposal and the existing system, then I need to know what other system you actually think is better and where in the world it's been implemented.
I already did. A system that encourages competition through deregulation and other means. Where it's happened before? Here, in the U.S. It served us well for many years until the last few decades, when government regulation and lawsuits consolidated the power in the medical business into the hands of a few. Ever notice how family doctors don't exist anymore? And how health insurance is required for pretty much everything you want done? It didn't use to be that way.
I go to an independent primary care physician, Health insurance isn't required, I can negotiate with them, and they make more than somebody in any other country by working here. How do I know how much they made? How do I know their policies? I ran their billing system.
What world do you live in?
Do you realize that all comparisons imply you're comparing two or more things? That's not a false dichotomy. A false dichotomy is when you say there are only two ways that aren't a full complement of each other and thus they don't cover the full range of possibilities. At no point did I say that you have to choose my way or the existing way.
Yes, in fact, you did: you said "we should have Universal Health Care because it is better than the current system."
I meant any other system, which is accurate because the current system includes all sorts of micro systems, none of which work as well as universal, single-payer health care. We've tried pretty much every delivery system you can imagine besides universal health care in this country. Everybody else in a modern country enjoys it, save us.
Your grasp of logic is remarkably poor.
Um, since you literally stated that every person who has worked in health care is qualified to speak on this, and NO ONE ELSE is, I'll eschew your counsel on what is, and is not, a good grasp of logic.
I didn't say nobody else. I said that's why I'm qualified to discuss it, which doesn't imply that other people have to have it to discuss it. You simply don't have any qualification there, nor any other qualifications.
Secondly, you are transferring my statement that an overall cost reduction implies that all will have cost reductions.
No. I addressed what you actually wrote. If you didn't mean to say what you wrote, don't blame me.
Say that all you want, the record is clear.
I told you where it could come from (multiple ways it could be done) and even said it would be an overall cost reduction due to reduced overhead.... There are lots of assumptions going around in your arguments, Pudge.
Considering you still assume that there will be an overall cost reduction, you're one to talk.
I pointed out why, but you still haven't addressed the reduced overhead numbers.
Thirdly, I made no such assumption that the order was meaningful
False. You did precisely that. Your argument relied on it. I said liberty was the most important goal, and you said -- in rebuttal -- that life is the first goal. That necessarily implies that because it comes first, that it is more important. Please, you are far too transparent, and I am far too good at this, for you to convince me you didn't say what you clearly said.
It didn't rely upon it. You implied that liberty is the only goal, and I pointed out that there are other goals as well that you were ignoring.
Strawman my argument all you want, but people can see past it, Pudge.
Jefferson also didn't think that slaves or women were entitled to the rights o
Oregon has not tried universal health care. It's voted on a version of it, but it never got around to trying it. What I was referring to is the fact that it has failed politically, thus far, mostly because of financial considerations. The proposal was outspent by millions of dollars to 20 thousand dollars, so yes, that's a financial consideration. I also don't think the particular referendum was the best way to implement it, particularly because of details with how it would be funded, although it was good enough for me to support it. Polls consistently showed that people wanted universal health care but were swayed by insurance companies that were the big losers in the system to not support it on false technicalities, so, no, it didn't fail politically. The concept is still alive.
But more importantly, if you mean something, next time, try saying it rather than making an untrue statement that any normal reading would indicate that the program was tried and repealed due to public discontent. Polls of Canadians (and other western countries) show a much higher content with their system than USians do about their system, so any argument for a political failure of health care systems with government involvement is flatly contradicted by evidence.
The real problem is that people like you are corporate sheep, willing to go along with their manufactured consent.
If you're going to accuse me of a false dichotomy whenever I make a comparison between a proposal and the existing system, then I need to know what other system you actually think is better and where in the world it's been implemented. I can then do a proper comparison. Do you realize that all comparisons imply you're comparing two or more things? That's not a false dichotomy. A false dichotomy is when you say there are only two ways that aren't a full complement of each other and thus they don't cover the full range of possibilities. At no point did I say that you have to choose my way or the existing way.
Your grasp of logic is remarkably poor.
So, what is this miracle third way and why do you think it will be both cheaper and equitable?
Secondly, you are transferring my statement that an overall cost reduction implies that all will have cost reductions. I even said of course not. You asked where the money was coming from -- go read your first post. I told you where it could come from (multiple ways it could be done) and even said it would be an overall cost reduction due to reduced overhead. Where does reduced overhead imply that certain people will have to pay less? There are lots of assumptions going around in your arguments, Pudge. Please, I request again, clear your mind of them and argue the logic and the evidence.
Thirdly, I made no such assumption that the order was meaningful, if you thought that, I apologize for your mistake. I said they were first and third, not first in importance or third in importance. If you want to attack my arguments, try attacking what I actually say and not some assumption about what I have said that I didn't say.
Jefferson also didn't think that slaves or women were entitled to the rights of white men, either, so, please, stop appealing to "authority" here. I'm not a strict constructionist, and I don't think the intent of the framers is as important as more modern, progressive ideas that make the union more perfect. If anybody realized that the union was going to have to evolve, it was Jefferson. I was merely pointing out that the government's role is to protect life. How it protects life is a matter of discussion, and Jefferson had some thoughts on the matter, but if you can't actually carry on a discussion without such appeals to authority, then is there any sense in having a discussion with you?
About qualifications to discuss the matter, I wasn't saying that a priori reasoning established my opinion on your and my qualifications. A posteriori criteria are at play. You're a fundamentalist/religious Libertarian that has an agenda that thinks that having a health care system with any contribution from government is already wrong, so I have no reason to believe that you'd be open to any data that indicates that government involvement in health care financing is viable. You've ignored the figures for medicare (which, actually IS a single-payer system, despite your ignorance) without so much as reasonable counter, for example.
I'm not interested in a religious discussion, I'm interested in a pragmatic discussion.
But I suppose being born with equal opportunity is not really an important part of your desires for the role of government.
It's not mine either. Even if "equal opportunity" is something we don't have but need, who says government is to give it to us? Have you ever read "Harrison Bergeron"? Is that seriously your reply?
artificial equality != equal opportunity and equality under the law
As a suggestion, you should really try to argue your point based on an understanding of critical distinctions in the discussion. People might then begin to take your arguments seriously.
My only assumption is something everyone agrees with: that it will cost a lot of money. Therefore, how that money will be raised is a perfectly reasonable question.
Universal Health Care is cheaper than the current system due to economies of scale, less bureaucracy, more preventative care accessibility, and more, as it is everywhere else in the world. It will thus cost less than what we pay now.
Unfortunately, that is false, on several counts. The first is that it is a false dichotomy to say we should do Universal Health Care because it is better than "the current system," because there are other options to improve the current system.
I never set up a dichotomy. I think it's the best system of many alternatives.
For example: deregulating who can provide basic preventative care would make it far more accessible than the current system, and perhaps moreso than a universal system. Deregulation (along with other reforms) can also reduce the COST of health care, thus reducing the need for insurance to cover many things, thus reducing bureaucracy. And don't say it won't work, because this is how it used to be, and it still works for many people today.
Single-payer health care does not regulate the decisions of the AMA and other medical agencies composed of practitioners who would be delegated the role of making policy, just as it is done in many other western nations.
Are you clumping one proposal with another? Clear your mind, first.
Another way that you're wrong is that you assume that bureaucracy will be smaller, or that we will necessarily pay less due to economies of scale. I see no reason to accept either of these assumptions.
I don't actually assume it. Insurance company overhead is around 25%, but medicare is less than 5%. Insurance companies consistently pay more than medicare reimbursements, as well. Total cost of providing health care is greatly increased by private insurance. Since you haven't actually worked in the industry and clearly make false statements without having done any research, you don't have a basis either in experience or research for understanding the problem.
And most obviously, you are wrong because many people WILL PAY MORE, and will get no better care for it. It may cost less overall -- that is unknowable -- but we absolutely do know that many people will pay more. Even John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton -- and even Dennis Kucinich -- admit this. Saying it will cost less is false.
Of course some people will pay more. That's fine with me, particularly if they have the income to afford it. That's the entire basis for progressive taxation and the role of all healthy, modern governments: to ensure a strong middle class by wealth redistribution and equal opportunity.
If you'd like, I'd just have a 100% estate tax that would cover it and every other social program we need instead of an income tax, but an income tax is simply a more market-based approach. But I suppose being born with equal opportunity is not really an important part of your desires for the role of government.
If you're asking where the money would come from: the same place it comes right now: the existing health care system.
Nope. Many people would have to put more -- far more -- into a universal health care system than they do into the existing health care system.
I've actually worked in the health care system in Oregon
So have dozens of people I know personally, including members of my immediate family, who oppose single-payer. You won't win on an appeal to authority. Sorry: you have to try to win on the strength of your arguments themselves.
You're still not qualified to discuss the matter. I am, you are not. Get one of your family members to discuss it with me so we can talk about real issues.
My only assumption is something everyone agrees with: that it will cost a lot of money. Therefore, how that money will be raised is a perfectly reasonable question. Universal Health Care is cheaper than the current system due to economies of scale, less bureaucracy, more preventative care accessibility, and more, as it is everywhere else in the world. It will thus cost less than what we pay now.
If you're asking where the money would come from: the same place it comes right now: the existing health care system.
I've actually worked in the health care system in Oregon, for a primary care clinic with 20 doctors, running computer systems for billing purposes. Single-payer systems would be the best way to approach the problem: the government is the single payer.
A progressive income tax that treats payroll and capital gains similarly is the best way to pay for such a system.
I'm sorry, but have you even actually read any Plato? Your understanding of the Doctrine of the Forms is quite wrong. Plato never held that there existed a "perfect chair" - he held that there exist laws by which all material things are subject to. Specifically mathematical and geometric laws. The "perfect chair" doesn't exist, but the form of the circle, square, cylinder would certainly - and from those geometric shapes, one could conceive of a "perfect chair." That's not much of a distinction, and in fact, it isn't really. There's still a "perfect chair". You interpret it differently than I do (and rather oddly). I think Plato intended that the geometric basics and their properties also applied to composite forms. Most interpreters do. His derivation of the "perfect chair" concept doesn't negate the fact that there was still a "perfect chair" form. Nobody, not even me, said that the "perfect chair" ever existed or claimed that Plato thought it existed. We're talking about concepts the whole time, and look at your last sentence "one could conceive of a "perfect chair"". That conception of the perfect chair means it "exists" as a concept. He was pretty adamant that it could never really exist -- that everything was imperfect forms of these fundamental forms. In some sense, you are attempting to make a disagreement where there isn't one, in that regard. I think you confused my discussion of linguistics with a discussion of what actually existed. Both Plato and Ockham were both trying to explain how the diversity of the world relates to concepts. Plato just happened to get it wrong, and that influenced such bungled ideas as transubstantiation in the Eucharist, for example.
Furthermore, your understanding of the so-called "Philosopher-King" is downright laughable. The Republic wasn't written as a practical document or constitution, it was written as a critique of the way in which power and knowledge interact. Plato's final work, The Laws would certainly qualify as a practical political document - and it doesn't contain such notions as the "Philosopher-King." This is really just an assertion. Furthermore, The Laws does still discuss "the lawgiver" as the basis of "the guardians", even though it's been watered down. Have you read any of them?
Having dispensed with the philosophical foundations in his previous work, there's no reason to think he'd spend a lot of time on it. Instead, as even you point out, it's a book discussing implementation. The Philosopher-King is merely "the lawgiver". There are discussions of ordinances among an oligarchy / guardians, but ultimately, that's just a practical way of implementing the power of the lawgiver.
Your assertion that the Republic served only as a critique and his real opinions lie elsewhere is not held by any reasonable person. R.F. Stalley in An Introduction to Plato's Laws (available from google books) on pages 14 and 15 discuss different ideas about the relationship and yours isn't even mentioned.
Maybe you can start with giving some evidence for that idea of yours.
It would be best if you stop talking about Plato until you actually have a clue. All of the scientists here at/. go apeshit when someone comes out and misrepresents basic facts about popularly known things, like relativity or thermodynamics. You are doing the same thing with your terrible treatise on Plato. Stop now. Since you didn't give any specific evidence for your beliefs outside of what can be a priori shot down, maybe you should study it again before you criticize others for their interpretations of it. You clearly don't have reason on your side -- maybe rote reading will require less of your intellectual faculties?
Google uses NAVTEQ, but they also have their own address correction layer because they allow people to "move" addresses around the map.
In any case, reporting it directly provides everybody else the update in the next quarterly release. Then it takes up to a year for the annual refresh cycle typically seen in consumer electronics.
TeleAtlas / TomTom also take user input, and if you update them as well, that should cover the significant data providers, but I've never done that myself through an automated form. I think they have such, and TeleAtlas stated as a goal of the merger was to provide crowdsourcing leverage for teleatlas from tomtom.
Plato records the opinion that man was the original species. If an individual wasn't worthy it got reincarnated as a lower species. Sort of reverse evolution with a moral twist. This also has to do with his ideology, as most pre-scientific beliefs boil down to:
Plato believed in idealistic realism. He believed that the basic types had transcendental archetypes that represented perfectly the form of an uncorrupted object.
It wasn't until the scholastic movement when William of Ockham introduced the world to nominalism -- that words are merely approximate descriptions we apply to enable generalization of a real world of many diverse specifics. Reality was reality, and names and generalizations were the source of imperfections in reasoning, not that there are ideal forms for everything.
The archetypal example is the chair. Plato believed that there's such a thing as a perfect chair that personified and was what people should think of when you think of a chair. Ockham believed that people used the word chair as a symbol, or name (nomen) for the many things in the world that we used as chairs. The names were merely conventions.
How does Plato's ideology lead to inaccuracy in his theory of evolution? Well, to him, animals are a type, and as a type, they had a perfect form, the human, naturally, since it was the smartest and most powerful. Thus, any non-human was naturally inferior to the human. Combined with the common belief among Platonists and the religious gestalt of the time that things naturally tended toward corruption when left to their own devices (without, say a Philosopher King to step in and control the masses), Humans were the first and foremost species -- all the rest are merely corruptions of the animal archetype.
Platonism (more specifically neoplatonism) was the philosophic foundation for Christianity and the Catholic Church Fathers more than any other influence. Yes, Catholicism borrowed from Jewish, Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek Mystery, etc. religions, but the philosophical foundations of its theological systems lay directly with Plato.
For more information on the scourge of Plato and Platonic Essentialism, see Ernst Mayr's "Growth of Biological Thought", particularly the 180 page introduction if you can't read a thousand page book.
Some very serious scientists have strong convictions that the sun is actually the cause of the current warm period. I've been to a lecture of one of them (Bas van Geel ) where he showed very detailed data from Be10 isotope concentrations in treerings, that correlate highly with the suns output. The suns slight variations have a large and almost immediate (within a few years) effect on the climate.
His lecture data was completely convincing (I'm a physicist, and can read graphs with the best of them). Furthermore, this guy is not a corporate figurehead; he explicitly states that he is for all the energysavings we can think of, he just hates the current media hysteria around global warming, and the fact that it's supposedly all our fault.
Bart
As the person to whom you are replying, I think I should clarify.
The only matter of serious debate is whether or not we're the most cause of the recent global warming (which is actually still a consensus view, even though there are outlying scientist such as him who have provided partial alternative explanations), but note that the poster I was replying to said "global warming" was a religious belief, not "humans are the sole cause of global warming". I've seen both his data and other data. I personally am not qualified to confirm or deny his findings, but my impression is that there are a multitude of factors at play, and if the sun is contributing as well as humans, then we need to be aware of all causes involved. We're learning more and more about how to do climate modeling and how to improve inputs into our climate models (I worked in the supercomputing industry for a company providing clustering solutions for climate modeling among other things at the U.S. national laboratories).
I'm also Secretary of the Green Party of Oregon, and have a pretty long record of environmentalism, but I'm more of a humanist pragmatist. The main problems we are facing today have nothing to do with coastal flooding or species collapse in certain species webs with fragile niches, but urban pollution, air quality causing lung cancer, the lack of pollution controls in the third world (including not just air pollution, but toxic pollution in groundwater too). In Oregon, the main environmental issues revolve around policy issues for energy generation, resource extraction, and habitat and wilderness protection, not carbon footprints (I personally think carbon credits are a rues -- read my blog entry on it). Oregon is a mostly hydropower state, so its carbon output is actually quite low.
ID is controversial because of the implications of its evidence, rather than the significant weight of its evidence. ID proponents believe science should be conducted objectively, without regard to the implications of its findings. This is particularly necessary in origins science because of its historical (and thus very subjective) nature, and because it is a science that unavoidably impacts religion. That's interesting. Back in 1870, the same could be said about evolution.
How the tables have turned on it! All the new evidence for intelligent design is turning the tables on the status quo and the paradigm of the modern synthesis: take that Darwin!
I'm glad I can be so modern as to be on the Intelligent Design bandwagon, woohoo!
I just wonder what'll happen in another hundred years when we finally realize the earth is flat, based on the evidence. I mean, just step outside and look around you, the earth is clearly flat!
I, for one, love being ahead of the times, and welcome these new advances in science.
Slashdot Mirror
An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:
1. Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
2. Person A makes claim C about subject S.
3. Therefore, C is true.
This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.
It's not a fallacy to appeal to authority, only if they aren't an authority.
As I said time and time again that real expertise doesn't make the fallacy, but you say differently.
I said it was the only assumption in a given statement,
That's the problem, it was the only assumption in that logical argument.
not that it is my only assumption.
but it was your only assumption there.
And even if it was my only assumption -- and it certainly is not, as I also assume that math exists, for example, that 2+2 must always equal 4 -- it would not stand to reason that nothing other than life exists, which is what you said I assume.
I didn't say you assumed that only life exists in all parts of the world, but rather, only for that argument.
You now make another stab at logic:
How do you get to liberty [from life existing?]
Obvious deduction. How do you NOT?
I already explained that you need more assumptions and deductions, which you failed to provide. It's not obvious. If it were obvious, you'd have made a two-column proof and the debate would be settled.
Indeed, it is entirely irrational to come to any OTHER conclusion.
Actually, it would be rational to generalize it and say that if you exist, then at least one person exists if you have the property of being a person.
Oh, wait, is that another conclusion? I'm just joking here though, I know you actually mean that I couldn't come to the conclusion that liberty doesn't exist from life existing. You meant to say it would be irrational to come to the opposite conclusion.
But then, you just fell to the false dichotomy, which you earlier accused me of doing. Way to go. Actually, just like my argument wasn't really hurt by the accusation of false dichotomy when taken in its best light (which you fail to do in order to understand the points of your opponent), if I merely break the dichotomy into what you actually meant, and make a reasonable response, my argument is ten times stronger, since it's anticipating the response.
But of course, you're just a troll, disinterested in a reasonable discussion. You just want to "win points", even if the arguments aren't sound.
Guess what? People just think you're an asshole when you do that.
If nothing else, liberty must be deduced by process of elimination.
The more accurate term is proof by contradiction, or reductio ad absurdum, since you have said that depriving one of liberty also deprives them of life, which _contradicts_ the earlier premise of life (this also falls to the fallacy I'll mention below, as well as your reductio ad absurdum arguement here).
That is not necessary, but it would stand just the same. If I exist, and I know I exist, and am capable of controlling my own thoughts and acts -- all necessarily true, both by deduction and observation -- that necessarily means I have the liberty to think and act as I choose.
This Cartesian/rationalist converse is just as pointless as his, but I'll assume what you say here is true just because it's actually incomplete. All you've shown, if somebody buys your argument, (which I don't, because I don't think you actually control your own thoughts as completely as you think you do,
I appealed to my information through my expertise. You have no expertise in both health care and logic. You're not qualified to discuss either issue. It shows here. If you had information that helped your cause, you'd be qualified, but you refuse to discuss the actual particulars of health care, so you're using a philosophical argument for ignoring the real issues to ignore real issues.
Then I questioned your philosophical arguments and you came back with absurd unsound reasoning.
You assume only life exists. That's your only assumption: you say so yourself. How do you get to liberty, something not identical to life without any other assumptions by which to base your logical inferences (if you had any)? There's no way in logic to do that, and any logician knows it, so I'm waiting for you to prove me and all the logicians of the world wrong. Come on, just do it.
p = rest (right to liberty, right to property)
assume: f
conclusion: p
Tell me again how do you get p with f as the only assumption (f -> p)? The key word is "again." I already did it. Read. You can outline a two-column proof here right now and end the debate with your powerful mastery of logic.
I already showed how your proof is flawed. The burden of proof is on the one trying to prove their proof. All you did was assert that my representation of your proof into a two-column format was wrong without giving any reason other than that a premise wasn't a premise at all. All you have to do is show where that non-premise comes from other premises and you'll have given a logical reason for dismissing my refutation of your proof, but you didn't. Instead you dug yourself into a deeper hole and asserted the conclusion in response to a request to formulate a two-column proof.
If you're unable to formally prove it, just let me know, I'll let up and wait until you've read a book on the subject.
So you know, I asked you for a two-column proof because I really was confused what you were taking as premises and what your rules of inference were. It turns out that was the correct move to make, because you clearly have no grasp of how to do a logical proof. That clarifies many of your earlier responses.
If you were drunk or high when you were replying -- or temporarily incapacitated in some other way, say that too, and we can start fresh and hopefully use logic. Maybe I should wait until you sober up, as well. I have a cousin up in the Darrington/Arlington area, and I know the favorite past-time up there is rural-poverty-induced intoxication. I'll just chalk it up to that if you would like.
I'm trying to give you an out here. Just say the word.
Steve,
I'm the elections administrator of the Pacific Green Party of Oregon, and I've followed your campaign with interest. A number of our members have donated to your campaign as a strategy within the Democratic Party as a hedge that the Democratic Party will still restrict ballot accessibility and continue to suppress third parties. I know we both despise what the Democratic National Committee and their DLC/New Democrat-types have done to your party, and the Green Party has gained a lot of traction as a voice for those made voiceless by the DNC's corporate takeover, but if we can get a commitment that you'll champion Section 16 of the Oregon Constitution with your fell Democrats, which enables preference voting and proportional representation, in particular, preference voting, perhaps the Greens can gain some traction in getting preference voting implemented at the local level. Bill Bradbury, our Democratic Secretary of State has been opposing our local campaigns vigorously to get things like IRV into local jurisdictions like cities and counties, and even a bill in the state legislature, which he was instrumental in killing.
I'm not old enough to run for U.S. Senate against the Dems, but I can find somebody who will, particularly if you fail in the primary.
If you're really part of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, then the Green Party needs your help to help keep the Democrats honest to their core values without having to force Democrats to "spoil" our elections against Republicans. As you know, if there are only two viable parties in a first-past-the-post system, they will get as close to indistinguishable as possible in an effort to grab the middle of the political gamut. That's basic game theory. A preference voting system would enable people like you to take back your own party. If you fail in this effort, know that the Green Party is here for people like you. We're the ones out trying to change the system so that people like you can get elected without being gamed by centrists.
I'll get to my point, though. We're inclined to stay out of the race if you win the primary, but if we don't hear anything from any of the candidates on the ideas of election reform, including you, we will run a candidate. Teresa Keane (I was on her campaign committee) got fifty thousand votes in a two month campaign against Ron Wyden and Al King. If it comes to it, we'll run another candidate and point out that we need election reform, now.
Regardless of what we believe in, without election reform to enable true representation of the people, regardless of view or party, nothing we believe in will get traction, because the game theory shows us that it's really just centrists that get elected and never any outside voices.
You've spent your life fighting for the little guy. Well, the little guy has no voice because Oregon won't enact Section 16 of the Oregon Constitution, which was put in place in 1908 to enable us to be truly representative. You can help by making it a part of your public view. You don't have to make press releases or anything, but if people view your website and it covers this issue, it would greatly help inform people of the eventual need to be more open and accessible about their voting system, without any of Phil's absurd open-primary lunacy.
Seth Woolley,
Secretary, Parliamentarian, and Elections Administrator
Pacific Green Party of Oregon
IANAL
This is downright comical how illogical you are. The assumption was that I have life. The rest is deducted. f = life
p = rest (right to liberty, right to property)
assume: f
conclusion: p
Tell me again how do you get p with f as the only assumption (f -> p)?
If you can do that without adding any assumptions (which you state you don't have), you'll have revolutionized symbolic logic and we'd now have a proof for everything!
You said you were so logical that when I decided to get to a technical proof, I hoped I would get a well-done proof. It turns out you're just talking out of your ass when it comes to logic. Based on your previous responses, I figured that your prose was just a weak spot and that your logic might actually be fine underneath. It turns out, that was too much to hope for.
I'm sorry Pudge, but you'll have to actually read up on symbolic logic this time. You can't just use the last word as your protection.
Hah, I shot holes in your logical proof and you told me that your first statement (which is always an assumption) was "necessarily deducted". Dude, Pudge, you don't understand how these things work. When you prove something, you start with assumptions and work to a conclusion. If my two-column proof formatting was incorrect, then please, provide your own, and outline your assumptions explicitly. The whole point of the exercise is to tease out your hidden assumptions by making everything explicitly and formally logical. Moreover, when you're going to use terms like "necessarily deducted" while not in the context of modal logic and modal qualifiers, you're going to look like an idiot to any logician.
And if you're going to use a modification of the term liberty to include "liberty unless it impinges upon the liberty of other white male humans", then you need to be explicit. Does it apply to living animals, for example? Women? Blacks? When does the right to life take place? Such things are not "self-evident", but are to their very core questions any political philosophy needs to answer. The framers even answered it incorrectly 232 years ago.
Thirdly, your entire line revolves around the idea that insurance companies need the flexibility to decided what not to cover. The whole idea of health insurance coverage implies that you're covered for health reasons. They are merely saying if you want to be in the business of providing health insurance, so as not to be considered fraudulent in what you market, you have to include X. You're opposed to fraud, yes? If they didn't include X, if somebody needed help for X, the system would have failed for them anyways, and the private system would have failed them. Failure of insurance is not how you go about making sure everybody has the insurance they need. But of course, you don't think that people should have to have health insurance, and the whole point of your philosophical reasoning is to say why those who suffer should be suffering despite the excesses and greed of those who could ease their suffering but refuse to do so.
Secondly, it's not "designed" for the employer. You can buy health insurance on the open market right now. Are you saying the government intervenes to make employer coverage cheaper? If anything, things like cobra and hippa prevent insurance companies from dropping people who have continuous coverage inside and outside their work. That's intervention that keeps people insured where the market would tell them to get lost and they'd be fucked.
If you think that "increased competition" would reduce costs, you also don't seem to understand that insurance companies aren't the main drivers of increased health care costs. The costs they add is essentially a fixed overhead of around 25%. Their profits are in the low single digits. There are three main drivers of cost increases -- increased drug prices and aggressive marketing of patented drugs vs generics that work just as well, increased technology and diagnostic tests capable of increasing diagnostic accuracy requiring things like vascular MRI scans for a couple grand a pop just to rule something out without running the machines full-tilt 24/7 to keep costs down, and lastly, an aging population. If we gave breaks on MRI scans for people who come in at 2am or simply scheduled people who wanted an earlier appointment in the middle of the night, that would reduce the cost increases in half. This country is also extremely slow to implementing electronic medical records systems, and the EMR companies have demonstrably failed to standardize on intercommunication formats (HL7 is a joke). Paper and faxes are the main way the medical community still communicates.
What a universal system would do is ensure that: 1) drug prices can be set reasonably based on cost to recuperate expenses and public welfare, not fleecing people. 2) Advertising of drugs would be eliminated again (that's the stupidest deregulation ever). 3) technology would be used consistently and more thoroughly. 4) Standardized protocols and EMR would save paper, 5) single-payer system eliminates the process of manual EOB entry. 6) EOB auditing can be done programmatically due to a standard EOB format and interpretation. 7) Deciding what is and isn't covered becomes a medical decision with less bias. Preauthorization would be eliminated.
But that's not even the important part. Cost savings are just a tiny fraction of the importance of a universal health care system. The main benefit is that everybody gets it, for free. There aren't any haves and have-nots. Entrepreneurs pop up because they don't have to fear their medical risks any more. Old people don't have to make sure they have enough saved for all the pills they might have to take.
Absolutely. My property is the product of my liberty. To deny my right to property is to deny my liberty. My liberty is the result of my life. To deny my liberty is to deny my very existence. So to deny my right to property is a direct assault on my right to exist.
You are denied your existence because you shouted fire in a crowded room and were charged with a crime?
Do you actually believe your failed attempt at syllogism?
Let's put this in a two-column proof format, assertion, reason, form, so we can tease out the hidden assumptions.
assertion: My property is a product of my liberty (l -> p)
reason: assumed
assertion: To deny my right to property is to deny my liberty
reason: ~p -> ~l (contrapositive)
assertion: My liberty is the result of my life. (f -> l)
reason: assumed
assertion: To deny my liberty is to deny my very existence.
reason: ~l -> ~f (contrapositive)
assertion: So to deny my right to property is a direct assault on my right to exist. (~p -> ~f)
reason: ~p -> ~f (syllogism of ~p -> ~l and ~l -> ~f)
unstated assertion: I have a right to life (f)
reason: assumed
It's their freedom to do so. If you don't have the ability to do collective bargaining through an insurance company, you have to do the bargaining on your own, and of course, most people aren't effective at negotiating on their own. I know how the system works so I can walk in, and as long as it's not an emergency room visit, I can tell them I'm going to go elsewhere if I don't get a rate comparable with an insurance company contract. Most young people only show up at the doctor for emergency room visits, though, so there's no room to bargain. Even if you could bargain, if you don't have insurance, you'll often go bankrupt.
In our system, this is what happens:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/bankruptcy_study.html
Illness and medical bills caused half of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies in 2001, according to a study published by the journal Health Affairs.
The study estimates that medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans annually -- counting debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children.
Surprisingly, most of those bankrupted by illness had health insurance. More than three-quarters were insured at the start of the bankrupting illness. However, 38 percent had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy.
Most of the medical bankruptcy filers were middle class; 56 percent owned a home and the same number had attended college. In many cases, illness forced breadwinners to take time off from work -- losing income and job-based health insurance precisely when families needed it most.
None of that involves government intervention. How are you going to blame all that on government intervention?
It's also curious that you make a distinction between "being right" and "holding" of the law, while complaining that interpreting the law in disagreement with your idea of "rights" implies lawlessness. If what's right is not held, then their interpretation would be lawless, but they're legally able to hold such an opinion. It's lawless and lawful? How do you work yourself out of that antinomy?
For what it's worth, I've heard your shitty arguments from other right-wing idiots about the Supreme Court not being the final arbiter of the constitution. They simply don't hold water:
The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court ... The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States,
It doesn't say that the judicial power doesn't apply to some cases, like, when you think their decision was wrong under the Constitution, it says it extends to all cases. If the judicial power didn't have a say about the constitution, then all their decisions about the constitutionality of inferior laws are mooted, since one could just follow the constitution instead in each of those cases and then it would get up to the supreme court and their decision would simply be wrong if they decided against it. The argument you make is that the court is only able to decide laws inferior to the constitution, but not the constitution itself. If any law contradicts the constitution and remains upheld, since the constitution is the supreme law of the land, the inferior law is overridden by the constitution.
But the justices decide things in many ways contradicted by the constitution's plain reading. Free speech? Not in case of public endangerment, for example. Legal theories aside, the Supreme Court effectively interprets the constitution. Are they thus lawless?
About rights, I was arguing against their transcendent status, but it seems you're in agreement that they aren't transcendental, that instead they are merely "self-evident", which to me means thei
If you're going to accuse me of a false dichotomy whenever I make a comparison between a proposal and the existing system, then I need to know what other system you actually think is better and where in the world it's been implemented.
I already did. A system that encourages competition through deregulation and other means. Where it's happened before? Here, in the U.S. It served us well for many years until the last few decades, when government regulation and lawsuits consolidated the power in the medical business into the hands of a few. Ever notice how family doctors don't exist anymore? And how health insurance is required for pretty much everything you want done? It didn't use to be that way.
I go to an independent primary care physician, Health insurance isn't required, I can negotiate with them, and they make more than somebody in any other country by working here. How do I know how much they made? How do I know their policies? I ran their billing system.
What world do you live in?
Do you realize that all comparisons imply you're comparing two or more things? That's not a false dichotomy. A false dichotomy is when you say there are only two ways that aren't a full complement of each other and thus they don't cover the full range of possibilities. At no point did I say that you have to choose my way or the existing way.
Yes, in fact, you did: you said "we should have Universal Health Care because it is better than the current system."
I meant any other system, which is accurate because the current system includes all sorts of micro systems, none of which work as well as universal, single-payer health care. We've tried pretty much every delivery system you can imagine besides universal health care in this country. Everybody else in a modern country enjoys it, save us.
Your grasp of logic is remarkably poor.
Um, since you literally stated that every person who has worked in health care is qualified to speak on this, and NO ONE ELSE is, I'll eschew your counsel on what is, and is not, a good grasp of logic.
I didn't say nobody else. I said that's why I'm qualified to discuss it, which doesn't imply that other people have to have it to discuss it. You simply don't have any qualification there, nor any other qualifications.
Secondly, you are transferring my statement that an overall cost reduction implies that all will have cost reductions.
No. I addressed what you actually wrote. If you didn't mean to say what you wrote, don't blame me.
Say that all you want, the record is clear.
I told you where it could come from (multiple ways it could be done) and even said it would be an overall cost reduction due to reduced overhead. ... There are lots of assumptions going around in your arguments, Pudge.
Considering you still assume that there will be an overall cost reduction, you're one to talk.
I pointed out why, but you still haven't addressed the reduced overhead numbers.
Thirdly, I made no such assumption that the order was meaningful
False. You did precisely that. Your argument relied on it. I said liberty was the most important goal, and you said -- in rebuttal -- that life is the first goal. That necessarily implies that because it comes first, that it is more important. Please, you are far too transparent, and I am far too good at this, for you to convince me you didn't say what you clearly said.
It didn't rely upon it. You implied that liberty is the only goal, and I pointed out that there are other goals as well that you were ignoring.
Strawman my argument all you want, but people can see past it, Pudge.
Jefferson also didn't think that slaves or women were entitled to the rights o
But more importantly, if you mean something, next time, try saying it rather than making an untrue statement that any normal reading would indicate that the program was tried and repealed due to public discontent. Polls of Canadians (and other western countries) show a much higher content with their system than USians do about their system, so any argument for a political failure of health care systems with government involvement is flatly contradicted by evidence.
The real problem is that people like you are corporate sheep, willing to go along with their manufactured consent.
If you're going to accuse me of a false dichotomy whenever I make a comparison between a proposal and the existing system, then I need to know what other system you actually think is better and where in the world it's been implemented. I can then do a proper comparison. Do you realize that all comparisons imply you're comparing two or more things? That's not a false dichotomy. A false dichotomy is when you say there are only two ways that aren't a full complement of each other and thus they don't cover the full range of possibilities. At no point did I say that you have to choose my way or the existing way.
Your grasp of logic is remarkably poor.
So, what is this miracle third way and why do you think it will be both cheaper and equitable?
Secondly, you are transferring my statement that an overall cost reduction implies that all will have cost reductions. I even said of course not. You asked where the money was coming from -- go read your first post. I told you where it could come from (multiple ways it could be done) and even said it would be an overall cost reduction due to reduced overhead. Where does reduced overhead imply that certain people will have to pay less? There are lots of assumptions going around in your arguments, Pudge. Please, I request again, clear your mind of them and argue the logic and the evidence.
Thirdly, I made no such assumption that the order was meaningful, if you thought that, I apologize for your mistake. I said they were first and third, not first in importance or third in importance. If you want to attack my arguments, try attacking what I actually say and not some assumption about what I have said that I didn't say.
Jefferson also didn't think that slaves or women were entitled to the rights of white men, either, so, please, stop appealing to "authority" here. I'm not a strict constructionist, and I don't think the intent of the framers is as important as more modern, progressive ideas that make the union more perfect. If anybody realized that the union was going to have to evolve, it was Jefferson. I was merely pointing out that the government's role is to protect life. How it protects life is a matter of discussion, and Jefferson had some thoughts on the matter, but if you can't actually carry on a discussion without such appeals to authority, then is there any sense in having a discussion with you?
About qualifications to discuss the matter, I wasn't saying that a priori reasoning established my opinion on your and my qualifications. A posteriori criteria are at play. You're a fundamentalist/religious Libertarian that has an agenda that thinks that having a health care system with any contribution from government is already wrong, so I have no reason to believe that you'd be open to any data that indicates that government involvement in health care financing is viable. You've ignored the figures for medicare (which, actually IS a single-payer system, despite your ignorance) without so much as reasonable counter, for example.
I'm not interested in a religious discussion, I'm interested in a pragmatic discussion.
artificial equality != equal opportunity and equality under the law
As a suggestion, you should really try to argue your point based on an understanding of critical distinctions in the discussion. People might then begin to take your arguments seriously.
My only assumption is something everyone agrees with: that it will cost a lot of money. Therefore, how that money will be raised is a perfectly reasonable question.
Universal Health Care is cheaper than the current system due to economies of scale, less bureaucracy, more preventative care accessibility, and more, as it is everywhere else in the world. It will thus cost less than what we pay now.
Unfortunately, that is false, on several counts. The first is that it is a false dichotomy to say we should do Universal Health Care because it is better than "the current system," because there are other options to improve the current system.
I never set up a dichotomy. I think it's the best system of many alternatives.
For example: deregulating who can provide basic preventative care would make it far more accessible than the current system, and perhaps moreso than a universal system. Deregulation (along with other reforms) can also reduce the COST of health care, thus reducing the need for insurance to cover many things, thus reducing bureaucracy. And don't say it won't work, because this is how it used to be, and it still works for many people today.
Single-payer health care does not regulate the decisions of the AMA and other medical agencies composed of practitioners who would be delegated the role of making policy, just as it is done in many other western nations.
Are you clumping one proposal with another? Clear your mind, first.
Another way that you're wrong is that you assume that bureaucracy will be smaller, or that we will necessarily pay less due to economies of scale. I see no reason to accept either of these assumptions.
I don't actually assume it. Insurance company overhead is around 25%, but medicare is less than 5%. Insurance companies consistently pay more than medicare reimbursements, as well. Total cost of providing health care is greatly increased by private insurance. Since you haven't actually worked in the industry and clearly make false statements without having done any research, you don't have a basis either in experience or research for understanding the problem.
And most obviously, you are wrong because many people WILL PAY MORE, and will get no better care for it. It may cost less overall -- that is unknowable -- but we absolutely do know that many people will pay more. Even John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton -- and even Dennis Kucinich -- admit this. Saying it will cost less is false.
Of course some people will pay more. That's fine with me, particularly if they have the income to afford it. That's the entire basis for progressive taxation and the role of all healthy, modern governments: to ensure a strong middle class by wealth redistribution and equal opportunity.
If you'd like, I'd just have a 100% estate tax that would cover it and every other social program we need instead of an income tax, but an income tax is simply a more market-based approach. But I suppose being born with equal opportunity is not really an important part of your desires for the role of government.
If you're asking where the money would come from: the same place it comes right now: the existing health care system.
Nope. Many people would have to put more -- far more -- into a universal health care system than they do into the existing health care system.
I've actually worked in the health care system in Oregon
So have dozens of people I know personally, including members of my immediate family, who oppose single-payer. You won't win on an appeal to authority. Sorry: you have to try to win on the strength of your arguments themselves.
You're still not qualified to discuss the matter. I am, you are not. Get one of your family members to discuss it with me so we can talk about real issues.
If you're asking where the money would come from: the same place it comes right now: the existing health care system.
I've actually worked in the health care system in Oregon, for a primary care clinic with 20 doctors, running computer systems for billing purposes. Single-payer systems would be the best way to approach the problem: the government is the single payer.
A progressive income tax that treats payroll and capital gains similarly is the best way to pay for such a system.
Hi Pudge,
Oregon has not tried universal health care. It's voted on a version of it, but it never got around to trying it.
Seth Woolley, Secretary, Pacific Green Party of Oregon
Do a search on "the lawgiver" here: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/laws.mb.txt
Having dispensed with the philosophical foundations in his previous work, there's no reason to think he'd spend a lot of time on it. Instead, as even you point out, it's a book discussing implementation. The Philosopher-King is merely "the lawgiver". There are discussions of ordinances among an oligarchy / guardians, but ultimately, that's just a practical way of implementing the power of the lawgiver.
Your assertion that the Republic served only as a critique and his real opinions lie elsewhere is not held by any reasonable person. R.F. Stalley in An Introduction to Plato's Laws (available from google books) on pages 14 and 15 discuss different ideas about the relationship and yours isn't even mentioned.
Maybe you can start with giving some evidence for that idea of yours. It would be best if you stop talking about Plato until you actually have a clue. All of the scientists here at
Google uses NAVTEQ, but they also have their own address correction layer because they allow people to "move" addresses around the map.
In any case, reporting it directly provides everybody else the update in the next quarterly release. Then it takes up to a year for the annual refresh cycle typically seen in consumer electronics.
TeleAtlas / TomTom also take user input, and if you update them as well, that should cover the significant data providers, but I've never done that myself through an automated form. I think they have such, and TeleAtlas stated as a goal of the merger was to provide crowdsourcing leverage for teleatlas from tomtom.
Plato believed in idealistic realism. He believed that the basic types had transcendental archetypes that represented perfectly the form of an uncorrupted object.
It wasn't until the scholastic movement when William of Ockham introduced the world to nominalism -- that words are merely approximate descriptions we apply to enable generalization of a real world of many diverse specifics. Reality was reality, and names and generalizations were the source of imperfections in reasoning, not that there are ideal forms for everything.
The archetypal example is the chair. Plato believed that there's such a thing as a perfect chair that personified and was what people should think of when you think of a chair. Ockham believed that people used the word chair as a symbol, or name (nomen) for the many things in the world that we used as chairs. The names were merely conventions.
How does Plato's ideology lead to inaccuracy in his theory of evolution? Well, to him, animals are a type, and as a type, they had a perfect form, the human, naturally, since it was the smartest and most powerful. Thus, any non-human was naturally inferior to the human. Combined with the common belief among Platonists and the religious gestalt of the time that things naturally tended toward corruption when left to their own devices (without, say a Philosopher King to step in and control the masses), Humans were the first and foremost species -- all the rest are merely corruptions of the animal archetype.
Platonism (more specifically neoplatonism) was the philosophic foundation for Christianity and the Catholic Church Fathers more than any other influence. Yes, Catholicism borrowed from Jewish, Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek Mystery, etc. religions, but the philosophical foundations of its theological systems lay directly with Plato.
For more information on the scourge of Plato and Platonic Essentialism, see Ernst Mayr's "Growth of Biological Thought", particularly the 180 page introduction if you can't read a thousand page book.
His lecture data was completely convincing (I'm a physicist, and can read graphs with the best of them). Furthermore, this guy is not a corporate figurehead; he explicitly states that he is for all the energysavings we can think of, he just hates the current media hysteria around global warming, and the fact that it's supposedly all our fault.
As the person to whom you are replying, I think I should clarify.Bart
The only matter of serious debate is whether or not we're the most cause of the recent global warming (which is actually still a consensus view, even though there are outlying scientist such as him who have provided partial alternative explanations), but note that the poster I was replying to said "global warming" was a religious belief, not "humans are the sole cause of global warming". I've seen both his data and other data. I personally am not qualified to confirm or deny his findings, but my impression is that there are a multitude of factors at play, and if the sun is contributing as well as humans, then we need to be aware of all causes involved. We're learning more and more about how to do climate modeling and how to improve inputs into our climate models (I worked in the supercomputing industry for a company providing clustering solutions for climate modeling among other things at the U.S. national laboratories).
I'm also Secretary of the Green Party of Oregon, and have a pretty long record of environmentalism, but I'm more of a humanist pragmatist. The main problems we are facing today have nothing to do with coastal flooding or species collapse in certain species webs with fragile niches, but urban pollution, air quality causing lung cancer, the lack of pollution controls in the third world (including not just air pollution, but toxic pollution in groundwater too). In Oregon, the main environmental issues revolve around policy issues for energy generation, resource extraction, and habitat and wilderness protection, not carbon footprints (I personally think carbon credits are a rues -- read my blog entry on it). Oregon is a mostly hydropower state, so its carbon output is actually quite low.
I hope that clarifies somewhat.
How the tables have turned on it! All the new evidence for intelligent design is turning the tables on the status quo and the paradigm of the modern synthesis: take that Darwin!
I'm glad I can be so modern as to be on the Intelligent Design bandwagon, woohoo!
I just wonder what'll happen in another hundred years when we finally realize the earth is flat, based on the evidence. I mean, just step outside and look around you, the earth is clearly flat!
I, for one, love being ahead of the times, and welcome these new advances in science.
*crosses arms contently*
Actually, it appears you just made my point for me... (^_^)
Circular reasoning. Try to to address the facts next time.