"Obamas been there and has a much better understanding of what's needed to resolve these issues and create a fairer nation."
If his commercials correctly represent him, than I disagree with you on that. "I am my brother's keeper" is exactly the reason we have the problems we do.
"You mean the labor he did at the job he got to on public roads and learned to do in public schools and universities? At the company that was bailed out by the federal government in the 80s? That provides a paycheck he puts in a federally protected bank (that itself was bailed out by the federal government)?"
You have just listed off more symptoms of the same problem. As long as the government continues to interfere in the economy we will continue to have our rights violated and these problems will continue to occur.
"Every time I hear the absurd libertarian refrain I can do little but laugh."
Which libertarian are you referring to? I don't think you have replied to one yet.
"If you are in the U.S. you are the beneficiary of innumerable years of global hegemony funded by those very taxes you so hate."
Does that make it right? The people have voted for a system that violates their own rights. That does not make the system right. The system is still wrong. Four months of my labor go entirely to benefit others each year. If I were entirely in control of my work, I be able to directly stimulate the economy more by buying only from those individuals who I choose to buy from. Instead, the government is telling me that if I want to live in this country, I have to give my money over to those not of my choosing. This is a violation of the fundamental rights on which the US was founded.
"If the government weren't helping poor people this country would see termoil like you wouldn't believe."
What is this belief based on? Do you really believe the government is able to handle money more efficiently than the economy can?
"In fact, the whole reason we have social security and welfare and unemployment is because if we didn't we were going to get real socialism."
This is laughable. A system in which the government provides everything to the people in exchange for forced labor is socialism.
"A functioning free market requires perfect information for all of its participants."
It simply requires the participants to keep themselves informed. Any misinformation/disinformation will be weeded out in the long run, and those who misinformed will be subject to the law. A service only exists as long as people pay for that service.
Careful, the OP could be a libertarian, and I doubt Rand would agree with him (and maybe vice versa).
"There are issues far bigger than one person, that cannot be resolved in a manner consistent with the greatest good (or, if it helps you understand better, optimal utilisation of resources) without a decision being taken en masse that applies to all."
What issues are you specifically referring to? Please try to be more specific and less... nebulous.
"As opposed to the current system where the ER is often the first, last and only choice for the poor, resulting in increased medical bills that are unpaid and passed onto wealthier hospital patrons who do have insurance?"
Have you thought about this one iota? How do you propose that a universal healthcare system would be any better? The money has to come from somewhere. If you are not paying it through insurance, you are paying it through taxes. The only difference is that one of those is forced upon you and violates your fundamental rights.
"Even if doctors could refuse treatment until after they were paid (what a dystopic thought!)"
If the public refused to visit such a doctor, the doctor would have to change his policies or risk going out of business. Remind me again how capitalism would fail?
"the lack of access to healthcare would decrease the total health of the population"
The lack of access to healthcare is due only to the lack of competition among insurance companies and healthcare providers. This is due to the unfair economic advantage (in the form of tax breaks) given to certain insurance companies (Blue Cross / Blue Shield) and tax breaks for employer-sponsored insurance. People accept it as a default position that their employer should provide them with insurance. Rather than shop around, the individual is forced to accept their employer's provider if they want to work, and in turn forced to accept the doctors under that plan. There is no incentive for insurance companies or doctors to compete to lower costs because there is no interest in comparison shopping.
"We have the ability to wipe out polio from the world relatively easily. That's due to government, not private practice footing the bill. We also have the ability to eradicate the MMR trio if we are willing to push for an international campaign to do so."
If you believe those to be noble efforts, feel free to put your hours of labor toward those causes, and ask others to support it as well. Why do you feel the need to violate the rights of your neighbors and fellow citizens by telling them that, if they want to live in this country, they have to support your chosen cause.
"It's not impossible that a universal healthcare solution could actually reduce the amount of money most people spend on healthcare."
Please read my reply again. What I am concerned about is the fundamental violation of my rights and the rights of my neighbors and fellow citizens. I am being told that I am less and less entitled to the fruits of my labor. Last year, Tax Freedom Day fell on April 30th. That basically means that, if you started on January 1st and put all of your labor toward taxes, you would have to keep doing that until April 30th before you would be free to get 100% of your income for the rest of the year. With universal healthcare, this date will surely come later in the, each year.
"You're already paying for healthcare for everyone (if you spend anything on healthcare) in the form of high costs that have built in the assumption that something like 40% of the patients will never pay."
Thank the government for the situation we are now in. If the market were free to function of its own accord (as it can and always will despite the public's irrational fears), competition would lower costs. But competition has been eradicated. The government granted tax exemption status to certain insurance companies (Blue Cross / Blue Shield), which then gained a monopoly. They were then able to modify the definition of insurance to include not only emergencies, but routine medical visits. This, combined with tax-breaks for employer-sponsored insurance, has minimized incentives for customers to comparison-shop for medical services, and also minimized incentives for doctors and hospitals to compete on price.
When people learn that the government should keep its claws out of money altogether, we'll stop getting these idiotic solutions that are only proposed in order to stir up support from voters, but end up having devastating effects that last well beyond the candidate's political career.
"The President is not there to save the economy, or even care about the economy, because economic issues are the domain of Congress, or even more preferably the States."
Unfortunately, the public is never going to get this through their thick skulls as long as they thing their candidate will set up a system whereby they are able to get things slightly cheaper at other people's expenses. Everyone thinks they'll cheat the system but they're only cheating themselves as long as they let the government have its fingers in the economy.
"As much as I'd like to see a woman or a (excuse the wording) black man in the White House, because it'll do the world as a whole a lot of good
How does that follow? Unless you mean it literally, in the sense that these individuals will send more of our taxes overseas to support the underprivileged. Other countries have had their share of female and black presidents, both good and bad (and very bad: Idi Amin).
"Which would leave one to assume that the situation can only get better..."
How do you come to that conclusion? Have you seen the same ads I have? "I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper" - "Healthcare for everyone". This can only translate into more of my labor going towards strangers.
While Clinton takes 1,191 delegates, Obama takes 1,314, and McCain takes the Republican nomination, the American public gets ready to take it up the rear. Sit back, relax, and watch your rights vanish before your eyes.
Ahh yes, how dare those other greedy customers try to use the entire amount of bandwidth they paid for!!! Don't they realize that the only way we can all pretend to have high speed connections is if Comcast is able to sign us all up under the banner of "high speed" without expanding their infrastructure accordingly?!?!
In which case Charter is incompetent and idiotic for choosing Synacor. The blame still rests with Charter, as their clients signed contracts with Charter, not Synacor.
"a dismissal of his judgment call as less valid than yours, without any demonstration as to why it was invalid"
I simply asked him to clarify his views regarding God's involvement in the world, and asked him in particular how God deals with suffering, and whether he sees any conflict between these views and the view that God is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, etc. I was not yet at the point of trying to demonstrate anything invalid because his views were not yet clear to me.
"you did not present anything in your original post that demonstrated that what you think is any more rational"
That is because I had no intention of doing so at that point.
"Well, I believe that God only got actively involved with a few people, notably the prophets, and only was involved in building the history of man's lack of ability to follow God's Plan. In fact, I believe that the Old Testament was entirely "designed" to prove that man can NEVER meet God's desires for man, which is why Christ was necessary for all men, believers and non-believers alike."
So God was active with a few people, and presumably had the ability to be active with other people, but chose not to? What was his reason for not helping the child being murdered by the maniac, or the babied injured or killed by natural disasters? Was he unable to help? Is he not good? Did he not know about them?
"Some of the suffering may have been judgment by God towards people who had God's plan at hand and refused to follow it. Some of it may just be natural choices those people made."
Other forms of suffering include suffering caused by natural disasters, biological mutations, other animals (predators), diseases, both physical and mental. What was the reason God did not then, and still does not, help the child afflicted by these problems?
And I object to your claim that Keith Devens' is a finer mind than yours or mine. His "rebuttal" is laughable at best. I'm sure you and I could debate for 10 minutes and come up with 20 rebuttals to the problem of evil that are more sound than his idiocy.
Who said anything about disproving the existence of God? Proof/disproof is an impossible task in anything but mathematics.
"can be viewed equally easily as manifestations of God's will."
Yes, with a turn of phrase people can argue pretty much anything either way.
"GP prefaced his statement with "I believe", not "I have proved"."
Yes, that is their belief. My reply was an attempt to probe that belief for inconsistencies, to find things about that belief that don't match up with that person's other beliefs. Again, nobody is talking about proof/disproof.
"But either decision is a judgment call."
Yes but maybe one belief is grounded in more sound rationale than the other.
"GP is not trying to convince you. Please accord him, and others like him (like myself), the same courtesy."
So if a lunatic claims something irrational, such as the existence of square circles, and starts teaching his children this belief, I should not even try to convince him otherwise? Toleration does not come without a sense of skepticism and adherence to reason.
"Your other point -- the argument from evil -- is one that is hotly debated, and decidedly troubling."
Yes, it is the problem of evil. You have categorized it. You have not, however, dismissed it simply by labeling it. Only after replying to the words printed in my original statement will you have even addressed my original statement.
"But counter-arguments have been made by finer minds than mine"
Yes, and counter-counter-arguments have been made as well. But you still have not even responded to the words in my original post. Your addition of the phrase "if you're really interested in the question" makes it clear you have no interest whatsoever in the discussion. Your rebuttal is one of hotlinks and nothing else.
"To think that evolution (macro or micro) isn't part of God's creation would mean that God didn't create everything."
Or maybe God never existed in the first place...
"What He did to the ancient Israelites was the end of what He said He would do, and that's it."
So God used to get involved with people, but no longer does? He used to help save the child from death at the hands of a lunatic, but now he no longer does? What made him stop? If he used to stop suffering, why is there a plethora of evidence of suffering during the period that you claim he was active in the world?
"I believe in evolutionary forces as part of God's creation."
This doesn't make sense to a scientist. You're basically saying causality, chaos, and random interactions are part of God's creation - these very concepts are often the arguments against the existence of God. Or, are you saying that God is involved at some level in the evolution of life. If so, why is God able to get involved in the evolution of life but not able to stop the death of a child at the hands of a maniac?
For some items this doesn't seem to be the case, especially for those that have never changed in cost over the years. For example, every store is still selling the TI-83 calculator for the exact same price I paid for it 10 years ago.
1. Imagine an internet news site defined as the greatest conceivable news site: no dupes, no bad summaries, no typos, no goatse or gnaa or other tired cliches.
2. It is greater to exist in reality than merely in imagination.
3. If this perfect news site did not exist, then you could have an idea of an even greater new site - one which did exist.
4. In that case the perfect site in your imagination would not be perfect: a logical contradiction.
5. So this perfect news site must exist in reality.
6. ???
7. Profit!
Slashdot Mirror
"Obamas been there and has a much better understanding of what's needed to resolve these issues and create a fairer nation."
If his commercials correctly represent him, than I disagree with you on that. "I am my brother's keeper" is exactly the reason we have the problems we do.
"You mean the labor he did at the job he got to on public roads and learned to do in public schools and universities? At the company that was bailed out by the federal government in the 80s? That provides a paycheck he puts in a federally protected bank (that itself was bailed out by the federal government)?" You have just listed off more symptoms of the same problem. As long as the government continues to interfere in the economy we will continue to have our rights violated and these problems will continue to occur.
"Every time I hear the absurd libertarian refrain I can do little but laugh."
Which libertarian are you referring to? I don't think you have replied to one yet.
"If you are in the U.S. you are the beneficiary of innumerable years of global hegemony funded by those very taxes you so hate."
Does that make it right? The people have voted for a system that violates their own rights. That does not make the system right. The system is still wrong. Four months of my labor go entirely to benefit others each year. If I were entirely in control of my work, I be able to directly stimulate the economy more by buying only from those individuals who I choose to buy from. Instead, the government is telling me that if I want to live in this country, I have to give my money over to those not of my choosing. This is a violation of the fundamental rights on which the US was founded.
"If the government weren't helping poor people this country would see termoil like you wouldn't believe."
What is this belief based on? Do you really believe the government is able to handle money more efficiently than the economy can?
"In fact, the whole reason we have social security and welfare and unemployment is because if we didn't we were going to get real socialism."
This is laughable. A system in which the government provides everything to the people in exchange for forced labor is socialism.
"A functioning free market requires perfect information for all of its participants."
It simply requires the participants to keep themselves informed. Any misinformation/disinformation will be weeded out in the long run, and those who misinformed will be subject to the law. A service only exists as long as people pay for that service.
"He is black, call him black."
What the hell? I am so sick of these nebulous terms. Let's get it right. He is #935C33, I am #FEE497.
"Ayn Rand is the greatest philosopher ever."
Careful, the OP could be a libertarian, and I doubt Rand would agree with him (and maybe vice versa).
"There are issues far bigger than one person, that cannot be resolved in a manner consistent with the greatest good (or, if it helps you understand better, optimal utilisation of resources) without a decision being taken en masse that applies to all."
What issues are you specifically referring to? Please try to be more specific and less... nebulous.
"As opposed to the current system where the ER is often the first, last and only choice for the poor, resulting in increased medical bills that are unpaid and passed onto wealthier hospital patrons who do have insurance?"
Have you thought about this one iota? How do you propose that a universal healthcare system would be any better? The money has to come from somewhere. If you are not paying it through insurance, you are paying it through taxes. The only difference is that one of those is forced upon you and violates your fundamental rights.
"Even if doctors could refuse treatment until after they were paid (what a dystopic thought!)"
If the public refused to visit such a doctor, the doctor would have to change his policies or risk going out of business. Remind me again how capitalism would fail?
"the lack of access to healthcare would decrease the total health of the population"
The lack of access to healthcare is due only to the lack of competition among insurance companies and healthcare providers. This is due to the unfair economic advantage (in the form of tax breaks) given to certain insurance companies (Blue Cross / Blue Shield) and tax breaks for employer-sponsored insurance. People accept it as a default position that their employer should provide them with insurance. Rather than shop around, the individual is forced to accept their employer's provider if they want to work, and in turn forced to accept the doctors under that plan. There is no incentive for insurance companies or doctors to compete to lower costs because there is no interest in comparison shopping.
"We have the ability to wipe out polio from the world relatively easily. That's due to government, not private practice footing the bill. We also have the ability to eradicate the MMR trio if we are willing to push for an international campaign to do so."
If you believe those to be noble efforts, feel free to put your hours of labor toward those causes, and ask others to support it as well. Why do you feel the need to violate the rights of your neighbors and fellow citizens by telling them that, if they want to live in this country, they have to support your chosen cause.
"It's not impossible that a universal healthcare solution could actually reduce the amount of money most people spend on healthcare."
Please read my reply again. What I am concerned about is the fundamental violation of my rights and the rights of my neighbors and fellow citizens. I am being told that I am less and less entitled to the fruits of my labor. Last year, Tax Freedom Day fell on April 30th. That basically means that, if you started on January 1st and put all of your labor toward taxes, you would have to keep doing that until April 30th before you would be free to get 100% of your income for the rest of the year. With universal healthcare, this date will surely come later in the, each year.
"You're already paying for healthcare for everyone (if you spend anything on healthcare) in the form of high costs that have built in the assumption that something like 40% of the patients will never pay."
Thank the government for the situation we are now in. If the market were free to function of its own accord (as it can and always will despite the public's irrational fears), competition would lower costs. But competition has been eradicated. The government granted tax exemption status to certain insurance companies (Blue Cross / Blue Shield), which then gained a monopoly. They were then able to modify the definition of insurance to include not only emergencies, but routine medical visits. This, combined with tax-breaks for employer-sponsored insurance, has minimized incentives for customers to comparison-shop for medical services, and also minimized incentives for doctors and hospitals to compete on price.
When people learn that the government should keep its claws out of money altogether, we'll stop getting these idiotic solutions that are only proposed in order to stir up support from voters, but end up having devastating effects that last well beyond the candidate's political career.
"The President is not there to save the economy, or even care about the economy, because economic issues are the domain of Congress, or even more preferably the States."
Unfortunately, the public is never going to get this through their thick skulls as long as they thing their candidate will set up a system whereby they are able to get things slightly cheaper at other people's expenses. Everyone thinks they'll cheat the system but they're only cheating themselves as long as they let the government have its fingers in the economy.
"As much as I'd like to see a woman or a (excuse the wording) black man in the White House, because it'll do the world as a whole a lot of good
How does that follow? Unless you mean it literally, in the sense that these individuals will send more of our taxes overseas to support the underprivileged. Other countries have had their share of female and black presidents, both good and bad (and very bad: Idi Amin).
"Which would leave one to assume that the situation can only get better..."
How do you come to that conclusion? Have you seen the same ads I have? "I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper" - "Healthcare for everyone". This can only translate into more of my labor going towards strangers.
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
While Clinton takes 1,191 delegates, Obama takes 1,314, and McCain takes the Republican nomination, the American public gets ready to take it up the rear. Sit back, relax, and watch your rights vanish before your eyes.
Hackers? I remember hacky sacks from when I was a kid! Are these the same thing? *clicks link to find out*
Ahh yes, how dare those other greedy customers try to use the entire amount of bandwidth they paid for!!! Don't they realize that the only way we can all pretend to have high speed connections is if Comcast is able to sign us all up under the banner of "high speed" without expanding their infrastructure accordingly?!?!
In which case Charter is incompetent and idiotic for choosing Synacor. The blame still rests with Charter, as their clients signed contracts with Charter, not Synacor.
Late at night in cars on certain corners throughout New York, flies descend en masse.
"a dismissal of his judgment call as less valid than yours, without any demonstration as to why it was invalid"
I simply asked him to clarify his views regarding God's involvement in the world, and asked him in particular how God deals with suffering, and whether he sees any conflict between these views and the view that God is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, etc. I was not yet at the point of trying to demonstrate anything invalid because his views were not yet clear to me.
"you did not present anything in your original post that demonstrated that what you think is any more rational"
That is because I had no intention of doing so at that point.
"Well, I believe that God only got actively involved with a few people, notably the prophets, and only was involved in building the history of man's lack of ability to follow God's Plan. In fact, I believe that the Old Testament was entirely "designed" to prove that man can NEVER meet God's desires for man, which is why Christ was necessary for all men, believers and non-believers alike."
So God was active with a few people, and presumably had the ability to be active with other people, but chose not to? What was his reason for not helping the child being murdered by the maniac, or the babied injured or killed by natural disasters? Was he unable to help? Is he not good? Did he not know about them?
"Some of the suffering may have been judgment by God towards people who had God's plan at hand and refused to follow it. Some of it may just be natural choices those people made."
Other forms of suffering include suffering caused by natural disasters, biological mutations, other animals (predators), diseases, both physical and mental. What was the reason God did not then, and still does not, help the child afflicted by these problems?
And I object to your claim that Keith Devens' is a finer mind than yours or mine. His "rebuttal" is laughable at best. I'm sure you and I could debate for 10 minutes and come up with 20 rebuttals to the problem of evil that are more sound than his idiocy.
"but they are insufficient to disprove it"
Who said anything about disproving the existence of God? Proof/disproof is an impossible task in anything but mathematics.
"can be viewed equally easily as manifestations of God's will."
Yes, with a turn of phrase people can argue pretty much anything either way.
"GP prefaced his statement with "I believe", not "I have proved"."
Yes, that is their belief. My reply was an attempt to probe that belief for inconsistencies, to find things about that belief that don't match up with that person's other beliefs. Again, nobody is talking about proof/disproof.
"But either decision is a judgment call."
Yes but maybe one belief is grounded in more sound rationale than the other.
"GP is not trying to convince you. Please accord him, and others like him (like myself), the same courtesy."
So if a lunatic claims something irrational, such as the existence of square circles, and starts teaching his children this belief, I should not even try to convince him otherwise? Toleration does not come without a sense of skepticism and adherence to reason.
"Your other point -- the argument from evil -- is one that is hotly debated, and decidedly troubling."
Yes, it is the problem of evil. You have categorized it. You have not, however, dismissed it simply by labeling it. Only after replying to the words printed in my original statement will you have even addressed my original statement.
"But counter-arguments have been made by finer minds than mine"
Yes, and counter-counter-arguments have been made as well. But you still have not even responded to the words in my original post. Your addition of the phrase "if you're really interested in the question" makes it clear you have no interest whatsoever in the discussion. Your rebuttal is one of hotlinks and nothing else.
"To think that evolution (macro or micro) isn't part of God's creation would mean that God didn't create everything."
Or maybe God never existed in the first place...
"What He did to the ancient Israelites was the end of what He said He would do, and that's it."
So God used to get involved with people, but no longer does? He used to help save the child from death at the hands of a lunatic, but now he no longer does? What made him stop? If he used to stop suffering, why is there a plethora of evidence of suffering during the period that you claim he was active in the world?
"I believe in evolutionary forces as part of God's creation."
This doesn't make sense to a scientist. You're basically saying causality, chaos, and random interactions are part of God's creation - these very concepts are often the arguments against the existence of God. Or, are you saying that God is involved at some level in the evolution of life. If so, why is God able to get involved in the evolution of life but not able to stop the death of a child at the hands of a maniac?
For some items this doesn't seem to be the case, especially for those that have never changed in cost over the years. For example, every store is still selling the TI-83 calculator for the exact same price I paid for it 10 years ago.
The Walmart box probably overheated because in place of what should have been the heatsink was a block of lead.
So you are saying you do not have in your understanding what I mean by "the greatest possible news site"?
1. Imagine an internet news site defined as the greatest conceivable news site: no dupes, no bad summaries, no typos, no goatse or gnaa or other tired cliches.
2. It is greater to exist in reality than merely in imagination.
3. If this perfect news site did not exist, then you could have an idea of an even greater new site - one which did exist.
4. In that case the perfect site in your imagination would not be perfect: a logical contradiction.
5. So this perfect news site must exist in reality.
6. ???
7. Profit!