In addition to the other replies, please remember that the cornerstones of our own technology came from the Middle East. They aren't called "Arabic numerals" for quaintness.
While keeping the yearly Darwin Award, Maybe it's time to create a World Darwin Championship, every four years. With an opening ceremony, different disciplines and medals, a Shakira song, vuvuzelas,...
You can keep your smut to yourself. The last thing I want to see on my TV is Shakira's vuvuzela.
This is almost getting amusing, if only you weren't such a broken record. You think I am at fault because you cannot understand any system other then your own. You are still talking about an assumed doctor's oath, when I have shown there is not need to assume an oath. Yet you still hang your argument on it, and then say I am the one who can't handle reality.
Yes, we live in the real world, not the mental exercise I used as a mere explanation of my views on a particular point in a large debate about human rights. However, you are saying that my views are only valid in that mental exercise, not the real world. My views are my own, and I have the right to them the same as you have the right to your views. The real difference here, is that I acknowledge you have the right to your own views, even though they are in opposition to my own.
You are trying to deny my right to my own views, and using the 'oath' and 'hypothetical' arguments to force me to change my views so that they match your own. I have seen many people like you, over the 20 years I have been having these sorts of discussions, both online and in real life. You are so convinced of your own superiority and rightness, you can't even comprehend someone else's viewpoint enough to intelligently argue about it.
You have to focus on one or two insignificant (and incorrect) points, and keep bullying your way through until your opponents either give in and leave the discussion, or you push them to lash out at your intransigence, and then you can declare the moral high ground over some 'mere unenlightened savage'.
Wow. That's the best you can do? That's the most pathetic insult I've received all year.
As for my 'partisan bias', I've stated on this forum and others that I voted for Mr. Obama back in 2008, and for Jill Stein of the Green Party in 2012. I don't regret either vote.
So go stuff your preconceived notions of my political and social bias right back up from where you pulled them.
Wow. That's a fair amount of over-reacting to a common punchline, given when one is tired of suffering a fool. Also, it is not my fault you cannot fathom the reason people use manufactured scenarios to explore or explain human nature. You are the one who has consistently been showing your lack of mental abilities, insisting that an oath precludes a person from acting in their own interest, rather than in the interest of others, simply because you say so. Especially since I pointed out that the person may have never given such an oath.
If there was no oath, your argument is simply a lot of hot air. You can't accept that fact. You keep blustering on about my hypothetical, as if your own point is anything but partisan ravings against a point you don't agree with.
The non-obama-care insurance isn't providing an answer: They limit medical care to $200,000, which eliminates all complex surgery.
what you meant was that some people had insurance that only provided the amount of coverage they were willing to pay for.
I don't see how that makes the point you are trying to make. People had choices on what they wanted for insurance. Many people specifically chose jobs based on insurance coverage, willing to take a lower paying job that had higher insurance coverage. The $200,000 amount is something you pulled out of thin air, because there was no such ceiling across the board, either at every insurance company, or on every policy, or from every employer offering benefits.
Were there annual limits and lifetime limits? Yes. If you don't know why then you don't understand insurance. It's that simple.
Has obamacare outlawed annual and lifetime limits? Yes. Which is why nearly everyone is seeing their premiums increasing. If the insurance company has no limit on possible expenditures, they must take in a lot more money to be able to cover those future costs. So now, in that regard, all policies are equivalent to the highest priced plans that corporate executives have had, with the pricetag to match. Everyone now gets the privilege of paying for very expensive insurance, because people like yourself don't understand insurance.
If you want to discuss the issue, I would be more than willing to do so. But when you make idiotic statements like "insurance had a $200,000 cap" which eliminated "complex surgery", I will call you out on them. If you instead want to focus on your own fantasy world, in opposition to the one I laid out, what do you need me for? Go create your own version of history where people had no choice in their own insurance.
By the way, my scenario was not about insurance. It was about human rights. But don't let that fact get in your way.
I believe you and I have the right to provide for ourselves. I don't believe we have the right to force others to provide for us.
I'm not a big believer in rights, per se. But I don't really have a problem with socialized medicine either.
Thank you for the reply.
I've said before that I would not oppose basic health care being taken care of by a national health system. Areas like car accident victims, broken bones, heart attacks, allergic reactions. Routine ER situations. But if I am to support that system with my tax dollars, the people who use it have to do their part to try to live healthy lives. Drug addicts and alcoholics get treatment then go into rehab, overweight people are put on a healthy diet and exercise regimen, and so on. But since that would violate people's rights, and I can't force my beliefs onto others, even when they are using my tax dollars, I don't support a public health system.
We have the safety net of welfare/food stamps/medicaid for the poor. We have insurance that is easy to get for the rest, with only a few exceptions that are truly 'uninsurable' due to birth defects or genetic disorders. There are still ways to get them covered by insurance, since large corporations and governments provide comprehensive insurance to all employees and their dependents. I would even be ok with the government 'hiring' the uninsurable just to get them onto the insurance available to federal employees, or making a version of Medicaid specifically for the people with high-cost conditions.
My views aren't as draconian as my hypothetical situation may suggest, since we of course are not the last 500 humans left alive. But given the waste, fraud, and abuse of the current system, I just don't see the benefits of making it even more vast with less control over it.
... I believe you and I have the right to provide for ourselves...
So you've provided yourself with $500,000 for a liver/heart transplant or for a lifetime of $300/month drugs that may be required for your continued living? The non-obama-care insurance isn't providing an answer: They limit medical care to $200,000, which eliminates all complex surgery.
So, your assertion is that before obamacare, no complex surgeries were ever done? Or only the rich 1% were able to have transplants? Really?
This is the biggest problem with trying to discuss something substantive. Idiots throw out comments like yours, thinking they made a valid point. When a little reasoning quickly shows they are moronic statements with no connection to reality.
Your whole argument is based on a doctor who took an oath. What about someone who has medical knowledge, but never took an oath and became a practicing doctor? Would he or she still be bound by your beliefs in what doctors should do, or could be forced to do? That is a very weak linchpin to base a human right around.
As for whether or not I should use a hypothetical situation to prove my point, isn't that a common way of teaching in college classes? Not simply saying a rote answer, but making people think through a situation and its consequences? I know I'm not the first person to envision an "isolated group of humans" scenario. As for it being "fair", I never claimed it was. I said that Pascoea offered a challenge in a fair way. I answered in a manner I felt appropriate to impart the reasoning behind my simple answer of "No".
Oh, you can't go there. The obamabots will get you for sure.
It's sad that they simply don't care that the person elected to uphold the Constitution has said that he doesn't believe in it, and has acted consistently to prove he doesn't believe in it. He actually doesn't believe in the document that created the office that he fills.
Hypotheticals may be for kids, but your response is for mental patients.
Is it wrong for a person to be bound by his or her own word? When do they get to break or bend it?
When the rest of humanity disappears for no known reason.
Or do you expect the 500 people to still pay their taxes and obey all traffic laws as well as oaths given to professional associations that no longer exist?
If doctors all swore an oath to provide medical care, why are they insisting people pay them for that care? Your assertion is they must provide the care whether they get paid or not. Have you just solved the problem of health care? Simply insist doctors all work for no pay because their oaths outlive humanity?
Pascoea asked a particular point, which I responded to. I don't agree with his view on this one issue, but at least he has the integrity to offer a challenge in a fair way. Your response is simply brainless drivel. "Doctor's can't violate their oath, because we learned in kindergarten that's bad." The most ridiculous part of it is that if the doctor violates their oath, they are not allowed to practice medicine anymore. Which is the exact situation that my hypothetical was exploring.
I'd say it unless they nominate Hillary Clinton in 2016. I don't care what the candidate is like personally. I just want to break the deadlock we are living under right now.
Besides, it's not like they are going to be able to do anything anyway. Congress certainly isn't going to change enough in one election allow it. But it will eventually change if my split ticket won in 2016. Basically, long term, it is the only hope I see for the country, and it's only a glimmer at that.
My proposition isn't about getting what you want, directly. It is about getting the current system of Dem/Rep out of shared power. For that, you need every fringe and near fringe voter to choose against the current system. Take the 20% far left, and the 20% far right, and make them believe they can change Washington politics, and we will see a change in Federal control.
The two groups aren't aligned on many things, but the issues common to both are privacy rights and government spying, our latest wars, and bailing out big business. Don't make issues of social aspects, because that drops half the voting pool you are looking for. Just get in a new system to break the back of current corruption and cronyism (again, from both Dems and Reps) and let America see what they have lost over the last several decades.
It boils down to one simple question that you have to get consensus on before you can move forward: Is healthcare a basic human right? I specifically left out words like "affordable" and "quality" because they dilute the conversation. It is simple, if I am sick am I entitled to get better? I would love to hear somebody answer "no" to that question, and offer a reasonable justification without using any terms related to affordability, money, insurance companies, or quality of care.
I'll answer "no" to that question, without using any of the gotcha phrases you are hoping for. I will do so with a thought experiment I entertain myself with when I'm bored. I use variations for different situations, so I'll make one for your 'right to healthcare' scenario.
If you have a small population of people, say 500, and the rest of humanity disappears, what 'rights' do they have? Does one person have the right to live in peace, without one of the other 499 attacking him/her? There is no such right in the natural world where lions attack zebras or hornets attack bears. Do people have that right? Personally I don't believe they do, because that right has to come from something outside of the group of people. Maybe something 'higher than' the people. Yes, religion is basically codified human rights. Without that system, I have no more rights than an antelope or humpback whale. Within that system, I may not have the same rights as others, but most religions cover the fundamental ones of survival. Coincidentally, I am not religious, but I am glad most people are.
So, what rights does a 1-in-500 person have? If they are members of the same US Midwest church (that was saved when the rest of humanity disappeared), they have the rights their religion stipulates. They have no 'Constitutional rights' because the whole government is gone, including enforcement of the Constitution. If they are 500 random people chosen from all the cultures of the world, they will have to decide for themselves what basic rights each person has. And I can guarantee there will not be agreement on even the basics, if they even understand each other enough to argue intelligently, rather than gesticulating and shoving each other.
But for the sake of your question, let's assume the people agree than they have the rights of: not being attacked, non-violent personal belief/religion, privacy, speech, self-defense, healthcare. How are these rights enforced? Most of them are enforced by not attacking someone. Let a person live in peace, let them pray, let them talk, and you've already covered the first four. The fifth is enforced by not punishing someone for fighting off another person who chose to ignore the first right listed.
So that leaves us with the final right the group chose to include. How is 'healthcare' enforced? If there are no doctors/nurses/healers/whatever in the group, they have a real quandary. They have to train someone on healthcare, so that person can then provide it. But how do they train someone in a field none of them know to begin with? They have to have some of the group work towards learning what they know their doctors knew. That's not going to go very well, and will take a long time doing it.
Now let's say that one of the 500 is a general practitioner, and has the knowledge needed to treat common conditions the group will face. What if he doesn't want to do so? If he decides he wants to be alone to contemplate his own beliefs for a while, in light of the disappearance of the rest of humanity, does the rest of the group have the right to force him to be their doctor? If he wants to move away, start a small farm to raise vegetables and forget all his medical knowledge, does the group have the right to force him to train someone as an apprentice/replacement? If he will agree to see some people but not others, for whatever reason, do the others have a right to force him to see them as well? Do they have the right to follow him around begging for his attention? Do they have the right t
Slashdot Mirror
Glenn Yarbrough, The Mermaid Song.
Don't go swimming with a mermaid son, if you don't know how to swim.
On a related note: if someone offers to have sex with you in a bucket of fish, dive in.
He forgot the [Sarcasm] tag.
In addition to the other replies, please remember that the cornerstones of our own technology came from the Middle East. They aren't called "Arabic numerals" for quaintness.
While keeping the yearly Darwin Award, Maybe it's time to create a World Darwin Championship, every four years. With an opening ceremony, different disciplines and medals, a Shakira song, vuvuzelas,...
You can keep your smut to yourself. The last thing I want to see on my TV is Shakira's vuvuzela.
And I think you spelled it wrong.
I find it funny that this thread has so many replies, when similar titled ones usually only get a few responses.
This is almost getting amusing, if only you weren't such a broken record. You think I am at fault because you cannot understand any system other then your own. You are still talking about an assumed doctor's oath, when I have shown there is not need to assume an oath. Yet you still hang your argument on it, and then say I am the one who can't handle reality.
Yes, we live in the real world, not the mental exercise I used as a mere explanation of my views on a particular point in a large debate about human rights. However, you are saying that my views are only valid in that mental exercise, not the real world. My views are my own, and I have the right to them the same as you have the right to your views. The real difference here, is that I acknowledge you have the right to your own views, even though they are in opposition to my own.
You are trying to deny my right to my own views, and using the 'oath' and 'hypothetical' arguments to force me to change my views so that they match your own. I have seen many people like you, over the 20 years I have been having these sorts of discussions, both online and in real life. You are so convinced of your own superiority and rightness, you can't even comprehend someone else's viewpoint enough to intelligently argue about it.
You have to focus on one or two insignificant (and incorrect) points, and keep bullying your way through until your opponents either give in and leave the discussion, or you push them to lash out at your intransigence, and then you can declare the moral high ground over some 'mere unenlightened savage'.
Wow. That's the best you can do? That's the most pathetic insult I've received all year.
As for my 'partisan bias', I've stated on this forum and others that I voted for Mr. Obama back in 2008, and for Jill Stein of the Green Party in 2012. I don't regret either vote.
So go stuff your preconceived notions of my political and social bias right back up from where you pulled them.
Does it matter which brand of vacuum? Or which style?
It's called Medicaid and Medicare.
Many doctors no longer accept patients covered by such programs.
Wow. That's a fair amount of over-reacting to a common punchline, given when one is tired of suffering a fool. Also, it is not my fault you cannot fathom the reason people use manufactured scenarios to explore or explain human nature. You are the one who has consistently been showing your lack of mental abilities, insisting that an oath precludes a person from acting in their own interest, rather than in the interest of others, simply because you say so. Especially since I pointed out that the person may have never given such an oath.
If there was no oath, your argument is simply a lot of hot air. You can't accept that fact. You keep blustering on about my hypothetical, as if your own point is anything but partisan ravings against a point you don't agree with.
That is why I said good day.
It was true long before that incident. Your blind partisanship is showing.
So when you said:
The non-obama-care insurance isn't providing an answer: They limit medical care to $200,000, which eliminates all complex surgery.
what you meant was that some people had insurance that only provided the amount of coverage they were willing to pay for.
I don't see how that makes the point you are trying to make. People had choices on what they wanted for insurance. Many people specifically chose jobs based on insurance coverage, willing to take a lower paying job that had higher insurance coverage. The $200,000 amount is something you pulled out of thin air, because there was no such ceiling across the board, either at every insurance company, or on every policy, or from every employer offering benefits.
Were there annual limits and lifetime limits? Yes. If you don't know why then you don't understand insurance. It's that simple.
Has obamacare outlawed annual and lifetime limits? Yes. Which is why nearly everyone is seeing their premiums increasing. If the insurance company has no limit on possible expenditures, they must take in a lot more money to be able to cover those future costs. So now, in that regard, all policies are equivalent to the highest priced plans that corporate executives have had, with the pricetag to match. Everyone now gets the privilege of paying for very expensive insurance, because people like yourself don't understand insurance.
If you want to discuss the issue, I would be more than willing to do so. But when you make idiotic statements like "insurance had a $200,000 cap" which eliminated "complex surgery", I will call you out on them. If you instead want to focus on your own fantasy world, in opposition to the one I laid out, what do you need me for? Go create your own version of history where people had no choice in their own insurance.
By the way, my scenario was not about insurance. It was about human rights. But don't let that fact get in your way.
Sir, I said good day.
I believe you and I have the right to provide for ourselves. I don't believe we have the right to force others to provide for us.
I'm not a big believer in rights, per se. But I don't really have a problem with socialized medicine either.
Thank you for the reply.
I've said before that I would not oppose basic health care being taken care of by a national health system. Areas like car accident victims, broken bones, heart attacks, allergic reactions. Routine ER situations. But if I am to support that system with my tax dollars, the people who use it have to do their part to try to live healthy lives. Drug addicts and alcoholics get treatment then go into rehab, overweight people are put on a healthy diet and exercise regimen, and so on. But since that would violate people's rights, and I can't force my beliefs onto others, even when they are using my tax dollars, I don't support a public health system.
We have the safety net of welfare/food stamps/medicaid for the poor. We have insurance that is easy to get for the rest, with only a few exceptions that are truly 'uninsurable' due to birth defects or genetic disorders. There are still ways to get them covered by insurance, since large corporations and governments provide comprehensive insurance to all employees and their dependents. I would even be ok with the government 'hiring' the uninsurable just to get them onto the insurance available to federal employees, or making a version of Medicaid specifically for the people with high-cost conditions.
My views aren't as draconian as my hypothetical situation may suggest, since we of course are not the last 500 humans left alive. But given the waste, fraud, and abuse of the current system, I just don't see the benefits of making it even more vast with less control over it.
So you've provided yourself with $500,000 for a liver/heart transplant or for a lifetime of $300/month drugs that may be required for your continued living? The non-obama-care insurance isn't providing an answer: They limit medical care to $200,000, which eliminates all complex surgery.
So, your assertion is that before obamacare, no complex surgeries were ever done? Or only the rich 1% were able to have transplants? Really?
This is the biggest problem with trying to discuss something substantive. Idiots throw out comments like yours, thinking they made a valid point. When a little reasoning quickly shows they are moronic statements with no connection to reality.
Your whole argument is based on a doctor who took an oath. What about someone who has medical knowledge, but never took an oath and became a practicing doctor? Would he or she still be bound by your beliefs in what doctors should do, or could be forced to do? That is a very weak linchpin to base a human right around.
As for whether or not I should use a hypothetical situation to prove my point, isn't that a common way of teaching in college classes? Not simply saying a rote answer, but making people think through a situation and its consequences? I know I'm not the first person to envision an "isolated group of humans" scenario. As for it being "fair", I never claimed it was. I said that Pascoea offered a challenge in a fair way. I answered in a manner I felt appropriate to impart the reasoning behind my simple answer of "No".
Good day, sir.
I mean, really. Who thought that would never happen?
Oh, you can't go there. The obamabots will get you for sure.
It's sad that they simply don't care that the person elected to uphold the Constitution has said that he doesn't believe in it, and has acted consistently to prove he doesn't believe in it. He actually doesn't believe in the document that created the office that he fills.
Hypotheticals may be for kids, but your response is for mental patients.
Is it wrong for a person to be bound by his or her own word? When do they get to break or bend it?
When the rest of humanity disappears for no known reason.
Or do you expect the 500 people to still pay their taxes and obey all traffic laws as well as oaths given to professional associations that no longer exist?
If doctors all swore an oath to provide medical care, why are they insisting people pay them for that care? Your assertion is they must provide the care whether they get paid or not. Have you just solved the problem of health care? Simply insist doctors all work for no pay because their oaths outlive humanity?
Pascoea asked a particular point, which I responded to. I don't agree with his view on this one issue, but at least he has the integrity to offer a challenge in a fair way. Your response is simply brainless drivel. "Doctor's can't violate their oath, because we learned in kindergarten that's bad." The most ridiculous part of it is that if the doctor violates their oath, they are not allowed to practice medicine anymore. Which is the exact situation that my hypothetical was exploring.
I'd say it unless they nominate Hillary Clinton in 2016. I don't care what the candidate is like personally. I just want to break the deadlock we are living under right now.
Besides, it's not like they are going to be able to do anything anyway. Congress certainly isn't going to change enough in one election allow it. But it will eventually change if my split ticket won in 2016. Basically, long term, it is the only hope I see for the country, and it's only a glimmer at that.
My proposition isn't about getting what you want, directly. It is about getting the current system of Dem/Rep out of shared power. For that, you need every fringe and near fringe voter to choose against the current system. Take the 20% far left, and the 20% far right, and make them believe they can change Washington politics, and we will see a change in Federal control.
The two groups aren't aligned on many things, but the issues common to both are privacy rights and government spying, our latest wars, and bailing out big business. Don't make issues of social aspects, because that drops half the voting pool you are looking for. Just get in a new system to break the back of current corruption and cronyism (again, from both Dems and Reps) and let America see what they have lost over the last several decades.
It will be. Look ahead to 2016. Who are the front runners? Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney.
It boils down to one simple question that you have to get consensus on before you can move forward: Is healthcare a basic human right? I specifically left out words like "affordable" and "quality" because they dilute the conversation. It is simple, if I am sick am I entitled to get better? I would love to hear somebody answer "no" to that question, and offer a reasonable justification without using any terms related to affordability, money, insurance companies, or quality of care.
I'll answer "no" to that question, without using any of the gotcha phrases you are hoping for. I will do so with a thought experiment I entertain myself with when I'm bored. I use variations for different situations, so I'll make one for your 'right to healthcare' scenario.
If you have a small population of people, say 500, and the rest of humanity disappears, what 'rights' do they have? Does one person have the right to live in peace, without one of the other 499 attacking him/her? There is no such right in the natural world where lions attack zebras or hornets attack bears. Do people have that right? Personally I don't believe they do, because that right has to come from something outside of the group of people. Maybe something 'higher than' the people. Yes, religion is basically codified human rights. Without that system, I have no more rights than an antelope or humpback whale. Within that system, I may not have the same rights as others, but most religions cover the fundamental ones of survival. Coincidentally, I am not religious, but I am glad most people are.
So, what rights does a 1-in-500 person have? If they are members of the same US Midwest church (that was saved when the rest of humanity disappeared), they have the rights their religion stipulates. They have no 'Constitutional rights' because the whole government is gone, including enforcement of the Constitution. If they are 500 random people chosen from all the cultures of the world, they will have to decide for themselves what basic rights each person has. And I can guarantee there will not be agreement on even the basics, if they even understand each other enough to argue intelligently, rather than gesticulating and shoving each other.
But for the sake of your question, let's assume the people agree than they have the rights of: not being attacked, non-violent personal belief/religion, privacy, speech, self-defense, healthcare. How are these rights enforced? Most of them are enforced by not attacking someone. Let a person live in peace, let them pray, let them talk, and you've already covered the first four. The fifth is enforced by not punishing someone for fighting off another person who chose to ignore the first right listed.
So that leaves us with the final right the group chose to include. How is 'healthcare' enforced? If there are no doctors/nurses/healers/whatever in the group, they have a real quandary. They have to train someone on healthcare, so that person can then provide it. But how do they train someone in a field none of them know to begin with? They have to have some of the group work towards learning what they know their doctors knew. That's not going to go very well, and will take a long time doing it.
Now let's say that one of the 500 is a general practitioner, and has the knowledge needed to treat common conditions the group will face. What if he doesn't want to do so? If he decides he wants to be alone to contemplate his own beliefs for a while, in light of the disappearance of the rest of humanity, does the rest of the group have the right to force him to be their doctor? If he wants to move away, start a small farm to raise vegetables and forget all his medical knowledge, does the group have the right to force him to train someone as an apprentice/replacement? If he will agree to see some people but not others, for whatever reason, do the others have a right to force him to see them as well? Do they have the right to follow him around begging for his attention? Do they have the right t
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