Crime happens for a variety of reasons. with or without guns. And to counter your argument there's Switzerland, where every household just about has an assault rifle, very low violent crime rate.
But there's this thing called freedom, that this country was supposedly founded upon.
Which is also stupid. Our troops should be defending our country. And with our troops in places like South Korea, we could very well be doing more harm than good.
we should not have military bases in 130 different countries.
Anyways i can't find the exact data to match that chart but you can google around for National Safety Council and see other charts that indicate the same thing like coal miners. most don't go past the past few years unfortunately.
Funny thing about OSHA. Working conditions were improving about the same before and after OSHA. So while conditions improved after OSHA, it's not because of OSHA.
right, something got to complicated, private business couldn't handle it. look at how complicated our computers are. Look at the complicated systems in place for so much of what we take for granted.
Government capped how much employers could pay, but they left a loophole in that they could provide insurance. So what do you think happened? Well since the companies couldn't just pay their workers more, they offered them other benefits. And of course. So when a third party pays, what do you think happen? prices rise. If we instituted grocery insurance, we'd be in the same situation with food. Instead food quality has gone up, prices have gone down. Just like healthcare would. Also at some point, we decided that businesses that pay for insurance deserve a tax break for it, whereas an individual doesn't.
But you can hold on to the faith that government is going to somehow make all this better. That they hold the magic wand and somehow a bureaucracy can make our healthcare cheaper and more efficient.
right. That's a great point. You have obviously shown your superior knowledge.
Let's see, there was low cost insurance available. Doctors made house calls(!) A hospital stay didn't cost months of pay. there were charity hospitals available for those ho couldn't afford to pay. Not to mention a lot less red tape.
There's a simple solution, that we know works. It's called the free market. Notice how for most of your goods and services, it does a decent job. Notice how we have had government intervention in healthcare for over 50 years, and notice how prices have gone up.
If its high priority they get healthcare immediately.
yeha in theory that's how it's supposed to work. Sounds ok until what you have isn't as high as a priority as it should be. Which is the whole problem.
Some people say that the US has the best health care in the world, but thats only true for the 5% that can actually afford the premium care. For the rest, its no where near the best in the world and you should be ashamed of that.
yeah and we could fix it, except so many people think like you do. that the government can wave a magic wand and make things better. As i've stated before, we have no problems delivering clothes, food, water, on down the line. Until you get into the areas most heavily occupied by the government.. health care and education. Not to mention social security.
No one is forced to provide health care. It's just paid for.
Yes, it's called taxes.
Government does not 'run' the hospitals, they just pay the bills.
So hospitals can charge whatever they want then? great i'll move to canada, charge 1 patient a billion dollars and have the government pay for it.
They may not outright 'run' things, but they have a heavy influence.
Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
So wait a centralized government that plans an industry isn't government run?
Bullshit. Never happened in Canada, except maybe on Fox News. No one ever dies waiting for health care in Canada. But I would say a lot of people die in the US because they cannot get healthcare at all.
OK it's only fox news that says people are waitin in line for healthcare. And 2 canadians I talked to were just lying about it. right.
Resources are not allocated like that. If someone doesn't like the service they are getting they are free to go get a second, third, forth opinion, or go to whatever hospital they like.
they are, atleast in some provinces.
Only on Fox "News". More accurate would be to call it Fox Lying for Ratings.
Yeah and considering i've watched very little fox news in my time..
In fact the insurance industry is artificially driving prices high. The same drugs and services here in Canada cost far less than they do in the US.
yes the thirdy party paying sucks about the US. the drugs are cheaper in canada, since canada subsidizes them.
But I have a right to equal access to healthcare.
Your healthcare should be paid for/provided by no one that's not willing to do it.
The US is benefiting off of other peoples social programs which you consider bad for some strange reason. Just pointing out the irony.
did i say that canadian's shouldn't go see canadian doctors? or that americans who have an emergency in canada shouldn't go to the hospital? DId I say that nothing good ever happens in the canadian system?
There is no irony. The US system sucks. the Canadian system sucks. Both have a heavy handed government involved. Get that government out of the way and prices will come down, insurance will return to being insurance, and quality will rise. Same stuff that happens in most markets.
All say that government owns the means of production. Aka government run.
Means nothing. If a resource is available in the US thats not or not timely available here, the system will pay for the patient to get care in the US. If someone wants to pay for a US service, then they are free to do that as well.
it means something if you die waiting. It means something if your town has lottery to determine who gets a family doctor. It means something if your life threatening illness is somehow classified as optional.
All of which are very real scenarios in canada.
And I've never stated that the US system was a good system. Well, it was 70 years ago or so. right now, the US lacks almost any market forces to get prices low.
I have a right to grow my own food if I like. I dont have to buy food if I dont want to. I can also pick up free food at the food bank if I wanted.
I can make clothes or get free clothes from charities. Water is free since it falls from the sky. Electricity is a commodity, not a right, but I can go off grid and make my own from wind or solar.
Which is my point. You don't have a right to those things. You don't have a right to other people's services.
You realize that eye surgery was perfected in communist Russia (almost no Russians wear glasses) and the biggest Lasik company is Canadian?
And that changes what? We get lots of things from outside the US.. the prices don't go down in other areas of healthcare.
# a political theory advocating state ownership of industry # an economic system based on state ownership of capital
You say it's not socialism because everyone is getting paid? I've looked at 5 different dictionaries now, none of them say anything about whether people get paid or profit somehow.
Like what? I'm not saying there isn't problems but I'm curious as to what you think they are.
talk to the people who fly to the US to get care.
These are not services of others. They are getting paid, and paid well for their job. T
You just contradicted yourself.
The bill of rights gives me the guaranteed right to life.
You have the right to your life, yes. It doesn't guarantee anything other than you own yourself.
To me that means keeping quality of life and non-discrimination in that quality of life regardless of status or income.
You have the right do that, yes.
And I am not saying that any heath care that I want on my whim should be covered. But basic quality heath care and access to it are.
Do you have a right to food? nope. How about clothing? water? electricity? no, no and no. These are arguably more necessary than healthcare(food and water certainly are), and they've gotten cheaper and cheaper with the quality going up. healthcare has not. Well it has, in cases that have been outside the system, like lasik.
Socialism is government run.. so government run healthcare isn't socialist? ok...
That's fine you think it's your right. But your system has many problems. Which kind of goes back to the whole thing about socialism not working. Of course the US has many problems as well, but then again we don't have
Personally, I think you're absolutely wrong. You have a right to your life and freedom and things you own. Not to services of others.
Or are you saying that one instance of a socialized program doesn't make the whole country socialist? Which is true, but it's still a step in the wrong direction, and it's socializing an industry.
yes we have a socialized court system and military and police(though that's local). And I would agree that these things mostly have to be socialised, at this point anyways.
Capitalism is a part of libertarianism by any definition.
To my knowledge, the government in somilia would be anarchy, which is different from a limited small government approach that is libertarian. Even though it's quite true what exactly libertarian is, is vague.
The original poster said universal healthcare isn't socialist. Now when people refer to universal healthcare in the US, it means government run/paid for. So it's certainly socialist. So while my post might have been obvious, it was pointing out that he was wrong.
But since I included the 'if' there I left room for him or someone to correct me, that he meant something else.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I did misread his post, I thought it was just robberies, not bank robberies.
But the basic point of gun control != crime control of my post is still the same.
Crime happens for a variety of reasons. with or without guns. And to counter your argument there's Switzerland, where every household just about has an assault rifle, very low violent crime rate.
But there's this thing called freedom, that this country was supposedly founded upon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfjn3Vd7Rgk
Which is also stupid. Our troops should be defending our country. And with our troops in places like South Korea, we could very well be doing more harm than good.
we should not have military bases in 130 different countries.
So Obama campaigned on bush's plan? Bush had talked about doing this type of thing.
And a year and a half into a presidency, he declares an end to combat missions, but 50k troops remain?
Obama has control of the troops, he doesn't have to go through congress. He could simply order them out.
As i recall, he had a timeline of 3 months initially and that kept growing as the campaign progressed.
Of course, I hope i'm wrong and he does get us out of iraq. But we're still fucking around in afghanistan.
and you did such a great job in your post.
trust cato institute? http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb105-36.html
Anyways i can't find the exact data to match that chart but you can google around for National Safety Council and see other charts that indicate the same thing like coal miners. most don't go past the past few years unfortunately.
http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2010/05/13/files/2010/05/Workplace-Fatalities-since-1933.jpg
Which is data based off the data from the National Safety Council
Funny thing about OSHA. Working conditions were improving about the same before and after OSHA. So while conditions improved after OSHA, it's not because of OSHA.
right, something got to complicated, private business couldn't handle it. look at how complicated our computers are. Look at the complicated systems in place for so much of what we take for granted.
Government capped how much employers could pay, but they left a loophole in that they could provide insurance. So what do you think happened? Well since the companies couldn't just pay their workers more, they offered them other benefits. And of course. So when a third party pays, what do you think happen? prices rise. If we instituted grocery insurance, we'd be in the same situation with food. Instead food quality has gone up, prices have gone down. Just like healthcare would. Also at some point, we decided that businesses that pay for insurance deserve a tax break for it, whereas an individual doesn't.
But you can hold on to the faith that government is going to somehow make all this better. That they hold the magic wand and somehow a bureaucracy can make our healthcare cheaper and more efficient.
right. That's a great point. You have obviously shown your superior knowledge.
Let's see, there was low cost insurance available.
Doctors made house calls(!)
A hospital stay didn't cost months of pay.
there were charity hospitals available for those ho couldn't afford to pay.
Not to mention a lot less red tape.
sounds horrible.
go back 50 years in the US.
There's a simple solution, that we know works. It's called the free market. Notice how for most of your goods and services, it does a decent job. Notice how we have had government intervention in healthcare for over 50 years, and notice how prices have gone up.
If its high priority they get healthcare immediately.
yeha in theory that's how it's supposed to work. Sounds ok until what you have isn't as high as a priority as it should be. Which is the whole problem.
Some people say that the US has the best health care in the world, but thats only true for the 5% that can actually afford the premium care. For the rest, its no where near the best in the world and you should be ashamed of that.
yeah and we could fix it, except so many people think like you do. that the government can wave a magic wand and make things better. As i've stated before, we have no problems delivering clothes, food, water, on down the line. Until you get into the areas most heavily occupied by the government.. health care and education. Not to mention social security.
No one is forced to provide health care. It's just paid for.
Yes, it's called taxes.
Government does not 'run' the hospitals, they just pay the bills.
So hospitals can charge whatever they want then? great i'll move to canada, charge 1 patient a billion dollars and have the government pay for it.
They may not outright 'run' things, but they have a heavy influence.
I have never stated the current US system was a good system.
BTW, there's a good reason for OMG SOCIALISM!!!. it's cause it does NOT work.
Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
So wait a centralized government that plans an industry isn't government run?
Bullshit. Never happened in Canada, except maybe on Fox News. No one ever dies waiting for health care in Canada. But I would say a lot of people die in the US because they cannot get healthcare at all.
OK it's only fox news that says people are waitin in line for healthcare. And 2 canadians I talked to were just lying about it. right.
Resources are not allocated like that. If someone doesn't like the service they are getting they are free to go get a second, third, forth opinion, or go to whatever hospital they like.
they are, atleast in some provinces.
Only on Fox "News". More accurate would be to call it Fox Lying for Ratings.
Yeah and considering i've watched very little fox news in my time..
In fact the insurance industry is artificially driving prices high. The same drugs and services here in Canada cost far less than they do in the US.
yes the thirdy party paying sucks about the US. the drugs are cheaper in canada, since canada subsidizes them.
But I have a right to equal access to healthcare.
Your healthcare should be paid for/provided by no one that's not willing to do it.
The US is benefiting off of other peoples social programs which you consider bad for some strange reason. Just pointing out the irony.
did i say that canadian's shouldn't go see canadian doctors? or that americans who have an emergency in canada shouldn't go to the hospital? DId I say that nothing good ever happens in the canadian system?
There is no irony. The US system sucks. the Canadian system sucks. Both have a heavy handed government involved. Get that government out of the way and prices will come down, insurance will return to being insurance, and quality will rise. Same stuff that happens in most markets.
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/socialism
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/socialism
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
http://www.collinslanguage.com/results.aspx?context=3&reversed=False&action=define&homonym=-1&text=socialism
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861709575
http://www.yourdictionary.com/socialism
http://www.wordsmyth.net/?ent=socialism
All say that government owns the means of production. Aka government run.
Means nothing. If a resource is available in the US thats not or not timely available here, the system will pay for the patient to get care in the US. If someone wants to pay for a US service, then they are free to do that as well.
it means something if you die waiting. It means something if your town has lottery to determine who gets a family doctor. It means something if your life threatening illness is somehow classified as optional.
All of which are very real scenarios in canada.
And I've never stated that the US system was a good system. Well, it was 70 years ago or so. right now, the US lacks almost any market forces to get prices low.
I have a right to grow my own food if I like. I dont have to buy food if I dont want to. I can also pick up free food at the food bank if I wanted.
I can make clothes or get free clothes from charities. Water is free since it falls from the sky. Electricity is a commodity, not a right, but I can go off grid and make my own from wind or solar.
Which is my point. You don't have a right to those things. You don't have a right to other people's services.
You realize that eye surgery was perfected in communist Russia (almost no Russians wear glasses) and the biggest Lasik company is Canadian?
And that changes what? We get lots of things from outside the US.. the prices don't go down in other areas of healthcare.
# a political theory advocating state ownership of industry
# an economic system based on state ownership of capital
You say it's not socialism because everyone is getting paid? I've looked at 5 different dictionaries now, none of them say anything about whether people get paid or profit somehow.
Like what? I'm not saying there isn't problems but I'm curious as to what you think they are.
talk to the people who fly to the US to get care.
These are not services of others. They are getting paid, and paid well for their job. T
You just contradicted yourself.
The bill of rights gives me the guaranteed right to life.
You have the right to your life, yes. It doesn't guarantee anything other than you own yourself.
To me that means keeping quality of life and non-discrimination in that quality of life regardless of status or income.
You have the right do that, yes.
And I am not saying that any heath care that I want on my whim should be covered. But basic quality heath care and access to it are.
Do you have a right to food? nope. How about clothing? water? electricity? no, no and no. These are arguably more necessary than healthcare(food and water certainly are), and they've gotten cheaper and cheaper with the quality going up. healthcare has not. Well it has, in cases that have been outside the system, like lasik.
we don't have a free market solution*
Socialism is government run.. so government run healthcare isn't socialist? ok...
That's fine you think it's your right. But your system has many problems. Which kind of goes back to the whole thing about socialism not working. Of course the US has many problems as well, but then again we don't have
Personally, I think you're absolutely wrong. You have a right to your life and freedom and things you own. Not to services of others.
i just searched this entire slashdot page and the only instance of Obama i found, was yours.
ok so a social program isn't socialized?
Or are you saying that one instance of a socialized program doesn't make the whole country socialist? Which is true, but it's still a step in the wrong direction, and it's socializing an industry.
yes we have a socialized court system and military and police(though that's local). And I would agree that these things mostly have to be socialised, at this point anyways.
Capitalism is a part of libertarianism by any definition.
To my knowledge, the government in somilia would be anarchy, which is different from a limited small government approach that is libertarian. Even though it's quite true what exactly libertarian is, is vague.
The original poster said universal healthcare isn't socialist. Now when people refer to universal healthcare in the US, it means government run/paid for. So it's certainly socialist. So while my post might have been obvious, it was pointing out that he was wrong.
But since I included the 'if' there I left room for him or someone to correct me, that he meant something else.