"It's difficult to see how that statement could ever be true."
In all likliehood, never. With good reason. But you test arguments by taking them to their logical extreme, because over time, they tend to end up there.
The point is not to have survivors. And biological weapons mutate after 7 generations. They would have to hit everyone all at once, but they don't have the logistics.
The Black Jets could get the job done in 7 hours. Less if you load up every possible bomber.
Yeah, and working even at McDonalds, at minimum wage, gives you enough money to eat. Hell, they give you free food. What was your point again?
There are more jobs out there than there are people filling them. Maybe not the jobs you and I prefer, but they are there. And if you need to eat, you would take one, just as I would.
"And government made its money through tariffs. That wouldn't work today, as we're too used to cheap goods from China."
Then maybe we should cut down on the government. Honestly, do you think the founders were stupid or something? There's a reason the government was given barely any tax control: to stay the fuck out of business. It wasn't supposed to grow this big, nor control what it does today. Everytime the government touches something, it's like the touch of death. Using public money to compete against private companies, that is fucked up.
If there are more jobs than people to fill them, and those jobs pay enough to buy food, pay rent, afford a few luxuries, why are we taking rich people's money?
Frankly, there is a reason why the rich are rich: in the capitalistic system we live in, they get there by being the most efficent allocaters of capital. They put money, their money, where they think it will produce the most profit. They spend their time deciding who gets what, and are rewarded for their efforts. In mathematical terms, they are efficent algorithms. You wish to subvert those algorithms by removing some of their capital, which gunks up the whole system. And we all know that politicians aren't efficent: they are hazardous. Hell, most politicians make a living giving people other people's money. And the more they give, the more often they are elected, because those people want to receive more money. It's tyranny by the majority, where the rich are fucked over by the many. They are cattle, prized, but ultimately, food.
How about not? Why are the rich paying more? Because they have more money? That's a fucked up excuse. If you paid according to your income, on everything, people wouldn't work, because 10% of $0 would be the same as 10% of $1,000,000. Hence progressive taxes are for people who have no idea wtf they are talking about (i.e. Basic Economics). Damn, if I made $80,000 a year, and paid $2 for a McDonald's cheeseburger, and a guy making $40,000 pays $1, and a guy making $0 pays $0, what would be the point of working hard?
And are you going to tell me a Porsche Boxster, 911 or BMW 7 (or hell, an X5) is going to destroy the road faster than a Ford Explorer or Expedition? Whatever you're smoking, spread it around. My dealer is out of town, and I need someone to hook me up.
Honestly, in the old days of the republic, you paid for what you wanted, and that was that. Anything else was thuggery. Nowadays, they call it welfare or morally right when they assert claims over your money. For reasons like this, the Second Amendment was thus encoded.
Smoking cigarettes is legal (for anyone over 18). Drinking is legal (for anyone over 21). The government shouldn't encourage citizens to drink or smoke?
The government is here not to encourage or discourage anything. It is here to lay down a few absolutes (Life, Liberty, Property), and to make you aware of the consequences of infringing on those absolutes. Everything else is of your own free will.
I'll see your Wikipedia, and raise you a Merriam-Webster:
One entry found for mercantilism.
Main Entry: mercantilism Pronunciation: -"tE-"li-z&m, -"tI-, -t&- Function: noun 1 : the theory or practice of mercantile pursuits : COMMERCIALISM 2 : an economic system developing during the decay of feudalism to unify and increase the power and especially the monetary wealth of a nation by a strict governmental regulation of the entire national economy usually through policies designed to secure an accumulation of bullion, a favorable balance of trade, the development of agriculture and manufactures, and the establishment of foreign trading monopolies - mercantilist/-list/ noun or adjective - mercantilistic/"m&r-k&n-"tE-'lis-tik, -"tI-, -t&-/ adjective
What is horrible about the society we live in is that you go to college, learn a specific skillset, and if your industry starts dying or goes through a recession, it's useless.
What you need more than anything is a broad education and a specialized skillset. If your speciality fails, as least you have a start with the broad set.
If your job fails, look elsewhere. The problem with businesses failing is that most people do not start them until they are layed off. And they lack the broad set that they should have been sharpening or otherwise maintaing.
No skills in business + layed off trying to start a company usually ends in failure.
Then let NK develop them. NK is just rattling their saber. It's all political, but means nothing.
I mean, NK can take out a few cities, but in doing so, NK as a country will cease to exist (US retaliates). And president Ping Pong (or whatever his name is) likes being president of a country, would like to keep in that way, because no one wants to be president of a parking lot.
The NK military gets a few new toys that they can gloat over, but know they can never use. Frankly, I think it's the big dick syndrome: they just want to be able to come to the table and say they have nukes.
All of them (middle-east countries). It's probably sets a bad precedent, but it feels right.
And not just bomb a few cities: carpet-bomb nuke them. We have enough nukes, and it doesn't matter if Osama is hiding in a cave: the radiation will be more than enough to kill him, if the bombs don't (assuming he isn't hiding a few miles under the surface, with enough rations to wait for the radiation to dissipate).
Having said as much, I'd like to say that his recent video (from the snippets I've read) proves he has more intelligence than Kerry and Bush combined. It doesn't matter who occupies the whitehouse, only their policies.
On a side note, can someone bring me up to speed on why we support Isreal? As far I'm concerned, the US (and the europeans) should just let them slug it out. If the jews and muslims wants to wage war upon each other (among their respective countries), let them. They'll kill each other or work things out.
Create your own company, show them how it's done (by them out, at a later date, and clip the golden parachutes). You are not another brick in the wall, you are not limited to your current skillset, and no one can make you stay down but yourself.
So you're an IT worker, and you got layed off. Get another job or start your own company. Don't know how? Learn, thousands of people do each year.
Nothing in this life is garaunteed, but if you are willing to "think", as opposed to simply occupying space and resources, you can come out ahead.
1.) SS continues to exist because Congress keeps modifying the requirements (raising the age, tax rate, exclusions). Keep winnowing the pool of payees and keep increasing the funds by taxing more, you can keep it running for a while. But it's going to collapse. As some point, either no one will qualify for SS, or everyone will be taxed to death.
2.) SS would collapse if they did not do #1. It does not happen immediately because you pay in now, you withdraw later. The original "Ponzi Scheme" had a timeframe, of what, a couple months? SS has a much larger timeframe, of a lifetime.
The fun part of this Ponzi scheme, SS, is that it only works as long as there are more people paying in than withdrawing (the basis for a Ponzi scheme). And guess what? We've hit the mark. The Baby Boomer population is greater than the younger generations. The equation for SS is flipped on its head. Hell, Alan Greenspan said SS is going to hell in a handbasket, and what position does he hold? If you want to argue with him, go ahead. When he says SS is going down, yell and scream, cover your ears! He must be lying...
Study economics, study politics [realpolitik]. Then get back to me.
Assuming these shells are fired with the same amount of propellant as a normal bullet, it will not vaporize. A bullet needs to be going pretty fast to vaporize. Especially a U-depleted shell.
The power of U-depleted bullets come from its mass: they are denser. Why is this a good thing?
E =.5mv^2.
As the energy components drops off exponentially, the mass remains constant.
For example:
Two bullets impact an object at 200 m/s. One is a depleted round, one is not.
Mass of depleted round: 200 mg Mass of regular round: 100 mg
Energy at impact of depleted round: 4000000 j. Energy at impact of regular round: 2000000 j.
These numbers are (slightly) off, and nevermind the units (it's too early for latin prefixes), but it gets the point across. Look up the atomic weights of Uranium and Lead, Ratio U/L, see how much more energy U has than L.
There's nothing special about U-depleted bullets that they should vaporize on impact anymore than a normal bullet. Uranium might be more brittle than lead, and shatter on impact, but vaporize?
Exactly. I have an HP burner and a Lite-On burner. The Lite-On supports more formats and burns faster than the HP (both same rated speed). I've never burned a coaster with it, even at max (52x). It works, it works well. As a bonus, the company updates their firmware on a regular basis (real updates for new formats, etc. as opposed to just bug fixes).
I'll bet you're going to knock Nero next, because it costs less than EZ CD Creator. Go back to using AOL, it's expensive, so it must be good! ($23 for dial-up, how much if you already have a connection?)
V5 is basically a continuation of V2, but with a few features from V3. Looks like V2, acts like V2, has media support from V3. That's about it.
Two things:
1.) Change the skin to Classic. Whatever they are doing with skins, make them stop (the new one (modern) just eats resources and is slow as hell, why?). 2.) V5 has crashed on me, but I think the problem is related to various third party codecs, not WinAmp. Funny how all the codecs work fine with WMP, but not WinAmp.
My argument is that there is no resevoir, more of a small pond if anything. The current net balance is positive, because 3 (actually, 4.8) people are paying in for every 1 person withdrawing. A younger, larger population is supporting a smaller, older population. Problem is, that is about to go inverse with the baby boomers retiring, and the later gens being smaller than the boomers. So for every 1 person paying in, 3 are withdrawing. Your analogy with the resevoir is nice, but wrong: the current system is setup like a river. The same amount that goes in, comes out, at the same time. It's a bucket without a bottom.
http://www.chibus.com/news/2004/10/14/Perspectiv es/The-Social.Security.Ponzi.Scheme.Paradox-754139.s html
"The social security fund has billions of dollars in it"
Nope. The SS program is a redirector. I.e. You and two of your friends pay in $100 ($300 combined). That money is withdrawn immediately after the check clears, $300 to some old lady. Think of Social Security as a proxy (because that's what it is): money comes from you, changes the source address, and is sent on to someone else. Fun, huh?
I'm not arguing about the costs, I'm arguing about the options. What does it matter if everything is free, but your choices are limited?
By all means, haggle with the doctors, as an individual or as a group. As long as you have the freedom to have any surgery you choose, you can also negotiate a better price. But while you are going off about costs, let me ask you this: how much is your life worth? How much would you pay to see tomorrow? How would you feel if someone told you that there was an operation that could save your life, but the electorate has decided that it's too costly? What if, in an effort to promote equality, offering up your own money to pay for said operation was illegal?
To be honest, no one knows how much it costs to treat a broken arm or leg. The cost is part material (the caste, swabs, etc.) and part immaterial (the doctor's labor, years of training). This is where you negotiate. Like it or not, health like software patents, are not special. Health is a service. You may want it very badly, but it's still a transaction where you give the doctor money, and he fixes you up.
To note, the US healthcare system is not capitalist. It's half capitalist, half socialist.
I'm arguing for freedom, you are arguing about the costs of those freedoms.
Hmm. If you mean Bush will continue to cut taxes, I'm not going to hold my breath. Yes, the first one worked out well, and yes I'd like to see more, but I thought he would have gone for deeper cuts. Until I hear some screaming from both sides (military/welfare cuts), I'll not be satisfied (and I mean real blood curdling screams).
As time goes by, and as taxes increase (or new ones created), we are going to reach (or have reached) a point where taxes are no longer justified, where it costs less to hire a security firm to enforce laws, pay for healthcare out of your own pocket (cash), and send your kids to private school than it does to continue supporting the leviathon.
The US government was created to enforce negative rights (no murdering or stealing, essentially), not positive rights (take a little from these guys, give it to those guys, tell them it's for the public good).
And yet people say "But look at what you get for free*". Right, look a little closer. True, the service is free, and you are guaranteed service. But look a little closer: look at the kind of service you are guaranteed. If anyone ran a business this badly, they'd be run out of town!
We have half the US going all out for Canadian healthcare (it's free, universal, good*), and the other half wants nothing to do with it. Why? Because of what you get. If you have money (over a few thousand in the bank, which almost everyone can achieve), you can walk into any hospital and they will (figuratively) roll out the red carpet. You need a major surgery? You want the best people working on you? You got it. Pick and choose, ala carte. You don't like the snooty nurses or do not have confidence in your doctor? Go see another one. Under Canadian healthcare, money doesn't matter. You are placed in a queue. Works for some things, doesn't work for most things. And you have no say in your treatments. Kind of like HMOs, but it's the government, so you know they won't put lube on before they fuck you up the ass (decide it's too costly to keep you alive). But everyone is treated equally (unless you know someone on the board of directors), so everything is good*.
A man cannot serve two masters, so in this case: A doctor cannot serve you and the government (or an insurance company). He serves the man who pays the bills.
For whatever charges I may incur, I prefer being the master of my own healthcare. If I have cancer, I'll pay top dollar to rip the sucker out of me. If I do not have the money, I'll take out a loan, ask some friends, whatever it takes. But I will be the one who decides whether I should go with "less costly" treatments, whether I should be "made comfortable". I am not another worker of the State, I am not here to serve "the greater good", and not giving up my freedom or control over my life to a bunch of pompous assholes who sit on a committee, in the Senate, a thousand miles away, making life and death decisions for people whom they will never meet.
Main Entry: decimate Pronunciation: 'de-s&-"mAt Function: transitive verb Inflected Form(s): -mated; -mating Etymology: Latin decimatus, past participle of decimare, from decimus tenth, from decem ten 1 : to select by lot and kill every tenth man of 2 : to exact a tax of 10 percent from 3 a : to reduce drastically especially in number b : to destroy a large part of - decimation/"de-s&-'mA-sh&n/ noun
Yeah, all I want for Christmas is a Civil War. But what would the two(?) sides be?
Personally, I'd like to see a war between the Libertarians (Capitalists, by any other name) and Socialists, but that's not going to happen. Instead, we'll have something incredibly f*cked up instead. Like the religious zealots (of the far right) vs. the greens (of the far left) vs. (I really don't want to know. My nightmares have enough material as it is).
The outcome of which will either be a theocracy (I'll kill myself, but I'll take a few of them with me), an authoritarian state (equally as bad "we live for each other"), or something just plane bad.
As a libertarian, I could almost live with the greens: I do not agree with a lot of what they have to say (Global Warming, etc.), but at least they are true to their principles. I can respect that. The religious nuts (Love Jesus or else) are just plain scary: a green can be reasoned with (hard evidence), a zealot (who hears God, who tells him to kill unbelievers, force people to "spread the word") cannot. It's hard to argue with someone when their entire basis for reality is composed of a book written by a bunch of guys wandering about in the desert. A power structure under any religion is a recipe for disaster (ever notice how every religion thinks they're right, and how every religion has its own factions, which also think that they are the only right ones, and everyone else is mistaken?).
If anything, the survivors will look back upon a second civil war the same way they look upon the first: if they are feeble-minded, they'll eat the garbage about how the other side was wrong, if not, they'll form their own opinion (after uncovering a few "misplaced" facts, conveniantly left out of the state copy of the history text).
The first civil war? Not about slavery, sorry folks. The first war was about state's rights, and we lost that one. Can't wait to see what the second one is about (hoping things will get better, reality tells me they will be worse).
Slashdot Mirror
Pick a restaurant, apply the same.
"It's difficult to see how that statement could ever be true."
In all likliehood, never. With good reason. But you test arguments by taking them to their logical extreme, because over time, they tend to end up there.
Links. I provided one, now it's your turn.
The point is not to have survivors. And biological weapons mutate after 7 generations. They would have to hit everyone all at once, but they don't have the logistics.
The Black Jets could get the job done in 7 hours. Less if you load up every possible bomber.
Yeah, and working even at McDonalds, at minimum wage, gives you enough money to eat. Hell, they give you free food. What was your point again?
There are more jobs out there than there are people filling them. Maybe not the jobs you and I prefer, but they are there. And if you need to eat, you would take one, just as I would.
"And government made its money through tariffs. That wouldn't work today, as we're too used to cheap goods from China."
Then maybe we should cut down on the government. Honestly, do you think the founders were stupid or something? There's a reason the government was given barely any tax control: to stay the fuck out of business. It wasn't supposed to grow this big, nor control what it does today. Everytime the government touches something, it's like the touch of death. Using public money to compete against private companies, that is fucked up.
If there are more jobs than people to fill them, and those jobs pay enough to buy food, pay rent, afford a few luxuries, why are we taking rich people's money?
Frankly, there is a reason why the rich are rich: in the capitalistic system we live in, they get there by being the most efficent allocaters of capital. They put money, their money, where they think it will produce the most profit. They spend their time deciding who gets what, and are rewarded for their efforts. In mathematical terms, they are efficent algorithms. You wish to subvert those algorithms by removing some of their capital, which gunks up the whole system. And we all know that politicians aren't efficent: they are hazardous. Hell, most politicians make a living giving people other people's money. And the more they give, the more often they are elected, because those people want to receive more money. It's tyranny by the majority, where the rich are fucked over by the many. They are cattle, prized, but ultimately, food.
How about not? Why are the rich paying more? Because they have more money? That's a fucked up excuse. If you paid according to your income, on everything, people wouldn't work, because 10% of $0 would be the same as 10% of $1,000,000. Hence progressive taxes are for people who have no idea wtf they are talking about (i.e. Basic Economics). Damn, if I made $80,000 a year, and paid $2 for a McDonald's cheeseburger, and a guy making $40,000 pays $1, and a guy making $0 pays $0, what would be the point of working hard?
And are you going to tell me a Porsche Boxster, 911 or BMW 7 (or hell, an X5) is going to destroy the road faster than a Ford Explorer or Expedition? Whatever you're smoking, spread it around. My dealer is out of town, and I need someone to hook me up.
Honestly, in the old days of the republic, you paid for what you wanted, and that was that. Anything else was thuggery. Nowadays, they call it welfare or morally right when they assert claims over your money. For reasons like this, the Second Amendment was thus encoded.
Smoking cigarettes is legal (for anyone over 18). Drinking is legal (for anyone over 21). The government shouldn't encourage citizens to drink or smoke?
The government is here not to encourage or discourage anything. It is here to lay down a few absolutes (Life, Liberty, Property), and to make you aware of the consequences of infringing on those absolutes. Everything else is of your own free will.
I'll see your Wikipedia, and raise you a Merriam-Webster:
/-list/ noun or adjective /"m&r-k&n-"tE-'lis-tik, -"tI-, -t&-/ adjective
One entry found for mercantilism.
Main Entry: mercantilism
Pronunciation: -"tE-"li-z&m, -"tI-, -t&-
Function: noun
1 : the theory or practice of mercantile pursuits : COMMERCIALISM
2 : an economic system developing during the decay of feudalism to unify and increase the power and especially the monetary wealth of a nation by a strict governmental regulation of the entire national economy usually through policies designed to secure an accumulation of bullion, a favorable balance of trade, the development of agriculture and manufactures, and the establishment of foreign trading monopolies
- mercantilist
- mercantilistic
Understandable. But the option remains.
What is horrible about the society we live in is that you go to college, learn a specific skillset, and if your industry starts dying or goes through a recession, it's useless.
What you need more than anything is a broad education and a specialized skillset. If your speciality fails, as least you have a start with the broad set.
If your job fails, look elsewhere. The problem with businesses failing is that most people do not start them until they are layed off. And they lack the broad set that they should have been sharpening or otherwise maintaing.
No skills in business + layed off trying to start a company usually ends in failure.
Provide some reports (evidence).
Then let NK develop them. NK is just rattling their saber. It's all political, but means nothing.
I mean, NK can take out a few cities, but in doing so, NK as a country will cease to exist (US retaliates). And president Ping Pong (or whatever his name is) likes being president of a country, would like to keep in that way, because no one wants to be president of a parking lot.
The NK military gets a few new toys that they can gloat over, but know they can never use. Frankly, I think it's the big dick syndrome: they just want to be able to come to the table and say they have nukes.
All of them (middle-east countries). It's probably sets a bad precedent, but it feels right.
And not just bomb a few cities: carpet-bomb nuke them. We have enough nukes, and it doesn't matter if Osama is hiding in a cave: the radiation will be more than enough to kill him, if the bombs don't (assuming he isn't hiding a few miles under the surface, with enough rations to wait for the radiation to dissipate).
Having said as much, I'd like to say that his recent video (from the snippets I've read) proves he has more intelligence than Kerry and Bush combined. It doesn't matter who occupies the whitehouse, only their policies.
On a side note, can someone bring me up to speed on why we support Isreal? As far I'm concerned, the US (and the europeans) should just let them slug it out. If the jews and muslims wants to wage war upon each other (among their respective countries), let them. They'll kill each other or work things out.
Create your own company, show them how it's done (by them out, at a later date, and clip the golden parachutes). You are not another brick in the wall, you are not limited to your current skillset, and no one can make you stay down but yourself.
So you're an IT worker, and you got layed off. Get another job or start your own company. Don't know how? Learn, thousands of people do each year.
Nothing in this life is garaunteed, but if you are willing to "think", as opposed to simply occupying space and resources, you can come out ahead.
Social Security is a Ponzi scheme:
1.) SS continues to exist because Congress keeps modifying the requirements (raising the age, tax rate, exclusions). Keep winnowing the pool of payees and keep increasing the funds by taxing more, you can keep it running for a while. But it's going to collapse. As some point, either no one will qualify for SS, or everyone will be taxed to death.
2.) SS would collapse if they did not do #1. It does not happen immediately because you pay in now, you withdraw later. The original "Ponzi Scheme" had a timeframe, of what, a couple months? SS has a much larger timeframe, of a lifetime.
The fun part of this Ponzi scheme, SS, is that it only works as long as there are more people paying in than withdrawing (the basis for a Ponzi scheme). And guess what? We've hit the mark. The Baby Boomer population is greater than the younger generations. The equation for SS is flipped on its head. Hell, Alan Greenspan said SS is going to hell in a handbasket, and what position does he hold? If you want to argue with him, go ahead. When he says SS is going down, yell and scream, cover your ears! He must be lying...
Study economics, study politics [realpolitik]. Then get back to me.
Assuming these shells are fired with the same amount of propellant as a normal bullet, it will not vaporize. A bullet needs to be going pretty fast to vaporize. Especially a U-depleted shell.
.5mv^2.
The power of U-depleted bullets come from its mass: they are denser. Why is this a good thing?
E =
As the energy components drops off exponentially, the mass remains constant.
For example:
Two bullets impact an object at 200 m/s. One is a depleted round, one is not.
Mass of depleted round: 200 mg
Mass of regular round: 100 mg
Energy at impact of depleted round: 4000000 j.
Energy at impact of regular round: 2000000 j.
These numbers are (slightly) off, and nevermind the units (it's too early for latin prefixes), but it gets the point across. Look up the atomic weights of Uranium and Lead, Ratio U/L, see how much more energy U has than L.
There's nothing special about U-depleted bullets that they should vaporize on impact anymore than a normal bullet. Uranium might be more brittle than lead, and shatter on impact, but vaporize?
Exactly. I have an HP burner and a Lite-On burner. The Lite-On supports more formats and burns faster than the HP (both same rated speed). I've never burned a coaster with it, even at max (52x). It works, it works well. As a bonus, the company updates their firmware on a regular basis (real updates for new formats, etc. as opposed to just bug fixes).
I'll bet you're going to knock Nero next, because it costs less than EZ CD Creator. Go back to using AOL, it's expensive, so it must be good! ($23 for dial-up, how much if you already have a connection?)
You know, I hear a lot of talk, but no proof.
If you think I'm wrong, enlighten me as to why.
V5 is basically a continuation of V2, but with a few features from V3. Looks like V2, acts like V2, has media support from V3. That's about it.
Two things:
1.) Change the skin to Classic. Whatever they are doing with skins, make them stop (the new one (modern) just eats resources and is slow as hell, why?).
2.) V5 has crashed on me, but I think the problem is related to various third party codecs, not WinAmp. Funny how all the codecs work fine with WMP, but not WinAmp.
My argument is that there is no resevoir, more of a small pond if anything. The current net balance is positive, because 3 (actually, 4.8) people are paying in for every 1 person withdrawing. A younger, larger population is supporting a smaller, older population. Problem is, that is about to go inverse with the baby boomers retiring, and the later gens being smaller than the boomers. So for every 1 person paying in, 3 are withdrawing. Your analogy with the resevoir is nice, but wrong: the current system is setup like a river. The same amount that goes in, comes out, at the same time. It's a bucket without a bottom.
v es /The-Social.Security.Ponzi.Scheme.Paradox-754139.s html
http://www.chibus.com/news/2004/10/14/Perspecti
"The social security fund has billions of dollars in it"
Nope. The SS program is a redirector. I.e. You and two of your friends pay in $100 ($300 combined). That money is withdrawn immediately after the check clears, $300 to some old lady. Think of Social Security as a proxy (because that's what it is): money comes from you, changes the source address, and is sent on to someone else. Fun, huh?
I'm not arguing about the costs, I'm arguing about the options. What does it matter if everything is free, but your choices are limited?
By all means, haggle with the doctors, as an individual or as a group. As long as you have the freedom to have any surgery you choose, you can also negotiate a better price. But while you are going off about costs, let me ask you this: how much is your life worth? How much would you pay to see tomorrow? How would you feel if someone told you that there was an operation that could save your life, but the electorate has decided that it's too costly? What if, in an effort to promote equality, offering up your own money to pay for said operation was illegal?
To be honest, no one knows how much it costs to treat a broken arm or leg. The cost is part material (the caste, swabs, etc.) and part immaterial (the doctor's labor, years of training). This is where you negotiate. Like it or not, health like software patents, are not special. Health is a service. You may want it very badly, but it's still a transaction where you give the doctor money, and he fixes you up.
To note, the US healthcare system is not capitalist. It's half capitalist, half socialist.
I'm arguing for freedom, you are arguing about the costs of those freedoms.
Hmm. If you mean Bush will continue to cut taxes, I'm not going to hold my breath. Yes, the first one worked out well, and yes I'd like to see more, but I thought he would have gone for deeper cuts. Until I hear some screaming from both sides (military/welfare cuts), I'll not be satisfied (and I mean real blood curdling screams).
Kill the politicians.
As time goes by, and as taxes increase (or new ones created), we are going to reach (or have reached) a point where taxes are no longer justified, where it costs less to hire a security firm to enforce laws, pay for healthcare out of your own pocket (cash), and send your kids to private school than it does to continue supporting the leviathon.
The US government was created to enforce negative rights (no murdering or stealing, essentially), not positive rights (take a little from these guys, give it to those guys, tell them it's for the public good).
And yet people say "But look at what you get for free*". Right, look a little closer. True, the service is free, and you are guaranteed service. But look a little closer: look at the kind of service you are guaranteed. If anyone ran a business this badly, they'd be run out of town!
We have half the US going all out for Canadian healthcare (it's free, universal, good*), and the other half wants nothing to do with it. Why? Because of what you get. If you have money (over a few thousand in the bank, which almost everyone can achieve), you can walk into any hospital and they will (figuratively) roll out the red carpet. You need a major surgery? You want the best people working on you? You got it. Pick and choose, ala carte. You don't like the snooty nurses or do not have confidence in your doctor? Go see another one. Under Canadian healthcare, money doesn't matter. You are placed in a queue. Works for some things, doesn't work for most things. And you have no say in your treatments. Kind of like HMOs, but it's the government, so you know they won't put lube on before they fuck you up the ass (decide it's too costly to keep you alive). But everyone is treated equally (unless you know someone on the board of directors), so everything is good*.
A man cannot serve two masters, so in this case: A doctor cannot serve you and the government (or an insurance company). He serves the man who pays the bills.
For whatever charges I may incur, I prefer being the master of my own healthcare. If I have cancer, I'll pay top dollar to rip the sucker out of me. If I do not have the money, I'll take out a loan, ask some friends, whatever it takes. But I will be the one who decides whether I should go with "less costly" treatments, whether I should be "made comfortable". I am not another worker of the State, I am not here to serve "the greater good", and not giving up my freedom or control over my life to a bunch of pompous assholes who sit on a committee, in the Senate, a thousand miles away, making life and death decisions for people whom they will never meet.
Merriam-Webster
One entry found for decimate.
/"de-s&-'mA-sh&n/ noun
Main Entry: decimate
Pronunciation: 'de-s&-"mAt
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -mated; -mating
Etymology: Latin decimatus, past participle of decimare, from decimus tenth, from decem ten
1 : to select by lot and kill every tenth man of
2 : to exact a tax of 10 percent from
3 a : to reduce drastically especially in number b : to destroy a large part of
- decimation
See 3a.
Yeah, all I want for Christmas is a Civil War. But what would the two(?) sides be?
Personally, I'd like to see a war between the Libertarians (Capitalists, by any other name) and Socialists, but that's not going to happen. Instead, we'll have something incredibly f*cked up instead. Like the religious zealots (of the far right) vs. the greens (of the far left) vs. (I really don't want to know. My nightmares have enough material as it is).
The outcome of which will either be a theocracy (I'll kill myself, but I'll take a few of them with me), an authoritarian state (equally as bad "we live for each other"), or something just plane bad.
As a libertarian, I could almost live with the greens: I do not agree with a lot of what they have to say (Global Warming, etc.), but at least they are true to their principles. I can respect that. The religious nuts (Love Jesus or else) are just plain scary: a green can be reasoned with (hard evidence), a zealot (who hears God, who tells him to kill unbelievers, force people to "spread the word") cannot. It's hard to argue with someone when their entire basis for reality is composed of a book written by a bunch of guys wandering about in the desert. A power structure under any religion is a recipe for disaster (ever notice how every religion thinks they're right, and how every religion has its own factions, which also think that they are the only right ones, and everyone else is mistaken?).
If anything, the survivors will look back upon a second civil war the same way they look upon the first: if they are feeble-minded, they'll eat the garbage about how the other side was wrong, if not, they'll form their own opinion (after uncovering a few "misplaced" facts, conveniantly left out of the state copy of the history text).
The first civil war? Not about slavery, sorry folks. The first war was about state's rights, and we lost that one. Can't wait to see what the second one is about (hoping things will get better, reality tells me they will be worse).
Ranting, I know, but had to get it out.