So your point is that you want variety and speciality in the stuff you buy, and, viola! The free market has delivered! It's not just in pickles that this is true, either - look at *any* product, and you'll see the same effect.
Right. Hence Microsoft Windows/Office vs. the other 4 or 5 widely distributed operating systems/office suites. Which ones were those again?
Secondly, efficiency is the primary goal of our system of *commerce.*
I disagree. The goal of our system of commerce is to maximize the capital of a few shrewd individuals. Efficiency is only one method employed toward this goal. Circumventing the EPA and OSHA, witholding benefits, and working people off the clock are other effective methods.
There are higher principles in the world than the rules by which we conduct commerce, one of them being basic human rights like life, liberty and property. The most basic principle of the right to property is that, simply put, you "own" yourself, and noone, not even you, can legislate, sell, or trade that away. Slavery is a violation of that basic human right.
I hope that you know better than that, and you're just being deliberately inflammatory.
Ahh, but some people take it as axiomatic that commerce itself is one of the highest principles --- that people are no more valuable than the quantity/quality of work they perform. Those are the same people who would deny health care (or life, liberty, and property) to the poor, weak, and unintelligent because they are not worthy. So, to those with such ideals, slavery should cause no moral concerns whatsoever. I'm not saying that you are in that camp: I don't know you. However, I am convinced that some people think this way, that they are not in the minority, and thay they are well represented among capitalists. Indeed, they routinely glorify capitalism and the "free market". So no, I'm not being inflammatory --- just curious where you are coming from.
If a supplier goes out of business, then what they supply vanishes. Isn't this a net loss to society? If I think that Vlasic pickles are the best pickles on the planet, and Wal-Mart puts them out of business, then I have to go with some other inferior brand. So, while the survivors are more efficient, everything gets reduced to blandness. Please explain how this benefits everyone.
Furthermore, I don't agree that efficiency and optimization are necessarily the most important goals. Surely slavery is more efficient than our current system. Why pay medical insurance, wages, unemployment, etc. when you can just entice your workers with a whip?
I would say that of all the purchases I make online, only about 10% of them can be found locally. And for that 10%, the base cost is cheaper online than what is charged locally BEFORE taxes.
Because the tendency of these corporate behemoths is to own and control distribution of goods from top to bottom. When that happens, there will be no competition, and your choices will be to buy from them at whatever price they deem fit to charge, make everything yourself, or do without.
That depends on what type of government you live under. There have been many societies where property rights are denied or severely restricted to certain classes of people.
Who has the right to say what can and can not happen to a piece of property?
Maybe the ruling class under a faux-communist government, or an aristocratic government. "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"
If the governing body reserves the right to seize anything at anytime, what motive is there for me to accomplish anything in life?
Why should your motives be the concern of any person other than yourself? Does the world revolve around you? Imprisonment, torture, murder of your loved ones can serve to motivate you. These have been used before by certain oppressive governments, and are probably still used today. Democracy is not a foundation upon which all societies are built.
Your body belongs to you and you alone.
Really??? Maybe you should step outside your insulated little sphere of existence and examine how people live (have lived) under tyranny and slavery. Hell, before Roe vs. Wade women in the U.S. couldn't legally have abortions. Even now, I can't legally light up a marijuana cigarette in the privacy of my own home. Under times of war, people can be drafted into service. So don't give me this demonstrably false bullshit that your body belongs to you --- it doesn't.
The government we currently have is not mine and does not represent me or my consent when it starts a war in Iraq, slaughters innocent women and children, engages in corporate welfare, outlaws certain species of plants, and dozens of other things.
Getting back to rights and health care, there are some basic freedoms -- abilities -- that exist by virtue of a person being alive, like the abilities to move around and speak. When we codify these things as "rights" we're just setting limits on what anyone is allowed to do to anyone else, as individuals or as agents of the state. When an axe murderer is going around killing people, someone who's part of that social contract is breaking it.
Consider this in your analysis: Are the unemployed a party to the social contract? After all, they don't surrender taxes to uphold their part of the contract. Therefore, why can I not go around killing hobos and welfare moms? If they don't uphold their end of the deal, why are they afforded the same protections as taxpayers?
First of all, thanks for the intelligent responses. I can understand your point of view.
What makes this topic so difficult to argue is that many folks have unidentified prejudices. For example, I once argued with someone about marijuana legalization -- I advocated it. She said it was wrong because it was against the law. I countered that laws are mutable. She argued that it is bad for your health. I countered that there were mountains of evidence to indicate that at worst marijuana was no worse for you than cigarettes, which are still legal. In fact, I countered every argument she made except for one: she finally said "Well, there MUST be something wrong with it." And here we arrive at the crucial point of the debate. She took it as axiomatic that smoking marijuana was wrong and should be illegal. There is no compelling argument I could make to counter that fundamental assumption.
Similarly, aristocrats might take it as axiomatic that some people are better than others by virtue of what family they are born into. Racists may take it as axiomatic that some people are better than others by virtue of their skin color. Capitalists may take it as axiomatic that some people are better than others by virtue of the quality/quantity of their work. Barring any Gods who say otherwise, each of these is a valid point of view. Only if people have reached these outlooks by argument can they be convinced otherwise. But if they take these positions as axiomatic, you can say nothing to change their minds.
I feel that denying health care to the poor is incompatible with a point of view that places value on all human life. Furthermore, I call on those who don't value all human life to identify their prejudices, so I can see where they are really coming from. All this talk about natural rights is a diversion --- it sidesteps the actual issue since all these rights are arbitrary. Should the poor be denied health care? What about African-Americans? What about Jews? What about women?
As a side note, your earlier saying that "there is no absolute reason carved on a stone somewhere" and therefore all rights are arbitrary is probably one of the reasons that religious folk criticize secular morality. Attacking the Enlightenment-era version of natural rights, so that there's no philosophical footing at all for a rule against shootin' and killin', is likely to scare some people into wanting religiously-imposed moral rules that look solid and virtuous on the surface.
Religious people can't argue from a position of moral high-ground either. For example, I seem to recall from the Old Testament that slavery was A-OK with YHWH as long as the right people were slaves --- in other words, it advocated racism. There are many other examples.
In the end- if you want to help people without money- give them yours. That's what I do-- habitat humanity, the food bank, and red cross of the tsunami. But it's MY money to do that with.
It's only your money because we agree to it. You have no kind of divine or natural right to it, as amply illustrated in the history books. Do you or do you not support everyone paying a portion of their income to provide for a police force, a military, etc? If I am self-sufficient, I can argue that I shouldn't be forced to pay for those things either. So why do we do it? Because it is mutually beneficial. Likewise, paying a portion of our income to provide for health-care is also mutually beneficial.
I've heard this before, and disagree partly because it ignores a distinction between a respect for the freedom of the individual that exists by default (in Locke's "state of nature") and a "right" to take things by force from other people.
This distinction is arbitrary. How is it any different if you lose your freedom because I club you over the head, or mother nature does it with some disease? You attach a special significance to the former case, but not the latter. Either way, you've lost your freedom. What's really important here: what happens to you, or what is responsible for it?
I don't swear for the hell of it. Language is a poor enough means of communication. We've got to use all the words we've got. Besides, there are damn few words anybody understands.
What I find interesting is that after claiming I have no good argument you have to resort to ad hominem attacks on my character.
Dude, I didn't attack you. You typed in your views on the matter for all to see. "Health care is a service" implicitly says that if you don't have the money, do without. You are entitled to that opinion. But at least have the balls to own up to your own lack of concern for the welfare of your fellow human beings and don't whine when someone points out that you are a selfish prick, as indicted by your own words.
Of course I'm sure that you live in a tent in the forest and every penny of your income above the amount required for basic subsistence you are giving it away to help the millions of people who lack the basics necessities of life. And I'm not talking advanced medical care, I'm talking food, shelther, and clean water.
Getting waaay off track here. I'm not talking about donating everything you make to the needy. I'm talking about including health care among the benefits we pay for through our tax dollars --- mine included.
Does it chap your ass that conservatives give more charity, among all income ranges, than liberals?
Ahhh, right of the old Yahoo! message boards. You know those are spelled LIB and CON, don't you?
Health care is a service delivered by extensively educated people. Medicine is a product created by educated people with an expensive development process and a risky investment.
And your point is??? Police officers, judges, soldiers also require training and financing. Why don't we leave their services to the free market?
Face it --- You have no good argument. As a society, what we choose to finance through taxes and what we choose to finance directly from our own pocketbook is COMPLETELY arbitrary. However, some people, such as yourself apparently, value money above human life. That speaks volumes about your character.
But please do explain to me how something others provide to you can be your right?
Well, there is no absolute reason carved on a stone somewhere. Likewise, why should life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness be rights? Why should you have a right to physical property? Why should you have a right to move as you please, go where you want, under your own free will? In many times and places, people didn't have these rights. Hell, some people don't have them now. Therefore, they are not universal, but only what we agree upon. These "rights" are part of a social contract. I enumerate health care among them.
I'd suspect a lot more than 0.0000001% are getting damn fine health care.
How much of the medical skill required to deliver that health care has been around for awhile, and how much of it was developed due to economic forces? Hint: If it takes a lot of money to develop it, it takes a lot of money to make use of it. Something about return on investment.
Yeah, wonderful. And then like maybe 0.0000001% of the population --- you know, the IMPORTANT people --- can actually afford to make use of it. Nice try though.
Jesus fucking Christ. People here speak of health care like it's just another commodity to be bought and sold. Will we never advance as a species above this exploitive outlook on life?
He doesn't mind sharing the costs for essential services with his peers...
You know, health care is pretty goddamn essential.
... in good faith.
In good faith or otherwise, it is in the public interest for people to have basic health care. The fewer sick people there are, the less likely you are to contract something. Furthermore, his point of view is predicated on the false assumption that if he doesn't contribute to public health care through taxes, that he won't end up paying anyway through insurers who will charge higher rates in response to higher hospitalization fees due to the poor being unable to pay for their health care.
The jobless waifs he's referring to are benefiting from those services in bad faith: they have no intention of bearing any of the burden.
Can you prove that? Or are you just parroting what you've heard from the well-to-do?
Right on. Why should I have to pay for a police force, judges, politicians, schools, military, highways, or anything else the public uses? I can educate my own kids, do some gardening, walk to town, and take care of myself.
Slashdot Mirror
So your point is that you want variety and speciality in the stuff you buy, and, viola! The free market has delivered! It's not just in pickles that this is true, either - look at *any* product, and you'll see the same effect.
Right. Hence Microsoft Windows/Office vs. the other 4 or 5 widely distributed operating systems/office suites. Which ones were those again?
Secondly, efficiency is the primary goal of our system of *commerce.*
I disagree. The goal of our system of commerce is to maximize the capital of a few shrewd individuals. Efficiency is only one method employed toward this goal. Circumventing the EPA and OSHA, witholding benefits, and working people off the clock are other effective methods.
There are higher principles in the world than the rules by which we conduct commerce, one of them being basic human rights like life, liberty and property. The most basic principle of the right to property is that, simply put, you "own" yourself, and noone, not even you, can legislate, sell, or trade that away. Slavery is a violation of that basic human right.
I hope that you know better than that, and you're just being deliberately inflammatory.
Ahh, but some people take it as axiomatic that commerce itself is one of the highest principles --- that people are no more valuable than the quantity/quality of work they perform. Those are the same people who would deny health care (or life, liberty, and property) to the poor, weak, and unintelligent because they are not worthy. So, to those with such ideals, slavery should cause no moral concerns whatsoever. I'm not saying that you are in that camp: I don't know you. However, I am convinced that some people think this way, that they are not in the minority, and thay they are well represented among capitalists. Indeed, they routinely glorify capitalism and the "free market". So no, I'm not being inflammatory --- just curious where you are coming from.
If a supplier goes out of business, then what they supply vanishes. Isn't this a net loss to society? If I think that Vlasic pickles are the best pickles on the planet, and Wal-Mart puts them out of business, then I have to go with some other inferior brand. So, while the survivors are more efficient, everything gets reduced to blandness. Please explain how this benefits everyone.
Furthermore, I don't agree that efficiency and optimization are necessarily the most important goals. Surely slavery is more efficient than our current system. Why pay medical insurance, wages, unemployment, etc. when you can just entice your workers with a whip?
I would say that of all the purchases I make online, only about 10% of them can be found locally. And for that 10%, the base cost is cheaper online than what is charged locally BEFORE taxes.
Because the tendency of these corporate behemoths is to own and control distribution of goods from top to bottom. When that happens, there will be no competition, and your choices will be to buy from them at whatever price they deem fit to charge, make everything yourself, or do without.
Except that every computer has IE installed.
So every hard drive I purchase has IE installed on it? Wow! I was wondering how that got onto my home-built machine.
Then I suppose you find this perfectly acceptable.
If I do not own property, who does?
That depends on what type of government you live under. There have been many societies where property rights are denied or severely restricted to certain classes of people.
Who has the right to say what can and can not happen to a piece of property?
Maybe the ruling class under a faux-communist government, or an aristocratic government. "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"
If the governing body reserves the right to seize anything at anytime, what motive is there for me to accomplish anything in life?
Why should your motives be the concern of any person other than yourself? Does the world revolve around you? Imprisonment, torture, murder of your loved ones can serve to motivate you. These have been used before by certain oppressive governments, and are probably still used today. Democracy is not a foundation upon which all societies are built.
Your body belongs to you and you alone.
Really??? Maybe you should step outside your insulated little sphere of existence and examine how people live (have lived) under tyranny and slavery. Hell, before Roe vs. Wade women in the U.S. couldn't legally have abortions. Even now, I can't legally light up a marijuana cigarette in the privacy of my own home. Under times of war, people can be drafted into service. So don't give me this demonstrably false bullshit that your body belongs to you --- it doesn't.
The government we currently have is not mine and does not represent me or my consent when it starts a war in Iraq, slaughters innocent women and children, engages in corporate welfare, outlaws certain species of plants, and dozens of other things.
Getting back to rights and health care, there are some basic freedoms -- abilities -- that exist by virtue of a person being alive, like the abilities to move around and speak. When we codify these things as "rights" we're just setting limits on what anyone is allowed to do to anyone else, as individuals or as agents of the state. When an axe murderer is going around killing people, someone who's part of that social contract is breaking it.
Consider this in your analysis: Are the unemployed a party to the social contract? After all, they don't surrender taxes to uphold their part of the contract. Therefore, why can I not go around killing hobos and welfare moms? If they don't uphold their end of the deal, why are they afforded the same protections as taxpayers?
First of all, thanks for the intelligent responses. I can understand your point of view.
What makes this topic so difficult to argue is that many folks have unidentified prejudices. For example, I once argued with someone about marijuana legalization -- I advocated it. She said it was wrong because it was against the law. I countered that laws are mutable. She argued that it is bad for your health. I countered that there were mountains of evidence to indicate that at worst marijuana was no worse for you than cigarettes, which are still legal. In fact, I countered every argument she made except for one: she finally said "Well, there MUST be something wrong with it." And here we arrive at the crucial point of the debate. She took it as axiomatic that smoking marijuana was wrong and should be illegal. There is no compelling argument I could make to counter that fundamental assumption.
Similarly, aristocrats might take it as axiomatic that some people are better than others by virtue of what family they are born into. Racists may take it as axiomatic that some people are better than others by virtue of their skin color. Capitalists may take it as axiomatic that some people are better than others by virtue of the quality/quantity of their work. Barring any Gods who say otherwise, each of these is a valid point of view. Only if people have reached these outlooks by argument can they be convinced otherwise. But if they take these positions as axiomatic, you can say nothing to change their minds.
I feel that denying health care to the poor is incompatible with a point of view that places value on all human life. Furthermore, I call on those who don't value all human life to identify their prejudices, so I can see where they are really coming from. All this talk about natural rights is a diversion --- it sidesteps the actual issue since all these rights are arbitrary. Should the poor be denied health care? What about African-Americans? What about Jews? What about women?
As a side note, your earlier saying that "there is no absolute reason carved on a stone somewhere" and therefore all rights are arbitrary is probably one of the reasons that religious folk criticize secular morality. Attacking the Enlightenment-era version of natural rights, so that there's no philosophical footing at all for a rule against shootin' and killin', is likely to scare some people into wanting religiously-imposed moral rules that look solid and virtuous on the surface.
Religious people can't argue from a position of moral high-ground either. For example, I seem to recall from the Old Testament that slavery was A-OK with YHWH as long as the right people were slaves --- in other words, it advocated racism. There are many other examples.
In the end- if you want to help people without money- give them yours. That's what I do-- habitat humanity, the food bank, and red cross of the tsunami. But it's MY money to do that with.
It's only your money because we agree to it. You have no kind of divine or natural right to it, as amply illustrated in the history books. Do you or do you not support everyone paying a portion of their income to provide for a police force, a military, etc? If I am self-sufficient, I can argue that I shouldn't be forced to pay for those things either. So why do we do it? Because it is mutually beneficial. Likewise, paying a portion of our income to provide for health-care is also mutually beneficial.
I've heard this before, and disagree partly because it ignores a distinction between a respect for the freedom of the individual that exists by default (in Locke's "state of nature") and a "right" to take things by force from other people.
This distinction is arbitrary. How is it any different if you lose your freedom because I club you over the head, or mother nature does it with some disease? You attach a special significance to the former case, but not the latter. Either way, you've lost your freedom. What's really important here: what happens to you, or what is responsible for it?
Well, I don't happen to believe that the marketplace is the pinnacle of human achievement. How naive of me.
I don't swear for the hell of it. Language is a poor enough means of communication. We've got to use all the words we've got. Besides, there are damn few words anybody understands.
-- from Inherit the Wind
What I find interesting is that after claiming I have no good argument you have to resort to ad hominem attacks on my character.
Dude, I didn't attack you. You typed in your views on the matter for all to see. "Health care is a service" implicitly says that if you don't have the money, do without. You are entitled to that opinion. But at least have the balls to own up to your own lack of concern for the welfare of your fellow human beings and don't whine when someone points out that you are a selfish prick, as indicted by your own words.
Of course I'm sure that you live in a tent in the forest and every penny of your income above the amount required for basic subsistence you are giving it away to help the millions of people who lack the basics necessities of life. And I'm not talking advanced medical care, I'm talking food, shelther, and clean water.
Getting waaay off track here. I'm not talking about donating everything you make to the needy. I'm talking about including health care among the benefits we pay for through our tax dollars --- mine included.
Does it chap your ass that conservatives give more charity, among all income ranges, than liberals?
Ahhh, right of the old Yahoo! message boards. You know those are spelled LIB and CON, don't you?
Health care is a service delivered by extensively educated people. Medicine is a product created by educated people with an expensive development process and a risky investment.
And your point is??? Police officers, judges, soldiers also require training and financing. Why don't we leave their services to the free market?
Face it --- You have no good argument. As a society, what we choose to finance through taxes and what we choose to finance directly from our own pocketbook is COMPLETELY arbitrary. However, some people, such as yourself apparently, value money above human life. That speaks volumes about your character.
Monkey see, monkey do.
But please do explain to me how something others provide to you can be your right?
Well, there is no absolute reason carved on a stone somewhere. Likewise, why should life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness be rights? Why should you have a right to physical property? Why should you have a right to move as you please, go where you want, under your own free will? In many times and places, people didn't have these rights. Hell, some people don't have them now. Therefore, they are not universal, but only what we agree upon. These "rights" are part of a social contract. I enumerate health care among them.
I'd suspect a lot more than 0.0000001% are getting damn fine health care.
How much of the medical skill required to deliver that health care has been around for awhile, and how much of it was developed due to economic forces? Hint: If it takes a lot of money to develop it, it takes a lot of money to make use of it. Something about return on investment.
Health care is not a right.
You see, THAT is where we fundamentally disagree.
Yeah, wonderful. And then like maybe 0.0000001% of the population --- you know, the IMPORTANT people --- can actually afford to make use of it. Nice try though.
Sorry about that. I live in the Corporate States of America where the almighty dollar is second only to Gawd. Or is it the other way around?
Ever hear of the Black Death? Nahhh. Nothing like that could ever happen again.
Jesus fucking Christ. People here speak of health care like it's just another commodity to be bought and sold. Will we never advance as a species above this exploitive outlook on life?
He doesn't mind sharing the costs for essential services with his peers ...
... in good faith.
You know, health care is pretty goddamn essential.
In good faith or otherwise, it is in the public interest for people to have basic health care. The fewer sick people there are, the less likely you are to contract something. Furthermore, his point of view is predicated on the false assumption that if he doesn't contribute to public health care through taxes, that he won't end up paying anyway through insurers who will charge higher rates in response to higher hospitalization fees due to the poor being unable to pay for their health care.
The jobless waifs he's referring to are benefiting from those services in bad faith: they have no intention of bearing any of the burden.
Can you prove that? Or are you just parroting what you've heard from the well-to-do?
Right on. Why should I have to pay for a police force, judges, politicians, schools, military, highways, or anything else the public uses? I can educate my own kids, do some gardening, walk to town, and take care of myself.