I took a quick look at the link you provided and I'm unsure of what it advocates. Maybe the United States is just too big of a society to have universal, taxpayer-supported healthcare (being 10x the size of Canada and other smaller nations that have implemented it).
Oh, I think it's possible to implement here, although, I have great misgivings about where the system would go once the Baby Boomers start using it on a regular basis as they age...
Friedman in that essay says that the main problem with American healthcare is that the individual needing coverage isn't paying for it himself, directly. As you probably know, most people get their healthcare through their employer. The problem here is this: if your employer is paying for your healthcare costs, what reason do you have to keep healthcare costs down? After all, it's not *your* money...
So, Friedman advocates essentially a system with 3 tiers of coverage, like this:
1) Catastrophic insurance -- This would cover things such as heart transplants, leukemia, etc. The really expensive cases. This would be provided by the government (so this would require tax funding of course), the reason being that healthcare companies are loathe to provide it, even if it should be considered worthwhile.
2) Medium-level coverage -- This would cover more-routine, but still unusual things, e.g. broken arms, non-catastrophic surgery, etc.. It would be provided by healthcare companies. Medical Savings Accounts (MSA) would be set up by one's employer to be paid into on a regular basis (i.e. per-paycheck) which would be applied towards healthcare coverage from the company whenever necessary. So, if you don't have health problems, money piles up in the account so that when you *do* have a major problem, it's there for you.
3) Routine coverage -- This covers things like routine checkups with the doctor. It would be paid-for by individuals like any other service (legal, financial, IT, etc.) is paid-for -- either billed to one's home or on-site via cash/credit/debit/check/etc..
Such a system would prevent most of the "tragedy of the commons" effect that occurs under a socialized system (in the "routine coverage" section, where people under a socialized system are inclined to see a doctor for every little problem they have, because it doesn't immediately cost them anything), yet it would provide the same quality of benefits to people receiving coverage (i.e. in the "medium-level" and "catastrophic" sections).
It's still an imperfect system in my book, in part b/c it requires us to define what "catastrophic" means, i.e. it becomes a problem of "who-covers-what." But it is still the best system I have learned of. Much better than either Bush or Kerry's plans (although, each of them have borrowed an idea from this plan -- Bush is borrowing the MSA idea; Kerry, the govn't-run catastrophic coverage idea).
Hope that helps.:-)
B) Free medical care for everyone smells like communism.
Is the healthcare really "free?" Think about this for a moment...
Is there such thing as a free lunch? No, somewhere, it costs somebody to pay for your hip replacement -- it costs another taxpayer some of their money, and it costs a doctor his/her time.
So it is most-certainly not "free," even by the most-liberal economic standards.
You have 40 million people without healthcare, and that's not a problem?
Well, you did also quote me as saying that America's healthcare system is "far from perfect," didn't you?:-) And it is. Everybody (except healthcare company CEOs) in the U.S., whether liberal, conservative, libertarian, whatever -- want to see huge changes in the way healthcare is handled here. I'm no different.
My comparison of socialism and capitalism was a general one that applies really only partially to the case of healthcare, I think. But it's still somewhat applicable, because in some respects,
If you believe in taxation for any reason at all then surely that's a form of 'socialism' by your arguements.
By technical economic definition, taxation is socialism, yes. Universal healthcare, because it would raise taxes, is logically an increase in the amount of socialism in a nation.
I'm not opposed to all government intervention; I recognize the need for some taxation, despite the fact that I do also see it as theft. I do believe in a govn't-run army and police force, along with fire depts., roadways, and a voucher-based (but still tax-funded) educational system. So yes, taxes are clearly a necessary evil, even by my strongly anti-government book.
To that end, I would like to minimize the theft-like nature of taxation by making it relatively-optional, that is, rather than have an income tax (where you're taxed automatically), I'd rather see a national sales tax on non-life-essential goods. That way, if somebody really hates paying taxes, they can go Unabomber-style and not buy things commercially...
It's still taxation, but at least the individual has the choice of paying taxes; their alternative being that they avoid the creature comforts of life (TV, computers, etc.) unless they somehow manufacture their own -- but if they can do that, then more power to them; they avoid the tax system in so doing, if that's what they want, and who knows -- perhaps it'll spur them to innovate a new technology (e.g. if somebody doesn't want to buy a computer b/c it's too heavily-taxed, then maybe he finds a more-efficient way to produce his own? Bam, there's a new business he could run too!).
There are worse things to fund through taxation than healthcare (such as corporate welfare, or Social Security, or yet-another defense contract), I will say, but healthcare is a special problem in which it's too damn expensive no matter how it's set up to let the government be able to skim some extra money off the top for administrative fees (at minimum) and thereby add to the total cost of healthcare...
I do think it's a case of cultural differences though, as you say. One man's socialism is another man's "social justice"... Hence, the case for federalism domestically, and sovereignty for all nations at the international level, so that we may each live in a society most-closely aligned with our ideals.:-)
But I'm glad to see you like making blind assumptions.
I do not give a flying fuck about not being "educated" in economics
Then STFU about economics until you know what the fuck you're talking about. Stop talking out of your ass, because you are an ignorant dumbass by your own admission.
Look, I don't talk about the things I know nothing about. I don't talk about fashion. I don't talk about celebrity news. I don't discuss the philosophies of Plato, Kant, and so on. I don't talk about the effects of art on society. I don't really know how an automatic transmission works, at the technical level.
I don't talk about such things, because I am ignorant of them. I would like to learn about them. But until I do, I don't make the mistake you have of thinking my answers are right when I haven't the slightest fucking idea of what I'm talking about.
I suspect that you conversely do not give a flying fuck about being utterly ignorant of social affairs, and dismiss it as the work of poor people whose dullness is their inability to buy themselves the latest fashionable (insert whatever floats your boat here).
Another vapid assumption.
One of my lady-friends is has a Master's in social work. She is *far* from dull.
I, personally, am not much for social work. I get along well enough with all kinds of people, and they don't bother me, but for various reasons, the work doesn't interest me.
But I have nothing against those who enjoy it. If you get your rocks off helping the poor find jobs, so much the better for the economy (and the spirits of those poor seeking work) I say! What I have a problem with is when those social workers try to take my money and use it for their ends. Would they (or you) like it if I took their money and used it to educate economic retards like yourself as to the ways of economics?
I doubt it.
Hey, you're a yankee. We, in the rest of the world, know that yankees are mostly ignorant self-centered dopes,
So we're self-centered. So what? What's wrong with the betterment of and attention to the self?
totally unable to understand that there can be very valid alternatives to your squalid asocial existence, and you prove my point magnificently by parrotting half-baked arguments and half-truths truffled with tired right-wing clichés.
As if your parroted state control *isn't* a tired cliche and half-truth of its own?
My supposed "half-baked arguments" are refuted by... what claims? Seeing as you admit willful ignorance to economics, how do you know you're right?
And how the points of socialism valid -- didn't you ever hear about the fall of the Berlin Wall? Socialism failed. People of socialist East Germany tore down the wall because their lives sucked so badly compared to those of people living in relatively-capitalist West Germany. That is an established fact.
I'm sure one of your trained wolves delivered the paper carrying that news to you about 14 years ago...
Don't remain an ignoramous. Compare the economic strengths and weaknesses of some of the more-socialist EU nations (Sweden, Finland, Denmark, France) to those of the U.S., Hong Kong, or Peru. I know it seems a funny trend, but somehow, the countries which tend to have freer markets also have higher rates of growth; faster growth means faster-dropping prices on technology (like computer parts, as we're both aware), meaning greater integration of wealth for more people more quickly.
100 years ago, not even John D. Rockefeller had air-conditioning. Now, even the poorest people in the U.S. have it, both in their homes and in their cars. That's an improvement in the wealth of nations (ours, and everybody else's), and it wouldn't have come about as qu
This is/. I've seen people argue in favor of getting rid of 911 because they don't think they should have to pay for something they rarely use when the injured person/person being raped/person reporting a lost child could just as easily look up the seven digit number for the local authorities. I mean gosh that E-911 charge on my last bill was like $1.49.
Nobody ever said people were logical. Politics and human nature aside I want to know how powerful of a signal this thing was putting off -- what kind of receive gain do you suppose those satellites have?
Logic != Reason
Logic defines absolute relationships which cannot be defined in any other manner, e.g. A * 1 = A. Reason interprets facts and determines from those facts what is the best course of action.
Example: It's *logical* to conclude from the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that *no* arms -- slingshots, knives, firearms, grenades, nukes, etc. -- should be permitted for the ownership by "the people," i.e., private individuals.
But is it *reasonable*? That's a subjective question (as a lawyer professor I had once said, the word "reasonable" is full-time work for 2 lawyers), but I would argue that banning nukes from private ownership is quite reasonable. Automatic firearms, or anything other instruments of force that police departments may use, however, I am not convinced should be banned. (and there's my brand of reason. Some would say I should take it a logical step farther and judge what people may own by what the military owns. I define that as logical, but unreasonable, given the special property of uncontrollability of WMDs once they are detonated (unlike firearms or smaller explosives). You undoubtedly have a different brand of "reason," however...)
People are often (though not always) logical, at least while sober (mentally and physically). But people *are* often unreasonable, IMO.
Entertaining, indeed. Feh. Just another right-wing shill (Fraser Institute) job, and thus totally devoid of credibility. Next, please!
I figured you'd say that. Any source which disagrees with you is a "right wing shill?" and "totally devoid of credibility?"
The same could be said about whatever your Canuck left wing shills are.
Anyway, it's good to see you're open-minded about your government's failures. Given that much, I shouldn't waste my time arguing with you, but my argumentativeness is one of my weaknesses.
So you can try this collection as well -- some of them are from the Fraser Inst., but many are not.
I wrote: That is a cop-out and you know it. That is intellectually-dishonest.
You wrote: Why? Because I do not drop on my knees and say Uncle ???
It is intellectually-dishonest because you are on one hand saying that Canada's healthcare system is better than that in the U.S., and on the other saying that if Canada's system fails, they can go to the U.S.. Why would somebody go to the U.S. if the Canadian system is better?
What is dishonest about it is that you promote the Canadian system when it works, and pawn off the results of its failures on another country (the U.S.) when it doesn't.
Neither the U.S. or Canada has a perfect, or even particularly-good healthcare system. My argument is that America's, for all its faults, is still better than Canada's. But you're the one defending Canada's healthcare system as the Holy Grail of healthcare...
Taxation is not theft. It's wealth redistribution to insure that, as I said before, no one is left behind.
Taxes aren't theft? That's the classic socialist response. It's also logically-wrong. Let me ask you:
Do you have a *choice* as to whether or not to pay your taxes?
Do we in America have a choice as to whether to fund: * the overly-bloated military? * the Social(ist) Security system? * Medicare? * the transportation system?
The answer to these questions is a resounding NO! We do not have that choice. I cannot just decide one day "oh, I guess I'll stop using the shelter of the U.S. military, stop using the public roadways, etc.. So I won't pay my income taxes." I don't have that option, because the IRS will hunt my ass down and *force* me to pay.
So if I don't have a *choice* as to whether I am paying for those things, then why is the money leaving my pocket? I don't want to pay as much for the U.S. military as I do. But I don't have that option. Why?
Because my money is taken from me, against my will.
Now ask yourself: what do thieves do? By definition, they steal from you; they take money from you against your will.
So how is the government any different from a mugger in Central Park? There is no difference: they both take your money against your will.
Hence, taxation = theft, by definition. "Wealth redistribution" is just a socialist euphemism to try and put a friendly face on legalized theft.
You are taking from Peter to pay Paul. It's that simple. Taxes don't come from thin air, they come from the citizens.
Again, as I said elsewhere, go read a fucking Economics textbook or two.
Rich people have plenty of spare money that shall have no other purpose than easing the plight of less fortunate people, and no, this can't be handled by charities, because charities are extremely inept at social justice, as they only cover a tiny amount of the needs, and they avoid like the plague causes that are not popular.
Their money "shall" have no other purpose than to ease the (supposed) plight of the poor? Since when? Says who? Do the rich think it's a good idea to pay for the plight of the poor? Why not? And what justifies taking some of their money and giving it to another if the recipient did not *earn* that money?
Really? In high school science class I was taught what the speed of light was, but I never went out and measured it myself.
That's right. And because you didn't measure it yourself you have no way of being 100% certain that it really is 186,000 mi/sec..
Now, because so many other scientists have measured it and come up with the same figure, it's become reasonable to consider it an established fact (although technically, it still just a theory). With so many agreeing conclusions, it is entirely *reasonable* -- but not fully *logical* -- to use it as a basis for calculations requiring that number.
But remember, the speed of light is, like all other things in science, still just a *theory*. We may find out at some later date that the speed was slightly-different from what we thought -- perhaps due to nothing more than simple rounding error beyond the decimal point, for example. But any change in the number at all would still be a change in the theory, as it would change the result of calculations which use it.
It was from a credible source who has no motivation for lying about the speed of light because he doesn't have a personal interest in what number it comes out to be, his job is just to report what it actually is.
Be more accurate. Your teacher's job was to report what the established theory *says* the number is. He/she very-likely couldn't get away with lying about it b/c it's such basic knowledge that almost anybody could call him/her on it if they were found to be telling you something that conflicted w/ the established theory we have all agreed upon.
But this is not the same as the system of news reporting. Take the events in the Abu Gharaib prisons. Were you there? I doubt it. Most likely, you, like me, only know what *somebody else* has reported to you. You and I are, at best, secondary sources. So are the reporters, however, for they were not at the site of the abuses either -- only the military personnel (armed w/ some cameras) were.
So how do we know exactly how bad the abuses were? We have photos, which, because so many people have seen them over the past 4 months and not raised objection as to their authenticity -- and in particular because those who are responsible for the contents of the photos admit that they are true -- we can reasonably conclude are not doctored, even though it is quite possible to do so. So we can look at those pictures and say "wow, look how bad it is that this guy is standing on a box w/ a black hood over his head and electrodes attached to his nuts!" And that is a very repulsive event, of course.
Were the events not as bad, overall, than the photos show? Possibly. Conversely, were the events *worse* than what the photos indicate? Possibly.
We won't know either way, because we weren't there. All we have are (rather gut-wrenching) examples of what occurred there. But whether the situation was worse or better than it appears, we cannot objectively say, because again, we were not there.
There's a difference between the following: * referencing a secondary source * referencing a primary source * being a primary source (i.e., you were there)
You cannot be a primary source unless you were on-site. You cannot reference a primary source unless your source was there on-site. You cannot reference a secondary source unless that source was drawing interpretations from other primary or secondary sources.
True, but censorship is still censorship and those who would engage in it should not be trusted. I still say shame on them.
That much I will *definitely* agree with. I don't like it when Slashdot mods censor something, but my alternative is to go to some other site or set up my own. Seeing as the/. mods censorship isn't bad enough (usually) to justify such a switch, I'm here...
Listen to you......an undergraduate college student who's parents are likely paying for your tuition. You who judging from many of your last posts, do not believe that rules or law apply to you.
Your not all bad judging from some of your past posts which have been supportive or informative. Perhaps a bit arrogant and full of yourself, but do be careful about who you lecture to about the world not being fair. I understand and know this intimately, and have seen things in parts of the world that most Americans would not believe (and/or find deeply disturbing) and yet have come back and still been wildly successful by most definitions. I likely could not have accomplished as much in another country and as such, I am an ardent supporter of this country, its Constitution and its Bill of Rights.
Yeah, I admit, I do sound pretty arrogant on/. most of the time. It's a deliberate arrogance on my part; one that you would very rarely find in my personality in-person. I think that comes from being a lurker here for about 4 years before finally giving in, creating this account and starting to post as a non-AC (I almost never posted here until I created this account).
I guess I'm just cynical and/or frustrated about the demographic of Slashdot (generally left-leaning, with, IIRC, about 50% still in college or high school) but when push comes to shove - at least on economics issues - it seems like a lot of people here are confused or uninformed). That, and I've had so many discussions, debates, and arguments w/ people online that I have the experience now to say that the *vast* majority of people aren't going to listen to a well-reasoned argument (I've made many in the past on other boards, just not usually here on/., for the reason I'm explaining here), so why waste my time making one? Most people have made up their minds about some given issue, and increasingly, so have I.
Better that I come off as a snappy smartass to those whom I know I cannot convince (and make reasoned arguments -- or at least attempt to -- to those whom I think might be open-minded enough to listen) and at least hope that other people reading my post will gain a fresh perspective (or at least entertainment) out of the post in the process...
You're right, I don't pay for my own college, though fortunately, my college costs are relatively very cheap. I really would like to pay him back for those costs someday, even if he's not asking for it, because in many ways, I feel like I've wasted his money. Certainly I haven't used it as well as I would've used my own money, were I paying my own way through college...
I do owe my parents quite a lot for their raising me, and my occasional kidding to put them in a nursing home when they retire aside (it is kidding on my part, b/c for one thing, I'd hate to see them living in one, and besides, it's too damn expensive), I intend to show them as much care and support as I can once they become too old to take care of themselves. They've spend over 2 decades taking care of me; it's only fair to them that I return the favor...
I think my dad knows this as well -- that's why he's willing to invest the money in sending me to college -- so that I can *afford* to take care of him in his old age.:) He's a rational guy; he wouldn't have spent the money (even on his own son, I think) unless he thought he would get something out of it in return someday. It was a good investment on his part...
Framing of the point in terms of money aside, however, we are a strongly-loving family. I fe
Just because you hear bitching from some Canadians about the Canadian system don't take it to mean that it doesn't work well.
Logical replacement time:
"Just because you hear bitching from some Americans about the American system don't take it to mean that it doesn't work well."
Now, I certainly don't think the American system is perfect. Far from it, and I think the reason for it is that healthcare is paid for as part of a third-party payer system. Very few people here actually pay for their own healthcare; it's paid for by their companies.
Because the individual doesn't pay for their own healthcare, they have little incentive to keep costs down.
And if you're in a hurry, you're still free to go to the US and have the operation performed on you (at your expense, of course).
That is a cop-out and you know it. That is intellectually-dishonest.
If you are going to defend Canada's healthcare system, don't defend it by saying "if Canada's system sucks too much for you, you can still go to other countries," because that is outright admission that Canada's system is inadequate.
It's a classic case of ignorance about what socialism is all about, social justice. But, of course, one cannot expect shrub-voters to understand what is social justice...
Read this VERY slowly: I AM NOT A SHRUB VOTER. I HATE PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH WITH EVERY BONE IN MY BODY. I WILL NOT BE VOTING FOR PRESIDENT BUSH ON NOV. 2, 2004. (you would have to put a gun to my head before I would vote for Bush -- but that would be a vote under duress, and not of my free will)
I am a libertarian, not a fascist theocratist like Bush. Bush is the most anti-libertarian President we have had in decades. For all his socially anti-libertarian faults, at least Reagan shrank the size of govn't, even while he ran up the deficit and inflated the size of the military. Bush has expanded govn't more than any President since LBJ.
Now, you claim "social justice." What is "social justice?" Is it not taking money from one man and giving it to another for what seems like a good purpose, i.e. keeping both men fed?
Well, what gives *you* the right to steal from one person and give to another? How is theft = justice?
Please enlighten me, because I would like to see your defense of something as morally-indefensible as theft.
"Social justice" -- that's just the modern-day term for "wealth redistribution" or "stealing from the rich and giving to the poor."
It's also known as "socialism" -- an economic system which has eventually led to the downfall of every nation in which it's been tried; the totalitarian downfall of Nazi ("National Socialist") Germany, for instance, or the USSR ("United Soviet Socialist Republics") for another, or North Korea for a third. European nations are mixed economies w/ varying levels of socialism, but the most-socialist countries, not surprisingly, also have rather poor economic growth figures. U.S. GDP will grow by over 3% this year, as it has years. No European country has a GDP growth rate of more than 1.6%; some have *negative* GDP growth.
Have you ever worn one of those bracelets? They're cheap, but they *are* fairly-strong pieces (they're kind of like a hard-to-tear vinyl, IIRC). People just don't tend to lose them, even when they're drunk.
The often-maligned "SCOTUS box" is the box for the "Supreme Court of the United States." I call it a box, b/c:
1) the Supreme Court is a room in a building, and while I don't know the exact architecture of the building, I'm willing to bet that either the court, or the court building containing the court, is shaped much like a rectangular prism -- a box
2) it's consistent w/ the rest of the quote, which left out the SCOTUS originally
If you are modding me down because you dont agree with me politically, shame on you. That is censorship and no matter which side of the political fence you sit on, the First Amendment should be sacrosanct.
Earth to BWJones: Slashdot is a privately-run geek portal.
The First Amendment (of which I am a diehard defender) does not apply to private entities. It only applies to the government.
Slashdot can censor whoever they want, whenever they want, for whatever reason they want, because it is *their* server time and space that they are *permitting* you to use. You do not have a *right* to post to Slashdot, or to have your posts modded-up.
Now go home and cry to your momma about how the world isn't "fair." The world never was "fair," and never will be, nor *should* it be.
In the US, not everybody has access to health care. This access is conditionned by how much dough each one has.
So the choice is either low-quality healthcare for everybody, as in Canada, or high-quality healthcare for those who can afford it -- as approx. 240 million of the 280 million do in America? (remember, we have some 40m without healthcare, but that is 1/7 of the population -- how about the other 6/7???)
Gosh, let's take the low-quality healthcare. What a smart answer that would be; I'd love to have to wait for the government to ration out my knee surgery to me years after the condition has gotten so bad it can't be fixed.
It's a classic case of socialism vs. capitalism:
* under socialism, everybody suffers and is miserable, but at least everybody is equally-miserable and suffers equally * under capitalism, only a small portion of the population suffers, but they suffer worse than those in the socialist system. But the majority under the capitalist system are better off than both groups
Which is better than very high private insurance premiums to a company that will dump you when you're no longer profitable, and then you lose your house to the hostpital. At least, the very high taxes benefit everyone instead a few insurance company directors (they don't pay dividents to shareholders anymore)...
In one post, you say your healthcare is "FREE!!!!", as in "FREE IPODS!" or "FREE VIAGRA!!" or "FREE BEER!" or "FREE NAKED TEENS HUNGRY FOR YOUR COCK!!!"
But in this post, you admit it is not, in fact, "FREE!!!"
Which is it? Should we continue believing you if you are going to continue the typical disingenuity found in so many socialists like yourself?
Here's a hint: "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Never was, never will be, because the laws of economics are as inviolable as the laws of physics. After all, economics derives its justification for the premise of scarcity on the strongly-evidenced physics Law of Conservation, that "no matter may be created or destroyed - it can only be converted to and from energy."
It is simple. Your very high taxes do not benefit *everyone*. People who would make enough money to otherwise pay for their own healthcare are not benefitted by paying for somebody else's healthcare.
Go take a basic Economics course. Please, I'm serious, take Introductory Macroeconomics and Introductory Microeconomics at a local community college or something. You and every other socialist in the world needs to, because almost none of you socialists have done so. And then you wonder why you get 0wned in economics arguments...
Americans would typically respond with something like "well your news is biased too", because they have been well indoctrinated for years to have nothing but contempt for the notion that objective truth even exists.
Does it?
If you, personally, were not on-site at the occurence of X event, then how do you know for certain that X event really occurred?
How do you know that (Bush|Kerry) said "foo" unless you personally heard them say "foo" live and in-person?
Sure the audio may be in the video, but can't video and audio be doctored? Who's to say that an excellent mockup of (Bush|Kerry) wasn't created and their voice re-created (or even recorded and just taken out-of-context) and used in a falsified video?
So just what *is* "the truth"? Quite simply, there is no such thing unless you are a primary source. Unless you were there, you cannot say with 100% certainty that what you know is correct, because you did not make your own observation. This is what we are taught in high school science class -- if you don't make your own measurements, then how do you know the measurements were made correctly?
You don't, because you didn't take the measurements, and you weren't there to validate those measurements at the time of the experiment. Sorry, you can't be a primary source because you weren't on-site making your own observations; all you can do is merely *trust* other people that their observations would fully, 100% match your own (and this is *never* the case, given a fine enough level of precision).
Same thing with media reporting. You have to take things with a mountain of salt, compare what each source presents to what you *know* (or have better reason-than-not to believe is true), and decide accordingly which sources seem most-reliable to you.
I mean, you *do* do this with Slashdot, right? You don't just believe on the face of things that whoever posted the article is going to get their article summary *correct*, do you?:-) I surely hope not! Because they are factually-wrong a rather disturbing amount of the time...
It's not a perfect system -- it'd be nice if all news sources were 100% unbiased and presented news perfectly -- but we don't live in a perfect world. Because of that, we (or at least I) deal with it in as scientific a manner as possible.
(Except the religious zealots, of which we have many - like President Bush. They guide themselves on "faith," not reason. But a great many of us do still think with our brains, believe it or not.)
Frequently the example of airline travel restrictions comes up in the same general vicinity, as if Ben Franklin could ever have concieved of a 300-passenger jet-liner being used as a weapon by death-seeking psychotics.
[snip]
If you don't like the scene at airports, don't fly, you're welcome to take the very anonymous horse-drawn carriage to get where you want to be - thats how ol' Ben would've had to do it!
Don't you think Franklin could've conceived of terroristic ways to use horse-drawn carriages? Couldn't they be used in those days for bio-warfare (Americans did this to Indians)? Somebody could ride into town with anthrax-laced blankets and potentially kill a whole town of thousands.
You're limiting your view of liberties to those liberties available at the time of the Founding Fathers. Shouldn't the rate of liberty progress keep pace with the rate of technological progress? If not, why not?
Now, a better argument could be made that airplanes are private property which carry multiple people (whereas buggies - like automobiles - are owned and used only by the family which owns it). Airlines are free to choose whether they allow people on or not, based on whatever criteria they desire -- including terrorist profiles.
But it's not the airlines doing the terrorist screening -- the government is. Therein lies the problem; we aren't letting the free market work as it would on its own. We've allowed the very-visible hand of government intervention to get involved, to the detriment of all of our personal liberties.
Is there any reason long-term patients can't also use barcode bracelets instead? If it gets damaged/destroyed, oh no -- we print another for $0.10. Big deal.
There's no freedom-supporting justification for anybody using implantable RFIDs, and there is little practical justification for them either.
Because they are not viable candidates at this point in time. They have no conceivable chance of winning.
What, and Nader does?
Badnarik is polling as high as 3-5% in 1 or 2 states (don't know nationally). He may be a "fringe" candidate, but that's certainly a respectable figure given that Nader is polling about 1% nationally. I would venture a guesstimate that Badnarik is polling 0.5-1.0% nationally, because historically, that's about where the Libertarian Party's candidates have come out in popular elections...
Or should we run our most important election like a California recall and give the porn kingpins and "Bob the mailman" types a national forum?
The Presidential election is *so* important that that is *precisely* why we *should* allow "Bob the mailman" to debate Bush and Kerry.
Perhaps the public will like "Bob the mailman" better than Bush or Kerry? And what would be so wrong about that? What would be so wrong with the public electing the person they prefer to have in office more than either the Repubs' or Dems' candidates?
What we need is a better form of democracy that's designed to function more effectively in modern times, and takes into account that the threat to the people is no longer from some distant king, but Monsanto, and TimeWarnerFoxMicrosoftAol (you get my drift i'm sure).
Mmmm. Like a boycott?
Powerful business interests didn't stop black people in the southern U.S. from boycotting them and causing them to lose assloads of money. Take Woolworth's -- where are they now?
Now, I would agree w/ you in that boycotts don't seem very organized these days, or at least, people don't seem willing very often to commit themselves to a boycott of some product. We see it here on/. --/.'ers constantly decry the evils of the MPAA, RIAA, and other 4-letter organizations. But when the latest "Star Wars" or "LotR" DVD comes out, who's first in line to buy them? The same/.'ers.
I'd hardly fault capitalism for that problem, or even democracy. That's the fault of those individuals who haven't the backbone and principle to stand by their beliefs.
I personally have nothing particularly against Walmart, for example, yet I almost never shop there. Why? Because their prices aren't *that* much better, they aren't close to me (yet), and the products they sell are of shit quality -- and I'm a *huge* believer in the saying "you get what you pay for." Seeing as Walmart sells cheap crap cheaply, I don't have much reason to go there. Plus I'm not a big fan of their anti-union, pro-illegal-labor business practices either.
It's a personal boycott, to be sure, and it does practically no harm to Walmart. But at least I stand by that conviction except when I'm desperate; it's *very* rare that I find somebody who is willing to stand by the same such convictions, even if they claim to hold an "anti-corporate" POV.
If others would join me in boycotting Walmart, whether for practical or principled reasons (I tend to use both), this would be a bigger issue for them. Alas, the spirit of hard-assed American principle has been eroded by decades of "government-save-me!" socialist preference...
Companies like Monsanto *could* be stopped -- if only there were people who:
1) care enough and work hard enough to compete in the same market as hard, or harder, than Monsanto, yet in ways they see as more ethical
2) care enough and be bull-headed enough about Monsanto's practices that they no longer deal with Monsanto
Instead of whining about the supposed evils of capitalism, well-sighted liberals -- take media mogul Ted Turner (founder of CNN) -- would be *far* more effective in using the power of the free-market's Invisible Hand to bitch-slap Monsanto and other unlikeable companies. Michael Moore is doing exactly this (selling "documentaries" that he knows people will want to watch).
There's no reason it can't be done -- except that it violates the first principle of modern liberalism: whine first and get the government involved. Take a page from classical liberalism instead: act first, forget the government, and harness your anger and hatred for [insert company] to beat them at their own game.:-)
It's a win-win deal: You make money and make the world a better place (at least from your perspective) at the same time!
Finally, to deflect an argument against boycotts I've seen before about how it's harder to boycott multinational corps because they have their feet in multiple nations: well, you have Internet access right? You can send text, graphics, videos, etc. around the world for pennies, right? (BitTorrent, anyone?) Just as Microsoft and IBM can offshore their code to India, you too can offshore (or, more-accurately in the anti-corporate case, *expand*) some of your protests against MegaFooCorp using the same technology.
Link up w/ Chinese and German protestors! Protest some corporation's acts on the same day! People did exactly that, worldwide, when the Bush
A poker face means you aren't saying anything. You aren't saying one way or another whether you have a good hand or a bad hand.
Not revealing information is not deception. If it were, then by your definition, the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution would allow citizens to deceive everybody except "on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia."
Not speaking and not doing something *you* want is NOT deception. Get it right.
Hell yes I would switch! I would drop Gentoo like a bad habit and dual-boot OSX and XP immediately, without question. I would use OSX for everything except gaming...
Linux is nice and all, but I really wish there were *serious* commercial desktop app support for Linux. A good office suite (OOo is close, but it's not perfect in converting MS Office docs), better multimedia support, etc...
Serious question, I'm not a big fan of Wired either (for the same reason you mentioned - little/no tech knowledge required to read it), but some of their articles - particularly those of Declan McCullough - are OK...
That's pretty much the most insightful thing I've read here in a long time, and pretty much sums up what's wrong with democratic capitalism as we have it at the moment.
How is capitalism at fault here? How is democracy at fault here?
And why would an undemocratic, non-capitalist system be any better? Oh wait, undemocratic, non-capitalist -- that's what North Korea is!! Whoops.
The Internet, by all accounts, has flourished precisely *because* there has been little/no regulation.
The UN will fuck up and overregulate the Internet the same way they fuck up everything else and the Euro-area countries which largely make up the influential part of the U.N. overregulate their societies.
Fuck the U.N. I want the Internet to remain free as in "freedom," not free as in "free to do what the U.N. allows you to do."
Slashdot Mirror
3 things:
:-)
:-) And it is. Everybody (except healthcare company CEOs) in the U.S., whether liberal, conservative, libertarian, whatever -- want to see huge changes in the way healthcare is handled here. I'm no different.
I took a quick look at the link you provided and I'm unsure of what it advocates. Maybe the United States is just too big of a society to have universal, taxpayer-supported healthcare (being 10x the size of Canada and other smaller nations that have implemented it).
Oh, I think it's possible to implement here, although, I have great misgivings about where the system would go once the Baby Boomers start using it on a regular basis as they age...
Friedman in that essay says that the main problem with American healthcare is that the individual needing coverage isn't paying for it himself, directly. As you probably know, most people get their healthcare through their employer. The problem here is this: if your employer is paying for your healthcare costs, what reason do you have to keep healthcare costs down? After all, it's not *your* money...
So, Friedman advocates essentially a system with 3 tiers of coverage, like this:
1) Catastrophic insurance -- This would cover things such as heart transplants, leukemia, etc. The really expensive cases. This would be provided by the government (so this would require tax funding of course), the reason being that healthcare companies are loathe to provide it, even if it should be considered worthwhile.
2) Medium-level coverage -- This would cover more-routine, but still unusual things, e.g. broken arms, non-catastrophic surgery, etc.. It would be provided by healthcare companies. Medical Savings Accounts (MSA) would be set up by one's employer to be paid into on a regular basis (i.e. per-paycheck) which would be applied towards healthcare coverage from the company whenever necessary. So, if you don't have health problems, money piles up in the account so that when you *do* have a major problem, it's there for you.
3) Routine coverage -- This covers things like routine checkups with the doctor. It would be paid-for by individuals like any other service (legal, financial, IT, etc.) is paid-for -- either billed to one's home or on-site via cash/credit/debit/check/etc..
Such a system would prevent most of the "tragedy of the commons" effect that occurs under a socialized system (in the "routine coverage" section, where people under a socialized system are inclined to see a doctor for every little problem they have, because it doesn't immediately cost them anything), yet it would provide the same quality of benefits to people receiving coverage (i.e. in the "medium-level" and "catastrophic" sections).
It's still an imperfect system in my book, in part b/c it requires us to define what "catastrophic" means, i.e. it becomes a problem of "who-covers-what." But it is still the best system I have learned of. Much better than either Bush or Kerry's plans (although, each of them have borrowed an idea from this plan -- Bush is borrowing the MSA idea; Kerry, the govn't-run catastrophic coverage idea).
Hope that helps.
B) Free medical care for everyone smells like communism.
Is the healthcare really "free?" Think about this for a moment...
Is there such thing as a free lunch? No, somewhere, it costs somebody to pay for your hip replacement -- it costs another taxpayer some of their money, and it costs a doctor his/her time.
So it is most-certainly not "free," even by the most-liberal economic standards.
You have 40 million people without healthcare, and that's not a problem?
Well, you did also quote me as saying that America's healthcare system is "far from perfect," didn't you?
My comparison of socialism and capitalism was a general one that applies really only partially to the case of healthcare, I think. But it's still somewhat applicable, because in some respects,
If you believe in taxation for any reason at all then surely that's a form of 'socialism' by your arguements.
:-)
By technical economic definition, taxation is socialism, yes. Universal healthcare, because it would raise taxes, is logically an increase in the amount of socialism in a nation.
I'm not opposed to all government intervention; I recognize the need for some taxation, despite the fact that I do also see it as theft. I do believe in a govn't-run army and police force, along with fire depts., roadways, and a voucher-based (but still tax-funded) educational system. So yes, taxes are clearly a necessary evil, even by my strongly anti-government book.
To that end, I would like to minimize the theft-like nature of taxation by making it relatively-optional, that is, rather than have an income tax (where you're taxed automatically), I'd rather see a national sales tax on non-life-essential goods. That way, if somebody really hates paying taxes, they can go Unabomber-style and not buy things commercially...
It's still taxation, but at least the individual has the choice of paying taxes; their alternative being that they avoid the creature comforts of life (TV, computers, etc.) unless they somehow manufacture their own -- but if they can do that, then more power to them; they avoid the tax system in so doing, if that's what they want, and who knows -- perhaps it'll spur them to innovate a new technology (e.g. if somebody doesn't want to buy a computer b/c it's too heavily-taxed, then maybe he finds a more-efficient way to produce his own? Bam, there's a new business he could run too!).
There are worse things to fund through taxation than healthcare (such as corporate welfare, or Social Security, or yet-another defense contract), I will say, but healthcare is a special problem in which it's too damn expensive no matter how it's set up to let the government be able to skim some extra money off the top for administrative fees (at minimum) and thereby add to the total cost of healthcare...
I do think it's a case of cultural differences though, as you say. One man's socialism is another man's "social justice"... Hence, the case for federalism domestically, and sovereignty for all nations at the international level, so that we may each live in a society most-closely aligned with our ideals.
Oh, a jesuit. I love fried jesuits for breakfast.
I am not a Jesuit, because I am agnostic.
But I'm glad to see you like making blind assumptions.
I do not give a flying fuck about not being "educated" in economics
Then STFU about economics until you know what the fuck you're talking about. Stop talking out of your ass, because you are an ignorant dumbass by your own admission.
Look, I don't talk about the things I know nothing about. I don't talk about fashion. I don't talk about celebrity news. I don't discuss the philosophies of Plato, Kant, and so on. I don't talk about the effects of art on society. I don't really know how an automatic transmission works, at the technical level.
I don't talk about such things, because I am ignorant of them. I would like to learn about them. But until I do, I don't make the mistake you have of thinking my answers are right when I haven't the slightest fucking idea of what I'm talking about.
I suspect that you conversely do not give a flying fuck about being utterly ignorant of social affairs, and dismiss it as the work of poor people whose dullness is their inability to buy themselves the latest fashionable (insert whatever floats your boat here).
Another vapid assumption.
One of my lady-friends is has a Master's in social work. She is *far* from dull.
I, personally, am not much for social work. I get along well enough with all kinds of people, and they don't bother me, but for various reasons, the work doesn't interest me.
But I have nothing against those who enjoy it. If you get your rocks off helping the poor find jobs, so much the better for the economy (and the spirits of those poor seeking work) I say! What I have a problem with is when those social workers try to take my money and use it for their ends. Would they (or you) like it if I took their money and used it to educate economic retards like yourself as to the ways of economics?
I doubt it.
Hey, you're a yankee. We, in the rest of the world, know that yankees are mostly ignorant self-centered dopes,
So we're self-centered. So what? What's wrong with the betterment of and attention to the self?
totally unable to understand that there can be very valid alternatives to your squalid asocial existence, and you prove my point magnificently by parrotting half-baked arguments and half-truths truffled with tired right-wing clichés.
As if your parroted state control *isn't* a tired cliche and half-truth of its own?
My supposed "half-baked arguments" are refuted by... what claims? Seeing as you admit willful ignorance to economics, how do you know you're right?
And how the points of socialism valid -- didn't you ever hear about the fall of the Berlin Wall? Socialism failed. People of socialist East Germany tore down the wall because their lives sucked so badly compared to those of people living in relatively-capitalist West Germany. That is an established fact.
I'm sure one of your trained wolves delivered the paper carrying that news to you about 14 years ago...
Don't remain an ignoramous. Compare the economic strengths and weaknesses of some of the more-socialist EU nations (Sweden, Finland, Denmark, France) to those of the U.S., Hong Kong, or Peru. I know it seems a funny trend, but somehow, the countries which tend to have freer markets also have higher rates of growth; faster growth means faster-dropping prices on technology (like computer parts, as we're both aware), meaning greater integration of wealth for more people more quickly.
100 years ago, not even John D. Rockefeller had air-conditioning. Now, even the poorest people in the U.S. have it, both in their homes and in their cars. That's an improvement in the wealth of nations (ours, and everybody else's), and it wouldn't have come about as qu
This is /. I've seen people argue in favor of getting rid of 911 because they don't think they should have to pay for something they rarely use when the injured person/person being raped/person reporting a lost child could just as easily look up the seven digit number for the local authorities. I mean gosh that E-911 charge on my last bill was like $1.49.
Nobody ever said people were logical. Politics and human nature aside I want to know how powerful of a signal this thing was putting off -- what kind of receive gain do you suppose those satellites have?
Logic != Reason
Logic defines absolute relationships which cannot be defined in any other manner, e.g. A * 1 = A. Reason interprets facts and determines from those facts what is the best course of action.
Example: It's *logical* to conclude from the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that *no* arms -- slingshots, knives, firearms, grenades, nukes, etc. -- should be permitted for the ownership by "the people," i.e., private individuals.
But is it *reasonable*? That's a subjective question (as a lawyer professor I had once said, the word "reasonable" is full-time work for 2 lawyers), but I would argue that banning nukes from private ownership is quite reasonable. Automatic firearms, or anything other instruments of force that police departments may use, however, I am not convinced should be banned. (and there's my brand of reason. Some would say I should take it a logical step farther and judge what people may own by what the military owns. I define that as logical, but unreasonable, given the special property of uncontrollability of WMDs once they are detonated (unlike firearms or smaller explosives). You undoubtedly have a different brand of "reason," however...)
People are often (though not always) logical, at least while sober (mentally and physically). But people *are* often unreasonable, IMO.
Entertaining, indeed. Feh. Just another right-wing shill (Fraser Institute) job, and thus totally devoid of credibility. Next, please!
I figured you'd say that. Any source which disagrees with you is a "right wing shill?" and "totally devoid of credibility?"
The same could be said about whatever your Canuck left wing shills are.
Anyway, it's good to see you're open-minded about your government's failures. Given that much, I shouldn't waste my time arguing with you, but my argumentativeness is one of my weaknesses.
So you can try this collection as well -- some of them are from the Fraser Inst., but many are not.
I wrote: That is a cop-out and you know it. That is intellectually-dishonest.
You wrote: Why? Because I do not drop on my knees and say Uncle ???
It is intellectually-dishonest because you are on one hand saying that Canada's healthcare system is better than that in the U.S., and on the other saying that if Canada's system fails, they can go to the U.S.. Why would somebody go to the U.S. if the Canadian system is better?
What is dishonest about it is that you promote the Canadian system when it works, and pawn off the results of its failures on another country (the U.S.) when it doesn't.
Neither the U.S. or Canada has a perfect, or even particularly-good healthcare system. My argument is that America's, for all its faults, is still better than Canada's. But you're the one defending Canada's healthcare system as the Holy Grail of healthcare...
Taxation is not theft. It's wealth redistribution to insure that, as I said before, no one is left behind.
Taxes aren't theft? That's the classic socialist response. It's also logically-wrong. Let me ask you:
Do you have a *choice* as to whether or not to pay your taxes?
Do we in America have a choice as to whether to fund:
* the overly-bloated military?
* the Social(ist) Security system?
* Medicare?
* the transportation system?
The answer to these questions is a resounding NO! We do not have that choice. I cannot just decide one day "oh, I guess I'll stop using the shelter of the U.S. military, stop using the public roadways, etc.. So I won't pay my income taxes." I don't have that option, because the IRS will hunt my ass down and *force* me to pay.
So if I don't have a *choice* as to whether I am paying for those things, then why is the money leaving my pocket? I don't want to pay as much for the U.S. military as I do. But I don't have that option. Why?
Because my money is taken from me, against my will.
Now ask yourself: what do thieves do? By definition, they steal from you; they take money from you against your will.
So how is the government any different from a mugger in Central Park? There is no difference: they both take your money against your will.
Hence, taxation = theft, by definition. "Wealth redistribution" is just a socialist euphemism to try and put a friendly face on legalized theft.
You are taking from Peter to pay Paul. It's that simple. Taxes don't come from thin air, they come from the citizens.
Again, as I said elsewhere, go read a fucking Economics textbook or two.
Rich people have plenty of spare money that shall have no other purpose than easing the plight of less fortunate people, and no, this can't be handled by charities, because charities are extremely inept at social justice, as they only cover a tiny amount of the needs, and they avoid like the plague causes that are not popular.
Their money "shall" have no other purpose than to ease the (supposed) plight of the poor? Since when? Says who? Do the rich think it's a good idea to pay for the plight of the poor? Why not? And what justifies taking some of their money and giving it to another if the recipient did not *earn* that money?
If charities are so ine
Really? In high school science class I was taught what the speed of light was, but I never went out and measured it myself.
That's right. And because you didn't measure it yourself you have no way of being 100% certain that it really is 186,000 mi/sec..
Now, because so many other scientists have measured it and come up with the same figure, it's become reasonable to consider it an established fact (although technically, it still just a theory). With so many agreeing conclusions, it is entirely *reasonable* -- but not fully *logical* -- to use it as a basis for calculations requiring that number.
But remember, the speed of light is, like all other things in science, still just a *theory*. We may find out at some later date that the speed was slightly-different from what we thought -- perhaps due to nothing more than simple rounding error beyond the decimal point, for example. But any change in the number at all would still be a change in the theory, as it would change the result of calculations which use it.
It was from a credible source who has no motivation for lying about the speed of light because he doesn't have a personal interest in what number it comes out to be, his job is just to report what it actually is.
Be more accurate. Your teacher's job was to report what the established theory *says* the number is. He/she very-likely couldn't get away with lying about it b/c it's such basic knowledge that almost anybody could call him/her on it if they were found to be telling you something that conflicted w/ the established theory we have all agreed upon.
But this is not the same as the system of news reporting. Take the events in the Abu Gharaib prisons. Were you there? I doubt it. Most likely, you, like me, only know what *somebody else* has reported to you. You and I are, at best, secondary sources. So are the reporters, however, for they were not at the site of the abuses either -- only the military personnel (armed w/ some cameras) were.
So how do we know exactly how bad the abuses were? We have photos, which, because so many people have seen them over the past 4 months and not raised objection as to their authenticity -- and in particular because those who are responsible for the contents of the photos admit that they are true -- we can reasonably conclude are not doctored, even though it is quite possible to do so. So we can look at those pictures and say "wow, look how bad it is that this guy is standing on a box w/ a black hood over his head and electrodes attached to his nuts!" And that is a very repulsive event, of course.
Were the events not as bad, overall, than the photos show? Possibly. Conversely, were the events *worse* than what the photos indicate? Possibly.
We won't know either way, because we weren't there. All we have are (rather gut-wrenching) examples of what occurred there. But whether the situation was worse or better than it appears, we cannot objectively say, because again, we were not there.
There's a difference between the following:
* referencing a secondary source
* referencing a primary source
* being a primary source (i.e., you were there)
You cannot be a primary source unless you were on-site. You cannot reference a primary source unless your source was there on-site. You cannot reference a secondary source unless that source was drawing interpretations from other primary or secondary sources.
Understand?
True, but censorship is still censorship and those who would engage in it should not be trusted. I still say shame on them.
/. mods censorship isn't bad enough (usually) to justify such a switch, I'm here...
/. most of the time. It's a deliberate arrogance on my part; one that you would very rarely find in my personality in-person. I think that comes from being a lurker here for about 4 years before finally giving in, creating this account and starting to post as a non-AC (I almost never posted here until I created this account).
/., for the reason I'm explaining here), so why waste my time making one? Most people have made up their minds about some given issue, and increasingly, so have I.
:) He's a rational guy; he wouldn't have spent the money (even on his own son, I think) unless he thought he would get something out of it in return someday. It was a good investment on his part...
That much I will *definitely* agree with. I don't like it when Slashdot mods censor something, but my alternative is to go to some other site or set up my own. Seeing as the
Listen to you......an undergraduate college student who's parents are likely paying for your tuition. You who judging from many of your last posts, do not believe that rules or law apply to you.
Your not all bad judging from some of your past posts which have been supportive or informative. Perhaps a bit arrogant and full of yourself, but do be careful about who you lecture to about the world not being fair. I understand and know this intimately, and have seen things in parts of the world that most Americans would not believe (and/or find deeply disturbing) and yet have come back and still been wildly successful by most definitions. I likely could not have accomplished as much in another country and as such, I am an ardent supporter of this country, its Constitution and its Bill of Rights.
Yeah, I admit, I do sound pretty arrogant on
I guess I'm just cynical and/or frustrated about the demographic of Slashdot (generally left-leaning, with, IIRC, about 50% still in college or high school) but when push comes to shove - at least on economics issues - it seems like a lot of people here are confused or uninformed). That, and I've had so many discussions, debates, and arguments w/ people online that I have the experience now to say that the *vast* majority of people aren't going to listen to a well-reasoned argument (I've made many in the past on other boards, just not usually here on
Better that I come off as a snappy smartass to those whom I know I cannot convince (and make reasoned arguments -- or at least attempt to -- to those whom I think might be open-minded enough to listen) and at least hope that other people reading my post will gain a fresh perspective (or at least entertainment) out of the post in the process...
You're right, I don't pay for my own college, though fortunately, my college costs are relatively very cheap. I really would like to pay him back for those costs someday, even if he's not asking for it, because in many ways, I feel like I've wasted his money. Certainly I haven't used it as well as I would've used my own money, were I paying my own way through college...
I do owe my parents quite a lot for their raising me, and my occasional kidding to put them in a nursing home when they retire aside (it is kidding on my part, b/c for one thing, I'd hate to see them living in one, and besides, it's too damn expensive), I intend to show them as much care and support as I can once they become too old to take care of themselves. They've spend over 2 decades taking care of me; it's only fair to them that I return the favor...
I think my dad knows this as well -- that's why he's willing to invest the money in sending me to college -- so that I can *afford* to take care of him in his old age.
Framing of the point in terms of money aside, however, we are a strongly-loving family. I fe
Just because you hear bitching from some Canadians about the Canadian system don't take it to mean that it doesn't work well.
Logical replacement time:
"Just because you hear bitching from some Americans about the American system don't take it to mean that it doesn't work well."
Now, I certainly don't think the American system is perfect. Far from it, and I think the reason for it is that healthcare is paid for as part of a third-party payer system. Very few people here actually pay for their own healthcare; it's paid for by their companies.
Because the individual doesn't pay for their own healthcare, they have little incentive to keep costs down.
Here's a much better article to explain this than I can.
Low-quality health care? Where do you get that notion. Please entertain us. Up here, everybody gets the same quality health-care.
Yes, the same low-quality healthcare.
And if you're in a hurry, you're still free to go to the US and have the operation performed on you (at your expense, of course).
That is a cop-out and you know it. That is intellectually-dishonest.
If you are going to defend Canada's healthcare system, don't defend it by saying "if Canada's system sucks too much for you, you can still go to other countries," because that is outright admission that Canada's system is inadequate.
It's a classic case of ignorance about what socialism is all about, social justice. But, of course, one cannot expect shrub-voters to understand what is social justice...
Read this VERY slowly: I AM NOT A SHRUB VOTER. I HATE PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH WITH EVERY BONE IN MY BODY. I WILL NOT BE VOTING FOR PRESIDENT BUSH ON NOV. 2, 2004. (you would have to put a gun to my head before I would vote for Bush -- but that would be a vote under duress, and not of my free will)
I am a libertarian, not a fascist theocratist like Bush. Bush is the most anti-libertarian President we have had in decades. For all his socially anti-libertarian faults, at least Reagan shrank the size of govn't, even while he ran up the deficit and inflated the size of the military. Bush has expanded govn't more than any President since LBJ.
Now, you claim "social justice." What is "social justice?" Is it not taking money from one man and giving it to another for what seems like a good purpose, i.e. keeping both men fed?
Well, what gives *you* the right to steal from one person and give to another? How is theft = justice?
Please enlighten me, because I would like to see your defense of something as morally-indefensible as theft.
"Social justice" -- that's just the modern-day term for "wealth redistribution" or "stealing from the rich and giving to the poor."
It's also known as "socialism" -- an economic system which has eventually led to the downfall of every nation in which it's been tried; the totalitarian downfall of Nazi ("National Socialist") Germany, for instance, or the USSR ("United Soviet Socialist Republics") for another, or North Korea for a third. European nations are mixed economies w/ varying levels of socialism, but the most-socialist countries, not surprisingly, also have rather poor economic growth figures. U.S. GDP will grow by over 3% this year, as it has years. No European country has a GDP growth rate of more than 1.6%; some have *negative* GDP growth.
Give it up.
Have you ever worn one of those bracelets? They're cheap, but they *are* fairly-strong pieces (they're kind of like a hard-to-tear vinyl, IIRC). People just don't tend to lose them, even when they're drunk.
The often-maligned "SCOTUS box" is the box for the "Supreme Court of the United States." I call it a box, b/c:
1) the Supreme Court is a room in a building, and while I don't know the exact architecture of the building, I'm willing to bet that either the court, or the court building containing the court, is shaped much like a rectangular prism -- a box
2) it's consistent w/ the rest of the quote, which left out the SCOTUS originally
If you are modding me down because you dont agree with me politically, shame on you. That is censorship and no matter which side of the political fence you sit on, the First Amendment should be sacrosanct.
Earth to BWJones: Slashdot is a privately-run geek portal.
The First Amendment (of which I am a diehard defender) does not apply to private entities. It only applies to the government.
Slashdot can censor whoever they want, whenever they want, for whatever reason they want, because it is *their* server time and space that they are *permitting* you to use. You do not have a *right* to post to Slashdot, or to have your posts modded-up.
Now go home and cry to your momma about how the world isn't "fair." The world never was "fair," and never will be, nor *should* it be.
In the US, not everybody has access to health care. This access is conditionned by how much dough each one has.
So the choice is either low-quality healthcare for everybody, as in Canada, or high-quality healthcare for those who can afford it -- as approx. 240 million of the 280 million do in America? (remember, we have some 40m without healthcare, but that is 1/7 of the population -- how about the other 6/7???)
Gosh, let's take the low-quality healthcare. What a smart answer that would be; I'd love to have to wait for the government to ration out my knee surgery to me years after the condition has gotten so bad it can't be fixed.
It's a classic case of socialism vs. capitalism:
* under socialism, everybody suffers and is miserable, but at least everybody is equally-miserable and suffers equally
* under capitalism, only a small portion of the population suffers, but they suffer worse than those in the socialist system. But the majority under the capitalist system are better off than both groups
Which is better than very high private insurance premiums to a company that will dump you when you're no longer profitable, and then you lose your house to the hostpital. At least, the very high taxes benefit everyone instead a few insurance company directors (they don't pay dividents to shareholders anymore)...
In one post, you say your healthcare is "FREE!!!!", as in "FREE IPODS!" or "FREE VIAGRA!!" or "FREE BEER!" or "FREE NAKED TEENS HUNGRY FOR YOUR COCK!!!"
But in this post, you admit it is not, in fact, "FREE!!!"
Which is it? Should we continue believing you if you are going to continue the typical disingenuity found in so many socialists like yourself?
Here's a hint: "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Never was, never will be, because the laws of economics are as inviolable as the laws of physics. After all, economics derives its justification for the premise of scarcity on the strongly-evidenced physics Law of Conservation, that "no matter may be created or destroyed - it can only be converted to and from energy."
It is simple. Your very high taxes do not benefit *everyone*. People who would make enough money to otherwise pay for their own healthcare are not benefitted by paying for somebody else's healthcare.
Go take a basic Economics course. Please, I'm serious, take Introductory Macroeconomics and Introductory Microeconomics at a local community college or something. You and every other socialist in the world needs to, because almost none of you socialists have done so. And then you wonder why you get 0wned in economics arguments...
Americans would typically respond with something like "well your news is biased too", because they have been well indoctrinated for years to have nothing but contempt for the notion that objective truth even exists.
:-) I surely hope not! Because they are factually-wrong a rather disturbing amount of the time...
Does it?
If you, personally, were not on-site at the occurence of X event, then how do you know for certain that X event really occurred?
How do you know that (Bush|Kerry) said "foo" unless you personally heard them say "foo" live and in-person?
Sure the audio may be in the video, but can't video and audio be doctored? Who's to say that an excellent mockup of (Bush|Kerry) wasn't created and their voice re-created (or even recorded and just taken out-of-context) and used in a falsified video?
It happens pretty regularly with printed docs. Look at the Dan Rathergate in which he presented fake memos on-air.
So just what *is* "the truth"? Quite simply, there is no such thing unless you are a primary source. Unless you were there, you cannot say with 100% certainty that what you know is correct, because you did not make your own observation. This is what we are taught in high school science class -- if you don't make your own measurements, then how do you know the measurements were made correctly?
You don't, because you didn't take the measurements, and you weren't there to validate those measurements at the time of the experiment. Sorry, you can't be a primary source because you weren't on-site making your own observations; all you can do is merely *trust* other people that their observations would fully, 100% match your own (and this is *never* the case, given a fine enough level of precision).
Same thing with media reporting. You have to take things with a mountain of salt, compare what each source presents to what you *know* (or have better reason-than-not to believe is true), and decide accordingly which sources seem most-reliable to you.
I mean, you *do* do this with Slashdot, right? You don't just believe on the face of things that whoever posted the article is going to get their article summary *correct*, do you?
It's not a perfect system -- it'd be nice if all news sources were 100% unbiased and presented news perfectly -- but we don't live in a perfect world. Because of that, we (or at least I) deal with it in as scientific a manner as possible.
(Except the religious zealots, of which we have many - like President Bush. They guide themselves on "faith," not reason. But a great many of us do still think with our brains, believe it or not.)
Frequently the example of airline travel restrictions comes up in the same general vicinity, as if Ben Franklin could ever have concieved of a 300-passenger jet-liner being used as a weapon by death-seeking psychotics.
[snip]
If you don't like the scene at airports, don't fly, you're welcome to take the very anonymous horse-drawn carriage to get where you want to be - thats how ol' Ben would've had to do it!
Don't you think Franklin could've conceived of terroristic ways to use horse-drawn carriages? Couldn't they be used in those days for bio-warfare (Americans did this to Indians)? Somebody could ride into town with anthrax-laced blankets and potentially kill a whole town of thousands.
You're limiting your view of liberties to those liberties available at the time of the Founding Fathers. Shouldn't the rate of liberty progress keep pace with the rate of technological progress? If not, why not?
Now, a better argument could be made that airplanes are private property which carry multiple people (whereas buggies - like automobiles - are owned and used only by the family which owns it). Airlines are free to choose whether they allow people on or not, based on whatever criteria they desire -- including terrorist profiles.
But it's not the airlines doing the terrorist screening -- the government is. Therein lies the problem; we aren't letting the free market work as it would on its own. We've allowed the very-visible hand of government intervention to get involved, to the detriment of all of our personal liberties.
Is there any reason long-term patients can't also use barcode bracelets instead? If it gets damaged/destroyed, oh no -- we print another for $0.10. Big deal.
There's no freedom-supporting justification for anybody using implantable RFIDs, and there is little practical justification for them either.
Because they are not viable candidates at this point in time. They have no conceivable chance of winning.
What, and Nader does?
Badnarik is polling as high as 3-5% in 1 or 2 states (don't know nationally). He may be a "fringe" candidate, but that's certainly a respectable figure given that Nader is polling about 1% nationally. I would venture a guesstimate that Badnarik is polling 0.5-1.0% nationally, because historically, that's about where the Libertarian Party's candidates have come out in popular elections...
Or should we run our most important election like a California recall and give the porn kingpins and "Bob the mailman" types a national forum?
The Presidential election is *so* important that that is *precisely* why we *should* allow "Bob the mailman" to debate Bush and Kerry.
Perhaps the public will like "Bob the mailman" better than Bush or Kerry? And what would be so wrong about that? What would be so wrong with the public electing the person they prefer to have in office more than either the Repubs' or Dems' candidates?
RIAA: you have ppl dl'ing our tunez!
Verizon: yeah, so?
RIAA: so we sue you!
*** RIAA slaps Verizon with a lawsuit.
Verizon: fine, I'll DCC you some names. see you in appeals
RIAA: 4ll j00r b4s3 4r3 b3l0ng t0 u5!!
Verizon: mmmm hmmm.
*** Court of Appeals slaps RIAA with a decision-reversal.
RIAA: no fair! SCOTUS, save us!
SCOTUS: fuck off, we have better things to do
Verizon: l0l!
*** RIAA cries
What we need is a better form of democracy that's designed to function more effectively in modern times, and takes into account that the threat to the people is no longer from some distant king, but Monsanto, and TimeWarnerFoxMicrosoftAol (you get my drift i'm sure).
/. -- /.'ers constantly decry the evils of the MPAA, RIAA, and other 4-letter organizations. But when the latest "Star Wars" or "LotR" DVD comes out, who's first in line to buy them? The same /.'ers.
:-)
Mmmm. Like a boycott?
Powerful business interests didn't stop black people in the southern U.S. from boycotting them and causing them to lose assloads of money. Take Woolworth's -- where are they now?
Now, I would agree w/ you in that boycotts don't seem very organized these days, or at least, people don't seem willing very often to commit themselves to a boycott of some product. We see it here on
I'd hardly fault capitalism for that problem, or even democracy. That's the fault of those individuals who haven't the backbone and principle to stand by their beliefs.
I personally have nothing particularly against Walmart, for example, yet I almost never shop there. Why? Because their prices aren't *that* much better, they aren't close to me (yet), and the products they sell are of shit quality -- and I'm a *huge* believer in the saying "you get what you pay for." Seeing as Walmart sells cheap crap cheaply, I don't have much reason to go there. Plus I'm not a big fan of their anti-union, pro-illegal-labor business practices either.
It's a personal boycott, to be sure, and it does practically no harm to Walmart. But at least I stand by that conviction except when I'm desperate; it's *very* rare that I find somebody who is willing to stand by the same such convictions, even if they claim to hold an "anti-corporate" POV.
If others would join me in boycotting Walmart, whether for practical or principled reasons (I tend to use both), this would be a bigger issue for them. Alas, the spirit of hard-assed American principle has been eroded by decades of "government-save-me!" socialist preference...
Companies like Monsanto *could* be stopped -- if only there were people who:
1) care enough and work hard enough to compete in the same market as hard, or harder, than Monsanto, yet in ways they see as more ethical
2) care enough and be bull-headed enough about Monsanto's practices that they no longer deal with Monsanto
Instead of whining about the supposed evils of capitalism, well-sighted liberals -- take media mogul Ted Turner (founder of CNN) -- would be *far* more effective in using the power of the free-market's Invisible Hand to bitch-slap Monsanto and other unlikeable companies. Michael Moore is doing exactly this (selling "documentaries" that he knows people will want to watch).
There's no reason it can't be done -- except that it violates the first principle of modern liberalism: whine first and get the government involved. Take a page from classical liberalism instead: act first, forget the government, and harness your anger and hatred for [insert company] to beat them at their own game.
It's a win-win deal: You make money and make the world a better place (at least from your perspective) at the same time!
Finally, to deflect an argument against boycotts I've seen before about how it's harder to boycott multinational corps because they have their feet in multiple nations: well, you have Internet access right? You can send text, graphics, videos, etc. around the world for pennies, right? (BitTorrent, anyone?) Just as Microsoft and IBM can offshore their code to India, you too can offshore (or, more-accurately in the anti-corporate case, *expand*) some of your protests against MegaFooCorp using the same technology.
Link up w/ Chinese and German protestors! Protest some corporation's acts on the same day! People did exactly that, worldwide, when the Bush
Have you ever *played* Poker before?
A poker face means you aren't saying anything. You aren't saying one way or another whether you have a good hand or a bad hand.
Not revealing information is not deception. If it were, then by your definition, the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution would allow citizens to deceive everybody except "on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia."
Not speaking and not doing something *you* want is NOT deception. Get it right.
Hell yes I would switch! I would drop Gentoo like a bad habit and dual-boot OSX and XP immediately, without question. I would use OSX for everything except gaming...
Linux is nice and all, but I really wish there were *serious* commercial desktop app support for Linux. A good office suite (OOo is close, but it's not perfect in converting MS Office docs), better multimedia support, etc...
What's a better magazine (online or dead-tree)?
Serious question, I'm not a big fan of Wired either (for the same reason you mentioned - little/no tech knowledge required to read it), but some of their articles - particularly those of Declan McCullough - are OK...
That's pretty much the most insightful thing I've read here in a long time, and pretty much sums up what's wrong with democratic capitalism as we have it at the moment.
How is capitalism at fault here? How is democracy at fault here?
And why would an undemocratic, non-capitalist system be any better? Oh wait, undemocratic, non-capitalist -- that's what North Korea is!! Whoops.
NO REGULATION OF THE INTERNET! Period.
The Internet, by all accounts, has flourished precisely *because* there has been little/no regulation.
The UN will fuck up and overregulate the Internet the same way they fuck up everything else and the Euro-area countries which largely make up the influential part of the U.N. overregulate their societies.
Fuck the U.N. I want the Internet to remain free as in "freedom," not free as in "free to do what the U.N. allows you to do."