Equality

[demagogic_schizoid]

Equailty is generally seen as desirable. The belief in striving for equality is expressed even by many conservatives in all countries - and "One Nation" conservatives like Benjamin Disraeli in Britain, or Bismarck in germany with his "State Socialism" were perhaps the first "liberal reformers". So no-one can be trusted, it seems. This is why I think the labels "left" and "right" are meaningless - true, "left" is pretty much an indicator of strong marxist influences, but many on the so-called "right" are actually just left-wingers who've been mugged, or authoritarians who will placesocial order above the rights of the individual. They may see markets as the best way to achieve the "greater good". However, their fundamental belief in the greater good and a more equal society is the same. Often, the right-wing is more dangerous than the left, because what it grants in slightly more economic freedom it can more than make up for with it's authoritarian leanings.

My problem with "equality" being an end in itself is that, if this is the case, then the temptation is not to treat all people equally. We see this in progressive taxation. A richer person has to pay a higher proportion of their salary (not justa higher amount because they earn more, which seems fair to me), they have to be legally punished, legally have their rights to their earnings decreased by the state, as they earn more. Positive discrimination is another example. Humanitarian wars of intervention motivated by bringing "progress" (not out of necessity) are another. Robbing one person to give to another, basically. Sometimes, we even rob the poor to help the relatively rich, when we want to help keep the first world poor reatively equal to he first wolrd rich, so we simply deny the third world poor the basic human right to even compete on level tems as human beings. The fact that people can preach equality in one breath and codone this in another astounds me.

So, if equality is an end in itself, then all people are not treated equally. the individual is trampled on. He is at the whim of another, who is granted the right, like a God, to judge his worth, and punish him if he likes. This God ike figure, known as the politician or bureaucrat, can then dole out your money to others in return for their support. You are a means to an end. So are they. And so he is he - his enlightened superiors are using him just like he uses us.

So what's the answer? The answer is to treat each individual as an end in himself. Treat each person the same. Treat each person with respect. Do not subvert them to a greater good. Let each person know that they have something to give, andthey can exchange for something they want. And don't frget charity. Rich people give to charity, because people have consciences, and the vast majority of people need to believe they are good people. It's in most people's interests to give to charity, because they want to be happy, and to be happy they must believe they are good people. And even if they do not give to charity, when they spend their money, they create wealth, and whenthey save it, they keep a lid on inflation. This way, the market regulates itself. People regulate themselves. Each person is an individual, free to relate to others how they choose. The majority ahould choose to make mutually beneficial arrangemnts with others, as it's the most efficeint way to serve one's own interest.

[Ellipsis]

You are of course very correct but the one problem with such freedom equality in charity becomes impossible. This is because the media becomes the biggest tyrant, the media would in fact be able to control every aspect of life (they would hold every key) because they would control the people…charity would be in the hands of the media more then the individual for the media would be able (and would surely be willing) to adjust coverage to charities which they feel are important (now the internet might over-run this possibility in the near future because of its ability to offer somewhat equal and somewhat unbiased coverage of events)…But other problems show themselves when giving out (near) total freedom of the market like this is that the driving force of capitalism is in fact profit motive and very few if at all any people in today’s world would contribute to such levels taxation provides today( that’s why they complain about taxes, although control of that money might help it would still be very hard to control the balance). A better alternative is to stop funding certain things such as military with public money and only accept donations for it…I wonder how many people would support war then….. The problem with our current system is not how we get the money(although there are wastes in our system we still get a lot more this way then we would ever get with donations) but how we spend it….

[C.J.Woolf]

There is more than one kind of equality. Equality of outcome vs. equality of opportunity, for instance.

[demagogic_schizoid]

There is more than one kind of equality. Equality of outcome vs. equality of opportunity, for instance.

that's what I was trying to deal with. My point was that equality of outcome=treatng people as a means to an end, because to achieve it you must treat people unequally, ie infringe on rights.

[rek]

Well I agree, but we all knew I would.

[Gala]

that's what I was trying to deal with. My point was that equality of outcome=treatng people as a means to an end, because to achieve it you must treat people unequally, ie infringe on rights.


promoting equality of outcome over equality of opportunity DOES mean, ironically, individualising cases, or treating different people differently. But I don't see how that infringes on anyones rights, as it is a positive concept rather than a negative one. I give More to one person is not always the same as I take away from another person.

Case study: Education. 2 children are offered access to education (equality of opportunity)
One of theose children has a specific learning difference, and is struggling in the classroom. Equality of opportunity says 'I don't care, you have the same opportunity as everyone else, suck it up'.
Equality of outcome says everyone gets the same outcome, and doesn't leave school until they have gained literacy or beyond. Additional needs tailored ed. supports are provided for the child with specific learning differences.

Results, equality of opportunity policy only, individual differences are not taken into account, thousands of random variables hold people back from their potential. Society now has to cope with an angry kid failed by the educational system, who's probably not going to be very employable and incapable of giving much gain to society.

Results, equality of outcome, dyslexic kid turns out to be the next Einstein, having been helped through the literacy barrier, and invents a perfect working non-combustion engine, thereby making a major dent in the world oil crisis. OK, so maybe thats making the example a little too preposterous, but you get the overall drift.

Anyway, society does not loose from an equality of opportunity, it gains.

[demagogic_schizoid]

I didn't say society loses, but some individuals lose, because those extra rsources devoted to the "special case" are not being paid for by the special case, so in welfare state someone is being forced to pay for them - ie robbed - to help "society". So the individual is seen as a means towards making society better, rather than as an end in himself. the needs of society are being placed above the rights of the individual.

Alternatively, in another system, people could give money to charities to help such special cases.

[omnirook]

Isn't it surprising that individuals see justice in whatever benefits them and injustice in whatever benefits others? It's almost as surprising as their ability to be indifferent to whatever does not (blatantly!) affect them.

As w/most things, people have swallowed down what they have been fed and spit it back up on cue.

"Equality" is a word that I despise. We are not equal - have never been, will never be. "Fair" would have been a better way to get across what was meant - though the best way to have said what was meant would have been to say, "not cruel."

It is indeed at horrific cruelty that most efforts toward "equality" have been directed.

Now - go back - read the first sentence again.

Well-to-do white people who live in safe neighborhoods in nice homes w/working utilities and friendly, efficient civil servants (cops, firefighters, ambulance personnel, etc), who have good roads to drive on while taking their children to good schools, and who are rarely ever short on cash do not realize just how privelleged they are. Yes, many of them did work hard for everything that they've got - BUT - FACT is - no matter how hard they had worked they would not have what they have if they had not been white.

And nobody wants to hear that because 1) it seems to be belittling their work and accomplishments and 2) it would question the nowadays unspoken but everywhere maintained belief that non-whites are inferior and, therefore, not only have less but deserve less.

The institutionalized racism that is everywhere in this country practiced, well, most of us are in denial. Doesn't matter that a white-majority Congress concluded after a decades' long study that one administration after the other had used every means at its disposal - legal and (especially) illegal - to suppress non-whites - FBI wiretaps, bullying banks and corporations to keep them from investing in non-white neighborhoods, sending government agents to prospective employers to say "So and so is under investigation" - and nothing more! Planting spies in Civil Rights groups w/the specified assignment to disrupt the groups and incite in-fighting. Blackballing, blackmailing, even trying to seduce, so as to break up marriages. It's in the Congressional Record, people - OUR government did these things to OUR fellow Americans, using OUR tax dollars. Why? To make sure that the nation was well-supplied w/a permanent underclass - which is essential to the capitalist system. (Out today - the average wage of the average American worker has fallen every year since the Pig took office; meanwhile the profit on capital - the money of those who own and rule - has doubled ... But that's ok - only the majority of Americans are unhappy about that, and they don't count.)

The average white American is oblivious to what this country has done, is continuing to do, to non-whites - just doesn't want to hear about it.

New Orleans - out today - a study done by a Fair Housing watchdog group. Blacks are being rejected for mortgages and leases as the city rebuilds. And it's not so simple as to say, "Well, who wants a passle of welfare coons who aren't going to pay the rent?" No. Hundreds of landlords were stung in a massive sting operation wherein the black candidates matched or exceeded the white candidates in terms of education, income, credit history, criminal record - whatever might be looked at by a prospective landlord. No - it was a clear case of "Eh - just dump this one in the nigger pile and get me a human being." Hundreds of landlords are going to be dragged to court, where they will have to justify their rejections of tennants. You want to be a landlord, darling? OK - but we have rules. One rule is that you are REQUIRED to be color blind. In New York, it's - color blind, ethnicity blind, religion blind, gender blind, disability blind, sexual orientation blind, appearance in general blind, age blind, have children blind, have a pet blind (this one is routinely ignored, and most tennants accept that - but they do not have to accept it; NYC has a very strong "Pet Law" and will back up a tennant in court).

Sorry - "equality" is an empty word. Let's just try DECENT!

[demagogic_schizoid]

Well-to-do white people who live in safe neighborhoods in nice homes w/working utilities and friendly, efficient civil servants (cops, firefighters, ambulance personnel, etc), who have good roads to drive on while taking their children to good schools, and who are rarely ever short on cash do not realize just how privelleged they are. Yes, many of them did work hard for everything that they've got - BUT - FACT is - no matter how hard they had worked they would not have what they have if they had not been white.

This doesn't work in reality. You seem to think that all ideas are just a cover for someone serving their immediate self-interest. This isn't backed up by history and it's an inaccurate and simplistic view of human nature. Why do people have strong opinions on Iraq for example? Do you think most people have an immediate self-interest there one way or another which they are clearly aware of?

Not all supporters of more liberal economies are rich, and not all opponents are poor. I hate to tell you this because it blows your theory out the water, but, if we accept your view of the world where redistributionism works, then my family does great out of the welfare state, because my mum, a public employee and single mother, earns a low income. So, get this, my brother gets paid to go to school. ?100 a week. Out of hard-working people's taxes. I get something like a ?2800 annual grant (I can't remember the number exactly) from the government, and ?1800 annual bursury from my uni (which the govt. pays for indirectly) just for putting in a few hours a week at uni. And every day I look people in the face whose parents are being robbed to pay for this kind of thing, just because I come from a slightly poorer family than them, even though I grew up in material circumastances most people throughout history would have cut off a right arm for. Basically, in the short term, I would become poorer if what I am arguing was implemented. But, over time, I'd become richer, because the economy would improve, and I'd also be freer, and live in a more consistent and fair world. In reality, this system of welfare which we are supposed to believe helps its "beneficiaries", is in fact what keeps them reliant on it, like slavery.

[omnirook]

This doesn't work in reality. You seem to think that all ideas are just a cover for someone serving their immediate self-interest. This isn't backed up by history and it's an inaccurate and simplistic view of human nature. Why do people have strong opinions on Iraq for example? Do you think most people have an immediate self-interest there one way or another which they are clearly aware of?

Not all supporters of more liberal economies are rich, and not all opponents are poor. I hate to tell you this because it blows your theory out the water, but, if we accept your view of the world where redistributionism works, then my family does great out of the welfare state, because my mum, a public employee and single mother, earns a low income. So, get this, my brother gets paid to go to school. ?100 a week. Out of hard-working people's taxes. I get something like a ?2800 annual grant (I can't remember the number exactly) from the government, and ?1800 annual bursury from my uni (which the govt. pays for indirectly) just for putting in a few hours a week at uni. And every day I look people in the face whose parents are being robbed to pay for this kind of thing, just because I come from a slightly poorer family than them, even though I grew up in material circumastances most people throughout history would have cut off a right arm for. Basically, in the short term, I would become poorer if what I am arguing was implemented. But, over time, I'd become richer, because the economy would improve, and I'd also be freer, and live in a more consistent and fair world. In reality, this system of welfare which we are supposed to believe helps its "beneficiaries", is in fact what keeps them reliant on it, like slavery.

OK. You're British; maybe my point got lost in the translation. I wasn't talking about welfare or money being taken from anybody, being given to anybody.

I was talking about how America brutalizes people. A black person, an hispanic person, should be able to get as much of a return on his work as a white person. And there are successful black people, successful hispanic people - and whites take that as proof that there is nothing wrong w/the system. What gets left out is that the successful black person, the successful hispanic person, had to work much, much harder to achieve the same level of success - and even then, the success is tainted because, chances are, if it weren't for Affirmative Action, the black or hispanic person would never have gotten into college, would never have gotten the job.

W/my own eyes, many times - many! - I've seen cab drivers in New York pass up a nicely dressed black man, holding a brief case, to pick up a white passenger. The black man hailed first, was closer to the cab - under Taxi and Limousine Commission regulations, the cab driver should have picked up the black man. But, no, the cab driver went around the black guy to pick a white guy. And there are very few white taxi drivers in New York; 53% are Pakistani immigrants; 43% are "other" - Indians, Arabs, hispanics - and blacks! Yeah - black drivers will discriminate against black passengers! That leaves 4% white drivers, most of them older guys who've been driving taxis since the days when most drivers were white. But the discrimination against non-whites is so ingrained that non-whites do discriminate against non-whites.

"Oh, but see - black drivers don't want to pick up black passengers. There must be a reason!" There is - but it isn't valid. A nicely dressed black man w/a brief case in hand, standing out in front of a Wall Street firm, is NOT going to the ghetto. First - if he were any trouble at all, believe me, he would have been grabbed down on Wall Street. You don't fart down there w/o a cop coming up behind you to sniff the fart for poisoned gas. Second, a black guy w/a job down there is about as common as a dancing row of pink elephants wearing ballet slippers and Tiffany tiaras. He's going someplace, but it's not the ghetto. Chances are, it's the Upper West Side, where the tennant associations are far more liberal than on the Upper East Side.

It's like the episode of "All In The Family" where Archie, who was moonlighting as a cab driver, got stuck on an elevator. One of the other people on the elevator was a distinguished looking black man, dressed in a suit. After all that they had been through together, Archie decided that he would be generous and told the black man, "When this all over, I'll give ya a lift up to Harlem, dher."

Black man: I happen to live in Larchmont.

Archie: I'll bet Larchmont is kicking up its heels about that.

So, no - I wasn't necessarily talking about redistributing wealth. I was talking about blatant discrimination against non-whites.

I'm white, but I have black relatives by marriage and black/white blood relatives. I've been there when my cousins have been discriminated against. I could walk into any store in a t-shirt, jeans, unshaven, looking hung over, and I'd be treated well. My mixed race cousin could walk in the same store, wearing an expensive suit and tie, hand-made Italian shoes, the whole 9 - and still be followed by store security. I've seen it. I could get in any wreck of a car, filthy, the tail lights held in by tape, the engine knocking and banging and choking, and drive right up Park Avenue, doing 55 mph (the limit is 30) and never be bothered. I don't care what my cousin were driving; I don't care if he were doing 27 mph, he'd still get pulled over. Know what he does for a living? He's a computer technician. He's a GEEK - goes to fucking Star Trek conventions - a fucking NERD! Doesn't matter - there's some coffee in his cream (he's 1/8 black) - and, so, he takes abuse. I've seen it.

That's the kind of shit that I'm talking about. And, if you think that our laws should not address that kind of crap - if you think that the government should not step in to stop people from discriminating in such ways, well, then, we are much further apart in our points of view than I thought.

[demagogic_schizoid]

I wasn't arguing against equality before the law. I was arguing against enforced equality of outcome or redistributionism.This was clear in my OP.

[immortalmack]

OK. You're British; maybe my point got lost in the translation. I wasn't talking about welfare or money being taken from anybody, being given to anybody.

I was talking about how America brutalizes people. A black person, an hispanic person, should be able to get as much of a return on his work as a white person. And there are successful black people, successful hispanic people - and whites take that as proof that there is nothing wrong w/the system. What gets left out is that the successful black person, the successful hispanic person, had to work much, much harder to achieve the same level of success - and even then, the success is tainted because, chances are, if it weren't for Affirmative Action, the black or hispanic person would never have gotten into college, would never have gotten the job.

W/my own eyes, many times - many! - I've seen cab drivers in New York pass up a nicely dressed black man, holding a brief case, to pick up a white passenger. The black man hailed first, was closer to the cab - under Taxi and Limousine Commission regulations, the cab driver should have picked up the black man. But, no, the cab driver went around the black guy to pick a white guy. And there are very few white taxi drivers in New York; 53% are Pakistani immigrants; 43% are "other" - Indians, Arabs, hispanics - and blacks! Yeah - black drivers will discriminate against black passengers! That leaves 4% white drivers, most of them older guys who've been driving taxis since the days when most drivers were white. But the discrimination against non-whites is so ingrained that non-whites do discriminate against non-whites.

"Oh, but see - black drivers don't want to pick up black passengers. There must be a reason!" There is - but it isn't valid. A nicely dressed black man w/a brief case in hand, standing out in front of a Wall Street firm, is NOT going to the ghetto. First - if he were any trouble at all, believe me, he would have been grabbed down on Wall Street. You don't fart down there w/o a cop coming up behind you to sniff the fart for poisoned gas. Second, a black guy w/a job down there is about as common as a dancing row of pink elephants wearing ballet slippers and Tiffany tiaras. He's going someplace, but it's not the ghetto. Chances are, it's the Upper West Side, where the tennant associations are far more liberal than on the Upper East Side.

It's like the episode of "All In The Family" where Archie, who was moonlighting as a cab driver, got stuck on an elevator. One of the other people on the elevator was a distinguished looking black man, dressed in a suit. After all that they had been through together, Archie decided that he would be generous and told the black man, "When this all over, I'll give ya a lift up to Harlem, dher."

Black man: I happen to live in Larchmont.

Archie: I'll bet Larchmont is kicking up its heels about that.

So, no - I wasn't necessarily talking about redistributing wealth. I was talking about blatant discrimination against non-whites.

I'm white, but I have black relatives by marriage and black/white blood relatives. I've been there when my cousins have been discriminated against. I could walk into any store in a t-shirt, jeans, unshaven, looking hung over, and I'd be treated well. My mixed race cousin could walk in the same store, wearing an expensive suit and tie, hand-made Italian shoes, the whole 9 - and still be followed by store security. I've seen it. I could get in any wreck of a car, filthy, the tail lights held in by tape, the engine knocking and banging and choking, and drive right up Park Avenue, doing 55 mph (the limit is 30) and never be bothered. I don't care what my cousin were driving; I don't care if he were doing 27 mph, he'd still get pulled over. Know what he does for a living? He's a computer technician. He's a GEEK - goes to fucking Star Trek conventions - a fucking NERD! Doesn't matter - there's some coffee in his cream (he's 1/8 black) - and, so, he takes abuse. I've seen it.

That's the kind of shit that I'm talking about. And, if you think that our laws should not address that kind of crap - if you think that the government should not step in to stop people from discriminating in such ways, well, then, we are much further apart in our points of view than I thought.

Yea Omni, it's funny you bring this up. My coworkers prolly thought it was just a myth how much black people get fucked with until they seen it in real life. Going to work, coming from work, driving the company van. They even try to say my wife's car was stolen and took me to jail. When I went to work a few days later I got wrote up for an unscheduled absence! I get pulled over so much in the suburbs where my job is they could'nt believe it! But other than you, I don't know of another white person who gives a shit to even bring it up. They say "Oh, that should'nt be like that" and they still go home to some of the most racists communities in the country and say to me "Would'nt you like to live in the suburbs"? :ph34r:

[omnirook]

I wasn't arguing against equality before the law. I was arguing against enforced equality of outcome or redistributionism.This was clear in my OP.

Yeah - and your OP was written in Yahoo Land, where no trace of reality may be found. Pookie - if blacks and other minorities are unfairly suffering under the current system, then whites are unfairly benefitting under the current system. There's no way around it. Evening things out, making it so that nobody is hampered because of his race/ethnicity - also means making it so that nobody gets ahead because of his race/ethnicity. Like it or not.

And, like it or not, in the real world, where there are material factors, etc, that also means that there must be some redistribution of wealth.

OK - you're British. My mother was British, English. That means that I've always had a special interest in the history of your country. I'm much more up on it than most Americans.

What's my point? Think back. Think back to the struggles of the commoners to get even the vote. Getting rid of the property requirements, the income requirements - the endless attempts to make sure that only the "right people" got to vote. Think back to when peers were entitled to far more than the seats in the Lords that gotten taken away just a few years ago - to when they didn't even have to pay taxes. The richest people didn't have to pay taxes as a birthright! Until 1949, ten years after my mother was born, a peer could not be arrested w/o the Sovereign's explicit permission and could not be tried in any court but could only be tried in the House of Lords. If Parliament were in session, a peer could not be arrested at all. Point? A lot of very nice perks had to be taken away from peers, and the nation's rich had to be beaten down w/merciless taxation before people like you - and my English relatives - could have a chance. My English great-grandparents lived in Whitechapel, in squalor, unredeemed squalor, in a hole that it was good that a German bomb hit it to wipe such a blemish from London's face.

I don't get it - you come from a country where millions were packed into filthy, rickety shambles while a few thousand lived in places like Blenheim Palace. And that didn't begin to change until people like Gladstone - a Liberal! - and Disraeli - a Conservative - began to force through reforms. You must take clean water and not having rats sharing your bed at night for granted. Nobody had to fight and get his skull cracked on the East End for you to enjoy those things - no, it was just handed over. Please.

[demagogic_schizoid]

Well done you've brought me down from Yahoo land, crashing back to omnireality.

What you should realise is when you diminish economic freedom, you just encourage resources to be misallocated. In the 1960's, there were strict limits on the rates American banks could pay for deposits or on how widely they could spread their liabilites. This was a key factor in encouraging aggressive over-lending, because as they were constricted in their freedom of action in one area, they had to make up this risk somewhere else by chasing profits too aggressively in other areas, namely lending, especially abroad, which led to the Latin American Debt Crisis in 1982/83 for example (which cost the American taxpayer). By limiting banks freedom of action, the authorities just stopped them doing their job properly.

Similairly, when you tax income and savings to redistribute wealth you are distorting the system and subsidising unproductive habits which bleed the economy. I can see the case perhaps for doing this with healthcare, aducation, law and order, infrastrucutre - some things, all people get a clear return on. But out and out redistributionism is different. When you do that you're stifling chances for improved efficiency which would increase the amiount of value in the economy available for everyone and therefore the value of the paper bills which the poor have in their pockets. Weakening the economy and reducing the amount of value behind the paper bills - inflation - hits the poor hardest. If you reward failure you will drag more people into that way of life. I'm not against charitable giving and real reforms in the education and healthcare systems to make people's lives better, but not redistributionism out of racial resentment like you advocate.

Also, look at the example of thebanks - when you limit people's options, they go too heavily towards relying on other areas than the optimal one for making a profit. So in unfree monetary systems, personal connections, land ownership, access to resources gain excessive improtance, ad the poor are even more excluded than ever.

Regulation is like a fortress, you build to protect yourself, but more often than not you end up besieged inside it.

[Ellipsis]

I still don't get how this system of non-taxation would work....no one I mean no one will ever contribute enough to fund all the public utilities...do you mean we should increase taxes for the poor and lower them for the rich on the hope that the rich would contribute more then they would with taxes? I would like to further remind you man that a man without a mercades is better then a man without a meal....(also you are being given money for univerty on the hope that you will contribute to soceity later on...in the end you will end up paying for someone else....thats how it works...)....or am I missing the point?

[demagogic_schizoid]

I still don't get how this system of non-taxation would work....no one I mean no one will ever contribute enough to fund all the public utilities...do you mean we should increase taxes for the poor and lower them for the rich on the hope that the rich would contribute more then they would with taxes? I would like to further remind you man that a man without a mercades is better then a man without a meal....(also you are being given money for univerty on the hope that you will contribute to soceity later on...in the end you will end up paying for someone else....thats how it works...)....or am I missing the point?

there could perhaps be some taxation. There's an ideal, a set of principles I'm trying to argue for, and then there's the real process that would be implemented. See the thread about Ron Paul in "Links", I said what I think there, on the last page, about the difference between taxes on a small scale where there's a high chance of efficient and direct benefit for the taxpayer, and other large scale political taxes to favour some sectors over others.

[rek]

I would like to further remind you man that a man without a mercades is better then a man without a meal....

And a man who's a slave to society, not free to make his own decisions, is worse than both..

not to mention more likely to go without proper nutrition

[demagogic_schizoid]

plus, a man without a mercedes equals a man who would have made more Mercedes who is now poorer than he would be, a man who would have sold who it is poorer than he would be, men who would have benefitted from trade with them who are poorer than they would be, etc. - so it's a false dilemma. The poorest countries are not the ones with the richest elites.

[rek]

Exactly, this is why it's my belief that the limited role of government should be to be the basis for a system in which everyone has a relatively decent amount of opportunity.

For example, kids with bad eyesight can't develop properly if they do not have glasses. It's by no means that child's fault that his parents are poor, he did not choose his parents, so you could argue it's unfair for him to start life with a large disadvantage. While, on the other hand any legal enforcement of such rules encourages bad parenting. While the child did not choose to have his parents, and his rights must be defended, the parents did choose to have a child.

We're challenged with the task of creating a relatively fair starting field without encouraging even worse parents. As your point states the more you give someone the more motivation they have to not earn it themselves. The whole teach a man to fish instead of giving him a meal argument.

What we need is a system which is "fair" not one which guarantees "equal". It's my belief to accomplish this we should not focus on what the best people get (parents who are rich, who have connections, who get them into good schools, etc) and instead focus on the other end - what is the minimum amount of chance we are willing to give a human being.

As to your whole discussion with taxes: there is a solution which I find to be both "fair" and reasonable. Instead of taxing income (income tax hits the poor the hardest - they need the money) and attempting to redistribute it, we should remove most all taxes but keep a reasonable tax on consumption. Preferably the total amount collected would be less than currently but much less would be required (no billion dollar wars - on people, drugs, the climate, or anything else); but I won't get into that.

In this way we could make the playing ground for everyone equal. Everyone gets taxed based on the amount they consume, not the amount they work or earn. This means someone could invest and save their money, paying very little taxes, or they could buy 15 Ferrari's and pay the same amount of tax on each one that any other person would pay for one.

I think this would be fair enough, but if we wanted to get even more controlling, there would be one very easy method. The government could charge zero tax on the purchase of your first house (but then tax a certain amount for each house you own over one) or zero tax on a certain amount of food or medical expenses.

This would be completely equal to everyone, while also greatly increasing upward economic class mobility. If you want to eat a normal healthy amount, whatever that is, then you pay no tax. If you want a $50 steak it has the same 10% (or whatever) tax on the richest person as it does the poorest.

We complain about all the spending and lack of saving, implementing a tax system based solely on consumption would: fix this problem, benefit the poor, encourage upward class mobility, etc etc etc.

A current example is the taxes on savings in the US. We do have some things like Roth IRAs (I have one) which you do not pay taxes on when saving for your retirement but the amount you can contribute is very limited (4k/year).

There's really no reason our system isn't like this already, except that politics take a long time to change. Government is very slow when it comes to doing anything useful :(

Note: I would not support an excessive version of this system in which huge taxes were levied on products in order to redistribute that income back down to the poor. The point would be to get just enough income in taxes to pay for the necessary requirements of basic society (roads, etc) in a way which would not harm the poor and middle class too badly (nor would it harm the rich if they chose not to consume excessively). In all honesty I'd prefer things like roads be privatized but this would be a much better compromise than what we have currently.

It would mean, though, that Bill Gates could live as if he was poor and pay very little taxes on all the money he is making. Socialists would have to accept that as equal opportunity to save and spend regardless of economic class.

EDIT - What would be even more awesome (I just thought of this right now) would be if we could come up with some way in which the consumption tax rate was actually set by market forces.

[omnirook]

Well done you've brought me down from Yahoo land, crashing back to omnireality.

What you should realise is when you diminish economic freedom, you just encourage resources to be misallocated. In the 1960's, there were strict limits on the rates American banks could pay for deposits or on how widely they could spread their liabilites. This was a key factor in encouraging aggressive over-lending, because as they were constricted in their freedom of action in one area, they had to make up this risk somewhere else by chasing profits too aggressively in other areas, namely lending, especially abroad, which led to the Latin American Debt Crisis in 1982/83 for example (which cost the American taxpayer). By limiting banks freedom of action, the authorities just stopped them doing their job properly.

Similairly, when you tax income and savings to redistribute wealth you are distorting the system and subsidising unproductive habits which bleed the economy. I can see the case perhaps for doing this with healthcare, aducation, law and order, infrastrucutre - some things, all people get a clear return on. But out and out redistributionism is different. When you do that you're stifling chances for improved efficiency which would increase the amiount of value in the economy available for everyone and therefore the value of the paper bills which the poor have in their pockets. Weakening the economy and reducing the amount of value behind the paper bills - inflation - hits the poor hardest. If you reward failure you will drag more people into that way of life. I'm not against charitable giving and real reforms in the education and healthcare systems to make people's lives better, but not redistributionism out of racial resentment like you advocate.

Also, look at the example of thebanks - when you limit people's options, they go too heavily towards relying on other areas than the optimal one for making a profit. So in unfree monetary systems, personal connections, land ownership, access to resources gain excessive improtance, ad the poor are even more excluded than ever.

Regulation is like a fortress, you build to protect yourself, but more often than not you end up besieged inside it.

A lot of people assume that the poor are unwilling to work, are unwilling to take care of themselves. Such an attitude smacks more of easing consciences than anything else.

Look at your own statement - it implies that the poor will take advantage of whatever oppurtunities are offered to them. Of course they will - and how can one blame them? Do you think that the lives of the poor become easy and carefree because of the so-called handouts? Think again. The work of getting such "handouts" would turn back all but the most dauntless in spirit.

Getting food stamps, getting Section Eight housing, getting cheaper utility rates - trials by fire!

When I was 22, Harry gave me an experience for which I will forever be grateful. I came into the office one morning, and everyone was smiling at me in a way that made me nervous.

Harry: Here - put these on.

It was a pile of rags.

Me: Why?

Harry: I want you to have a lesson - a lesson that will be all the harder because you are a tall, heavy-set, hearty and hale young man, not a skinny, underfed looking kid. Go ahead - put them on.

I went in to the bathroom and donned the rags - fucking awful, even stank.

Harry: Now, go out and spend the whole day begging ... That's right - begging. Yesterday, you passed by a beggar in the street and you didn't give a dime. By time you're done, you'll wish that you had given him $20 ... Go on - get out there and find out that begging is hard work.

Hard Work? Fucking torture! I was dropped at Herald Square, and I spent the next 14 hours begging - along w/a bunch of other beggars. The old guy w/the hump and the young guy w/no legs and the woman w/a baby got more of nothing than something, but I got a lot of snide comments, such as "Get a job!" One smug looking fuck reached into his pocket, shook the pocket to show that he was carrying several pounds of change, then walked on.

At the end of the "shift," I did have $48 in change. Harry said, "Better than I thought. Must have come from people intimidated by your size ... Now, give it away - yeah - give it all away to those who really need it."

I split the money up among my fellow beggars and went back to the shop and took a long shower and got into my nice clothes - clothes that had been cut by an expert tailor - clothes that I wouldn't have had if Harry hadn't have taken me on as a protege.

I never again thought of beggars as lazy. To this day, I will not pass one w/o giving him or her some money.

The poor are like anyone else - they will do what they can do to get ahead under the given circumstances. Maybe a beggar takes in 80 bucks if he or she begs hard for 15 hours. That's about minimum wage. Only thing is - it's in change and has to be converted into paper currency. That's where small shop keepers come to the rescue. They'll take the change to save themselves trips to the bank to get change for their business. There are a few Indian shop keepers on Lexington Avenue who take far more change than they need and who give away cups of coffee and sandwiches to the beggars who bring in the change. These are things that you get to know when you hang out w/beggars - who show a remarkable espirit de corps and who are generally more generous than the people from whom they beg.

Lay-abouts come in all classes. There are plenty of rich people on the Upper East Side who are saddled w/worthless children who spend their nights in expensive clubs and who sleep all day. Bitter, angry, full of problems, drunk, drug additcted, promiscuous - what saves them from sleeping in doorways and being hassled by the police is daddy's money. Otherwise, they are no better than any other lay-about.

Hard workers also come in all classes. There are also rich people on the Upper East Side who cannot keep up w/their children, who are busy from dawn to the late hours studying hard, volunteering for charities, and working hard to make the lives of others better. There are rich people who do give a damn about poor people; that I will not deny. Your own future king, Prince William, is one such - he's put his knees where his mouth is and has busted his privilleged arse to help the poor, getting down on all fours to work in the mud and filth.

But, when all is said and done, the ball is always in the court of the rich.

It's fine to talk about high finance and the worries of bankers - but it's also necessary to get down on the ground and see the implications of policy. To say that there is no middle ground and that some people just have to suffer (as George Will often does say) is, to me - unacceptable. There is a middle ground - it is not necessary to make some people live in grinding poverty, so that others can live in outrageous luxury.

My constant point is that wealth is not absolute, that it is relative - and that it has almost nothing to do w/resources. As long as people continue to fail to understand that have/have not is a relationship that works as well in America as it does in Haiti, then there is little hope for people ever realizing that it's not necessary to starve millions to over feed thousands. Until people realize that life's value does not lie in having the biggest pile of loot, the world will continue on being what it has always been - a place where a tiny fraction of the population luxuriates in material excess, while the vast majority are crushed to pay for that excess - and where nobody, rich or poor, is really happy.

[omnirook]

Exactly, this is why it's my belief that the limited role of government should be to be the basis for a system in which everyone has a relatively decent amount of opportunity.

For example, kids with bad eyesight can't develop properly if they do not have glasses. It's by no means that child's fault that his parents are poor, he did not choose his parents, so you could argue it's unfair for him to start life with a large disadvantage. While, on the other hand any legal enforcement of such rules encourages bad parenting. While the child did not choose to have his parents, and his rights must be defended, the parents did choose to have a child.

We're challenged with the task of creating a relatively fair starting field without encouraging even worse parents. As your point states the more you give someone the more motivation they have to not earn it themselves. The whole teach a man to fish instead of giving him a meal argument.

What we need is a system which is "fair" not one which guarantees "equal". It's my belief to accomplish this we should not focus on what the best people get (parents who are rich, who have connections, who get them into good schools, etc) and instead focus on the other end - what is the minimum amount of chance we are willing to give a human being.

As to your whole discussion with taxes: there is a solution which I find to be both "fair" and reasonable. Instead of taxing income (income tax hits the poor the hardest - they need the money) and attempting to redistribute it, we should remove most all taxes but keep a reasonable tax on consumption. Preferably the total amount collected would be less than currently but much less would be required (no billion dollar wars - on people, drugs, the climate, or anything else); but I won't get into that.

In this way we could make the playing ground for everyone equal. Everyone gets taxed based on the amount they consume, not the amount they work or earn. This means someone could invest and save their money, paying very little taxes, or they could buy 15 Ferrari's and pay the same amount of tax on each one that any other person would pay for one.

I think this would be fair enough, but if we wanted to get even more controlling, there would be one very easy method. The government could charge zero tax on the purchase of your first house (but then tax a certain amount for each house you own over one) or zero tax on a certain amount of food or medical expenses.

This would be completely equal to everyone, while also greatly increasing upward economic class mobility. If you want to eat a normal healthy amount, whatever that is, then you pay no tax. If you want a $50 steak it has the same 10% (or whatever) tax on the richest person as it does the poorest.

We complain about all the spending and lack of saving, implementing a tax system based solely on consumption would: fix this problem, benefit the poor, encourage upward class mobility, etc etc etc.

A current example is the taxes on savings in the US. We do have some things like Roth IRAs (I have one) which you do not pay taxes on when saving for your retirement but the amount you can contribute is very limited (4k/year).

There's really no reason our system isn't like this already, except that politics take a long time to change. Government is very slow when it comes to doing anything useful :(

Note: I would not support an excessive version of this system in which huge taxes were levied on products in order to redistribute that income back down to the poor. The point would be to get just enough income in taxes to pay for the necessary requirements of basic society (roads, etc) in a way which would not harm the poor and middle class too badly (nor would it harm the rich if they chose not to consume excessively). In all honesty I'd prefer things like roads be privatized but this would be a much better compromise than what we have currently.

It would mean, though, that Bill Gates could live as if he was poor and pay very little taxes on all the money he is making. Socialists would have to accept that as equal opportunity to save and spend regardless of economic class.

EDIT - What would be even more awesome (I just thought of this right now) would be if we could come up with some way in which the consumption tax rate was actually set by market forces.

OK - I'll buy my one tax-free palace in the United States. I'll take that brownstone on East 70th Street for 12 million. Then I'll buy a fine greystone in Knightsbride, London. Then I'll buy a lovely townehouse in Paris, not far from the Tulleries gardens. Then I'll buy a fine villa in the campaigna, just outside of Rome. Then I'll buy a beachfront property in Spain. Then I'll take that castle on the Rhine in Germany. Then I'll buy a yacht on which I could live year round. Then I'll pop into each of my homes for visits - but never long enough to be hit by local taxation. Oh, and - all my money will be kept in a Swiss bank account.

They sent Leona Helmsley to prison for trying to get around sales tax - consumption tax! She bought stuff in New York and had it shipped to Connecticut, so that she didn't have to pay sales tax on it.

Your system needs lots and lots of work. "Taxes are for the little people" was Helmsley's comment that got the jury into enough of a rage that they sent her away for a stretch. The world is full of rich scumbags who work overtime to avoid paying taxes of any kind. Inventing the corporation and allowing it to be headquartered overseas was the real deal as far as sheltering money went. Go ahead - you live in CA - sue Arnold. You'll find out that Arnold the man is broker than broke - has less to his name than the bum who sleeps up under the Golden Gate. Arnold, Inc has all the money - and you can't touch it - but he gets to spend it.

[rek]

Oh omni, you and you're silly other world...

You have a big heart and you have very touching stories. You really should consider a move to France. I was there a year ago. Sure they fail at everything but they always have the best intentions and they never let logic or fact stand in the way of their emotions. It's touching really.

[omnirook]

Oh omni, you and you're silly other world...

You have a big heart and you have very touching stories. You really should consider a move to France. I was there a year ago. Sure they fail at everything but they always have the best intentions and they never let logic or fact stand in the way of their emotions. It's touchingly ignorant really.

Thank you, darling. :wub: ... You didn't show where what I said was either false or "touchingly ignorant" ... I suppose that we could take it as a further proof of their unmitigated failures that the French wiped their hands of Vietnam and got out, so that we could get in and show them how it's done ... :smooch:

[rek]

Didn't feel I needed to prove you wrong; history already does.

So are you saying making a choice to leave Vietnam really justifies the massive unemployment and other problems? You're making my point for me: you really should move there.

[omnirook]

Didn't feel I needed to prove you wrong; history already does.

So are you saying making a choice to leave Vietnam really justifies the massive unemployment and other problems? You're making my point for me: you really should move there.

No - I'm saying that failure in one thing does not mean failure in everything. That's a black/white, hot/cold, on/off mentality. That might work in a lab - though I doubt it - but it certainly does not work in the wider world.

You say that the French have failed in everything. Nonsense. French contributions to science and culture (art, literature, music, film, etc) could only be denied by somebody desperate to make a point.

Yes - the French have high unemployment - as does America, but here the statistics are so skewed and bent out of shape that only an actuary can spot how the government hides the millions who are out of work. For instance, only those who are still receiving unemployment benefits are counted - and even there the government had to extend the benefit period to keep that bit of data from becoming entirely unrealistic. Fact is, many millions more are unemployed and are never counted. If one fixes the flawed way that American unemployment statistics are looked at, one finds that our unemployment level is - pretty much the same as France's unemployment level. It's just that the French people are less willing to allow their government to lie than Americans are, so their government is a bit more honest when it comes to reporting unemployment - among other things.

[rek]

Obviously they don't fail at every single thing, I assumed you would understand my sarcasm/exaggeration. French people are good at a few things: they have really good bread, I'm told good wine (I don't drink), they are also really good at surrendering (it's a joke, it's ok).

My point is, if you think they're so great and so much better than the US: move there.

[omnirook]

Obviously they don't fail at every single thing, I assumed you would understand my sarcasm/exaggeration. French people are good at a few things: they have really good bread, I'm told good wine (I don't drink), they are also really good at surrendering (it's a joke, it's ok).

My point is, if you think they're so great and so much better than the US: move there.

Ut-oh - someone who hasn't been hit by my response to that kind of reasoning before ... OK - here it comes: This is MY country, honey - I was born here. I'm an American. I don't have to leave - not when MY country was founded by a pack of malcontents who made complaining a virtue!

Complaining is an American's birthright. How quickly they forget! - Haven't you read any of the writings of America's founders? - how, one after the other, they made explicit their belief that a nation could be kept healthy only if the citizenry COMPLAINED and COMPLAINED and COMPLAINED? - that it is not only the right but the DUTY of an American to complain about what he does not like? Thoreau - not a founder but an early American - went so far as to say that an American who disagreed w/his government should w/hold his taxes!

Don't give me that shit - I"m an American, and it is my right to complain about what I do not like - like it or not. If you don't want to hear my complaining, YOU move someplace where complaining is not allowed because I WILL NOT shut up.

And I don't have to move to France because I admire the French. I don't have to move to Italy because I admire the Italians. I don't have to move to Germany because I admire the Germans - yeah, believe it or not, Hitler was not the only German whose name we should know! And, like it or not, the British beat us to nearly every democratic innovation for which we so proudly take credit. The British had the first democratic system in the modern era and were the first people to benefit from the Common Law ... Yeah - I admire all sorts of other people - but I'm an American - and I'm going to stay in America - and I"m going to complain my ass off, no matter how much YOU are annoyed by it!

[dubbeltop]

And a man who's a slave to society, not free to make his own decisions, is worse than both..

not to mention more likely to go without proper nutrition

Brilliant :ph34r:

edit : http://www.alternativesmagazine.com/22/granny.html
(a random story for entertainment purposes only)

[demagogic_schizoid]

And I don't have to move to France because I admire the French. I don't have to move to Italy because I admire the Italians. I don't have to move to Germany because I admire the Germans - yeah, believe it or not, Hitler was not the only German whose name we should know! And, like it or not, the British beat us to nearly every democratic innovation for which we so proudly take credit. The British had the first democratic system in the modern era and were the first people to benefit from the Common Law ... Yeah - I admire all sorts of other people - but I'm an American - and I'm going to stay in America - and I"m going to complain my ass off, no matter how much YOU are annoyed by it!

Great, but you can you at least try to make sense and stop giving some idealised picture of Europe which doesn't come close to the truth. I don't get the feeling that any time recently you've actually asked a British, French, Italian or German person what they think of their country, or that you try to follow our news. You just use an imaginary europe as a yardstick to beat the US with.

[omnirook]

Great, but you can you at least try to make sense and stop giving some idealised picture of Europe which doesn't come close to the truth. I don't get the feeling that any time recently you've actually asked a British, French, Italian or German person what they think of their country, or that you try to follow our news. You just use an imaginary europe as a yardstick to beat the US with.

Nope. I know that the French, Italians, Germans, British, Spanish, etc are loaded up w/complaints about their countries. And that's good. I was told to go live in France because I was critical of the United States. That was why I said what I said. Now, I've spent a lot of time in the UK. I'm fond of the UK. But I always came HOME. The United States = HOME. That doesn't mean that I don't believe that there's room for improvement.

[demagogic_schizoid]

Nope. I know that the French, Italians, Germans, British, Spanish, etc are loaded up w/complaints about their countries. And that's good. I was told to go live in France because I was critical of the United States. That was why I said what I said. Now, I've spent a lot of time in the UK. I'm fond of the UK. But I always came HOME. The United States = HOME. That doesn't mean that I don't believe that there's room for improvement.

No you were told to live in France because you "love it so much", not because you're critical of the United States.

[omnirook]

No you were told to live in France because you "love it so much", not because you're critical of the United States.

I love the UK and Italy, too - so? ... Read the thread - I didn't mention France until I was told that I should live there. It was implied that I wasn't a real American because I dared to criticize America. Nonsense. If I didn't care about America, I'd keep my mouth shut, knuckle under, make my pile of money, and retire to some warm and sunny island. The right wing has been accusing the left wing of hating America for decades. NO. The left wing does not hate America; the left wing wants what it believes would be good for America. The left has as much right to fight for what it believes as the right does.

There have been 2 wings in American politics from the get - the left and the right - the Jeffersonian wing and the Hamiltonian wing. Now, there have been some switches made along the way - the left took up the idea of stronger federal government, and the right took up the idea of weaker government over all, but, essentially, the separation has stood clear: the left favors the people over a privilleged elite, the right favors a privilleged elite over the people, that's in practice, rhetoric notwithstanding. But only the right wing has tried systematically to silence opposition: the McCarthy hearings, the "Un-American Activities Committee," the FBI being used to find, tag, and suppress, and the recent round of Bushite accusations of being "bad" hurled at anyone who dared to question the administration "in this time of war."

Sorry - a REAL American is right there, mouth open, complaining, complaining, complaining, whether he is on the right or on the left. Both sides must be heard.

[demagogic_schizoid]

I love the UK and Italy, too - so? ... Read the thread - I didn't mention France until I was told that I should live there. It was implied that I wasn't a real American because I dared to criticize America. Nonsense. If I didn't care about America, I'd keep my mouth shut, knuckle under, make my pile of money, and retire to some warm and sunny island. The right wing has been accusing the left wing of hating America for decades. NO. The left wing does not hate America; the left wing wants what it believes would be good for America. The left has as much right to fight for what it believes as the right does.

There have been 2 wings in American politics from the get - the left and the right - the Jeffersonian wing and the Hamiltonian wing. Now, there have been some switches made along the way - the left took up the idea of stronger federal government, and the right took up the idea of weaker government over all, but, essentially, the separation has stood clear: the left favors the people over a privilleged elite, the right favors a privilleged elite over the people, that's in practice, rhetoric notwithstanding. But only the right wing has tried systematically to silence opposition: the McCarthy hearings, the "Un-American Activities Committee," the FBI being used to find, tag, and suppress, and the recent round of Bushite accusations of being "bad" hurled at anyone who dared to question the administration "in this time of war."

Sorry - a REAL American is right there, mouth open, complaining, complaining, complaining, whether he is on the right or on the left. Both sides must be heard.

Jeez you really have a martyr complex don't you? He made one heat of the moment, tongue in cheek comment. The mileage you've made out of it is something Al Sharpton would be proud of.

[omnirook]

Jeez you really have a martyr complex don't you? He made one heat of the moment, tongue in cheek comment. The mileage you've made out of it is something Al Sharpton would be proud of.

Oh, thank you! I admire Brother Al! He won't let one "nigger" get past him w/o raising Hell, and I won't let one "If you don't like it, leave" get past me w/o raising Hell.

I've not only watched Al Sharpton on tv, where they edit his comments to make him look bad, but I've also heard Al Sharpton speak w/o being edited - a lot more Americans would be on his side if they heard him say what he really has to say. Al Sharpton gets all sorts of attention when he stands up for blacks but nowhere is a camera to be found when he does what is far more common for him to do - stand up for poor people, regardless of their color. That part gets overlooked, is ignored. I've met Al Sharpton: he's intelligent, articulate, well-informed, has a great sense of humor. I don't mind being compared to him.

[demagogic_schizoid]

well, I guess you're like Al Sharpton then. A rich, white Al Sharpton.

[omnirook]

well, I guess you're like Al Sharpton then. A rich, white Al Sharpton.

Yep - and we're both fond of food!

They tried to bust Al's balls the last time he ran for office, said that his address was a phony, that he didn't really live where his mail was delivered. And he doesn't. He does not live on East 86th Street. All sorts of shit was said about how he would not divulge his real address - eventhough it had often been allowed for others that their status as public figures who received constant death threats entitled them to keep their addresses secret. Al was a phony, he kept his wife and kids in the dark, blah, blah, blah. What they forgot was that they were dealing w/Al Sharpton, not some dummy who couldn't defend himself. Out came the long list of elected officials, appointed bureaucrats, and other public figures whose real addresses were unknown, who had po boxes, etc as their official addresses. The whole attempt to derail Sharpton and embarrass him blew up in Rupert Murdoch's face - another scum bag whose real address was - unknown. 35 years they've been dealing w/Reverend Al, and they still haven't learned that he's not stupid and that he can't be taken down w/bullshit.

EDIT - It was after that that Al Sharpton became a popular regular on news shows. He's earned a certain amount of affection, even from his detractors.

[C.J.Woolf]

It was implied that I wasn't a real American because I dared to criticize America.
An observation: The "America: love it or leave it" types sure do complain a lot about certain Americans and certain aspects of America, just like left-wingers.

[rek]

No omni, it was implied you're not a real American because you're goal is not freedom it's power over other people (you share this with Gore and Sharpton but don't forget you also share it with Bush - don't be too proud). While I have no problem with letting you or anyone else live a socialist lifestyle you absolutely cannot allow a single person on the face of the planet to be free - you have a need to control them all because you know what is best for them.

You hold yourself and your views as if you are some sort of god with all the wisdom in the world to pass down onto us fools. We're not the ones controlling you.

America was founded with liberty as it's core value. It's entire purpose was that no one knew how to live, no one knew what was best for everyone else, and therefor no one would have the power to decide for everyone else.

I'm not saying you can't live any way you want; I'm saying you can't force me to live under your own rules. I'm saying this isn't a democracy, it's a republic: you have no more power over my life than I do over yours - regardless of how many votes you may or may not have and regardless of the amount of emotion behind your opinions.

And yes, if you cannot accept that as a lifestyle I do suggest you move. I'm not asking you to love the country I'm asking you to stop trying to play God over the lives of what used to be a free people. That request is completely justified. As was once said by a great man: the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

[omnirook]

No omni, it was implied you're not a real American because you're goal is not freedom it's power over other people (you share this with Gore and Sharpton but don't forget you also share it with Bush - don't be too proud). While I have no problem with letting you or anyone else live a socialist lifestyle you absolutely cannot allow a single person on the face of the planet to be free - you have a need to control them all because you know what is best for them.

You hold yourself and your views as if you are some sort of god with all the wisdom in the world to pass down onto us fools. We're not the ones controlling you.

America was founded with liberty as it's core value. It's entire purpose was that no one knew how to live, no one knew what was best for everyone else, and therefor no one would have the power to decide for everyone else.

I'm not saying you can't live any way you want; I'm saying you can't force me to live under your own rules. I'm saying this isn't a democracy, it's a republic: you have no more power over my life than I do over yours - regardless of how many votes you may or may not have and regardless of the amount of emotion behind your opinions.

And yes, if you cannot accept that as a lifestyle I do suggest you move. I'm not asking you to love the country I'm asking you to stop trying to play God over the lives of what used to be a free people. That request is completely justified. As was once said by a great man: the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

I'm trying to get a picture over here. You've got San Francisco down as your POR. SF's a major city - you don't live out on the prarie w/the coyotes and the tumble weeds. You live in a densely packed, urban setting - and you think that people should be allowed to run around, doing as they please?

If you answer "No," that means that you realize that there have to be rules.

Now it becomes a question of what rules - the rules that let big business run wild and waste resources and despoil the environment, the rules that let big business make a profit, no matter how many are killed w/the poisons that are being peddled?* Those are the kinds of rules that you like? Nothing to protect the little guy? What, you think that the little guy would do fine at the mercy of big business if the government just backed off?

I've not looked at your profile, so let me guess ... You're young. If you don't live at home, you moved out not long ago - and, if you really needed help, good old Dad is just that one phone call away. You've not had any heart attacks, strokes or other major illnesses that lead to chronic (and expensive) health problems. You're young and full of energy and you figure that you'll always feel good. Hell, you've not even had a grey hair or a wrinkle or a bald spot to contend with, much less any real health problems. No kids. No elderly, sick parents who have to give up all that they worked for to get into a nursing home. None of that kind of stuff. You're just the type of person that the US Military drools over because you haven't had enough happen to you to teach you how to be scared.

Just wait awhile - wait until you can't take a shit and have to go to the doctor and bend over while he - or she, which is alway better for such a thing - sticks a camera up your ass to see what's wrong. Maybe they'll roll you into the emergency room one morning, oh, 3 AM, "I'm dying! I'm dying!" "Mr Rek, calm down! You're not having a heart attack. It's acid reflux - heartburn. You're not 20 any more. You can't eat 6 tacos and go to bed!"

Just wait until you realize that you are not indestructible, that you are merely mortal, and that you are tired and don't feel so good and can't move so fast and have aches and pains where you didn't even know you had parts before. Then there will be a little less John Wayne, standing tall, standing alone talk coming from you. Just wait. Hate me. Hate everything I've said. But remember what I've said.

*How about the 300 K women who are needlessly dying w/breast cancer because a pharmacuetical company knew that its hormone replacement caused cancer but was unwilling to give up the profits from these "lifers" - women who needed to have the hormone replacement for as long as they lived - and, so, subverted the FDA and even went so far as to buy up and close down another company that had a safer alternative?

[rek]

You live in a densely packed, urban setting - and you think that people should be allowed to run around, doing as they please?

If you answer "No," that means that you realize that there have to be rules.

Well, I answer "Yes" such that everyone should be free to make their own choices (even if they are wrong) so long as their actions do not infringe on other peoples freedoms to do the same. Even if all your talk was right (it's not) and my methods are incorrect (they're not) and would therefor lead to me having a life of suffering (probably wont) I still reserve the right to make that decision for myself. I would rather die freely than live as a slave to misinformation (even if it happens to be right sometimes - hell even if it was right ALL the time).


Now it becomes a question of what rules - the rules that let big business run wild and waste resources and despoil the environment, the rules that let big business make a profit, no matter how many are killed w/the poisons that are being peddled?* Those are the kinds of rules that you like? Nothing to protect the little guy? What, you think that the little guy would do fine at the mercy of big business if the government just backed off?

You're looking at the world backward. Competitive business is by definition the most efficient use of resources possible, it's government that does nothing but create waste. The largest corruption occurs when business mixes with government, not through either by itself.


[insert a whole bunch of crap]

If your biggest argument is how many years I've been alive I think you need to rethink your position. Not to mention your clear speculation about my life and what I've been through has absolutely no basis and is incorrect.


*How about the 300 K women who are needlessly dying w/breast cancer because a pharmacuetical company knew that its hormone replacement caused cancer but was unwilling to give up the profits from these "lifers"

How about them?

How about glucosamine and chondroitin which were found years ago to help the symptoms of osteo arthritis but took 20 years for the FDA to finally accept. While instead they promoted Cox-2 inhibitors which resulted in over a hundred thousand deaths in the last 6 years.

How about the fact that the total time it takes to develop a new drug has more than doubled since the 60's, while the average costs to bring one single drug to the market has gone up exponentially.

My point is, when it comes to theories on drug control there are two types of errors and you (and most of society) only give credit to the easily visible one. You can always decrease the chance of type II errors by simply making more strict regulations, but what about type I errors? You probably don't know what the difference is, so I'll explain:

A type II error is when you fail to reject a hypothesis which is wrong (in other words the FDA let's a drug get by which shouldn't have). The effects of this are extremely visible, generally people get sick and/or die (as in your example).

A type I error is when you reject a hypothesis which is true (the FDA fails to approve a lifesaving drug for example). This happens much more often and results in many more deaths but since they are indirect deaths not clearly visible to society we don't place any value on them.

The part people miss is that by definition lowering one type of error raises the other. Becoming more strict lowers the chance of an unsafe drug hitting the market while at the same time making it harder for new drugs to come to market which could potentially save more lives than the unsafe drug hurt to begin with.

The only system which makes sense is that of limited regulation through the free market. For example, companies such as the FDA could exist (hell I'll even let one be a public company if it floats your boat) and those companies could do studies and give drugs approval or denial based on whatever the hell they want to use as criteria. Then all the drugs could be produced regardless of the result. Every consumer would then have the choice to only take drugs which were approved, or they could decide based on their individual circumstance that they wished to take the risk of a different drug.

If I'm going to die from cancer within 3 years and there's a drug which has a chance of curing my cancer and letting me live for 45 years, but as a side effect kills a fourth of the patients within 1 year, it should damn well be my choice if I want to take that risk or not.

All you're doing is the same thing you always do: taking responsibility away from individuals. We have so many problems in life it's much easier to just blame everyone else. We can blame god, we can blame the government, we can blame other people, we can blame corporations - as long as it's not our responsibility right?

I'm sorry you can't accept the result of your own actions, but I can accept the result of mine. I want to be free to make the wrong choice - even if I'm going to make it and even if it's going to result in my own suffering and/or death.

You can call me young and imply I'm naive all you want. You don't know me. I could be lying in bed in pain dying tomorrow and I would still take full responsibility for myself - I would still refuse money from the government and I would still stand as strongly against tyranny as I do currently (there's a reason the quote in my signature is there).

[AMDG]

In reality, this system of welfare which we are supposed to believe helps its "beneficiaries", is in fact what keeps them reliant on it, like slavery.

I think it goes back to Henry VIII and the dissolution of the monasteries. Up to that point, the economy was pretty liberal, and charity on a large scale and health care for the poor was what the monasteries did. Then the government close the monasteries and took all their money and land, so over time it began to seem only right that the government should pick up the gap left in society, of caring for the poor that would previously have got their aid from the church.

In a way I sorta agree with the idea that charity and social welfare could be given over to groups like Emmaus and Restos du Coeur, the Salvation Army and suchlike (though the SA less so, because the French ones make a point of rehabilitating the homeless and giving them jobs to earn their way and keep their dignity, while British charity seems to do that less), but at the moment they don't have the resources to step into the poverty that'd be left behind if the government stopped paying benefits to the poor. And some people really do need something to just give them a leg-up back into normal society, because when you're in some situations, you can work your butt off and you'll still get nowhere unless someone gives you a break.

But then again, I'm of the opinion that a government's job is to rule the country - to defend it in times of war, to look after its peace and prosperity on a large, universal scale, and I don't think it really has any business getting involved in individual lives on a personal basis. That's because I'm a medieval dickweed, and that sorta thing worked in the Middle Ages. It wouldn't work now though, because back then the individual care was taken care of by close-knit communities and families and the church, whilst nowadays all those things are broken down, so there'd be nothing left to fill that void if the government stopped doing it.

[omnirook]

Well, I answer "Yes" such that everyone should be free to make their own choices (even if they are wrong) so long as their actions do not infringe on other peoples freedoms to do the same. Even if all your talk was right (it's not) and my methods are incorrect (they're not) and would therefor lead to me having a life of suffering (probably wont) I still reserve the right to make that decision for myself. I would rather die freely than live as a slave to misinformation (even if it happens to be right sometimes - hell even if it was right ALL the time).



OK - so I choose to change my car's oil. Then I choose to take the spent oil and pour it over the back fence on my property - as I've known people to do, by the way. Now - you do agree that I shouldn't be allowed to do that - who's going to stop me? Who's going to punish me for having done that, so that I will not do it again? Do you at least admit that we need a government - and that that government should be impartial in the execution of policies? - and that those government agents who are found to be partial in the execution of policies should be punished?

[The on-going General Services Administration scandal would provide a good example - using public places, public time, public money to twist the arms of public employees to turn out the vote for Republican candidates. You can look that up; it's well-publicized and has brought high-ranking Bush Administration staffers under investigation.]

Point is - government, warts and all, is a necessary thing. You might be an anarchist - ok, say so.




You're looking at the world backward. Competitive business is by definition the most efficient use of resources possible, it's government that does nothing but create waste. The largest corruption occurs when business mixes with government, not through either by itself.



Pookie - whose definition? The definition provided by "competitive business?" ... Do a little reading about WalMart and find out just what "competitive" businesses do to kill the competition in a "free" market! ... The fucking mountain crushing mining that's going on as I type is the "best way" to harness resources - or the cheapest for the companies destroying the environment to save money and maximize their own profits? Letting Exxon use rusty old tubs for transporting oil was good, right? - provided all those bored animals w/something to do, cleaning their feathers and furs and skins of the spilled oil.

Honey - the GOVERNMENT is the nation's LARGEST employer, its LARGEST consumer, is THE F-A-V-0-R-I-T-E customer of big businesses. When the government spends money, that money goes INTO THE ECONOMY. It's only a question of where in the economy it goes and to whose benefit.




If your biggest argument is how many years I've been alive I think you need to rethink your position. Not to mention your clear speculation about my life and what I've been through has absolutely no basis and is incorrect.



Then correct me. I promise - I'll read what you write.

You tell me all about being downtrodden, poor, homeless, sick, a minority, and how being such led you to believe in the free market and in the savage limiting of government and in allowing the people around you to do as they damned well pleased, including cheat, humiliate, and embarrass you and treat you as though everything that had happened to you were your fault. You take me through that story step by step and tell me how each event taught you that nobody but nobody should have protected you from whatever anyone felt like doing to you.

You tell me how you didn't mind it at all when a predatory lender got you to sign over your house as collateral on a "consolidate your debts" loan, enticed you w/a low interest rate, but "forgot" to mention that, in the third year, your interest rates would EXPLODE to where you were buried in more debt than ever, so that you couldn't meet your bills and wound up in foreclosure (the true aim of the lender from day one!). You tell me that you were not contemplating joining the class-action suit brought by the State of Ohio against such lenders - or at least would not provide a "friend of the court" brief to Ohio to help it close down such outfits because you live in California and could not join the suit. No, it didn't bother you at all. You just took your underwear and your socks and your computer and moved in under the nearest overpass. The government should not stop companies from doing those kinds of things to people!




How about them?

How about glucosamine and chondroitin which were found years ago to help the symptoms of osteo arthritis but took 20 years for the FDA to finally accept. While instead they promoted Cox-2 inhibitors which resulted in over a hundred thousand deaths in the last 6 years.

How about the fact that the total time it takes to develop a new drug has more than doubled since the 60's, while the average costs to bring one single drug to the market has gone up exponentially.

My point is, when it comes to theories on drug control there are two types of errors and you (and most of society) only give credit to the easily visible one. You can always decrease the chance of type II errors by simply making more strict regulations, but what about type I errors? You probably don't know what the difference is, so I'll explain:

A type II error is when you fail to reject a hypothesis which is wrong (in other words the FDA lets a drug get by which shouldn't have). The effects of this are extremely visible, generally people get sick and/or die (as in your example).

A type I error is when you reject a hypothesis which is true (the FDA fails to approve a lifesaving drug for example). This happens much more often and results in many more deaths but since they are indirect deaths not clearly visible to society we don't place any value on them.



Wrong, darling. New York State recently released a horrifying report on a decades' long study of the pharmaceutical industry and its "ownership" of the FDA and how just what you are talking about is SOP - standard operating proceedure. When made aware that good drugs, etc are suppressed to favor the expensive and worthless and/or harmlful drugs of large pharmaceutical companies - people DO care. And they do want something done about it!




The part people miss is that by definition lowering one type of error raises the other. Becoming more strict lowers the chance of an unsafe drug hitting the market while at the same time making it harder for new drugs to come to market which could potentially save more lives than the unsafe drug hurt to begin with.



Nice theory. Has nothing to do w/what goes on. Reference the NYS report. Fact is, the bulk of "research" money in the pharmaceutical business goes into patent protecting and renewing expiring patents by retooling old drugs to get fresh patents to protect the formulas. Next comes research into CRAP like baldness cures and making sure that 90 year-old men can still get hard. Fuck everybody else. There's no money in it. Then we have the deliberately squashing effective cures for diseases because we make too much money treating their symptoms - Hello, CANCER!




The only system which makes sense is that of limited regulation through the free market. For example, companies such as the FDA could exist (hell I'll even let one be a public company if it floats your boat) and those companies could do studies and give drugs approval or denial based on whatever the hell they want to use as criteria. Then all the drugs could be produced regardless of the result. Every consumer would then have the choice to only take drugs which were approved, or they could decide based on their individual circumstance that they wished to take the risk of a different drug.



My grandmother came from Italy. She was an old-style Italian "mama" - she didn't even bother learning English because she hardly ever left the house. She was supposed to read these reports and decide? Again - proof that you are YOUNG and INEXPERIENCED - duckie, I've been there. I've been laid out in the hospital in so much pain that I would have swallowed lava if the doctor said that it would ease my suffering! What the fuck are you talking about? The average person can barely tie his shoes, but you think him fit to sift through thousands of pages of sophisticated jargon to come to a conclusion - YOU GET REAL!




If I'm going to die from cancer within 3 years and there's a drug which has a chance of curing my cancer and letting me live for 45 years, but as a side effect kills a fourth of the patients within 1 year, it should damn well be my choice if I want to take that risk or not.



There you do have a point. But it's the insurance companies that you need to go after. They're the ones behind stopping experimental treatments and letting people die when they've come to the end of the road and just want it all to end.




All you're doing is the same thing you always do: taking responsibility away from individuals. We have so many problems in life it's much easier to just blame everyone else. We can blame god, we can blame the government, we can blame other people, we can blame corporations - as long as it's not our responsibility right?



I'll tell you what - if I dump arsenic in people's drinking water, I'll take the responsibility. But since it was industry that got the Bush (mis-)Administration to lift regulations on arsenic dumping (because nobody could say for sure how much was harmful!) - let them take responsibility!




I'm sorry you can't accept the result of your own actions, but I can accept the result of mine. I want to be free to make the wrong choice - even if I'm going to make it and even if it's going to result in my own suffering and/or death.

You can call me young and imply I'm naive all you want. You don't know me. I could be lying in bed in pain dying tomorrow and I would still take full responsibility for myself - I would still refuse money from the government and I would still stand as strongly against tyranny as I do currently.



Yeah? Good for you. You're a real trooper. Do us both a favor - volunteer at a hospice. Go there and watch people suffering and dying - you take a look at a woman lying in bed, so ravaged by skin cancer that her back looks like a slab of bacon - and you tell her that she doesn't deserve the government-provided morphine that keeps her from howling in agony. Both of my parents died in hospice - and they were in good hospices, but, believe me, I saw suffering that would have made a stone weep. (The woman w/the skin cancer was in the bed next to my mother, and I accidentally saw her back when the orderly accidentally bumped the curtain, opening a view to me while I was visiting my mother.)

And let's not forget - I was in an accident that broke 16 of my bones and crushed the left side of my rib-cage - I know a little bit about pain and what it does to you. I know what it is to be a 6 foot, three inch tall, 250 pound baby who can't feed himself or wipe his own ass. I know what it is to lie there, helpless, in pain, crying in gratitude because a nurse took the time to shift me around some, so that I was more comfortable.

And the whole time, I knew that all that was wrong w/me was broken bones and cut up muscles - that I would get better, unlike some of the people who were in the intensive care unit w/me.

24 days on life support w/a machine breathing for me, 18 months of daily physical therapy just to be able to get around and take care of myself. I was lucky, very, very lucky - but nobody but nobody has to tell me what pain does to a person. Your whole world shirnks to that - pain, and you don't give a damn about anything that isn't related to alleviating your pain! You'd lick Louis XIV's crack and tell him how happy you were to have an absolute monarch ruling over you if he was the one holding the syringe w/the morphine in it.

[PiccoloNamek]

You know, I think Omni here is suffering from a severe case of "biased sample". He purposefully looks up and then cites all of the absolute worst cases of unethical and harmful practices (which I certainly don't deny exist; have you ever seen the area around the Inco super stack? Damn!) and then tries to make it seem like all large businesses and corporations are like this.

Unfortunately, he completely ignores all of the cases where there really is a great deal of innovation and healthy competition without any stepping on the little man. The headphone community I participate in is an excellent example. You have companies like Sennheiser, AKG, Audio-Technica, Ultimate Ears, and many, many others all trying as hard as they can to develop the best product, the most realistic-sounding, most comfortable, highest quality head/earphone, to have the best customer support (none of them outsource), to make the customer as happy as possible, trying as hard as they can to get money from their customer base (Which consists almost entirely of Head-Fi members.) Those who fail to develop a product that people like lose money and eventually fall by the wayside, those that succeed are lauded and grow in popularity and notoriety. Their profits grow as well. These profits are then used to make even better products. It's capitalism at its best and most brilliant.

Honestly, I think "evil corporations" are the exception, rather than the rule.

[rek]

Very touching emotional story again omnirook, honestly we all know I can't compare, I'd never try to claim I could.

I'm not an anarchist, though I would prefer that over socialist, I'm a libertarian (not one of the crazy anarchist ones - an actual libertarian, as in: the government has it's place).

I'm sorry that you do not like the will and desires of other people. I'm sorry you do not value old men being able to have sex or not losing their hair as much as our society obviously does. The entire point of the market is for things to be fairly valued, this happens through letting people choose.

I completely agree with you that people do whatever they need to do to get money. You deal with this fact by trying to setup a system which suppresses people to work against their self in the interest of some greater good you claim it would be benefiting. I deal with the same fact by suggesting we use a system which encourages people to act in the best interest of society - that's what capitalism is. They don't make money because they are 'evil' they make money because society is willing to give them money for whatever they do (wrong or right).

I agree there's massive corruption, most of it stems from government involvement though - or government not doing their REAL job. Their job is to ensure fair competition not to mandate how people use their lives, what products should be created, or what people should pay for those products. Those decisions are left up to the individual. Some corruption is inevitable, it's human nature, and yes it sucks but we need to deal with it the best we can - not setup a system which encourages more of it.

If your argument is that individuals are incompetent I'd have to agree with you. We become more and more incompetent as we give all responsibility for ourselves away to other people. We now rely so heavily on the system that many people really couldn't survive without it - but that doesn't make it right. That's like saying cocaine is good for coke addicts and they should all have more of it because they can't just stop.

Believe me, I play poker and I know what it's like to be dealt shit cards all night long. I didn't intend to say everything that happens to people is directly correlated with their own actions nor did I mean to say they by any means deserve the bad luck which comes to them. I'm saying you take what you can get and you do the best you can do with it.

I'm very glad you had people there to help you get through what you were put through; I can only hope I have people who would do the same for me. You would do good to remember that the technology which saved your very own life was that created by the evil capitalists you seek revenge on - that life support machine was built so that it could be sold to people who needed it (at a profit).

Supply and demand. If you want people to supply different things then demand different things. Don't just cry about it actually put your money where your mouth is. How much we are willing to pay for things shows exactly how much we as members of society value them. If you don't agree with these values I'm sorry, I really don't agree with them either, but that doesn't mean we get to force our own values onto everyone else.

You have no right or inherent claim to the work of other people.

[omnirook]

I think it goes back to Henry VIII and the dissolution of the monasteries. Up to that point, the economy was pretty liberal, and charity on a large scale and health care for the poor was what the monasteries did. Then the government close the monasteries and took all their money and land, so over time it began to seem only right that the government should pick up the gap left in society, of caring for the poor that would previously have got their aid from the church.



That's too narrow of a look, sorry. Go back. Go back to the Roman Empire before the establishment of Christianity as the state religion.

The Roman government took such duties very seriously. The poor were fed, education was provided for the poor, hospitals, libraries, baths, etc. All over Europe are dedicatory monuments to the founding of this or that charitable organization by this or that emporer, including monuments to even Nero for having organized a fresh grain dole after the Great Fire of Rome.

Point is, from the time of the Roman Republic, the state had been a major - and increasing - source of support for the poor. Julius Caesar brought in all sorts of reforms - water and housing and fire regulations, etc. Augustus Caesar went even further, his wife Livia being profuse in her attentions to schools and orphanages and women and children.

As the empire declined, the Church stepped in to fill gaps and eventually took over all of the work of a vast bureaucracy. Like it or not, for nearly 1000 years, the Church WAS the GOVERNMENT - not some ancillary, charitable group doing good works.

The English Government post Henry VIII gradually picking up where the Church had left off was no more than a return to the norm - ie, the government being the principle beneficiary of the public.

[omnirook]

You know, I think Omni here is suffering from a severe case of "biased sample". He purposefully looks up and then cites all of the absolute worst cases of unethical and harmful practices (which I certainly don't deny exist; have you ever seen the area around the Inco super stack? Damn!) and then tries to make it seem like all large businesses and corporations are like this.

Unfortunately, he completely ignores all of the cases where there really is a great deal of innovation and healthy competition without any stepping on the little man. The headphone community I participate in is an excellent example. You have companies like Sennheiser, AKG, Audio-Technica, Ultimate Ears, and many, many others all trying as hard as they can to develop the best product, the most realistic-sounding, most comfortable, highest quality head/earphone, to have the best customer support (none of them outsource), to make the customer as happy as possible, trying as hard as they can to get money from their customer base (Which consists almost entirely of Head-Fi members.) Those who fail to develop a product that people like lose money and eventually fall by the wayside, those that succeed are lauded and grow in popularity and notoriety. Their profits grow as well. These profits are then used to make even better products. It's capitalism at its best and most brilliant.

Honestly, I think "evil corporations" are the exception, rather than the rule.

OK - fine. There are good companies. And they should get awards. There are some wonderful companies. That doesn't mean that I have to give the bad ones a pass. That would be like saying, "Senator A does not steal, so Senator B, who does, should be left alone - after all, they are both senators!"

We are LUCKY that we still have the reports about the bad companies - and that's mostly due to the Internet, not the "free press." Yeah - I concentrate on what I believe to be the guilty parties. So?

[AMDG]

That's too narrow of a look, sorry. Go back. Go back to the Roman Empire before the establishment of Christianity as the state religion.

...

Well yeah I know, but at the time when the monasteries were dissolved, not many people were aware of that, and I don't think the mostly-forgotten Roman heritage of England at that time was really an influential factor in social forces and decisions at that time!

I didn't mean to suggest that either alternative was better than the other - or that what order they come/came in has any bearing on the benefits, pros or cons of either, only that I personally prefer the idea of one over the other, for purely personal, mostly sentimental reasons :)

[rek]

This thread has really made me realize how much we take things for granted. It's so easy now that we have so much stuff to stop and say "hey, look at all this stuff, it'd be way more equal if we just split it up". What we take for granted is that every little thing came from someone else's work.

I just got back from Safeway. I bought a package of turkey. It's in a little tupperwear case. Inside that it's wrapped tightly in plastic so it stays fresh. Someone not only raised these turkeys, but someone was paid to make the food to feed those turkeys, someone else was paid to make the turkey into food, someone else was paid for the little plastic wrapping, someone designed the little tupperwear case, someone else mined the minerals required for all of this, someone actually put it all together, someone else marketed it so it would end up on the shelves at safeway, safeway staffs tons of people to help me, it has a big sign (i can see out my window) which someone else designed and someone else built, someone else built the building and that person bought the supplies from someone else... and my turkey was like $3.99

It truly is amazing what people do when they come together. I think we really take for granted the fact that in omni-land there would very simply not be any of the stuff we have. Sure we could split up what we have now but it wouldn't take long before it was all gone and nothing was made to replace it.

[demagogic_schizoid]

basically it comes down to whether or not you buy into the belief that the best way to make people wealthier is to redistribute existing wealth rather than to create wealth.

If you believe that fair enough - but in the case of someone who knows history like omnirook, I'm pretty astounded...

[rek]

basically it comes down to whether or not you buy into the belief that the best way to make people wealthier is to redistribute existing wealth rather than to create wealth.

If you believe that fair enough - but in the case of someone who knows history like omnirook, I'm pretty astounded...

Yea, fine, just come on in and rephrase all my beautifully formed arguments with a single sentence that sums it all up - whatever :P

[AMDG]

basically it comes down to whether or not you buy into the belief that the best way to make people wealthier is to redistribute existing wealth rather than to create wealth.

If you believe that fair enough - but in the case of someone who knows history like omnirook, I'm pretty astounded...

I think redistributing wealth would be the ideal, but it'd only work if people redistributed their own wealth voluntarily - it'll never work where it has to be forced from them through taxes and welfare systems. That'd involve creating and fostering a whole new ethic and getting society at large to sign up to it, which, given the basic avarice and apathy of average people, won't really happen, thinking realistically.

The trouble with creating new wealth is that it requires new resources, and there are only so many resources to go round before they're all used up...

I just sorta think it's a shame that when there really is already so much wealth around, more than enough for every living person to live a good lifestyle, that we have to talk like this because so many are content to live in mind-boggling luxury while others starve. If only people were more willing to give of their own accord... that'd be great. But I don't think that a) they ever will or b) they should be made to give against their will. At least, not by laws and governments and that kind of thing.

If, on the other hand, some extremely rich, uncharitable chap finds himself beseiged in his palace and murdered by a starving population who've taken matters into their own hands, and all his wealth redistributed, then... well. So be it. That's just karma! :mellow:

OMG, I'm an anarchist after all...!!

[demagogic_schizoid]

Yea, fine, just come on in and rephrase all my beautifully formed arguments with a single sentence that sums it all up - whatever :P

Well, at lest you are now armed with a new meme. someone passed it onto me once - such thigs spread like wildfire. in fact I plan to post the article I got it from sometime.

[omnirook]

Very touching emotional story again omnirook, honestly we all know I can't compare, I'd never try to claim I could.

I'm not an anarchist, though I would prefer that over socialist, I'm a libertarian (not one of the crazy anarchist ones - an actual libertarian, as in: the government has it's place).

I'm sorry that you do not like the will and desires of other people. I'm sorry you do not value old men being able to have sex or not losing their hair as much as our society obviously does. The entire point of the market is for things to be fairly valued, this happens through letting people choose.



Will and desires? ... I'm an agnostic, and I'm ready to cry, "Lord help me!"

Where do I begin? I'm all alone here - somebody pitch in! ... Where do I begin?

Do I talk about the advertizing and marketing business, the filthy practices, the false promises, the lying, etc? - the tried and true use of psychology's revelations about our basest natures to lure and snag shoppers w/promises that this or that widget will make them sexy and desirable to all and sundry, everybody from the hottest hot model to their neighbor's gay dog, Eric? Do I talk about how threats are used when sex won't sell a product? "YOUR CHILD'S S-A-F-E-T-Y IS AT RISK" delivered by a voiceover artist doing his best impression of God thundering atop Sinai?

Do I talk about the poll-taking racket and how polls are conducted in such a way to get whatever results whoever was paying for the poll wanted?

Do I talk about the smear campaigns and mud-slinging that substitute for political dialog in this country?

You find me somebody who knows what he wants and who can tell me why he wants it w/o making reference to its popularity or to its usefulness in making him look good to those around him. Such people exist - few and far between, but they exist. So do California condors ...

Are we to assume that because people are buying crap by the cartload that they are able to get what they really want from life? Is a wagon full of Martha Stewart's "solutions" really the answer to life's oldest, deepest, widest concerns?




I completely agree with you that people do whatever they need to do to get money. You deal with this fact by trying to setup a system which suppresses people to work against their self in the interest of some greater good you claim it would be benefiting. I deal with the same fact by suggesting we use a system which encourages people to act in the best interest of society - that's what capitalism is. They don't make money because they are 'evil' they make money because society is willing to give them money for whatever they do (wrong or right).



Gotcha. Society is willing to give them money ... OK ... Let's get it off the ground level and move it on up to the corporate board rooms. Remember a few years back how the investors (stock holders) threw a fit about how corporations were overcompensating their CEO's and other officers? Threw a fit and demanded action. The CEO's panicked and ran to the SEC and promised on bended knees to shape up or ship out - they could be trusted to do the right thing. All sorts of speeches were made and essays published about what CEO's had to do to win back the trust of their EMPLOYERS. Now we come to find out that the CEO's are getting far more than they were then! This is more of your Reaganite leaving the foxes to guard the hen house. There was no reform. And there isn't going to be any reform - until the people who OWN the companies FORCE the government to do something about it.


I agree there's massive corruption, most of it stems from government involvement though - or government not doing their REAL job. Their job is to ensure fair competition not to mandate how people use their lives, what products should be created, or what people should pay for those products. Those decisions are left up to the individual. Some corruption is inevitable, it's human nature, and yes it sucks but we need to deal with it the best we can - not setup a system which encourages more of it.



Bullshit. See above. The one and only instance of an industry policing itself that worked was when the movie industry set up its own ratings system and agreed to abide by the rules set up by the Hays Commission (government). Why did that work? Because the FCC was right there, ready to pounce if a movie made the tiniest slip. Howard Hughes, the richest man in the world, was hauled in for grilling every time he put out a new picture, had to go in person and sweat for days - and that was just to keep the government out of the picture.




If your argument is that individuals are incompetent I'd have to agree with you. We become more and more incompetent as we give all responsibility for ourselves away to other people. We now rely so heavily on the system that many people really couldn't survive without it - but that doesn't make it right. That's like saying cocaine is good for coke addicts and they should all have more of it because they can't just stop.



No - my argument is that people cannot be expected to be universally competent. That's why we don't let plumbers do brain surgery - and why we can't rely on a system that would ask patients to direct their own treatments.

You might think that I'm some sort of a low-end, low-wage lacky or something. And I can't prove that I'm not - not w/o giving away more than I am willing to give away in a place like this forum. But if you're willing to accept that maybe I'm telling the truth, I'll tell you that I'm a business owner - rather a partner in businesses that are partnerships versus corporations. Point is, I'm not broke. We do all sorts of things, much of it in the service sector but some in real estate and construction/rennovation. Point is, I'm not broke. I deal w/the government all the time, and, yes, it can be a hassle, and it does cut into profits - but I don't object. And there is all sorts of corruption - but, still, I do not object. If the the government weren't there at all, what would be going on would take us back to the days when the public DEMANDED that the government get involved. All you free-marketers forget that the public DEMANDED that the government get involved and regulate business because they were fed up w/unregulated business and what it was doing to them. Cheating them, crippling them, poisoning them, killing them - the list of horror stories is as thick as the NY Yellow Pages - and that a very thick, multivolumed tome!




Believe me, I play poker and I know what it's like to be dealt shit cards all night long. I didn't intend to say everything that happens to people is directly correlated with their own actions nor did I mean to say they by any means deserve the bad luck which comes to them. I'm saying you take what you can get and you do the best you can do with it.



By that reasoning, then the United States should still have whites only bathrooms and schools and drinking fountains - you're given your black skin, that's a shame, but too bad for you, deal w/it. By that reasoning, "Eh - you whores get periods every month, and you're on the rag and don't know what you're doing, so yous shouldn't be allowed to drive or operate machinery, dher' - or even vote" - you were born a woman, deal w/it. "You fucking Jew motherfuckers are all alike, you big-nosed, money-grubbing kikes - we don't want your sort in our neighborhood" - you're a JEW! You're lucky that we don't open up a few camps w/big ovens of our own! - deal w/it!!!

How dare you compare a few shitty hands in poker w/having to deal w/a lifetime of discrimination! How dare you suggest that your bad night playing poker is enough for you to understand what a black man in Mississippi in the 1950's and 1960's had to deal with? - 85 year-old greatgrandfathers were still called "boy" and had to shuffle and play "Tom" if white people were around to see. You deal w/that hand - I'd like to see you do it!




I'm very glad you had people there to help you get through what you were put through; I can only hope I have people who would do the same for me. You would do good to remember that the technology which saved your very own life was that created by the evil capitalists you seek revenge on - that life support machine was built so that it could be sold to people who needed it (at a profit).



Gotcha again. Several of the greatest advances in heart surgery were made in the Soviet Union by state-paid surgeons on patients who were not being charged for their treatment. Sorry, dumpling - it's there. Look it up.




Supply and demand. If you want people to supply different things then demand different things. Don't just cry about it actually put your money where your mouth is. How much we are willing to pay for things shows exactly how much we as members of society value them. If you don't agree with these values I'm sorry, I really don't agree with them either, but that doesn't mean we get to force our own values onto everyone else.

You have no right or inherent claim to the work of other people.



Oh, I am demanding that "different things" be supplied. And I'm not alone.

Huh?

[rek]

Your logic is unbelievable. You're like a god, just tell us all what we should supply you master omni. I'm sure the rest of the world will see your socialist genius and we will all work together to produce whatever you deem best for us.


You find me somebody who knows what he wants and who can tell me why he wants it w/o making reference to its popularity or to its usefulness in making him look good to those around him.

Found you one: me.


Are we to assume that because people are buying crap by the cartload that they are able to get what they really want from life? Is a wagon full of Martha Stewart's "solutions" really the answer to life's oldest, deepest, widest concerns?

No, we are to assume that you have no right to tell them what their oldest, deepest, wildest concerns are. If they want to buy 'crap by the cartload' then who the hell are you to say they aren't allowed to? They worked, they earned their money, they can spend it however they please.

You're not the moral god of the universe, your values aren't inherently more important to everyone else than their own. One might point out that if they were you wouldn't need to force it on them.


[blah blah blah] there isn't going to be any reform - until the people who OWN the companies FORCE the government to do something about it.

Wrong again. There's reform precisely because the OWNERS demand it from their own companies, not the government. I'm an investor myself and I have this 'crazy' strategy where I only buy the stocks of companies which I think will make ME money. It's a cool strategy, try it sometime. If people were forced to buy stocks in companies that'd be a different story, but they're not. Also stockholders own the company, they are more than powerful enough to indirectly make every decision a company makes (assuming the majority agree - if not too bad).


No - my argument is that people cannot be expected to be universally competent. That's why we don't let plumbers do brain surgery - and why we can't rely on a system that would ask patients to direct their own treatments.

Are you god of who's allowed to perform brain surgery too? You must be an amazing person.

You have no right to tell other people whether or not they can get brain surgery from a plumber if they wish to. That's why we have certifications, degrees, etc. As proof you know what you're doing so people will hire you. I don't see where master-omni's opinion plays any part in the decision.



All you free-marketers forget that the public DEMANDED that the government get involved and regulate business because they were fed up w/unregulated business and what it was doing to them.

And you were the first to point out the public isn't exactly genius.



By that reasoning, then the United States should still have whites only bathrooms and schools and drinking fountains - you're given your black skin, that's a shame, but too bad for you, deal w/it. By that reasoning, "Eh - you whores get periods every month, and you're on the rag and don't know what you're doing, so yous shouldn't be allowed to drive or operate machinery, dher' - or even vote" - you were born a woman, deal w/it. "You fucking Jew motherfuckers are all alike, you big-nosed, money-grubbing kikes - we don't want your sort in our neighborhood" - you're a JEW! You're lucky that we don't open up a few camps w/big ovens of our own! - deal w/it!!!

How do you even try to relate what I said to racism and sexism? Is the only way you can deal with my arguments to construe them into something completely different so you can use an easy textbook defense?


How dare you compare a few shitty hands in poker w/having to deal w/a lifetime of discrimination!

Again, I don't remember mentioning discrimination.



Gotcha again. Several of the greatest advances in heart surgery were made in the Soviet Union by state-paid surgeons on patients who were not being charged for their treatment. Sorry, dumpling - it's there. Look it up.

Damn you really did get me there! Sometimes things happen by accident too, does this mean we should give up trying and count on accidents to accomplish everything?


Oh, I am demanding that "different things" be supplied. And I'm not alone.

Well that's a wonderful demand but again it raises the question of who you are to make such a demand? You may ask nicely, and if you're willing to pay for your demands I'm sure someone will be willing to sell.

It must be really hard for you in this world surrounded by so many people who you're clearly better than. Why wont all these idiots just listen to your genius and trust it's what's best for them? Why do they value their own freedom to choose when they could have the almighty omni choose for them? They must be pretty ignorant...

[omnirook]

Your logic is unbelievable. You're like a god, just tell us all what we should supply you master omni. I'm sure the rest of the world will see your socialist genius and we will all work together to produce whatever you deem best for us.

Oh, thank you! ... I require no temples, no churches or other such wastes ... One of you should, though, bring me a hot bowl of wonton soup w/some hot mustard on the side and some of those crispy noodles that I like ... Then I'll have some steamed dumplings. Believe it or not, I like to sprinkle parmesan cheese and black pepper on those ... Then I'll have a few cups of that brewed tea, none of that tea-bag shit! For desert, I'll have some of that sweet, sticky rice, topped w/honey. Then, because I just ate Chinese food, I'll belch loud enough to rattle the windows over on 5th Avenue - that'll be the "horn" letting them know that the the time[I] has arrived.

[I]All right, you slobs, out on the street for 8 o'clock garbage detail! This is God speaking, so there's no point in calling the police - they've got their hands full dealing w/all the prisoners whose cells just mysteriously popped open ... You take the garbage and divide it into 2 piles - edible and inedible. When you're done w/that, you'll know what's on your breakfast menu. Get to work! ... Don't send Consuela down here to do your work! She's going to be much too busy deciding which of your clothes and jewelery she wants to keep. Get your asses down here and start sorting! After breakfast, we'll go over your afternoon schedule, starting w/the trip to the tenements you own - and are going to live in from now on ... You don't own any tenements? Who's that? ... Let's see ... No, no tenements - well, improvise ... I said you're on your own! ... No, no, no - he was the one giving the speech over at the University Club about how he shouldn't have to pay taxes to support leeches - so I don't want him to feel bad by becoming a leech himself, so, no, you can't help him w/letting him have one of the dumps that you own. He can sleep in the park - until the police are back on duty and hassle him down into the sewer, where he belongs ... Now - those of you w/the prescriptions and the health coverage that pays for the prescriptions. Well, I've got good news and bad news ... The good news is that you are still sick and still need the prescriptions and the prescriptions are still good. The bad news is that you don't have that health coverage any more - and, oh, don't get any cute ideas about sneaking off to Canada to save money. GOD is watching! You think you're sick now, just try to get around the glorious healthcare system that you voted for and lobbied for and bribed for - your fucking tumors will have tumors, and those tumors will tap-dance on your nerve endings while singing that Puerto Rican music you love so much! You will beg to die - but you will live until I am bored by your suffering - and I don't bore easily ... Now, those of you w/young children - you have MY permission to send them to work in sweat shops - or into brothels, but, you were right, taxing people to pay for schools for the poor is - cruel, so they can't go to school. Besides, you'll need whatever they earn to pay your bills and cover your costs - because, honies, you are going to find out just what the "free market" means!

[Gala]

If this thread hadn't degenerated into so much name calling and overly emotional nonsense it would be easier to butt into.

For those who are looking in now, heres my 2 second summary

Demagogic Schizoid and Rex: We want to be free, free I tell you! That means we want to pay NO TAX, f*ck social responsibility, if the poor have no bread, let them eat cake. Don't like it? Go and live in France!

ADMG: Life was great in the medieval period! It was so cool then. Thier social structures worked for them. It would be nice if they would work now but I don't think they would. (are you sure your not my brother? This is exactly what he would say!)

Omnirook: Free will is a delusion because our society is controled by the large multi-nationals who dictate the supposedly 'free' forces of supply and demand. Some level of control over the excesses of the market needs to exist, combined with basic social services for its victims. The hegemonic forces of racism and other forms of discrimination that support the current capitalist system need to be challenged due to the suffering and great inequality that they result in.

To deal with one specific point, that of taxation on consumption rather than earnings; In practice economists and social policy research into this area has shown that VAT as its called in ireland (Value Added Tax, tax on consumption) is the form of tax which most directly taxes the poor and redistributes that wealth back to the rich, in any country that it has ever been used in.
Earn €100 per week, spend it all on food, pay tax on all of it.
Earn €1000 a week, spend 100 on food, 100 on rent, 100 on consumer items - pay tax on that bit, invest, save or use the rest on financhial products, don't pay tax on that at all.
Poor person pays tax on 100% of income, rich person on 30%. I know thats a major simplification, but it makes it no less true.

[rek]

Ok i'm going to ignore the rest of your over simplified post since you obviously didn't read/understand the majority of the posts (no offense, i don't blame you at all, i wouldn't read all that shit if it wasn't me either).


To deal with one specific point, that of taxation on consumption rather than earnings; In practice economists and social policy research into this area has shown that VAT as its called in ireland (Value Added Tax, tax on consumption) is the form of tax which most directly taxes the poor and redistributes that wealth back to the rich, in any country that it has ever been used in.
Earn ?100 per week, spend it all on food, pay tax on all of it.
Earn ?1000 a week, spend 100 on food, 100 on rent, 100 on consumer items - pay tax on that bit, invest, save or use the rest on financhial products, don't pay tax on that at all.
Poor person pays tax on 100% of income, rich person on 30%. I know thats a major simplification, but it makes it no less true.

This is an interesting point. You're right that if you spent all your money consuming (as it would be supposed the poorest would need to do) then you're paying tax on a higher percentage of what you made to begin with.

In your case, though, the rich would be paying 3 times the tax of the poor (even if that is a lower percentage of what they made it's 3 times the value). Also, assuming the poor continued to live of the same amount of money they did before they would have some left over (all that would have gone to income tax).

My thinking was more that all the money which is taken for taxes currently would REALLY help a lot of people out. I think this because I know that in my position (a currently poor college student) taxes are one of the main things which stand in the way of my ability to go up in economic class. Then again that's more so the case for me than average since I'm into stocks and plan to center my career around investing.

All the poor/middle class people that I know hate looking at their paycheck and seeing the thousands of dollars which disappear for taxes - that could have been spent fixing their broken car, etc.

I think for the plan I laid out to work taxes would need to be significantly lower in general, especially for things like food that everyone needs. For example, if the $100 you spent on food was untaxed then the poor in your case would pay exactly zero tax while the rich would be taxed on 20% of his income.

I guess it really wouldn't help much if society insists on continuing to take all the poor peoples money to spend on billion dollar wars in other countries, wars against the climate, a failing social security system, etc.

If omni can dream about his socialist wonderland I can at least dream of the people being free from government oppression, right? :P

[omnirook]

If this thread hadn't degenerated into so much name calling and overly emotional nonsense it would be easier to butt into.

For those who are looking in now, heres my 2 second summary

Demagogic Schizoid and Rex: We want to be free, free I tell you! That means we want to pay NO TAX, f*ck social responsibility, if the poor have no bread, let them eat cake. Don't like it? Go and live in France!

ADMG: Life was great in the medieval period! It was so cool then. Thier social structures worked for them. It would be nice if they would work now but I don't think they would. (are you sure your not my brother? This is exactly what he would say!)

Omnirook: Free will is a delusion because our society is controled by the large multi-nationals who dictate the supposedly 'free' forces of supply and demand. Some level of control over the excesses of the market needs to exist, combined with basic social services for its victims. The hegemonic forces of racism and other forms of discrimination that support the current capitalist system need to be challenged due to the suffering and great inequality that they result in.

To deal with one specific point, that of taxation on consumption rather than earnings; In practice economists and social policy research into this area has shown that VAT as its called in ireland (Value Added Tax, tax on consumption) is the form of tax which most directly taxes the poor and redistributes that wealth back to the rich, in any country that it has ever been used in.
Earn ?100 per week, spend it all on food, pay tax on all of it.
Earn ?1000 a week, spend 100 on food, 100 on rent, 100 on consumer items - pay tax on that bit, invest, save or use the rest on financhial products, don't pay tax on that at all.
Poor person pays tax on 100% of income, rich person on 30%. I know thats a major simplification, but it makes it no less true.

That's what happens when people try to dismiss other people as beneath contempt.

That's a fair gloss of what I have said (thus far). - except that I would not say that free will is illusory - but that people are being conned into conflating free will w/wanting what(ever) is being marketed to them in clever, underhanded ways. Going to a market and seeing row upon row filled w/endless "variety" (mostly variations in packaging, not content) fools people into believing that they are exercising choice. Yeah, I'm going to choose the cups w/the wider rim ... Big fucking deal! You look at the shit that you've got to choose from when it comes to candidates for high office - Bush/Kerry the last time around - and you KNOW just how meaningful that cup w/the wider rim is going to be!

"The New Hit Musical (that nobody has seen!)! that the (unnamed and on the pay-roll, anyway) critics are raving about is this season's must see spectacular (Why? Has air been replaced w/this musical - am I going to suffocate if I don't see it?)!"

That might seem like nit-picking - and it is - but it is symptomatic of what is wrong: the marketing is much more important than the products - products are invented, so that they can be marketed, so that the marketers can make most of their money on - not selliing the products - but marketing them!

... I ride around Manhattan all the time. I notice things. I always notice the way that apartments are being marketed. About ten years ago, the word "luxury" was put on every ad for every apartment. "Luxury" meant - expensive. It could be a fucking 1918 dump that was tossed up on Second Avenue along the el that's not there any more, meant to house the poorest of the working poor, but it's had a fresh coat of paint (one since 1918), and now some yuppie is going to pay more to rent the place for one month than its original tennants paid to rent it for 10 years. Freezing cold in the winter, baking hot in the summer, a railroad flat w/the fucking bathtub still in the kitchen - but that's ok, the realtor advertized it as "luxury," so some schmuck comes along and signs the lease.

Now we're not renting "luxury apartments" any more. Somebody must have caught on that "luxury" just meant - costly. Now we're renting "exclusive" apartments - only they're not apartments any more - they're "residences" - and they are not being "offered" - they are being "introduced." So, now the dump that went for 165 K 10 years ago is being "introduced" for "only" 1.29 million and may only be seen by "serious investors" - in other words, those humps whose credit reports shine like Tiffany cufflinks, so that they got past the dragons that guard the front desk at the realtor's office. And people go along w/this shit because it makes them feel good - and people like rek think that that's ok, that's just fine.

We send kids all the way through fucking school and not once do we teach them how to balance a check register - or how to read a credit card agreement or statement - or how to figure out what that loan really means at the end of 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 fucking years. How to do a budget. Nothing. A baby is supposed to come equipped w/those things - or have parents who know about them and can teach their kids (like rich people do). See, that would be my solution to the dilemma outlined in the paragraph above. If any of these fucking schmucks in Manhattan had a clue about how much they were paying for so little, no smarmy piece of shit in a designer suit would be able to palm off a rat-ridden, roach ruled dump w/bad plumbing and leaky cielings for a million and a half dollars, not including the 4 grand/month in "maintenence." Instead, we're running kids in circles in school teaching them a whole lot of nothing - and making credit cards available on college campuses right in the room where the kids are registering for classes! Soon, we'll have a "training credit card," so that starting in elementary school you can start building up debt that will follow you until they plant your carcass at the cemetary. But that's all ok - caveat emptor - let the buyer beware - but only after we've made sure that he's deaf, dumb, and blind. Then he'll really be ready for a good pounding.

[rek]

We send kids all the way through fucking school and not once do we teach them how to balance a check register - or how to read a credit card agreement or statement - or how to figure out what that loan really means at the end of 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 fucking years. How to do a budget. Nothing.

I'm not so sure where the rest of this post came from, but I'd have to say I agree completely on this statement. It really is terrible. We should fire whoever is in charge of our education system... :rofl:

[demagogic_schizoid]

Demagogic Schizoid and Rex: We want to be free, free I tell you! That means we want to pay NO TAX, f*ck social responsibility, if the poor have no bread, let them eat cake. Don't like it? Go and live in France!


Funny that you use a quote from the French Revolution to criticise classic liberal ideals...but apart from that, could you define what my social responsibilites are? Unless of course it's just a meaningless phrase. IMO your social responsbility is to respect other people's rights, property and privacy. These are things I try my best to do - so I think my attitude to social responsibility is pretty sound. What would you like to add to my list that I am apparently missing out on?

[Gala]

[B]

We send kids all the way through fucking school and not once do we teach them how to balance a check register - or how to read a credit card agreement or statement - or how to figure out what that loan really means at the end of 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 fucking years. How to do a budget. Nothing.

Or my biggest gripe-how to read a label on a food product.
In my last job I was teaching health and nutrition to a group of very disadvantaged women with low to non-existant literacy skills. We briefly covered the effect of suger in the diet, and how much was contained in the fizzy (soda) drinks that was all they ever gave thier children. I didn't think that they paid any more attention than usual, until a few weeks later they all started to complain about the high price of orange juice. ALL of them had completly stopped giving thier kids soda.
Me: But orange juice is cheep. I buy mine in [local cheep supermarket] for 48cent per litre. No brand of fizzy drink is that cheep.
Them: But our kids won't drink those brands. They only drink Sunny Delight
Me: Sunny Delight isn't orange juice
Them: blank looks

I don't know if the same adds run anywhere, but here they feature a freakish looking kid called 'Max Wild' who only eats brocaly, and run the slogan 'Because no child is like Max Wild...drink Sunny Delight'. Its a very high suger, high additive drink with no real friut content, but its packaged and stocked in the supermarkets in the fresh foods section with not the other ordinary fruit drinks, but the high end 'luxurary' ones.
These women were of perfectly normal intellignece (in one ot two cases possibly astoundingly high intelligence) but all lacked any real education, and as a result simply could not deconstruct the message 'our product is bad for you, but give it to your kids anyway, because lets face it, kids don't like whats good for them'
Harmless? No. During my 2 years (of hell) working with these groups I saw SEVEN clients in thier THIRTIES drop dead of cardiovascular diseases. Only one had a prior history of drug or alcahol abuse. Its not just cynical to market high profit low nutrition foods inacuratly, it kills.

[Gala]

Funny that you use a quote from the French Revolution to criticise classic liberal ideals...but apart from that, could you define what my social responsibilites are? Unless of course it's just a meaningless phrase. IMO your social responsbility is to respect other people's rights, property and privacy. These are things I try my best to do - so I think my attitude to social responsibility is pretty sound. What would you like to add to my list that I am apparently missing out on?

If you want to understand social rights and social responsibilities (which are two sides of the same coin) then a good place to start is to go back to the classics - read some T H Marshall.
Marshall discussed the evolution of rights in England and decerned three phases
The development of civil rights in the 18th C.
The development of political rights in the 19th centuary
and the development of social rights in the 20th.

he described these as a 3 legged stool. Missing one leg, and modern capitalist society could no longer stand up.

Civil rights are primarily individual and economic. They are nessisary for the initial development of the capitalist system. They include/focus on the right to purchase and own property. This was, after all, the era of the penal laws, where it was considered OK to pass laws that a catholic was not allowed to possess a house or a horse. A concept of civil rights brought into play a framework of rights and responsibilities of each member of society which could challenge such laws. Your right is to purchase property is you so wish, and have the wherewithall to do so, your responsibility is not to interfere with others capacity to do so.

Political rights are focused on the creating of a supporting political system. Political rights are the right to vote, and the right to run for election. It allowed for the framework of thought through which universal sufferage was eventually put in place (although full rights to vote for all men and women over 18 took about another 100 years to actually come into play. Rules that the prime minister of England may not be a catholic or a Jew still technically exist, but are ignored by all.) Your right is to vote and run for office if you desire, your responsibility is to vote. if citizens stop seeing voting as a responsibility, the political system needed to regulate capitalism starts to break down.

Social rights are nessisary for the maintenance of the capitalist system, through counteracting its excesses. Social rights are the rights to sufficient nessesities to maintain life and engage in the capitalist system. Acceptable minimum standards of housing, education, nutrition and medical care are agreed upon and distributed equally to all members of society. Your right is to not end up dying of starvation or exposure in the gutter because you lost your job through no fault of your own. Your responsibility is to play an active part in society (through taxes and other means) to ensure that this does not happen to anyone else.
This is the bit you don't seem to like, but you are ignoring the fact that it is essential for the continuation fo capitalism. If these rights were entirely abolished tomorrow the reserve army of labour would be irradicated and wage rates would soar.

On a seperate note, my personal opinion is that the 21st centuary will see the developemnt of further rights focused on biology/the body/parenthood. How eventualy they will play out I don't know. Do we possess our own genetic material even after it has left our bodies, for example? The recent case of the woman who lost her case in the European courts to implant her empryos without her husbands consent is a case of our society struggling with a new and previously unforseen area of rights and responsibilities. A three-legged stool may well become a four legged stool to cope with a technologically advanced society.

[omnirook]

Gala - two very good posts in a row. I enjoyed reading them. Thank you.

[demagogic_schizoid]

ok omni, here's a post I wrote to someone elsewhere. what do you make of this:


drinking and smoking of course should not be penalised in an ideal world - however in a public health system, there is a good argument for penalisng them, because we all must pay for these habits. This is why the nanny state inevitably must lead to a big brother society - I believe in live and let live, but if I have to pay for someone's vices out of my own pocket, then suddenly I feel a little less liberal. therefore repressive laws which make people steadily less free are introduced in order to maintain a system which was supposd to make those peole's lives better. It's bitterly ironic really

[omnirook]

ok omni, here's a post I wrote to someone elsewhere. what do you make of this:

Start down that road, and where will it lead - where will it end? What's next, "You ate too many potato chips, sorry, your insurance refuses to pay."

We don't have nationalized health in the US. 55 million - and growing - working class Americans have no insurance at all.

In America, we don't practice health care - we practice sick care. We wait until a person feels bad enough to see a doctor. When it comes to most chronic illnesses, treatment and recovery would be much easier, much faster, and much less expensive if the illnesses were caught early. By time a person feels bad enough to go see a doctor, very often the illness is too far gone. But insurance companies are NOT in the business of helping people - they gladly treat broken bones and other easily mended problems. The chronically ill they want quickly dead. This is especially so w/certain cancers. Some cancers are (relatively) easy to treat and have good prognosises; other cancers on your chart mean that your insurance company is going to do all that it can to kill you, the easiest way usually being refusing to pay for this, that, and the other. Once your insurance company begins to balk at your treatment - rest assured - their bean counters have decided that you are going to die, anyway, so the sooner the better.

If we begin to look at sick people and begin to decide who gets care and who does not get care based on their own "culpability" in their illness, then, believe me, it will not be long before insurance companies are having a killing field day - too many cigarettes, too many drinks, too much time in the sun, too much cholesterol, not enough fibre, not enough exercise, sex w/the wrong people, nervous disposition leading to high blood pressure, etc, etc, etc - didn't take vitamins, didn't keep the apartment clean enough, wasn't careful about the expiration dates on the cheese, should have looked both ways before crossing, should have worn a hat on cold days, should not have shared a cup w/that friend w/the cough ... It's a mistake - it just is. You think that policing people's lives is out of hand now - just wait until the insurance companies/government win the right to "save" (ie, blow elsewhere) tax dollars/pounds by going after every bad habit, every mistake, every sign of - being human.

[demagogic_schizoid]

so omnirook, you think I should pay for someone's healthcare who wasn't prepared to look after their own health? Surely in a public health system, the government has to limit the amount people drink or smoke, or else the burden may bankrupt the country, especially in aging societies such as ours, with ever more people demanding state support and proportionally less people than ever working to pay for it.

[Dark Razor]

so omnirook, you think I should pay for someone's healthcare who wasn't prepared to look after their own health? Surely in a public health system, the government has to limit the amount people drink or smoke, or else the burden may bankrupt the country, especially in aging societies such as ours, with ever more people demanding state support and proportionally less people than ever working to pay for it.

No, people who live an unhealthy livestyle will die earlier than people who look after their health, thus, in a country where social security is mostly socialized, they will be less of a burden to the retirement system for example, and will not need a subsidized place in a nursing home.
It think the biggest problem in the health care system is corruption and criminal activity of doctors, pharmacists and the pharma companies, who all work toghether to milk out as much money from the system as they possibly can. Doctors and pharmacist for example often work toghether to issue fake prescriptions and then divide the money they receive from the health insurrance, or pharma companies bribe doctors so that they always prescribe the most expensive drugs instead of cheaper alternatives.

A few years ago the health ministry in my country tried to introduce a law that would have forced doctors to always prescribe the cheapest drug if there are several alternatives with the same ingredient, of course that law failed because of the pharma lobby.

We still have a private system that runs parallel to the government system, though I would be in favour of completely abolishing private health care, because it just sucks money out of the governement system by attracting all the rich people. So if those people also pay into the government system there would be more funds available there and the quality of services could be improved. Furthermore, because a government agency is non-profit, prices would be lower than with a privatized system. The only "problem" of such a system would be that it puts a cap on the amount of money that doctors, pharmacists and the pharma companies can make off the patients, which I dont see as a problem though because their earnings are way out of proportion anyways.

[C.J.Woolf]

We still have a private system that runs parallel to the government system, though I would be in favour of completely abolishing private health care, because it just sucks money out of the governement system by attracting all the rich people. So if those people also pay into the government system there would be more funds available there and the quality of services could be improved.
I thought all socialized health care systems require everyone to contribute whether they use it or not; that is, they don't allow people to opt out of paying for it. Is that not true where you live?

[omnirook]

so omnirook, you think I should pay for someone's healthcare who wasn't prepared to look after their own health? Surely in a public health system, the government has to limit the amount people drink or smoke, or else the burden may bankrupt the country, especially in aging societies such as ours, with ever more people demanding state support and proportionally less people than ever working to pay for it.

There are many, many reforms that could be made that would help to alleviate the demands placed upon the system.

Now, I smoke - but I accept all the recent enactments of smoking bans in most places. Either I am at home or else I have to go outside to smoke. That reduces the number of cigarettes that I smoke considerably.

The price of cigarettes has risen sharply - and I am not against that, either.

The government collects taxes from those who smoke - theoretically, the money is being set aside against paying for the future healthcare needs of smokers, though such promises are never, ever kept in the United States - all funds, including Social Security, are routinely raped by politicians who are desperate to get votes by providing pork - and many people either choose to quit because of the increased cost of tobacco or else simply cannot afford to smoke; it also reduces the number of young people who take up smoking.

Another step that could be taken - and might eventually be taken, though attempts so far have met w/fierce resistence - would be passing laws regulating the content of prepared foods. Heart disease is the number one killer in America, and heart disease is largely preventable - just cut out the cholesterol and other animal fats in foods. The lives of millions were improved when McDonald's voluntarily stopped using tallow for frying its french fries, switching to vegetable oil instead. (McDonald's made this change when the tobacco companies were being sued into the ground.)

Several school districts have passed laws that require healthy foods to be served in the school cafeterias. Wider legislation is now being prepared. NYC schools, for instance, may no longer sell Coca-Cola and candy bars.

Instituting free health care for the public would be the best step. If people were able to have regular check-ups, then problems could be caught early on. It's much easier to treat early stages than late ones - easier and cheaper. But, no, we're holding out hope that a fast heart attack or a quick decline after real sickness begins will kill off enough to keep the costs down.

Insurance is a business - a business whose profits increase w/the speed of death once a person has become ill - it simply is not in the interests of the insurance companies to keep sick people alive. That is my main objection to the current system. Again - it's allowing the fox to guard the hens! (Note - the best healthcare coverage goes to insurance company insiders, who know first hand just how insurance companies kill off customers to increase their profits.)

You know - you missed my point - if we allow insurance companies to begin discriminating against people because of their lifestyles and habits, there will be no end to the ways that insurance companies will find to discriminate. As it is, an underhanded way of collecting data has been put in place - the so-called "club cards." Nowadays, you can't get a sale price in a store unless you have a club card. The club card is attached to your name and has your address and social security number - and tracks every one of your purchases. Naturally, the supermarkets, etc, were eager to sell this information to all and sundry - and all and sundry were salivating at the chance to buy the information. And, no matter how many courts in series issue injunctions, eventually I am certain that those who wish to purchase the information will win the "right" to buy it: NOTHING ever stands in the way of making money for long in this country - NOTHING.

That is why I will not use a club card. "Oh, but sir, you could get $19.76 off this order alone! ... At least let me ask the manager to use the store card for you ..." NO. "Honey - I pay in cash. I don't even use my ATM card for shopping. I will not give you or anybody the chance to collect information about me." And it's true - I pay in cash for everything. Everything. I pay my taxes w/Post Office money orders. I never fill out warranty cards. Fuck it - if it blows up, it blows up, buy another one. It's my hobby - fucking people out of chances to collect information. The only reason that there is an EZ-Pass on the vehicle that I now drive is that the vehicle is registered to my company, and I never drive the same vehicle for more than a day or two. We all switch in and out of vehicles so regularly that nobody could ever say for sure who is driving what car. I drove a Mercedes to work last Friday - as far as the government knows, I've not left work since. Our cellpones belong to the company - and we switch those around, and we're not on any plan - we buy our minutes at this, that, and the other bodega. We have one employee whose job is to go about collecting and sending faxes all over the tri-state area. A really important document gets hand delivered ... See a pattern there? I'm not entirely in favor of Big Brother. When a cashier cheerfully asks me for my zip code (they're surveying how wide their customer base is), I give them 10001 - the zip code of Grand Central Station in Manhattan. Yeah, the one building has its own zip code (postal code for you Brits). You can have that information - and stick it up your ass.

When somebody is sick, I don't care how he got sick - we're talking about a human being who needs help, and fuck everything else, especially something as tawdry as money!

[Dark Razor]

I thought all socialized health care systems require everyone to contribute whether they use it or not; that is, they don't allow people to opt out of paying for it. Is that not true where you live?

If you are not self-employed then you must use the government system up to a certain income level, if you are above that income level, then you can opt out of the system and use private insurrance. If you are self employed you can use either system.

However you can not easily change back into the government system, only if your income sinks below the relevant level or you become unemployed, and only if you are less than 55 years old.

So if you are rich you can use private insurrance, and the insurrance companies can turn down high-risk ,and therefor high-cost, patients so that those expensive patients end up in the governemnt system. However I think there was a law recently passed that forces the private companies to accept anyone, I'm not sure though.

[rek]

The problem with our health care system is precisely that the government is a part of it, it screws everyone (even the little guy) up a lot. Everyone uses way more health care than they would if they paid for it themselves (that's not a good thing). Since we have insurance we spend ridiculous amounts of money on things we don't really need or that benefit us very very little in comparison to the price we pay (but we don't care - we're not paying for it, well, not directly at least).

The entire medical system is fucked, and the government certainly doesn't help at all. Doctors are essentially a monopoly, they don't compete on price, so they charge way more than they would under a true free market situation (as opposed to the government corrupted not-very free system we have now). Hell most people don't even know how much their doctors visit will cost until after they've already had it.

Really is too bad no one can take responsibility for themselves these days. I really should have gone into the health care field.

[ajblaise]

industrial nations that have universal health care rank amoung the healthiest nations in the world.

why is that? and if it's true, why should these healthy nations scrap their universal health care system?

[demagogic_schizoid]

industrial nations that have universal health care rank amoung the healthiest nations in the world.

why is that? and if it's true, why should these healthy nations scrap their universal health care system?

Do you mean that richer nations rank as healthier than poorer nations? Or that nations with universal healthcare rank as healthier regardless of wealth? Where did you hear this, what were the criteria, etc.?

[ajblaise]

Do you mean that richer nations rank as healthier than poorer nations? Or that nations with universal healthcare rank as healthier regardless of wealth? Where did you hear this, what were the criteria, etc.?

I'm just talking about industrial nations...for the sake of clarity.

For example, take sweden or even all of northern and western europe. Go look up their health stats at nationmaster.com, and compare their stats to the US (one of the few developed nations without universal health care).

[demagogic_schizoid]

but like we've said before about Scandinavian countries, they had low levls of poverty before the introdution of the welfare state, and statistics show that relative levels of poverty have not decreased since it's introduction. So yes, universal healthcare in a system where lots of people pay a lot and few people are freeloading - in a country with a population which has a high standard of living and therefore is healthy and is rich and can therefore afford good healtchare products - is possibly going to have better results tha privatised healthcare in a country with much less favourable circumstances. However, is this the result of the healthcare systems? would nationalised healthcare actually make the USA healhier? And at what cost? In the UK, a country more comparable to the USA than say Sweeden, the public health system is under terrible strain, and looking to incorporate private sector participation as a way out. In a country where the resources demanded for free surpass the resources being paid for by taxpayers at rates equal to the rates they would pay for private healthcare, you will have either an unsustainable or very costly system.

[Dark Razor]

Well, as I said you would have to introduce legislation to effectively combat corruption and fraud and you would put a cap on earnings of doctors, pharma companies etc.. And a better example than Scandinavia might be Cuba, yea people probably hate me for bringing this up again, but look at Cuba, a very poor 3rd world country that cant even import some crucial drugs and nontheless has health figures comparable to the United States, the country with the most expensive health care system in the world, so looking at this I would conclude that Cuba does something right and the US does lots of things very wrong.

[ajblaise]

but like we've said before about Scandinavian countries, they had low levls of poverty before the introdution of the welfare state, and statistics show that relative levels of poverty have not decreased since it's introduction. So yes, universal healthcare in a system where lots of people pay a lot and few people are freeloading - in a country with a population which has a high standard of living and therefore is healthy and is rich and can therefore afford good healtchare products - is possibly going to have better results tha privatised healthcare in a country with much less favourable circumstances. However, is this the result of the healthcare systems? would nationalised healthcare actually make the USA healhier? And at what cost? In the UK, a country more comparable to the USA than say Sweeden, the public health system is under terrible strain, and looking to incorporate private sector participation as a way out. In a country where the resources demanded for free surpass the resources being paid for by taxpayers at rates equal to the rates they would pay for private healthcare, you will have either an unsustainable or very costly system.

sweden has always had low poverty because of their cultural dedication to equality stemming back to their agrarian days, not despite it. wouldn't you agree?

also, sweden has had 'poor relief' policies in place way before you probably think the introdiction of their welfare state took place.

millions of americans have no health insurance, wouldn't you say that because of that, it's no suprise that our health stats aren't the greatest?

[demagogic_schizoid]

sweden has always had low poverty because of their cultural dedication to equality stemming back to their agrarian days, not despite it. wouldn't you agree?

also, sweden has had 'poor relief' policies in place way before you probably think the introdiction of their welfare state took place.

millions of americans have no health insurance, wouldn't you say that because of that, it's no suprise that our health stats aren't the greatest?

obviously, but is the solution to pay for universal healthcare out of existing wealth, or is the slution to bring in measures to make the economy better nad make people richer; they can then spend the money on private healthcare.

As it stands, even your medicare commitments in the USA are unsustainable, so I don't see how you're going to ever be able t introdue universl healthcare in the US without hge robbery of millions of people (by which I mean making htempay much higher for public healthcare than they do for private, without them seeing the benefits personally, which I think would be bad for the economy as well as being wrong on principle).

[ajblaise]

obviously, but is the solution to pay for universal healthcare out of existing wealth, or is the slution to bring in measures to make the economy better nad make people richer; they can then spend the money on private healthcare.

the former.

if i'm correct, it doesn't matter to you that universal healthcare would make the US healthier, you disagree with universal healthcare based on an abstract philosophy, not on whether or not it works. is that right?

[C.J.Woolf]

obviously, but is the solution to pay for universal healthcare out of existing wealth, or is the slution to bring in measures to make the economy better nad make people richer; they can then spend the money on private healthcare.
Universal healthcare in the US might result in more jobs. Here's why.

Most US private health insurance is group coverage purchased by employers. It's a tradition that started during World War II when some big industrial corporations offered health insurance as a benefit to lure workers in a very tight labor market. It became a de facto standard benefit throughout the economy, for full-time jobs anyway. As health insurance gets more expensive, the cost of a new position increases. The high cost of health insurance has become a perverse incentive to keep full-time headcount low, either by not hiring at all or by hiring part-time and denying benefits.

It is absurd to leave employers holding the bag on health insurance. Please don't propose shifting the cost to individuals, because individuals are screwed most of all by health insurers. Now if individuals negotiated rates as a group -- the bigger the better -- they'd get a better deal. Need I say there is no bigger group than the entire nation?

[Dark Razor]

obviously, but is the solution to pay for universal healthcare out of existing wealth, or is the slution to bring in measures to make the economy better nad make people richer; they can then spend the money on private healthcare.).

The problem is that under current conditions a better economy only makes SOME people richer and not all or even most people, so overall conditions are unlikely to improve by making the GDP grow, since GDP says nothing at all about individiual wealth of the population and how that wealth is distributed.



As it stands, even your medicare commitments in the USA are unsustainable, so I don't see how you're going to ever be able t introdue universl healthcare in the US without hge robbery of millions of people (by which I mean making htempay much higher for public healthcare than they do for private, without them seeing the benefits personally, which I think would be bad for the economy as well as being wrong on principle).

You know, people are not individuals existing in a vacuum, if you earn more, then you pay more, wether or not someone pays more than they would pay on private health care is not of relevance, since having more money also enables them to pay more for those meassures that advance the common good. Which I consider their obligation to society, since as a person you are not only an individual but also part of a collective, society, and as such you have an obligation to contribute, and when your ability to contribute is larger than that of others then it is only natural to expect from you honor that obligation according to your greater abilities.

[demagogic_schizoid]

the former.

if i'm correct, it doesn't matter to you that universal healthcare would make the US healthier, you disagree with universal healthcare based on an abstract philosophy, not on whether or not it works. is that right?

What do you mean by "works". As I said in my OP, I don't agree that an individual is a means to an end, so I dont think you should rob one individual to benefit another. I think you shouldn't force people to give over their property (in this case their money) to the state in order for it to be redistributed to others - that's legalised robbery. As Hayek said, it's the Road to Serfdom.

However, I don't think you've even come close to showing that nationalised health is in practice a better system than the privatised one.

[demagogic_schizoid]

Universal healthcare in the US might result in more jobs. Here's why.

Most US private health insurance is group coverage purchased by employers. It's a tradition that started during World War II when some big industrial corporations offered health insurance as a benefit to lure workers in a very tight labor market. It became a de facto standard benefit throughout the economy, for full-time jobs anyway. As health insurance gets more expensive, the cost of a new position increases. The high cost of health insurance has become a perverse incentive to keep full-time headcount low, either by not hiring at all or by hiring part-time and denying benefits.

It is absurd to leave employers holding the bag on health insurance. Please don't propose shifting the cost to individuals, because individuals are screwed most of all by health insurers. Now if individuals negotiated rates as a group -- the bigger the better -- they'd get a better deal. Need I say there is no bigger group than the entire nation?


Well, I don't know if individuals are screwed by health insurers more than the state. In a country like the UK for example, with our demographic trends, we've got more people than ever needing to rely on the state, and less people paying taxes.

Dark Razor said that this problem solves itself because the unheathy die young, however old people are unhealthier than young people, and we do as a result have lots of unhealthy people who aren't paying for healthcare. I would say that a smoker or an alchoholic who dies at 60 is going to a very big strain on the healthcare system, ore than if they care for their health but live for 20 years longer.

So as I see it, universal healthcare is going to be very expensive if it's going to prvide a good standard of health, and that will leave taxpayers poorer, and by extension everyone. I'm guessing that to get the same quality of treatment from the state that they get privately, a taxpayer would have to pay a lot more in taxes, and then some to fund others. That's my guess.

[demagogic_schizoid]

You know, people are not individuals existing in a vacuum, if you earn more, then you pay more, wether or not someone pays more than they would pay on private health care is not of relevance, since having more money also enables them to pay more for those meassures that advance the common good.

We're never going to agree DR, and if you read my OP you'll see why. there's a fundamental incompatibility of outlook.

[ajblaise]

What do you mean by "works". As I said in my OP, I don't agree that an individual is a means to an end, so I dont think you should rob one individual to benefit another. I think you shouldn't force people to give over their property (in this case their money) to the state in order for it to be redistributed to others - that's legalised robbery. As Hayek said, it's the Road to Serfdom.

However, I don't think you've even come close to showing that nationalised health is in practice a better system than the privatised one.

how do you feel about taxing people to pay for other peoples police and fire protection?

i should only be able to dial 911 if i can afford it, if i have private police protection coverage. right?

or do we just disagree on what "common goods" should be publically funded?

and nationalized health care is better for the simple fact that it guarantees everyone health care. you even agreed that the US doesn't have the best health stats because 1/3 of everyone is uninsured.

do you have a great privitized health care model that you can point to? one that ensures a healthy populous?


edit: by "works" i mean in terms of creating a healthier populous.

[Dark Razor]

We're never going to agree DR, and if you read my OP you'll see why. there's a fundamental incompatibility of outlook.

Even if I dont agree with you you still provide intersting fodder for thought, and I also argue for the readers in general not only against you.

[s'box]

I'm not an anarchist, though I would prefer that over socialist, I'm a libertarian (not one of the crazy anarchist ones - an actual libertarian, as in: the government has it's place).

this is just for fun and nitpicking, all anarchists are socialists. Or at least the proper ones are. Don't listen to rothbard or friedman or those nutbags, anarchism is leftist fundamentally and friedman even admitted that in stateless capitalism, slavery would be alright (how could you own yourself if you cant sell yourself!)
spain got its first universal health care system in the 30s when the anarchist unions took over.


So as I see it, universal healthcare is going to be very expensive if it's going to prvide a good standard of health, and that will leave taxpayers poorer, and by extension everyone. I'm guessing that to get the same quality of treatment from the state that they get privately, a taxpayer would have to pay a lot more in taxes, and then some to fund others. That's my guess.

Statistically, private healthcare is more expensive. In the case of the american against canadian systems, americans in average pay 4 times as much for private health care than canadians pay in taxes towards health care, plus of course we also pay taxes in addition to private health costs. Another was that out of health care cost, the percent of money spent on buerocracy in was 16% in canada and 24% or something along those lines in the US. While effeciency is nice and profitable in theory, if more profit comes from pharmaceutical deals and drugs results of government lobbying or other sources not directly related to patient care, then the free market will easily fail in providing a proper service, much like the idea of other tax/state public-safety type institutions like police and fire.

i know you'd do away with the taxes element as well but but that brings up a whole new set of issues. For instance emergency room access life or death style for those who cant afford insurance. The free market solution to this would probably be folks who lend the money at slavery interest rates and demand it back later. Leaving them in debt, and leaving them forced to, just like the socialized model, forcefully give up their money in order to avoid government reprecussions. Both systems involve people taking your money under threat of government force. But at least when taxes are involved they wont take money you dont have (depending on the laws of the country i suppose), such as taking your home or belongings away.

[demagogic_schizoid]

how do you feel about taxing people to pay for other peoples police and fire protection?

i should only be able to dial 911 if i can afford it, if i have private police protection coverage. right?

I've dealt with this question many times. Look at the thread "Ron Paul on Bill Maher" in "links". I also made a thread on it in this sub-forum which I'll find for you. In some isntances I think it's fair for people to pay communally, because obviously in terms of police or fire services it's impossible to restrict who benefits from them, so if it's privatised then it wouldn't make sense to pay, as you can benefit for free. As for healthcare ad education, I'd ay these are marginal examples - I'm not totally against public sector involvement, but I think it brings many problems too. Maybe in such cases a mixed system is best. For example, regarding schools, in the UK, we have a system at university where an institution charges a fee for it's services, which mean it can be better funded. The government pays for poor people to go through university. Then, only if they earn above ?15 000 a year, they have to pay it back, interest free, over time.

I think this is a brilliant system, because it increases competition and service amongst educational institutions (because they want to charge more, and then when they do they can improve more, and charge more a a result, etc.) and, coupled with very strict criteria for social welfare etc., so that there would be a clear disincentive to earning below ?15 000 in order to not pay back your loan, it could really provide the incentive and means for the British poor to improve their lot.

Maybe regarding healthcare, the government and employer could pay for people's healthcare if they need it, on the condition that, if they can, they then pay it back, interest free. As tey are healthier, they should live longer and be able to work more/better, thereby earning more. Of course, if you have generous welfare that distorts the disadvantages of not earning above the rate needed to pa back the healthcare, then you make it so that less people will be prepared to do so. For that reason, I don't think you can view healthcare in isolation, away from other factors. IMO the whole wefare state system to solve many socio-economic problems, of which healthcare is just one manifestation.


or do we just disagree on what "common goods" should be publically funded?

that too



do you have a great privitized health care model that you can point to? one that ensures a healthy populous?

No, I don't regularly review healthcare statistics. However so far you haven't shown me anything to prove that nationalised healthcare is the cause of a healthier population. you came in with a very big claim, but I haven't accepted it. You don't seem to get the concept of "burden of proof". It's not "common knoweldge" that all other things being equal a nationalised healthcare system will make the average person healthier than a privatised system.

[demagogic_schizoid]

http://www.intpcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19630

I talked more about public utilities there along with lots of other people.

[ajblaise]

I've dealt with this question many times. Look at the thread "Ron Paul on Bill Maher" in "links". I also made a thread on it in this sub-forum which I'll find for you. In some isntances I think it's fair for people to pay communally, because obviously in terms of police or fire services it's impossible to restrict who benefits from them, so if it's privatised then it wouldn't make sense to pay, as you can benefit for free. As for healthcare ad education, I'd ay these are marginal examples - I'm not totally against public sector involvement, but I think it brings many problems too. Maybe in such cases a mixed system is best. For example, regarding schools, in the UK, we have a system at university where an institution charges a fee for it's services, which mean it can be better funded. The government pays for poor people to go through university. Then, only if they earn above ?15 000 a year, they have to pay it back, interest free, over time.

I think this is a brilliant system, because it increases competition and service amongst educational institutions (because they want to charge more, and then when they do they can improve more, and charge more a a result, etc.) and, coupled with very strict criteria for social welfare etc., so that there would be a clear disincentive to earning below ?15 000 in order to not pay back your loan, it could really provide the incentive and means for the British poor to improve their lot.

Maybe regarding healthcare, the government and employer could pay for people's healthcare if they need it, on the condition that, if they can, they then pay it back, interest free. As tey are healthier, they should live longer and be able to work more/better, thereby earning more. Of course, if you have generous welfare that distorts the disadvantages of not earning above the rate needed to pa back the healthcare, then you make it so that less people will be prepared to do so. For that reason, I don't think you can view healthcare in isolation, away from other factors. IMO the whole wefare state system to solve many socio-economic problems, of which healthcare is just one manifestation.

i guess you're not the libertarian i thought you were. fuckin commie.




No, I don't regularly review healthcare statistics. However so far you haven't shown me anything to prove that nationalised healthcare is the cause of a healthier population. you came in with a very big claim, but I haven't accepted it. You don't seem to get the concept of "burden of proof". It's not "common knoweldge" that all other things being equal a nationalised healthcare system will make the average person healthier than a privatised system.

you honestly would tell me that if there was universal healthcare in the US, and 100% of the populous had healthcare instead of just 2/3rd's, the average person wouldn't be healthier? as far as "proof", you can't really prove these things.

but it is common sense that if 3/3rd's of a nation has health insurance instead of only 2/3rd's, the average person will be healthier.

and as far as you arguing you're position, why do you believe privitized health care would result in a healthier populous? or do you even support privitized health care or believe that? from your post above, it looks like you are questioning if that's really the best route.

[demagogic_schizoid]

well every country in the world has some form of public healthcare, that I know of. I don't know the US system in detail, but what's Medicare then? Because I know it costs you guys a hell of a lot.

That system I was proposing wouldn't really be nationalised healthcare, it would be a system of the government helping poor people get privatised healthcare, on the condition that they pay for it when they can, much like we have with the university system here. Also, you could introduce a system like we hd in Britain n the early 20th century, where people who didn't have private health insurance could enter into a goernment sponsored deal where the employer and government contribued some money on the condition that the worker also contributed some of their income. In this case, I would say that for a person who never had a job, you could pay for their operation, on the condition outlined above that they pay for it later if they can, however if the person did earn enough to enter the scheme, but chose not to, I would not let them then benefit from it. But again, here you run the risk of punishing the poor person who made the effort to earn slightly more, but still nto enugh to be rich. That's one big problem with all redistributionist polices for me, they are particularly tough on those who fall just on the wrong side of dividing lines. So I'm still not sure about that proposal. It would need to be offset by liberalisation of the welfare state in other areas, but yes, it could ocneivably work despite drawbacks.

By British standards, it's an improvement on the nationalised system we have. It would only work however if the current bloated welfare state was geatly downsized to discourage pople rom deliberately staying out of work so as never to pay back the gvernment for paying for their operation.

[Gala]

There is a strong argument that any key social service (health and education in particular) work best when they are distributed equally to all, and not only the poor. There are many reasons for this.
Firstly the middle classes, by nature, are more mouthy, assertive and prone to demanding benifit for thier money. People experiencing disadvantage don't have the confidence to do this. Heres an example. I have an appointment next month to see a leading Rhumatologist (sp?). My total waiting time will have been 3 months by the time I get to see the specialist. Luckily for me, I have good private health insurance. Apparently, if I was a public patient I would have had to wait for between 1 and three YEARS, before getting the privalige of getting to see one of this specialists interns.
I'm middle class. I have written press releases in my job, and know how to get stories into the newspaper. I know my local representatives, and they know and respect me, because I have worked with them on issues. leave me in this pain for three years and I would shout the house down.
So, yes, I do have private health insurance, because I know the system is flawed,a nd within that flawed system, I must protect myslef and my family. However, that doesn't mean that I can't also recognise that two-teir systems are dogged with inefficiencies, inequalities and corruption that couldn't exist if thier was a better universal system.
Secondly, it avoids paying twice for the same service. I have to pay tax for the 'less well off' to get the basic service. Why not benifit from it myslef?

Also, countries with high tax rates and high universal social benifits tend to have LESS resentment for paying tax. Have we all mentioned Sweeden enough in this thread? its a good example, though. I've read the EU attitude surveys that show how few Sweedish people complain about excessive taxation, but I've also met them in person and heard them bragging about their high tax and high level of social services. The lower any EU country drops its taxes, the more its people resent paying tax as universal services are the first to be scalled back and people quickly stop seeing the benifit to themsleves of thier tax.







By British standards, it's an improvement on the nationalised system we have. It would only work however if the current bloated welfare state was geatly downsized to discourage pople rom deliberately staying out of work so as never to pay back the gvernment for paying for their operation.

Show me one person who genuinly and truely chose to stay in poverty just to spite a state system out of money, instead of making themselves better off when they had the opportunity, and I will show you 1000 people caught in genuine poverty and unemployment traps. Are you not aware of how your proposal would greatly exacerbate this risk?

[omnirook]

There is Medicaid for the indigent.

President Johson introduced this plan. Those who could not pay for medical care could apply for government funded coverage and would have all of their medical expenses, including prescriptions, paid for if they met the eligibility criteria - dead broke, no assets, little or no income.

President Clinton changed the system to allow for "Emergency Medicaid."

In other words, President Clinton introduced - and got through the Congress - a law that mandated medical care for anyone who needed it. It became a federal crime for any doctor or hospital to refuse to treat an emergency case, regardless of whether the patient had insurance. The law mandated that a sick patient be brought to the nearest hospital to where the ambulance picked him up and forbade that hospital to refuse to treat the patient. This was after several scandals where patients w/o insurance had died while being ambulanced to further away hospitals that would accept a patient w/o insurance.

The law allowed hospitals to transfer patients to state institutions once they had been stabilized but made the hospitals culpable if a patient died w/in 48 hours of being transferred.

Enormous court awards in cases where hospitals had "dumped" the uninsured forced even the most exclusive hospitals to set up emergency rooms just in case a poor person happened to get sick anywhere near them.

In NY, a hospital that did not have the means for treating gunshot wounds found itself minus the better part of 100 million dollars because a patient who had been shot had to be ambulanced further away - the patient was young and black at a time when New York was roiling w/racial tension, and an appeal was (politically) out of the question - the hospital just forked over the money.

And the Clinton Administration added other provisos to the existing rules, little publicized provisos that affected everybody, not just Medicaid patients.

The most important of these was that a hospital had to have the patient's consent to discharge the patient.

One of my dearest friends is a social worker who specializes in patient advocacy.

After my father had his stroke, the hospital to which he had been taken wanted to release him - that day!

He was a Medicare patient, and Medicare simply will not pay what a private insurer will for a hospital bed.

I didn't know any better, so it was lucky that my friend was along - I was going to offer to pay for whatever care my father needed out of pocket.

My friend whiped out a photocopy of the law and shoved it under the doctor's nose and told the doctor that my father was not ready to leave the hospital. If any attempt were made to remove him from the hospital before he was ready, she would call the police and press charges. Then she demanded that he be admitted and that he be given a room. This was done pronto.

W/in hours of being admitted, my father had 2 more strokes. Still, the hospital continued to try to discharge him - until I sent my lawyer in w/a power of attorney.

"This patient is not ready to leave the hospital. This is his psychiatrist - who has provided me as the patient's attorney w/an affadavit that the patient is incompetent to make his own decisions. Therefore, you will not ask this patient any further questions about whether he is ready to leave, and you will not ask him to make any decisions about his further healthcare. It has been noted that the patient was on this floor for 3 hours w/o any water - you will insert an iv, and you will make certain that this patient does not become dehydrated."

People - DON'T LET ANYONE PUSH YOU OR A LOVED ONE OUT OF A HOSPITAL! They will nag, cajole, beg - fuck em! If you don't feel good enough to leave, STAY. If they force you to leave, call an ambulance chaser, who will run like Mercury to file a lawsuit!

They'll say "Your insurance will not pay for a longer stay."

"Fine. I'll pay."

Then refuse to tell them anything at all about your finances. THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO ENQUIRE. PERIOD. HOSPITALS MAY NOT DO CREDIT CHECKS. EVER. PERIOD. A HOSPITAL MAY NOT GARNISH YOUR WAGES. EVER. PERIOD.

When you get the bill, even if it is ten million dollars, write out a check for a few dollars and send it to them as partial payment. Do this every month for all eternity - and there is NOTHING that the hospital can do about it. You are paying, and they MUST accept your payments, and they are not allowed to look into your finances to see if you can pay more.

Of course, the hospital will call to hound you - tell them that you are being treated by a psychologist for stress and that your doctor has advised you to tell the hospital that you will contact the state's attorney general if the hospital calls you one more time. Remind them that your relationship w/the psychologist has the benefit of doctor/patient privilege and that they may not speak to your doctor. FUCK EM! Add that next month's check will be 50 cents less than you've been sending because you are 50 cents short!

EDIT - VERY IMPORTANT - never, ever agree to pay for anything in writing. Not a dime. They will try to slip in an agreement to pay in the mountain of papers that they hand you to sign. If you do not feel well enough to read the papers carefully - refuse to sign anything! "Fuck you! I'm sick. Take care of me - now!" If you can read the papers, find the agreement to pay and write NO across it and scratch out all but your NO.

[demagogic_schizoid]

Gala - in the UK, because of the generous welfare state, a lot of the time it's not worth the effort to enter a low-paid job. Sometimes the person would be poorer or no richer if they worked, and sometimes the minimal increase inincome would be outwieghed by the increased effort.

What I was suggesting wasn't really to deal with that though, I was saying that instead of public healthcare, all hospitals should be private and able to charge their own rates (like the British Universities in the example I gave), which would mean they would be better funded and, due to more competition, provide a better service. Then, if a person can't afford healthcare, the government pays for them to go to private hospital. Then, when they earn a certain wage, they can pay that back, interes-free, over time. If the don't earn that wage, then they don't have to pay it back. This system would garuantee poor people better healthcare then they get under the NHS in the UK today in my opinion, because the UK has a dreadful healthcare system - and I've had people from Argentina tell me that the NHS is awful compred to their healthcare, and Argentina is a much poorer country than the UK.

I would say that perhaps we could apply the same system to education.

However, this generous system only works if you get rid of other safety nets, because otherwise people will simply stay out of work to not have to pay back the cost of education and healthcare. The system I'm proposing would garuantee all poor people better education and healthcare than they get now, because they are getting private sector quality, initially for public sector prices (free). they only pay it back if they can. However, you hve to make sure that the rewards of being able to pay it back are not outweighed by the disadvantage of having to pay it back - and a good way to do this is substantially downsizing the welfare state in other areas.

This would create a more dynamic working class hopefully a healthier and more educated one with more opportunities, no longer trapped in a cycle where they live off scraps and are taught to b happy that way and to resist any attempt to cut back on their "priveliges" which they haven't earned - when in reality doing so would eventually create more wealth for everyone, including them..

[paulwhy]

when you diminish economic freedom, you just encourage resources to be misallocated.

Absolutely, as one of my Economics prfoessors put it "Markets are fair it is endowments that are not". In simple terms economic transactions should make both sides richer: the seller will only sell if he prefers the money to the object and conversley the buyer only buys if he prefers the object to the money. Hence both should be better off post transaction. Sure there are caveats: imperfect information, externalities etc. In general in the long term it holds.

Restricting economic freedoom (however well intention) causes problem. One example. Most developed countries have few restrictions on food prices and many on rents. The result? No one goes hungry, food markets celar but housing markets have big shortages.