"Freedom" thread or something

dtguitarfan wrote: Ambient Hurricanes wrote: I actually do have an idea to fix the healthcare system.  First, you drastically decrease governmental interference in the private healthcare system and let the market do its own work.  Then, you return to the good old common law principles of people taking care of their own families.  Yes, this would have to be enforced by laws.  No, this isn't overly coercive.  Most libertarians would still agree that parents have a legal responsibility to take care of their kids.  This proposal would merely extend to an obligation to care for the rest of your family.  Brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, etc.  This system would help people afford healthcare (and life's other necessities) while discarding the ridiculous idea that everyone should be forced on threat of imprisonment to share their wealth with perfect strangers, and would take wealth-sharing out of the hands of the government and into its proper place within the family unit, and otherwise at the discretion of individuals and private institutions.  It would not be a perfect system, as some people have no living relatives (or only have impoverished living relatives) but it would eliminate much of the poverty and healthcare problem and create an easier problem to tackle for private charities.  And no, I don't know of any country where this system is being used, but, as I pointed out earlier, that's rather irrelevant.  We have social security and medicare, to a large extent, because people didn't want to take care of their parents.   Taking care of your family is difficult and annoying.  But it's still the right thing to do. And similar systems have worked in history - for example Jewish law required children to take care of their parents in their old age. That's exactly how I feel.  Except when I say "taking care of our own families", I consider all of humanity to be a family.  Therefore we should all take care of each other.  Because aren't we all related, in the end? The problem with the way you limit it to direct families is this: what about the family where the dad died and the mom has been supporting the kids with her minimum wage job her whole life, and then they grew up and weren't able to afford going to college and got minimum wage jobs as well?  So they can't afford their OWN health care, let alone their mother's.

As Christians, we surely would consider all of our fellow humans to be our neighbors, and worthy of our aid.

But I don't believe in imposing my religious beliefs on everyone else

The family argument is based, again, on the idea of natural law; which from a Christian perspective we would consider the law of God written on the hearts of all humanity.  Things like "love your enemies" and "help the weakest in society" are part of special revelation and not natural law; since I don't believe in imposing religious views on the rest of the nation I only base my idea about libertarian law on principles of natural law that are common to humanity.  The obligation to care for close family ("pietas" as it was called in Roman times) has been almost universally acknowledged throughout human history.  It is only in the present age, with the advent of social security and medicare, that families have stopped supporting one another and left everything up the government. 

You are right, this system would not cover everyone's health care, because some families, obviously, are full of poor people who can't afford each other's health care costs.  However, it would eliminate a large portion of the problem, leaving a much smaller issue that private charities could easily handle.

Ambient Hurricanes wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Ambient Hurricanes wrote: I actually do have an idea to fix the healthcare system.  First, you drastically decrease governmental interference in the private healthcare system and let the market do its own work.  Then, you return to the good old common law principles of people taking care of their own families.  Yes, this would have to be enforced by laws.  No, this isn't overly coercive.  Most libertarians would still agree that parents have a legal responsibility to take care of their kids.  This proposal would merely extend to an obligation to care for the rest of your family.  Brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, etc.  This system would help people afford healthcare (and life's other necessities) while discarding the ridiculous idea that everyone should be forced on threat of imprisonment to share their wealth with perfect strangers, and would take wealth-sharing out of the hands of the government and into its proper place within the family unit, and otherwise at the discretion of individuals and private institutions.  It would not be a perfect system, as some people have no living relatives (or only have impoverished living relatives) but it would eliminate much of the poverty and healthcare problem and create an easier problem to tackle for private charities.  And no, I don't know of any country where this system is being used, but, as I pointed out earlier, that's rather irrelevant.  We have social security and medicare, to a large extent, because people didn't want to take care of their parents.   Taking care of your family is difficult and annoying.  But it's still the right thing to do. And similar systems have worked in history - for example Jewish law required children to take care of their parents in their old age. That's exactly how I feel.  Except when I say "taking care of our own families", I consider all of humanity to be a family.  Therefore we should all take care of each other.  Because aren't we all related, in the end? The problem with the way you limit it to direct families is this: what about the family where the dad died and the mom has been supporting the kids with her minimum wage job her whole life, and then they grew up and weren't able to afford going to college and got minimum wage jobs as well?  So they can't afford their OWN health care, let alone their mother's. As Christians, we surely would consider all of our fellow humans to be our neighbors, and worthy of our aid. But I don't believe in imposing my religious beliefs on everyone else The family argument is based, again, on the idea of natural law; which from a Christian perspective we would consider the law of God written on the hearts of all humanity.  Things like "love your enemies" and "help the weakest in society" are part of special revelation and not natural law; since I don't believe in imposing religious views on the rest of the nation I only base my idea about libertarian law on principles of natural law that are common to humanity.  The obligation to care for close family ("pietas" as it was called in Roman times) has been almost universally acknowledged throughout human history.  It is only in the present age, with the advent of social security and medicare, that families have stopped supporting one another and left everything up the government.  You are right, this system would not cover everyone's health care, because some families, obviously, are full of poor people who can't afford each other's health care costs.  However, it would eliminate a large portion of the problem, leaving a much smaller issue that private charities could easily handle.

You just don't get it.  Universal healthcare is just your system taken to its logical conclusion - Johnny doesn't have a next of kin to help him with his healthcare costs when he isn't able to pay, so we go to his next-next of kin...and that person isn't able to cover the costs all by themselves so we go to their next-next-next of kin, and that person isn't able to cover the costs by themselves along with the other so.....

Voila, universal healthcare.  It's the logical conclusion of what you suggest.  Belief in humanity as my kin is not a "christian religious" belief.  It's a universal religious belief.  Every religion shares this belief, it's just most religious people are too selfish to see past their selfishness and make this conclusion.  If we enforced universal healthcare, we wouldn't be imposing "my" religious beliefs, we'd be imposing UNIVERSAL religious belief.

dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: thellama73 wrote: It isn't, because I didn't move to the U.S. I was just born here. You have to physically sign an agreement when you move into an apartment complex to abide by their rules, and I have no problem with that. Exactly.  You were born into an apartment complex that's very big, and long ago your ancestors agreed to the rules of the apartment complex because they got a better deal on a bundle of services than anyone could get by buying each service individually.  And you hate that you are billed for things you didn't ask for.  But most people appreciate having these services and would like to continue having them in a bundle like that, but we'd just like to get the services improved because they've gone downhill lately. Damn right we hate it.  We hate being billed for offensive wars.  We hate being billed for corporate bailouts.  We hate being billed for shady IRS executives who get bonuses worth more than three years of my salary.  We hate being billed for fraudulent practices by contractors that go unchecked.  We hate being billed for agricultural subsidies.  We hate being billed for the meddling in the housing market.  We hate being billed for the IRS making spoofs of Star Trek and Giligan's Island.  We hate being billed for fighter jets and tanks being given to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.  We hate being billed for helping Russia recruit nuclear scientists.  We hate being billed for the $27 million spent on teaching Moroccans how to make pottery.  We hate being billed for the 2 billion rounds of ammunition Federal agencies purchased for "training purposes."  We hate being billed for the talking urinal pucks in Michigan.  We hate being billed to find out if "Gaydar" is indeed a real thing.  We hate being billed for the $4.5 billion in inappropriate or abusive SNAP purchases.  We hate being billed for the Pentagon creating its own line of beef jerky.  We hate being billed for Oklahoma's hardly used Lake Murray State Airport.  We hate being billed for drone strikes in the middle east.  We hate being billed for the Alabama Watermelon Queen Tour.    We hate being billed for a soccer field in Guantanamo Bay.  We hate being billed for Pakistani Sesame Street.  We hate being billed for the $800M+ the GSA spent in Las Vegas for training 300 people.  We hate being billed for the $2.6M spent on teaching Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly.  We hate being billed for the study of sexual behavior in Argentinian bars.  We hate being billed for the millions that went to banks, 21 of which, when asked, declined disclosing how the money was used.  We hate being billed for the program that teaches men in South Africa how to wash their crotches.  We hate being billed for pornography.  Yes, taxpayer money goes to porn.  I will gladly do with private roads, schools, and mail delivery to save us from being robbed to fund bullsh*t. Putting aside your own ideology (yes, you have one), do you agree with the government taking people's property to fund any of that stuff I listed? I absolutely agree with you that most of what you listed there is bullsh*t (there's a few things I would like to continue, and don't think will continue if they are not funded by government, such as PBS - all we would have is mindless sh*t on the air).  But I would argue this - you mention hating paying the bill for the outrageous bonuses of IRS executives.  I do too...and I hate working for a private company where when the going gets tough they lay off thousands, but meanwhile the executives (who arguably do NOTHING to help the company) get bigger bonuses than last year.

You hate when a private company pays executives big bucks (leaving aside the argument of whether or not they deserve it).  Very well.

Do you think Lockheed Martin pays its executives too much?
That's unfortunate if you do, because the government forces you, the taxpayer to be a customer.

How about Dell?
Too bad- the government forces you, the taxpayer, to be a customer.

Do you think JP Morgan Chase is an evil corporation?
Oh well- the government forces you, the taxpayer to be a customer.

And that's just three examples of literally thousands. 

This isn't about helping poor people, or building roads, or any such humanitarian aim.  My point is this: Most of the federal money spent in the US is probably spent on what you, Geoff, would personally disapprove of.

To put it another way, if the group took 20% of your income, and used 3% on roads, education, and social services, and used the other 17% on war, questionable research, losses from fraud and mismanagement, subsidies for big business, and porn, then are you happy to have that 20% withheld from you?

dtguitarfan wrote: You think getting rid of government is going to fix everything.

No I don't.  Can you point to a place where I have made that statement?

dtguitarfan wrote: I believe if you get rid of government, you're just going to have a new one - a government by corporations.  True, our current system of government in the US is basically the same thing with a mask on, and that's what I want to fix.  The purpose of government, as I see it, is to protect consumers from unfair practices by those in power.  The little guys need protection from the big guys and that's what government is for.  Our government in the US has done a terrible job of this lately, and has gone the route of protecting the big guys against the little guys (ridiculous).  And that's why you legitimately have a problem with it.  But the answer is not to eliminate government.  The answer to the problem is to turn it towards its true purpose.

Aside from asking you to coherently define "little guys" and "big guys" (it isn't nearly that simple and there is no "us and them," as much as you and Occupy Wall St. would like to think that there is) I would ask you:  How do you plan on making the underlined happen?

dtguitarfan wrote: And there's absolutely no way you can argue me into believing that health care should be controlled by the free market - I find the idea completely offensive.

You want us to be open-minded?  Lead by example. 


Edited by Epignosis - August 01 2013 at 13:42

thellama73 wrote: It's not virtuous if you're forced to do it. I think that undermines the whole religious connection, guys.

So you see a guy dying on the street.  He has no money, and no one wants to help him (dude is ugly).  And your virtuous "not being forced-ness" is more important than him getting care.  That's what you're saying.

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

- John Kenneth Galbraith

Epignosis wrote: This isn't about helping poor people, or building roads, or any such humanitarian aim.  My point is this: Most of the federal money spent in the US is probably spent on what you, Geoff, would personally disapprove of. To put it another way, if the group took 20% of your income, and used 3% on roads, education, and social services, and used the other 17% on war, questionable research, losses from fraud and mismanagement, subsidies for big business, and porn, then are you happy to have that 20% withheld from you?

SO LET'S FOCUS ON THE DAMN 17%!  THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYING!  WE COULD BE ALLIES!  IF YOU'D DROP YOUR DAMN "I HATE THE GOVERNMENT" RHETORIC FOR A LITTLE WHILE AND JOIN THE REST OF US WHO ARE SICK AND TIRED OF THE 17% BUT WOULD REALLY LIKE TO KEEP OUR ROADS, EDUCATION, AND SOCIAL SERVICES, WE COULD BE ALLIES!

You're so "principled" that you can't get anything done because you won't join those who are against most of the same things you're against, just because they're also for a few things you don't like.  Ridiculous.

Epignosis wrote: You want us to be open-minded?  Lead by example.

Since I'm arguing for a concept of government, that's nearly impossible, because I'm not a government.  But I don't have to anyways, because I can simply point to dozens of countries that do things in a manner that I think is better than the way we're doing things and say "look, it works."

The T wrote: Just so you know, some countries quite far from "the land of the free" are actually experimenting with some freedoms...

I'm all for that one.  Stop the drug war, and start researching the medical possibilities of cannabis.


Edited by dtguitarfan - August 01 2013 at 15:11

Medicare for all would cover everyone and save billions in the first year

So your "not being forced" principles are more important than saving billions, eh?  What's it gonna take.....

dtguitarfan wrote: Ambient Hurricanes wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Ambient Hurricanes wrote: I actually do have an idea to fix the healthcare system.  First, you drastically decrease governmental interference in the private healthcare system and let the market do its own work.  Then, you return to the good old common law principles of people taking care of their own families.  Yes, this would have to be enforced by laws.  No, this isn't overly coercive.  Most libertarians would still agree that parents have a legal responsibility to take care of their kids.  This proposal would merely extend to an obligation to care for the rest of your family.  Brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, etc.  This system would help people afford healthcare (and life's other necessities) while discarding the ridiculous idea that everyone should be forced on threat of imprisonment to share their wealth with perfect strangers, and would take wealth-sharing out of the hands of the government and into its proper place within the family unit, and otherwise at the discretion of individuals and private institutions.  It would not be a perfect system, as some people have no living relatives (or only have impoverished living relatives) but it would eliminate much of the poverty and healthcare problem and create an easier problem to tackle for private charities.  And no, I don't know of any country where this system is being used, but, as I pointed out earlier, that's rather irrelevant.  We have social security and medicare, to a large extent, because people didn't want to take care of their parents.   Taking care of your family is difficult and annoying.  But it's still the right thing to do. And similar systems have worked in history - for example Jewish law required children to take care of their parents in their old age. That's exactly how I feel.  Except when I say "taking care of our own families", I consider all of humanity to be a family.  Therefore we should all take care of each other.  Because aren't we all related, in the end? The problem with the way you limit it to direct families is this: what about the family where the dad died and the mom has been supporting the kids with her minimum wage job her whole life, and then they grew up and weren't able to afford going to college and got minimum wage jobs as well?  So they can't afford their OWN health care, let alone their mother's. As Christians, we surely would consider all of our fellow humans to be our neighbors, and worthy of our aid. But I don't believe in imposing my religious beliefs on everyone else The family argument is based, again, on the idea of natural law; which from a Christian perspective we would consider the law of God written on the hearts of all humanity.  Things like "love your enemies" and "help the weakest in society" are part of special revelation and not natural law; since I don't believe in imposing religious views on the rest of the nation I only base my idea about libertarian law on principles of natural law that are common to humanity.  The obligation to care for close family ("pietas" as it was called in Roman times) has been almost universally acknowledged throughout human history.  It is only in the present age, with the advent of social security and medicare, that families have stopped supporting one another and left everything up the government.  You are right, this system would not cover everyone's health care, because some families, obviously, are full of poor people who can't afford each other's health care costs.  However, it would eliminate a large portion of the problem, leaving a much smaller issue that private charities could easily handle. You just don't get it.  Universal healthcare is just your system taken to its logical conclusion - Johnny doesn't have a next of kin to help him with his healthcare costs when he isn't able to pay, so we go to his next-next of kin...and that person isn't able to cover the costs all by themselves so we go to their next-next-next of kin, and that person isn't able to cover the costs by themselves along with the other so..... Voila, universal healthcare.  It's the logical conclusion of what you suggest.  Belief in humanity as my kin is not a "christian religious" belief.  It's a universal religious belief.  Every religion shares this belief, it's just most religious people are too selfish to see past their selfishness and make this conclusion.  If we enforced universal healthcare, we wouldn't be imposing "my" religious beliefs, we'd be imposing UNIVERSAL religious belief.

Nope.  That's not how it works.  "Pietas" or the natural law obligation to your family doesn't go on indefinitely - almost all societies have recognized this - it's tied to your "line" or family name.  My aunt's husband's sister's grandmother's boyfriend is not part of my family name or family line, so I am not obligated to pay for his healthcare.

Do "kill the infidel" Islamic extremists believe in humanity as kin?  Do primitive tribes whose entire social structure is based off family ties view humanity as kin?  What about the ever-growing part of the population that believes in no God, or the smaller part of the population who see themselves as God?  Nihilists, existentialists, postmodernists, etc.  Furthermore, seeing as many generous and unselfish Christians also oppose universal healthcare, it can hardly be considered an imposition of universal religious belief.

Martin Luther King - definitely NOT a Libertarian:
“We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

You absolute, number one principle as a Libertarian, which trumps all other principles, is property rights.  That's a "thing-oriented" view.  My absolute, number one principle which trumps all others is that life is sacred.  I believe a person dying on the streets without the ability to get health care on their own trumps your property rights.

thellama73 wrote: I don't think property rights are more important than life. I think they are the same thing.

So if I take away your property, you are dead?  What a sad way of thinking....

What I'm trying to get at is a way of life that transcends property.  A way of life that sees others needs as important as my own.  By living this way, one may hold on to his/her property loosely in such a way that losing it is not painful.  A way that says that life is not found in the possession of things, but in giving.  I believe that every religion in the world is ultimately pointing towards this way of life, but most people are too wrapped up in selfishness to see it - they filter out the meanings of religious teachings through their preconceptions.  Every religion in the world has some form of the Golden Rule.  And the way I look at it, paying for Universal Healthcare is a good example of living by the Golden Rule.  You are clutching so hard to your property rights that you will never see that by contributing to Universal Healthcare, you are actually serving yourself.  Study after study shows that Universal Healthcare lowers costs.  So by contributing to it, you not only lower your cost of living but you insure that if you ever come upon hard times, you will still be cared for.  But your ultimate principle of Property Rights blinds you to these benefits.  Your ultimate principle of "my stuff is my stuff is my stuff!!!!!" keeps you from recognizing that by loving your neighbor you are actually loving yourself.  No man is an island - no business is built completely independent of all help from society.  All businesses build upon the shoulders of those who came before.  But still you insist "I am an individual and I can take care of myself and my stuff is my stuff is my stuff."  I pity you.  So focused on a fight that does not make life any better.  Stuff will never fulfill you.

The Golden Rule is not as golden as it might appear. It's kind of selfish in the way it is presented, isn't it?