LGP Political Discussion Thread

[doublem]

With MY money. I also used MY money to pay for a doctor visit and medication. I don't like to toss around words like MY and I all the time since I don't need to sound independent and rugged gun slinger but having an affordable health plan would have made this problem disappear.

[Guinness]

With MY money. I also used MY money to pay for a doctor visit and medication. I don't like to toss around words like MY and I all the time since I don't need to sound independent and rugged gun slinger but having an affordable health plan would have made this problem disappear.

Right. So, in other words, you're unable to provide us with a logical, coherent argument as to why one is entitled to another person's labor.

Incorrigible? Pathetic.

Edit to clarify: "Pathetic"; as in, "worthy of sympathy".

[Guinness]

an affordable health plan would have made this problem disappear.

Just thought I'd do this again because it's both true and fun:

the inflated costs of medical and health insurance are a direct result of the very things YOU advocate. And yet here you are demanding that the rest of us pay the bills that you are both directly and indirectly responsible for.

[ExPatriatePen]

an affordable health plan would have made this problem disappear.

Just thought I'd do this again because it's both true and fun:

the inflated costs of medical and health insurance are a direct result of the very things YOU advocate. And yet here you are demanding that the rest of us pay the bills that you are both directly and indirectly responsible for.

I'm sorry, but I have to excuse myself from this discussion because I have to go back and spend 4-5 more billable hours working so that I can pay the taxes and insurance premiums to pay for DoubleM's expenses.

Be back in 5 hours.

[doublem]

What you are saying doesn't exist and even if it did could never solve the real world problems that exist in the world today. Like now, the 21st century, not some fictional world. Charity has never been able to do that .Not in the Guinness world where we can say charity and I will give money but it has no real meaning and no way of actually having the means to carry it out. I understand your point and in an ideal world that would be nice but it would never happen. Your tax dollars are your money going to work , it's your money going to "goods" as you like to say. Since I'm assuming you don't own a school or can build roads, or cure yourself of sickness that money goes to pay for those things. You have never been able to explain it, saying its "understood" doesn't count.

[slappybrown]

Why are you so certain that the government being given your money to administer every aspect of health care, or food provision, or home provision will be so beneficial? The same faults you see in persons who work in the corporate setting, or work for those companies who you find distasteful will be the same persons charged with administering the beauracracy you champion. Why do you think that those people will somehow "change" and become everything you want them to be because their ID is says USA on it instead of Goldman Sachs?

[Guinness]

What you are saying doesn't exist and even if it did could never solve the real world problems that exist in the world today. Like now, the 21st century, not some fictional world. Charity has never been able to do that .Not in the Guinness world where we can say charity and I will give money but it has no real meaning and no way of actually having the means to carry it out. I understand your point and in an ideal world that would be nice but it would never happen. Your tax dollars are your money going to work , it's your money going to "goods" as you like to say. Since I'm assuming you don't own a school or can build roads, or cure yourself of sickness that money goes to pay for those things. You have never been able to explain it, saying its "understood" doesn't count.

So, again so we're all clear, you have no response to the claim that the policies you advocate create the conditions about which you complain.

And, you have no response to the request to provide us with a logical, coherent argument as to why one person is entitled to someone else's labor.

I think I've made my requests pretty clear - in a number of posts. So what is this you're asking me to "explain"... since you won't - or can't - explain your position?

[Guinness]

Why are you so certain that the government being given your money to administer every aspect of health care, or food provision, or home provision will be so beneficial? The same faults you see in persons who work in the corporate setting, or work for those companies who you find distasteful will be the same persons charged with administering the beauracracy you champion. Why do you think that those people will somehow "change" and become everything you want them to be because their ID is says USA on it instead of Goldman Sachs?

I've posed this question before, too. Why is it that these evil human beings all of a sudden become altruistic benefactors when they go to work for the state - an institution, I hasten to add, that has the socially-sanctioned authority of coercive and physical force.

[doublem]

Question to you all rugged individualist in this thread? Why have so many countries passed the great U.S. of A in health care and education? Why is that? And why don't they have these arguments in those countries, these outdated 19th century debates? Why haven't they collapsed into poor gutter nations or become babies to the State or unproductive workers. Yet, in the land of the free home of the brave, Americans work longer hours and pay the most and have the least covered.

[slappybrown]

Question to you all rugged individualist in this thread? Why have so many countries passed the great U.S. of A in health care and education? Why is that? And why don't they have these arguments in those countries, these outdated 19th century debates? Why haven't they collapsed into poor gutter nations or become babies to the State or unproductive workers. Yet, in the land of the free home of the brave, Americans work longer hours and pay the most and have the least covered.

I still would like to know your answer to the question I posed above.

Why does the United States have the best doctors, best medical facilities, best research institutes?

[doublem]

Why are you so certain that the government being given your money to administer every aspect of health care, or food provision, or home provision will be so beneficial? The same faults you see in persons who work in the corporate setting, or work for those companies who you find distasteful will be the same persons charged with administering the beauracracy you champion. Why do you think that those people will somehow "change" and become everything you want them to be because their ID is says USA on it instead of Goldman Sachs?

I'm not. But right now rules don't exist for these people to play by. The way this country was set up, the people are in control of what happens in the country, that isn't how it works now but that is how it was supposed to work. The power of voting is a check on the big money that popped up all over the world. The people that work in D.C. are supposed to be working for us and we have the power over them, the people of GS have unchecked power and answer to no one. Plus, this country was set up to avoid corporate power.

[slappybrown]

Why are you so certain that the government being given your money to administer every aspect of health care, or food provision, or home provision will be so beneficial? The same faults you see in persons who work in the corporate setting, or work for those companies who you find distasteful will be the same persons charged with administering the beauracracy you champion. Why do you think that those people will somehow "change" and become everything you want them to be because their ID is says USA on it instead of Goldman Sachs?

I'm not. But right now rules don't exist for these people to play by. The way this country was set up, the people are in control of what happens in the country, that isn't how it works now but that is how it was supposed to work. The power of voting is a check on the big money that popped up all over the world. The people that work in D.C. are supposed to be working for us and we have the power over them, the people of GS have unchecked power and answer to no one. Plus, this country was set up to avoid corporate power.

You cannot write in unspecified, non-sequitor-ish stream of consciousness and expect people to understand what exactly you are advocating, because I think it is getting lost in the cliched pablum. That just sounds like are a paranoid screaming about generalized notions of "power" and how people use it. I want to better understand what it is exactly that we should do. Name the 5 most important things you would change if you could.

[doublem]

So, again so we're all clear, you have no response to the claim that the policies you advocate create the conditions about which you complain.

They don't.

And, you have no response to the request to provide us with a logical, coherent argument as to why one person is entitled to someone else's labor

Already did and it's not your right to that.

Your tax dollars are your money going to work , it's your money going to "goods" as you like to say. Since I'm assuming you don't own a school or can build roads, or cure yourself of sickness that money goes to pay for those things. You have never been able to explain it, saying its "understood" doesn't count.

[Guinness]

So, again so we're all clear, you have no response to the claim that the policies you advocate create the conditions about which you complain.

They don't.

They most certainly do. An inflationary monetary policy obviously devalues the currency, which results in a rise in prices. This isn't optional.

Stifling regulation results in increased prices. I know you don't want that to be true, but it is.

And, you have no response to the request to provide us with a logical, coherent argument as to why one person is entitled to someone else's labor

Already did and it's not your right to that.

No, you haven't. And it's not my right to what?

Your tax dollars are your money going to work , it's your money going to "goods" as you like to say. Since I'm assuming you don't own a school or can build roads, or cure yourself of sickness that money goes to pay for those things. You have never been able to explain it, saying its "understood" doesn't count.

Again - you will not - cannot - answer the question.

[doublem]

Why are you so certain that the government being given your money to administer every aspect of health care, or food provision, or home provision will be so beneficial? The same faults you see in persons who work in the corporate setting, or work for those companies who you find distasteful will be the same persons charged with administering the beauracracy you champion. Why do you think that those people will somehow "change" and become everything you want them to be because their ID is says USA on it instead of Goldman Sachs?

I'm not. But right now rules don't exist for these people to play by. The way this country was set up, the people are in control of what happens in the country, that isn't how it works now but that is how it was supposed to work. The power of voting is a check on the big money that popped up all over the world. The people that work in D.C. are supposed to be working for us and we have the power over them, the people of GS have unchecked power and answer to no one. Plus, this country was set up to avoid corporate power.

You cannot write in unspecified, non-sequitor-ish stream of consciousness and expect people to understand what exactly you are advocating, because I think it is getting lost in the cliched pablum. That just sounds like are a paranoid screaming about generalized notions of "power" and how people use it. I want to better understand what it is exactly that we should do. Name the 5 most important things you would change if you could.

1. Change the economic system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_S ... ic_plan%29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Update this system to something current.
2. Break up all corporations that have public money in them. They should be nationalized shortly and should be sold back off to the public like the IMF generally happens.
3. Undo most if not all deregulation measures from the 1970s on, Energy, Communications, Transportation
4. End all monopolies, start trust busting.
5. End all private money in advertising and fund raising for office.

Not to mention increase tax on the 1%.
Single payer health care.
Ending both wars.

[Geezer]

That just sounds like are a paranoid screaming about generalized notions of "power" and how people use it.

Bingo, Ad Naseum.

[doublem]

They most certainly do. An inflationary monetary policy obviously devalues the currency, which results in a rise in prices. This isn't optional.

Stifling regulation results in increased prices. I know you don't want that to be true, but it is.

No. You can have all your notions about freedom and theft and call it absolute but numbers don't lie.

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w50/ ... ages-1.jpg

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w50/ ... xrates.jpg

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w50/ ... rt-1-1.jpg

America is very much resembling the Developing World Dictatorships that we criticize and decry in the press. The once large middle class is being replaced by a peasant class. As author Alvaro Vargas Llosa said, " ...it really doesn't matter whether the rulers call themselves capitalist or socialist, whether they plunder by concessions and taxation through crony firms or straight-out theft from nationalized industries." Our country currently has what Llosa describes as the five principles of oppression:
-corporatism
-states mercantilism
-privilege & favoritism
-wealth transfer
-political law

Not to mention the hypocritical stance the U.S. has on torture.

I've written many times before about Sami al-Hajj, the Al Jazeera cameraman who was abducted by the U.S. in late 2001, tortured at Bagram, sent to Guantanamo for seven years -- where he was never charged with any crime and was interrogated overwhelmingly about Al Jazeera's operations, not about Terrorism -- and then suddenly released without explanation last year, as though the whole thing never happened. The due-process-free imprisonment of this journalist by the U.S. government was ignored almost completely by the American media (other than Nicholas Kristof), even as it righteously obsessed on the far shorter imprisonment of journalists by countries such as Iran and North Korea (hey, look over there at those tyrannical countries - they imprison our journalists!!!!!).

[Guinness]

Right. So, in other words, you're unable to provide us with a logical, coherent argument as to why one is entitled to another person's labor.

This incoherent ramble does not answer the above:

Your tax dollars are your money going to work , it's your money going to "goods" as you like to say. Since I'm assuming you don't own a school or can build roads, or cure yourself of sickness that money goes to pay for those things. You have never been able to explain it...

According to what logic is it more just for you (or your selected betters) to decide what to do with my property?

No.

And we live now in a world, according to doublem, where printing currency does not devalue it.

numbers don't lie.

The comments, "Financier Greed Destabilizes the Market and Banks", and "Economic Stability" leave a ****load of information and history out.

Edit to add: That graph is hilarious. 5-Minute Fallacy! Just draw a line... shade certain areas... insert comments that support premise... and... Argument complete!

Edit to add again: The list of "Regulatory Acts" leaves out 1 pretty important one - The Federal Reserve Act, in 1913. Since then, we've had an economic recession approximately every 8 years or so, if I recall correctly.

But of course, the Federal Reserve Act doesn't fit the premise, so it's left out.

Not to mention the fact that we were talking about prices in medicine and health insurance. Not to mention the fact that we were talking about an increase in prices, not wages.

The "Inconvenient" (to FDR believers, anyway) 1920 Depression: http://mises.org/daily/3788

http://www.youtube.com/user/misesmedia? ... b5z1pM6q7c

[Guinness]

Not to mention the hypocritical stance the U.S. has on torture.

Who said anything about torture? You know where I am on that topic. Or are you just flailing wildly in an attempt to avoid answering the questions that have been asked?

[Guinness]

Question to you all rugged individualist in this thread? Why have so many countries passed the great U.S. of A in health care and education? Why is that? And why don't they have these arguments in those countries, these outdated 19th century debates? Why haven't they collapsed into poor gutter nations or become babies to the State or unproductive workers. Yet, in the land of the free home of the brave, Americans work longer hours and pay the most and have the least covered.

Enough with the ad hominems.

Broken window fallacy: http://mises.org/daily/3804

Edit to add: http://www.freetheworld.com/

Because something hasn't collapsed does not mean that it will not. And comparing European countries to the American Empire is nonsense.

Regardless, my argument is not based upon efficiency; it's based upon morality.



On Regulation: http://mises.org/daily/3766

[Guinness]

There can be no question that $750 annual maximum penalty is a mere placeholder. It is the camel's nose under the tent. When the non-discrimination provision kicks in, the only way these companies could remain solvent would be for Congress to raise the fine to the point where the penalty is greater than the gain of skipping coverage.

For me, that would have to be roughly $8,000 per year. Introducing such a fine right now would have surely killed the bill. So, the wily wonks in Washington have chosen to move slower, knowing that once the first step is taken, the second becomes inevitable.

However, there is another, more devious possibility. Perhaps our elected officials actually intend to bite the hands that feed them. They could double-cross insurance companies by not raising the fine in five years, thereby forcing the industry into bankruptcy as millions of healthy people opt-out. During the ensuing 'insurance crisis,' our courageous leaders could ride to the rescue with a nationalized, single-payer system.

The real tragedy is that the current bill does nothing to restrain the forces that are propelling healthcare costs into the stratosphere, namely: regulatory bans of insurance competition, the out-of-control medical malpractice industry, federal programs and subsidies, and a tax code that favors a third-party payment system – which alienates the patient from the cost of his care.

To consider that many in Washington have the nerve to market this multi-trillion dollar monstrosity as a "deficit reduction bill" is to realize that our representatives have lost all touch with reality. For those keeping score, the government made similarly rosy projections in the mid-1960's when Medicare was first introduced. The inflation-adjusted cost of that program already exceeds the original estimate by a factor of ten. That's probably where we are headed this time around.

The REST, by Peter Schiff.

[youtube][/youtube]

I don't post this as if to reveal some sort of conspiracy. I only post it to lend credence to Schiff's "devious possibility".

[Guinness]

Some red meat for the conservatives:

I try to avoid hyperbole, but I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had.

Read the REST.

[Guinness]

I'm sorry, but I have to excuse myself from this discussion because I have to go back and spend 4-5 more billable hours working so that I can pay the taxes and insurance premiums to pay for DoubleM's expenses.

Be back in 5 hours.

Instead of that, how about THIS?

Take a second to peruse the great comment by "David" in the Comments section:

ONe of the regrettable aspects of the 20th century ( aside from the hijacking of the term 'liberal' by the soft left), was the unhealthy association between bona fide liberalism, sorry, libertarianism, and the so-called 'right wing' that today has hardened into insular, neocon statism. This did the Libertarian cause no favours, and it still carries the stain. in the eyes of the uninitiated. And hence often often painted by lefty detractors as being 'ruthless', 'callous', 'heartless' etc, these words being viewed as the simple synonyms of 'self-interest'. Hence, the argument goes, because peolple are selfish, government and tax is needed to compel them to channel resources to 'worthy' social causes. etc etc.

In fact this is not at all true, as this finding clearly shows. You see, many, if not most libertarians are indeed compassionate people ( just like many lefties) who recognise that there are others less fortunate than themselves in terms of a hundred diffrent circumstances. 'self interest' does not mean ' I look after no 1 and the rest be damned'. It means 'I deploy my efforts and resources the way I see fit'. And that may very well include , say, charitable donations to NGOs supporting, say, the cerebrally palsied in one case, or the SPCA in another case. Its a matter of choice.

[DropEmJayBird]

Question to you all rugged individualist in this thread? Why have so many countries passed the great U.S. of A in health care and education? Why is that? And why don't they have these arguments in those countries, these outdated 19th century debates? Why haven't they collapsed into poor gutter nations or become babies to the State or unproductive workers.

Someone hasnt been to Europe.

As far as education is concerned, would that not be something run by our govt? which I am assuming is exactly where some would like to see the direction of health care go? If we are behind on education, whose fault is that? As far as health care, I don't know about anyone else, but I would not want to go to a hospital in one of these social utopia's in Europe if I needed care. Sure I may have to spend some of the fruits of my own labor, but I would want the best possible care. That extra 10-15% recovery rate verses death means a big deal.

[doublem]

Question to you all rugged individualist in this thread? Why have so many countries passed the great U.S. of A in health care and education? Why is that? And why don't they have these arguments in those countries, these outdated 19th century debates? Why haven't they collapsed into poor gutter nations or become babies to the State or unproductive workers.

Someone hasnt been to Europe.

As far as education is concerned, would that not be something run by our govt? which I am assuming is exactly where some would like to see the direction of health care go? If we are behind on education, whose fault is that? As far as health care, I don't know about anyone else, but I would not want to go to a hospital in one of these social utopia's in Europe if I needed care. Sure I may have to spend some the fruits of my own labor, but I would want the best possible care. That extra 10-15% recovery rate verses death means a big deal.

Wrong. I have been. LOL, so what would you do then? Stay sick. What you are saying isn't true. Here is a few myths you should check out.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01778.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;