| Aielyn said: Saying that you have a "natural right" to not be thrown into an arcane system just doesn't make sense. By your logic, you should have a right not to be put into any sort of system at all. The right to representation is a right that was introduced as a protection. It's easy to invent "natural rights" for any actual right... but the problem is, each time you do it, you end up also introducing other rights that weren't meant to be there. I do agree that a major problem with the American health system is that it's not single-payer in any sense. And "European style health care"? No, how about Canadian? Australian? Neither country is "european", and both have far better outcomes, universal coverage, and lower costs. Australia's system is probably the better fit for America, having a private health insurance industry as an option on top of the basic public coverage. And you keep saying "western nation", but I'm not convinced that you're actually looking at it fairly. Have you even looked at Australia? Yes, our health care costs are increasing... but it's a proportional increase. And a lot of other "western nations" aren't having any more of a problem than Australia. I'll tell you what - have a read of this: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/healthreport/health-care-costs-in-australia/3629464 (the "transcript") "Our total health expenditure has increased as a proportion of GDP over a number of years. It was 7.9% about a decade ago and it's now 9.4% of GDP in 2009/10 but that's what we're also seeing in most other oeCD countries and in fact as the standard of living increases what you expect to see is that more of that is spent on health. And we're also starting to see the impact of the ageing population." So basically, Australia's increasing total health care costs aren't particularly due to rising prices or things like that, but due to Australians paying more in order to sustain a higher standard of living, plus the aging population requiring more health care (whereas before, they were just dying). And the implication is that it's true elsewhere, too. And I'm sorry, but the statistical difference between 5 million and 300 million is miniscule, it makes little difference to the overall behaviour. And I really don't see what ethnicity has to do with the ability for people to get along... unless you're claiming that America is inherently racist. Also, Norway has a significant immigrant population, with the current count working out to over 13% of the population. Also worth noting is that I'm not saying that Norway has it perfect, or that America should imitate Norway in everything... but perhaps America could get off its damn high horse for a few seconds, and look at where other countries are outperforming them? You know, try to improve your country by taking the best and most effective policies from other countries? And no, the "small government" argument is akin to chopping off limbs. Government doesn't need to be smaller, it needs to be more efficient - it needs to cut away excess fat, through sensible policies. Let me put it this way - the Libertarian attitude would be "government needs to get out of healthcare". That would be cutting off a limb. On the other hand, "government needs to clean up its handling of health care" would involve cutting away the fat, leaving the healthy stuff behind. Let me try another analogy on you. Trying to make government smaller is treating the symptom, rather than the cause. Government is bloated because of problems within government. Making government smaller doesn't fix those problems, it just puts more strain on the budget, which only serves to make it even more of a problem. On the other hand, if you fix the cause, the actual problems within government, then government will get smaller on its own, and what's left will be a much healthier government. And that's where the analogy with obesity comes back in. If you get on the scales, and see that you're far overweight, you see the symptom that you're too heavy. A healthy response is to identify why you're so fat, and address those problems. An unhealthy response is to identify quick ways to remove weight (like cutting off a limb) - not only will it not address the problems, but it will actually make it even harder to address them. But hey, why bother putting forward an argument, when you can just resort to ad hominem? Why explain your reasoning, when you can call the other person's argument "imbecilic" and leave it at that? |
1. Firstly, I'm a libertarian, not an anarchist. I think that government should exist to protect the rights of citizens, although that's about all it should do. Well, that's what being hauled into court on some charges is all about. (In theory. Too often it's that you've consumed a banned substance or something.) When your actions are alleged to have infringed on another citizen's rights, it has to be sussed out somehow. But it's only fair that you understand the charges against you and are competently represented, and by logic, that the burden of proof be with the prosecution as always should be when someone is making a claim. You can't prove a negative and all that. That's not some arbitrary bullshit that the government or "society" created, it's an attempt to balance people's rights. It isn't perfect even in theory, it could be worlds better in practice, but it's a necessary evil if people are going to coexist.
I obviously don't think that health care is a right, because I believe in natural rights and that those are what government should be about protecting. But when you say that health care is a right and then proceed to dismiss the notion of natural rights altogether because "rights are just things that government or 'society' creates", then what are you even arguing? Health care is only a right if it's decided that it's a right, then. If Country A says it is, then it is in Country A. If Country B says it's not, then it's not in Country B.
On a more philosophical level... Thomas Jefferson died of pneumonia. But didn't he have a right to azithromycin? If not, did he only not have a right to it because it didn't exist at the time? Are you entitled to more things than he was just because they exist? If there exists some super rare, super expensive cure for AIDS or cancer, how entitled are people to that if health care really is a right?
2. Don't be so pedantic about my use of the word "European". I only said European because Democrats are always arguing that we should emulate "Europe". Usually Sweden, if they have to pick a country, because it sounds nicest. No one ever says Canadian or Australian because everyone here is too familiar with Canadians coming here for health care because of their long ass waits to want to emulate that system, and most people think Australia is just a fictional place from those Crocodile Dundee movies - myself included.
I think the cost containment problem in the US is also a factor of, not just the contrived public-private system and usual fat, aging population, etc., but also the rest of the world piggybacking on American medical technology and drugs just like they do with our military. It's hardly a secret that the EU, for example, requires pharmaceutical companies to drop the prices on their drugs after a while "in solidary with the people". And it's also no secret that pharmaceutical companies will always be protected from both government-mandated price controls and *gasp* real market forces in the US, so this is where they make all the money that allows them to keep researching and manufacturing the new drugs that everyone will use in the future.
3. You really don't see a problem with trying to bind hundreds of millions of people of different races, religions, and perspectives together into a one size fits all system? Like, the fact that it always fails pretty spectacularly, maybe? As long as nice little countries like Norway and Sweden have been comprised of people who all felt like they were one people, things got along relatively swimmingly. (Well, for a little while. It wasn't all that long ago they were emigrating like crazy, like pretty much all European nations.) But now that they have a high standard of living and their birth rates have fallen off and all of their population growth comes from immigration, you're seeing it start to fray the fabric of society. It isn't about race (and ethniticty =/= race, btw), but it's about assimilation, and race and ethnicity are certainly barriers to assimilation.
Government works best when it is small and transparent and local. When the head of your government is at most just a few towns over from you, he probably doesn't feel so removed from you. You and he probably even have had remarkably similar experiences, and he can represent you that much better. If he sucks, your vote counts a hell of a lot more in removing him from power. In short, he's a hell of a lot more accountable. When your head of state is an impreious asshole in a crime-ridden shithole on the eastern seaboard of a gigantic nation, he's nowhere near as accountable and is therefore much more likely to remain an imperious asshole.
So, yes, I think it's utterly imbecilic to compare governing Sweden with the governing fucking Roman Empire. Larger nations require more local autonomy because there inevitably comes a tipping point when people feel so estranged from the national government issuing edicts from on high that they turn against it. Just shouting, "Y U NO GOVERN SMARTER???" isn't really a solution to that; increased local control is. Autonomy is freedom, and a wise man once said that freedom is the right of all sentient beings. Then he turned into a truck.
