OT: Jibjab, Politics, the Big Bang and more!

[Arryn]

Originally posted by NTJedi:
lets play it safe and stay away from abortion.

Let's, instead, not inflict one's beliefs on others.

"Judge not ..."

[PrinzMegaherz]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
That just means it's illegal to kill them. Not that I'm required to help them if they can't be bothered to help themselves and obviously seem to enjoy being poor, as they can't be bothered to make the effort to end this. America is supposed to be the land of opportunity: If you can't be bothered to do something about it, you deserve to be poor. Somebody's gotta be.

Indeed, this is how the animal world works. The unfitting die, the suited replicate. However, I assumed that you are a human and not an animal. Maybe I was wrong here.

[ July 28, 2004, 21:25: Message edited by: PrinzMegaherz ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by PrinzMegaherz:
Indeed, this is how the animal world works. The unfitting die, the suited replicate. However, I assumed that you are a human and not an animal. Maybe we are wrong here.

You falsely assume that humans are not animals. This is untrue, humans are simply a more sophisticated animal. If you truly believe humans are somehow a superior form of life, never forget that this is the process which made you. Don't turn your back on it so easily.

[ July 28, 2004, 21:25: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Arryn:
What humans deserve is "the chance for a better life", not the better life itself. The latter should be earned.

And it still would be. Providing a hard bottom that people cannot fall below that allows them to avoid starving and suffering from poor health does not mean that they are experiencing a life of luxury.

Society owes me the opportunity to succeed, not the success itself.

I never said that society owes you success. I said that society owes you protection from starving to death and abject poverty.

Society owes me the right to be able to find good medical care, not the care itself.

I can never understand why basic medical care isn't considered to be something that society should pay for. After all, people don't seem to have a problem with the sewer system being paid for by taxes, and that's the single most important part of your health care. After all, you as an individual wouldn't be hurt by dumping your own personal sewage into the river.

If humans have an innate right to be taken care of by our society, then why must we pay for rent, food, or anything else we might want in our ordained right to happiness?

You would pay for them because you want better than the bare minimum.

[LintMan]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
Why would I be appalled? My share of any such treatments would amount to tens of dollars at most over the course of a year.

The cost estimates I heard for providing healthcare for the 42 million uninsured people in the US are around $42 billion, which would work out to just over $140 per capita in the US (but there are a lot less taxpayers than people, so likely it'd be more than that per taxpayer). That would allocate just $1000 per uninsured person, which seems quite inadequate considering that standard health insurance here can cost $2000-$7000 (or quite a lot more!) for a person. I'm guessing that any plan that provides better than a bare minimum health care would also need to cost around the same amounts, so $80-300 billion is more likely the true cost for a good system. And of course this is not "universal health care" - it would provide zero benefit at all to anyone who already was paying for any level of coverage.

Is it worth it if it'll cost $300 billion? I'm not sure. My point is just that even just covering the uninsured and leaving everyone else to still pay as now will cost us a fair bit more than tens of dollars per year.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
That just means it's illegal to kill them.

Which you are doing by refusing to provide proper health care.

If you can't be bothered to do something about it, you deserve to be poor. Somebody's gotta be.

Really? Somebody always has to be poor? I wasn't aware that the shortage of resources in the U.S. was so acute that there was not enough food for every person.

Parasite? I happen to be a taxpaying citizen who owes no money. I'm quite self-supporting, thank-you-very-much.

You aren't nearly as self-supporting as you think you are.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by LintMan:
Is it worth it if it'll cost $300 billion? I'm not sure. My point is just that even just covering the uninsured and leaving everyone else to still pay as now will cost us a fair bit more than tens of dollars per year.

That tens of dollars per year is in reference to unnecessary treatments, not to the total cost. My total cost for heatlth care is probably around $600-700 (30% of $2000 in taxes) per year since I happen to be in a lower tax bracket.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
I said that society owes you protection from starving to death and abject poverty.

Why? This encourages people to become leeches.

The compassionate part of me has sympathy for the elderly and the unfortunate. But the rational side of me thinks: if these folks had been less inept and/or foolish they'd not be in a situation now where they need help from others. Why should I reward the poor decisions they made in their lives? Example: if someone decides to have 8 children, and cannot afford to feed/clothe/care for more than 1, why must I (in the form of taxes) pay for their stupidity/irresponsibility? If you smoke, and get cancer, why should I have to pay a share (in the form of higher insurance costs) for the tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars it'll cost to deal with your foolishness? If you eat like a pig all your life, blimp out, and then get heart disease or colon cancer, why must everyone else be burdened by you?

Sorry, but people need to be responsible for themselves. The alternative is, eventually, a nonfunctional society in which very few support very many. A bankrupt society. We have too many people feeding at the public trough now, as is.

[LintMan]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
Nobody *DESERVES* anything. If you want something, you have to *EARN* it. There's no free lunch, pal. If you can't afford something, you get a nice lesson in "learning to do without".

Norfleet, are you a R.A. Heinlein fan by any chance? If you haven't read any of his SF, you might want to check him out.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by LintMan:
Norfleet, are you a R.A. Heinlein fan by any chance? If you haven't read any of his SF, you might want to check him out.

Speaking for myself, and not Norfy, I'm a big fan of the type of society expoused by RAH in Starship Troopers (the book, not the crappy movie). Citizen is a privilege, not a right, and must be earned. Citizenship has obligations.

EDIT: I also have almost all his books. Started reading him around 1966.

[ July 28, 2004, 21:54: Message edited by: Arryn ]