quote/- Ok, first off - you insulted the Amish. Unlike you, I actually have…

I was really hoping you would not take me up on that offer to talk to an empty chair. If you carefully read what I stated, I was referring to “back in the day”. This willful or accidental misunderstanding makes your later rant on “lack of reading comprehension” somewhat ironic. -/endquote


Your exact words were: "So you advocating Amish lifestyle?" that was the sentence. You then went on to say " Sure, people lived in the wood shacks, died before 30th birthday and had 12 kids, with only about 4 making it to adulthood. I didn't know you were such a literal traditionalist. Even back in these days, a visit from a doctor to drain your excess humors would not bankrupt your family."

Based on your grammar here, you are saying current Amish lifestyle - or - the way the rest of us supposedly lived some vague period of time ago. That is what you said, and since you have resisted efforts in the past to tease out what you *meant* to say I no longer bother trying and simply take you at your words prima facie. If you do not want to be misunderstood, communicate better.

When communicating with your pet chair you like to show off, it probably does not matter. When communicating with humans, its best to say what you mean. Unless you can tolerate further inquiry into the nature of what you had written, which in the past you have shown yourself unable to do.


Originally Posted By: sinij
I said (formalizing): “Since healthcare is a basic need, and we need to satisfy all basic needs before we can address all other needs, then we need to provide healthcare to guarantee access to a democratic process”.

Proposition A: Healthcare is a basic need.

Proposition B: You need to satisfy all basic needs before any other needs.

Conclusion: We need to provide healthcare to guarantee access to democratic process.

Your objection that some people might participate in civic life despite not having access to healthcare does not invalidate my argument. To draw an analogy, voter suppression tactics, like poll taxes during Jim Crow period, would not turn away every black voter, but enough to compromise democratic process. Try again.


Proposition A is debatable, proposition B is patently false. Thus conclusion invalidated.

Its worth mentioning here I suppose, exactly how you are misusing Maslow.

According to one of the first lines in your own link "So Maslow acknowledges that many different levels of motivation are likely to be going on in a human all at once. His focus in discussing the hierarchy was to identify the basic types of motivations, and the order that they generally progress as lower needs are reasonably well met."

In other words, even Maslow himself admitted multiple levels are ongoing simultaniously whereas you claim "Participation in democracy does not come until all these basics are fulfilled." which is not even something Maslow would have claimed. Also, "reasonably well met" - you have defined no criteria regarding what is reasonable levels of health care in regards to participation means you have no reasonable grounds to suggest, especially in the face of ample empirical evidence to the contrary - that the current health care system, or a free market system would or does provide such a lower level of service that it would comparatively prevent civic participation in a statistically significant manner that would amount to voter suppression fait accompli.

Originally Posted By: sinij
Shall we cut bullshit out? You think that paying taxes is a violent confiscation of property by the government and especially oppose to spending said tax money on things you don’t personally approve of. You also try to establish false equivalence of paying into society to slavery.


Yes, lets cut the bullshit out - please. I think that paying taxes to support your opinion of what society should look like simply because you have falsely deemed yourself righteous is slavery. I do not equivocate paying taxes with slavery per se.

It is also important to factor in the fact that many who are forced to pay into your various schemes, would by virtue of that forced payment have their own options for health care be robbed of them. Many people even under the Obamacare we already have, have lost access to sensible health plans at affordable prices because they did not fit the more expensive mandated mold - and have been priced out of higher tiered selective yet catastrophically comprehensive coverage with good benefits into lower tiered Obamacare templated plans. Further govt interference will surely only compound this problem, as spending decisions are taken away from citizens and put into the hands of bureaucrats.

Originally Posted By: sinij
No, in most cases you can’t opt out of paying property taxes. Some of the fee structure confuses this issue, but I will stand on the point that you can’t opt out of contributing to national highway system.

I also don’t understand on this fixation on opting out. I’d like to opt out of paying for Bush wars; do you think I should be able to?


As I said, in "general terms". Plus where I am at... property taxes are not used for highways to the best of my current knowledge. If they are where you are at, well thats Federalism at work and thats fine.

Your war analogy is poorly constructed for a number of reasons, the least of which is wars are not analogous to infrastructure services like a highway... and gets even further from the healthcare topic. The only similarity universal federal health care has to the Bush wars, is that we should not do/have done either of them.

Originally Posted By: sinij
Which is it? Some of it, all of it. Why do you insist that we differentiate someone bleeding on the street from someone quietly suffering at home from some preventable disease unable to afford a treatment? You in your blind opposition do not differentiate - you oppose all of it; why are you asking me to act differently? Under the system you advocate both people bleeding on the street and suffering at home are thrown under the bus so you, so you could satisfy your ideological purity.

If you are asking what I personally would consider a basic acceptable minimum level of health care, then we can talk about it. I think we will agree on more points than disagree. Still, our disagreement is that you think there should have no guaranteed access to healthcare whatsoever, and I think that there should be. The only time it makes sense to discuss details is if you concede the argument and agree that some level of healthcare should be universally provided.

--

Now, I noticed you didn’t mention anything about #2 and #3. I was curious to see what you have to say on it, or would you rather I leave you alone with your chair so you could rant about having to pay taxes?


I think in a properly constructed society where corrupt and inefficient govt does not get in the way, that the bulk of our health issues will be alleviated.

However, as I have stated and you have either ignored, been unable to comprehend, or willfully dismissed my primary criticisms are your methods stemming from:

1) Your assertion that people have a natural right to the time money and services of others, moralizing the use of violence to obtain those services. This is wrong and immoral on a fundamental level. - It should be noted that this is a different argument, than arguing that health care should be provided because it provides a material benefit to all. (Which the proposed implementations do not, so its understandable) But that would be a theoretically moral argument.

2) Your obsession with providing said services via the most inefficient, ineffective, and unresponsive means possible. Even socialists in other countries have concocted more sensible methods, leaving your approach basically indefensible even from a leftist perspective let alone the perspective of liberty.


I also as noted, and based on personal experience, tend to harbor suspicions about the true motives behind leftists wanting to stuff away care for social ills in some Federal bureaucracy somewhere.

Why else propose such absurd means for dealing with social ills? Heck, the FedGov cant even safely manage a simple forced retirement savings fund (Social Security).... what would make any rational person think it would safely or sanely be able to nationalize a dynamic and complex market system like health care?
---

Also I answered #2 and #3 in my own #2 and #3.... try adjusting your reading glasses.

For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)