kdiceprincess18

Im not being anything... to anyone. Im currently participating in a politically orientated discussion thread, that admittedly happens to NOT be in a political forum, but in kdice instead. Nonetheless, this particular discussion does happen to be politically orientated, hence I’ve made the conscious decision to chime in.
WHAT I AM NOT DOING... unlike yourself and for that matter I’ll include boogybytes is telling anyone, suggesting to anyone such as myself or even deadcode HOW they ought to participate, the manner in which they choose to do so, what they should say, or... HOW in fact they ought to say it or present themselves. For instance, you have chosen to assimilate the role of Boogybytes in forum Cheerleader... yay! Thats fine. I’ve no issue with that. Perhaps Boogybytes is in fact in need of one. I don’t really know personally. Perhaps you know better. If thats true then what you are doing perhaps is in fact a grand and glorious thing, and all of us are witnessing a kdice altruistic moment of kumbaya proportions.
Then again... maybe not. Lol
I have a couple of personal rules when it comes to forum based political discussions. Firstly, I judge a persons character or based upon their ability to support THEIR OWN arguments, preferably thru citation, although, well formed reasonably formulated propositions based upon sound thinking, or even common sense can suffice as well as opposed to how many members the person has waving poms poms up in the bleachers to their credit.
Secondly, and its only my opinion that it represents foolishness and even more so juvenile infantilism to launch into a political discussion and then get their panties all bunched up becoming all pissy whiny in respect to how the opposing member has responded. In other words, the person responding didn’t meet some pre-expected possibly hoped for response. Perhaps things didn’t quite pan out quite as well how the person who launched had hoped for. Oh well.
In short whether its here at kdice or elsewhere these are political and or geopolitical issues, which given how the world has changed largely affects us all in various different ways and extremes. I may fuck around. I may get a little slap stick. I may use tongue in cheek, but if you get to know me you’ll soon find out I consider these to be issues that are far reaching affecting the lives of people across the globe, in many ways horribly tragic. So excuse me, if I get a little blunt, but here we are a bunch of 1st worlders complaining, on our 1st worlders computers, made out of petroleum products and filling up our 1 gas gas tanks with product other people are fucking dying in REAL WARS so you sit here in your comfortable 1 world environment PLAYING PRETEND WAR war and bitching about how someones nose got a little fucking bruised, which could have happened for one reason and one reason only. They went and STUCK THEIR OWN into it. Willingly. No one is forcing them. Im not one of those people. Fact is I know Im contributing. I know discussions are being made, plans are being hatched in war rooms to capture more resources which I will inevitably benefit from and others will suffer for. When I first entered a debate some years ago and got horribly owned, instead of pissing myself I stopped took a long hard look at my propositions, how I came off. I re examined my position and been re examing it / them ever since. The person who first installed a new one into me quite frankly done me a favour. And over time instead of worrying about a bruised ego I began listening to what they had to say. I soon after began to respect that person for what they had to offer.

lol..omg FUCK I hate the texting format in here.. gonna try re edit... wish me teh lucks.../me needs it

(re edited hopes this works better... apologies all)

kdiceprincess18

Im not being anything... to anyone. Im currently participating in a politically orientated discussion thread, that admittedly happens to NOT be in a political forum, but in kdice instead. Nonetheless, this particular discussion does happen to be politically orientated, hence Ive made the conscious decision to chime in.
WHAT I AM NOT DOING... unlike yourself and for that matter Ill include boogybytes is telling anyone, suggesting to anyone such as myself or even deadcode HOW they ought to participate, the manner in which they choose to do so, what they should say, or... HOW in fact they ought to say it or present themselves. For instance, you have chosen to assimilate the role of Boogybytes in forum Cheerleader... yay! Thats fine. Ive no issue with that. Perhaps Boogybytes is in fact in need of one. I dont really know personally. Perhaps you know better. If thats true then what you are doing perhaps is in fact a grand and glorious thing, and all of us are witnessing a kdice altruistic moment of kumbaya proportions.
Then again... maybe not. Lol
I have a couple of personal rules when it comes to forum based political discussions. Firstly, I judge a persons character or based upon their ability to support THEIR OWN arguments, preferably thru citation, although, well formed reasonably formulated propositions based upon sound thinking, or even common sense can suffice as well as opposed to how many members the person has waving poms poms up in the bleachers to their credit.
Secondly, and its only my opinion that it represents foolishness and even more so juvenile infantilism to launch into a political discussion and then get their panties all bunched up becoming all pissy whiny in respect to how the opposing member has responded. In other words, the person responding didnt meet some pre expected possibly hoped for response. Perhaps things didnt quite pan out quite as well how the person who launched had hoped for. Oh well.
In short whether its here at kdice or elsewhere these are political and or geopolitical issues, which given how the world has changed largely affects us all in various different ways and extremes. I may fuck around. I may get a little slap stick. I may use tongue in cheek, but if you get to know me youll soon find out I consider these to be issues that are far reaching affecting the lives of people across the globe, in many ways horribly tragic. So excuse me, if I get a little blunt, but here we are a bunch of 1st worlders complaining, on our 1st worlders computers, made out of petroleum products and filling up our 1st worlder gas gas tanks with product other people are fucking dying in REAL WARS so can you sit here in your comfortable 1 world environment PLAYING PRETEND WAR war and bitching about how someones nose got a little fucking bruised, which could have happened for one reason and one reason only. They went and STUCK THEIR OWN into it. Willingly. No one is forcing them. Im not one of those people. Fact is I know Im contributing. I know discussions are being made, plans are being hatched in war rooms to capture more resources which I will inevitably benefit from and others will suffer for. When I first entered a debate some years ago and got horribly owned, instead of pissing myself I stopped took a long hard look at my propositions, how I came off. I re examined my position and been re examining it / them ever since. The person who first installed a new one into me quite frankly done me a favor. And over time instead of worrying about a bruised ego I began listening to what they had to say. I soon after began to respect that person for what they had to offer.

wow there's something to be said for succinctness

true that... I do that too. However, had a point to make and a couple paragraphs, 1 post, instead of it spread all over fuck aint so bad. Been here before, seen how it goes. Thought Id save myself a whole lot of horseshit... prolly wont help tho

tl;dr

@xnixnix

I am not arguing for spending more, or less, on health care. I am advocating for a free market where people can freely choose how much to spend, and suppliers can freely choose how much to charge.

I think we do spend too much on health care. I would also expect that overall spending would go down if we adopt socialist health care here. First, the system would run out of money--our country simply cannot afford what has been proposed. Then, the amount and quality of services available to the average citizen will go down through rationing, disallowing anything but the least expensive treatment options (even when outcomes are suboptimal), and other means. Supply will diminish--many very good doctors will leave the profession, or never become doctors because they will choose more lucrative professions. Research would plummet due to the reduced market viability for new products and services. This would all be worsened by government bureaucracy and control, making the system vastly less efficient than it would as a free market.

The wealthy would continue to go outside the socialist system to get top quality health care, just as they do in Europe. The middle class and poor would be the ones to suffer.

Also, please note that I wouldn't recommend our current system to anyone either. We are already in many ways under far too much government control. Medicare pricing is already in effect for most people, and doctors are far from able to set pricing--almost all doctors are forced to accept at least some of the major insurance plans to stay in business, and are therefore forced to accept the pricing and treatment options that are largely dictated by Medicare standards. The government's fingerprints were already all over our health care system before Obamacare was enacted.

What I would propose is a very different system than what we have today. So different, in fact, that when I argue these points with a colleague of mine who is a health care expert, her thoughts seem so clouded by the way things are, that she can't even conceive of moving to a true free market system.

I do think that overall spending, or at least growth of spending, would also go down in a free market system, because again, the country simply can't afford the current growth in cost--it is unsustainable. However, in a free market system, the services would be delivered more efficiently, and people would invent ways to make quality health care more affordable--precisely because there would be demand for it.

@Gangstrrr

I would not propose zero government oversight or regulation for financial markets.

I also think bailing out the financial institutions deemed "too big to fail" is wrong. If they are truly too big to fail, then they are too big, and should be made smaller until they are not too big to fail. When a company makes stupid risks and goes insolvent, they should be allowed to go bankrupt. Companies need to know that they are accountable, and therefore need to manage risk appropriately.

That said, I would want the government to be very reluctant to make regulations, only doing so where it is clear that they are absolutely necessary.

I would also want to do away with many of the stupid government subsidies--farming being a prime example. The so-called farmers that are being supported are primarily huge agribusinesses.

Farming subsidies began during the Great Depression, when 25% of our population lived on 6 million small farms. As of about 15 years ago, 157 thousand farms make up about 72% of sales, and only 2% of the population live on farms. According to research, nearly 75% of subsidies are paid to the top 10% of farms.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2002/04/Farm-Subsidies-for-the-Rich-amp-Famous-Shattered-Records-in-2001

What about the individual farmers. Those poor people. Like basketball star Scottie Pippen, who received over $26,000 per year from 1996 to 2001 (maybe to this day) to *not* farm his land. And David Rockefeller, grandson of John D. Rockefeller and former chairman of Chase Manhattan, who received over $134,000 in 2001 to *not* farm his land. Then add Ted Turner, and Bob Dole, and Kenneth Lay to the list. Poor guys, good thing us taxpayers can help them out. Meanwhile the median subsidy for all farmers was $899 during the same time period. Anything seem out of whack to you yet?

Did you know that the US government mandates that billions of gallons of ethanol be put in gasoline, guaranteeing demand, and yet they turn around and pay farmers around $5-7 billion per year in subsidies to produce ethanol? That they also put a 54 cent tariff on the cheaper Brazilian sugarcane ethanol to shield US farmers from competition?

You have farmers planting corn and producing ethanol with it, only because the government has made it artificially lucrative to do so. If the government stayed out of it, farmers would produce what people actually want instead. Or, if farming suddenly wasn't as lucrative, maybe they'd choose to go into a different business that people valued more.

This isn't just a little bit of meddling either. According to a Canadian report last year, $62 of every $100 farmers make are from subsidies from some level of government.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/daily-mix/for-us-farmers-subsi dies-the-best-cash-crop/article1813425/

US taxpayers like me are paying farmers more than half of their income, to produce amounts and types of crops that they otherwise would not produce.

In several states including my own, Illinois, hundreds of millions are paid in "direct payments" to farmers--$40,000 per person per year, or $80,000 per couple--*regardless of individual need or the financial condition of the farming industry*. If you grew up in a farming community, and you had the choice of finding the profession where you were most needed, or getting married and starting a farm where you got a guaranteed annual $80,000 government gift, which would you choose? Hell, how many of you unemployed people just started making plans to start a farm?

Do you really think the US government is going to do a better job with health care?

Proxy the flaw in your line of thinking is that you think healthcare follows the rules of a free market. Unlike ice-cream and cell phones, healthcare is intrinsically a compulsory market. As such treating it like a free market and regulating it as such only results in the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of our current system. It's also the reason no other western country treats healthcare like we do. Perhaps our Us vs. Them mentality of the cold war radicalized us (it certainly radicalized the soviet ideology), but not all markets are free. If you paid attention in economics you would've learned about markets of compulsion proxy, other examples include water and other utilities, cable television, and ISPs.

To suggest we make or keep the health care industry "free market" is not only ignorant, it's a non-sequitur.

Not to mention impunity from poor fortune/illness is just and as such universal healthcare should be inherent in the just society that plato describes in The Republic... Which I might add has been influencing western tradition, society, and governance long before Locke and Hayek of whom I'm sure you subscribe to. By the way Locke said the rich should pay a higher proportion of taxes and Hayek was a liberal who hated conservatives, especially when they used his work to justify their ends (which he disagreed with). Also Ayn Rand was a bipolar atheist jew Russian and doesn't understand that some people paint because they like painting in the same way some people innovate in fields of their passion because they have passion (e.g. Microsoft, Kalishnokov, every other socialist inventor).