©2009 Jahfre Fire Eater, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Saturday, January 24, 2009
Last modified: Saturday, January 24, 2009
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Reader Comments:
Posted By: daddysteve
Date: 2009-01-24 18:11:25
I think you mean wield instead of weald but otherwise, my thoughts written better than I could write them myself.
Posted By: Master C
Date: 2009-01-24 21:21:44
Hey, Mr. Fire Eater,
Do you understand that the US is the ONLY nation on the face of the Earth without national health care?
Even then, we don't have anything that approaches HEALTH CARE. We have a SICK CARE system ~ if you're sick and have insurance, you get treatment. If you're HEALTHY and buy vitamins, join a fitness club, eat fresh vegetables, keep your weight down, don't smoke, blah, blah, blah ~ NOTHING! What kind of crap system is THAT? Nothing for PREVENTION. Only PROFITS for sickness. It's a FOR PROFIT SYSTEM, and it feeds off of suffering, sickness and disability.
I know too many people who don't get the kind of help, medicine, or treatment they need that a country as prosperous as the US should never allow.
If you'd get off this idea that the word SOCIALISM is somehow satanic and realize that it means HELPING each other, SHARING our resources, and working for a HEALTHIER SOCIETY, you'd see the benefits of such a system.
Your adherence to INDIVIDUALISM and UNRESTRAINED FREEDOM just gives you SELFISHNESS, INDEPENDENCE, and SELF-SUFFICIENCY. That's a great system for those who can take care of themselves. But, if YOU or YOUR FAMILY get sick, get injured, lose your ability to take care of yourselves, you'll see the real FOLLY of that independence. I'd like to see you and your family after a FLOOD or a TORNADO or an EARTHQUAKE or a CAR ACCIDENT, a FATAL SICKNESS, or even a GANG of THUGS destroys everything you have. We'll make sure to tell you to just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, huh? And, we'll toss you a copy of "Atlas Shrugged" and Murray Rothbard to comfort you.
Master C
Posted By: trd
Date: 2009-01-25 12:42:21
We already have socialized medicine: it is called Medicare and it is currently a mess. There are lots of doctors abusing the medicare system by overbilling and double billing or billing for unnecesary procedures, etc... When somebody else pays (whether insurance of government) there is no accountability of behalf of the patient and thus the doctor is going to try to maximize his revenue by billing as much as possible. This happens whether the insurer is private or the government. The patient does not care, is not comming out of his own pocket directly. So if the Universal Health care is implemented using the Medicare model and with the A.M.A. lobbying behind it, the doctors are the ones that are going to get even richer from us the tax payers. The new administration is going to try to implement Universal Health care nevertheless, but it needs to be careful HOW is implemented in such a way that no one takes advantage of it.
On the other hand, if the "socialized" Universal Health care proposal is to force people to buy health insurance like they force people to buy car insurance, then the Insurance companies are the ones that are going to benefit by jacking up rates and rejecting benefits for the patients like they currently do. With car insurance, we are not force to buy it if we don't own a car so even though it goes against your liberty you can still chose to not insure your car by not having a car and still be in compliance with the law. But with health insurance, how can you be forced to buy it? We can chose to not have a car but we can't chose to NOT have a body unless you commit suicide. So forcing people to buy health insurance is worst than the government subsidized medicine.
One more issue is if there is oing to be socialized medicine, will it be for everyone or just the poor? If it is just for the poor, how is that going to be determined? Do we need to show our taxes to get medical treatment? How about those tax cheaters and scammers? Will they also get medical benefits. How about those people who get paid in cash? They are "poor" because they report very little income. If my income is $200k but my mother's income is $10k, then I can put my kids as her dependents and thus my kids are "poor" so are they also entitled to free health care? or I can claim all my income in my wife's name and nothing in my name so that I am "poor" and I take care of the kids thus I qualify for free health care. It better be "Universal" and not just for the "poor", because there is going to be a lot of people who will claim to be "poor" to get treatment. These kinds of scams happen all the time with the Pell Grant, welfare checks, WIC, and all the other social programs, therefore with medicine is not going to be an exception.
Another issue that we may have with socialized medicine is that the government beaurocrats are going to decide who lives and who does not. This happens in Europe all the time. If you are an 80 year old person they can reject your treatment because you will not contribute anymore to the society. If you are a young person, then they may approve the procedure. Nevertheless, this also happens with our current private insurance industry, so we are not saved from that either.
So if Universal Health care is going to happen no matter what, then I hope that it is only for catastrophic unexpected events that require expensive treatments, like the insurance of your home or car but with a high deductible and that it is for EVERYONE not just a select few. Also covered should be preventive check-ups that in theory would make us healthier and in less need of helth care. Everything else, you pay with your own money with NO insurance. If you go to the E.R. for say a dandruff problem, you should get a bill or a prosecution in the same way that you can get it for calling 911 for non-emergencies or calling the fire department for a fake fire or a fake bomb threat.
If Universal Health care is NOT going to happen, then we need less government intervention with less regulations, less board examinations, less licensing, less time in non-core classes, more time in med-school classes, so that more medical schools are built and more doctors are out there practicing. The more doctors in the market, the lower the prices. Some doctors will be better than others and some will charge more than others, but is up to you the patience to shop for your own doctor and prices accordingly in the same way you shop for a car. (except of course in emergancies where you really have no choice). In other countries, you are a physician in less than 6 years. Here you have to get a bachelors degree in "whatever" FIRST and then go to med school. The process prevents the free market flow of doctors by making it more complex and even with the complexity, that will not filter bad doctors from practicing. We will still have bad doctors out there no matter whcih system. What the system is doing, is preventing otherwise qualified doctors from practicing.
There is a lot to be done. Obama can make it slightly better, but there is a big chance that he can also make it even worst than what it currently is. You can't change such a health care monster overnight.
We need to see.
Posted By: Republicae
Date: 2009-01-25 20:23:43
Considering the fact that the entire fiat monetary system, along with the rotting corpse of Keynesian Economics were intended to bring about a Socialist State, your pessimism is well founded Jahfre.
There was a rather famous Fabian Strategist by the name of John Strachey, now he proposed that Keynesian Economics was “an indispensable step in the right direction. The fact that the loss of objectivity, and the intrinsic value of the currency which is involved (i.e., inflation) will sooner or later make necessary, on pain of ever- increasing dislocation, a growing degree of social control . . . for the partial character of the policy will itself lead on to further measures. The very fact that no stability, no permanently workable solution can be found within the limits of this policy will ensure that once a community has been driven by events to tackle its problems, in this way, it cannot halt at the first stage, but must of necessity push on to more thorough going measures of re-organization."
Keynes was well aware of the doctrine of currency destruction as he quoted Lenin: "Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become 'profiteers,' who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery."
A portion of the Fabian P.E.P. stated: "The individualistic manufacturer and farmer will be FORCED BY EVENTS to submit to far-reaching changes in outlook and methods. What is required, if with only a view to equitable treatment of individuals, is transfer of ownership of large blocks of land - not necessarily of all the land in the country, but certainly a large proportion of it - into the hands of the proposed STATUTORY CORPORATIONS and PUBLIC UTILITY BODIES and OF LAND TRUSTS."
The purpose of the fiat monetary system, the sole purpose of that system was to make it necessary for a gradual increase in government control over society. This grand plan depended upon, as still does, the vast amount of ignorance within the political community and the social community. Thus, it is my firm belief that the vast majority of our politicians are completely unaware of what they are actually doing to fulfill the policies of the Fabian Socialists in this country. They have come to believe that the system, as it has been and as it is, is the only system available to them and that it offers solutions to the very problems that the policies create in the first place. The policies of Keynes lead to the need to take other measures to combat the measures that were taken previously. In other words, the policies of Keynes create problems that naturally require more Keynesian policies which, in turn, lead to other problems which lead to the enactment of other policies. It is self-perpetuating to a point; at a certain point it no longer works and a critical mass is reached. As I said, the vast majority of our political government is in the dark, completely in the dark. They are completely unaware of what they are doing and how the actions they now take actually effect economic and monetary movement. In fact, I would go as far as saying that the vast majority of those in the banking system, including the Federal Reserve, are completely aware of what is going on in this economy or the causes behind the dislocation that is currently being witnessed.
Remember, these policies were primarily put into place during the 1930s; but they were built upon the foundation that was laid in 1913 which, as we know was the 16th and 17th Amendments, as well as the Federal Reserve Act. All of these had a very definite effect on the manner in which the American socio-economic and political machine functioned. Once in place, these policies could predictably maintain themselves without actual intervention from future generations of political legislation, but would require further legislation to deal with the problems created by those policies in the future. In other words, the plans of the Fabians would basically run on “auto-pilot” after implemented and gradually cause problem after problem until the goal of a highly Centralized Corporatist Government was realized. Well, as we have seen, that really began to be realized during the last 40 years and in particular the last 20 years.Obama is simply following the only path the system allows him to take, whether he is aware of it or not. The government is playing the role that was laid out for them decades ago. Once again, they may not even be aware of what is really going on, but they are simply using the only tools left to them to combat the degenerative forces inherent within the fiat monetary system and Keynesian Economics.
Posted By: Republicae
Date: 2009-01-25 20:45:34
Master C...unfortunately, socialized medicine has been proving itself to be a failure, to one degree or another, in all of those countries of which you refer. The English and Canadian health care systems lack innovation, there is a growing shortage of medical, surgical and emergency services. Of course, the only way to provide such services is though rationing.
Back in 2006, the Canadians had finally come to their senses and the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that the extremely long waits for various procedures violated patients "life and personal security, inviolability and freedom and that the prohibition of private health insurance was unconstitutional when the public health system did not deliver reasonable services."
Now, a friend in Sweden stated the following about the Swedish Socialized Health Care System: " In Sweden we have socialized medicine, and all the problems associated with that. We have long lines, ineffective allocation of resources. Of course, when I make my case that there are loads of horrible examples to choose from concerning the Swedish System I point out that people have to wait 3-4 months to get cancer aid and then, of course some die because they get help too late. Or that the machines used to combat cancer stand idle in hospital rooms because there is a shortage of qualified personnel to use them. The former Swedish Prime Minister, a Socialist, who spoke highly of the Swedish Health Care System, had to have hip surgery. He waited and waited and got no help, so he decided to go to a private hospital in another country. Such incidents are beginning to show the government that the system is broken."
So, Master C, I hope the people of this country really understand just what a government administered system will really do to the healthcare in this country. It would be better to turn the entire system over to Wal-Mart then it would to turn it over to the government.
Posted By: Master C
Date: 2009-01-25 20:58:37
Republicae,
Your assessment of the so-called "healthcare" systems around the world is as pompous and inappropriate as most of your other observations. You dribble little diatribes about this and that that lack validity let alone veracity.
People are NOT clamoring for the US sickcare system anywhere around the world that I know of. Even then, I don't care what kind of systems they have ~ they will have pluses and they will have minuses. It is the minuses in OUR OWN system that is disasterous.
As an old goat yourself, I wonder what YOU would do if you didn't have Medicare? Are you telling me that you could AFFORD to have any medical coverage AT ALL if it weren't for that? Or are you going to tell me that you have some PRIVATE coverage that was extended to you by some previous employer?
It is an abomination that we can't take care of our own people? Education, safety, and medical care should be available to everyone. Anything less is UNCIVILIZED.
Master C
Posted By: Republicae
Date: 2009-01-26 10:55:09
Poor Master C…It is once again evident that you are sleeping your way though life. If you look, it was not my assessment, but the assessment of those who should know, the very people that have been subjected to the various Socialized Healthcare debacles around the world. Perhaps you will remember what was, perhaps the most Socialized Healthcare systems that was the one offered by the former Soviet Union; I suppose in your mind that too was a blazing success story in the history of Socialistic economic structure.
Have you ever been to a country that offered Socialized Medical care? I have been to several and the one time that I had the unfortunate need to visit a local hospital in one of these countries I was absolutely shocked by what I saw. Sure there are always exceptions, but what is the price for such exceptions? I mean if there is “free” healthcare, what really is the cost of that healthcare in human terms? Rarely are those costs actually considered when the debate about a Socialized Healthcare is discussed, but the costs, based on what I have seen and from those that I have spoken with who are subjected to such systems is very high.
If you look at our system, you can quickly determine a very definite point where our healthcare system began to deteriorate in this country. What took place? Well, look back to the 70s and the various pieces of Legislation that were enacted by Congress that took effect and then look at the resulting effects of those Legislative actions on the healthcare industry in this country. Also, look at how the government basically regulated charity hospitals completely out of business.
Please, don’t let the misguided Socialistic drool run too far down your chin, it is really not becoming for a man of your age. Your argument concerning something being “civilized or not” has no real basis does it? Your logic must, by necessity, avoid several important facts regarding the status of this country, particularly when it comes to the fiscal state in which this country now finds itself thanks, in a large part, to the very government that you now wish to turn over the country’s healthcare to and entrust them with your life. Sorry, but thus far the government doesn’t have the best record when it comes to administration of anything but the government itself, and it can’t do that very well either.
The Telegraph 2007:
“The husband of a woman who died from blood poisoning six days after giving birth to their second child received £600,000 in compensation yesterday after two NHS trusts apologised for a series of blunders that led to her death.Ben Palmer's wife, Jessica, was 34 when she suffered a cardiac arrest in the operating theatre, leaving him to bring up their two children, Harry and Emily, now five and two.Mrs Palmer, a personal assistant to the Conservative MP Peter Lilley, was discharged from Kingston Hospital in Surrey the day after she gave birth, even though she had low blood pressure, a fast pulse and a high temperature - all signs of infection. As her condition deteriorated and she developed a red patch across her stomach, the couple contacted Mrs Palmer's GP, who prescribed painkillers for back pain, and her midwife, but she was not readmitted to hospital until five days later.She died the next day from multiple organ failure caused by streptococcal septicaemia.At the inquest into her death, a community midwife from St George's Hospital in Tooting, south-west London, admitted that she had made a "gross mistake" in not referring Mrs Palmer to a doctor earlier.”The London Times:“Penny Campbell became ill and died over the course of a bank holiday weekend despite the attention of eight doctors. Her grieving partner believes that she would still be alive if the NHS out-of-hours system worked properly.Angus MacKinnon said that Ms Campbell, 41, had been a victim of the Government’s approach to healthcare reform. She died from blood poisoning at the Royal London Hospital, East London, after she became infected during an operation for hemorrhoids. Her condition would have been easy to treat if caught in time, but she fell ill over the Easter weekend in 2005, while her GP was on holiday.”
The BBC:
“In September 2006 more than 6,000 patients in eastern England had to wait more than 20 weeks to begin treatment already prescribed by their doctors. Or a BBC story, also from 2006, noting that over 40,000 patients in Wales had to wait more than six months between being referred for, and actually having, an outpatient appointment. Or the recent London Times story regarding an admission, by Britain's Department of Health, that some patients will have to wait more than a year for treatment, and that 52 percent of hospital inpatients are currently waiting more than 18 weeks to receive treatment. Or stories such as those widely publicized in 2006 and 2007 about cancer patients who were denied access to life-saving cancer drugs by the NHS, which had refused to make them available because they were not “cost-effective” (i.e., cheap). Or they might even have included the spate of stories in 2005 about the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant MRSA infections being spread throughout the National Health Service due to poor hygiene in NHS hospitals, and which in 2005 were blamed for 20 percent of the 5,000 deaths occurring each year in British hospitals. Or maybe even one 2006 story from a Glasgow newspaper that indicated that despite the supposed wonders of the NHS, average life expectancy in one part of the city was just 53 years. “
How about Japan’s system, here is a one of many stories that point to the fact that even a semi-Socialized Healthcare system is not necessarily an answer:
“Japan's health minister has pledged to address the shortage of doctors in the country after a woman in labor was turned away by eight hospitals. A ninth hospital refused to admit her even after she miscarried in an ambulance and her baby died. The woman, who was in the sixth month of her pregnancy, lived just three minutes away from a hospital, but she was forced to travel 70km (45 miles) by ambulance looking for a facility that would admit her.”There are literally thousands of such reports regarding either rationing, shortages, poor service, unsanitary conditions, etc in the various Socialized Healthcare systems around the world. Do you really think that it would be different in this country?
Now, if you actually believe this debate is about caring or not caring for our people then you really don't get what this debate is about. It is more about government control then actual care for anyone.
Get a load of The proposed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the economic stimulus package) in the U.S. House of Representatives lays a foundation for national health care. It appropriates billions in taxpayer dollars for health care and public health initiatives (starting on page 132).
Now read this very carefully Master C, there are a few words that should pop out at you, such as the "rationale of rationing".
$800 million for "comparative effectiveness research" (build scientific rationale for rationing) $2 billion for health info. tech. (computerized medical records online in national health surveillance system)
$500 million for community health center grants
$545 million to fund chronic disease, health promotion and genomics programs (newborn genetic testing, etc.)
$40 million for the National Center for Health Statistics
$500 million for "evidence-based clinical and community-based prevention and wellness strategies...that deliver specific, measurable health outcomes that address chronic and infectious disease rates and health disparities, which shall include evidence-based interventions in obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, tobacco cessation and smoking prevention, and oral health..."
Other Government Growth Initiatives
$1.5 billion to support additional research (FYI: Clinton & Bush together increased research funding by 50%)
$420 million to prepare for influenza pandemic
$30 million for public health workforce development
$954 million to fund State immunization surveillance systems
$110 million to fund environmental health and injury surveillance programs
$150 million to prevent health care related infections (likely to establish/fund surveillance systems)
Government Department Construction Projects
$1.0 billion for repair and renovation of community health centers and acquisition of health info. technology
$88 million to replace or renovate U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services facilities
$463 million to construct, renovate, repair, improve the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
$1.5 billion to renovate or repair existing non-Federal research facilities
$500 million to repair and improve National Institutes of Health (NIH) facilities
Other language in the bill also advances government research, rationing, and surveillance:
The Recovery and Reinvestment Act establishes a "Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research" in health care (page 158) and "invest[s] in the infrastructure necessary to allow for and promote the electronic exchange and use of health information for each individual in the United States (page 161)....[including] (1) Health information technology architecture that will support the nationwide electronic exchange and use of health information... [and]...(5) Promotion of the interoperability [linking] of clinical data repositories or registries." (page 163).Strange that an economic stimulus package includes these areas which don't appear to be about economic recovery or stimulation; the reason is that it is being sold to the American People as one thing, but the devil is in the details that point to a completely different agenda by this government than simply one of economic recovery.
Wake up Master C, surely you must be a much more intelligent person than you make yourself out to be.
Fortunately Master C, I have placed myself in a financial position, through decades of prudent preparation, where I neither use nor need to use Medicare.
Posted By: Master C
Date: 2009-01-26 12:05:50
Republicae,
You're still that same old water buffalo out there grazing by himself who thinks he's got all the answers to life from his intimate knowledge of the world. Knows it all, has heard it all, and has seen it all many times before.
The difference between you and I, though, is that I don't agree with you AT ALL. You can just keep grazing there all you want, and just keep thinking your thoughts all you want, but I know better. I've seen a lot of life and a lot of the world, too. I have had over 4,000 students in my classes, of every age and economic strata you can think of. I know things they have told me, and papers they have written, about medical problems they have had with the US system ~ from ex-soldiers who can't get medical help to incorrect diagnoses to botched operations to insurance company delays and refused coverage ~ so that I know that our system is not working the way it should. And, you can go to awful hospitals in just about any country if you're looking for them ~ even the US.
This Libertarian tunnel-vision you and others on this website have doesn't bother me in the least. You can believe whatever you want to believe. I've only tried to add a perspective that I think can make your lives a little less bitter and resentful by understanding how and why these things occur. For you not to believe me or to resist what I'm saying is simply like someone being told how to swim who doesn't want to swim. That's no problem for me. But, I would think it MIGHT be a problem for the person who eventually might want to swim.
So, if you want to know WHY we're going to have a national healthcare system, and you want to know WHY the present system isn't working, and you want to know WHY your resistence to these changes is ineffective, I thought I would offer some insight into it. Apparently, you don't want to know, don't need to know, and will just think that no one else knows either.
Master C
Posted By: Republicae
Date: 2009-01-26 14:59:17
Thus….once again, you make no points of either interest or substance, but must retreat to some convoluted corner of your mind and divert attention away, as you always seem to do in your responses, to the issue at hand.
You have once more managed to present this forum with yet another feckless babble that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with an actual rebuttal. You have not addressed the issues I raised, the articles I quoted or the problems that seem to always accompany the interventionist policies of government. Yet again, you fail so utterly that you must instead seek to divert attention from the problems found in every Socialistic system around the world.
I pity your over 4,000 students for having to endure your bilge and sure that their tuition could have been well spent elsewhere for you certainly have not shown me or others here on the Nolan Chart that you have anything other than a superficial understanding of economics or the current causes of the dislocation or the deterioration of our country’s wellbeing over the last 7 decades.
I have no doubts, nor did I imply that the healthcare system in this country was perfect; quite the contrary, but the question is what brought our healthcare system to this point? That I think you will find a direct correlation between various federal legislations and the beginning of the decline in our healthcare system. There is, if one is inclined to look, a very direct cause behind the effects which we now experience; you however, fail to look and seem to decry anyone who is willing to put the curtain back and reveal the causes of such a demise in the quality and affordability of our healthcare, as well as many other sectors in our society that have been directed affected by the policies of this government. Blame no one else for your lack of critical thinking Sir; that rest upon your own shoulders I assure you. If there was ever a definition of tunnel-vision then one need not look any further than the name Master C, for you are indeed the epitome of the word and you have on more than this occasion, proven that fact by the responses that you mistakenly consider rebuttals.
P.S. For future reference, will you please start using a spell check program when replying, it is becoming a dreary bore to see so many misspelled words come from a man who purports to be a former educator in the U.S. government sponsored school system in this country.
Posted By: Master C
Date: 2009-01-26 15:28:35
Republicae,
As the drone of the water buffalo slowly subsides into obscurity, peace again reigns on the prairie.
Glad you got your bluster up, old timer, because your relevance is waning. I didn't even read through all of your comment because there is nothing there that I'm interested in. I have rebutted your methods and mathematics, and historical recollections so many times WITHOUT changing your mind that I know it's impossible to do. I prefer the non-Libertarian method of NOT banging my head continuously on a wall until someone listens. I get the idea much more quickly than that.
By the way, I do check all my work quite thoroughly and often have to look up the correct spelling of a word. I might certainly miss one every now and then when I know that someone is only going to argue with me anyway regardless of how perfect my spelling or grammar is. But, I didn't realize that this site even had a spellcheck and one doesn't appear on my browser when I'm in here. Maybe my eyesight is slipping, although these comment boxes are not ideal for reviewing one's work anyway. Why don't you tip me off about the spellcheck.
Maybe I'll learn something after all.
Master C
Posted By: Republicae
Date: 2009-01-26 16:38:13
I have yet to see rebuttals from you that could be considered substantial, either on my postings or the postings of others. You are an expert in this one thing however, you are a master of divertissement, otherwise I would not bother in responding to your magniloquence.
Believe me, if you think you came close to getting my bluster up then you are completely unaware of the extent of my composure. As far as relevance is concerned, I suggest you look to your own state of relevance since you are apparently completely satisfied with the status-quo ante of our government and the affairs that it seeks to remedy through indolent solutions it offers.
The problem, it appears, based upon the collection of your responses on this forum, is that it is you who stand on the sideline of knowledgeable discourse. Your rebuttals have, as with these you now offer, proven vacant of substance and had you offered a rebuttal that was either logical or pertinent to the issues presented then perhaps I would have listened more attentively. In other words, you lack the ability to persuade and of course, it is apparent that your deficiency in the art of persuasion is not only lost on me, but many others here on the Chart. Could it possibly be that the construction of your arguments have no foundation in reason or even fact? I think that might be the case otherwise you would be much more successful in garnering a positive response to your articles and comments.
Face it Master C, you ideas are dank and your ability to express those ideas make them even more musty. Perhaps one day you will reach much deeper into the unaired corners of your mind and actually pull out an original idea for once in your life. We can only hope and I above all am rooting for you to extend your mind beyond that dark well-worn corner in which you apparently continue to find so much comfort.
Concerning spell check, you really shouldn’t need it now should you? After all you are a retired college professor.
Now, I await a real rebuttal, if you cannot provide me or the other readers here on the Chart with such rebuttal then I would suggest that you refrain from offering a continual flow of bilious swill, so please manage to muster a minimum degree of compunction when replying.
Posted By: Master C
Date: 2009-01-26 19:05:17
Republicae,
I assume that the reason you can't identify the spellcheck mechanism is because it doesn't exist. Giving FALSE information is in keeping with many of your points.
Master C
Posted By: Master C
Date: 2009-01-26 19:32:08
Republicae,
I have no intention of even READING your points let alone responding to them. There is absolutely NOTHING that ANYONE can say ~ or, as I have seen, has said ~ that will cause you to retract, rethink, or restate your points. You are as obstinate as a wall and as intractible as a mule ~ or a water buffalo.
There is no discourse only harangue, there is no listening only bellicosity, there is no humility only the pompous, bombastic, repetitious drone of antiquity.
By the way, to say that anyone shouldn't need to use spellcheck with all the unusual adaptations of foreign words and the imprecise endings and sounds of words we have in our language is like saying that the MATHEMATICIAN shouldn't need a calculator, or the MUSICIAN shouldn't need a pitch pipe, or the CHEMIST shouldn't need gradations on a beaker, or that the good DRIVER shouldn't need seat belts.
The bigger problem, in YOUR case, at least, is that there is NO SPELLCHECK and you said there was. That sounds to me like at least a MISTAKE, but more likely just an outright FABRICATION.
Master C
Posted By: Republicae
Date: 2009-01-26 20:39:57
Unfortunately, there are those who live in the fantasy that this government can actually create something from nothing, such as the creation of prosperity from confiscation and redistribution. Socialized healthcare, or as the pundits now label it as universal healthcare, is based on the belief that the government is equally equipped to bestow any and all benefits on the members of society in what must be an equally as confiscatory policy. Since the government must impose a degree of restrictions or limitations on some to provide others with such benefits this will always cause some economic dislocation, but this government has become well-experienced in such tactics of social construction, but the price is much higher than we might suppose. Eventually, the dislocation will begin to present itself in the broader economy, including in the healthcare system too.
While a truly free-market healthcare system would provide a much better system, broader access, more innovation and ultimately lower prices with much better quality of service, those living in their fantasy world think that the government can provide all those things, but the truth is very disturbing to those in the universal fantasy-land. This government already intervenes in the healthcare and insurance industry to a point that the entire system is distorted. Few of those who advocate universal healthcare are willing to concede the fact that this government already spends more per capita on healthcare than any other country, even those who provide “socialized healthcare” to their citizens. Yet, there are those who say that the government needs new programs and more money, but to what end?
Do they actually believe that the government can provide a better system then the one it has created over the last 40 years, it has been a massive failure that has utterly destroyed the healthcare system in this country. Of course, the pundits of the universal healthcare system never mention the facts that this government already spends more on healthcare than any other country and does so with absolutely pitiful results.
Medicare and Medicaid are two of the largest government expenditures in the budget and yet those programs are not only mismanaged, but have proven inefficient and have negative effects on the healthcare industry.
Somehow, those who advocate such a system think that there will be some transformation in the way that this government. They avoid the massive percentage of expenditures on healthcare that this government already spends, nearly a quarter of GDP is spent and yet the results of this spending is far from satisfactory. Like the economic mess, the blame is easily placed on the free-market, but as anyone with half of a brain can see we no more have a free-market in the healthcare system than we do in the overall economy itself. Government intervention into the market, no matter what sector, has overwhelmed the market and the results are evident.
The pundits also avoid the costs of regulation, not only in the healthcare industry, but in the over all economy. The results are always higher production-costs, higher service-costs and higher end-costs in healthcare and in the insurance industry. Of course, it is even more involved than just that, but I will avoid getting into the drain of capital from the economy due to the monetary system and the management of the economy, but all of these things converge to ultimately form an unworkable system that is doomed to failure on numerous levels.
Essentially, the healthcare industry is already heavily subsidized by this government, whether directly or indirectly. Whether it is recognized or not, the government is not the friend of the poor though it certainly knows how to fly the banner of the poor for political reasons. After decades of regulation that stifles competition, both in the healthcare and insurance systems, the system stands as a testament to what happens when a government intervenes in such systems; like our general economy, the tell-tell signs of government intervention are everywhere and the price of such intervention is so much higher than we tend to realize.
When companies, whether it be a service company such as healthcare. insurance, or manufacturing and even finance are allowed to actually do business without government intervention there is always, without exception, a propensity to provide much better services and products with much lower prices. While the pundits of government intervention have almost come to condemn the power of competition and self-interest, the truth is that there is no way for the government to provide an adequate substitute for such entrepreneurial traits in any business. The only thing the government can do is stifle the very thing that is needed, not only in healthcare, but in the general economy as a whole. It doesn’t matter how much money the government throws at a problem, how much regulation it writes, how much intervention and monopolistic favors it bestows on certain sectors, particularly those which are politically connected, it cannot provide any system, whether healthcare or business, with either efficiency or productivity. The government is not, I repeat, it is not a productive entity.
Ah, but those who advocate that the government must step in ignore that the government has been stepping in for decades and the results of that intervention is all around us. Look at anything in which the government has intervened and then look at the resulting effects of that intervention. You would think that will all the intervention the economy would never suffer a dislocation, that healthcare would be perfect and that there would be few problems in our society. If money is the measure of success then everything the government touches should be a complete success, yet look at our society.
There is an overwhelming shallowness, it's apparent here in some of the comments, within the reasoning that permeates not only our government, but our society especially when it comes to the actual ability of this government to provide any program or system better than what which would be found in an actual free market. Of course, history has proven time and time again that any socialistic ideology, while looking good on paper, rarely produces successful results and almost always ends in disaster. So-called progressive legislation, regulations, government interventions and manipulations will never provide substitutes that the market can provide.
Of course, the electorate of this country has come to believe that the President can manage the economy and I suppose they equally believe that Congress can come up with a solution to the healthcare problems in this country under the tutorage of Mr. Obama and his appointees who are touted as experts, yet those experts are the very ones we have been listening to for years in this country. We have generally become accustom to mendacity and mediocrity within our government, it has become acceptable to the American people to live with low expectations even while the promises of the audacity of hope abound. Of course, we should be accustom to the overly optimistic views spouted out of our government officials and the media that caters to their every word.
We have sadly forgotten that all social gains are earned, they can’t be mandated by government or produced by an entity such as government that has no creative power within it to facilitate wealth building or general prosperity. As we shall see, like the government’s current proposals for economic recovery legislation, the proposals for a universal healthcare system administered by the government will prove equally futile, but oh the costs of such systems. We have yet to understand that both the economic recovery programs employed by the government and the push toward universal healthcare will prove to be unaffordable luxuries that will, in the end, not only fail to produce the desired and publicized effects, but will make the situation worse in the long run. This government has a propensity to create unintended consequences, as we shall see the current push by this new Administration will produce plenty.
Posted By: Republicae
Date: 2009-01-26 20:52:40
Master C:
I would expect nothing less from you. You have proven that time and again you are unwilling to actually debate the issues raised on this article as well as others. Your tactics of avoiding debate are well-known here on the Chart, as you are now reduced, once again, to using to avoid debate.
If you had, in your first response provided an adequate reason for debate then I would have used a different tone in my reply to you however, as usually, you must seek to divert the discourse to something other than the actual issue at hand. Do you actually have anything to offer us here in the way of defending your positions or really providing factual points of contention? Apparently not! How typical, how utterly predictable you are and in that predictability I find your attempts detract from the debate as unavailing and ineffectual as your debilitated slurs.
Posted By: republicae
Date: 2009-01-26 20:59:08
"I assume that the reason you can\'t identify the spellcheck mechanism is because it doesn\'t exist. Giving FALSE information is in keeping with many of your points." Master C
Oh Master C, Master C.....did I ever state that the Chart had a spellcheck? NO, I just suggested that you use a spellcheck if you were unaware of a particular spelling. There is a considerable difference, don't you think, in providing false information and simply making a suggestion that you double check your spelling. I will however, give you this, you have yet to fail my estimation of you.
Posted By: Master C
Date: 2009-01-27 01:56:32
Republicae,
Thank you for affirming my point ~ several times; blustery, bloviated, repetitious, unbudging, and unnecessarily looooong. You should use "word check" to proof your harangues. They have the tireless energy of someone who doesn't know how to make a point, but tries to make it over and over and over again.
I have no apologies for my writing at all. I enjoy the craft of my sentences, the polish of my prose, the bite of my metaphors, the focus of my insights, and the sting of my points. I have a particular pride in being concise to show discipline not rambling like someone who can't find the proper word. A basketfull of words only confuses what could be said more effectively with a little discipline.
The bait of those who wish they could do as well is to impugn the author's technique. Norman Mailer and John Updike used to pick and nitpick at Tom Wolfe all the time ~ yet he could write circles around either of them, even though I love all three.
You're a tempest in a teapot, Republicae. I just don't drink your particular brand of tea ~ too old, bitter, and ill-advised.
Master C
Posted By: Republicae
Date: 2009-01-27 07:22:20
Thus, once again, you avoid the issues at hand and seek to divert the attention away from the debate with yet another example of your preoccupation with yourself and your writing style that everyone on the forum finds laborious and tired. In fact, if I am not mistaken there have been several who have pointed out that your writings are not only off point in most cases, but lack in all the attributes that now contcontribute to your writings.
Do you really want me to point out the numerous examples of your writings that utterly fail all the attributes that you now contribute to them? For instance, what about the construction of this sentence in your article “The Progressives Are Gonna Love The Next Four Years”:
“While Barack Obama is certainly NOT going to like the condition of the US economy that GW Bush is leaving behind for him with the number of international friends about as scarce as those who haven't seen reruns of "Everybody Loves Raymond" yet, the national debt hemorrhaging red ink like it has been the victim of a feeding frenzy of shark attacks, the occupation of Iraq continuing to exhaust resources human, financial, and political like an out-of-control forest fire sweeping through the California countryside, a Supreme Court packed as tightly with strict constructionists as a girdle on a fat woman who is still gaining weight, and a mind-blowing bailout of the financial sector that would make Timothy Leary turn on, tune in, and roll over in his grave as its implications seep into every element of our lives. Still, the next four years should be as glorious as a tent revival for those of us who are Progressives.”
WHAT WOULD YOU CALL THAT? Well-crafted? Polished Prose? Focused Insight? Please Master C, your writings are the most unfocused jumble of junior-high book reporting style ever seen on the Nolan Chart. Just take a look at that sentence and you have the audacity to accuse me of being: “blustery, bloviated, repetitious, unbudging, and unnecessarily looooong.” Not to mention that your sentence made absolutely no point whatsoever and I could point out numerous examples of your writings that utterly fail on all those points.
The real point is not your writing style or the lack thereof, but the numerous examples of false reasoning that you provide to us in your writings, in most cases you seem to have well-worn blinders on and parrot the status quo rather than presenting any substantial innovation in thought.
Posted By: Master C
Date: 2009-01-27 09:16:33
R,
Boy, you really are off the beaten path, aren't you! I would say that the example you selected was one of my more imaginative, creative, and insightful blends of humor, indictment, and sentence crafting that thrusts me past anything anyone on this website could attempt. Especially in comparison to that droll, rumbling, mumbo-jumbo you offer.
To hear others on this website cajole, mock, or criticize me is like the lions in the cage roaring at the LION TAMER. I know who's got the whip and who's doing the tricks.
Master C
Posted By: trd
Date: 2009-01-27 18:53:15
It seems to me that "Race to the Bottom" means to scroll all the way down these two never-ending points of R vs MC to see which one gets to the bottom of this web page first.
Oh! wait. If they can keep posting then there is no bottom on this page so it is a race to the bottomless pit.
Posted By: trd
Date: 2009-01-27 18:54:11
Spell checks could be done by "copy and paste"
Posted By: trd
Date: 2009-01-27 19:06:37
All right!
Lets race to the bottom:
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-------------ONE MORE LAP!!!!-------
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-----------------------YOU HAVE REACH THE BOTTOM-----------------------or have you?
Only Republicae or MC will tell.........
Posted By: trd
Date: 2009-01-27 19:08:18
O.K. at least for now, here is the bottom:
(_|_)
------------------------BOTTOM----------------------
Posted By: Master C
Date: 2009-01-27 19:49:36
No, trd ~ you're definitely the bottom. Or, do we call that something else?
MC
Posted By: trd
Date: 2009-01-27 23:21:04
No, you are the bottom, Master Culo