I
Irie
Guest
Is the use of force to insure all people a good thing?
Compulsory insurance advocate: I remember the last time I was hit by an
uninsured driver. He pulled out of a parking space along the curb and
banged straight into my car. It cost me $1,500. It was a car filled with
irresponsible laughing teenagers and it cost me money.
Irie: Uninsured motorist insurance would have solved the problem.
Sacrificing peoples natural right to self determination and allowing the
government to criminalize behavior that is not a crime is not worth the
price of $32 extra dollars a year it would cost to carry uninsured motorist
insurance.
Compulsory insurance advocate: Governments have to make choices within the
era they exist.
Irie: Yes, and the criteria our government is mandated to use in order to
make these choices is what? The Constitution, not on the "needs" of people.
No where in the Constitution does it state the government should use force
to do what is best for them.
Compulsory insurance advocate: When life expectancy was 60, one went to a
doctor for a host of inexpensive fixes, some life threatening some not.
Without health insurance can you or anyone pay for a heart transplant, how
about an autistic child, how about a kid with leukemia, how about the cost
of therapy and operations associated with keeping alive a burn victim or an
amputee?
Irie: This is why people have insurance. The use of force to make people
buy this product because the big corporations who are selling it can make
huge profits is not a good enough reason to sacrifice the right to freedom
and self determination this country is supposed to represent. No law in the
world is going to make up for the fact there are very stupid people out
there today, and to sacrifice our freedoms and liberty for a little bit more
health security for the stupid people results in neither a country that
deserves neither freedom nor security.
Compulsory insurance advocate: The argument that all costs would be so much
lower without the government involved,
Irie: This is true. Heath care costs x amount of dollars, whether we like
it or not. Adding a middle man like the government for who can do nothing
but add to the cost ADMINISTRATIVE cost of every medical product we buy will
do exactly that. X + government will always be more than simply X.
Predicting your response, your best argument is to say that "this is why we
need a one-payer system". A one payer system is corporatism at its absolute
worst. How much do you think the largest pharmaceutical producer would pay
to be the only corporation with all the customers in our country?
Corruption is inevitable. And what happens when the sole provider has a bad
batch of medicine for everyone (as what happened with the flu shot last
year)? Why should any other company produce the meds we need when there is
one provider with all the customers?
Compulsory insurance advocate: Or people could just save enough money if
they didn't have to pay taxes sounds good but I've seen nothing yet in human
history that tells me the argument doesn't belong on the same shelf as all
the other "great" social and economic theories of the 18th and 19th century.
Show me where in the world they have ever worked in any pure form. And if
you believe they worked in the good "old west," you've seen too many
episodes or Rawhide or The High Chaparral, Bunky.
Irie: Nothing works perfectly. Whatever system you advocate, I guaranty
you it does not run perfect. The only question (and the question I have for
you) is, by what principle do we want to live? This country was founded
upon the principles of liberty and self determination. This kind of law
violates both principles.
Compulsory insurance advocate: Oh I now, all governments that pass laws
that impose on the individual to make choices are evil. Please find one
country in this world with laissez faire business practices and few if any
government sponsored social services that you would live in.
Irie: What does this matter? Everybody is fighting to get to the US, not
many are trying to get out. This is a great country and we become the model
for every other country not because we repeated the social effort of Eastern
and Western Europe, but because we evolved beyond it. The socialized system
you advocate is what has most of the world has used for most of our
industrial (modern) history. It is our freedoms and liberties that have
made this the case, not the social systems of Europe. Taking their path is
going backward, not forward.
Compulsory insurance advocate: I believe Singapore, Hong Kong, United
Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and the US have the least amount
of government intervention in the world. All of them are mixed economies
with mixed social intervention models. These are probably places we could
feel comfortable living in if we had to leave the US, language and British
Empire cultural ties aside. It seems managing the mix is essential, fluid,
and relative to amongst other things, the era, culture, and technology.
Everything else is just great for after-dinner table or academic discussion
relating to what is and what ought to be. And as we know, that is quite a
Pandora's Box of its own.
Irie: Whenever the government forces people to buy anything (whether it is
to the consumers' benefit or not) is corporatism. They cloak it in the
rhetoric of what is best for the people, but the fact is that the true
beneficiary of purchases by force will only benefit the seller. And the
precedence set is awful. Now, because of this law and quite frankly what
you advocate, a business can simply show that it is a net benefit for
society to force everyone to buy their product, and it can be done. And
when government is in bed with corporations, we have a form of fascism
called corporatism. And, I hate to say it - but this is what you are
advocating.
Irie
The heathen back there, pound the wall.
--
The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give
it.
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Stop voting for the lesser of two evils: http://fairvote.org/irv/faq.htm
'Without law or compulsion, people would dwell in harmony' - Lao Tzu
The great debate is at: www.IrieEpistemology.com
Compulsory insurance advocate: I remember the last time I was hit by an
uninsured driver. He pulled out of a parking space along the curb and
banged straight into my car. It cost me $1,500. It was a car filled with
irresponsible laughing teenagers and it cost me money.
Irie: Uninsured motorist insurance would have solved the problem.
Sacrificing peoples natural right to self determination and allowing the
government to criminalize behavior that is not a crime is not worth the
price of $32 extra dollars a year it would cost to carry uninsured motorist
insurance.
Compulsory insurance advocate: Governments have to make choices within the
era they exist.
Irie: Yes, and the criteria our government is mandated to use in order to
make these choices is what? The Constitution, not on the "needs" of people.
No where in the Constitution does it state the government should use force
to do what is best for them.
Compulsory insurance advocate: When life expectancy was 60, one went to a
doctor for a host of inexpensive fixes, some life threatening some not.
Without health insurance can you or anyone pay for a heart transplant, how
about an autistic child, how about a kid with leukemia, how about the cost
of therapy and operations associated with keeping alive a burn victim or an
amputee?
Irie: This is why people have insurance. The use of force to make people
buy this product because the big corporations who are selling it can make
huge profits is not a good enough reason to sacrifice the right to freedom
and self determination this country is supposed to represent. No law in the
world is going to make up for the fact there are very stupid people out
there today, and to sacrifice our freedoms and liberty for a little bit more
health security for the stupid people results in neither a country that
deserves neither freedom nor security.
Compulsory insurance advocate: The argument that all costs would be so much
lower without the government involved,
Irie: This is true. Heath care costs x amount of dollars, whether we like
it or not. Adding a middle man like the government for who can do nothing
but add to the cost ADMINISTRATIVE cost of every medical product we buy will
do exactly that. X + government will always be more than simply X.
Predicting your response, your best argument is to say that "this is why we
need a one-payer system". A one payer system is corporatism at its absolute
worst. How much do you think the largest pharmaceutical producer would pay
to be the only corporation with all the customers in our country?
Corruption is inevitable. And what happens when the sole provider has a bad
batch of medicine for everyone (as what happened with the flu shot last
year)? Why should any other company produce the meds we need when there is
one provider with all the customers?
Compulsory insurance advocate: Or people could just save enough money if
they didn't have to pay taxes sounds good but I've seen nothing yet in human
history that tells me the argument doesn't belong on the same shelf as all
the other "great" social and economic theories of the 18th and 19th century.
Show me where in the world they have ever worked in any pure form. And if
you believe they worked in the good "old west," you've seen too many
episodes or Rawhide or The High Chaparral, Bunky.
Irie: Nothing works perfectly. Whatever system you advocate, I guaranty
you it does not run perfect. The only question (and the question I have for
you) is, by what principle do we want to live? This country was founded
upon the principles of liberty and self determination. This kind of law
violates both principles.
Compulsory insurance advocate: Oh I now, all governments that pass laws
that impose on the individual to make choices are evil. Please find one
country in this world with laissez faire business practices and few if any
government sponsored social services that you would live in.
Irie: What does this matter? Everybody is fighting to get to the US, not
many are trying to get out. This is a great country and we become the model
for every other country not because we repeated the social effort of Eastern
and Western Europe, but because we evolved beyond it. The socialized system
you advocate is what has most of the world has used for most of our
industrial (modern) history. It is our freedoms and liberties that have
made this the case, not the social systems of Europe. Taking their path is
going backward, not forward.
Compulsory insurance advocate: I believe Singapore, Hong Kong, United
Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and the US have the least amount
of government intervention in the world. All of them are mixed economies
with mixed social intervention models. These are probably places we could
feel comfortable living in if we had to leave the US, language and British
Empire cultural ties aside. It seems managing the mix is essential, fluid,
and relative to amongst other things, the era, culture, and technology.
Everything else is just great for after-dinner table or academic discussion
relating to what is and what ought to be. And as we know, that is quite a
Pandora's Box of its own.
Irie: Whenever the government forces people to buy anything (whether it is
to the consumers' benefit or not) is corporatism. They cloak it in the
rhetoric of what is best for the people, but the fact is that the true
beneficiary of purchases by force will only benefit the seller. And the
precedence set is awful. Now, because of this law and quite frankly what
you advocate, a business can simply show that it is a net benefit for
society to force everyone to buy their product, and it can be done. And
when government is in bed with corporations, we have a form of fascism
called corporatism. And, I hate to say it - but this is what you are
advocating.
Irie
The heathen back there, pound the wall.
--
The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give
it.
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Stop voting for the lesser of two evils: http://fairvote.org/irv/faq.htm
'Without law or compulsion, people would dwell in harmony' - Lao Tzu
The great debate is at: www.IrieEpistemology.com