simple question

[Ishmael]

Unless you're talking about "let's turn the machines off" care, end of life care often requires intensive and expensive care. People should not have to lie to be able to care for their loved ones. Most health insurance companies will bail before our hypothetical year is out.

If expensive machines are required then it's not "end of life" care, it is extension of life care. If you can't afford it, you don't get it.

Ishmael

 

[cowslinger64]

It really is impossible to have a rational discussion with you retards.
I have cared for two family members in end of life situations and I know for a fact that the financial expense is not great at all, the emotional expense is an entirely different subject.

I believe that that answer Dolf's question.

Ishmael

Unless you locked them up in the barn and let em suffer, there is just no way that is true.

 

[Brollyanna]

in what ways do you think the health insurance companies bail? I'm only asking because I think that perceived barriers to care keep some people from gathering information and it would be interesting to hear your impression.

I bailed on this thread because in order to continue, I'd end up talking about personal experiences that I'd rather not talk about here.

Sorry for my hit and run in this thread.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Mine was meant to be a very broad question, and I don't think that makes it shallow black-and-white thinking, it's an honest question about where you would be happiest in this world.
I understand your points, but in this particular case I think you're ascribing subtext that wasn't there. It might be extreme to ask about a remote place to live, but where else would you be able to have the freedom and control you desire, if not in a more remote location?


I was forcing his hand so he would spill your secret about the showtunes!
And now we know. We ALL know, Petey.

I live in an oak forest.

It is not about my personal happiness, now is it? In a big general topic, the individual is not the argument, especially in regard to cost. The question I address is aside from the hypothetical ability to divine 12 months by any human doctor/shaman is at which point does the social welfare state look around and say, I and my political class are sated? For with each "positive interference" in our lives, someone must pay which removes just a tiny bit of Investment Capital from our pool of future growth. Now, no one single plan will do us in as a society, but at some point all of the benefits will reach a tipping scale at which their ability to be funded will grow larger than our ability to increase the productivity gains required to fund. This is partly because of the rhetorical mechanisms applied by those who see their cause as noble. "You hate government because you are selfish and prefer to live in anarchy ion order to protect your freedom."

That is what I reacted to, maybe prematurely, but it is where every single discussion about social benefits always heads straight to.

And I see butters is still being a cunt.

 

[DesEsseintes]

I've seen the free-market argument a lot - this idea that economic conservatives are good people: and I'm sure many of them are - and that if you just leave people to do their own thing they will naturally do the decent thing and look after the poor and the sick, without the dead hand of government. But, considering socialists are often called utopian, such an idea seems very like wishful thinking to me.

Because the thing is, for all socialism is called old-fashioned, it is at least more modern than capitalism, whose practical origins are in the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and whose theoretical underpinnings still hark back to Adam Smith and David Ricardo. And even Smith said that markets needed some control at some time in order to be most effective. And we KNOW what unrestricted, or almost unrestricted, capitalism looks like, at least in my country, because Britain kicked it all off. When you have no, or few, rules governing labour markets and production, it doesn't look like Hobbiton, a close-knit community of happy individuals all bettering themselves and their society through hard work.

It looks like 4 year old children working ten hours a day in a black tunnel a mile beneath the earth, or 6 year old children up chimneys, or ten year olds having their hands chopped off in factories. It looks like slums, and dysentery, and cruelty, and the rich getting immensely richer and the poor scarcely getting richer, if at all. The first laws restricting capital and its implementations, setting up agreed compensation, etc, were due to vast moral outrage at the conditions of the factories. There were a very few enlightened factory owners, of course, who DID act in the way you would like to believe all would, and who voluntarily looked after their people without the government needing to force them too. Oddly enough, those people, like Richard Owen, often called themselves socialists.

SO when you talk about getting rid of big government, I would like to know how far back you intend to take us. And if you do have a limit - whether it is children in the mines, or up chimneys, or blackened sooty lungs in workers by the age of 20, or whatever it happens to be - how do you argue for that limit and not another? How do you avoid, as it were, liberal mission creep.

I'm genuinely interested in how you avoid the early excesses of unbridled capitalism - or if you would even want to. Because when you cut the restrictions we KNOW - not through theory, but from history - that what you get is something like early 19th century Manchester, or 1990s China, or current Bangladesh clothes factories. Is it a complete coincidence that in countries with far fewer restrictions and government edicts the conditions for workers are far worse?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I'm short on time, but there is an economic argument on why children are used in brief periods, mainly because of lack of any other labor resource.

The fatal flaw in your post is the assumption that decreasing the amount and cost of government is the abrogation of law and a "taking back" when it is, in fact, the Social State which seeks to take us back to a tribal state.

I posted a thread with your name as the title, look it up. I have to run.

 

[RobDownSouth]

I live in an oak forest.

It is not about my personal happiness, now is it? In a big general topic, the individual is not the argument, especially in regard to cost. The question I address is aside from the hypothetical ability to divine 12 months by any human doctor/shaman is at which point does the social welfare state look around and say, I and my political class are sated? For with each "positive interference" in our lives, someone must pay which removes just a tiny bit of Investment Capital from our pool of future growth. Now, no one single plan will do us in as a society, but at some point all of the benefits will reach a tipping scale at which their ability to be funded will grow larger than our ability to increase the productivity gains required to fund. This is partly because of the rhetorical mechanisms applied by those who see their cause as noble. "You hate government because you are selfish and prefer to live in anarchy ion order to protect your freedom."

That is what I reacted to, maybe prematurely, but it is where every single discussion about social benefits always heads straight to.

And I see butters is still being a cunt.

The preservation of investment capital trumps human suffering. Got it.

This, by the way, is why glibertarians like you never reach widespread acceptance.

 

[Ishmael]

I've seen the free-market argument a lot - this idea that economic conservatives are good people: and I'm sure many of them are - and that if you just leave people to do their own thing they will naturally do the decent thing and look after the poor and the sick, without the dead hand of government. But, considering socialists are often called utopian, such an idea seems very like wishful thinking to me.

Because the thing is, for all socialism is called old-fashioned, it is at least more modern than capitalism, whose practical origins are in the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and whose theoretical underpinnings still hark back to Adam Smith and David Ricardo. And even Smith said that markets needed some control at some time in order to be most effective. And we KNOW what unrestricted, or almost unrestricted, capitalism looks like, at least in my country, because Britain kicked it all off. When you have no, or few, rules governing labour markets and production, it doesn't look like Hobbiton, a close-knit community of happy individuals all bettering themselves and their society through hard work.

It looks like 4 year old children working ten hours a day in a black tunnel a mile beneath the earth, or 6 year old children up chimneys, or ten year olds having their hands chopped off in factories. It looks like slums, and dysentery, and cruelty, and the rich getting immensely richer and the poor scarcely getting richer, if at all. The first laws restricting capital and its implementations, setting up agreed compensation, etc, were due to vast moral outrage at the conditions of the factories. There were a very few enlightened factory owners, of course, who DID act in the way you would like to believe all would, and who voluntarily looked after their people without the government needing to force them too. Oddly enough, those people, like Richard Owen, often called themselves socialists.

SO when you talk about getting rid of big government, I would like to know how far back you intend to take us. And if you do have a limit - whether it is children in the mines, or up chimneys, or blackened sooty lungs in workers by the age of 20, or whatever it happens to be - how do you argue for that limit and not another? How do you avoid, as it were, liberal mission creep.

I'm genuinely interested in how you avoid the early excesses of unbridled capitalism - or if you would even want to. Because when you cut the restrictions we KNOW - not through theory, but from history - that what you get is something like early 19th century Manchester, or 1990s China, or current Bangladesh clothes factories. Is it a complete coincidence that in countries with far fewer restrictions and government edicts the conditions for workers are far worse?

That seems as good a point to start as any. That is not true, Capitalism, Socialism, all of the ism's co-evolved from time immemorial. The fact that someone finally got around to giving them names does not connote the date of birth, merely the Christening. There is noting new under the Sun.

Big government is not required for an orderly society. There comes a point in the 'mission creep' where government begins to exist for it's own interests and begins to support it's own growth. And it's growth causes it to have the same effect on the body politic that cancer has on the individuals body. And we can't help but observe the magnificent success of those states that practice heavy Socialist policies. The former Soviet Union, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Greece. Or the states that have thrown Socialism away, like India and China, and the effects on the general populations.

Governments do not practice charity, they practice armed robbery and re-distribution after skimming the cream off the top. Only individuals can practice charity. You English gave two figures of literature whose messages were most thoroughly corrupted by the academics and their lackeys in the press, Ebenezer Scrooge and Robin Hood. Robin Hood did NOT rob from the rich, he robbed from an illegally constituted government and returned the usurious taxes to the taxpayer. And Scrooge did not demand that the government fund his epiphany. But both tales have been so thoroughly bastardized in their lessons so as to be virtually unrecognizable today.

Government does have a role in the conduct of business, and that role is to insure "Blue Sky" laws and the prosecution of those that violate that concept. But as of late it seems that government has gotten into the business of picking winners and losers to the great detriment of all except those in government that 'invested' wisely, or reaped the benefits of the campaign contributions. The government, through its own largess, has invited its own corruption.

Ishmael

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Okay, here we go, Child Labor:

If we examine when and where child labor occurs, it is when a society emerges from an agrarian to an industrial economic base and the cause is this, adults are still struggling to maintain a sustenance level of survival, due to inefficiencies in farming and crippling taxation (a stolid fixture of agrarian societies, von Mises, Human Action and Armstrong, Fields of Blood), and cannot be spared for labor, but the children can and become a valuable source of family Capital until the security is attained in which the adult can finally step into the workforce. This phase never lasts terribly long and is never very desired by the manufacturer because, ironically, children make terrible and unproductive employees, but are suffered only because they are the only labor pool available. Since there is little chance of the West returning to an agrarian state, there is even less chance of a more sound economic base turning us back to children as employees.

Well, my child has had a steady job since she was 10, but that was purely her choice because it kept her around her horses...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

That seems as good a point to start as any. That is not true, Capitalism, Socialism, all of the ism's co-evolved from time immemorial. The fact that someone finally got around to giving them names does not connote the date of birth, merely the Christening. There is noting new under the Sun.

Big government is not required for an orderly society. There comes a point in the 'mission creep' where government begins to exist for it's own interests and begins to support it's own growth. And it's growth causes it to have the same effect on the body politic that cancer has on the individuals body. And we can't help but observe the magnificent success of those states that practice heavy Socialist policies. The former Soviet Union, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Greece. Or the states that have thrown Socialism away, like India and China, and the effects on the general populations.

Governments do not practice charity, they practice armed robbery and re-distribution after skimming the cream off the top. Only individuals can practice charity. You English gave two figures of literature whose messages were most thoroughly corrupted by the academics and their lackeys in the press, Ebenezer Scrooge and Robin Hood. Robin Hood did NOT rob from the rich, he robbed from an illegally constituted government and returned the usurious taxes to the taxpayer. And Scrooge did not demand that the government fund his epiphany. But both tales have been so thoroughly bastardized in their lessons so as to be virtually unrecognizable today.

Government does have a role in the conduct of business, and that role is to insure "Blue Sky" laws and the prosecution of those that violate that concept. But as of late it seems that government has gotten into the business of picking winners and losers to the great detriment of all except those in government that 'invested' wisely, or reaped the benefits of the campaign contributions. The government, through its own largess, has invited its own corruption.

Ishmael

Let us also add that the European states are about the size and population of our larger states, which are polyglot and not homogeneous, being united by an ancient culture and group mindset that can come to a consensus in a more local manner, but which here are increasingly being fought about on a national level which destroys local control and imposes Imperial edicts from on high in a one-size fits all manner which is why they see so many "free-market" types over here wanting to drag us back to the "Dark Ages."

We are talking about something that they are only beginning to understand and witness under the newly-created guidance of the EU, but as we see, these arguments are also beginning to creep into the European body politic.

 

[cowslinger64]

Governments do not practice charity, they practice armed robbery and re-distribution after skimming the cream off the top.
Ishmael

While your entire post was rather much garbage.... that stood out to me. It's obvious you haven't been paying attention, and the re-distribution you whine about didn't come OFF the top, it went TO the top.

http://fortune.com/2014/10/31/inequality-wealth-income-us/

A new study shows that the gap in the wealth that different American households have accumulated is more exreme than any at time since the Great Depression


=============

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014...ars-of-income-inequality-in-america-in-graphs

look at the graph in that one especially.


==============


http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...n-rise-for-decades-is-now-highest-since-1928/

U.S. income inequality, on rise for decades, is now highest since 1928

 

[Ishmael]

Let us also add that the European states are about the size and population of our larger states, which are polyglot and not homogeneous, being united by an ancient culture and group mindset that can come to a consensus in a more local manner, but which here are increasingly being fought about on a national level which destroys local control and imposes Imperial edicts from on high in a one-size fits all manner which is why they see so many "free-market" types over here wanting to drag us back to the "Dark Ages."

We are talking about something that they are only beginning to understand and witness under the newly-created guidance of the EU, but as we see, these arguments are also beginning to creep into the European body politic.

Indeed we do witness the effects of the EU on the various nations involved. It's not working out at all like they envisioned.

Ishmael

 

[Lancecastor]

when a society emerges from an agrarian to an industrial economic base

Snipped to illustrate the level of retardation on the GB.

 

[cowslinger64]

Well, my child has had a steady job since she was 10, but that was purely her choice because it kept her around her horses...

It's sweet that on Planet Dump things went so wonderfully... but....


https://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/laborctr/child_labor/about/us_history.html

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29765623

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Indeed we do witness the effects of the EU on the various nations involved. It's not working out at all like they envisioned.

Ishmael

Indeed.

Snipped to illustrate the level of retardation on the GB.

Not a refutation, not even an educated response. If you want to look stupid and shallow, this is precisely the right approach. I even included cites...

 

[Wings]

you expected any better? you li'l optimist

Bluey

"Those people" why are the poor always "those people" to him?

 

[Wings]

Yeah, I'm stupid. "Good, decent people" frequently find themselves with no friends. Churches and charities regularly turn such people away, because of their obvious "goodness."

So this new entitlement you want to enact...

We do have to means test it right? So we don't hep the rich? Can't have a rich guy who is dying use the program until after he has exhausted his wealth right?

How much are we going to pay these people? A "living wage?" What if this person had a good paying job and lived in a McMansion, but cannot make the payments now? Shall we pay that?

Who administers the program? Got to have forms, right?

All that money spent on overhead, I wonder what that costs society by removing that capital from the marketplace?

How about if Bill Gates sets up a hospice foundation? That OK with you, or it is only "empathy" if you want to distribute this "charity" by forcible collection of taxes?

What?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Bluey

"Those people" why are the poor always "those people" to him?

I was once poor. I taught martial arts for free in a very bad section of town in order to give kids a chance, which, I did. One of them just completed his master's degree despite having a father bound and determined to teach him how to milk the Social State. For a long time, my home address was the Houston Sally. I know the poor. I know why they are poor. This is the United States. It is not lack of opportunity or education. It is because in every single population, there are those who are simply fucking lazy, disillusioned with the disutility of labor and wishing to maximize their leisure at the expense of others. And boy, do we entertain them when it comes to Social State politicians who want their loyal and dedicated vote.

And chipbutty is still a huge cunt.

 

[Wings]

It really is impossible to have a rational discussion with you retards.

Dolf at least has a legitimate reason for opening the discussion and an emotional investment as well. The rest of you don't have dick shit. Most of you shooting off your mouth have never cared for an end of life patient so you have no clue as to what's involved.

Further, it seems you have no interest in doing so. You're the modern day equivalent of Pontius Pilate. You just want to wash your hands of the whole affair, ship the dying off somewhere where they won't interfere with your life.

Dolf's question is legitimate. To what extent is the population as a whole responsible for the care of the dying? Both financially and emotionally? Her premise was an absolute end of life scenario. And her question was concerning the financial role of the state. My answer to the poll was 'depends.'

I assume that the role of the state would be to provide palliative care only. No attempt to cure or prolong life will be made. This is very inexpensive to provide, but even so should be means tested. As far as providing a salary is concerned I would not be in favor of that. If the individual has reached the stage where they cannot function then they should be institutionalized in an end of life care facility with the following exception. Preferably they would be with family who could provide shelter etc. while hospice care is provided. I can see the state providing the family with a stipend to defray some expenses, food for example. If and when the patient reaches final stage, depending on the cause of death, moving them to an end of life care facility may be required.

I have cared for two family members in end of life situations and I know for a fact that the financial expense is not great at all, the emotional expense is an entirely different subject.

I believe that that answer Dolf's question.

Ishmael

I just need to quote this for myself. And because the next time I wonder at the hate for this man I can look back and remember.

 

[RobDownSouth]

It's sweet that on Planet Dump things went so wonderfully... but....


https://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/laborctr/child_labor/about/us_history.html

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29765623

Don't you see? His "child" can work, therefore your child should work.

 

[Wings]

I was once poor. I taught martial arts for free in a very bad section of town in order to give kids a chance, which, I did. One of them just completed his master's degree despite having a father bound and determined to teach him how to milk the Social State. For a long time, my home address was the Houston Sally. I know the poor. I know why they are poor. This is the United States. It is not lack of opportunity or education. It is because in every single population, there are those who are simply fucking lazy, disillusioned with the disutility of labor and wishing to maximize their leisure at the expense of others. And boy, do we entertain them when it comes to Social State politicians who want their loyal and dedicated vote.

And chipbutty is still a huge cunt.

Good for you, you once thought you were poor, you're still an adult white male, well until you want to claim your native status. But either way, you can't change who you are. That you think every other person below the poverty line can is why I am not surprised by your words.

 

[RobDownSouth]

I was once poor. I taught martial arts for free in a very bad section of town in order to give kids a chance, which, I did. One of them just completed his master's degree despite having a father bound and determined to teach him how to milk the Social State. For a long time, my home address was the Houston Sally. I know the poor. I know why they are poor. This is the United States. It is not lack of opportunity or education. It is because in every single population, there are those who are simply fucking lazy, disillusioned with the disutility of labor and wishing to maximize their leisure at the expense of others. And boy, do we entertain them when it comes to Social State politicians who want their loyal and dedicated vote.

And chipbutty is still a huge cunt.

No problem too great in Murica that cannot be solved with either 1) a tax cut for the rich and/or 2) some stern discipline for the poor.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Good for you, you once thought you were poor, you're still an adult white male, well until you want to claim your native status. But either way, you can't change who you are. That you think every other person below the poverty line can is why I am not surprised by your words.

I am a half-breed.

People ask me what tribe I'm from.

I think that way about people WHO CHOOSE to stay poor.

Get back to me when you develop the ability to stop personal argument for topical argument.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

If you say yes, for the reason of independence, then you still pay the cost, you just do not see it because it is an indirect payment to strangers and to your family member, when terminal, from strangers. In the former case you incentivize strong familial bonds, and in the latter case you make justification for weaker family bonds in favor of a more tribal type of bond which realizes and manifests itself in such attitudes as parents are bad for children because they make poor choices, so we need to make those choices for them.

Let us expand the scope of this issue just a tiny bit more and submit that if we know they only have 12 months to live, then a cost benefit analysis tells us that assisted suicide with dignity for the financial strength of the community and greater independence for the individuals in it who are still healthy and contributing to the tax base and no longer burdened by these "costs" to society is a beneficial thing.





PS: I fear too often that these threads devolve into, "I am compassionate and caring and the fact that you will not accept and adopt my superior position means that you are selfish and the selfish are hateful and now I really hate you. You're less than human."

 

[Wings]

I am a half-breed.

People ask me what tribe I'm from.

I think that way about people WHO CHOOSE to stay poor.

Get back to me when you develop the ability to stop personal argument for topical argument.

I'm a half-breed too. Big whoop. Do you like me better now?


Probably not but you're no better than I am and I'm no better than Ish is. We are all equal, at least on this site. I'd believe in the real world too which is what trips up you and Ish too.

If you used to be as poor as you claim and yet you're still referring to people below the poverty line as "those people" is why it's hard to give any credence to your argument.