Comments on: America’s quick slide into socialism

By: John

John — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:08:57 +0000

What we have at present is far from a “free market” approach to business or health care or finance. All of these are so manipulated, exploited, twisted and corruptly or incompetently (see above) regulated, that they are in effect exploitive “systems” serving particular interests and insulated from whatever “free market” forces might in fact serve to really “regulate” them in a natural selection type of way.

Politically speaking, one of the beautiful, but seldom credited, aspects of our fragile and (seemingly at the moment) faltering republic, is the effectiveness of the courts – freely used – to selectively regulate what might otherwise be exploitive excesses. Unfortunately in our past zeal to make things “better” for some imagined maligned party the other branches of the government have curbed this freedom with slanted laws and definitions. Oh well, I can’t solve the mess, but I certainly may comment on the folly.

By: John

John — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:00:50 +0000

For me it’s a fundamentally flawed premise:
There is no one health care “system” nor is it likely that such a conceit is even possible given the vastness of “health”. On the contrary, “health” today remains open, in a Darwinian sense, to natural selection. This is in part because the countless facets of life that can fall within any one given definition of health at any given point far exceed practical means of classification, administration and/or control.

By: admin

admin — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:35:13 +0000

Just looking at the various FB polls on national healthcare and unless Facebook is populated only by Republicans, it looks as though the country hates the idea of National Healthcare.

It’s more than 2 to 1 AGAINST.

If we’re going to do something this radical, let me say again that we need an amendment.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:25:36 +0000

Chrissy, As we learned in 8th grade civics, no country is completely socialist or capitalist. It’s a matter of degree. Certainly by subsuming a rather large section of our economy (healthcare) into the government, the US becomes more, not less, socialist.

The takeover of the financial and auto industries makes us more, not less, socialist.

You’re making the argument that I should be held at gunpoint until I pay to support someone else’s lung cancer treatment.

I prefer to make that kind of decision on my own and not to be forced by the government.

To be specific you say healthcare is a “fundamental right”. It hasn’t been for 230 years. Perhaps we should entertain a constitutional amendment on such an issue.

My argument against an amendment would be that healthcare is deeply personal and affected by the choices we make. Therefore, it should remain an individual choice NOT an inalienable right guaranteed by the government.

By: Chrissy

Chrissy — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:43:06 +0000

Dan, I see your point, but don’t think that if Obama doesn’t follow Rand’s philosophy, it means he doesn’t care. Perhaps he doesn’t agree.

I’m married to a Canadian, and know they pay a sizeable tax for their healthcare coverage. I certainly don’t know every Canadian, but universal coverage doesn’t seem to be what Canadians bitch about. Their healthcare system doesn’t make them socialist, either.

We pay for roads and schools we may or may not use, though maybe some folks think that’s theft? I don’t. I think a strong nation comes from strong people, who have had opportunities, and not by watching people suffer. I have been around long enough to know that some do indeed take advantage, but personally, I’d rather know my neighbors — who may simply have fallen on hard times — have access to health care. Maybe there are better ways, though, than a government system.