Socialized medicine's inevitable death panels

[subversive science]

Morals and ethics are relative.

That doesn't excuse one from having to show one's work when claiming a decision is moral or ethical. Simply proclaiming moral relativism is just evasion.

Then show me your work. You are the one making claims about the morality of mandatory insurance.

[piscator]

One's need for insurance is certainly relative to his choices in life.

[Seth]

Insurance is functionally mandatory for all of us, one way or another.

No, it's just generally a really good idea because of the litigious nature of our societies. If people were required to take responsibility for their own actions more, there wouldn't be a bazillion causes of action in tort law that do little but enrich lawyers and impoverish everyone else.

And that's not an excuse for government to wield the Mace of State to force people to buy a product they may not want or need, particularly "insurance" like Obamacare that has less to do with supporting the individual's choices for medical care funding and everything to do with making everyone dependent on government to subsidize the now-unaffordable health care insurance that was working just fine for most people before the fuckwits in Congress and the White House decided to meddle.

The actual ultimate goal I'm convinced is to use Obamacare and its "exchanges" as a stealth method of driving private insurance companies out of the health care insurance industry altogether by larding every policy up with so many mandatory coverages that the companies simply cannot afford to provide any coverage at a rate that anyone can afford, with or without government subsidy. The purpose of killing off the private health care insurance industry is so that the Progressive Marxists can declare a state of emergency, saying that because "big business" is "unwilling" to provide "affordable" health care "insurance" it is necessary for the government to act on behalf of all the people by instituting "single-payer" government controlled and provided socialized health care. Not health care insurance, socialized health care itself, like the NHS.

This is the well-known and obvious goal of the Progressive Marxists and always has been. Harry Reid said as much not long ago when he crowed about the passage of Obamacare, saying "This is just the first step."

You see, Progressives and Marxists both know that the two best ways to control the populace are to control the food supply and to control medical care, and that's what they are trying to do, and have been trying to do for a hundred years now.

They don't give a flying fuck whether anybody actually gets affordable or even competent health care, much less the finest health care on earth of which the American medical establishment is capable, they want power and control and nothing more.

[subversive science]

...Progressive Marxist...

I didn't realize the Marx Brothers were so modern.

[Seth]

Morals and ethics are relative.

That doesn't excuse one from having to show one's work when claiming a decision is moral or ethical. Simply proclaiming moral relativism is just evasion.

Then show me your work. You are the one making claims about the morality of mandatory insurance.

Actually the immorality of mandatory insurance. And I have been doing exactly that all along. But I'll be very simple so you might be able to understand it: Forcing people to work and then give the fruits of that labor to others without their permission is called "involuntary servitude." Involuntary servitude is morally wrong and corrupt because the slave has not consented to labor or sacrifice on behalf of the beneficiary of his labor, and the beneficiary of the slave's labor has done nothing for the slave that would justify the taking of the slave's labor and property, nor has the slave incurred any just debt with the beneficiary that would justify forcing him to repay that debt. Therefore, mandatory liability insurance is immoral and unethical.

Got it now?

[Seth]

...Progressive Marxist...

I didn't realize the Marx Brothers were so modern.

Evasion.

[subversive science]

Forcing people to work...

[piscator]

Insurance is functionally mandatory for all of us members of the First World, one way or another.

No, it's just generally a really good idea...

Like drinking water is a really good idea? Insurance is mandatory.
Again, you're making an aesthetic choice based on an arbitrary meta ethic. That's all Libertarianism is.

[Seth]

Insurance is functionally mandatory for all of us members of the First World, one way or another.

No, it's just generally a really good idea...

Like drinking water is a really good idea? Insurance is mandatory.

Why is it mandatory other than that government says it is? Is going without insurance malum in se or malum prohibitum?

You are aware I hope that humankind survived for millions of years without even the fleeting notion of insurance entering anyone's head.

Again, you're making an aesthetic choice based on an arbitrary meta ethic. That's all Libertarianism is.

Er, that's all any social or political ideology is. So what? That doesn't mean that one ideology is inherently better than another just because you say it is.

[MrJonno]

You are aware I hope that humankind survived for millions of years without even the fleeting notion of insurance entering anyone's head.

Actually most of it didn't survive very long, humanity a 100 years ago was nearer to a caveman hunting mammoths than it is to modern society and I know I'm glad to be alive now and not then

[Tero]

Yeah, little did they know 100 years ago we would pump out oil and turn it into...us!

[Seth]

You are aware I hope that humankind survived for millions of years without even the fleeting notion of insurance entering anyone's head.

Actually most of it didn't survive very long, humanity a 100 years ago was nearer to a caveman hunting mammoths than it is to modern society and I know I'm glad to be alive now and not then

I didn't say "individual humans," I said "humankind." Can't you parse a sentence?

[Pappa]

Do homeowners own the sidewalk outside their house in the US?

[Tero]

We don't have sidewalks anymore. We have to drive to the park to walk the dog.

[Seth]

Do homeowners own the sidewalk outside their house in the US?

Depends. Usually yes outside of the older cities. Generally the lots in a town are edge to edge and technically you own to the centerline of the street. In other cases you own right up to the edge of the platted street (probably more common), but it's extremely common for a city to claim an easement for a public sidewalk along the edge of your property. Sometimes it's right at the curb, other times the sidewalk is set back from the curb four or five feet with a strip of grass between. But you own the fee title to the land. The problem is that it's been standard practice for a long time to not only assess the property owner for the cost of building the sidewalk, but also maintaining it and clearing it of snow and ice.

Even if I accept the notion of some sort of inherent easement accruing to the public to use someone's property for a sidewalk, I have never heard of a rational argument as to why the homeowner should be responsible for maintenance and clearing. That ought to be a public cost since it's a public benefit.

But then urban land-use law often makes little sense and just as often doesn't even bother to pay lip-service to the Constitution.

The theory behind this easement is quite socialist in origin and it was imposed and approved by the courts merely for the convenience and comfort of pedestrians. Now there is nothing inherently wrong with the government exercising eminent domain (under existing law...in Libertarianism there is no such thing) to either purchase fee to the sidewalk, or to purchase an easement. Problem is that cities don't like to bother with the annoying detail of the 4th Amendment and pay "just compensation" for that taking, they just say, "Well, it would be terribly inconvenient and unsafe for pedestrians to walk in the roadway (which they DO have to pay for) so we'll just let them trespass on your land because, well, it's just the right thing to do."

It may be the right thing to do, but the 4th Amendment says "...nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." I've read all the court cases rationalizing this sort of blatant violation of the Constitution and I've never been able to find a suitable constitutional argument allowing it, but the practice goes on because the courts have weaseled around the Constitution and simply ignore any challenges, citing "stare decisis" as a reason to do so. In this case what "stare decisis" means is "Well, five Supreme Court Justices fucked up and rendered an awful and unconstitutional decision but we're not going to bother to try to overrule it because the ruling enhances government power, which is generally fine with us."

A confederacy of dunces if you ask me.