Man 'too fat' to live in New Zealand

[pErvinalia]

It's not a joke. That's anarcho-capitalism for you. I'm surprised you aren't fully aware that these are the views he holds. It's the same shit he's been sprouting since the rdf days.

[Animavore]

It's ethically redundant to say employers have the right to walk all over you just because they can. If they had their way, and remember an astonishing and disproportionate amount of CEOs are psychopaths, the work place would be barely better than a slave/master relationship.

[Warren Dew]

Free choice my man. People are allowed to choose to work at dangerous jobs at wages that they deem acceptable. It is not the role of government to interfere in the employment contract between workers and employers.

Is this a fucking joke? Please tell me it is.

If capitalists had their way we'd still be sending children up fucking chimneys. Of course workers should have rights which should be enforced by the government. They have a right not to get abused, used, and work in shitty, unhealthy environments.

The problem is that whenever the government creates supposed "rights" for workers, they deny those workers freedoms, just as Seth says. There are plenty of jobs that are inherently dangerous, and thus don't exist in the face of regulation.

[laklak]

To be fair, children fit up chimneys better than adults. If they get stuck you just smoke them in place and call the neighbors over for pot luck.

[Seth]

Free choice my man. People are allowed to choose to work at dangerous jobs at wages that they deem acceptable. It is not the role of government to interfere in the employment contract between workers and employers.

Is this a fucking joke? Please tell me it is.

If capitalists had their way we'd still be sending children up fucking chimneys. Of course workers should have rights which should be enforced by the government. They have a right not to get abused, used, and work in shitty, unhealthy environments.

If you disagree with that there's something wrong with your head.

Strawman and red herring.

Nobody is suggesting that children be allowed to work in dangerous occupations.

Nor am I suggesting that dangerous working conditions should be ignored.

The Libertarian check to unreasonably dangerous workplaces is not to regulate the workplace or employer, but rather empower the employee to seek FULL compensation as well as punitive damages for any injury which occurs in the workplace that a jury determines could and should have been prevented or mitigated by a reasonable person.

For example, if an employee is killed in a meat-grinder at a packing plant because the owner did not think it necessary to train the employee and install safeguards to protect him then the employee's family is entitled to go to court and sue, and in a Libertarian society there are NO limits on damages, and indeed punitive damages too would be both unlimited and severe. so much so that the owners of the business might have to turn the business over in its entirety to the victim's family.

This is a better solution than regulation, which can never anticipate every single possible hazard at the workplace, and which become burdensome when applied in a broad manner. It's much better to put the burden on the employer to ensure his worker's safety by making it a fatal financial mistake to refuse to take all reasonable precautions. This requires the employer to carefully analyze his own business and determine what hazards exist in his particular circumstances and then mitigate those risks properly or face bankruptcy.

The same applies to health issues. Libertarians simply make the law say "Thou shalt not initiate force or fraud upon an employee by failing to provide a reasonably safe and healthy work environment." Then they leave it up to the courts and juries to determine what is "reasonable" in each specific circumstance. Soon enough the body of case law becomes the Common Law, as it has for centuries, and employers know exactly what is required of them.

This is persuasive, not coercive, and it fosters small, efficient and frugal government rather than huge, ineffective, bloated and abusive legions of fat bureaucrats finding reasons to justify their jobs by making regulations.

[Animavore]

So you deny capitalists in the 19th century fought their damndest against anti-child labour laws on the basis they had every right to employ children if they wanted the work?

[Seth]

It's not a joke. That's anarcho-capitalism for you. I'm surprised you aren't fully aware that these are the views he holds. It's the same shit he's been sprouting since the rdf days.

Except it's not. You are simply incapable of understanding Libertarian philosophy because you don't want to, so you just disrespect it at every turn while deliberately and maliciously refusing to learn anything about the subject.

In other words, you're just an ignorant troll.

So why don't you just shut the fuck up and go back to swilling the beer the public paid for.

[Seth]

So you deny capitalists in the 19th century fought their damndest against anti-child labour laws on the basis they had every right to employ children if they wanted the work?

Red herring.

What 19th century "capitalists" did or thought has nothing whatever to with modern Libertarianism. You're spouting a "wayback machine" fallacy.

[Blind groper]

To Seth

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that a lot of your libertarian arguments require law suits as a fall back option. The individual guards his own welfare against rapacious other people by being able to sue them?

This is an approach I dislike for the practical reason that law suits mostly just enrich lawyers. The general public end up made poorer. For example, I have been told that the average medical doctor in the USA pays about $ 200,000 per year in malpractice insurance premiums. This has to be paid for out of very large fees for medical care.

Here in NZ, we have a much better system. We have compulsory accident insurance, and no one is permitted to sue another person or corporate body for compensation after an accident. Instead, everyone who has an accident gets his/her medical bills paid for out of the insurance fund, along with what is seen as an appropriate level of compensation (way, way lower than the normal compensation given in the USA after lawsuits, but with no lawyers bills). Professionals or corporates that are negligent and cause accidents through that negligence get punished by appropriate professional bodies - like the Medical Council which punishes incompetent doctors.

Too many law suits do not help the nation. They do the opposite, and just end up making lawyers rich. In the USA, last time I looked, there were 222 lawyers in Congress, all keeping lawsuits alive in American law so that they could fall back on them as a means of getting rich if kicked out of government. But too many law suits is a very harmful outcome for everyone else.

[Seth]

To Seth

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that a lot of your libertarian arguments require law suits as a fall back option.

Of course.

The individual guards his own welfare against rapacious other people by being able to sue them?

Or by shooting them dead if the circumstances call for it.

This is an approach I dislike for the practical reason that law suits mostly just enrich lawyers. The general public end up made poorer. For example, I have been told that the average medical doctor in the USA pays about $ 200,000 per year in malpractice insurance premiums. This has to be paid for out of very large fees for medical care.

Doctors should be more careful whom they treat and how they treat them, and they should demand (if they like) a waiver of liability from a patient if they are concerned about being sued for malpractice. Then it's the choice of the patient whether he wishes to give the waiver and be treated by the doctor.

Here in NZ, we have a much better system. We have compulsory accident insurance, and no one is permitted to sue another person or corporate body for compensation after an accident. Instead, everyone who has an accident gets his/her medical bills paid for out of the insurance fund, along with what is seen as an appropriate level of compensation (way, way lower than the normal compensation given in the USA after lawsuits, but with no lawyers bills).

And who pays for all this "insurance" and "appropriate level of compensation?" The person or company guilty of wrongdoing? Nope, the taxpayers.

Professionals or corporates that are negligent and cause accidents through that negligence get punished by appropriate professional bodies - like the Medical Council which punishes incompetent doctors.

Who punishes the drunk driver that runs over you leaving you paralyzed? Who pays for the pain and suffering you experience?

Too many law suits do not help the nation. They do the opposite, and just end up making lawyers rich.

So? Lawyers spend years and lots of money obtaining the education needed to effectively argue a case. It's their right to charge for the application of that knowledge. Nobody is compelled to hire a lawyer, you're free to present the case "pro se" any time you want.

In the USA, last time I looked, there were 222 lawyers in Congress, all keeping lawsuits alive in American law so that they could fall back on them as a means of getting rich if kicked out of government. But too many law suits is a very harmful outcome for everyone else.

So? Who is harmed? Not the taxpayers, they don't pay the lawyer bills, the litigants do, with the prevailing party charging legal fees to the loser, which adds to the incentive not to initiate force or fraud on another.

The real problem is that the courts are reluctant to hammer wrongdoing sufficiently. You drive drunk and hurt or kill someone and you should lose everything you own, right down to your underwear, and THEN you should spend time in prison making small rocks out of big rocks. And that's just for a FIRST offense. Repeat offenders get a lead injection.

Of course the best way to deal with lawyers is to make it a felony to practice law for financial benefit and repeal any law that requires a judge or lawyer to understand it (void for vagueness doctrine). Put the decision in the hands of a jury and make their decision absolute, and swift...all trials to be held within 30 days of being filed (criminal and civil) and judgment to be executed within 48 hours of verdict.

Swift and certain.

[Blind groper]

To Seth.

Interesting. Also interesting that you seem to totally fail to see how lots of law suits benefitting lawyers also cause harm to the average citizen.

My doctor example is one. If doctors have to pay so much in malpractice insurance, then their patients have to pay far more $$$$ for the medical care they receive. It is actually worse than that, because doctors carry out a wide range of tests that are mostly totally unnecessary, in case they fail to pick up some existing condition unrelated to whatever complaint the patient presents with. This wastes a lot of time and an awful lot of $$$$.

The outcome is either people being made poorer by excessive medical bills, or not getting needed medical attention at all, because they cannot afford it.

As a generalisation, any society that devotes heaps of resources to non producing "services", like litigation lawyers, will end up the poorer.

[pErvinalia]

It's not a joke. That's anarcho-capitalism for you. I'm surprised you aren't fully aware that these are the views he holds. It's the same shit he's been sprouting since the rdf days.

Except it's not. You are simply incapable of understanding Libertarian philosophy because you don't want to, so you just disrespect it at every turn while deliberately and maliciously refusing to learn anything about the subject.

In other words, you're just an ignorant troll.

So why don't you just shut the fuck up and go back to swilling the beer the public paid for.

I'm a left libertarian, Seth. I know what libertarianism is. And I know exactly how your version differs from other versions and why it is ultimately fascistic.

[Pappa]

Seth

The phrase is TANSTAAFL. Try to pay attention.

Re Pacific Islanders etc.
Many of them have a special arrangement with NZ. Samoans, Rarotongans, Niueans, Tokelauans all have automatic access to NZ. So the normal immigration rules do not apply. Yes, plenty of them are seriously over-weight. I read somewhere that Polynesians have a minor genetic difference that causes them to conserve fat more efficiently than Europeans. So their excess weight is not entirely their own fault.

Plus social conventions that impart social status for carrying a bit of excess fat. In the past that would have made a lot of sense, but nowadays it's a little easy for people to become morbidly obese.

[mistermack]

Plus social conventions that impart social status for carrying a bit of excess fat. In the past that would have made a lot of sense, but nowadays it's a little easy for people to become morbidly obese.

It's possible that, if that social convention has been in place for thousands of years, it might be responsible for the tendency
for the population to put on fat.
High status could mean that fat people have had a reproductive advantage over thin people, and over many generations, the fatter genes predominate in the population.

[Seth]

To Seth.

Interesting. Also interesting that you seem to totally fail to see how lots of law suits benefitting lawyers also cause harm to the average citizen.

It's far less harm than a burdensome and tyrannical government causes.

My doctor example is one. If doctors have to pay so much in malpractice insurance, then their patients have to pay far more $$$$ for the medical care they receive.

As I said, in a free market doctors can protect themselves with waivers or not, and individuals can pick doctors based on their reputation. And any doctor who gets sued need only defend his actions successfully. The litigious society we have now is directly caused by the socialist influences on society and the madness of liberalism. People have been misled into believing that medicine is a science with uniformly predictable outcomes. It's not and never has been. It's more predictable now than it used to be, but it's still an art and the patient is still ultimately responsible for his health, or lack thereof. A doctor should only be subject to suit for wrongfully or negligently making the situation worse, not merely because the patient is not healed or gets worse. That's what "malpractice" is. The way to avoid malpractice suits is not to engage in malpractice. And if you do engage in malpractice you should NOT be protected by an insurance policy, you should be bankrupted and removed from the profession for initiating force and fraud upon another by practicing negligently or wrongfully.

This weeds-out the incompetent and fraudulent doctors very quickly, leaving the medical profession to the actual professionals who do their jobs properly.

Were I King, I would make medical malpractice insurance unlawful. It's like insuring a drunk driver or insuring a bank robber against getting shot in the act of committing a crime. It's a stupid thing for insurance companies to do. But, if they want to do it that's fine with me, but I would make sure that any insurance company that pays out in a case of malpractice goes out of business too.

It is actually worse than that, because doctors carry out a wide range of tests that are mostly totally unnecessary, in case they fail to pick up some existing condition unrelated to whatever complaint the patient presents with. This wastes a lot of time and an awful lot of $$$$.

That's between the doctor and patient. It's the patient's responsibility to make informed decisions about his care. If he is unable to make that decision and places trust in the doctor, and then later finds out that the doctor has ordered unnecessary tests or procedures then the patient can sue for the initiation of fraud and be compensated.

I have a perfect example of this. I suffered a kidney stone attack some years ago and went to the ER. They performed a CAT scan to try to find the stone (they didn't, it had passed) and when I got the bill it was $3000 each for TWO CAT scans, one for the "upper abdomen" and one for the "lower abdomen." I questioned this with the hospital finance office and they said that this was normal procedure because their protocols divided the body in a certain way and it took two scans (only one actually) to cover from the kidneys to the tip of the penis. I objected, telling them that I had reviewed the scans and it was patently obvious that the entire area needed for diagnosis could easily (and in fact was) covered by a single scan simply by moving the aperture of the scan down less than two inches. In point of fact the actual scan went from mid-thigh to bottom of the heart and was arbitrarily divided by "policy" to turn one scan into two for bllling purposes.

I simply told the billing manager that I was not going to pay for two CAT scans, nor was I going to pay anything else until the bill was adjusted and submitted non-fraudulently. I used the words "fraud" and "lawsuit" and "consumer protection agency" and "medical ethics board" liberally and before I walked out of the office I was paying $3000 less. On top of that I negotiated a 45% discount off of the final bill because I paid in cold, hard cash (actual greenbacks) on the spot.

There actually is a market in place right now of medical experts who will review your medical bills in excruciating detail to detect things like overcharging, billing duplication (I've had that happen numerous times), billing for unnecessary services or tests and billing for therapies not provided.

The outcome is either people being made poorer by excessive medical bills, or not getting needed medical attention at all, because they cannot afford it.

Then they are suffering the consequences of not being wise health care consumers. Stupidity is its own reward. Anyone who goes to the doctor thinking that it's not a commercial, for-profit transaction and fails to take commonplace and ordinary precautions against being defrauded is an idiot and deserves what they get.

As a generalisation, any society that devotes heaps of resources to non producing "services", like litigation lawyers, will end up the poorer.

Only when the malefactors are protected either by government or by insurers so that they only get ONE chance to defraud or harm someone. If the market is ruthless to incompetents and fraudsters and bankrupts them the FIRST time they initiate force or fraud, then it doesn't become a problem in the first place.