Yellow Dog [Part 21]

Marx Wrote: The only thing you’ve done is convince me that, if you look hard enough, you can find "evidence" to support any point of view. You have a habit of relegating ANYONE that you don’t agree with to "talented fabulist," for example, Michael Moore and the person that you blame for the designation of "Robber Barons" [Ida Tarbell]. I’m gonna tell you the ONE truth that you'll ever hear in this world that we live in: “there is precious little reality in our individual realities." Anyone can find anything to support the views that they have, some of it may very well be true but there is NO way to tell what is and what isn’t true. It all depends on "faith" and I really don’t have much of that in any of our news, educational materials, texts or even (with the advent of Photoshop) photographic records.


Marx,

My most important points require no empirical evidence at all. They require a profound respect for the human capacity to reason devoid of faith, emotions, mystic revelation...and the irrational personal biases created by humans who feel rather than think. For example, anti-capitalists feel everybody should have everything they need including 21st Century health care. They believe that a person’s need for something crucial, like life-saving pharmaceuticals, gives a person a right to them. I require NO empirical evidence, NO anecdotal evidence, NO media or textbooks, to demonstrate the pure evil of this supposition. I need ONLY reason and a profound respect for the rights of individuals to KNOW that nobody has a right to anything that was produced by somebody else.

21st Century health care is produced by people who: spend ten years in school mastering most difficult curricula; investors putting millions of their own money on the line with the expectation that Merc will develop the next “miracle drug” and they will rightly profit. Anyone who produces anything, owns the result of their productive work. No one can rationally place any demand on them to hand it over without compensation. In a moral and just society productive individuals TRADE with one another, value for value. All values are determined by two parties: the producer and the consumer. Without this moral equation our society is relegated to institutionalized gang rule. The majority of people [those who did not produce the life-saving medicine] sic the government on the producers. Government uses force to extort these 21st Century health care products from their rightful owners... Everybody in the health care industry becomes a slave to the state. How do you justify this extortion? You say: People need health care. Justice be damned! We’re all in this thing for the good of the community, so the individual rights of the producers be damned!

Now, my nihilist friend, answer my argument. No stories about the failed health care system we have in place here in the US, please. What we have is not capitalism. Like housing, banking, energy and nearly every other industry, government designed the health care system we have in place today. Try to give me a rational argument to justify “free health care for all.” If the rights of individuals are sacrificed to make your argument work, you have not created a rational argument.

Donn


Donn,

I have never said everyone should have free healthcare and I don’t recall anyone I know or anyone I support supporting "free healthcare for all." I DO support affordable healthcare for everyone, regardless or pre-existing conditions or whether some arbitrary insurance adjustor deems it’s ok for YOU to have healthcare. Healthcare costs are out of control and BEFORE you blame the legal system, take a look at the obscene profits the health insurance companies make. My brother does NOT have healthcare insurance because he's a truck driver and he cannot afford more than a thousand dollars a month for him and his wife. I think a gainfully employed, hardworking man should be able to afford healthcare. It should NOT be the domain of the wealthy or those lucky enough to have employer provided healthcare and THAT’S what’s happening. Do YOU think this is an unreasonable position? Then you’re out of touch with what private healthcare insurance agencies cost, you’ve been on state provided healthcare TOO long and you don’t know what OTHERS are going through. MEANWHILE, a friend recently stayed at a hospital for three days for some minor surgery. His bill came back at about 15,000 dollars!!! BUT, get this, it said....Insurance Company Discount 13,000... money paid by insurance company, 2000...money owed... 0.00.. DUDE, what the HECK is that??? They give a 13,000 discount to the insurance company?? But expect an uninsured individual to pay the WHOLE 13,000 ... that’s insane!!!

Marx


Marx,

If you want abundance of any good or service, if you want innovation and creativity in the market place in any industry, don’t ask Washington to “solve” the problem.

Donn


Donn,

Our politicians veer, slightly to the left and some slightly to the right but none are really interested in anything other than where their next campaign contribution is coming from, USUALLY, that’s from the corporations.

Marx,


Marx,

Laissez faire capitalism is the only solution to the problem you site. If you want to remove corporate influence in Washington over night, remove politicians from the market place. Abolish the 16th Amendment and take away that huge pot of gold the politicians extorted from the producers and 30,000 lobbyists are out of work. They’re there in Washington, lobbying, for their piece of a pie that shouldn’t even exist! People who think like you created the problem by encouraging and empowering government to manipulate free markets AND when everything you’ve created blows up in our faces, you go back to the politicians, who injected the poison into the body in the first place, AND WHAT DO YOU DO? You ask for more poison!!

Unbelievable that you can not see this truth.

Donn