So far I have not encountered this issue in my tax handled hcs. I emergency roomed once and admittedly it took about 8 hours, but I was very low on the triage scale - or high, whatever not in danger is. So I was bored for a while, but saw a specialist same day. The people having trouble breathing and clutching their chests were seen by specialists fast saliva from a sneeze.
the problem with your premise is the following “the burning house has a right to have his house put out”
show me the amendment that says you have a right not to burn…
you don’t have that right, you are explicitly paying for that service… and in the vast majority of communities, the fire departments are all volunteers…
no, you don’t have that “right” nor do you have any “right” to demand services from anyone.
-Imp
I thought we decided to grant ourselves that right.
Have you been lobbying for disbanding police and fire departments?
That’s not really my premise. It’s the premise of the people I want to answer my argument. I think people who believe it’s alright that they have a tax-paid fire department (and this is pretty much every rep except for yourself) have no reason to deny a tax-paid health care system because their reasons allowing for a fire department also allow for healthcare. Do you agree with this?
This is as far as this topic goes…the stuff below this part is off topic, but I’ll bite.
show me the amendment that says that amendment can’t be written in. I don’t know about you, but when my house is on fire I don’t want to bet on the good will of a volunteer. I’d want to bet on someone who’s livelihood depends on putting out my house fire.
I’m not demanding services. It’s a contract, and a rational one at that, as I demonstrated above - there’s no incentive for people to risk their life to solve your fire problems, but when I, and others who face the same risks, pay their salary through taxes, then these firefighters do have an incentive to risk life and limb. We can drop the talk of rights altogether.
The FIREMEN are volunteers, not the departments themselves. Almost universally, the infrastructure as well as the equipment used by VFD’s is either provided by direct tax, bond, indirect tax (Saying our sales tax is 6%, but from 2002-2003 we will build a new VFD by taking 10% of the sales tax and routing it to the project) or by tax-deductible donation.
In the RARE event that someone builds a VFD, then it would still be considered tax deductible, all of the expenses.
I suppose even though the VFD may exist in part due to my tax or donation dollars, I cannot demand that the volunteer firemen themselves come and put out my house, but in their absence, I expect to have the right to use the equipment and firetruck that I (in part) paid for.
I’m sorry we disagree on so much political stuff, Imp. You should talk death penalty with me sometime, I think we have a lot that we agree on there.
The problem with the rhetoric of freedom is that it is meaningless without context. For example, are people financially independent or financially dependent? If the latter, a sort of laissez-fair capitalism makes sense, if not a more regulated system does. How many people do you know that are “independent” in that manner? And which definition of “independent” are we using with respect to financial matters. Likewise, we have to ask whether the self is an autonomous agent or if it is encumbered. If the self is an autonomous agent, social programs don’t make much sense.
However, if people are financially dependent, then laissez-fair capitalism actually restricts more freedom than it creates, considerably more. Even if we define it using a hardline capitalist narrative where social mobility is the measure, the Baltic states are the best on that matter, followed by the Continent, followed by England, then America and the developing world start to enter the scene. So capitalism would seem to fail on its own metrics!
Likewise, the self is an encumbered one. We an inescapably someone’s child, parent, cousin, neighbor, co-worker, and all of these things are entangled in a societal narrative. Who we are is deeply encumbered by our class, ethnicity, religion and membership in a tradition and community. We can talk about the ‘choice’ involved, but even in rejection we still see definition. Look at Dawkins and his New Atheists. Can’t escape it, so you may as well work with it.
no, you are demanding services. calling it a contract is bullshit. you want someone else to give you shit for free and you are dressing it up in talk of “rights”
you don’t have a right to the labor of others.
you can force others at gunpoint (or fear of imprisonment) to give you shit, but that doesn’t mean you have a right to that stuff or their labor, it simply means you have stolen it and dressed it up in communal names.
I see dead liberals.
-Imp
you have a right to use the tools for which you paid?
no no no, skippy is using it now, you have to wait… take a number, get in line, and everyone gets their turn with the communal tool…
-Imp
I think the institution of socialised health care can be accomplished without any guns being pointed. And, following your rendering, we demand services all the time. I guess we demand that our trash be disposed of properly. So what?
You’re really missing the point of this topic.
It’s not free shit. It’s services that I’d pay for through taxes, which is why I called it a contract. It works like this. I give them a very small percentage of my income, or of the shit I buy, and in return they save my ass when I’m in trouble. There is no unfairness here. That’s the whole point of living within a society…mutually beneficial cooperation. I give society a little bit of something, and society gives me something in return, e.g., security. You’re telling me when you’re in trouble you don’t want society helping you, because you don’t want to sacrifice a tiny little bit of what you earn for society…fine, but it really makes me wonder why you keep staying in society. What you’re advocating is anarchism, not conservativism which is fine, I guess, but you should make that clear, instead of pretending to be a republican.
Where do you get this stuff? Some have this right, but not another…how do you figure?
Back on topic now:
Most republicans are fine with there being a tax-paid police force, army, or firefighters, but they have a problem with health care. My argument says that their reasons for the police, army, or firefighters can be extended to healthcare. This is the desired scope of this topic.
I like the example of transportation. In many locations, we can choose which way we go to work - bus, train, cars, bicycles or walking. All are, one way or another, regulated and at least subsidised by government. No one is forced into a particular mode of transportation by the government, and none are perfect for everyone.
Sure - you could say that the trains don’t run on a schedule that works for you, and so you are “forced” to drive. Trains don’t run everywhere, so you are likewise “forced” to drive. But this stretches the concept of force a bit.
And we are forced to pay taxes. But that is not a health care issue.
At any rate, there is nothing preventing a system whereby people can opt out of socialised care and pay separately on their own. Just like they can opt out of public schools and pay for their own. Even though they have to pay taxes for public schools. This is so because an educated citizenry is beneficial to all, just like a healthy one is. People don’t like paying for commuter rails that they don’t use, but they don’t like pollution and overcrowded highways, either.
I suppose there are those that don’t like paying for a fire department because their house has never caught on fire.
and using your argument why doesn’t society tax and spend to give you any and every thing you dream about? fire, police, health care, free housing, food, why stop at anything… society will provide everything for you…
enjoy your slavery to society…
those of us who detest your dreams of utopian slavery are better ARMED than you know…
revolution? you bet your ass.
-Imp
There are shades of gray, pal. No need to make this a black and white or bullet in the ass issue.
Naturally!
I mean, even if the fire department were add another scene and were unable to respond to my fire (like, if they only had one truck) than they should go and put out whichever fire threatens the most other people. You know, if the scene they are at is a house engulfed in flames in the middle of nowhere, but person B lives in an apartment or townhouse that’s on fire, they should go take care of the townhouse.
If the two fires represent an equal threat to others, then they should finish up where they are at first and the next nearest fire department would have to come help me because one VFD has a mutual agreement (in reality) with other nearby VFD’s in those situations.
In fact, where I live, anytime there is a fire in one of the nearby towns anywhere from two-four VFD’s will usually respond.
The real issue here is that businesses have offered health insurance as an incentive to employment. It was never a right. Now, capitalist pig businesses wish to divest of that financial burden. It is those capitalists that are the driving force behind socialised health care - not liberal politicians.
Many businesses also like industrial parks. These are built by government corporations, with tax dollars, to subsidise business. They are an example of a socialist (if you must) device that fosters private business. Sometimes fire stations are even built nearby, just for those parks.
When “socialist” apparati are employed to foster private business - oh - you have the history of american commerce, don’t you. There are countless examples.
Lets say I get a common bacterial chest infection, i’m poor and have no access to antibiotics, whether you’re rich or poor its beneficial to you that i’m not a walking disease distributor.
The poor are usually immuno-compromised from lack of food and stress, their bodies become a 5 star hotel for various infections and pathogens. Not all immuno-compromised people die from infection, plenty remain perfect hosts, these are the populations in which we will commonly see disease mutation, disease evolution, so… its beneficial to everyone that they’re fed/given medicine in the long run.
These poorer populations could easily start off an epidemic nor would traditional outbreak coverages ever reach these populations.
Yeah, and so universal health care isn’t so much a right as it is a responsibility. It’s like education. We force people to go to go to school, because it benefits society at large. We don’t allow them to go to school.
actually we do… we force people to go to school true, but the troublemakers get incarcerated in special schools and the “normal” kiddos are indoctrinated in the regular schools they are allowed to attend…
-Imp
And what is the parallel between honest, hardworking americans who can’t afford an operation and troublemakers?