Would YOU vote for RON PAUL

Indie

Actually if you supply good education you can have many more medically trained people. The problem is that many people’s potential can be stifled by disadvantage. Your problem is that you only look at outcomes not potential; when education is opened up it soon becomes clear that the children of labourers can become doctors when that wouldn’t be the case otherwise.

According to Nationmaster the US has 2.3 physicians per 1,000 people whereas Cuba has 5.91 per 1,000 people. Meaning that "Despite the blockade, Cuba has achieved better healthcare results than most Latin American countries and comparable with those of most of the developed nations"

But effective healthcare doesn’t have to be about numbers but the effective use of them so for example the UK has only 2.2 per 1,000 people which is cheaper while reaching more people than the US model.

I pay for my health care its call the NHS (National Health Service) a healthcare system that many right wing Americans disparagingly call ‘socialist’.

We all pay into a communal chest so in effect I am helping to pay for other people’s healthcare just as someone is helping to pay for my healthcare.

Even when I am not ill I am happy to pay into the chest because I think it is good to have a healthy society (and while I may not need it so much when I’m young I may do when I’m old). The ones I’ve heard complain the most are those that choose to have private healthcare because they resent also having to pay into the community chest.

As far as I can tell the right wing libertarian idea is that people would have to pay directly for their healthcare. No community chest just ability to pay would dictate the level of healthcare someone would receive. No money no treatment, a little money a little treatment and so on. A big winner would be those that have the money already to go private because they wouldn’t have to pay into a community chest but to me the rest of society would be worse off.

And as said the NHS seems to do well when compared to other healthcare systems being cheaper and more universal than say the US model.

 

I believe I told you before that I tend to stick with the 1828 Websters dictionary definitions of words.

Just as much, someone born into advantage can lack any potential at all. People excel best when they put their potential to use. You really dwell heavily on wealth, and maliciously restating the words used by others to say what you would like them to have said.

In life, neither potential nor advantages are equally distributed at birth regardless of wealth, and in living ones life advantages more often are availed those who possess and/or have honed their potentials.

 

Indie

Man you really need to get something more up-to-date. You do realise that words can change meaning and emphases over time don’t you?

Anyway a more modern dictionary definition of ‘cripple’ is a disabled person and many also explain it can be a derogatory or offensive term for a disabled person.

Anyway I’ll rephrase the question are you saying that you think ‘cripples’ cannot be healthy or athletic. Because as I pointed out I recently ran the London Marathon and many competitors in that race had disabilities and all were healthy and athletic they just happened to be disabled.

And that this attitude toward the disabled seems to imply that being born into social disadvantage is in your mind the exact same as being born with a mental or physical disadvantage and so an equal race between the disadvantaged and advantaged is impossible because the advantaged are physically and mentally superior. So in your mind the only way to ‘level the field’ is to ‘cripple’ the superior advantaged because it would be impossible to help the disadvantaged and that seems like a very Social Darwinist viewpoint.

To me someone born into disadvantaged could have the same potential as a person born into advantage, it just that in a race one has the advantage over the other.

 

Indie

But that can be the thing with advantage it can cushion or shield someone from having little or no potential.

But that can be the thing about advantage it can cushion someone from having less talent than someone else who has more but is disadvantaged. It cushions people from failures and opens up the number of opportunities to succeed.

As I’ve said before someone wouldn’t have to work that hard to beat an opponent in a 100 metre race if they were given a 50 metre advantage or if the other runners was disadvantaged by having to carry a 100lb bag of potatoes.

 

I try to look at government as a legal system, or in other words, the laws the citizens agree to live within.
An economic system to me is little more than the means by which the exchange of goods and services take place.
Charities are functions that should be fulfilled by individuals of the society, and likely would be much more efficiently than done by government.

Are you that envious of those you feel are born into wealth, and angered as a result that they have an unfair advantage?

I don't see the sense of comparing a plague to the wealth of the family one is born into. People can begin life very poor and end up extremely wealthy, and can also begin life very wealthy and end up broke. If you have potential, make use of it.

And again, yes, it is justified for a person born into advantage to retain exclusive rights to advantages they didn’t earn rather than share them with others who through no blame of their own are disadvantaged? If the advantages, (wealth?), you refer to were legally obtained then why would it not be justified?

 

There can be both advantages and disadvantages no matter what you are born into. Success usually is obtained by using the advantages, properly dealing with any disadvantages. Nor can I verify any of your claims.

How about the Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, Greece, and perhaps soon the EU as a whole.

Aren't your views the dominant views of your community? And if so why have the policies not changed?

Pragmatically speaking, "Ends don't justify the means" but instead "Means are the source of the ends"

 

I think you're intelligent enough to understand what I meant, but if it helps, replace the word crippled in my post with "broken leg". But then would I also have to stipulate that the leg was not broken by the more able, and wealthier opponent, who ran him down with his expensive sports car, refusing the injured person needed crutches that the able opponent had stolen from the injured opponents Grandmother, as suggested by another post?

In living too, individuals frequently possess advantages over one another. It's simply a matter of discovering what advantages you possess and putting them to work for your benefit. I can only speak from real life experiences, relating to my own and others I have first hand knowledge of, so I won't bother relating them to you.

 

The vast majority of people have some potential, and if put to use would benefit not only themselves but the society they live within as well.

Being born into advantage also cushions society as they still have needs which must be purchased from those who make them available.

What's the point of running in this hypothetical race?

 

Indie

Interesting - my solutions involve helping people but your reaction to a problem is violence?

My solution to the disadvantage of having to carry a 100lb bag of potatoes would be to remove it (not make the other runner carry one as well), the solution to the advantage of having a 50 metre head start is to have both contestants start from the same line, the best solution to the disadvantage of having a broken leg would be medical attention, rest and physiotherapy. Why would you suggest that the ‘best’ solution would be to break the leg of the other contestant?

 

Indie

In what way are these examples of ‘my’ ideas? I was never a supporter of the Soviet system, I think the US policy toward Cuba strengthened rather than weakened that authoritarian regimes hold on the country as if did with Venezuela.

Also as pointed out to you before places like Greece, Spain and Italy got into their current economic problems after following neoliberal ideas and in the EU the countries weathering a financial crisis brought about by neoliberal ideas globally are those that least followed the neoliberal model.

Here a previous post - As pointed out to you before - all of the countries of the EU have had neo-liberal governments in power during the last 30 years. Many political parties of the right and the left succumbed to neoliberal ideas.

In the UK the flawed neoliberal ideas of the Thatcher era were taken up by the New Labour leadership.

In Greece the government that was in power just prior to the crisis (2004-2009) was the “strictly neoliberal” right wing New Democracy Party which used derivatives as a means of hiding the true level of their debts. In Spain the neo-liberal Peoples Party was in power from 1996-2004 (and created the conditions for that countries housing bubble) and was succeeded by an opposition party ‘of the left’ that followed many of its neoliberal ideas and as for Italy the right wing neoliberal Silvio Berlusconi has been in power for eight of the last ten years.

I think your problem is that you don’t have rational arguments so you end up trying to point score or sneer – it doesn’t strengthen your argument it just reveals how weak it is.

 

Indie

Oh dear falling back once more on you irrational arguments, are you claiming that everyone who has ever fought for or will ever fight for some social justice or to make a society a fairer place is and was only ever motivated by envy?

Yep have no reply so pretend you don’t understand. Maybe if you read it again – Let us imagine a plague, a disease that could affect anyone but will actually end up only affecting half of the population* But nobody knows which half.

That is a societal problem.

In such a situation I think most sensible people would want the community’s government to try and do something about it and be willing to pay the taxes to tackle the situation.

Now lets say that half a population are born into disadvantage and half not. But since no one can choose beforehand to which half they are to be born, it basically means disadvantage could affect anyone.

So again it is a societal problem.

The difference is that there is the problem of hindsight, when those born into advantage are taxed to help the disadvantaged, they might not go ‘oh I could have been born disadvantaged myself’ they might go ‘why should I help’. It is like knowing who would be affected by the disease and who not.

(*And I’m not saying disadvantage is a disease, I’m just using the plague idea as an example)

 

Indie

I’ve been asking you this question for some two years now and you still have no rational or reasonable answer – I mean come on I’m not asking you about the legality or otherwise of earned money I’m asking you about unearned advantage – so once more with feeling -

Is it justified for a person born into advantage to retain exclusive rights to advantages they didn’t earn rather than share them with others who through no blame of their own are disadvantaged?

(PS: Shouldn’t you be asking yourself why you find this question so hard to address?)

 

Where have I promoted violence? Did I suggest breaking the other contestants leg? If you have a reading disability advise me so and I will apologize, then knowing your reading abilities are disadvantaged and perhaps affecting your comprehension.

Actually, I see no need to seek a solution in the case of a race. The object is competition, and the first to the finish line is the winner. Of course that person may not come in first, or even finish, in every race afterwards. And in the London marathon, I believe there was a woman who took over two weeks to finish the race, knowing she had no chance in hell of winning it, but at least put forth the effort instead of dwelling on her disadvantage

I think it is laudable that you would like to help people, but it would appear that your intent is the promotion of government force to impose 'your' choices upon everyone.

 

Wasn't it Margaret Thatcher who said “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. ”
In the 1800's the Owenites made an attempt similar to what to propose, which quickly ended in failure. I presume that's no longer mentioned in American history classes. Any here recently schooled or currently in school who could answer that?
When you associate the term "Right wing" in reference to European politics, I think it would compare more to what is known as "Moderate Left wing" in the U.S.

 

His answer to your question was quoted in your own post. He said yes. How the hell is that not addressing the question?

 

Individual and apparently you don't comprehend the question. Balbus was asking about unearned advantage.

 

Tell me why this wasn't an answer to the question:

Perhaps the question would get a more detailed response if it were more specific. What advantages are you talking about? It is assumed that the advantage in question is wealth. In that case, is it justified to take my earnings and possessions away from my children and loved ones after I die?

 

Why not think of it like this: the wealth of a nation belongs to all the people collectively.
To be sure, if I take a raw material and make a finished good out of it, I deserve payment for services rendered, but the raw materials belong to all of us. We are being treated as if none of it belongs to us.

 

By what reasoning are advantages required to be earned? Advantages as well as disadvantages are simply the circumstances or conditions we each encounter in living our lives, and recognizing the difference in making choices is how we benefit or reduce our losses. Obviously, we can spend an eternity in trying to judge the fairness of nearly every circumstance we encounter in our lives, while holding in contempt those who we judge to have what we decide to be unfair, unjust, or unearned.
This form of argument is little more than the overt promotion of class warfare.

Is it fair and just that many of those living today are doing so at cost to generation yet to be born?

 

And after making a finished good from that raw material the payment received should belong to who? Or should I refer to your first sentence, it belongs to the people collectively? Are you really sharing proportionately with everyone, as you seem to imply we all should?

By the way, most often those raw materials end up in a dump somewhere and once again belong to all of us collectively.

Hard to believe asking if you would vote for Ron Paul would lead to this form of discussion.