What is in a name

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Stanley "Tookie" Willams became a "peace activist":

Phil Gasper is a professor of philosophy at Notre Dame de Namur University in California, a member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty and Educators for Tookie. On Dec. 7th he nominated Stan Tookie Williams for the Nobel Peace Prize. This is the sixth time Williams has been nominated.

http://www.savetookie.org/

He became a famous activist struggling against the death penalty and to overcome gang violence, and fought up to his death bed. He drafted the Tookie Protocol for Peace, a national street peace initiative. This is a framework for peace between gangs. This Legacy network was founded to achieve Tookie’s last wishes, including violence prevention education, literacy projects, and work for social justice, including abolishing the death penalty. Go online and read the Protocol for Peace!

http://www.prisonactivist.org/directory/death-penalty/stanley-tookie-williams-legacy-network

It's almost amazing that he also found time to commit several murders.

Plus he carried hand guns, assault weapons too. Wouldn't at least that make him somewhat suspect in the eyes of his liberal supporters?

I am myself against the death penalty, but I do wonder why these protesters always seem to chose the most vile murderers as example cases.

The renaming is an important part of it, of course.

Sell people a "peace activist" who "writes children's books" and you get them to support you. Sell them the murderer he is, and it would be more difficult (you would only reach hardcore liberals).

 

Incidentally, those gang wars he wanted to end, as a "peace activist"?

He founded one of the two major gangs that fought them.

 

thank you leauki. I can't believe I forgot about your liberal dictionary... I linked it in the OP...

Also forget people calling themselves peace activists and freedom fighters...

Look, would you pay $250/pound for something called "monkey shit coffee" or rather for some exotic blend called Kopi Luaka?

It is all about the labeling and who can be fooled by it.  Planned Parenthood is anything but that.

The nice name is part of the customer experience. The coffee is still something people want.

But nobody wants a mass murderer, not even with a nice name. Plus I can ignore the coffee if I don't like it or its name.

 

If you want Parenthood and a Plan, go to a priest. He will tell you what to do.

 

I don't think health care reform is such a big problem. It should just go hand-in-hand with tort reform.

Liberals like how Europe does things? Well, do it the European way. The party that loses, pays the legal bills of both sides. And damages are never meant as a punishment. There we go. We introduced something left-wing from Europe that the American elite, the lawyers, do not want. How socialist am I?

Next step, reform the health care system. Want to make sure everyone can afford health care? Lower the costs. Tort reform already lowers the costs significantly, so we are half-way there. I am sure doctors and nurses themselves can propose good ways to lower health care costs (that won't affect them). There we are.

Get the state(s) to fund free clinics that are also used as teaching hospitals. Require students to work in them to gain experience. This is already done. Expand this system!

Now health care costs are lower and insurance prices have gone down. Next problem: the idiots who decide against getting health insurance. No problem. Make a law that forces people to buy health insurance (of any insurer they want, as long as the insurer covers what is deemed necessary to be covered) or let them pay a penalty. The money thus collected from the idiots can be used to finance emergency and basic care.

Finally, attack the red tape. Force insurers to take anyone, regardless of medical condition. Since everyone will choose some insurer, the risk will even out. (Sick people do not gang up on one insurer.)

If everyone has to be insured, there will be few problems about whether a given patient was already or still covered or not. People simply won't fall in and out of the system but only become customers of different companies with no time in between. This should make things a lot easier.

None of the insurance companies has to be public or state-funded and tax money is only needed for the teaching hospitals (which do also rely on donations). The free clinics offer their services to everyone and hence we have no direct transfer of funds from one tax payer to another.

Problem solved.

 

I must not be people.

Not true.  American liberals want Stalin and Mao, 2 of the worst.  If Hitler had been a communist instead of a socialist, they would want him as well.

Or what not to do as the case may be.

yes they do.  And while some may argue (in another venue) whether the UK, German, or canadian system is any good (or just a rationing scheme), the fact is America has not been debating it!  They have been debating health INSURANCE reform.  And the plans were doing nothing for costs (somewhat due to the fact that the lawyers are one of the democrats primary contribuutors). 

It may surprise you to learn (since the MSM just parroted the democrats in this regard) that republicans have floated reforms for Health Care and Insurance.  But being so in the minority, they were shot down before they even got out of the gate.  2 of the keystones of the Republican plans were Tort reform and Allowing Insurance to be sold across state lines.

And that is a major sticking point that I do not agree with.  Many democrats use the analogy of Car insurance (in most states you have to have it to drive).  But that fails in 2 ways.  First, you do not HAVE to buy Car insurance (you can opt not to drive), and 2 the constitution does not say "Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness, and Cars".  So driving a car is not a right, but life is.  If you penalize life, you compromise that right.

And the final flaw that may be unique to this country - Illegal Aliens*.  Since they are already off the grid, they can and will ignore the law which means they will not be insured. So regardless of the plan, not all will be insured.  But America will not pass a law that says "no insurance, no treatment" as medical care, while not a right, is a privelege that a vast majority of Americans insist upon.   Anyone in America (does not matter where you are a citizen of) will get medical care if needed, and not have to pay if they are unable. 

 

*While I understand that Illigal aliens are not unique to America, the magnitude of the issue I believe is.

If only he just killed his own, he'd be in there.

 

A lot of people want mass murderers... typically so called liberals fawn over murderers because they are "freedom fighters" or some other BS. As long as they murder conservatives, jews, hunters, whalers, or other groups that the left loathes.

This carries several problems, it requires the state to override personal decision making like a nanny. It is redistributives. the illegals will get it without paying any. and so on.

A better solution is to leave things as they are.

An ideal solution is that if you refuse to buy insurance then you don't get healthcare. Likewise, people who refuse to donate organs (in case of brain death) shouldn't be eligible to receive organs (or should be very low on the list). It sounds mean, but people must be allowed to make their own choices, even bad ones. It is a matter of freedom and basic human dignity. Besides which, the only alternative is to have the government ration who gets care and who doesn't. When you say "everyone must be treated, even if they do not have insurance OR the money to pay", you are basically taking a finite resource, and redistributing it from those who pay to those who do not. Because the extra cost of treating the uninsured for free results in decreased availability (sometimes via increased cost) to the insured. Worse yet, you are creating a disincentive for people to actually pay for insurance, and a disincentive to go into medicine (resulting in less doctors, resulting in less care overall)

 

But if you don't drive a car, you cannot force others to drive you.

But we do have an obligation to help people when they are sick, and doctors do too.

Anyone who doesn't have health insurance (or otherwise cannot pay for health care) just abuses this system.

 

There is no reason to give such health insurance for free to the illegals.

They shouldn't be in the country without paying taxes anyway.

 

Which is why the correct solution is to remove the legal obligation to furnish unlimited care to those who do not pay for it. As for it being "cruel"... more people are saved that way, because forcing the redistribution of aid just lowers the overall amount of aid available. Allowing doctors to chose how much pro bono work they do, increases the amount of doctors and care available, decreases costs for everyone, increases private donations (which have lower overhead then government mandated aid to all) etc etc etc.

But in effect, they do.

There is no legal obligation to furnish unlimited care.

But there is a tradition that doctors have to help if they can.

In fact, everybody does. Doctors just happen to be very good at it.

 

Oh, but there IS a legal obligation... if you go the ER they must care for you. It is illegal for them to turn you away.

Of course, I would expect most doctors to want to help... but if there are 50 patients in the ER and only 5 can pay / have insurance, I would expect most doctors to help them first (and possibly care for only 20 other patients for free that day because the feel like the others are not seriously sick and that their time is more limited).

This would make being a doctor more profitable, which will result in more people becoming doctors, less doctors retiring, the hiring of more support staff (nurses and the like) and the creation of additional support technology and equipment. Overall, more people would be treated and cared for, and more people will buy insurance (because there is an actual incentive to do so).

Which is not the same as a duty to furnish "unlimited care", as you put it.

 

We are not talking about selling chocolate bars here. If those 50 patients are not treated in the order of severeness, some might die. I would expect anyone, doctors and otherwise, to help those first who would die if nobody helps them. Everyone has that obligation.

Your solution would be excellent, if we decided that life and death don't matter. But if that is so we can also disband the military and wait for someone to come and kill us all. If we have a tax-funded military that kills people who want to kill any of us, we can also have a tax-funded clinic system to provide a similar service of keeping everyone of us alive.

Anyone who needs special care beyond basic survival within the safe environment of our society can hire their own militia or their own doctor.

 

Idiots will never buy insurance because they are idiots, not because there is no incentive.

People will always think that that European holiday is more important than health insurance. Legislation that subsidises health insurance won't change that and neither will relying on the market to lower costs.

The only thing that ultimately makes some people do the right thing is force, which is why we shoot at terrorists and do not offer them cheaper targets.

If we force people to pay taxes to support the (necessary) military, we can also force people to buy health insurance and pay taxes to support a basic healthcare system of free clinics (which we need for training purposes anyway).

Without basic healthcare available for free, diseases will spread. That's something the free market simply cannot deal with.

 

 

America already fulfills that obligation.  We have laws that state no one can be refused care.  Period.  The current debate is not about that, but is 2 pronged.  One being that everyone should have "Cadilac Care" and the other being they should not have to pay for it.  Both are basically untenable and unworkable.

First, free is an illusion.  Second, the free market has dealt with it - for over 200 years in this country alone.  It is not a "necessity" or a "right", it is a luxury.  We have the basic "necessities" covered.

I was talking about that obligation. It's already being done. I just think that this is one of the few areas where throwing money at the problem actually helps.

If the existing system is paired with obligatory health insurance (provided by the market) and some regulation to make sure that nobody can be rejected for pre-existing conditions (or whatever the health insurance company can come up with), the problem is solved.

 

Which particular epidemic did the market (and not the state) deal with?

 

Which one was not dealt with?  Are you stating that free markets cannot survive with States?  Clearly then we have a definition problem.

But more so, I would turn the question back on you.  What epidemic has the state dealt with effectively?  And more to the point, how has any epidemic brought down the Free Market?

What?

You said that the free market has dealth with the problem of spreading diseases. I was asking you to give an example of a disease that spread and was stopped by the free market rather than the state.

 

Smallpox.

Eliminating smallpox was a concerted effort undertaken by states, not by agents participating in the free market.

 

Non sequitur, I didn't say it had.

 

Dealt with HEALTH CARE not epidemics.  I did not address the last point.  Clearly both state and free markets have had problems dealing with them due to the very nature of them.

Smallpox was an epidemic like Polio was - in other words a continuing disease that has since been contained, but hardly an epidemic in the veign of The Spanish Flu (or even the H1N1).  And it was not a state thing, but a combination of state and free market.  The state did not create the vaccine, it just made sure distribution was universal.  So at best a partnership (as HIV is), but hardly one outclassing the other.

The implication (perhaps misread) was there.  A logical extension of the statement that the free market failed during times of epidemics.  It has not yet. 

 

Perhaps it would help with clarity if I stated I am not an anarchist.  To have faith in the free market does not make you one.  I believe in minimal government, not no government.

A good chunk of those who do not right now do so because they are NOT idiots. They see they can be given something for free. A know a woman who has a friend who pretended to be an illegal immigrant when she gave birth to avoid paying any hospital bills for example. It wasn't stupid, it was a stroke of genious, morally dubious, but not stupid.

The rare few who still do not buy it, well too bad. The state is not their nanny and people should live with their choices (not to mention it is time we stopped paying idiots to outbreed everyone else; using everyone elses money btw). Those people can rely on private charity. And if a few more of them die, it will be offset by many more being saved by repealing such laws. And remembers, those are the people that doctors refused to see for free on their own private dime. I find it highly doubtful that doctors will just start turning away patients who would otherwise die like that (even the most mercantile doctor will see it is bad publicity... and remember that most doctors are highly compassionate). What I expect is that generally it would be people with non serious conditions who refuse to get insurance that will be denied care by doctors should doctors be ALLOWED to deny them care.

There is also the issue of basic human rights. If you force a doctor to furnish care to someone, by law, you are making him into a slave. A temporary slave who is rich and has many rights and protections... but for a short time, a salve nontheless.

Agreed.  Of the "45 million" that are not insured, about 12 million are people that are rich enough not to worry about it (so how does that make them idiots), and young people that are gambling.  Gambling they can save $300/mn in the bank and let it grow, instead of wasting it on something they will not use (and guess what?  most win that bet).

In fact, 20 years ago, I was a gambler.  And I won.

I actually included those people in "idiots".

They are not actually cleverer than others, just more unscrupulous.

I used "idiot" in the classical sense: a disconnected, private (but not necessarily stupid) person. Someone who finds himself outside the system (in this case a society which looks after itself). These people abuse the system and a society in which too many people abuse the system is a society of idiots (in the English sense of the word).

What the woman did  was not, as you probably agree, "morally dubious" but theft.



People become doctors by choice, knowing of the obligations. It's a case of voluntary servitude. There is no human right that forbids voluntary servitude.

If someone becomes a member of parliament or President he also realises (one would hope) that the job comes with certain obligations, cruel as they may seem, and while he arguably becomes, ideally, a slave to the society he is to serve, it is still voluntary servitude.

The same applies to soldiers (unless drafted), firemen, police men (except private police men, probably) and many other professions. Physician is simply regarded, by society, as one of the professions that come with automatic obligations. The only way to escape those obligations is not to become a doctor/soldier/President/fireman.

I thought idiot meant stupid

And theft is morally dubious... I might be misusing the word dubious then. Yes it is clearly theft, she stole from the rest of the population

EDIT: I think the word I meant was "unscrupulous"...

although, technically, if she is paying taxes she is just taking back what she is being forced to give... there is no moral justification to redistribution of "wealth"

and when you are forced to provide medical care without compensation against your will you are being drafted... they are forcing you to furnish such care because you have training to do so, but you are forced nonetheless...

I don't buy the "don't become a doctor if you don't want the government to force you to care for people for free" line...

Although... with it being the case, I and others like me have decided NOT to become a doctor. Go figure... I have better things to do with my life then med school for 7 years and study 16+ hours a day if it means being vilified AND the government forcing me to work for free AND the government trying to set equal wages for all doctors and other such bullcrap. My friend's ucle is a doctor in cuba... he is not allowed to ever go outside the country on "vacation" or to "visit family" (he has family out of the country) because they fear he will escape the country... We aren't there yet, but we are getting close.

To clarify, I agree that it is "moral" and "just" for a doctor to help someone even if they cannot pay, and if someone was dying and the doctor refused to help I would consider said doctor to be a bad person. However he does not commit any violence on someone by his inaction, and laws should not and must not penalize such inaction. If you have acquired the skills to help but decided not to, that is your prerogative.