Jump to content

The Terrible Sweal

Member
  • Posts

    1,710
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by The Terrible Sweal

  1. Voting is simply not an individual undertaking. An election is a civic exercise. Of course one person's vote "doesn't matter". We are not dictators, we are citizens. So our votes matter together, not alone.
  2. It is difficult to take these kinds of complaints seriously in the absense of any specific examples. I follow events closely, and I canot recall any pro-forced-childbirth people being thrown to wolves. So I invite you to give examples for people to understand what you mean. In previous conversations with others who have expressed the same as you here, I have noticed that some people feel that someone who uses her inherent righs to free expression to disagree is being 'intolerant'. Such a position is merely nonsense or special pleading, of course.
  3. You've been told probably a hundred times. 1. Competion between public and private systems will cause prices to rise in the public system. 2. Balkanizing the system sacrifices cost savings from ecomomies of scale. 3. The requirement for profitablility will take that portion of money out of the system. There is no logical policy reason that necessary resources cannot be provided publicly and funded through taxes. The only reason for going privately is that people don't want to pay what it takes to care for everyone -- i.e. short-sighted selfishness (the trademark of neoconservatism everywhere).
  4. It seems you don't fully understand the situation. First, a Court decision is perfectly cpable of being either right or wrong ad this one is wrong. Next, the SCC passage you cite is not a majority conclusion on the overall issue. Nor is it an exhaustive analysis of public health policy. So much for the decision. Now for the issue: you assert my "theory" is "ideological". Well then, you should be able to show how my position falls down on a logical basis, but so far that hasn't been accomplished.
  5. Translation too, please. Res ipsa loquitur... the thing proves itself. I'll take that to mean that you would not have voted for Maurice Duplessis or J. Edgar Hoover simply because they were gay. I have no idea where you are getting that notion. I would not vote for either of them because they were both corrupt crypto-fascists.
  6. I don't know the Quebec law well enough to know how like or unlike laws in the rest of Canada it may be. Certainly, it is possible that analogous facts will tend to have the same logic applied to them. However, there may be important differences in the laws which will produce different results. Also, the composition of this judges on this bench will probably not be repeated when these other laws are tested, so the outcome is somewhat less than perfectly predictable. If you search the media you might find some interesting stories on this point. yeah, but if the Supreme Court didn't buy that, why should I? The supremes didn't find against all of those reasons, they only found against the last one. (ANOTHER reason this decision is faulty, btw.) As for undermining the public effort, you should be persuaded by my logic (and that of the dissenting judges). Well, I don't see any necessary conceptual problems with a regime of free market supply but the 'single payer' on the demand side. What would you say to that? Let me know briefly and then I'll respond to the remainder of your (very interesting) comments.
  7. Good and bad are too subjective. The point is whether you'd vote for a gay or straight prime minister. Like Argus said, most gay politicians are left of center, so if you're a right supporter...why would you vote for a gay PM? Worse yet, if you're strongly opposed to homosexuality and perhaps the agenda that the gay prime minister would push, would he not be a BAD PM in your eyes? This poll is obviously absurd. So the true point is whether you'd vote for a gay prime minister or not. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What is absurd is the many prevaricating efforts to evade the simple meaning of this poll. Injecting extraneous elements (like a presumed leftwingness in a gay leader), or attempting to reinterpret the neutrality of the simple premise of 'good' or 'bad' merely highlight the value of this poll: it is constructed perfectly the quantify extreme 'homophobia' among respondents. Res ipsa loquitur, almost. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I think most of us were pointing out that it was simplistic. Clearly that's not a problem for you. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> So 'simplistic' is the new malapropism you intend to attempt on this, is it? The question was simple. The construction/selection of the question was anything but. It was careful and effective.
  8. Let me ask you a question. If a gay guy ran against a straight guy and the straight guy was the better candidate - how many homosexuals would vote for the gay guy regardless? Just because he's gay. And what pejorative term would you then invoke against them? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What a screwball question. What light do you think it adds to the issue here, I wonder. Anyway, in the case you describe, the term I would apply is 'bigotted'. What other answer would you expect?
  9. Good and bad are too subjective. The point is whether you'd vote for a gay or straight prime minister. Like Argus said, most gay politicians are left of center, so if you're a right supporter...why would you vote for a gay PM? Worse yet, if you're strongly opposed to homosexuality and perhaps the agenda that the gay prime minister would push, would he not be a BAD PM in your eyes? This poll is obviously absurd. So the true point is whether you'd vote for a gay prime minister or not. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What is absurd is the many prevaricating efforts to evade the simple meaning of this poll. Injecting extraneous elements (like a presumed leftwingness in a gay leader), or attempting to reinterpret the neutrality of the simple premise of 'good' or 'bad' merely highlight the value of this poll: it is constructed perfectly the quantify extreme 'homophobia' among respondents. Res ipsa loquitur, almost.
  10. NDP? No thanks, I don't want a CAW goverment.
  11. The significance of this point eludes me. No services of any kind can be offered without costs being paid (by someone).The term "specific costs" is the main point.At present, there is no direct connection between the amount people pay through taxes and the health services they consume. Users do not see a specific cost. This leads to innumerable problems and such a system is untenable in the long run. Margaret Thatcher described the problem best when she said that: "They have the usual socialist disease; they have run out of other people's money." Well, at long last someone attempts something like an argument. If I understand correctly, you suggest that a public healthcare system will suffer from a 'tragedy of the commons' effect because there is no incentive to moderate one's consumption. Well, that could be a problem, I suppose, but, what is your reaction to each of these notions: -accessing the healthcare system includes innate disincentives of inconvenience and exposure to sick people, and probes and tests and such; -could market-type incentives be devised and applied to the user which maintain universality and would they solve the problem you identify; -would reasonable rationing not solve the problem?
  12. There is no 'reality' to that whatsoever. What good would that do? Alberta can't separate anyway.
  13. Well, that's half right, anyway. Y'know what I find ironic, however? Argus, you make essentially the same arguments FOR more police as he opposes in regard to healthcare.
  14. Interesting thread , Cartman. I fear however, you seek in vain for consistency from some parties on this point. Hugo's position, for example, seems to be that any collective action he approves of is 'voluntary' and therfore acceptable (irrespective of the views of his neighors) and any collective action he disapproves of is oppression, with seemingly nothing but his subjective preferences forming the distinction.
  15. I disagree, but what is your rationale for that position? People avoid paying taxes. Yet, taxes are paid and government services are provided. The money exists, so you are mistaken. This analogy (or whateverit is) seems to me to lack ay coherent connection to the question: Why prefer private expense on healthcare to public? Connection? Don't get the washing dishes analogy?Here's a different, Hollywood-movie idea to consider: Go to the parking lot of a large shopping mall on a Saturday afternoon. Look at all the cars. Now, imagine that terrorists destroyed the mall and after the attack, the government had to coordinate getting all those cars back to the proper owners - or their families. Now then, how long does it take a shopping mall parking lot to empty after the mall closes on a normal Saturday? Sweal, why is the second method so much easier than the first method? (BTW, the Russian government faced this exact problem with about 400 cars after the theatre hostage crisis a few years ago.) ??????????? You've now sent me from confused to totally lost. Instead of these increasingly arcane scenarios, I will again ask you to simply tell me: Why prefer private expense on healthcare to public? Huh? Sweal, is that a serious question or are you merely being solipsistic? Solipsistic?? Whatever. My question was a serious one because I found certain comments suggested an inconsistency that is irreconcilable unless poverty is seen as appropriate or desireble. I've already explained that. Different qualities of food are not generally a matter of life and death. But look, if the argument from the private health care lobby is that it is right and proper that possession of wealth be the criteria that decides who lives and dies, at least that would be consistent. Depraved perhaps, inefficient and short-sighted certainly, but consistent. I don't think it should micromanage, and I advocate private competitve supply solutions, but the reason for the state to provide equal health care for all is the same reason we provide (theoretically) equal police protection for all.
  16. I do think that would be good, but I don't see it as directly conected to the healthcare question. I'm familiar withit somewhat through studying Milton Freidman. It sound like a good idea, but again, the connection to healthcare seems tenuous to me. The significance of this point eludes me. No services of any kind can be offered without costs being paid (by someone). What is your reason, then?
  17. Please don't play silly just for the mere sake of it. Of course others have such rights; what concerns us here is the meaning and extent of them. Precedent applies only to what the court actually and specifically decides, not to what it does not decide. So no binding precedent applies to the Canadian charter from this case. It's already out there, and probably well enough known to you that I don't need to recite it here. In thestructure of court case perhaps, but this is apulic policy debate. Anyway, private is less good than public because it is more expensive, not equitable and undermines the public effort. I have read these theads assiduously and I did not see any such explanation, though I hae seen many assertions to that effect. Please EXPLAIN why private investment will yield better outcomes than equivalent public investment. I don't see that Canada's healthcare system is any stronger. Kimmy's healthcare conglomerate is, but the healthcare systemis not improve by your mere possession of this machine without some further assumptions in this example. Kimmy if you want to have a serious discussion it is necessary that you present your opponent's positions fairly and accurately. You have not done so in this case. I really don't have the patience necessary to mollycoddle people who should know better. Breifly put, in "Sweal-world" you get to spend the after tax winnings on whatever you like because healthcare is ALREADY paid for from the taxes. Since combining everyone's tax money makes healthcare less expensive, you get to keep more money to buy your SUV. Noooo. We have laws to maintain a monopoly on demand, not supply. The public benefit. The collective solution is less costly and more equitable. Conducted properly it would ensure more health is achieved overall. So the logic I don't see is any support for a more expensive, inequitable, and therefor less publicly beneficial, private system.
  18. In a court case this is captured by the government having to demonstrate that Charter S.1 is met. I accede that this onus exists and is proper. Note that the SCC did not overule the Quebec law based on the Charter, so outside Quebec, the legitimacy of similar legislation is an open question. It's hardly utopian. For the purposes of this discussion, I don't care who implements it. My vision was the reality until a few years of mismanagement led to the current "crisis". But that is not my position. I want that capital to come onstream too, I just say it can and should be pooled for the common good rather than for private benefit. I'm asking you and others to give me a lucid reason why private is better than public. It is no answer to answer me that private is better than nothing. It worked well for a number of years. The very point of our discussion is what each of thinks should be done. As such we are eac presuming we are not 'stuck with' the present conditions.
  19. The Conservative's problems are not really centred on Stephen Harper's personality. Recent Conservative leaders' deficiencies have been symptoms of their party's infirmity rather tahn causes of it. Stockwell day was a ridiculous candidate for PM, but don't blame him. Ask instead who chose him and why. Harper will be made to wear the coming defeat, but he didn't fail because he can't tell a joke. He failed because his party's choices are consistently shot thru with basically flawed worldviews. This problem leads to things that look sometimes like strategic mistakes. And sometimes they are, but no planners can make a decent strategy when they don't let themselves acknowledge the nature of the terrain.
  20. You are filled with hatred, venom and bitterness towards others. Fortunateley you're on guard with your superduper accurate venom detecter to safeguard general good cheer! Thanks Arg.
  21. So are you guys arguing in favor of poverty or against it?
  22. I don't think you are really talking about a democracy in most of those situations.
  23. It sure would be. But I don't think there's anyone out there who demanded that.
  24. nice try Sweal. Your little quibbles hardly count as "thoroughly discrediting". <{POST_SNAPBACK}> A retarded flea could see that the methodology of that study was a joke. It scarcely needed me to point that out!
×
×
  • Create New...