The founding fathers were slave owners

The ultra free market has failed to give health coverage to everyone in the United States or to control its costs. Speaking of education, why do Americans constantly have this asinine idea that it can only be a completely unregulated free market or full government intervention. The NHS and such is the exception, not the norm. Most first world countries provide universal health care through heavily regulated private companies.

The size of the circle represents how often a citizen of said country is likely to utilize health resources:


How exactly are private insurance companies not stealing from you when the same job is done for that much cheaper in other countries?

 

The word "free" in free market is not an indication that it "gives" you something for free. A market is a place in which goods and/or services are bought and sold. In a free market the seller sets a price, the buyer then is "free" to accept the price, bargain for a lower price, or simply say no thanks and shop elsewhere. I do it every day in Asia, and it works very well. Competition who recognizes they can increase sales by reducing their prices do well and most often prices settle to a lower level which allows for profit while attracting the consumers.
No one, or at least I, has said markets should be completely unregulated, as there are cases where regulations are a necessity, but very few.
Here in Asia, I can purchase American produced drugs without prescriptions and at a small fraction of the price charged in the U.S. for the same drugs. This is an example of redistribution of wealth at work, which is one reason drug prices in the U.S. are so high. Part of the cost is subsidizing the poorer nations costs. I've seen complaints that even Canada prices American produced drugs lower than in the U.S. and it is illegal for U.S. citizens to import them from Canada.

So what?

Better yet, how ARE they stealing from you when you are not forced to buy from them? You have the option of traveling to the country that charges less, and hopefully provides the same quality of treatment. But why do so many people travel to the U.S. for care when it is so much more expensive than the care they could receive at home?

Human innovation and technology have brought to market many goods and services that have never before existed. The acquisition of these goods and services that we find desirable or necessities does not give us a right to have them, but only the availability for those who can afford them. Charitable individuals, NOT government should be the only method of filling the gaps where they exist, and in that way a society is brought together more closely than when government is seen as the primary provider of human needs.

 

So what? The entire point is how are people really free if the "free" market are fleecing them and their shackled down by health care costs. Nobody forces you to buy a car either yet we all still have to pay for roads, if you want to live in a society you need to work for the betterment of the overall society, not just yourself. In the 21st century there's no moral way it could no include some form of basic health coverage in the world's richest nation. The free market gives people with the ability to pay to seek better care than just the basics. The being forced into having health insurance and taxes taken to help pay for it may take away some philosophical freedom, but it gives more pragmatic freedom to more people who are slaves to medical bills and fear of getting sick. It also frees people from the shackles of their own health insurance, how many people have stayed in a job for no other reason than the costs of health insurance. The so what is the fact the in this regards people are already financial slaves to the current system of free market health care. If a society can't strike a balance than there's no freedom period.

The irony is most people who complain about the mandate of having to have health insurance are people who already have health insurance and won't be effected except for their taxes going to pay for it. You can't implement universal health care without everyone having insurance though, the larger the pool the lower the costs.

 

No, you have the option of moving to another country, renouncing your citizenship and paying taxes there.

This is bullshit. No other response comes to mind.

There is no such thing as "Self reliance" when living within a culture.

Right after they teach them to read.

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The real philosophical question is how can it be defined as "stealing" if the state takes something from you, i.e generally. money, when all property, currency, ect exists because of the state.

 

And, since those, like you, who believe so much in "personal responsibility," are probably not "charitable individuals", your plan won't work.

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THAT is asinine, we don't live in a free world where everything we need or want is provided us freely. Freedom is only what we as individuals make it. We gain benefit from the works of others, and avail ourselves of their works through our own works. If you can't keep up with the more innovative, that's not the fault of those who are innovative, but a fault of your own.

Insurance is a method where those who pay into the pool should gain benefit from the pool, not a welfare program.

 

Often seeing posts of how other countries are providing the demands the left wants, why then are there not a large number of them moving to those great countries?

Call it what you may, but the facts stand.

What culture would that be? Self reliance requires some individual perseverance. I prefer to choose who I will allow to freeload, and also prefer to make the decision as to how much or how long I will put up with it.

I don't disagree with that. Schools should primarily teach the 3 R's, and to think on their own, NOT what to think.

 

Let's get real. Property exists, it was not created by the state. Currency exists only as a simple means of carrying out transactions, and the value it represents is the labor of the individual who initially earned it. The state exists as a creation of the people, not the other way round. We have allowed the state to acquire greater power over the people, and move closer and closer to a true democracy at the Federal level. When I use the term state I refer to the Federal government, which is quite different from the distinct, once sovereign states from which it is comprised.

Taxes in many cases are not seen as theft primarily because they benefit all equally, while taxes that are intended to benefit some at no cost while placing the cost on others can border on theft, or in some cases be outright theft.

 

It's not a plan, but the exercise of freedom. I am charitable to the causes or individuals I perceive worthy. You and others are free to provide charity to those I perceive unworthy if you wish. Have you never seen anyone you would refuse to help, or know that any assistance would not be beneficial but misused?
Who should have the greatest authority in defining what your personal responsibilities are? You or a government agency?

 

What about those who are now out of work, for no fault of their own, who are now getting assistance from the government. Many have paid taxes for decades getting no welfare assistance.

As for your private charity, it ain't workin. Food banks get their stock from charity, and they're out of food. Millions of Americans are loosing their homes, where is the private charity? People are dying from lack of medical care, where is the charity?

The bottom line is you and your fellow conservatives are stingy people who have no compassion for those who are less fortunate. Sorry if I'm blunt tonight, but I've been watching the Gulf Coast Oil debacle and thinking about how the banks and big business crashed the economy and we, the "ones who can't keep up" are paying the bills. You have no idea what you're talking about. The rich are rich because they made it from the sweat of the lower classes; then refuse to share. I'm getting tired of hearing this conservative mantra of responsibility and trickle down economics. Nothing is going down, it all comes from the consumer, going upward. If we don't spend, no one gets rich.

This country had a Democratic Congress for about 60 years. During that time we rose to become the most powerful and richest nation on Earth. A decade of Republican control and we're in a near depression with an army in such disarray we couldn't muster enough troops to protect our homeland if we were attacked.

How much farther down the toilet do we need to get before you conservatives realize that your ideologies just don't work.

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What about them?

Take some of that political funding and send it to charity instead.

You're really hung up on those who have more than you, or more than YOU think they deserve.

The countries been crumbling for over a century now, regardless of which party has been in control.

And yours will? Mine have yet to be tried.

 

Nope, sorry, property only exists because of the state. You can posses something without the state, but you can't own it. The state is what sets up the legal framework and institutions for you to actually legally own something and have it recognized as such by society. Private currency can also exist, but the backing of a central authority is basically the only thing that gives it any long term credibility and wide acceptance.

No, that's asinine. You are not a Nietzsche superman, you live in a society, your well being is dependent on other people, many of who might be getting shafted by the system. A society must offer some level of support to its least well off, especially in the most basic regards such as health care and food.

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The most important part of this:

The word freedom is also a read hearing if you can't actually name what freedoms you're giving up

 

Our founding fathers gave us the right to property. They also warned against a central bank. If you want to know what the founding fathers thought about anything read their writings, not the writings of historians go directly to their words. In order to have a United States certain issues had to be set aside, but the framework to address those shortcomings was also put in place.
Most if not all thought slavery was bad, many freed their slaves as soon as they could.
Slavery still exists today it is called welfare.

 

People who call welfare slavery are people who have never lived on welfare.

Also, I don't particularly give a fuck of the founding fathers views on a lot of things, especially economics. They lived and were educated in the mid 1750's, I don't know about you but last I checked we were living in the year 2010.

You have also not been able to come up with any freedom you are losing.

 

So, people who are unpopular should be allowed to die?

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No more than you are hung up on allowing the less privileged to die out.

This is plain bullshit. The country was doing fine till the Republicans took over in the mid nineties.

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This nation was created to accommodate change, but some people are not.

He lost the freedom to watch the poor starve to death.

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We were on food stamps years ago when I was little, without them we wouldn't have starved but we would've basically been eating nothing but cheese sandwiches and potato chips probably. It is in fact cheaper to eat like complete shit then remotely healthy.

 

The food banks around here rely on private donations, of which there are not enough; so, they charge $10.00 per box of food to stay afloat. Ten years ago I was put out of work through no fault of my own and had absolutely no income. I almost starved to death, loosing about 40 pounds in a very short period of time. I lived on wine and sugar for nearly a month. Had it not been for food assistance, I would have died.

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