It's impolite to interrupt. But lying, though hardly recognized as such in our passive-agressive society, is a far worse transgression. The U.S. Congress resembled a raucous British House of Commons last night, as South Carolinian Joe Wilson responded to Obama's health-care assurances with a curt, "You lie!" I don't believe Barack Obama either when he says nationalized health care won't fund abortions or illegal aliens. The federal government already subsidizes abortion and illegal aliens already benefit from Medicaid. If abortionists and illegal aliens would go unsubsidized, why are La Raza and Planned Parenthood so agressive in supporting Obama's "reform" efforts?
So you're saying that if a human being needs health care the U.S. ought to deny them that care depending on the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates of their birth? That's beautiful, Mr. Flynn. *golfclaps*
If it's any consolation to you PMA, I don't think the United States government should pay for my health care, either.
PMA
If they're in the country illegaly patch them up enough so they'll survive the trip home then ship them out, let their home countries pay for them.
Save the arrogance,I live with in a few miles of the border and have a front row seat to the abuse of our medical system and other government benefits.
Nearly half the births at my local hospital are to illegals who don't pay their bills, roughly a third of all the people treated at the hospital are illegals, none of whom pay their bills. Start sending cash anytime you want to help out.
As for the Congressman's outburst, good for him, too bad he's already apologizing.
There is good common sense based on the facts and then there is PMA.
I really don't like these ad hominems either, but either PMA has not read the posts in rebuttal over the last two months regarding healthcare, or just doesn't understand them.
After that, it's the same old, same old.
I was talking to a lefty yesterday who could not understand, even when it was explained in great detail based on documented facts actual video evidence, why Van Jones should have been ousted as Obama's Green Jobs 'czar' and why he should never have been considered in the first place. Just didn't and wouldn't get it. A 40 year old child I fear.
I say again to quote somebody semi-famous - liberalism is a mental disorder.
"So you're saying that if a human being needs health care the U.S. ought to deny them that care depending on the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates of their birth?"
The clear and obvious answer is: Yes.
I just can't believe how crazy this statement is.
"If it's any consolation to you PMA, I don't think the United States government should pay for my health care, either."
So by extension you believe that Medicare should be removed from the federal budget, correct? Would this include removing publicly financed health care for children? Would you also support an end to health care for the mentally ill?
I forgot to mention in my last comment that you do pay for other's health care. Additionally, the American taxpayer (you) currently subsidize private health cartels (private insurance and pharmaceuticals) thanks to Bush and friends. What is the conservative proposal to control long-term costs absent ending Medicare, Medicaid, etc.? Do you support ending subsidies to pharmaceutical corporations and private health insurers?
Anybody remember in 2005 when Bush spoke to Congress about Social Security reform and other topics and was roundly booed and heckled by the Democrats? And how Harry Reid called him a liar?
Didn’t think anybody would recall that happening.
So by extension you believe that Medicare should be removed from the federal budget, correct? Yes, ultimately. Pay off the obligations to those who worked whole lives with expectation of this service, and allow all others to opt out. End payroll taxes.
Would this include removing publicly financed health care for children? Yes. Phase out, slash all taxes, and let a thousand charities blossom.
Would you also support an end to health care for the mentally ill? Yes. Phase out, slash all taxes, and let a thousand charities blossom.
Do you support ending subsidies to pharmaceutical corporations and private health insurers? Yes, as well as all other forms of corporate welfare, including regulatory roadblocks to competition.
And isn't it interesting that the bulk of the health industry and Big Pharma is lock-stock behind the President in this fight? As I wrote for FreedomWorks recently:
Despite the myths being perpetuated by the liberal attack machine, corporate America is not on the side of freedom in this debate. The big pharmaceuticals and the big health insurance companies are bellied up at the government trough, and are spending millions to support Obama's bill. President Obama himself has been caught in an embarrassing closed-room deal with PhRMA, the drug companies’ trade association, dividing the spoils. The pharmaceutical industry is now bankrolling a new pro-ObamaCare coalition, calling itself, “Americans for Stable Quality Care.” This coalition – made up the American Medical Association, FamiliesUSA, the Federation of American Hospitals, PhRMA, and the SEIU – has just launched $12 million worth of television ads to support Obama’s health scheme. They promise that this is just the opening wave of a planned $150 million ad blitz this fall."
Here's a constructive thought experiment:
1) Name those industries most regulated, subsidized, or otherwise controlled by the State. Here's a few for starters: US Postal Service, health care (yes, already), education (both elementary/secondary and college), automobile manufacture.
2) In those industries, what direction have prices (postage, tuition, bills, etc) tended over time?
3) In those industries, has quality of service/product/outcomes improved or worsened over time?
4) Has competition and resulting choice/variety tended to increase or decrease in these industries?
5) Now, name those industries least impacted by State meddling. Here's a few for starters: food/restaurants, computers, TV/radio/VHS-DVD-Blu-Ray-Netflix-etc. and other forms of personal tele-entertainment, cell phones.
2) In those industries, what direction have prices tended over time?
3) In those industries, has quality of service/product/outcomes improved or worsened over time?
4) Has competition and resulting choice/variety tended to increase or decrease in these industries?
Eric,
You raised a few decent rhetorical questions, but first I'd like to point to a couple misunderstandings either on your or my part. Do you honestly think that the rise of the technology and computer sector wasn't influenced by public spending? You do realize that particular industry was bankrolled by the state sector using American tax dollars, right?
"The origins of the Internet reach back to the 1960s when the United States funded research projects of its military agencies to build robust, fault-tolerant and distributed computer networks."
Do you think that overseas manufacturing is beneficial to American society? For example, the vast majority of consumer goods are made outside the US, by societies who have nearly zero protections for workers or environmental regulations, hence the lower prices. Do you think that's a positive development and do you also believe that others should slave under unsafe working conditions under private sector tyrannies (who interestingly enough are creatures of the state, transnationals protected by US law and international treaties) and should those top-down tyrannies be "free" to wreck ecosystems and the health of the organisms within those systems (increased incidence of cancer, autism, other birth defects, decreased intelligence) so that you can save 5-10% on consumer goods?
You glibly bleated the line that if taxes were slashed that charities would be able to meet the human rights needs of American citizens. How is that going to work? For example, if education was not universally provided to all through local, state, and federal funding, would the myriad charity organizations you smugly claim will meet these educational needs meet these needs universally, and if they don't, what should be done for the unfortunates that do not receive an education? Should they be made to waste away in a factory dungeon so you can buy cheap underwear? Perhaps that's the "free" market solution to the existence of suffering, that suffering can be used to provide you with cheap consumer goods.
Essentially, I'm assuming your argument is that we can end SS, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and every other publicly funded humanitarian program including education, and you believe that the magical free market will meet the needs of the poor and disenfranchised, right, through thousands of charities?
"PMA, you keep talking about the big corporate boogeyman and it’s effect on the healthcare industry. Typically, you associate big corporate with those nasty evil old Republicans.
So what say you about the Obama and his handlers being all giddy about the $150 million in drug industry ads supporting Obamacare and the fact that it was reported this week that White House senior adviser and chief campaign strategist David Axelrod's former public relations firm (which will still pay him $2 million he’s owed), AKPD Message and Media, has made over $24 million in ad contracts supporting Obamacare? And this is just one of many PR firms run by Obama strategists.
The very big pharmaceutical companies touting rationed government health care as a good thing being in the tank for the White House for big dollars? Say it ain’t so!"
This was posted back in August and I suppose I'm not surprised that there was no response to this from a leftist as it's difficult to dispute the truth when confronted with the messy facts. Just what I would expect from a one dimensional leftist hypocrite.
And they wonder why they have little to no credibility.
The economy is going down the toilet because of Obama's policies and this boob is putting all of his effort into wrecking the best healthcare system in the world.
If government rationed healthcare is important, so important that there is no time and/or interest enough to read the 1,000-page bill and it had to pass yesterday, why will it not be until 2013 that it takes effect? Similar was the bogus 'Stimulus' bill that absolutely, positively needed to be passed and then sat on his desk for three days waiting to be signed and will only allocate 6% of the money in 09' and the bulk in 10', what was the rush?
Congressman Wilson is right. Obama is a liar and came off last night as the used car salesman scam artist that is his only talent.
Obama's (Pelosi's/Waxman's) healthcare boondoggle and scare is not about providing services for some high minded ideal as universal coverage, it’s about destroying the best healthcare system in the world to take over 1/6th of the US economy and in the process take control of every aspect of every citizens’ lives.
Funny too how with the illegal immigrant coverage issue on table that Obama again lied bald faced about the number of folks not covered. After quoting the 50 million number many many times, it went to 30 million making the allowance for what everybody knows is the 20 million illegals currently in that pool of, theoretically, uninsured.
PMA,
Regardless of the origins of the Internet, it did not truly blossom until released for use and improvement (for private gain!) to millions of actors in the private marketplace.
That question to the side, the *origins* of the Internet has very little to do with the great and rapid deflation in the costs of computer hardware and software, nor with the huge advancements in such capabilities. And it has next to nothing to do with the wonderful variety, lower overall costs, incredible availability, and great quality in our restaurant and food service industries, for instance. But you are certainly free to avoid the thought experiment by changing the subject, as you have, if you like.
But I will address the rest of your last comment briefly, by saying this: Shame on you for wanting to deprive the world's poor of increasing incomes and instead saddle them with food shortages and higher prices for corn and the such, all in the name of your uninformed opposition to the "sweatshop" caricature and your holier-than-thou envirosocialism! But feel free to rail against the higher wages and steadier work third worlders gladly line up for at western manufacturing companies. And feel free to ignore the demonstrated and longstanding fact that environmental concerns and stewardship tend to always and everywhere improve with prosperity.
Last, I glibly do nothing in my advocacy of free markets. Rather, those who think that nothing got done before the rise of the omniscient State display glib thinking. It is remarkable the human race doesn't starve to death, for want of a government provider! (Incidentally, Americans, who were almost universally literate to a much higher degree before the advent of centralized and compulsory state education, now are functionally illiterate to a much higher percentage. So much for that liberal shibboleth!)
There is nothing "magical" about the free market at all; it is just a "place" where flesh and blood people are free to trade goods and services with each other for their mutual benefit, and no one is coerced by another to do otherwise. And, incidentally, this includes voluntary charity, which has always existed to a exponentially higher degree in relatively-free America than it has anywhere else in the world. Since leftists give less than 1 percent of their income on average to charity -- but think it the height of charity to force everyone else to give through the state through threat of the gun! -- I am not surprise when they fail to imagine man taking care of man in freedom, nor when they fail to see in history where man has done just that, without any compulsion from the State.
Eric,
Yeah, it's laughable that you think these abused workers gladly line up to slave away in unsafe conditions, but continue your "free" market fantasies. I guess your free marketeers will do anything to avoid the horrible truth of state-corporate domination. I suppose it makes you happy to think that I support state domination and coercion (once again the free marketeers set up their hilarious straw men) , but you're sadly mistaken. I strongly oppose unjustifiable state and private sector power.
Do you even know what a corporation is, how they are protected by state power and international "treaties"? Do you even know what a subsidy is? Do you even know what patent protections are? Have you ever heard of the economic phenomenon called rent seeking? Do you anything about how trade works?
I'll repeat my last questions which went completely unanswered.
...if education was not universally provided to all through local, state, and federal funding, would the myriad charity organizations you smugly claim will meet these educational needs meet these needs universally, and if they don't, what should be done for the unfortunates that do not receive an education? Similarly, how would that work regarding health care?
What is the conservative answer to rescission and lack of access to health care and increasing health care costs which create the conditions for 17,000/day losing insurance?
--------------------------------------
asdf wrote,
"So what say you about the Obama and his handlers being all giddy about the $150 million in drug industry ads supporting Obamacare and the fact that it was reported this week that White House senior adviser and chief campaign strategist David Axelrod's former public relations firm (which will still pay him $2 million he’s owed), AKPD Message and Media, has made over $24 million in ad contracts supporting Obamacare? And this is just one of many PR firms run by Obama strategists."
Have you been reading anything I post here, asdf? I've consistently blasted the current administration for their cowardly avoidance of confronting these tyrannies and their continued assistance to them.
PMA,
Why don't you try researching the subject, rather than spouting campus liberal talking points? It has been well established that these so-called "sweatshops" offer significantly more than the prevailing wage, and the locals do in fact apply in far greater numbers than there are jobs available. Facts are facts.
And I am a huge oppoenent of corporate fascism. Since you claim to be, as well, perhaps you will finally come out against ObamaCare? Alas, one can hope for some consistency, and principles that go beyond party politics. In meantime, I highly recommend Tim Carney's book: "The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money".
I'm sorry you missed it, but I've already answered you, even if not to your satisfaction. The same cannot be said of you, however.
Here -- I'm feeling a bit generous today, so I'll help you get started on your research: "How 'Sweatshops' Help the Poor" and "The Virtues of Sweatshops".
See, no State compulsion necessary for me to share! But since I want to give you a hand up and not a hand out, I refuse to do any more of the work for you. For that, you will have to recruit the State's guns to force me to give up more of my time and resources -- as you already do for so many other things.
Eric,
Thank you for those links. I'll have to check them soon.
I read the Mises Institute article, and it raised some good points, but as usual the Royal Libertarian (as opposed to the "democratic" or "free" Libertarian ideal I subscribe to) argument misses the larger point. Let's take each instance of a sweatshop case by case. In some cases, the sweatshops may offer wages higher than the local average. This in and of itself does not legitimize the use of sweatshops. It fails to consider "externalities" (this is an economic concept conceded by free-marketeers like Friedman that love to sweep it under the rug) like damage to the local environment, health of the workers and community, and the mere fact that the owner could provide better wages, better working conditions, and STILL make a profit.
If we include the state-corporate nexus involved in this so called "free" trade (treaties, subsidies, WTO, IMF) the verdict is still crystal clear: private tyrannies have no business oppressing workers and causing devastating externalities which have caused all life metrics to rapidly decline (human rights, environment, local economies, preservation of local cultures, etc).
Here's a small portion of the wikipedia article on sweatshops:
"Critics of sweatshops argue that the minor gains made by employee of some of these institutions are outweighed by the negative costs such as lowered wages to increase profit margins and that the institutions pay less than the daily expenses of their workers.[21][22][23] They also point to the fact that sometimes local jobs offered higher wages before trade liberalization provided tax incentives to allow sweatshops to replace former local unionized jobs.[24] They further contend that sweatshop jobs are not necessarily inevitable.[25][26] Eric Toussaint claims that quality of life in developing countries was actually higher between 1945-1980 before the international debt crisis of 1982 harmed economies in developing countries causing the to turn to IMF and World Bank-organized "structural adjustments"[27] and that unionized jobs pay more than sweatshop ones overall - "several studies of workers producing for US firms in Mexico are instructive: workers at the Aluminum Company of America’s Ciudad Acuna plant earn between $21.44 and $24.60 per week, but a weekly basket of basic food items costs $26.87. Mexican GM workers earn enough to buy a pound of apples in 30 minutes of work, while GM workers in the US earn as much in 5 minutes."[28] People critical of sweatshops believe that "free trade agreements" do not truly promote free trade at all but instead seek to protect multinational corporations from competition by local industries (which are sometimes unionized).[29] They believe free trade only involves reducing tariffs and barriers to entry and that multinational businesses should operate within the laws in the countries they want to do business in rather than seeking immunity from obeying local environmental and labor laws. They believe these conditions are what give rise to sweatshops rather than natural industrialization or economic progression."
PMA,
Really now, if you are a libertarian I am a communist. You simply cannot take the positions you take, support the massive statist entitlements you do, and be considered a libertarian -- of any sort. Perhaps you are one of the infinite varieties of moderates and independents - and kudos for that to some extent - but you are not even close to being a libertarian if words have any meaning. Certainly Leonard Read, Albert J. Nock, Murray Rothbard, Gary Nolan, David Boaz and so many others (including Milton Friedman, who you erroneously claim for your cause) who have defined that term would object to your use of their political-philosophical label.
And despite being deep in libertarian thought and works for 15 years or so, I can't say I have ever heard the term "royal libertarian." But I think you are referring to the tendency of too many economic conservatives to equate the "free market" with what is good for the established big businesses -- even if that includes regulatory and licensure roadblocks to competition, corporate welfare and bailouts, and trade protectionism and managed trade falsely called "free" in multinational agreements like NAFTA. Well, you should know that FEE and LvMI and the authors of those articles have long opposed such corporo-fascist measures. To the extent that any of your listed concerns are accurate, you are opposing the wrong thing. If the wWst truly caused massive wage deflation in the third world in the past, opposing businesses now that cerate highly sought after jobs paying 10+ times over the prevailing wage is, simply, idiotic. The absence of those businesses would mean the absence of those jobs -- and the loss of the long term good that comes to a society with rising prosperity, as I mentioned earlier.
Glad you are doing some research on this. I hope you will continue. I for one am moving on.
