Conspiracy theories and Conspiracy theorists

[Backlighting]

On 3/4/2017 at 8:25 PM, Brant Gaede said:

Not in Chicago.

--Brant

just found this unposted post

 

In Chicago Dead Fish rules. In D.C. Barry has his gig.

[william.scherk]

On 3/21/2017 at 0:32 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

If the members of a religious cult believe the Devil has been elected leader, that is time to stage The Resistance!

 

Lets fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012

We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012

[Peter]

From ARI. Ryancare, Free-Market Health Care and Ayn Rand: Paul Ryan has claimed that the American Health Care Act (also known as Ryancare), which is intended to replace the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), is a return to a “free market” in health care. And various commentators and politicians are suggesting that Ryan’s plan is inspired by Ayn Rand’s philosophy. For example, Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., went on CNBC’s Squawk Box to say that “It’s not really a health-care bill. This is an ideological exercise to basically satisfy Paul Ryan’s Ayn Rand tendencies.”

But whatever Ryan or his critics may think about his plan, Ryancare won’t bring about a free market in health care. Not even close. Anyone who took Rand’s ideas seriously would recognize that for at least fifty years, we’ve not had anything even remotely resembling a free market in health care — and that Ryancare doesn’t even start to move us in the right direction. On the contrary, it entrenches some of the most destructive features of Obamacare.

[Peter]

From ARI. What exactly does Ayn Rand’s philosophy of rational selfishness and laissez-faire capitalism imply in medicine? To discover what a free market in health care would look like and why it would be moral, check out some of our most important commentary on this issue:

How Not To Fight Against Socialized Medicine by Ayn Rand | 1963 | The Voice of Reason: Government’s role in U.S. medicine has been growing for more than half a century. What explains this trend and why have opponents found it impossible to stop? In this article, originally delivered as a talk in February 1963, two years before the passage of Medicare and Medicaid, Ayn Rand develops her distinctive view that philosophic ideas — above all, ideas about morality — have shaped the debate over government’s role in health care. According to Rand, the welfare state is based on the premise that a person’s need gives him a right to the unearned. We have been moving toward socialized medicine, she argues, because its advocates wield that premise as a moral weapon, while opponents concede the premise and meekly try to appease the push with a “policy of caution and compromise.” To reverse course, Rand counsels opponents of socialized medicine that they must be willing to challenge this moral framework: “Only a strong, uncompromising stand — a stand of moral self-confidence, on clear-cut, consistent principles — can win.” Taking that counsel to heart, ARI’s advocacy of freedom — in health care and throughout society — is predicated on the moral principle of individual rights.

How Not To Fight Against Socialized Medicine by Ayn Rand

(This is a condensed version of a talk given by Miss Rand on February 6 at a meeting of the Ocean County Medical Society, Ocean County, N.J. The membership of that society includes Dr. J. Bruce Henriksen and his associates who, in May, 1962, signed his resolution declaring that they refused to participate in the care of patients under the provisions of the King-Anderson bill or similar legislation.)

I am happy to have this opportunity to express my admiration for Dr. Henriksen and the group of doctors who signed his resolution. Dr. Henriksen and his group took a heroic stand. The storm of vicious denunciations unleashed against them at the time, showed that they had delivered a dangerous blow to the welfare-statists. More than any other single factor, it was Dr. Henriksen's group that demonstrated to the public the real nature of the issue, prevented the passage of the King-Anderson bill and saved this country from socialized medicine — so far. Their action was an eloquent example of the fact that only a strong, uncompromising stand — a stand of moral self-confidence, on clear-cut, consistent principles — can win. But there are grave danger signs that the medical profession as a whole — like every other group today — will ignore that example and pursue the usual modern policy of caution and compromise. Such a policy is worse than futile: it assists and promotes the victory of one's own enemies. The battle is not over. The King-Anderson bill will be brought up again, and if the doctors are defeated, they will be defeated by their own hand, or rather: by their own mind.  

I want, therefore, to make certain suggestions to the medical profession — on the subject of how not to fight against socialized medicine. The majority of people in this country — and in the world — do not want to adopt socialism; yet it is growing. It is growing because its victims concede its basic moral premises. Without challenging these premises, one cannot win. The strategy of the Kennedy administration, and of all welfare-statists, consists of attempts to make people accept certain intellectual "package-deals," without letting them identify and differentiate the various elements — and equivocations — involved. The deadliest of such "package-deals" is the attempt to make people accept the collectivist-altruist principle of self-immolation under the guise of mere kindness, generosity or charity. It is done by hammering into people's minds the idea that need supersedes all rights — that the need of some men is a first mortgage on the lives of others — and that everything should be sacrificed to the undefined, undefinable grab bag known as "the public interest."  

Doctors have no chance to win if they concede that idea and help their enemies to propagate it. Yet the ideological policy of most spokesmen for the medical profession — such as the A.M.A. — is as permeated by the collectivist-altruist spirit as the pronouncements of the welfare-statists. The doctors' spokesmen declare, in net effect, that selfless service to their patients is the doctors' only goal, that concern for the needy is their only motive, and that "the public interest" is the only justification of their battle. The sole difference is this: the voices of the welfare-statists are brazenly, self-righteously overbearing — while the voices of the doctors' spokesmen are guiltily, evasively apologetic.

Whom can one expect the people to believe and to follow? People can always sense guilt, insincerity, hypocrisy. The lack of a morally righteous tone, the absence of moral certainty, have a disastrous effect on an audience — an effect which is not improved by the triviality of the arguments over political minutiae. And the terrible thing is that the doctors' spokesmen give an impression of guilty evasiveness while the right is on their side. They do it by being afraid to assert their rights. They are afraid of it because they do not believe that they possess any rights — because they have conceded the enemy's premises — because they have no moral base, no intellectual guide lines, no ideology, no defense.  

Consider, for instance, the outcome of the Canadian doctors' struggle in Saskatchewan. The doctors had gone on strike against the full-scale socialized medicine instituted by the provincial government. They won the battle — and lost the war; in exchange for a few superficial concessions, they surrendered the principle for which they had been fighting: to permit no socialized medicine in the Western hemisphere. They surrendered, even though the overwhelming sympathy and support of the Canadian people were on their side (except for the intellectuals and the labor unions). They were defeated, not by the power of the socialists, but by the gaping holes in their own ideological armor. They had been fighting, properly, in the name of individual rights, against the enslavement of medicine by totalitarian-statist controls. Then, under the pressure of the usual intellectual lynching, under the hysterical, collectivist charges of "anti-social selfishness and greed," they made a shocking change in their stand. Declaring, in effect, that their rebellion was not directed against socialized medicine as such, but against the high-handed, arbitrary manner in which the government had put it over, their spokesmen began to argue that the government plan did not represent "the will of the people." The ideological kiss of death was a statement by Dr. Dalgleish, the strikers' leader, who declared that if a plebiscite were taken and the people voted for it, the doctors would accept socialized medicine.  

Could they deserve to win, after that? They could not and did not. Consider the full meaning of Dr. Dalgleish's statement. It meant the total repudiation of individual rights and the acceptance of unlimited majority rule, of the collectivist doctrine that the people's vote may dispose of an individual in any way it pleases. Instead of a battle for the integrity of a doctor's professional judgment and practice, it became a battle over who should violate his integrity. Instead of a battle against the enslavement of medicine, it became a battle over who should enslave it. Instead of a battle for freedom, it became a battle over a choice of masters. Instead of a moral crusade, it became a petty quarrel over political technicalities. This led to the ludicrous spectacle of the alleged individualists arguing for democratic mob-rule, and the socialists righteously upholding the parliamentary form of government. Those who doubt the power of ideas, should note the fact that the doctors' surrender took place five days after Dr. Dalgleish's statement.  

The text of the agreement reached between the doctors and the government, contained the following horrifying sentence: "The doctors fear that if the government becomes their only source of income they are in danger of becoming servants of the state and not servants of their patients." (Italics mine.) A more abject statement of self-abnegation could not be hoped for or extorted by the most extreme collectivist.  

No self-respecting labor union would declare that its members are "servants" of their employers. It took so-called "conservatives" to declare that professional men — and of so responsible, so demanding, so unusually skilled a profession as medicine — are the "servants" of their patients or of anyone who pays them. The concept of "service" has been turned into a collectivist "package-deal" by means of a crude equivocation and a cruder evasion. In the language of economics, the word "service" means >work offered for trade on a free market, to be paid for by those who choose to buy it. In a free society, men deal with one another by voluntary, uncoerced exchange, by mutual consent to mutual profit, each man pursuing his own rational self-interest, none sacrificing himself or others; and all values — whether goods or services — are traded, not given away.

This is the opposite of what the word "service" means in the language of altruist ethics: to an altruist, "service" means unrewarded, self-sacrificial, unilateral giving, while receiving nothing in return. It is this sort of selfless "service" to "society" that collectivists demand of all men.  

One of the grotesque phenomena of the twentieth century is the fact that the "package-deal" of "service" is most vociferously propagated by the "conservatives." Intellectually bankrupt, possessing no political philosophy, no direction, no goal, but clinging desperately to the ethics of altruism, such "conservatives" rest their case on a cheap equivocation: they proclaim that "service" to others (to one's customers or clients or patients or "consumers" in general) is the motive power and the moral justification of a free society — and evade the question of whether such "services" are or are not to be paid for. But if "service" to the "consumers" is our primary goal, why should these masters pay us or grant us any rights? Why shouldn't they dictate the terms and conditions of our work?  

If socialized medicine comes to the United States, it is such "conservatives" that the doctors would have to thank for it, as well as their own spokesmen who recklessly play with an intellectual poison of that kind. Doctors are not the servants of their patients. No free man is a "servant" of those he deals with. Doctors are traders, like everyone else in a free society — and they should bear that title proudly, considering the crucial importance of the services they offer. The pursuit of his own productive career is — and, morally, should be — the primary goal of a doctor's work, as it is the primary goal of any self-respecting, productive man. But there is no clash of interests among rational men in a free society, and there is no clash of interests between doctors and patients. In pursuing his own career, a doctor does have to do his best for the welfare of his patients. This relationship, however, cannot be reversed: one cannot sacrifice the doctor's interests, desires and freedom to whatever the patients (or their politicians) might deem to be their own "welfare."  

Many doctors know this, but are afraid to assert their rights, because they dare not challenge the morality of altruism, neither in the public's mind nor in their own. Others are collectivists at heart, who believe that socialized medicine is morally right and who feel guilty while opposing it. Still others are so cynically embittered that they believe that the whole country consists of fools or parasites eager to get something for nothing — that morality and justice are futile — that ideas are impotent — that the cause of freedom is doomed — and that the doctors' only chance lies in borrowing the enemy's arguments and gaining a brief span of borrowed time. This last is usually regarded as the "practical" attitude for "conservatives." But nobody is as naive as a cynic, and nothing is as impractical as the attempt to win by conceding the enemy's premises. How many defeats and disasters will collectivism's victims have to witness before they become convinced of it?   

In any issue, it is the most consistent of the adversaries who wins. One cannot win on the enemy's premises, because he is then the more consistent, and all of one's efforts serve only to propagate his principles. Most people in this country are not moochers who seek the unearned, not even today. But if all their intellectual leaders and the doctors themselves tell them that doctors are only their "selfless servants," they will feel justified in expecting and demanding unearned services. When a politician tells them that they are entitled to the unearned, they are wise enough to suspect his motives; but when the proposed victim, the doctor, says it too, they feel that socialization is safe. If you are afraid of people's irrationality, you will not protect yourself by assuring them that their irrational notions are right.  

The advocates of "Medicare" admit that their purpose is not help to the needy, the sick or the aged. Their purpose is to spare people "the embarrassment" of a means test — that is, to establish the principle and precedent that some people are entitled to the unrewarded services of others, not as charity, but as a right. Can you placate, conciliate, temporize or compromise with a principle of that kind? As doctors, what would you say if someone told you that you must not try to cure a deadly disease — you must give it some chance — you must reach a "compromise" with cancer or with coronary thrombosis or with leprosy? You would answer that it is a battle of life or death. The same is true of your political battle. Would you follow the advice of someone who told you that you must fight tuberculosis by confining the treatment to its symptoms — that you must treat the cough, the high temperature, the loss of weight — but must refuse to consider or to touch its cause, the germs in the patient's lungs, in order not to antagonize the germs? Do not adopt such a course in politics. The principle — and the consequences — are the same. It is a battle of life or death.

[BaalChatzaf]

9 minutes ago, Peter said:

From ARI. What exactly does Ayn Rand’s philosophy of rational selfishness and laissez-faire capitalism imply in medicine? To discover what a free market in health care would look like and why it would be moral, check out some of our most important commentary on this issue:

How Not To Fight Against Socialized Medicine by Ayn Rand | 1963 | The Voice of Reason: Government’s role in U.S. medicine has been growing for more than half a century. What explains this trend and why have opponents found it impossible to stop? In this article, originally delivered as a talk in February 1963, two years before the passage of Medicare and Medicaid, Ayn Rand develops her distinctive view that philosophic ideas — above all, ideas about morality — have shaped the debate over government’s role in health care. According to Rand, the welfare state is based on the premise that a person’s need gives him a right to the unearned. We have been moving toward socialized medicine, she argues, because its advocates wield that premise as a moral weapon, while opponents concede the premise and meekly try to appease the push with a “policy of caution and compromise.” To reverse course, Rand counsels opponents of socialized medicine that they must be willing to challenge this moral framework: “Only a strong, uncompromising stand — a stand of moral self-confidence, on clear-cut, consistent principles — can win.” Taking that counsel to heart, ARI’s advocacy of freedom — in health care and throughout society — is predicated on the moral principle of individual rights.

How Not To Fight Against Socialized Medicine by Ayn Rand

(This is a condensed version of a talk given by Miss Rand on February 6 at a meeting of the Ocean County Medical Society, Ocean County, N.J. The membership of that society includes Dr. J. Bruce Henriksen and his associates who, in May, 1962, signed his resolution declaring that they refused to participate in the care of patients under the provisions of the King-Anderson bill or similar legislation.)

I am happy to have this opportunity to express my admiration for Dr. Henriksen and the group of doctors who signed his resolution. Dr. Henriksen and his group took a heroic stand. The storm of vicious denunciations unleashed against them at the time, showed that they had delivered a dangerous blow to the welfare-statists. More than any other single factor, it was Dr. Henriksen's group that demonstrated to the public the real nature of the issue, prevented the passage of the King-Anderson bill and saved this country from socialized medicine — so far. Their action was an eloquent example of the fact that only a strong, uncompromising stand — a stand of moral self-confidence, on clear-cut, consistent principles — can win. But there are grave danger signs that the medical profession as a whole — like every other group today — will ignore that example and pursue the usual modern policy of caution and compromise. Such a policy is worse than futile: it assists and promotes the victory of one's own enemies. The battle is not over. The King-Anderson bill will be brought up again, and if the doctors are defeated, they will be defeated by their own hand, or rather: by their own mind.  

I want, therefore, to make certain suggestions to the medical profession — on the subject of how not to fight against socialized medicine. The majority of people in this country — and in the world — do not want to adopt socialism; yet it is growing. It is growing because its victims concede its basic moral premises. Without challenging these premises, one cannot win. The strategy of the Kennedy administration, and of all welfare-statists, consists of attempts to make people accept certain intellectual "package-deals," without letting them identify and differentiate the various elements — and equivocations — involved. The deadliest of such "package-deals" is the attempt to make people accept the collectivist-altruist principle of self-immolation under the guise of mere kindness, generosity or charity. It is done by hammering into people's minds the idea that need supersedes all rights — that the need of some men is a first mortgage on the lives of others — and that everything should be sacrificed to the undefined, undefinable grab bag known as "the public interest."  

Doctors have no chance to win if they concede that idea and help their enemies to propagate it. Yet the ideological policy of most spokesmen for the medical profession — such as the A.M.A. — is as permeated by the collectivist-altruist spirit as the pronouncements of the welfare-statists. The doctors' spokesmen declare, in net effect, that selfless service to their patients is the doctors' only goal, that concern for the needy is their only motive, and that "the public interest" is the only justification of their battle. The sole difference is this: the voices of the welfare-statists are brazenly, self-righteously overbearing — while the voices of the doctors' spokesmen are guiltily, evasively apologetic.

Whom can one expect the people to believe and to follow? People can always sense guilt, insincerity, hypocrisy. The lack of a morally righteous tone, the absence of moral certainty, have a disastrous effect on an audience — an effect which is not improved by the triviality of the arguments over political minutiae. And the terrible thing is that the doctors' spokesmen give an impression of guilty evasiveness while the right is on their side. They do it by being afraid to assert their rights. They are afraid of it because they do not believe that they possess any rights — because they have conceded the enemy's premises — because they have no moral base, no intellectual guide lines, no ideology, no defense.  

Consider, for instance, the outcome of the Canadian doctors' struggle in Saskatchewan. The doctors had gone on strike against the full-scale socialized medicine instituted by the provincial government. They won the battle — and lost the war; in exchange for a few superficial concessions, they surrendered the principle for which they had been fighting: to permit no socialized medicine in the Western hemisphere. They surrendered, even though the overwhelming sympathy and support of the Canadian people were on their side (except for the intellectuals and the labor unions). They were defeated, not by the power of the socialists, but by the gaping holes in their own ideological armor. They had been fighting, properly, in the name of individual rights, against the enslavement of medicine by totalitarian-statist controls. Then, under the pressure of the usual intellectual lynching, under the hysterical, collectivist charges of "anti-social selfishness and greed," they made a shocking change in their stand. Declaring, in effect, that their rebellion was not directed against socialized medicine as such, but against the high-handed, arbitrary manner in which the government had put it over, their spokesmen began to argue that the government plan did not represent "the will of the people." The ideological kiss of death was a statement by Dr. Dalgleish, the strikers' leader, who declared that if a plebiscite were taken and the people voted for it, the doctors would accept socialized medicine.  

Could they deserve to win, after that? They could not and did not. Consider the full meaning of Dr. Dalgleish's statement. It meant the total repudiation of individual rights and the acceptance of unlimited majority rule, of the collectivist doctrine that the people's vote may dispose of an individual in any way it pleases. Instead of a battle for the integrity of a doctor's professional judgment and practice, it became a battle over who should violate his integrity. Instead of a battle against the enslavement of medicine, it became a battle over who should enslave it. Instead of a battle for freedom, it became a battle over a choice of masters. Instead of a moral crusade, it became a petty quarrel over political technicalities. This led to the ludicrous spectacle of the alleged individualists arguing for democratic mob-rule, and the socialists righteously upholding the parliamentary form of government. Those who doubt the power of ideas, should note the fact that the doctors' surrender took place five days after Dr. Dalgleish's statement.  

The text of the agreement reached between the doctors and the government, contained the following horrifying sentence: "The doctors fear that if the government becomes their only source of income they are in danger of becoming servants of the state and not servants of their patients." (Italics mine.) A more abject statement of self-abnegation could not be hoped for or extorted by the most extreme collectivist.  

No self-respecting labor union would declare that its members are "servants" of their employers. It took so-called "conservatives" to declare that professional men — and of so responsible, so demanding, so unusually skilled a profession as medicine — are the "servants" of their patients or of anyone who pays them. The concept of "service" has been turned into a collectivist "package-deal" by means of a crude equivocation and a cruder evasion. In the language of economics, the word "service" means >work offered for trade on a free market, to be paid for by those who choose to buy it. In a free society, men deal with one another by voluntary, uncoerced exchange, by mutual consent to mutual profit, each man pursuing his own rational self-interest, none sacrificing himself or others; and all values — whether goods or services — are traded, not given away.

This is the opposite of what the word "service" means in the language of altruist ethics: to an altruist, "service" means unrewarded, self-sacrificial, unilateral giving, while receiving nothing in return. It is this sort of selfless "service" to "society" that collectivists demand of all men.  

One of the grotesque phenomena of the twentieth century is the fact that the "package-deal" of "service" is most vociferously propagated by the "conservatives." Intellectually bankrupt, possessing no political philosophy, no direction, no goal, but clinging desperately to the ethics of altruism, such "conservatives" rest their case on a cheap equivocation: they proclaim that "service" to others (to one's customers or clients or patients or "consumers" in general) is the motive power and the moral justification of a free society — and evade the question of whether such "services" are or are not to be paid for. But if "service" to the "consumers" is our primary goal, why should these masters pay us or grant us any rights? Why shouldn't they dictate the terms and conditions of our work?  

If socialized medicine comes to the United States, it is such "conservatives" that the doctors would have to thank for it, as well as their own spokesmen who recklessly play with an intellectual poison of that kind. Doctors are not the servants of their patients. No free man is a "servant" of those he deals with. Doctors are traders, like everyone else in a free society — and they should bear that title proudly, considering the crucial importance of the services they offer. The pursuit of his own productive career is — and, morally, should be — the primary goal of a doctor's work, as it is the primary goal of any self-respecting, productive man. But there is no clash of interests among rational men in a free society, and there is no clash of interests between doctors and patients. In pursuing his own career, a doctor does have to do his best for the welfare of his patients. This relationship, however, cannot be reversed: one cannot sacrifice the doctor's interests, desires and freedom to whatever the patients (or their politicians) might deem to be their own "welfare."  

Many doctors know this, but are afraid to assert their rights, because they dare not challenge the morality of altruism, neither in the public's mind nor in their own. Others are collectivists at heart, who believe that socialized medicine is morally right and who feel guilty while opposing it. Still others are so cynically embittered that they believe that the whole country consists of fools or parasites eager to get something for nothing — that morality and justice are futile — that ideas are impotent — that the cause of freedom is doomed — and that the doctors' only chance lies in borrowing the enemy's arguments and gaining a brief span of borrowed time. This last is usually regarded as the "practical" attitude for "conservatives." But nobody is as naive as a cynic, and nothing is as impractical as the attempt to win by conceding the enemy's premises. How many defeats and disasters will collectivism's victims have to witness before they become convinced of it?   

In any issue, it is the most consistent of the adversaries who wins. One cannot win on the enemy's premises, because he is then the more consistent, and all of one's efforts serve only to propagate his principles. Most people in this country are not moochers who seek the unearned, not even today. But if all their intellectual leaders and the doctors themselves tell them that doctors are only their "selfless servants," they will feel justified in expecting and demanding unearned services. When a politician tells them that they are entitled to the unearned, they are wise enough to suspect his motives; but when the proposed victim, the doctor, says it too, they feel that socialization is safe. If you are afraid of people's irrationality, you will not protect yourself by assuring them that their irrational notions are right.  

The advocates of "Medicare" admit that their purpose is not help to the needy, the sick or the aged. Their purpose is to spare people "the embarrassment" of a means test — that is, to establish the principle and precedent that some people are entitled to the unrewarded services of others, not as charity, but as a right. Can you placate, conciliate, temporize or compromise with a principle of that kind? As doctors, what would you say if someone told you that you must not try to cure a deadly disease — you must give it some chance — you must reach a "compromise" with cancer or with coronary thrombosis or with leprosy? You would answer that it is a battle of life or death. The same is true of your political battle. Would you follow the advice of someone who told you that you must fight tuberculosis by confining the treatment to its symptoms — that you must treat the cough, the high temperature, the loss of weight — but must refuse to consider or to touch its cause, the germs in the patient's lungs, in order not to antagonize the germs? Do not adopt such a course in politics. The principle — and the consequences — are the same. It is a battle of life or death.

So the proper approach is:  Pay me or I won't heal you.  And if you are poor and can't pay me,  then it sucks to be you.  

[Peter]

Ba’al wrote: So the proper approach is: Pay me or I won't heal you. And if you are poor and can't pay me, then it sucks to be you. end quote

It is a tough point but someone else’s “need” does not give them a right to my life and money. I do not mind *emergency ethics* where a person is required to offer assistance to a drowning person, but no one should be required to truly risk their life to save anyone. It should be a personal decision.

In a similar vein emergency economic assistance is fine but it should not become a “right.” The “dole” should not last a lifetime. Public assistance should not span generations. A parasitic underclass has been created in America that continues generation after generation, with daughters having children with no legal father. They all steal from the “producers” and “men of the mind.” Changing the parasitic philosophy of altruism was one of Ayn Rand’s goals.

Feel free to utilize your benevolence to donate to charity. Give the bum or the homeless person a few bucks. Open up your house to the homeless in those cold New Jersey winters but do not FORCE your neighbors to do the same. Shame on you, Ba’al.

Peter

[Backlighting]

6 hours ago, Peter said:

Peter wrote: "Feel free to utilize your benevolence to donate to charity. Give the bum or the homeless person a few bucks. Open up your house to the homeless in those cold New Jersey winters but do not FORCE your neighbors to do the same. Shame on you, Ba’al"  Peter

Absolutely. Ba'al and all the others can donate to their heart's content...they won't be stopped. -J

 

[william.scherk]

I'm a dummy.

Peter (quoting Rand from a No URL source) said:

 [(Saskatchewan boring history diatribe) by Ayn Rand]

The text of the agreement reached between the doctors and the government, contained the following horrifying sentence: "The doctors fear that if the government becomes their only source of income they are in danger of becoming servants of the state and not servants of their patients." (Italics mine.) A more abject statement of self-abnegation could not be hoped for or extorted by the most extreme collectivist.  

No self-respecting labor union would declare that its members are "servants" of their employers. 

State. Patient. Payer. Doctor[s Assoc.). Servant. Serve. Serve patient. Customer: patient. Who pays?

State. Patient. Payer. Doctor['s Union]. Servant. Serve. Serve patient. Customer: patient. Who pays?

I don't understand the rhetoric. In Saskatchewan, the 'deal' between a patient and a doctor was for 'services.' Pre-doctor strike, growing out of the dirty thirties experience, medical co-operatives were formed to be able to sign up doctors to provide services in an otherwise cash-poor environment. Goods in kind and barter and all manner of payment were experimented with, in the spirit of co-operative risk pool, 'community funds.'

So, up until the strike, the doctors had been 'serving' patients and getting paid for services, sometimes directly, but more often through insurance co-operatives at municipal level, sometimes with state help via hospitalization co-operatives, again at a local level.  Would they then be speaking weirdly if they said, "I am the servant of my patients," or "I am the servant of the Wetaskawin hospital," or "I am the servant of Moose Jaw's local billing co-operative, funded by everyday residents of Moose Jaw. I also take chickens."

The essential point was that the 'forking over' of the cash made the doctor-patient relationship closer that it would be under a Daddy Pays regime, under compulsion.

Who pays? The patient or the state or Nobody. The doctors took it like a man.  They got paid and their incomes didn't tank or stagnate or show holes from non-payment from deadbeat patients.

***

In a situation like I imagine Candidate Trump meant, America isn't the kind of country where people are generally left to die in the street, or mall or front steps.  If you show up with a sucking chest wound at Come One Come All County Emergency, you either get fixed or die there and then, or after a shuttle to another medical centre. 

Do the odd cancer patients have absolutely no chance of getting treatment for otherwise anodyne conditions? -- does a lady from Hellhole Hills or Downtown Horror get her tumor-eaten breast dealt with or is she discharged to suffer and die in pain at home? 

Up here we kind of feel sick at the horror stories of folks that do not get timely interventions to render them productive, not dead. From the abandoned baby to somebody's old useless generic demented grandpa, our system just doesn't allow for full-on discards. Trump is wise to the wind that says, "don't cut me off from help, Daddy."

I think Objectivists, to be stout and loyal to Rand's words, have to occasionally damn the unlucky to their unluck. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

That said, the public appeal of that stout loyalty can sometimes be weak, if not feeble. Ayn Rand wasn't in the room when folks who would 'lose' under AHCA calculated their losses, and when the unpopularity of the bill became apparent in the land, Ayn Rand's solution is closer to the Freedom Caucus than to Ryan or Trump. 

I expect Trump could be ground down by Democratic "bi-partisan co-operation" as Peter suggests.  He doesn't want people dying in the streets, he says. He once said Single Payer works elsewhere fine for other people, like Scotland and Canada, so maybe the co-operation of the Demons will usher in an even more awful monstrosity than the failed House bill. And, as expected, the angry Republicans in the House could go suck swamp.  Trump could break ties with the rightest of the right ... and move to the Awful Middle.

[Peter]

William wrote: Trump could break ties with the rightest of the right ... and move to the Awful Middle. end quote

What is the alternative, William? Here is a dilemma for consideration, not for you but all those “others’. Suppose that after listening to and watching President Trump you decide he really is almost always right. He is set to achieve so much in his first year. So if he is using executive orders and the “bully pulpit” to accomplish good things SO you decide to back him no matter how bad an “action” is judged by the press or how bad your “knee jerk” philosophical reasoning judges the Presidential “action” to be. After all, he is fighting “the deep state.”

Therefore: have you have sold your soul to the devil, or you have done the right thing?

I think there needs to be a tipping point in thinking, plotted out before-hand. When will you protest? You can’t remain on South Padre Island on Spring Break forever. You need to sober up, amigo. And remember the law: “No glass on the beach,” and nothing is permitted that is anathema to the philosophy of our founding fathers or Ayn Rand.

Peter   

[MereMortal]

19 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

So the proper approach is:  Pay me or I won't heal you.  And if you are poor and can't pay me,  then it sucks to be you.  

What's your approach?  What should be done and how?

[Peter]

1 minute ago, MereMortal said:

What's your approach?  What should be done and how?

Free Market Care John Stossel Posted: Mar 29, 2017 12:01 AM. President Trump and Paul Ryan tried to improve Obamacare. They failed. Trump then tweeted, "ObamaCare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry!" But I do worry. Trump is right when he says that Obamacare will explode. The law mandates benefits and offers subsidies to more people. Insurers must cover things like: --Birth control. --Alcohol counseling. --Depression screening. --Diet counseling. --Tobacco use screening. --Breastfeeding counseling. Some people want those things, but mandating them for everyone drives up costs. It was folly to pretend it wouldn't. Insisting that lots of things be paid for by someone else is a recipe for financial explosion.

Medicare works that way, too. When I first qualified for it, I was amazed to find that no one even mentioned cost. It was just, "Have this test!" "See this doctor!" I liked it. It's great not to think about costs. But that's why Medicare will explode, too. There's no way that, in its current form, it will be around to fund younger people's care. Someone else paying changes our behavior. We don't shop around. We don't ask, "Do I really need that test?" "Is there a place where it's cheaper?" Hospitals and doctors don't try very hard to do things cheaply. Imagine if you had "grocery insurance." You'd buy expensive foods; supermarkets would never have sales. Everyone would spend more.

Insurance coverage -- third-party payment -- is revered by the media and socialists (redundant?) but is a terrible way to pay for things. Today, 7 in 8 health care dollars are paid by Medicare, Medicaid or private insurance companies. Because there's no real health care market, costs rose 467 percent over the last three decades. By contrast, prices fell in the few medical areas not covered by insurance, like plastic surgery and LASIK eye care. Patients shop around, forcing health providers to compete. The National Center for Policy Analysis found that from 1999 to 2011 the price of traditional LASIK eye surgery dropped from over $2,100 to about $1,700.

Obamacare pretended government controls could accomplish the same thing, but they couldn't. The sickest people were quickest to sign up. Insurance companies then raised rates to cover their costs. When regulators objected, many insurers just quit Obamacare. This month Humana announced it'll leave 11 states. Voters will probably blame Republicans. Insurance is meant for catastrophic health events, surprises that cost more than most people can afford. That does not include birth control and diet counseling. The solution is to reduce, not increase, government's control. We should buy medical care the way we buy cars and computers -- with our own money. Our employers don't pay for our food, clothing and shelter; they shouldn't pay for our health care. They certainly shouldn't get a tax break for buying insurance while individuals don't. Give tax deductions to people who buy their own high-deductible insurance. Give tax benefits to medical savings accounts. (Obamacare penalizes them.) Allow insurers to sell across state lines. Current law forbids that, driving up costs and leaving people with fewer choices.

What about the other "solution" -- Bernie Sanders' proposal of single-payer health care for all? Sanders claims other countries "provide universal health care ... while saving money." But that's not true. Well, other countries do spend less. But they get less. What modern health care they do get, they get because they freeload off our innovation. Our free market provides most of the world's new medical devices and medicines. Also, "single-payer" care leads to rationing. Here's a headline from Britain's Daily Mail: "Another NHS horror story from Wales: Dying elderly cancer patient left 'screaming in pain' ... for nine hours." Britain's official goal is to treat people four months after diagnosis. Four months! That's only the "goal." They don't even meet that standard. Bernie Sanders' plan has been tried, and it's no cure. If it were done to meet American expectations, it would be ludicrously expensive. In 2011, clueless progressives in Bernie's home state of Vermont voted in "universal care." But they quickly dumped it when they figured out what it would cost. Didn't Bernie notice? It's time to have government do less.  

[Peter]

GOP Conservatives Were “Loyal” – To Principles Bob Barr Posted: Mar 29, 2017 12:01 AM:

. . . . So, when it came time to line-up support on the AHCA, despite its manifest shortcomings as genuine reform, finally enough was enough for conservatives.  Was this not the precise opportunity to “get it right” that was promised to them for years when it came to replacing ObamaCare with the conservative, free market reforms Republicans have claimed for decades are the key to fixing healthcare in America? Members of the House Freedom Caucus, Cato Institute, Freedom Works, Club for Growth and others were asking nothing more than for the GOP to uphold its end of the bargain, and not squander the opportunity with another permanent “temporary fix.”

Yes, passing genuine repeal of ObamaCare and replacing it with a free market based alternative would have been more difficult and time-consuming than what was proposed by Ryan and his team. It would have taken additional weeks, if not months, to draft, debate, and convince both their colleagues in the Congress and the public that government does not  have a magic wand, and should instead give the private sector broader latitude to come up with solutions for efficiency and effectiveness. Yet, this is a fundamental duty of Republicans in Congress – to get it right – rather than taking short cuts, that while perhaps making things a little better is far from the true path needed to make things much better.

In this respect, conservatives were saying “No” because they wanted to stand up for what is right, rather than saying “Yes” just because House moderates wanted reelection material, or because an optics-obsessed White House could check off another campaign promise, regardless of what the end-product looked like. They were finally demonstrating what conservative voters have long wanted from Republicans in Congress – a willingness to stay true to the principles of the Party and the Constitution, even if it means going against Party leaders.

Standing up for these principles is not being anti-Republican, or not “living in the real world” as White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon suggests; it is simply refusing to be yet another rubber-stamp Congress similar to that which gave us No Child Left Behind, the USA PATRIOT Act, and the massively expensive prescription drug bill – just because a Republican president wanted such legislation passed.

In doing what they did last week, the conservatives sent a message to the Establishment that principles do actually mean something; and that at least a significant number of Republican members will stand firm in that regard. The lack of “loyalty” by the Freedom Caucus that the President decried immediately following Ryan’s pulling the vote last Friday was in fact a welcome exhibition of “loyalty” to true Republican principles, and to the Constitution-based responsibility of the House of Representatives that is independent of the presidency even if the occupant of that office happens to be of the same political Party as the majority. Hopefully, congressional leaders and the White House will come to understand this, and see it as an opportunity to begin actually reining in government rather than expanding it.  One can at least hope.

[william.scherk]

6 hours ago, At Townhall.com, somewhere with a URL, John Stossel said:

Voters will probably blame Republicans.

Agree.

Quote

Insurance is meant for catastrophic health events, surprises that cost more than most people can afford. That does not include birth control and diet counseling.

I don't get this, don't understand it.  In single-payer systems like the Canadian provincial plans, insurance coverage for medically necessary services is combined with universal access. So, the scheme covers everything from routine vaccinations to lung transplants to end-of-life care. The goal was not to add another layer or layers of administration devoted to clearing payments from insurers. For those provincial schemes that require you to pay a premium for your 'insurance,' it would make no economic/health outcome sense to disallow 'non-catastrophic' medical services.

That some catastrophes can be averted before they take hold, via preventive medicine, seems to answer the "only for catastrophes' view of medical or hospital insurance.

Quote

The solution is to reduce, not increase, government's control.

Perfection is the enemy of the good. But a supremely laissez-faire position needs no defense at Objectivist Living.

Quote

We should buy medical care the way we buy cars and computers -- with our own money.

"We should buy medical insurance the way we buy car insurance and computer service 'insurance.'"

I mean, a laissez-faire system would have nothing to say about any company offering 'cradle to grave' coverage under the heading "Insurance." An Objectivist argument could rubbish the whole notion of medical insurance as stupid -- and support Stossel's wishes and hopes -- but it won't be objectively illegal or unethical to sell insurance for whatever the company thinks it can make money on.

You buy car insurance because you don't want a 'catastophe' to hobble you or stop you from getting where you need to go.

Quote

Our employers don't pay for our food, clothing and shelter; they shouldn't pay for our health care. 

Generally speaking, employment earnings will cover food, clothing and shelter, and maybe transportation. Put ten dollars a week in your savings account, and when you are fifty-six you can finally afford a heart attack.

I agree that the monstrosities of the US system contain component ogres -- like employer-provided health coverage mandates.

Edited April 1, 2017 by william.scherk
Buy by.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bad bad news in PedoLand (for the pedophiles, that is).

And they are just getting started.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The guy who broke the Susan Rice story is none other than conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich.

Ta daa!

Here he is talking to Alex Jones detailing how Pedogate is far, far bigger than anyone imagined. According to what he is saying, the reason President Trump can't get lots of people approved so far is that the Deep State wants to put pedophiles in so they can be blackmailed. And some of the pedophiles are not even pedophiles. They are swingers who are into wife-swapping and things like that who apparently go to clubs right outside DC. The spooks get them drugged, get them alone, bring in kids, then photographs galore are taken. Voila. Instant tool for placement.

This is an old CIA tactic. Their drug of choice back when I learned about this used to be scopolamine (the zombie drug used in voodoo cultures). 

Anywho, see for yourself. As for those who don't believe that conspiracy theories could possibly be real, you can keep watching CNN. Those professionals claim the Susan Rice story isn't real (at least so far  ). 

I want to put a smiley, but this pedophile stuff is not funny.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Paul Joseph Watson weighs in on Pedogate.

Most of the items he mentioned had three characteristics:

1. Elites were involved, both named and (the vast majority) unnamed, 

2. Some individuals were busted and the respective stories went all over the news, and

3. Either a cover-up followed or further investigation was shut down, nay, slammed down.

Also, murder was an essential part in several of the cases.

This is hugely unpleasant for most people, but I am insisting on talking about it to keep it alive. This is not something that goes away if we just stop mentioning it and thinking about it.

Now that President Trump is dropping the hammer on pedophiles all across the country (about 1,500 arrests in his first month in office), let's see if the pedophile rings in government and surrounding elites (and common folks, for that matter)--including those among sanctimonious Hollywood elites--can be weeded out and destroyed.

This is quite serious for people like myself. And I wasn't even abused as a child (other than beaten). For other folks, all this is merely more conspiracy theories.

Michael

[merjet]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Now that President Trump is dropping the hammer on pedophiles all across the country (about 1,500 arrests in his first month in office),

Trump's Mythical Crackdown on Sex Trafficking

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

46 minutes ago, merjet said:

Trump's Mythical Crackdown on Sex Trafficking

LOL...

Why not go whole hog? From New York magazine:

Many People Are Saying Donald Trump Gives Money to Pedophiles, According to a Very Reputable Robot

Anywho, from around the same time as the Reason article (which slants way too hard for my taste--data correction is one thing, but omissions are another):

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Just in case people thought this was going away.

All that really happened was the pedos got a bit of time off from so much public commentary because of a few bombs (Tomahawks, MOAB, things like that...).

Based not only on Seaman, but on other places I read at times, I believe Haiti is going to blow wide open over time re child trafficking and elites.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This one is for those who want to see the mainstream media doing a conspiracy theory about Alex Jones. His attorney in a child custody case claimed he was a performance artist and the MSM had a field day. They pointed to this as proof Alex was going to lose his audience because he doesn't believe in what he says, it's all made up, yada yada yada.

However, when you see what his attorney was talking about, it's ugly, not for Alex, but for the MSM. And Alex even prefaces everything with a string of clips from the MSM bashing him, so he gives them a fair shot.

These MSM people (and globalists in general) are scared to death of what Alex Jones represents, that is his audience, meaning actual normal people who want to live as free individuals, not as subjects to them nor as members of a superior "breakaway human species" as these elitists pretend they belong to--the breakaway species that obviously has to rule over all the human cattle of the earth. These elitists are terrified, so they do exactly what they accuse Alex of doing. They make stuff up and accuse based on their fantasies. And they do it over and over and over.

Is there any need to use the H word here? H as in hypocrisy?

VFN

I prefer that one. (Very Fake News.)

Michael

[Peter]

Michael wrote: These MSM people (and globalists in general) are scared to death of what Alex Jones represents, that is his audience, meaning actual normal people who want to live as free individuals, not as subjects to them nor as members of a superior "breakaway human species" as these elitists pretend they belong to--the breakaway species that obviously has to rule over all the human cattle of the earth. end quote

Rush has been characterizing the Elitist Progressives as being as set in stone as Jihadists who enforce Sharia Law. That is why they are statists who reject the Constitution and American values.

Walter Williams just wrote: As a group, black Americans have made the greatest gains -- over some of the highest hurdles and in a very short span of time -- of any racial group in mankind's history. What's the evidence? If one totaled up the earnings of black Americans and considered us as a separate nation with our own gross domestic product, we would rank among the 20 richest nations. It was a black American, Gen. Colin Powell, who once headed the world's mightiest military. Black Americans are among the world's most famous personalities, and a few are among the world's richest people. end quote

Interesting. The 20^th richest nation! I think the tribal culture of Africans was stagnant as the distinctively different looking Arabs Asians and Whites were creating science, agriculture, the means to travel and transport, generally improved standards of living . . . . and warfare. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, though slavery already existed among blacks and Arabs at that same time, and had existed in long lost empires like the conquering Romans.  And the American colonies had indentured servants and Australia was forcibly colonized by convicts.

Alternate futures in the same culture? For a while, black culture was heading down the path to slavery though dependence on welfare supplied by the democrats who despised them, but wanted their votes to empower their pseudo communist regimes. And now? We finally seem to be not supporting the thug culture of the inner city black citizens.

Peter     

[anthony]

Giving further perspective to Peter's musings, it was a rough shake up for me to compare relative national GDP's, recently. The USA is somewhere over $18 trillion. United Kingdom - $2.65 trillion. Africa - $2.27 trillion.

That's "Africa", the whole continent of. Not South Africa, now running third in Africa from first place, once. There's nothing deterministically racial here, it's all in the values and ideology of where you are, folks. Be happy you are there.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

This one is for those who want to see the mainstream media doing a conspiracy theory about Alex Jones. His attorney in a child custody case claimed he was a performance artist and the MSM had a field day. They pointed to this as proof Alex was going to lose his audience because he doesn't believe in what he says, it's all made up, yada yada yada.

However, when you see what his attorney was talking about, it's ugly, not for Alex, but for the MSM.

The guy below gets it and says all the obvious stuff I don't have the patience to.

Michael

[Peter]

Anthony wrote: There's nothing deterministically racial here, it's all in the values and ideology of where you are, folks. Be happy you are there. end quote

I forget there are others onboard this starship. For now I will drop my provincial view . . . . nope. Can’t do it J

Anthony, does it seem like you landed at Kennedy International when you log on? We must seem as snobbish and self-absorbed as the Frenchies.

This sounds dumb but what will you be eating for supper? Did you have coffee for breakfast? What will your outside day time temperature be?

Peter   

[Peter]

Greetings alien! More dumb questions and examples of American spoofing, though I am curious, Anthony. Locally people hunt deer and turkeys in the winter. Do you go on safaris in South Africa? We have pesky squirrels and raccoons. Do monkeys roam your streets? I live in the country and there are farm lands all around me, though the only farming I do are tomatoes this year. I seem to remember you live in a city or suburb. Do you have a garden?   

Peter