Bush gave away $30-billion the other day for AIDs research.

[ForumBot]

[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
If social pressure worked on libertarians, there would be no libertarians.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Matt_mcl]
Didn’t we have all these same kinds of arguments repeatedly over the last, oh, six or seven years?
[/quote]

Yes. I feel sort of silly rehashing the arguments that no doubt all of these people have already heard. Still, they ask, and I must answer.

@Der Trihs

< snicker > Social Darwinist America, feeling compassion towards the poor ? They’d be left to die, most places.

Imagine a society that guaranteed everyone a bigass TV, and I were trying to get rid of that policy, and you would snicker because not everyone could afford a TV. That is exactly the argument I am hearing from you. It just so happens that our preferences for life over all else line up, but they are nothing more than that–preferences, which are subjective and should not be enforced militarily.

@snetplit

Like how during the American great depression the rich had jewel givng out parties while the poor starved?

The great depression would have never happened if not for economic policies that were absolute shit and the middle class would have remained intact. The government fucked over its own people on that one, not the market.

Ever heard of microloans? They’re small loans (like $15 dollars for example) used to give people in 3rd world countries a jump start on a business. It’s a good program that’s given many many many people a leg up when they wouldn’t otherwise get one.

Yeah, those are great. Good thinking. Thanks for coming up for such a great example of the market in action.

I make less then lower middle class so this isn’t much at all. Under the current system my vote counts just as much as anyone else.

Please explain how your lack of money entitles you to tell others what to do with theirs.

I want universal healthcare and I want more medical research. I want a future where no one should have to face death for lack of healthcare. Given the complexity of the human body that may be an elusive goal, but the closer we get the better. Those are very strong voting issues with me.

You greedy son of a bitch. I want universal golf ranges free for all. What kind of screwed up worldview must you have to allow the poor to work themselves to death without a moment of leisure so you might save a little in taxes?

Every human has a right to life, a basic fundamental right to protect themselves from the aggressive actions of another, and if need be to band together in that goal. This does not mean every human has a right to a handout, no matter how badly they want it.

Your argument amounts to nothing more than a slippery slope and pretending that because your set of preferences lines up with the majority gives your views some sort of authenticity for a higher moral truth is horseshit.

[ForumBot]

[QUOTE=snetplit]
A leave the general population at the mercy of the rich.
B leave the general population at the mercy of people they can remove from office if they choose…

Which do you think will work out better for the general population?
[/quote]

Fallacy of the excluded middle. The poor in A still have the office to remove public officers. The only difference is everyone, regardless of income or stature, has an equal say in how their money is spent. I could be satisfied in this regard currently by a flatrate rax.

[ForumBot]

Sorry if I got carried away. I try to be as patient and tolerant of others’ views as possible, but I have been shown so little respect it is hard not to respond in kind.

[Jackmannii]

[QUOTE=Fear Itself]
My wife has an orphan disease that afflicts only 150,000 people in the country. No pharmaceutical company will invest a nickle into research because there is no way they can make a buck off of such a small pool of potential customers. If it were not for grants from NIH, there would be no research into cures for scleroderma at all.
[/QUOTE]
I’m sorry about your wife’s illness, but it is not true that the NIH is the sole entity funding scleroderma research or that drug companies are not spending research dollars to find treatments. From this site:

“Research is supported by grants from the NIH and private donations from pharmaceutical companies and organizations committed to finding the cause and treating patients with systemic sclerosis.”

Information about a clinical trial of one company’s drug.

[Kalhoun]

[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
$30-billion. Where does it end?

He could have just told them that we’re not giving them a dime. They can try something called “abstinence.”
[/QUOTE]

Ah, yes…the blithering pinhead takes another stab at christiany goodness and fails miserably.

And for once, I’m not talking about Bush.

[Fear_Itself]

[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
“Research is supported by grants from the NIH and private donations from pharmaceutical companies and organizations committed to finding the cause and treating patients with systemic sclerosis.”
[/QUOTE]
Private donations come primarily from the Scleroderma Research Foundation, and as I pointed out upthread, they have collected only $16 million in 17 years. If you have a cite for donations from pharmaceutical companies, I would like to see them. I would be greatly surprised if they exceeded the SRF, and amounted to more than a tiny fraction of NIH funding. If I overstated myself by saying NIH was the sole provider of research funds, I withdraw that statement. However, it is not an overstatement to say that the vast majority of research funding comes from NIH, and that without it, there would be no meaningful research into treatments for scleroderma.

As an aside, my wife is being treated at Boston University Medical Center by one of the chief research doctors mentioned in your cite. I will ask him when we see him on Thursday.

Information about a clinical trial of one company’s drug.

Vascana is a topical treatment for Raynaud’s disease. Raynaud’s is but one of the many diverse symptoms of scleroderma. Many more people have Raynaud’s symptoms than have been diagnosed with systemic scleroderma. To argue that research into Vascana is scleroderma research is disingenuous.