Not when there are no logical arguments he can use.
Genuinely rational people don’t follow a principle for no reason.
The way you’re arguing, it sounds right now like you don’t have any reason at all. This appears to be just a funny rule you’ve picked up somewhere along the way, “no tribute”, and you apply it unthinkingly to every possible situation you come across. There’s no discussion of alternatives, no deeper exploration of what’s at stake. There is, as you’ve presented this “principle”, a near sociopathic disregard for the actual living human beings who could potentially suffer and die from a misapplication of the wrong rule at the wrong time.
I would say that we shouldn’t pay tribute because the because the harm is generally greater than the benefit. But there’s a real human factor in there which can be practically applied, and that conclusion can change with different circumstances. A rational person considers these sorts of benefits and harms. Perhaps we can be argue their various weights, similar to what we do in the stimulus threads, but at least there we’re arguing with an idea of our ultimate goal, the general well-being of our people, firmly in mind. But the way you argue, there’s no hint of that factor anywhere. It’s an argument from a principle, which you appear to have picked out of the void, as if it has a value in and of itself quite apart from its application to our real lives.
No tribute? Even if the barbarians are at the gates, ready to murder our men and children, rape our women, and take everything that’s ours? No tribute? In any conceivable circumstance? Even if the harm is only the cost of a few shiny baubles, and the gain is longer and happier lives for all of our people?
The health care monster is not yet at our gates. It is about two or three decades out. But if nothing is done, it will show up. This was as clear ten years ago as it is today. And your advice to this problem is, effectively, to open the gates and invite the monster inside because your vaunted principle does not allow any other course of action. The principle would seem to be all important, even if leads directly to total insolvency.
Well, that is the very essence of irrationality
The same. I also would not want to be one of those who, after paying in over an entire career, gets dropped by the insurance company when I need something. Nonproductive? How about those cited companies that take our money, and apparently have no intention of honoring their part of the contract? I am pretty sure too, even though I didn’t check, that these same politicians have a very very nice health plan, bought and paid for by the government.
And since they only insured 40,000 people, that means they did it to fifty percent of their customers!
Oh, wait. We don’t actually know what the percentage is.
Oh, wait. We do. It’s 0.5%, one half of one percent.
Thjought we alkready disposed of this argument. You convinced me: insurance companioes should be barred from dropping you though “no fault of your own.”
I said I agree. What more do you want? If that’s it, then we have a plan; let’s go home.
Don’t be absurd. I have a set of rules. I apply those rules consistently. The mere fact that I’m not applying them in a way you wish I would does not vitiate their consistency.
This is very similar in tone to The Tooth’s whining insistence that we apply principles of Christian teaching to the formation of secular policy, but only when he likes the result.
In fact, this effort is not about protecting the educated, middle class people. You’re bringing them into the picture to sway the calculus, but in fact, you want a plan that will pay for everyone. You want those educated, middle-class people to pay for thier own care and the care for the people who have no interest in or desire to work.
If your concern was solely for the working people, you’d offer a plan that helped them, and didn’t bleed them to help the non-productive. Instead you offer this plan, and then point out how those workers will also get some benefit.
So suppose I said, OK, I favor a public option plan, open to people that are working, period. You don’t contribute, you don’t get the benefit. How would that be?
Especially not then.
Chris: You forget one thing. We took a contract.
Vin: It’s sure not the kind any court would enforce.
Chris: That’s just the kind you’ve got to keep.
You have no idea what made this country great. And the more steps we take down this path of telling people that it’s ok to not have any personal responsibility, the more burden we heap on the “rich” and say that they will pay for all our needs, because they wouldn’t be rich without us, the worse off it will be.
Once again, you imply more than your willing to say. Its only a small fraction? Does that mean it some sort of clerical error, quickly remedied once a supervisor is called? Not according to the stories we’re hearing, that sure doesn’t seem likely. So why do they do it, Bricker?
Here is my dark and malicious, possibly slanderous, suggestion: I think they are doing it for money. Unless you have a more plausible suggestion?
In other circumstances, when people injure other people for the sake of money, we call it a crime. Is there some special exemption for insurance companies?
When confronted on it (as referenced above), did they say “This was a series of dreadful mistakes, and we are taking firm and positive action to ensure that nothing like that ever, ever happens again”? No, they didn’t, did they? I really think its about money.
So what, perzackly, is the point of your quantitative analysis? Its not really a problem because it happens to so few people?
“Why, yes, here at Moloch Mall, we murder every 1 millionth customer and grind them into “hamburger” which we sell as mystery meat to local high school cafeteria. But its less than one-thousandth of one percent of our customer base, so, really, what is there to get upset about?”
How would that be? That would be over my dead body, is how that would be.
But in order to give an example, you exhibited knowledge of two particular individual instances of posting.
The problems remain, though. You’re expecting greater effort on behalf of others than you yourself are willing to excuse out of on your part - you may be excused for not paying individual attention to each and every mosquito, but it is perfectly fine to complain about posters in general not paying attention to each and every one. And that’s even assuming that other posters must certainly draw the same conclusions of a double standard between the two that you do, and are simply not mentioning it. And assuming again that the same posters and readers of one thread are the same posters and readers of the other - I can’t speak for anyone else, but I haven’t read the particular piece you cite in that other thread. Simply because there are people against your position here and (presumably) people against your position in the other thread, does not mean the two “theys” are the same. And if there are in fact posters you had in mind, then i’d suggest you name them rather than compounding the issue with generalisations.
I have no illusions that this is an entirely unbiased, fair-minded group. On the other hand, however, your arguments that this case is an example of a double standard seem to assume far too much; it’s not a conclusion I would personally be happy with leaping to - not to the extent of being sick of it, certainly.
Out of interest, per your answer here; how many occasions have you overlooked as logically being the amount which you should not expect? What’s your rough estimate of how often it is reasonable to expect it to happen, that you compare against to judge the fairness of your conclusion?
Not very good.
What about people who want to start their own business and are not earning money for awhile?
What about people who quit a job to (say) move and start anew somewhere else?
What about newly graduated people looking for a job who have not found one yet?
What about children of lazy people?
What about people who lose their job (even through no fault of their own)?
What about people injured on the job who can no longer work at their profession because of that injury?
What about people born with disabilities (disabilities sufficient to prevent them from meaningful work)?
Fine, as long as it’s people who want to work, not just those who have been able to find a job. And, obviously, those with disabilities, but I assume you’d be okay with that.
Great, so you’re done with that. Now call your congresspeople and tell them you want a public option that applies to all persons who are employed, self-employed, or seeking employment.
Oh, and while we’re at it, can we apply this standard to other sectors of the economy? I really am with you on this. (And I can’t wait to put the undeserving rich who just inherited their wealth to work.)
I’m still waiting for Bricker to anwer my question.
What about the person who used to work, and no longer can? He is no longer contributing. Work accidents happen.
Example: A construction worker falls of a scaffold, or it malfunctions and drops him. He’s now crippled for life, becaue the fall destroyed his back. How about him?
How about something safer, like an inspector - and I see this happening at my job - they used to be great inspectors, looking at X Rays of rocket engine parts, looking at circuit boards, etc. Fortunately we have the luxury of finding them other things to do, that don’t depend on visual acuity. But what if, just asking, we had to let them go, simply because they got older and just can’t see well enough? They are no longer contributing.
How about hard workers who just get laid off, and their insurance is gone?
Finally, what about someone born with a severe problem? Through no fault of theirs, they are just unable to work. They will never contribute, because they can’t. They were screwed at birth.
None of these examples are contributing. What do we do? Dump them? I don’t think so.
But this is all a smoke screen and a derailment. The thread was supposed to be about the “marketing of fear”. So lets go back to that, shall we?
I’d say Bricker’s take on providing health insurance is an example of “marketing of fear”. He is displaying the conservative mindset that there are all these people out there who want to freeload off of his hard work. As such no one should be provided with insurance unless they can pay for it because of the horror of supporting lazy people while he works his ass off. This even to the point that it does not matter to him if he actually pays more in the end as long as he can send the message that he is not supporting lazy people.
So, it’s somewhere on the order of the ratio of the number of people Jack the Ripper bumped into going around London and the number of people he chopped up. Geez, why is history so hard on the poor chap? :rolleyes:
He is welcome to personally pay more. However, he wishes to make the rest of us also pay more for his gratification. He is a parasite.
Ahh…fun with numbers. It is only 0.5% so who cares right? 0.5% is a little number!
Nevermind that anyone with health insurance they bought on their own has to wonder what will happen if they get sick knowing their insurance company will seek to rescind their policy if they can.
But let’s look at that number. There are over 307 million people in the United States currently.
0.5% of 307 million is 1,535,000 people. That’s all, a drop in the bucket right? And this is yearly.
I know you said fine, let’s stop the rescission but I will extend your argument for another purpose.
You have been on about (essentially) lazy people who do nothing and freeload off of your and my and others hard work. So, where are all these freeloaders who want to do nothing and stick you with the bill? FWIW I have zero doubt there are some out there like that but how many are we talking about compared to the working population?
Well, in 2006 there were 150.6 million people in the workforce in the US. In 2006 the unemployment rate was 4.6%. So, 95.4% of the US available workforce was working!
Now remember there is really no such thing as a zero unemployment rate. I forget where I read it but in theory (if memory serves) something like 3% is about rock bottom. You always have people laid off or moving or women who stay at home a year to care for their kids or people laid up with an injury and so on. These are people theoretically available to the workforce and will be working again. So, if my 3% is remembered correctly, that leaves only 1.6% who might be considered to be these sponges you are so worried about.
So, going with 1.6% being the unrepentant freeloaders that gives us 2,409,600 taking you for a ride. But 1.6% feels like even less so stick with 1.6% per your method (and really, the freeloaders have to be less than that).
Now, in your effort to stick it to those folk you are content with a system that screws over 1.5 million directly (and never mind the knock on effects). You leave tens of millions without insurance at all.
Conservative math…would do for Pascal or Pythagoras what a squadron of Arcturan stunt apples would have done for Sir Isaac Newton (nod to Douglas Adams for that one).
Indeed. Jack only killed people. Didn’t steal from them beforehand, IIRC.
Next time somebody bitches about how conservatives think that liberals have bad ideas, but liberals think conservatives are bad people, I’m going to remember Bricker’s posts in this thread.
You have no idea how to make a delicious ham sandwich.
Amazing. You actually have the ability to type words without comprehending even their most basic implications.
You’re like that guy in the Turing box who receives Chinese characters through a slot, looks up their proper response, and then writes it up and slips the paper through another slot, all the while never knowing what the pretty pictures actually mean. Except that that guy could actually make a decent ham sandwich.