I absolutely can, and I reject your contorted logic to turn support yesterday into disavowal today.
So what should he have said, then, to make clear he was talking about his positions in 2004 and 2006? He was asked a question specifically about his positions in 2004 and 2006, he described each position repeatedly using the past tense… what did he need to do, explicitly say, “What I supported then was…?”
One of us is talking past the other.
I’m not denying that it can be used fallaciously. I’m merely adding that it can also be used correctly. Bricker has just now mentioned gay marriage; let’s run with that example for a moment.
If someone says they favor gay marriage because anyone should be free to marry anyone who consents, then it’s of course appropriate to ask whether a man should be free to marry his daughter or have five wives or whatever. If the proponent of gay marriage says “yes”, then we can debate the full ramifications of that claim – but if he says “no”, then it’s on him to produce some new line that would stop the slippery slope; he can frame his justification to include that stopping point, or he can embrace the whole slope, but he can’t say “no” with the original reasoning.
And I say that as a proponent of gay marriage: the other side is ***not wrong *** to ask why the slope would stop at gay marriage.
There are good reasons to oppose the death penalty while still okaying fines and prison sentences. There are also bad reasons to oppose the death penalty, which likewise commit one to opposing fines and prison sentences. There’s thus nothing fallacious in asking after someone’s stopping point; some slopes are slippery. Some aren’t; that’s why it sometimes fuels fallacious reasoning. But some are, which is why the fallacy works in the first place.
Yes, it matters. Because it sets an expectation. It places health care into the category of “things we expect the public to pay for.” That’s a bad end.
“I no longer hold that position”, “I have changed my position since then”, something along those lines. Past tense does not imply that those positions are no longer held.
Excellent post.
Schemes like these become “one-way ratchets,” where entitlements, once granted, are viewed as matters of right and can thereafter never be removed, only increased.
The rights enshrined in the Constitution are rights to freedom from interference with others, to freedom of action. This scheme creates a “right” to a service provided by the government. Attempts to cut welfare in the mid-1990s were met by lawsuits which alleged, whether by implication or directly, that there was aright to welfare – once given, the theory went, welfare could not simply be taken away.
In my view, what we lose by enshrining medical care as a right, a service that must be provided to all by our government, is large. It’s not the saving of money at issue, it’s the blurring of the correct distinction between what the individual must provide for himself and his family and what society must provide for all individuals.
I But it doesn’t imply that they are still held, either. It’s certainly not correct to point to those statements and claim that they affirmatively say he still holds the position. I’ll agree that there’s no definitive statement disavowing them. But there’s no statement endorsing them, either.
Arguments of that nature have been functionally obsolete since the Whigs were last in power.
Why, necessarily? Disregarding, for the sake of argument, that road and street maintenance is paid for at a different level of government, that’s paid for by the public. So are the police and fire departments. Why is it acceptable for there to be such an expectation for those things, but not for health care? Hell, even the medical professionals are coming around to support reform. I don’t know anybody who really benefits from the current system except the insurance companies, and the parasitic third-party billers.
The proposal will stop, or not, because any changes to it will also have to go through congress, and each step can be debated and voted on its own merits.
Jeez, you free the slaves just one time…
Every law establishes some new benchmark of what we think we deserve from the government. If “one-way-ratchets” were always bad, nothing would get passed. Hey, there’s an idea. Vote ‘no’ on everything! Disband congress!
Because there are unlikely to be great advances in the firefighting or road building arenas, but there remain many great advances in the medical arena yet undiscovered, and I am convinced that this scheme will ultimately cripple our progress in this area. People from these wonderfully advanced European nations come here for cutting edge treatment. It’s here because those that discover and market it are rewarded. And this proposal is the first step to making these people public servants, not private actors, which will stile innovation in this area.
Not true.
When you buy a car, the dealer wants you to negotiate down form the MSRP. The correct approach is to negotiate up from the dealer’s true cost. It’s not enough to simply say, “Hey, the cost is being negotiated in each case.”
Morality? Are you joking? You reject a healthcare system that would be cheaper than the one we have now- you’re willing to keep paying more for the system that screws poor people, because of your “principles.”
Up til now, America has agreed with you.
And that’s maximizing morality?
You’re one sick asshole.
What does that have to do with my post?
Buying a car is an all-or-nothing process. There can be offers, and counter-offers, but nothing happens until both sides are satisfied. Either party can walk away. And after the papers are signed, you don’t keep haggling.
Health care reform, and the slippery-slope argument about it, is different. We can pass one law now. It may be imperfect, but it would take effect and we could live with it. In the future, we may decide to change it. More than two years into the future and that debate won’t even be conducted by the same people who are deciding now.
That is nothing like buying a car.
The trouble is Bricker’s an asshole because he’s flailing around for a reason when he’s seen that all his rational arguments aren’t rational at all. So now he’s forced to degenerate to, “'cause I wanna!” as an argument.
He is literally no better than Magellan on the subject of SSM. Bricker just stamps his feet because he refuses to let logic determine his opinions, he will keep them no matter how objectively stupid they are.
Respectfully, Bricker, how do we not already have a version of UHC? If I get fucked up in a car wreck, the ambulace has to come when called, and they have to take me to a hospital. They can’t show up and say, “Well TD, you don’t have insurance and I am not about to pay for you to get patched up. Peace out, worthless bastard.” I get taken anyway. I get a huge bill that I have no hope in hell of paying, and the cost gets pushed back to you the next time you pop into the ER.
Isn’t there a law stating that they have to provide care? I know it doesn’t always happen, but I thought there was a rule. Also, what happens if I am a pregnant lady that is insuranceless? They have to take me in to the hospital and deliver my baby, put a preemie in the incubator, etc, regardless of my ability to pay.
It seems we don’t have a form of universal wellness care, like going to the doctor before I get level 5000 pneumonia and have to go to the ER and stiff them out a huge bill that gets passed to you. You see what I mean?
Bricker can be such a harsh realm sometimes.
Meh, I dunno. He strikes me as someone that is pretty smart, I just can’t follow his logic on this one. Its not that I am not trying, I am pretty open to both sides. Just a bit confused, thats all.
No. Adequate health care is more important then your national pride, which is what this is really all about.
I imagine that one could point out that in other countries where there is UHC, there is still no UCP (Universal Car Payment) program. In fact, one could if one were so inclined, ask Bricker what dreadful slippery slopish consequences that have occured in other countries with UHC would happen here.
And as far as losing our cutting edge medicine, I suppose I needn’t point out the at least twice yearly reports of people having to fly to other countries to recieve our cutting edge medical treatments because they cannot afford to have them performed here. I certainly won’t have to remind anyone of the whole Canadian drug hullaballoo which was again related to the costs of such cutting edge medicines. That would make one wonder whether the cost is actually worth the cutting edge-itude. That’s just un-American.