It isn’t free for people who live in Canada, or I wouldn’t be looking at paying 15% taxes ($360) on the $2400 computer I’m considering buying. I may grumble, but I know that that’s better than the alternatives.
Wow…that’s reading a lot into what I said that wasn’t there!
I wasn’t trying to “win” the argument with my statement…I was just trying to point out your false dichotomy. As BrainGlutton said, you don’t necessarily have to trade one for the other, and I certainly don’t think that would be the preferred state of affairs for any of us. I’m not talking about high taxes, which are of course inevitable when you start socializing the government. I’m talking about not even being allowed to pursue your own way of earning a living, and ever EVER having the opportunity to get ahead in life and have a little security for yourself. I’m not talking just about not being able to own a house, or a car, I’m talking about not ever being able to make more money than the government determines you should…which, in the case of Cuba is basically set at poverty-level. Simply not worth the trade-off. I would ten times rather be poor with possible opportunities to get ahead, than be poor with no opportunities at all, regardless of what health care was available to me.
And of course you can’t measure love for children based on every choice a parent makes. But that isn’t the point at all. The point is, again, that your statement doesn’t hold water. But since you don’t like my argument, then I will just repeat John Mace’s post, and ask for a cite. Do you have any evidence whatsoever that property rights are insignificant to people who can’t afford healthcare for their children?
You guys serious? You think poor people are in a big sweat over capital gains taxes? And property right “insignificant” next to children? Well, of course, they are! Every parent I’ve ever known would saw off his/her arm with a butter knife if it meant their child would get care they otherwise might not! If the people you know aren’t like that, I’d suggest hanging with a better class of people!
PS: turns out the Harper’s article I recommended is behind a subscription screen. Drat. Still, worth the trouble.
I think the argument that cuba maintains artificially low infant mortality via an aggressive abortion regime is pretty weak (at least by those statistics).
Obviously the menstrual extraction thing messes it all up a bit. I think that assuming all or even most amenorrhea is pregnancy is pretty specious. So, looking at just the above quoted statistic, Cuba’s abortion rate isn’t significantly higher than the US rate. In 1992, the US rate was 76.4 per 100 live births. In 2002 that number was 41.6. For black women in the US, it was higher than Cuba’s rate. cite
This just can’t be, you’d have more abortion clinics than Starbucks.
Haha. No kidding. That cite is about Lithuania. My bad for speedy googling!
[The actual number is in the 30’s though and 49 per 100 for black women.]
I think we are defining property rights differently. I’m not talking about buying big houses & having a stock portfolio. I am talking about the freedom to earn a living and purchase needed items. Like food and medicine. If you think that people in Cuba get everything they need from the government, ask one of the many many Cuban-Americans who send medications to their relatives in Cuba because there is no free market, and therefore, medications are not available and/or affordable. Here in my state, not only are medications available, they are affordable to people with children, because the state guarantees healthcare to all children.
No, I can’t agree that the system in Cuba is the one for the world to envy.
Even if you don’t agree that property rights are important, how about the freedoms we have guaranteed by the Bill of Rights? Freedom of speech, of assembly, the right to petition the government, etc. We sit here on the internet on a daily basis, criticizing our president’s every move. I would love to hear lalenin’s take on what happens to Cubans who criticize Castro. There are some freedoms that are worth more than all the free healthcare in the world.
From the CDC:
So, it’s about 25%. I’m surprised it’s that high! Remember that this isn’t the rate per pregnancy since many pregnancies end in miscarriage.
Those CDC numbers aren’t the best ones. Cite
Many Cuban “experts” left the island as children. So it’s not surprising that their English is good.
Here is a post where lalenin explains how he came to defect from Cuba to Canada. As an adult.
Are you accusing me of lying?
lalenin, some people here in the US desperately want to believe that they know more about what goes on in Cuba than people who have actually lived there, even if they have never set foot on the island. As you know, even those who did leave as children have friends & relatives back there who let them know quite clearly what life is like for them. They know that they send these relatives money, medicine, and other necessities so that they can supplement the meager lifestyle the government provides for them. They know that they know people such as yourself who felt the need to flee the country, at the risk of never returning and seeing their homeland again. I so wish that people here in the US would listen a little more closely to what former Cubans have to say about their experiences there.
I tried to get to this link but it requires a subscription. I don’t know what the article discusses but I am very familiar with agriculture in Cuba, I worked it for 6 years, so if you’d like to post some interesting parts I can comment on them.
I think that’s a question I would like to ask then. Is this skepticism unique to the Cuba situation? Or are these kinds of questions also asked of others from all over the world? I can see that Americans would have questions about Cuba, since they can not travel there easily, but if they get answers from those who have been there, why ignore those answers?
Problem with that is, any time a source tells you something you don’t want to hear, you’ll just call it “decidedly partisan.” There’s no such thing as a totally unbiased source, and some excuse can always be found to dismiss any findings you don’t like.
As far as I can tell, it’s mostly driven by ideology. Some people want to believe that a collectivist style of government works, and for some reason are willing to ignore, or pretend they don’t see, what tactics Castro has employed to maintain “support” for it in Cuba. Casting doubt on first-hand accounts is one of their ways of closing their eyes to it.
'Cuz, as we all know, the abject failure of every Communist economy everywhere in the world is due to the evil machinations of white, straight conservative males in the United States. That, and ninety years of bad weather.
And what lesson, exactly, would that be? That the state has the right to decide who will be born and who won’t?
But Harper’s is a decidedly partison source.