I thought I was being referred to as the “tag-team partner”. My sincere apologies for the confusion.
So who was the TTP?
ETA: Did I read that right? That I possibly confused myself with someone else? I know I’m not the most self-aware person in the world, but still…
And coarse language aside, you still haven’t responded to any of my points.
Yeah, actually I have. Hundreds of times over the past eight years. I’m old now. And tired. I just don’t care to argue about it anymore. I like my worldview, and I do not begrudge you yours. Mine does make for a nice haiku, however:
Christianity
Libertarianism
Objectivism
<shrug> Well, OK, I guess. Was just lookin’ for a little lively conservation…
<wanders off to look for a wasp’s nest to poke with a stick>
I know this one, saw it when the Err Apparent was watching Sesame Street!
One of these things is not like the others
One of these things doesn’t belong…
Oh, and Lib? When you actually get tired of arguing, we will all be standing around drinking coffee and talking about what a swell fellow you were. In the very distant future, Ayn willing.
Okay.
Now say it standing on one foot!
Christianity
Libertar…
Damn. 
That’s just plain stupid. I didn’t cherry-pick a dictionary. I picked the best dictionary, the OED. And the definition offered is the only one that makes any sense in the context of the discussion in question. *They *added the example of “free health care,” not me.
Surely you can appreciate in retrospect that you’re simply wrong on picking this particular fight.
Stupid? Good thing they didn’t say “free tooth paste”, I reckon — you’d have been put on the spot to formulate an argument. If you’re bothered that I pointed out that someone does indeed pay for the 70-year-old’s care — assuming no slave labor — then argue that point. Maybe you think it’s okay. Just don’t pretend that it doesn’t happen.
You don’t know when to quit, do you? I’ll make this very simple. In response to this:
…You said this:
Since you are quite obviously wrong about that, I pointed it out. Now you could have simply accepted your error, but you stubbornly proceed as if your point has been vindicated.
Your argument about dualing definitions and the relativity of meaning is, indeed, stupid. Foremost because even if the word free has many acceptable definitions (and it surely does), the person using the word is allowed to pick one. But also because referring to government-provided health care as free is so commonplace that it is the dictionary’s example of proper use of the word free.
He is free to choose one, but then if he calls his particular choice “the commonly understood” one — as though the other thirty are chopped liver — he opens himself up to be challenged. Especially when he gloats about it applying to 70-year-olds while conveniently ignoring that it does not apply to 69-year-olds. Now, that’s that.
With respect to not knowing when to quit, you’re honestly embarrassing yourself. You’ve taken up this dead horse as your personal mission. The one who can’t quit appears to be you. And it seems that each time you bring it up again, you become increasingly silly about it. Calling me stupid and stubborn while you do this is ironic to the extreme.
Finally, just so you know, the dictionary is not telling you some fact about the freeness of government provided health care, but merely that its usage committee has found instances of the word being used that way. It is a statement about diction, not a lesson in economics.
I await your next escalated ad hominem lamentation about my stupidity and stubbornness — because clearly, you have found some definition of “quit” that says “continue badgering”.
My ad hominem has not escalated. It has remained that you are being stupid. Which, by pit standards, is pretty mellow. You demonstrate this again when you see the need to point out that a dictionary merely provides evidence of usage, which was exactly the issue being debated.
If you think a handful of posts on the subject constitutes a personal mission, then you have more diction problems than we thought.
Aw, c’mon man. If you’re “too tired” to argue with me when I attempt to rebut some of your highly questionable assertions, then why don’t you let the matter lie, instead of taking some more potshots at me when I’ve mentally checked out of the thread?
Jesus.
GDP growth rate isn’t an assessment of whether or not a country’s social welfare programs are unwieldy or not. Also note I said “many European countries” not “all.” I never understood that habit people are in, where I say “many” of something are X and someone says, “well THIS example of something is Y!!” Well, duh, I already made it very clear I wasn’t making an absolutist, catch-all statement by use of the word “many” instead of the word “all.”
Is that all you’ve got? How about responding to any of my other points?
I disagree. Evidence for this is, of course, European universal health care systems. Those systems very clearly deepen divisions between rich and poor. Unless you are fabulously wealthy in a European country, you don’t use private health care options. You wait in long lines, you don’t get near as many tests ran and et cetera. It goes back to why health care is more expensive in the United States than it is in Europe, it is because European governments control the price (this is actually a bad thing.) Private health care is unaffordable to any but the ultra-wealthy in these situations, and the fact that the ultra-wealthy use private health care is very telling.
Fire has a bad habit of spreading very rapidly. Causing huge amounts of property damage and loss of life. By and large the costs of unrestrained fires is significant enough to warrant government control of fire fighting. I don’t feel disease or medical problems warrant the same level of government intrusion. Can disease spread like wild fires? Sometimes, but in truth those kinds of pandemics aren’t that common, and they tend to not cause property damage in addition to loss of life. Furthermore, we can work to prevent the spread of deadly infectious diseases without having universal health care, we do have the CDC, for example.
No, health care isn’t about that. Where have you been for the past…forever? Health care is and should be all about providing differing qualities of care to those who can pay higher costs.
Actually the reason we have public fire and police forces isn’t because of market failure, but because of a desire of governments to consolidate power. Protection from security woes (like crime or fire) is one of the reasons governments were instituted amongst men. Governments are wary of surrendering such authority and power to private entities. Do I think private police or fire protection would work better than publicly funded? No, I don’t. So that’s why I think it’s a good thing we have public fire/police protection. I don’t feel the same way about health care.
I think you’re, quite simply, a bit of a bleeding heart. I think most people (in society at large, not the SDMB) would probably reply in the negative if asked this question, “Do you think your taxes should be raised in order to cover a $72,000 procedure to reattach two of a man’s finger tips that he lost in an accident at his home?” Or better yet, ask this question, “Your next door neighbor fell off a ladder cleaning his gutters and is now paralyzed from the waist down. Should you have to pay his medical bills?”
However, I think most people would answer in the positive if you asked them, “Do you think your taxes should be raised in order to provide a higher level of education to America’s children?” Or, “Do you think your taxes should be raised in order to fund research for fighting cancer?” Finger tips aren’t cancer, they aren’t even as important as providing an education to even a single student.
I think it can reduce spending, I don’t believe it can reduce costs. Different thing, in my opinion.
People have a right to life, I just define that right differently than you. I take it to mean you have a right to be alive and that government should not be able to take your life from you, nor should a private individual be able to do so without government trying to do something about it.
I said food was a basic humanitarian need not a right. Different things. Food is a need because every human ever has needed food to continue functioning in a normal manner. Most humans throughout history have, however, been able to function in a normal manner once they have reached adult age without extensive medical care. Species in general do fine without medical care at all. For example deer are an extremely healthy species in the wild and almost never receive any medical care. If you took away all of the deer’s food sources, they would go extinct, however. If you took away their medical care they’d…go about their business, since they don’t generally receive any to begin with (aside from a few that might be in managed territories or in zoos.)
Obviously I was. I said, “you were able to secure funding” and lo and behold right here you explain how you secured said funding:
As for this:
Yeah, great hardships happen. Do you want me to pay your bills for you? Why should I have to do so? I may be open to the idea of some form of medical coverage for certain essential procedures as long as it is performed on a case-by-case basis on people who have no means of securing funding. You secured funding. Even then, going back to the greater issues at hand, just because I might support such a program doesn’t mean I think anyone has a “right” to medical care of this nature.
So now everyone is entitled to a good job? People are SLAVES if they work in jobs they don’t like (even though they are getting benefits and paid for it, nonetheless!?!) Where does it stop with you people? Why stop with us making sure everyone has a job they like and really enjoy, why not just give everyone a $70,000/year stipend and tell them to go off and enjoy life to their heart’s content, that way even people who don’t want to work at all would be able to get by just fine!