# This One's for The Obama Loyalists, Pay Attention. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 19, 2010, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784 "2010-08-19T20:08:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 40
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/781 "2010-09-07T10:11:07Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > > [@jrodefeld](#): > > > > I am not talking about vaccinations anymore. Everyone, SHUT UP about this issue. > > I’d want to walk away from talking about vaccinations too if I were you. It doesn’t do much for your credibility. It kinda makes you look like don’t really look into things very well and believe crazy conspiracy theories. > > I’d probably stop talking about Homeopathy too. I’m talking about medical freedom and all that that entails. I am neither endorsing Homeopathy and Vaccines nor condemning them. I am only showing that I should be free to choose my care and not forced into accepting treatment I don’t want. That is all. ---
**Author:** ![Baboonanza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f475e1/32.png) [@Baboonanza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baboonanza)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/782 "2010-09-07T10:15:04Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > What percentage of young, healthy people die from the common flu each year? Not very many. I certainly doesn’t mean we all NEED to rush out and get vaccinated against it. Why can’t you acknowledge that some vaccinations are not necessary for most people? Some diseases are not that big of a deal. People CAN potentially die from a lot of things. But my point is there should be a risk analysis before one gets a vaccine. If there is a vaccine against a minor illness that I am unlikely to contract, I would see vaccinating against it as completely unnecessary. > > Do you not agree? I don’t understand why these basic points are so difficult to understand? - Common Flu does indeed mostly kill the infirm. Generally these are the only people to be given vaccine. Every so often a pandemic Flu arises that is much more dangerous to healthy people. The 1918 pandemic can be first traced on US army bases among completely fit and healthy young men. - There are no diseases that ‘are not a big deal’ that you get vaccinated for. Please provide an example if you disagree. - ‘If there is a vaccine against a minor illness that I am unlikely to contract’. This one drives me fucking mental. THE ONLY REASON YOU ARE UNLIKELY TO CONTRACT THE DISEASE IS BECAUSE OF MASS VACCINATION. - THE ONLY REASON YOU ARE UNLIKELY TO CONTRACT THE DISEASE IS BECAUSE OF MASS VACCINATION. - THE ONLY REASON YOU ARE UNLIKELY TO CONTRACT THE DISEASE IS BECAUSE OF MASS VACCINATION. Understand now? ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/783 "2010-09-07T10:15:31Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > > [@jrodefeld](#): > > > > No actually they don’t. I like to defer to the AUTHORS of the document. I consider them a little more trustworthy than some activist that is a corporate crony, no better than a lawyer who finds a “legal” way to get a murderer off the hook. > > Do you believe the Founders erred in giving the Supreme Court the authority to interpret the Constitution? Should we repeal Article Three of the Constitution, or should we simply ignore it? No, but they relied on the people to nominate judges that would interpret the Constitution the right way. They gave us plenty of information that would leave us with no doubt on the proper interpretation. They also supported Nullification as a way for the states to OVERRULE the Supreme Court, so they thought of that as well. What is your opinion of nullification? The founder did advocate it to protect the people from unconstitutional laws, after all. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/784 "2010-09-07T10:18:01Z")
> [@Mr.Miskatonic](#): > > > [@jrodefeld](#): > > > > And I believe, like the Pharmaceutical industry with prescription drugs, makers of the vaccines are looking to make a buck opening the door for abuse and pushing unnecessary vaccinations on people. > > Then they sure are doing a lousy job of it. The number of pharmaceutical companies producing vaccines has dropped dramatically over the past few decades. There just isn’t much money in it, and the controlling of prices makes them almost not worth the effort. In 1967 the number of U.S. vaccine manufacturers was 37, now we are down to 3. The number of vaccines on the market has also dropped in that time from over 350 to a few dozen. Less manufacturers only means more profits. Whether or not what you say is true, don’t you see the valid concern one could have about this? Its not like government hasn’t worked on behalf of corporations concerned with profits before. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/785 "2010-09-07T10:28:29Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > > [@jrodefeld](#): > > > > Let me give you another example. There is an alternative treatment for healing injuries and joints called prolotherapy. It is a series of injections that stimulates the growth of new ligament tissue and collagen that cures chronic pain and can return athletes to a high level of play in a short amount of time. > > > > I got this done a couple years ago for a chronically strained and weakened ankle. Within three visits the pain was gone and I could go back to full time athletic competition. There is numerous scientific studies to support the effectiveness of the treatment, but it invalidates the need for drugs and surgery, so the medical establishment resists it. > > > > Insurance won’t cover it and it is not well known, even though it is a true miracle treatment. It is being suppressed because it threatens people who make money off knee surgeries, back surgeries and pain drugs. > > What do you mean by “the medical establishment resists it?” What does you mean by “it is being suppressed?” Clearly it is available. I see Medicare doesn’t cover it, and so major insurance carries don’t cover it. And they may be wrong to do that (I’m trying not to roll my eyes at your statement that it’s “a true miracle treatment”). But your argument that this is being covered up does not hold water. It’s true that it hasn’t been widely adopted. I have talked to my doctor who performs the procedure and he had nothing but negative things to say about insurance companies and medical schools who fail to teach the technique and he explained the conflict of interest in Insurance companies, Medicare, many medical schools and government programs. The point is it is certainly not voodoo medicine. It works and there are scores of scientific studies to prove its effectiveness. Yet it too is considered “alternative” medicine and it is still claimed by “official” sources that there is no proven benefit. As to whether or not it is a miracle treatment, just go read some testimonials. If properly adopted and administered it would eliminate the need for nearly all knee surgeries, back surgery, elbow surgery, and numerous other surgeries to correct injuries. There is obviously a lot of money at stake here. The point is there is quite a lot of amazing stuff in the “alternative” world of medicine that you are missing out on by staying within a narrow box. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/786 "2010-09-07T10:30:53Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > > Not to mention that people get better on their own all the time without the placebo effect or medicine. Frauds like homeopathy or faith healing just try to take the credit when the body manages to restore itself without help. Which of course is why they never “cure” anything that the body can’t do on its own, like reattaching a severed body part. > > Why should you care? Its none of your business if people want to spend their money on homeopathy and “faith” healing (which, I agree, is total bullshit). > > Leave these people alone to spend their money how they see fit. It is both unethical and bad for society in general to stand by and allow people to be exploited and killed for profit. Personally, I think that homeopaths and faith healers deserve prison for medical fraud and in many cases attempted murder, instead of being cosseted by the government the way they are. I see no moral difference between giving someone medicine that doesn’t work for profit and poisoning them for profit. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/787 "2010-09-07T10:32:40Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > > [@jrodefeld](#): > > > > My main point was about psychotropic drugs, not vaccinations. > > No one believes that. The vast majority of your comments about mandatory medications in schools have been regarding vaccinations. Do not even try to argue otherwise. > > > [@](#): > > > > You really don’t have a problem with schools drugging normal kids because they don’t want to deal with normal childhood behavior? I have a problem with this. You apparently do not. > > As I have made absolutely no statements about Ritalin, etc., how would you know? Besides, there are no laws that make Ritalin or other mood altering drugs mandatory to send your kids to school. There is mandatory mental health testing in many schools now. And many kids are placed on psychotropic drugs. I don’t know if there are laws that they have to accept these drugs, but why should this go on at school, period? How many kids can you label as having ADHD who are really just being kids? I was jumping off the walls when I was young driving my mother crazy. I didn’t have ADHD nor was I given Ritalin. If I was in public school today, I may have been drugged. This trend is scary. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/788 "2010-09-07T10:43:15Z")
> [@Oldeb](#): > > > [@jrodefeld](#): > > > > Why would you believe the government should limit access to a medical treatment than you don’t approve of? What about personal freedom? > > Personal freedom ends when you become a danger to others. People not getting vaccines or otherwise walking around with treatable diseases are a danger to everyone around them. It’s like drunk driving. Sure many, maybe even most, drunks make it home okay. Many people will go their entire lives without getting into an accident with a drunk driver. That still doesn’t stop them from killing thousands every year. > > That’s the biggest failing with Libertarian philosophy. It ignores that all of human history is people being bastards to others. Sometimes it’s for fun, sometimes it’s out of fear, sometimes it’s through indifferance, sometimes it’s to gain an advantage, and sometimes it’s all those reasons and more. > > There’s always a big complaint about how government should stick to repairing the roads and let people just go about their lives. But there is never an explaination for how you’re going to prevent things like exploitive child labor, exploitive 70 hour work weeks, unsafe work enviroments, rampant pollution, or grossly unfair wages from returning. All of that has happened throughout history and only stopped once government regulation started. (Heck, it still goes on even now. There’s a Pit thread about a Hawaiian company that was exploiting it’s workers) > > There’s always the magical handwave of, “That just wouldn’t happen.” But I’ve never seen a good reason why. And it’s not just for labor issues. It’s the same for things like education and health. > > Libertarians seem to believe in a fantasy world where nobody is ever selfish and thinks only of themselves. It’s a great fantasy really. I’d love to live in a world like they describe. It’s also not that different from one described by Communists either. The only real difference between the two is why they feel everyone is going to be nice to each other. > > Too bad the real world just doesn’t work that way. If people are such bastards as you say, why do you trust people in government? Your critical thinking and lack of blind trust seems to end when you favor government intervention into the marketplace. Like government is always wise acting out of altruistic benevolence. That is bullshit. You say what about **exploitive child labor, exploitive 70 hour work weeks, unsafe work enviroments, rampant pollution, or grossly unfair wages**. First of all, I will make the point that unlike some libertarians I am not automatically opposed to very basic regulations to prevent child labor and protect the environment. But as you say, exploitation occurs now. By the way if government rules were eliminated tomorrow, who would get away with forcing people to work 70 hour work weeks? It would never happen. There are natural incentives for companies to not mistreat their employees. Any time anyone gets hurt, the responsible party is forced to pay. This goes for the environment and workplace conditions. But what about people who voluntarily want to work more than forty hours a week? Or those who are unemployed who would be willing to do a job for less than the minimum wage? Many of these regulations destroy opportunities for people as well. Also, the harm that will come in a free market will be contained. If government makes a mistake, everyone suffers for it. That is the critical distinction. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/789 "2010-09-07T10:44:45Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > > [@jrodefeld](#): > > > > You act as if there is some big conspiracy to knowingly screw people through pushing a fraululent scam on people. > > I’m speechless (almost). Not with homeopathy. As much as you think it is bullshit, the people who practice it believe in it 100%. They are not trying to scam anyone. This makes homeopathy not a fraud. Everyone knows what they are getting. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/790 "2010-09-07T10:46:44Z")
> [@Oldeb](#): > > > [@jrodefeld](#): > > > > Homeopathy is not fraud. Many people sincerely believe it is effective and have dozens of loyal customers who swear to the success they feel they get from the treatment. YOU may think it is bullshit, but it should be legal. It has a long history of use for hundreds and hundreds of years. > > People believe a lot of things. They believe that Obama was born in Kenya. They believe aliens came and after a trip of light years decided the best thing to do was create some funny circle is our food. > > Posting a birth cerificate certified by Hawaii didn’t help Obama. Having the people who created the crop circle come out and explain how they did it didn’t stop the true believers. And no amount of medical studies will convince some people that sugar water and food coloring won’t cure anything. > > And appeals to history are problably not the best choice. Hundreds and hundreds of years have been spent believing that maggots spontaneously form in meat, the sun revolves around the earth, and eating a rhino’s horn will give you a boner. Dumb ideas have a way of sticking around. Yeah but its still not fraud. A lot of people believe in it. You shouldn’t deny them the right to be treated through homeopathy. That is all. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/791 "2010-09-07T10:51:56Z")
I sense an overly-miserly definition of the word “fraud”. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/792 "2010-09-07T10:56:40Z")
> [@DoctorJ](#): > > > [@jrodefeld](#): > > > > During the original swine flu “epidemic” in the 70s more people died from the vaccine than from the swine flu itself. > > I hate to wade in here, but I have to respond to this. > > The swine flu (H1N1) “outbreak” in 1976 killed one person, and as far as we know was limited to Fort Dix. An attempt was made to vaccinate everyone, and three elderly people died not long after getting inoculated. There was never any reason to think that the deaths were caused by the vaccine, but that’s how it was portrayed in the media at the time, and that’s how it gets quoted by vaccine alarmists today. > > The universal vaccination program seems like overkill in retrospect, since the virus was successfully contained. But remember that the flu pandemic of 1918-19 killed _tens of millions_ of people worldwide. If the vaccinations were unnecessary in '76, it’s only because we got ridiculously lucky. If Patient Zero had been someone who rode the subway to work instead of a soldier on an Army base, we’d have a whole different story. > > > [@](#): > > > > NOT AMONG HEALTHY PEOPLE! Healthy people do not die of the flu. There was a swine flu vaccine because people were made to be hysterical about a non event. No healthy person died from the swine flu. This was a racket. > > In my eight or so years as a physician, I personally have been involved in the care of three very healthy people in their late 20s/early 30s who got the flu, developed a secondary infection, and died. Probably ten times that many have been in the ICU on the ventilator but managed to pull through, though many of them will never recover completely. That’s just young people; I couldn’t even begin to count the old folks who’ve suffered similarly. > > **jrodefeld** , you’re right to be skeptical, and to not automatically believe the prevailing opinion. But being an independent thinker means looking at all the available evidence, and not just the pieces that sound convincing. > > Evaluating and processing medical information and separating the good from the bad isn’t easy. I make a living (in part) teaching young doctors to do it, and even after medical school they struggle with it. > > So I’m asking **you** to keep an open mind and consider that you have collected and cut-n-pasted is, by and large, not good information. At best, it’s been misleadingly written and/or out of date, and at worst it’s outright falsehood. Considering you are a doctor, I respect your opinion. I appreciate the civil tone as well. But don’t you think that there are a lot of disease that people can possibly get in this world that some can die from? Should we vaccinate against ALL possible illness? The world is a dangerous place. Some of us would like to take our chances and not put into our bodies more foreign substances than is absolutely necessary. I have said before I am not against vaccination as a principle. I simply don’t think all people need dozens of vaccinations in the first couple years of life. In you experience do you think there is ANY possible negative effect of many, many vaccinations given? Isn’t there a risk to any medical procedure? Getting sick and dying of a horrible illness is bad, but some of us don’t get many vaccinations and live a long and healthy life. Maybe we are more healthy than those who got all their shots. We haven’t been giving tons of vaccines for very long. The numbers of required immunizations have gone up drastically. Like cell phones causing cancer, we won’t know for sure until we wait and see what the effects of long term exposure are. I prefer to err on the side of caution and get less immunizations and reduce my risk of disease smartly through lifestyle and dietary considerations. That is my choice and so far it is working out for me. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/793 "2010-09-07T11:01:49Z")
> [@DoctorJ](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Let me give you another example. There is an alternative treatment for healing injuries and joints called prolotherapy. It is a series of injections that stimulates the growth of new ligament tissue and collagen that cures chronic pain and can return athletes to a high level of play in a short amount of time. > > > > I got this done a couple years ago for a chronically strained and weakened ankle. Within three visits the pain was gone and I could go back to full time athletic competition. There is numerous scientific studies to support the effectiveness of the treatment, but it invalidates the need for drugs and surgery, so the medical establishment resists it. > > > > Insurance won’t cover it and it is not well known, even though it is a true miracle treatment. It is being suppressed because it threatens people who make money off knee surgeries, back surgeries and pain drugs. > > The studies so far on prolotherapy have been small, with conflicting but generally positive results. The studies have not been similar enough to put together into much meta-analysis. There are some larger randomized controlled trials going on. I think there’s probably something to it, but we won’t be able to say for sure until those new trials are done. > > The only people “threatened” by prolotherapy are the insurance companies. And one could argue that they’re understandably so; if they’re going to shell out hundreds of dollars each for every patient with some back soreness, they’d at least like to know that the evidence was in favor of it. Prolotherapy is phenomenal. The results I got are staggering. Read the testimonials. They are full of people who lived for years with chronic pain, some confined to a wheel chair who were completely cured with prolotherapy. People have thrown away crutches and returned to athletics after a course of treatment. There have been quite a few exhaustive studies on prolotherapy that should be sufficient. As to the resistance of insurance companies, that is unfounded. They pay for surgeries and long term drugs that cost many thousands more than a course of prolotherapy. Once a course of treatment is completed the patient is permanently cured. It makes financial sense for insurance companies to cover prolotherapy as opposed to drugs and surgery. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/794 "2010-09-07T11:08:43Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > > [@jrodefeld](#): > > > > Sigh. I don’t know of anyone who defends the lamentable fact that slavery wasn’t abolished during the revolution. But many founders were against slavery, and some were not. They had their faults, but they were still ahead of the rest of the world in their thinking and writing on liberty. It has been argued that the founders (not all of them) truly abhorred slavery and understood the contradiction with the documents they authored but lamentably knew that not a sufficient percentage of the populace would accept an abolition of slavery at that time. > > > > No this was not libertarian to allow slavery to continue. But their views on liberty was followed up with the true abolition of slavery and the expansion of their libertarian views. > > > > We should still head the words they wrote and respect the documents that they gave us. They established the greatest nation in all of history and provided a blueprint for human liberty for the entire world, despite being products of their time and despite their contradictions and personal faults. > > They either condoned or tolerated slavery and many of them owned slaves. Some of them were conflicted, but we’re talking about the founders as a whole. And if you would bother to read the governing document they created–the US Constitution–you will see that it contains a number of decidedly non-libertarian ideas (such as spending on the general welfare, postal roads, hell, I’ll even throw patents and copyright in there). And on top of that, what you’ve managed to conveniently ignore is that they set up a government which routinely redistributed wealth, subsidized private industry and created arbitrary economic restrictions. The US was not a libertarian country at its inception, and it has never been a libertarian country. > > The notion of liberty is not unique to libertarian philosophy. There are many other philosophies which revolve around personal liberty. Simply pointing out that some founders favored liberty doesn’t make them libertarian. You’ve simply hand-waved away all the many, many behaviors of the founders which were completely non-libertarian, while at the same time pointing at some statements in order to pretend that they were libertarian at heart. > > I can see why people are having trouble arguing with you. Sighing pompously at people as if you’ve somehow argued a point is completely irritating. You know that most people define libertarianism as a person who believes in personal liberty? And the founders did not mean for the General Welfare clause to be interpreted as it has been to this day. I don’t want to spend the time to beat this issue to death with you, as its so overwhelmingly obvious. Just google: the founder fathers were libertarian and see what comes up. ---
**Author:** ![Baboonanza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f475e1/32.png) [@Baboonanza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baboonanza)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/795 "2010-09-07T11:14:50Z")
> [@DoctorJ](#): > > The studies so far on prolotherapy have been small, with conflicting but generally positive results. The studies have not been similar enough to put together into much meta-analysis. There are some larger randomized controlled trials going on. I think there’s probably something to it, but we won’t be able to say for sure until those new trials are done. > [@jrodefeld](#): > > There have been quite a few exhaustive studies on prolotherapy that should be sufficient. Hmm. Who to believe? ---
**Author:** ![Baboonanza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f475e1/32.png) [@Baboonanza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baboonanza)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/796 "2010-09-07T11:16:45Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > I don’t want to spend the time to beat this issue to death with you, as its so overwhelmingly obvious. Just google: the founder fathers were libertarian and see what comes up. That’s your argument? Google it? I thikn you’d get more hits for ‘obama is a marxist’. Does that make it true? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/797 "2010-09-07T11:20:03Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > If people are such bastards as you say, why do you trust people in government? Because government does not necessarily profit from people being exploited, nor does it exist for the sole purpose of making a profit. The companies and individuals doing the exploiting however do. And political figures who refuse to do anything about exploitation can be voted out of office, while the people who run corporations are effectively immune to retaliation from the public - except by that evil government you hate so much. And no, the magic free market won’t do a thing to them; the worst that happens is that the company they run is ruined and they move onto another, profiting in the process. > [@jrodefeld](#): > > Your critical thinking and lack of blind trust seems to end when you favor government intervention into the marketplace. Like government is always wise acting out of altruistic benevolence. That is bullshit. No, that’s just your own projection of your own attitudes onto others. You are assuming that your opposition supports government blindly the way you oppose it blindly. Some people however simply recognize that government is the best tool for some jobs, while you are ideologically incapable of admitting that, or of admitting the weaknesses of your holy free market. > [@jrodefeld](#): > > By the way if government rules were eliminated tomorrow, who would get away with forcing people to work 70 hour work weeks? It would never happen. There are natural incentives for companies to not mistreat their employees. Your claim is just silly. That kind of exploitation and worse is exactly what would happen, because that’s what happened before the rules were put into place. The only thing preventing such behavior and worse - including simply reducing employees to outright chained slaves - is the government. > [@jrodefeld](#): > > Also, the harm that will come in a free market will be contained. By what, magic? > [@jrodefeld](#): > > You know that most people define libertarianism as a person who believes in personal liberty? Actually, most people appear to define it as someone who says “screw you, I’ve got mine”, and who thinks the wealthy deserve all the power and the common people deserve none. Concern for or respect for personal liberty is the last thing I expect from a libertarian. Unless it’s theirs, that is. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/798 "2010-09-07T11:49:32Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > > [@Mr.Miskatonic](#): > > > > Then they sure are doing a lousy job of it. The number of pharmaceutical companies producing vaccines has dropped dramatically over the past few decades. There just isn’t much money in it, and the controlling of prices makes them almost not worth the effort. In 1967 the number of U.S. vaccine manufacturers was 37, now we are down to 3. The number of vaccines on the market has also dropped in that time from over 350 to a few dozen. > > Less manufacturers only means more profits. No it does not. If it did then sooner or later someone else would try to get a piece of that pie. Take a look at erectile dysfunction drugs and how many popped onto the market after Viagra. You are contradicting the realities of markets in your zealotry. > [@](#): > > Whether or not what you say is true, don’t you see the valid concern one could have about this? Its not like government hasn’t worked on behalf of corporations concerned with profits before. Massive government regulation is part of what made so many companies drop them. I find your attitude funny for a libertarian. ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/799 "2010-09-07T12:00:54Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > Well Hellestal, you go quite a way towards actually acknowledging that what we have today is not competing currencies in the manner that I, Ron Paul and FA Hayek are arguing for. It is your foolish insistence that what we have today with e gold (give me a break) constitutes the competing currencies that I advocate for. This is hardly the case, **jrodefeld** , you somehow seem not to realize that the ridiculous things you wrote in the past are still available for me to read. I don’t need to “foolishly insist” that you were advocating for a system of voluntary exchange using gold or silver. All I have to do is quote your own words. Here’s a trip down memory lane: > [@jrodefeld](#): > > Also, we should allow competing currencies to circulate. If someone wants to exchange gold or silver certificates, for example, in a voluntary exchange for goods or services they should be allowed to. Emphasis added. You were advocating for a legal system allowing gold and silver to be traded for goods and services. A system like e-gold or GoldMoney or one of the others. How do I know this? Because I have you on record advocating for a legal system allowing gold and silver to be traded for goods and services. In other words, you were advocating for something that is _already legal_. Those are your words. That’s what you said. You, the expert, were bitching about not being allowed to do something that you are, in fact, allowed to do. Is that the _only_ thing you were advocating for? No, it’s not. But I don’t need to document every error from a three post OP to show the gaps in your knowledge. I just need to choose a few particularly egregious fuck-ups, point them out, and then watch as you dig yourself deeper into nonsense instead of admitting how much you fucked-up. Here’s another error, more recent, this jewel of a post from our present thread: > [@jrodefeld](#): > > The point was, and I should have made this more clear, that competing currencies ARE illegal. That doesn’t stop some people from doing it anyway. The fact that some people have so little faith in the dollar that they would ignore the law and use competing currencies gives credence to my larger point about the economy. > > But yeah, the point is competing currencies ARE illegal. These small town experiments are very small scale and infrequent because otherwise the participants get arrested. The point is that despite government prohibitions, a sufficient demand creates an underground market for things that are desired. Assuming that you’re not suffering some tragic mental disease, you should remember writing these words. I certainly remember reading those words. I was laughing at the time. Your argument, to remind you in the likely case that you’ve already conveniently forgotten it again, is that these competing currencies are “very small scale and infrequent because otherwise the participants get arrested”. Er, no. That’s still embarrassingly wrong. GoldMoney has more than a hundred million dollars worth of bullion in its vaults. That’s hardly small-scale. It’s not alternative currencies themselves that are illegal. I mean, money laundering? Sure, [that’s illegal.](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/e-gold/) But not alternative currencies. Did you mention Ron Paul with respect to competing currencies? Sure. Is that related to Hayek’s proposal of bank deregulation? Again, yes. But the thing is: **You didn’t know that.** It’s crystal clear that you didn’t understand the distinctions that Hayek was making, because you fucked up your explanation and started writing ALL CAPS about how ALL alternative currencies are illegal. Do you remember writing this? “The government DOES NOT allow competing currencies PERIOD.” Do you remember writing this? “But yeah, the point is competing currencies ARE illegal. These small town experiments are very small scale and infrequent because otherwise the participants get arrested.” These are your words. You are _on the record_ not knowing the difference between Hayek’s proposal of competing currencies and the currencies that are currently allowed. You are _on the record_ claiming that the only reason that alternative currencies are allowed is that they’re so small that they haven’t got caught yet. If you truly understood Hayek’s proposal, you wouldn’t have made these stupid, silly mistakes. If you truly understood what you were talking about, you wouldn’t have chosen examples of legal transactions when you wanted examples of illegal transactions. You got it reversed, and now you can’t admit it. Your words are recorded. The whole world and sunny Jesus can still read them. And then, my absolute favorite part, is your response when your errors are pointed out. It’s not that you just ignore your fuck-up. That wouldn’t be art. Instead, you try to remind the audience, again, of what a super-duper-special _expert_ you are. You’re just killing me with that. If you patted yourself on the back any harder, you’d dislocate a shoulder. I can’t get enough of it. Even if I were allowed to edit your post with malicious filler, I genuinely doubt I could make your arguments any worse than they already are. It’s a real hoot. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784/800 "2010-09-07T12:07:32Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > > [@jrodefeld](#): > > > > I respect you Sam Stone, as one of the only libertarians on this board, but you misunderstand my positions. What I am saying is this: > > > > I am not a firm believer in homeopathy. I tried in once and got good results. I believe that people should be ALLOWED to seek treatments like homeopathy, whether it is bogus or not. Thats what freedom is all about. > > First of all, one of the reasons homeopaths stay in business with their quackery is simple mathematics: Most people who are sick get better. If you have a cold you’ll get over it. If you’ve got a sore muscle it will heal. If you’ve got some strange symptom you’re scared of such as recurring headaches or strange gastrointestinal feelings you’ve never had before, you’ll probably get better. If not, you’ll die, or you’ll eventually be compelled to seek better treatment. > > Homeopaths have nothing to lose. They give you _water_ with some active ingredient distilled down to the point where it’s highly unlikely that there’s even a single molecule of it left. And hey presto, you get better. Or you die. Either way no one’s going to hear about the failure. > > … > As for allowing it… hell yeah. But last time I checked, it _was_ allowed. You’re free to give your own money to anyone who wants to offer you distilled water for 50 bucks. My local pharmacy is full of homeopathic garbage. Go look in the ear drops section of your pharmacy. I’ll bet you half the products there say in fine print, “A homeopathic remedy”. > > You’re making both a tactical and intellectual mistake here. Your tactical mistake is allowing your desire for freedom from the FDA push you into defending quackery. That weakens your position and gives your opponents an easy target. Hellestal in particular seems to be enjoying himself. > > Your intellectual mistake is that you seem to unquestionably accept things that libertarians or Austrians support. If Ron Paul likes Homeopathy there must be something to it! Because otherwise, he’d be a bit of a crank and that would diminish his standing. But you can’t wish away crankery, especially when it comes from people on your own side. > > Also, it’s a mistake to believe in homeopathy because you think it worked for you once. This ignores the weaknesses of self-deception, placebo effect, confirmation bias, anecdotal evidence, and most importantly, the fact that the medicine you think you took is distilled freaking water. > > If you want to defend freedom, defend freedom for what it is; a fundamental human right. It’s a mistake to deny that it has consequences. I think this is at the root of your defense of homeopathy - you’re looking for an example of something the FDA won’t certify, yet does good for people. And of course, if it’s quackery, it’s something the pro-FDA people can use against you. Don’t go there. > > If you want to be a libertarian or an Austrian, you have to be honest about it. The fact is, freedom is hard. Free markets may result in lots of good things and be on balance better than central command by governments, and freedom is an end unto itself, but freedom does not guarantee a better life for all. Free markets do not guarantee desirable social outcomes. On the other hand, neither does government; it just promises to. > > You’re getting a lot of bad information. No, vaccines aren’t perfectly safe; no drug is. Yes, people occasionally die from vaccinations. Very, very, VERY few. But the fact is that public vaccination saves millions of people from death, disease, and crippling deformity. > > The only reason you think that you’re safe to let yourself or your family go without vaccination is because you’re free-riding on the vaccinations of everyone else. Libertarians are supposed to be opposed to free riders. > > If everyone did what you’re doing and stopped getting vaccinations we would within a few years start seeing outbreaks of all the old diseases that terrorized families for centuries until we learned better. > > Vaccination isn’t exactly a big profit center. A lot of those drugs are no longer under patent, or never were. Furthermore, the nature of a vaccine is that you only have to give it once, with maybe a booster shot every few years. No one’s getting rich off of vaccinations. > > On the other hand, fully half of the population wants to get an erection every day, or thereabouts. A quarter of them are going bald prematurely. They have an awful lot of headaches and joint pain. They’re stressed, or they’re too inattentive. A lot of them seem to be depressed. That’s where the money goes, and that’s what the pharma companies care about. The big common afflictions that affect the mass of the population, and which have to be taken repeatedly day after day, sometimes for life to have therapeutic benefit. > > Big Pharma would probably give vaccinations for free as a loss leader if it helped keep their customers alive long enough to develop an affection for Pond’s Cold Cream and Oxycontin. > > I don’t recall us ever ignoring diet and exercise. Most people won’t shut up about it. In fact, every time I go to my doctor, he tells me to watch my diet and exercise more. Doesn’t yours? The only way we’re ignoring this advice is by being lazy self-indulgent overeaters in denial. Years and years of public service campaigns don’t seem to have changed that much. > > As for ‘complementary medicine’, if you’re talking about acupuncture, chiropractic medicine, homeopathy, ‘toxin removal’, cleansing your bowels, or any number of idiotic, unscientific crap treatments, we did try that for thousands of years before we had actual scientific medicine. With less than stellar results. > > If someone thinks that having shaman in a sweat lodge wave chicken entrails over him will cure his cancer, that’s his business. But he can pay for it out of his own pocket and he’d better not complain if his insurance company won’t pay for it. And if the Shaman turns out to to be a guy named Joey who may have lied about his entrailing skills, he should be sued out of lodge and home. I don’t care about homeopathy and I don’t want to defend it. As far as the larger scope of alternative medicine, I think you are not being quite fair in your blanket criticism. Acupuncture has proven success with a lot of people, improving circulation and relaxing tight muscles and improving range of motion. Chiropractic helps many people maintain proper alignment and health throughout life. And various detox programs and “cleanses” have proven results in cleaning out toxins and improving well being. My mom is a massage practitioner and Ayurvedic (traditional Indian health care system) doctor and I have witnessed the success of the herbs and food that she has given me on my health and the health of my whole family. If a person is sick and seeking treatment, they generally don’t give a shit about double blind studies. They care if they feel better from the treatment. There are many things that science cannot YET explain. Certain things have certain effects that we don’t fully understand yet. The discussion of the science and various studies may be of interest to you and me but it is less important if you, like me, witness the active practice of a competent doctor who sees dozens of clients who improve in their health from the application of natural remedies and complementary modalities. There is probably a scientific study to determine the exact reason for the improvement seek in the patients but I couldn’t tell you what it would be. And I know that the clients my mom sees in her practice don’t ask for a double blind study after their health is made tremendously better through nutritional counseling, herbal remedies and massage techniques. The TRUTH is that Ayurvedic medicine and massage can transform a persons health. That is the fact. The science is tasked with proving what I already know. Sometimes the subjective experience is more valuable than some arbitrary test that satisfies the statistics nerds, but does nothing to help the patients. And sometimes science is not up to the task of explaining all phenomena. We all hope some day our scientific knowledge will be so vast as to answer all problems satisfactorily. > [@](#): > > Austrian economics brings valuable insight to the table. It provides a perspective sometimes forgotten by mathematical economists and specialists who bury themselves in general equilibrium models and mathematical minutiae. > > But Austrian theory isn’t complete. It’s not perfect. And it’s not even a monolothic thing. Von Mises approached the problem of economics by trying to derive it from basic axioms, starting with Human Action. Rothbard followed in Von Mises footsteps. Hayek, on the other hand, was more interested in complexity and information theory. Schumpeter went to his grave throwing up his hands and assuming we’d just have a big economic collapse anyway, because we are too stupid to survive. He may have had a point. > > Hayek did not agree with Von Mises on everything. In fact, Hayek didn’t agree with himself on everything. Like Keynes, Hayek’s opinions changed throughout his life. His opinions also changed with the economic circumstances - he was a reluctant Keynesian at a time when Keynesian economics seemed to be working. He flirted with monetarism while disagreeing with the exact mechanism for it. Furthermore, he was willing to admit when he didn’t know things and where his theories were not fully fleshed out. Hayek was also not a libertarian, nor did he believe in a gold standard. He felt that the fed should control the money supply and toyed with a few ways to do it, but never landed on one he felt was acceptable. > > The lesson to learn from Hayek is first of all, humility. Don’t assume your opponents are idiots. Don’t lecture them on how much you know lest you become a walking example of the Dunning-Krueger effect. And learn that you will win more minds over with calm, reasoned debate devoid of personal insults than you will demanding that your idiot audience go read a book or sit at your feet while you lecture to them. > > Hayek had strong disagreements with many people throughout his life, but remained a gentleman. Milton Friedman carried himself with a quiet demeanor and a smile. Always a smile. You should try it. Milton Friedman championed free markets and business - which his opponents always tried to cast as some malevolent force. Had he been an angry caustic ass he wouldn’t have had nearly the influence on the public that he enjoyed. Yes, but Austrian economists have made many correct predictions and are some of the only people who yet have credibility in this whole crisis. They are also the only ones to my mind who are sufficiently concerned about the deficit and inflation. I do not agree with Keynes. I consider him a phony and his theories discredited. > [@](#): > > Economics is faddish. Schools of thought rise and fall. “The Truth” is elusive, because economics is not a hard science amenable to proofs and mathematical certainty, no matter how much some economists want it to be one. It is a study of human behavior, and humans are tricky things to get a handle on. > > It wasn’t that long ago that Keynes had been ‘discredited’. When Keynesianism couldn’t explain stagflation economists ran from it in droves. When tight money broke the back of inflation and caused economic growth to start, the monetarists owned the day. Now monetarism is mired in a liquidity trap and Keynes once again is the White Knight come to save all. > > The Austrians have a strike against them: If Austrians are right, then the proper course of action is almost always to do nothing, and let the economy sort itself out. But politicians don’t get elected to do nothing, and economists like Paul Krugman went to school dreaming of the day when they could be the guys to save the world (Dr. Krugman admits this willingly - he became an economist because he was captivated by Isaac Asimov’s econometricians who solved all economic and social problems). Paul Krugman was a Keynesian before he knew who Keynes was, because Keynesianism is the one economic philosophy that advocates that people like Paul Krugman be given the power to run the world so they can set it right. They are simply not going to buy into an economic philosophy that says they are powerless to do good. Ever. > > As for the public, when people are unemployed and hurting their demand of government is that it DO SOMETHING. Austrians have nothing to offer them, other than to advise government to stop doing things. It’s like going to the doctor because you’re feeling lousy, and instead of magically curing you the doctor points out that you’re fat and overweight, and should really just go home, work out a bit, and go easy foods ending in ‘z’, such as ‘Cheez’. > > You’ll notice that these other economic schools became popular and ‘mainstream’ only when the current circumstances gave them the power to ‘fix’ the world through positive action. Yes, but when it is explained that the CAUSE of the crisis was the creation of a boom and that preventing the correction and propping up unsound businesses and buying toxic debt will only make the correction worse, people are more willing to accept the reality. And yeah, Krugman is a moron of the highest order. He has a history of being wrong on matters of economics. No thinking person should pay him any mind. The reason I consider Austrian economics to have the credibility is that both the Keynesians and the Monetarists have contributed greatly to the problems we face. Meanwhile none can blame Austrian theory for our predicament, therefore hopefully the pendulum will swing back the way of the Austrians. They have sat back quietly, predicting the harm that will come (and has), being proven prescient. The case must be made and the option presented to the American people that there is a compelling alternative to the madness of current policies. > [@](#): > > I am closest to Hayek in my Austrianism. I think a major problem today is uncertainty and the addition of noise into the information carrying capacity of the price system. I think that Alan Greenspan made a fundamental error when he decided that technology had permanently changed the fundamentals of the economy, and as a result was willing to hold interest rates very low for a long period of time. > > That, and other factors such as the Chinese flooding the western world with money due to its intentional savings plan, caused a number of misallocations of resources - predominantly in housing and long-term investments. I think the low interest rates pushed bankers and other financial ventures into seeking ever-higher returns through novel schemes. I think that moral hazards from government protecting people from the results of poor decision-making decimated the savings rate. > > The result of all this, plus market distortions caused by government meddling with the tax code and through GSE’s like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac all added up to a situation where we were putting our resources in the wrong places, spending more money than we had, and generally throwing a party we couldn’t afford. The crap eventually hit the wall, trillions of dollars in paper wealth vanished, the hidden risks were exposed, and now we’re in a period of retrenchment and recovery. This isn’t a standard business cycle recession, it’s a balance sheet recession. We found out we weren’t nearly as wealthy as we thought we were, and now we have to adjust to that new reality. > > Note that government isn’t the only one to blame here. At least, not only the U.S. government. This recession is the cold water in the face of a world that’s been living from bubble to bubble since the 1980’s. It’s not going to be easy to get out of and it’s not going to respond to fiscal stimulus the way the Keynesians think it will. You can say that again. That is why Obama’s economic policies are failing and the “stimulus” is not effecting things in a substantial way. We need to let this phony bubble that we have been living on since the eighties burst, and build up a true economy based on a solid foundation of savings and production. We need to focus on the fundamentals. The sooner we reject Keynesian solutions, the better. You are very accurate in your understanding of the causes of the crises. I agree with most of what you said. Artificially low interest rates and Malivestment are the key. When you add ill conceived government programs like Fannae Mae and Freddy Mac you have a recipe for disaster. > [@](#): > > We had a long discussion of Austrian economics a while ago. And this message is already way too long. But let me say this: > > The key Austrian belief I hold is that the economy is far too complex and chaotic to be controlled by central authority. The complex structure of the economy is the result of billions of decisions by billions of people. There are networks, supply chains, labor pools, warehouses, assembly lines, shipping routes, etc. All running efficiently and in the right quantity most of the time. It is an example of emergent order. The idea that it can be reduced to aggregates that can be manipulated without cost by injections of money from the federal government is fundamentally flawed. Every stimulus program, every tax change, every new regulation destroys information, breaks down finely-tuned structures created over long periods of time, and ignores local knowledge that is key to efficient decision-making. > > Furthermore, an environment which includes an activist government constantly intervening in the economy creates risk and uncertainty. It makes it impossible for businesses to make accurate long term plans. It is destructive to the economy. Any good that comes out of government action has to be weighed against the potential harm it causes. > > So what should the government do now? Focus like a laser beam on stability. That means no jerking the economy around with new government plans and programs. It means a credible plan for attacking both the debt and the medicare and social security crises, because they are scaring the bejeebers out of the business community. Cities and states have to stop regulating businesses into the ground, and have to come up with plans to address their own pension shortfalls. No new stimulus spending, but no tax cuts, either. > > Announce a moratorium on new regulations for five years, and put together a panel to do cost-benefit analysis of existing regulations. Axe the ones you can no longer afford. > > Pass binding resolution that the government cannot grow by more than GDP growth minus one point until it is down to 25% of GDP. Raise the Social Security and Medicare age. Means-test both programs. > > Announce a wage freeze and benefit reduction plans in the public service until those wages and benefits are aligned with similar jobs in the private market. > > Then, the government can go off and work on free trade, defense, and running the other agencies that already exist. Bravo. Very well said. I agree with most of what you said here. LISTEN UP everyone. I hope more on this forum read and heed the economic advice of Sam Stone, he knows a thing or two about economics, which is more than can be said of most of you. What is your view on the Federal Reserve? Do you support a full audit? How about ending the Federal Reserve? What are your views on the Gold Standard and the principles of Sound Money? Do you support cutting spending significantly? Just how small should our government be in your estimation? I appreciate the thought that went into this post (not just because you agree with me). I hope more follow your example and speak articulately and deal with the issues. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784.md?page=39) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-ones-for-the-obama-loyalists-pay-attention/550784.md?page=41)