The Briefing Room
General Category => Politics/Government => Topic started by: FS7 on March 14, 2017, 01:47:45 pm
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WMAL has a morning show that is one of the last shows I listen to, and Larry Kudlow is a weekly guest. While I've never been particularly impressed with Kudlow, I did not expect what I heard today.
For those who don't know, Kudlow worked under Reagan and has long claimed to be a supply-side economist. Early on in the primary, he became a Trump loyalist, but he still retained some of his economic credentials as he half-heartedly criticized Trump's anti-conservative policies.
Today he was asked about the CBO analysis and his response tells me there is no hope for a conservative solution.
I am going on memory here, but he mentioned that we "need" to cover all of the people who will lose coverage according to the CBO. He didn't say who "we" was, but he made it seem like a foregone conclusion that it was our responsibility. (Since when is that a conservative idea?)
He then mentioned that 50% of all healthcare costs are incurred by 5% of the population (who he referred to as "the sick"). He then hand-waved and said something like "let's just have the government pay for them" with the pretense that it would result in substantially healthier insurance pool. I suppose that would be theoretically possible if we could know the future, but I'm pretty sure "the sick" change constantly. There is no way to isolate the membership of that 5% as it changes constantly and I would have thought that anybody with a brain would know that. It follows then that the only thing the government could do is pay 50% of all medical bills, which is, to borrow a phrase, one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard.
I don't know if this is Trump Stage 0 thinking rubbing off on him or if he's really a socialist now, but with friends like these, who needs enemies?
I just don't see how we can possibly return to economic realism on healthcare (or anything else) if "popular" "conservative" "economists" say things like this.
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I used to enjoy listening to Larry's Saturday radio program on WABC... but I think he has spent too much time around the nitwits at CNBC.
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I used to enjoy listening to Larry's Saturday radio program on WABC... but I think he has spent too much time around the nitwits at CNBC.
I listen to him. He is a Conservative until it becomes inconvenient or hurts business getting a free ride. Let's also not forget that Larry is one of the circle jerks who hosted that Obama dinner for establishment righties.
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I see nothing in the Constitution that supports the claim govt must pay, hence Discarded.
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I see nothing in the Constitution that supports the claim govt must pay, hence Discarded.
Gotta grab a microscope and read between the lines...that where Liberals see some of the "rights" they say are in the Constitution.
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http://www.usdebtclock.org
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Kudlow also folded and said we needed a bailout back in 2008, all the while talking up supply side and free market economics.
Just as once-principled conservatives folded for Trump, free market adherent are folding too.
Can't wait until Limblob starts talking up single payer, and his brainless idiot followers lap it up, like sheep.
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Have been following Kudlow for years. Instead of ObamaCare or single payer where everyone's healthcare is intertwined, Kudlow is for isolating the poor/sick in a small, defined pool.
This will keep costs identifiable and contained. Meanwhile, private health savings solutions and competition will lead better treatment outcomes ( eg cancer outcomes in the US versus UK ) for middle class and above households.
WMAL has a morning show that is one of the last shows I listen to, and Larry Kudlow is a weekly guest. While I've never been particularly impressed with Kudlow, I did not expect what I heard today.
For those who don't know, Kudlow worked under Reagan and has long claimed to be a supply-side economist. Early on in the primary, he became a Trump loyalist, but he still retained some of his economic credentials as he half-heartedly criticized Trump's anti-conservative policies.
Today he was asked about the CBO analysis and his response tells me there is no hope for a conservative solution.
I am going on memory here, but he mentioned that we "need" to cover all of the people who will lose coverage according to the CBO. He didn't say who "we" was, but he made it seem like a foregone conclusion that it was our responsibility. (Since when is that a conservative idea?)
He then mentioned that 50% of all healthcare costs are incurred by 5% of the population (who he referred to as "the sick"). He then hand-waved and said something like "let's just have the government pay for them" with the pretense that it would result in substantially healthier insurance pool. I suppose that would be theoretically possible if we could know the future, but I'm pretty sure "the sick" change constantly. There is no way to isolate the membership of that 5% as it changes constantly and I would have thought that anybody with a brain would know that. It follows then that the only thing the government could do is pay 50% of all medical bills, which is, to borrow a phrase, one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard.
I don't know if this is Trump Stage 0 thinking rubbing off on him or if he's really a socialist now, but with friends like these, who needs enemies?
I just don't see how we can possibly return to economic realism on healthcare (or anything else) if "popular" "conservative" "economists" say things like this.
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Have been following Kudlow for years. Instead of ObamaCare or single payer where everyone's healthcare is intertwined, Kudlow is for isolating the poor/sick in a small, defined pool.
This will keep costs identifiable and contained. Meanwhile, private health savings solutions and competition will lead better treatment outcomes ( eg cancer outcomes in the US versus UK ) for middle class and above households.
Presumably you're defending this point of view. I'll assume you haven't thought about it.
The reason insurance companies charge premiums is to cover their risk in the eventual case expensive care is required. You pay while you don't need it so that you can receive care when you need it. Now, if you isolate the "sick" in a pool, there is no reason for insurance. Alternatively, this could be looked at as a way to grossly enrich insurance companies by letting them collect money from healthy people but transfer the hard work (paying out claims for the sick) to the taxpayer. Either way, this is an argument for single payer.
It would, in addition, do absolutely nothing to contain costs. The taxpayer becomes responsible for both their own health insurance as well as the government-sponsored "sick pool." Given the inefficiency of the government, it's likely that costs to the end user would increase substantially. At the absolute theoretical best, they would remain the same, but then that would obviate the need for such a program.
Any amount of logical thought shows that this is an argument for single payer somebody with the rationalization ability of a high school sophomore would propose.
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Presumably you're defending this point of view. I'll assume you haven't thought about it.
The reason insurance companies charge premiums is to cover their risk in the eventual case expensive care is required. You pay while you don't need it so that you can receive care when you need it. Now, if you isolate the "sick" in a pool, there is no reason for insurance. Alternatively, this could be looked at as a way to grossly enrich insurance companies by letting them collect money from healthy but transfer the hard work (paying out claims for the sick) to the taxpayer. Either way, this is an argument for single payer.
It would, in addition, do absolutely nothing to contain costs. The taxpayer becomes responsible for both their own health insurance as well as the government-sponsored "sick pool." Given the inefficiency of the government, it's likely that costs to the end user would increase substantially. At the absolute theoretical best, they would remain the same, but then that would obviate the need for such a program.
Any amount of logical thought shows that this is an argument for single payer somebody with the rationalization ability of a high school sophomore would propose.
:amen:
Excellent analysis
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Presumably you're defending this point of view. I'll assume you haven't thought about it.
The reason insurance companies charge premiums is to cover their risk in the eventual case expensive care is required. You pay while you don't need it so that you can receive care when you need it. Now, if you isolate the "sick" in a pool, there is no reason for insurance. Alternatively, this could be looked at as a way to grossly enrich insurance companies by letting them collect money from healthy people but transfer the hard work (paying out claims for the sick) to the taxpayer. Either way, this is an argument for single payer.
It would, in addition, do absolutely nothing to contain costs. The taxpayer becomes responsible for both their own health insurance as well as the government-sponsored "sick pool." Given the inefficiency of the government, it's likely that costs to the end user would increase substantially. At the absolute theoretical best, they would remain the same, but then that would obviate the need for such a program.
Any amount of logical thought shows that this is an argument for single payer somebody with the rationalization ability of a high school sophomore would propose.
If I were you I wouldn't be scolding others about "sophomoric thinking," until you can pull the old plank out of your own eye first.
To begin with, you're talking about health insurance as if it were the same sort of beast as car or life insurance, in which premiums and coverage are predicated primarily on risk; and we're expected to pay those premiums ourselves.
But that's not how health insurance works, for most of us, and it hasn't done for a long time. What we call "health insurance" is probably better described as a form of cost sharing, and the majority of the costs are borne not by individuals, but by employers. There's certainly a risk component involved in the pricing, but the risk is handled much differently than it is for something like life insurance.
Moreover, for pretty much everybody, "health insurance" ends at age 65, at which point Medicare coverage begins, and the taxpayers already have that burden. (It's also where most of the health care costs are carried, I suspect.)
You're also skipping over Kudlow's key point: the fact that those 5% account for 50% of health care costs. That's probably a correct statistic. At any rate, that 50% number is something that bears serious scrutiny: is it possible to find a way to remove that cost from the cost pool of the relatively healthy?
Just suppose that the insurance companies did not have to deal with that "sick 5%." They'd be looking at a significant reduction in outlays -- probably not 50% less, but a lot less. This could (as your interestingly Bernie Sanders-ish argument goes) "grossly enrich insurance companies," but that's where your argument becomes sophomoric.
You neglect to address the fact that employers negotiate their premiums with those same insurance companies, and have a very strong vested interest in reducing the premiums they have to pay. It would be very strange indeed if insurance premiums did not go down.
So we're left with the remaining 5% of the people. The question is: what does one do about that 5%? We cannot expect such people to be able to shoulder that sort of cost. So do we let them die, or do we help them to find some level of treatment? If the latter, how is it best done?
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The government can't pay for anything. They can only take resources away from the people to whom they belong and give it to someone else.
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The government can't pay for anything. They can only take resources away from the people to whom they belong and give it to someone else.
And....?
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And....?
..And that my friend is theft.
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..And that my friend is theft.
And letting folks sicken and die of treatable diseases because they can't pay for themselves is what?
Because that's where this argument pretty much ends up. There are some people who can't pay their own way. Do we let them die?
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And letting folks sicken and die of treatable diseases because they can't pay for themselves is what?
Because that's where this argument pretty much ends up. There are some people who can't pay their own way. Do we let them die?
Life sucks and then you die. You can't legislate Unicorns to come along and change reality.
But since this isn't happening why are you deploying this tired excuse of an argument?
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And letting folks sicken and die of treatable diseases because they can't pay for themselves is what?
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...not the job of the federal government.
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Life sucks and then you die. You can't legislate Unicorns to come along and change reality.
But since this isn't happening why are you deploying this tired excuse of an argument?
So, to be clear: you'd advocate for letting people die of treatable conditions if they haven't got the money to pay for it themselves? Just trying to understand your position.
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...not the job of the federal government.
Forget whose "job" it is for the moment. What is your position on letting people sicken and die of treatable diseases because they can't pay for it themselves?
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Forget whose "job" it is for the moment. What is your position on letting people sicken and die of treatable diseases because they can't pay for it themselves?
I'm glad you asked. As a Christian, I believe it is my duty to help them when possible.
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So, to be clear: you'd advocate for letting people die of treatable conditions if they haven't got the money to pay for it themselves? Just trying to understand your position.
So the choice is government or nothing? That is a false dichotomy.
Also people aren't dieing because they don't have money and haven't been for years. Emergency rooms aren't turning people away. So I'm just trying why you feel the need to base your argument on a false premise?
If it is the government's job on any level it is not the federal government. That power is not enumerated in the Constitution and is therefore left to the states or the people. There is no law against helping other people.
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Forget whose "job" it is for the moment. What is your position on letting people sicken and die of treatable diseases because they can't pay for it themselves?
There are a lot of jobs in this world. When will someone from the Federal Government be out to fix my leaky faucet, or mow my lawn?
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So, to be clear: you'd advocate for letting people die of treatable conditions if they haven't got the money to pay for it themselves? Just trying to understand your position.
Let them start a "Go Fund Me" acount like all the other deadbeats.
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Forget whose "job" it is for the moment. What is your position on letting people sicken and die of treatable diseases because they can't pay for it themselves?
If you are so moved to help people. Why don't you get off your rear and do it instead of asking the government to put a gun to my head and make me do it?
Make you a deal find me a charity that helps with this sort of thing and I'll match your donation up to a hundred bucks.
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I'm glad you asked. As a Christian, I believe it is my duty to help them when possible.
Right. And from this I take it that you'd no doubt happily contribute voluntarily to a charity that helped those who were unable to pay for their own health care. In other words, the question as it pertains to health care is apparently mostly a question of ways and means for you.
But would I be correct in assuming that there are some things -- roads and bridges, for example -- that you would say are legitimately the "job" of the government?
So here's the question: what's the difference?
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There are a lot of jobs in this world. When will someone from the Federal Government be out to fix my leaky faucet, or mow my lawn?
Or help you to pull your head out?
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If you are so moved to help people. Why don't you get off your rear and do it instead of asking the government to put a gun to my head and make me do it?
Make you a deal find me a charity that helps with this sort of thing and I'll match your donation up to a hundred bucks.
Non-answer.
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Right. And from this I take it that you'd no doubt happily contribute voluntarily to a charity that helped those who were unable to pay for their own health care. In other words, the question as it pertains to health care is apparently mostly a question of ways and means for you.
But would I be correct in assuming that there are some things -- roads and bridges, for example -- that you would say are legitimately the "job" of the government?
So here's the question: what's the difference?
The difference? Well, there are a number, but I will restrict my answer to "those things enumerated in the Constitution". Some of us really believe that stuff. Weird, huh?
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Or help you to pull your head out?
Now, why would you respond with an insult to someone answering your question?
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Now, why would you respond with an insult to someone answering your question?
Well, I'm not proud of it. But his "answer" is an old, tired, and stupid little ploy and I lost patience with him.
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If I were you I wouldn't be scolding others about "sophomoric thinking," until you can pull the old plank out of your own eye first.
To begin with, you're talking about health insurance as if it were the same sort of beast as car or life insurance, in which premiums and coverage are predicated primarily on risk; and we're expected to pay those premiums ourselves.
But that's not how health insurance works, for most of us, and it hasn't done for a long time. What we call "health insurance" is probably better described as a form of cost sharing, and the majority of the costs are borne not by individuals, but by employers. There's certainly a risk component involved in the pricing, but the risk is handled much differently than it is for something like life insurance.
Moreover, for pretty much everybody, "health insurance" ends at age 65, at which point Medicare coverage begins, and the taxpayers already have that burden. (It's also where most of the health care costs are carried, I suspect.)
You're also skipping over Kudlow's key point: the fact that those 5% account for 50% of health care costs. That's probably a correct statistic. At any rate, that 50% number is something that bears serious scrutiny: is it possible to find a way to remove that cost from the cost pool of the relatively healthy?
Just suppose that the insurance companies did not have to deal with that "sick 5%." They'd be looking at a significant reduction in outlays -- probably not 50% less, but a lot less. This could (as your interestingly Bernie Sanders-ish argument goes) "grossly enrich insurance companies," but that's where your argument becomes sophomoric.
You neglect to address the fact that employers negotiate their premiums with those same insurance companies, and have a very strong vested interest in reducing the premiums they have to pay. It would be very strange indeed if insurance premiums did not go down.
So we're left with the remaining 5% of the people. The question is: what does one do about that 5%? We cannot expect such people to be able to shoulder that sort of cost. So do we let them die, or do we help them to find some level of treatment? If the latter, how is it best done?
You asked: is it possible to find a way to remove that cost from the cost pool of the relatively healthy?
If you remove them from the insurance pool, then theoretically the costs to the rest of the insured go down. However, since we're not "letting people die" (Thanks for the leftist talking point) somebody has to pay for that care. In Kudlow's (and obviously your) argument, this falls onto the shoulders of the taxpayer. This is probably ideal from your standpoint, as this moves the burden of payment onto a smaller subset of the population and is backed by the guns of government.
Also, the sole reason insurance companies exist is to insure against a potential future negative outcome. They collect premiums now to pay claims on those future negative outcomes. How in the bloody hell is it a "Bernie Sanders" argument to say that if they can collect premiums from healthy individuals and not pay on future negative outcomes that they will be grossly enriched? They'd be collecting money while paying out little or nothing - after all, the "government" in your plan pays for that.
Employers pay insurance premiums as a benefit to their employees. The fact that the employee doesn't see that money does not mean that the employer is paying it. It's not like they pay it regardless of whether that employee is on the payroll or not. If the employee opts in to the health insurance programs offered by their employer, the employer offers a portion as a paid benefit to the employee while deducting the remainder from the employee's wages. The fact that the system (at least as it is in place everywhere) prevents the employee from collecting that money themselves and choosing their own health insurance (or forgoing it entirely) does not change the fact that it's paid as a benefit on behalf of the employee.
Finally, you said: We cannot expect such people to be able to shoulder that sort of cost. You are fully embracing redistributionism by using false compassion as a bludgeon. Whether sick people are able to afford their medical bills or not is not my problem. I have no responsibility except to myself and my family. I do not expect the government to pick the pocket of another to pay my bills and I certainly do not want them picking the pockets of ANYONE to pay the bills of another.
The idiotic leftist talking point of people dying in the streets does not happen and has not happened. Hospitals treat people regardless of their ability to pay and many drug companies offer programs to those who can't be. Cost-sharing programs exist (where permitted by government, at least) and charity programs help those truly in need. What you advocate for is forced charity - totalitarianism, in other words, which is no charity at all.
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Right. And from this I take it that you'd no doubt happily contribute voluntarily to a charity that helped those who were unable to pay for their own health care. In other words, the question as it pertains to health care is apparently mostly a question of ways and means for you.
But would I be correct in assuming that there are some things -- roads and bridges, for example -- that you would say are legitimately the "job" of the government?
So here's the question: what's the difference?
I don't drive over doctors to get to work in the morning. :laugh:
The Cost of roads is at least somewhat related to my usage of the service provided via the gas tax etc. It's not perfect but it's not welfare. The theory is I'm paying for a service that the market can't (that's another discussion) provide as effectively. Since all benefit from the roads and the service is open to all; all contribute. Taxes for roads are not re distributive. What you are suggesting would be analogous to changing the gas tax based on income or other circumstances. Roads are kind of like if I go buy insurance or pay my doctor for a service.
There is no reason to assume that a government run command and control style health care stands a ghost of a chance of allocating resources as efficiently as the market does. It's the basic difference between capitalism and socialism. It wasn't fair that folks in Russia didn't have access to the food they needed. So the Soviets fixed the problem and starved everybody. Not because they wanted to; because command and control economies are inefficient. We do not need to expand that kind of equal suffering to health care.
Basic economics: When the government takes over there are shortages. Is that what you want with healthcare?
If you don't believe me take a gander:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1265310/need-to-see-a-gp-the-average-waiting-time-for-an-appointment-is-now-13-days/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2570597/Three-week-wait-doctor-Millions-patients-denied-prompt-appointment-GP.html
Even with our messed up system people are waiting days:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/sunday-review/long-waits-for-doctors-appointments-have-become-the-norm.html?_r=0
Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.
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Non-answer.
Sure, if you live in a world wear government must do EVERYTHING; then I guess so. I figured you wouldn't have the huevos to put your money where your mouth is.
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Once you become infected with the Trump virus, the chances of recovering your principles are slim.
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Well, I'm not proud of it. But his "answer" is an old, tired, and stupid little ploy and I lost patience with him.
Sort of like the lie that people are dying because they can't get care.
Take a look at this if you are interested in facts and history on the subject:
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/catosletterv3n1.pdf
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/whats-wrong-obamacare
This can't be stressed enough:
CBO: Full Repeal Would Cover More People than House GOP’s ObamaCare-Lite Bill
https://www.cato.org/blog/cbo-more-lose-coverage-under-obamacare-lite-full-repeal
It's basic economics. The less government the better the market works.
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However, since we're not "letting people die" (Thanks for the leftist talking point) somebody has to pay for that care. In Kudlow's (and obviously your) argument, this falls onto the shoulders of the taxpayer. This is probably ideal from your standpoint, as this moves the burden of payment onto a smaller subset of the population and is backed by the guns of government.
Somebody has to pay for that care. Correct. I presume you say so because the alternative is not worth considering. Kudlow is suggesting that spreading the cost among the national tax base is probably the least intrusive, in terms of money, and the most likely to ensure that the care actually is paid for. There's some merit to that argument. Assuming that the same level of cost can be covered through charitable contributions is perhaps a bit idealistic.
Also, the sole reason insurance companies exist is to insure against a potential future negative outcome. They collect premiums now to pay claims on those future negative outcomes. How in the bloody hell is it a "Bernie Sanders" argument to say that if they can collect premiums from healthy individuals and not pay on future negative outcomes that they will be grossly enriched? They'd be collecting money while paying out little or nothing - after all, the "government" in your plan pays for that.
The "Bernie Sanders argument" was your reference to "grossly enrich[ing] insurance companies," used as an argument against Kudlow's idea.
Employers pay insurance premiums as a benefit to their employees. The fact that the employee doesn't see that money does not mean that the employer is paying it. It's not like they pay it regardless of whether that employee is on the payroll or not. If the employee opts in to the health insurance programs offered by their employer, the employer offers a portion as a paid benefit to the employee while deducting the remainder from the employee's wages. The fact that the system (at least as it is in place everywhere) prevents the employee from collecting that money themselves and choosing their own health insurance (or forgoing it entirely) does not change the fact that it's paid as a benefit on behalf of the employee.
You're not addressing the context in which the comment was made, which was that the insurance companies won't be "grossly enriched," because the various employers won't negotiate on that basis.
Finally, you said: We cannot expect such people to be able to shoulder that sort of cost. You are fully embracing redistributionism by using false compassion as a bludgeon. Whether sick people are able to afford their medical bills or not is not my problem. I have no responsibility except to myself and my family. I do not expect the government to pick the pocket of another to pay my bills and I certainly do not want them picking the pockets of ANYONE to pay the bills of another.
Wow. Talk about completely missing the point. What I said was, "We cannot expect such people to be able to shoulder that sort of cost." In other words, they simply cannot afford to do so. They don't have the money to do so. They're not rich enough to afford it. It's not a question of "redistributionism," (rolls eyes), it's just an economic fact.
And so the question becomes, what are we supposed to do about such people?
The idiotic leftist talking point of people dying in the streets does not happen and has not happened. Hospitals treat people regardless of their ability to pay and many drug companies offer programs to those who can't be. Cost-sharing programs exist (where permitted by government, at least) and charity programs help those truly in need. What you advocate for is forced charity - totalitarianism, in other words, which is no charity at all.
Wow. I would expect a high school sophomore to talk like that. So again, back to that log in your eye....
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I just need to fix something here...
The government You needs to pay....
Silly Larry thinks the government actually generates the revenue directly to pay for anything.
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You are imputing the exact opposite of what is being stated. If the needy / sick are not isolated , we will tend to single payer. ObamaCare encourages the free riding, adverse selection and 'moral hazards' that you mention.
It will take time to undo this, if ever. So there needs to weaning process and isolating the truly needy 'charity cases' is part of that.
Presumably you're defending this point of view. I'll assume you haven't thought about it.
The reason insurance companies charge premiums is to cover their risk in the eventual case expensive care is required. You pay while you don't need it so that you can receive care when you need it. Now, if you isolate the "sick" in a pool, there is no reason for insurance. Alternatively, this could be looked at as a way to grossly enrich insurance companies by letting them collect money from healthy people but transfer the hard work (paying out claims for the sick) to the taxpayer. Either way, this is an argument for single payer.
It would, in addition, do absolutely nothing to contain costs. The taxpayer becomes responsible for both their own health insurance as well as the government-sponsored "sick pool." Given the inefficiency of the government, it's likely that costs to the end user would increase substantially. At the absolute theoretical best, they would remain the same, but then that would obviate the need for such a program.
Any amount of logical thought shows that this is an argument for single payer somebody with the rationalization ability of a high school sophomore would propose.
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I just need to fix something here...
Silly Larry thinks the government actually generates the revenue directly to pay for anything.
Oh, come on. I'm pretty sure Larry is quite aware of where "government money" comes from. So, fine -- you don't like his idea. But there's no need for that kind of "fix." It's not helpful.
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Oh, come on. I'm pretty sure Larry is quite aware of where "government money" comes from. So, fine -- you don't like his idea. But there's no need for that kind of "fix." It's not helpful.
Neither is suggesting unconstitutional theft.
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Somebody has to pay for that care. Correct. I presume you say so because the alternative is not worth considering. Kudlow is suggesting that spreading the cost among the national tax base is probably the least intrusive, in terms of money, and the most likely to ensure that the care actually is paid for. There's some merit to that argument. Assuming that the same level of cost can be covered through charitable contributions is perhaps a bit idealistic.
The "Bernie Sanders argument" was your reference to "grossly enrich[ing] insurance companies," used as an argument against Kudlow's idea.
You're not addressing the context in which the comment was made, which was that the insurance companies won't be "grossly enriched," because the various employers won't negotiate on that basis.
Wow. Talk about completely missing the point. What I said was, "We cannot expect such people to be able to shoulder that sort of cost." In other words, they simply cannot afford to do so. They don't have the money to do so. They're not rich enough to afford it. It's not a question of "redistributionism," (rolls eyes), it's just an economic fact.
And so the question becomes, what are we supposed to do about such people?
Wow. I would expect a high school sophomore to talk like that. So again, back to that log in your eye....
Let's go back a step. To be unequivocally clear, I do not believe that any human on this planet is entitled to medical care. If they can't pay, they are not entitled to it. It is a service provided to an individual by another individual, and in every other aspect of human interaction the person receiving the service pays for it.
Now, the premise of this argument is that there are already 5% of the people who are responsible for 50% of all healthcare costs. They are either presently insured or presently receiving care. Regardless of whether they are insured or not, they are presently paid for by the currently insured. Hospitals don't bill the government (with the exception of Medicare/Medicaid). What they don't get from patients that don't pay, they recover from those that do. If there were some practicable way to do what Kudlow suggests (there isn't, by the way) then it would be shouldered by the taxpayer. There is no Constitutional authority to collect taxes on this basis. That should be the end of the story.
Like most "gimme gimme" leftists, you haven't even thought your arguments through before presenting them. Before you devolve into shrieking hysterics complete with crocodile tears over those who can't afford medical care, you should stop and think what this means. You are saying that regardless of their ability to pay, they simply HAVE TO HAVE medical care, and the rest of us will pay for it one way or another. Human biology dictates that the human body has a FAR, FAR, FAR greater need for shelter, water, and food, in that order. Yet we do not run around screaming about those who can't pay for that. People will die from exposure, thirst, or starvation long before they suffer ill effects from lack of medical care (excluding urgent trauma). Logically, if you advocate for medical care on this basis, then you must assume that the guns of government and redistributionism should allocate food, water, and shelter to every individual.
Do you disagree with that? If you do, please explain how this is consistent with your position on health care.
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I see nothing in the Constitution that supports the claim govt must pay, hence Discarded.
Money quote right there!
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Neither is suggesting unconstitutional theft.
As opposed to Constitutional theft....?
Speaking of the Constitution, Article I Section 8 begins, "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States...."
One could make a plausible argument that some amount of taxation for the purpose of paying for health care, for some, could be justified under "provid[ing] for the ... general Welfare." That's not to say that what we have now is the right answer, but at least the argument can be made that "Constitutional theft" is a possible recourse.
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As opposed to Constitutional theft....?
Speaking of the Constitution, Article I Section 8 begins, "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States...."
One could make a plausible argument that some amount of taxation for the purpose of paying for health care, for some, could be justified under "provid[ing] for the ... general Welfare." That's not to say that what we have now is the right answer, but at least the argument can be made that "Constitutional theft" is a possible recourse.
Wow, you really are a socialist, aren't you?
If the "general welfare" wording was meant to imply that the Constitution granted unlimited powers to the federal government, there would have been no need to enumerate powers in the document. As Madison argued in 1831, the "general welfare" should be construed to mean in support of its enumerated powers, and not something above and beyond (which would completely obviate the need for enumerated powers).
This isn't a hard concept.
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Well, I'm not proud of it. But his "answer" is an old, tired, and stupid little ploy and I lost patience with him.
I do appreciate your candor.
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Let's go back a step. To be unequivocally clear, I do not believe that any human on this planet is entitled to medical care. If they can't pay, they are not entitled to it. It is a service provided to an individual by another individual, and in every other aspect of human interaction the person receiving the service pays for it.
I agree, but we should go back to making this a local issue. Allow county governments to operate -if the local voters allow- county general hospitals for the needy while selling services to the middle class. Health insurance got started when hospitals started allowing people to make monthly pre-payments for future needs, but that was banned at some point.
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Wow, you really are a socialist, aren't you?
No.
Your practice of starting every post with an insult is getting a bit tiresome. I begin to suspect you may really be a 10th-grader, in which case congratulations on your vocabulary. If not ... then you need to learn to behave like an adult.
If the "general welfare" wording was meant to imply that the Constitution granted unlimited powers to the federal government, there would have been no need to enumerate powers in the document. As Madison argued in 1831, the "general welfare" should be construed to mean in support of its enumerated powers, and not something above and beyond (which would completely obviate the need for enumerated powers).
And Hamilton argued the opposite -- that the phrase should be interpreted more broadly.
A good synopsis of how that argument has played out in law can be found here: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/General+Welfare (http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/General+Welfare).
Ultimately, in the Butler decision (1936) the Supreme Court ruled that the determination of "general welfare" falls "within the wide range of discretion permitted to the Congress."
At any rate, I didn't argue that using taxes to pay for some people's health care was necessarily covered within "general welfare," only that a plausible argument for doing so can be made on that basis.
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Unfortunately, his interpretation of 'general welfare' is a common one now in the country.
And John Roberts stating that the obamacare 'non' tax is really a tax further cements the misconstrued concept of 'general welfare'.
So hopefully we can grow / wean ourselves out of this like we did in the 1980s. Otherwise, we end up like Greece or Venezuela
Wow, you really are a socialist, aren't you?
If the "general welfare" wording was meant to imply that the Constitution granted unlimited powers to the federal government, there would have been no need to enumerate powers in the document. As Madison argued in 1831, the "general welfare" should be construed to mean in support of its enumerated powers, and not something above and beyond (which would completely obviate the need for enumerated powers).
This isn't a hard concept.
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Health insurance got started when hospitals started allowing people to make monthly pre-payments for future needs, but that was banned at some point.
I don't know about that, either way. What I do know, is that health "insurance" as we now know it, really got started when employers started using it during WWII, as a non-salary benefit to attract workers at a time when a wage freeze had been imposed as a war measure. Labor negotiations then and later no doubt added to the level and scope -- and therefore cost to the employer -- of coverage.
(Interesting history of health insurance is here: https://www.ebri.org/publications/facts/index.cfm?fa=0302fact (https://www.ebri.org/publications/facts/index.cfm?fa=0302fact)).
My take on the whole subject is that "health insurance" as we now know it, is significantly responsible for skewing the cost structure for medical treatment, regardless of whatever effects government intervention has had. That's because it's not "insurance" in the usual sense, but rather a sophisticated cost-sharing scheme. I wouldn't want to toss that model out completely -- it's an extraordinarily helpful thing for people with expensive chronic conditions such as Type I diabetes, for example.
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As opposed to Constitutional theft....?
Speaking of the Constitution, Article I Section 8 begins, "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States...."
One could make a plausible argument that some amount of taxation for the purpose of paying for health care, for some, could be justified under "provid[ing] for the ... general Welfare." That's not to say that what we have now is the right answer, but at least the argument can be made that "Constitutional theft" is a possible recourse.
Is there anything you can't use the Welfare clause to justify? Wouldn't it be worthwhile to give some thought to what the founders intended when they wrote that phrase. It's not a blank check. Amendments 9 and 10 still apply.
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Sort of like the lie that people are dying because they can't get care.
Take a look at this if you are interested in facts and history on the subject:
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/catosletterv3n1.pdf
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/whats-wrong-obamacare
This can't be stressed enough:
CBO: Full Repeal Would Cover More People than House GOP’s ObamaCare-Lite Bill
https://www.cato.org/blog/cbo-more-lose-coverage-under-obamacare-lite-full-repeal
It's basic economics. The less government the better the market works.
A troll is most certainly not interested in anything but a definite objective, and your answer will never satisfy it.
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Is there anything you can't use the Welfare clause to justify? Wouldn't it be worthwhile to give some thought to what the founders intended when they wrote that phrase. It's not a blank check. Amendments 9 and 10 still apply.
As noted above, the Founders disagreed as to the scope of that phrase. Madison favored a more restrictive view, Hamilton a broader view. The meaning is open to interpretation, in other words: even among the Founders themselves.
It took the USSC 150 years to decide that it was within Congress' discretion to define the true scope of the phrase (for good or ill).
In reality, we see those sorts of Constitutional fudges pretty much everywhere. For example, the Constitution didn't authorize Congress to allocate money for the purchase of territory from other governments such as the Louisiana Purchase. "Jefferson argued that a constitutional amendment was needed. He wrote in 1803, 'The General Government has no powers but such as the Constitution gives it… it has not given it power of holding foreign territory, and still less of incorporating it into the Union. An amendment of the Constitution seems necessary for this.'” But the purchase went ahead regardless of its apparent unconstitutionality.
Even those things which seem unarguably within the proper realm of government fall into this apparent grey area. For example, even the libertarians argue that levying taxes for the purpose of building and maintaining roads is within the proper scope of government action, but the Constitution itself refers only to "post roads," which were specific roads that connected post offices. Most roads -- then and now -- do not fit that definition. On the other hand, nearly everyone uses and depends on roads, and there is general acceptance that the government has legitimate interest in their maintenance. It seems to me that the best defense of the practice is to invoke "general welfare."
And so with health care. One can make the argument that ensuring some level of health care to those who cannot otherwise afford it, is a legitimate concern of the government, in the form of promoting the general welfare. The counter-argument is that charities could do the same, though I have serious doubts as to whether they actually could afford to do so, considering the sorts of costs Kudlow is talking about.
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As noted above, the Founders disagreed as to the scope of that phrase. Madison favored a more restrictive view, Hamilton a broader view. The meaning is open to interpretation, in other words: even among the Founders themselves.
It took the USSC 150 years to decide that it was within Congress' discretion to define the true scope of the phrase (for good or ill).
In reality, we see those sorts of Constitutional fudges pretty much everywhere. For example, the Constitution didn't authorize Congress to allocate money for the purchase of territory from other governments such as the Louisiana Purchase. "Jefferson argued that a constitutional amendment was needed. He wrote in 1803, 'The General Government has no powers but such as the Constitution gives it… it has not given it power of holding foreign territory, and still less of incorporating it into the Union. An amendment of the Constitution seems necessary for this.'” But the purchase went ahead regardless of its apparent unconstitutionality.
Even those things which seem unarguably within the proper realm of government fall into this apparent grey area. For example, even the libertarians argue that levying taxes for the purpose of building and maintaining roads is within the proper scope of government action, but the Constitution itself refers only to "post roads," which were specific roads that connected post offices. Most roads -- then and now -- do not fit that definition. On the other hand, nearly everyone uses and depends on roads, and there is general acceptance that the government has legitimate interest in their maintenance. It seems to me that the best defense of the practice is to invoke "general welfare."
And so with health care. One can make the argument that ensuring some level of health care to those who cannot otherwise afford it, is a legitimate concern of the government, in the form of promoting the general welfare. The counter-argument is that charities could do the same, though I have serious doubts as to whether they actually could afford to do so, considering the sorts of costs Kudlow is talking about.
So using your line of thinking what isn't a general concern of government?
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A troll is most certainly not interested in anything but a definite objective, and your answer will never satisfy it.
Nah, he may have socialist leanings, but I don't think he's a troll. Seems pretty natural for folks to balk anymore at the concepts of personal liberty and personal responsibility.
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So using your line of thinking what isn't a general concern of government?
Wignut's manscaping thread?
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So using your line of thinking what isn't a general concern of government?
There are a lot of things that aren't, and as a general principle I include payment for health care as one of them. The government should not be in the business of paying for health care for those who can afford it for themselves.
However, it often happens that general principles can run afoul of special cases. In the case of health care, if there is a person who is truly unable to pay for treatment of a medical condition, there is a general moral consensus that the rest of us have an obligation to help them out -- whether through charity, or through government action. I would argue that the consensus has long been for government action in this area, as it is seemingly (though probably not actually) the approach that incurs the least financial burden per capita.
I personally don't have much problem with the idea of a basic government safety net in the area of health care, mainly because it serves the common good and meets a commonly accepted moral standard. That said, my ideal would be much different in terms of scope (much smaller) and methodology (such as means-tested subsidies working through EBT cards, rather than reliance on the Medicare/Medicaid bureaucracy).
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Nah, he may have socialist leanings, but I don't think he's a troll. Seems pretty natural for folks to balk anymore at the concepts of personal liberty and personal responsibility.
Or maybe "he" just likes to think beyond the bumper sticker.
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And so with health care. One can make the argument that ensuring some level of health care to those who cannot otherwise afford it, is a legitimate concern of the government, in the form of promoting the general welfare. The counter-argument is that charities could do the same, though I have serious doubts as to whether they actually could afford to do so, considering the sorts of costs Kudlow is talking about.
I would say things like universal access (and I have no opinion on the "voluntary" question) to vaccines for contagious diseases and some of the work of the CDC could be promoting the general welfare (though I'd have to look to see if the argument was for the general welfare of the STATES, which is not necessarily the same thing as the welfare of the people of the states). Paying for treatment for individuals who are not contagious wouldn't make the(/my) cut.
I think Kudlow's on crack here. He seems to say, "let's take the 5% who consume most health care costs and put them in a seperate pool to lower insurance costs for the rest, and then you can use the money you saved on insurance and pay more taxes to subsidize insurance/care for the 5%".
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There are a lot of things that aren't, and as a general principle I include payment for health care as one of them. The government should not be in the business of paying for health care for those who can afford it for themselves.
However, it often happens that general principles can run afoul of special cases. In the case of health care, if there is a person who is truly unable to pay for treatment of a medical condition, there is a general moral consensus that the rest of us have an obligation to help them out -- whether through charity, or through government action. I would argue that the consensus has long been for government action in this area, as it is seemingly (though probably not actually) the approach that incurs the least financial burden per capita.
I personally don't have much problem with the idea of a basic government safety net in the area of health care, mainly because it serves the common good and meets a commonly accepted moral standard. That said, my ideal would be much different in terms of scope (much smaller) and methodology (such as means-tested subsidies working through EBT cards, rather than reliance on the Medicare/Medicaid bureaucracy).
Thanks for clarifying. I think any actions along those lines should be kept well clear of insurance for the rest of the populace for reasons stated above.
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The Constitution be damned! Full speed ahead!
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Or maybe "he" just likes to think beyond the bumper sticker.
:beer:
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I think Kudlow's on crack here. He seems to say, "let's take the 5% who consume most health care costs and put them in a seperate pool to lower insurance costs for the rest, and then you can use the money you saved on insurance and pay more taxes to subsidize insurance/care for the 5%".
He's floating an idea that may or may not be good in itself. But on the big-picture side of it, he's quite correct.
What Kudlow's trying to figure out, is how to deal with the elephant in the room: that 5% who consume 50% of the health care money. That's a huge number (if it's correct).
I think his idea is trying to wrestle three disparate considerations into a manageable whole:
1. The moral principle that people should not be denied some level of treatment because of inability to pay.
2. Find a way so that the costs for that segment of the population can be separated from those of the other 95%.
3. Recognition that it will be expensive.
I think Kudlow's argument is probably along the lines that the government, with its powers of taxation, is the only entity that can reliably raise the amount of money needed to handle it, and can do so at the lowest per capita cost; and if the government doesn't do it, some finite number of people will fall through the cracks.
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He's floating an idea that may or may not be good in itself. But on the big-picture side of it, he's quite correct.
What Kudlow's trying to figure out, is how to deal with the elephant in the room: that 5% who consume 50% of the health care money. That's a huge number (if it's correct).
I think his idea is trying to wrestle three disparate considerations into a manageable whole:
1. The moral principle that people should not be denied some level of treatment because of inability to pay.
2. Find a way so that the costs for that segment of the population can be separated from those of the other 95%.
3. Recognition that it will be expensive.
I think Kudlow's argument is probably along the lines that the government, with its powers of taxation, is the only entity that can reliably raise the amount of money needed to handle it, and can do so at the lowest per capita cost; and if the government doesn't do it, some finite number of people will fall through the cracks.
I call you a socialist because you advocate for socialism. I don't mean to insult - I only point out what I see. When you say that the government shouldn't pay for health care unless people can't afford it, you are advocating for the redistribution of wealth. This invalidates your premise - what you think is our moral principle is not at all relevant unless the federal government has the power specifically enumerated in the Constitution. If, as you argue, the "general welfare" wording applies to whatever Congress says it does, then we have an all-powerful federal government and the Constitution does not now (nor did it ever) have any meaning. This is why the Madison interpretation is correct.
That said, there is no elephant in the room any more than any other insurance is. Nobody would make the argument that we need to isolate the costs of those who have been in severe motor vehicle accidents from the automobile insurance pool, and nobody would argue that we need to isolate the costs of fire-destroyed homes from the home insurance pool. It is, by definition, a solved problem. This is what actuarial science is. It's not rocket surgery.
I just heard Mike Pence on the radio say that those with chronic conditions or other medical issues would be better served not in the private market but in state-run high-risk pools. This is a supposed conservative, and he's advocating directly against a free market solution so people who actually need medical intervention can be overseen by the same entity that has run Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, and the VA in a way that makes an actual train wreck look like a work of art. You're advocating the same - not only are you saying that government is the answer, you're saying it's the ONLY answer. That's what makes you at the very least a statist.
To paraphrase Dr. Ian Malcolm, you have spent far too much time wondering if you COULD do something when you should have first wondered if you SHOULD.
This is not a problem for the government to "solve."
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I call you a socialist because you advocate for socialism. I don't mean to insult - I only point out what I see. When you say that the government shouldn't pay for health care unless people can't afford it, you are advocating for the redistribution of wealth. This invalidates your premise - what you think is our moral principle is not at all relevant unless the federal government has the power specifically enumerated in the Constitution. If, as you argue, the "general welfare" wording applies to whatever Congress says it does, then we have an all-powerful federal government and the Constitution does not now (nor did it ever) have any meaning. This is why the Madison interpretation is correct.
That said, there is no elephant in the room any more than any other insurance is. Nobody would make the argument that we need to isolate the costs of those who have been in severe motor vehicle accidents from the automobile insurance pool, and nobody would argue that we need to isolate the costs of fire-destroyed homes from the home insurance pool. It is, by definition, a solved problem. This is what actuarial science is. It's not rocket surgery.
I just heard Mike Pence on the radio say that those with chronic conditions or other medical issues would be better served not in the private market but in state-run high-risk pools. This is a supposed conservative, and he's advocating directly against a free market solution so people who actually need medical intervention can be overseen by the same entity that has run Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, and the VA in a way that makes an actual train wreck look like a work of art. You're advocating the same - not only are you saying that government is the answer, you're saying it's the ONLY answer. That's what makes you at the very least a statist.
To paraphrase Dr. Ian Malcolm, you have spent far too much time wondering if you COULD do something when you should have first wondered if you SHOULD.
This is not a problem for the government to "solve."
What I get out of that word salad is that you cannot be trusted to understand, much less fairly represent, what other people are saying. It's also pretty clear that you don't even understand your own arguments.
Have a nice day.
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I've read some of the "conservative" arguments made in this thread regarding healthcare.
And... from a coldly ideological viewpoint, I would agree.
Seems to me, if we really, REALLY wanted a "conservative solution" to health care, we would outlaw ALL health insurance and make those in need of healthcare pay directly to those who provide it. No insurance. No "payer in the middle". A true free market.
No money ... no care.
But something gets in the way.
It's called Fishrrman's credo:
Reality is what it is. It is not what we believe it to be.
The reality I sense is that if the Republican argument for a "healthcare solution" ends up being the doctrinaire conservative responses ...
...then get ready for single-payer, because if Americans are forced to choose between the two, they'll chose what the democrats offer instead.
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Seems to me, if we really, REALLY wanted a "conservative solution" to health care, we would outlaw ALL health insurance and make those in need of healthcare pay directly to those who provide it. No insurance. No "payer in the middle". A true free market.
I don't see making a legimate (in theory) product/industry illegal is any more conservative than making it compulsory. In a true free market, one is free to purchase hedges against risk if someone else is willing to sell them and the parties can agree to terms. The only job of the government is to provide a just judicial system to enforce the laws we already have related to contracts, fraud, collusion, etc.
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And....?
And that's all she wrote.
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The reality I sense is that if the Republican argument for a "healthcare solution" ends up being the doctrinaire conservative responses ...
...then get ready for single-payer, because if Americans are forced to choose between the two, they'll chose what the democrats offer instead.
:thumbsup3:
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I've read some of the "conservative" arguments made in this thread regarding healthcare.
And... from a coldly ideological viewpoint, I would agree.
Seems to me, if we really, REALLY wanted a "conservative solution" to health care, we would outlaw ALL health insurance and make those in need of healthcare pay directly to those who provide it. No insurance. No "payer in the middle". A true free market.
No money ... no care.
But something gets in the way.
It's called Fishrrman's credo:
Reality is what it is. It is not what we believe it to be.
The reality I sense is that if the Republican argument for a "healthcare solution" ends up being the doctrinaire conservative responses ...
...then get ready for single-payer, because if Americans are forced to choose between the two, they'll chose what the democrats offer instead.
Insurance is a bad bet on the Blackjack table.
Truth is, if there were a free market, where consumers were ALLOWED to choose the level of care, the doctor they want, and simple window sticker pricing to compare, there would be no insurance need. The cost of healthcare in a free market lowers over time.
I just want to know what will bring down the cost of healthcare... to Hell with insurance.
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The government can't pay for anything. They can only take resources away from the people to whom they belong and give it to someone else.
Exactly. The problem with their whole 'Robin Hood' gig is that Robin Hood robbed the tax collectors and gave some of the money back.
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Now, why would you respond with an insult to someone answering your question?
Because he is an azzhole. Occam's Razor.
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I think Kudlow's argument is probably along the lines that the government, with its powers of taxation, is the only entity that can reliably raise the amount of money needed to handle it, and can do so at the lowest per capita cost; and if the government doesn't do it, some finite number of people will fall through the cracks.
If Kudlow thinks the federal government is the most efficient way to distribute healthcare, he's nuts.
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What I get out of that word salad is that you cannot be trusted to understand, much less fairly represent, what other people are saying. It's also pretty clear that you don't even understand your own arguments.
Have a nice day.
What I get out of your refusal to engage is an inability to defend your own position.
You argue with hand-waving and emotion and fold when challenged.
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Insurance is a bad bet on the Blackjack table.
Truth is, if there were a free market, where consumers were ALLOWED to choose the level of care, the doctor they want, and simple window sticker pricing to compare, there would be no insurance need. The cost of healthcare in a free market lowers over time.
I just want to know what will bring down the cost of healthcare... to Hell with insurance.
If you want a fun experiment next time you need something minor done that won't kill you (ingrown toe nail or something) check the price of the care if you negotiate direct with the care provider vs. the price if you can get it covered by your insurance. Don't look at what you pay, look at the price the health care provider bills either you or the insurance company. Usually there is a massive difference.
I know from experience midwives(who typically aren't covered by insurance) are a lot cheap than an OBGYN in a hospital for catching babies.
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If Kudlow thinks the federal government is the most efficient way to distribute healthcare, he's nuts.
I doubt he thinks that; however, it does have the sort of financial wherewithal that other entities don't.
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What I get out of your refusal to engage is an inability to defend your own position.
You argue with hand-waving and emotion and fold when challenged.
Oh, pooh. You've consistently misrepresented what I've said. You're not honest, and therefore not worth the time of responding.
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Oh, pooh. You've consistently misrepresented what I've said. You're not honest, and therefore not worth the time of responding.
Then don't respond. In fact why don't you Move on and stalk another member with your mindless drivel and give it a rest.
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Then don't respond. In fact why don't you Move on and stalk another member with your mindless drivel and give it a rest.
Golly. Did somebody put some Wheaties in your morning glass of piss?
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And letting folks sicken and die of treatable diseases because they can't pay for themselves is what?
Because that's where this argument pretty much ends up. There are some people who can't pay their own way. Do we let them die?
No.
Today he was asked about the CBO analysis and his response tells me there is no hope for a conservative solution.
Bingo.
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No.
Bingo.
Of course maybe if we weren't worried about the problems that are 20 years old we could make more progress. Does anyone have any statistics on people being denied treatment and dying because of it? Last I checked anyone can walk into an emergency room and they will do what needs to be done to save their life. Insurance or not.
The question is whether we have a more efficient way to pay for this; not that people are dying.
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No.
Assuming I properly understand your concise response: Exactly -- there's a broad consensus that we have a moral obligation to help people who can't afford medical care. If I'm correct about that, the question becomes one of means: what's the most effective way to deliver that help?
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Of course maybe if we weren't worried about the problems that are 20 years old we could make more progress. Does anyone have any statistics on people being denied treatment and dying because of it? Last I checked anyone can walk into an emergency room and they will do what needs to be done to save their life. Insurance or not.
The question is whether we have a more efficient way to pay for this; not that people are dying.
THiS. And since we are starting from a very inefficient position, improvements should be easy to come by...
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Of course maybe if we weren't worried about the problems that are 20 years old we could make more progress. Does anyone have any statistics on people being denied treatment and dying because of it? Last I checked anyone can walk into an emergency room and they will do what needs to be done to save their life. Insurance or not.
The question is whether we have a more efficient way to pay for this; not that people are dying.
Lest you forget, we got on the subject by your reference to "unconstitutional theft," as it pertains to government funding for health care.
I think I've been careful to state the underlying question, which is not, "are people dying," but rather, "do we have a moral obligation to ensure that they do not die due to lack of basic medical care?"
My position is that we do have a moral obligation, and thus it comes down to what you say: finding the most efficient way to effectively discharge it.
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My position is that we do have a moral obligation, and thus it comes down to what you say: finding the most efficient way to effectively discharge it.
Why exactly do we have that obligation?
Wouldn't the "most efficient" way be to let the private sector handle it and not let the Federal Government interfere or try to "fix" the problem?
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Why exactly do we have that obligation?
Because the alternative is barbaric, and we're not barbarians.
Wouldn't the "most efficient" way be to let the private sector handle it and not let the Federal Government interfere or try to "fix" the problem?
Possibly: It's an option. And so is government funding. And so is some combination of the two.
The same can be said of road maintenance, and I'm not aware of many serious complaints about that.... What's the difference between using government to fund roads, and using government to fund a certain level of health care for those who couldn't otherwise afford it?
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My position is that we do have a moral obligation, and thus it comes down to what you say: finding the most efficient way to effectively discharge it.
That is my position as well. And just what is the response from the "taxation-is-theft" conservatives? If we are to address the community's moral obligation, it will require the redistribution of resources from those who have to those who don't. There are a number of ways to do this, and some are more "conservative" than others, but all require redistribution and hence are incompatible with "taxation-is-theft" conservatism.
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Because the alternative is barbaric, and we're not barbarians.
Expecting people to take care of their own healthcare is barbaric? Forcing me to pay for your healthcare for whatever reason it might be...now that is barbaric.
Possibly: It's an option. And so is government funding. And so is some combination of the two.
Government in cases like this is never the answer.
The same can be said of road maintenance, and I'm not aware of many serious complaints about that.... What's the difference between using government to fund roads, and using government to fund a certain level of health care for those who couldn't otherwise afford it?
The difference is an apples and oranges comparison you're trying to make here. Most road repair/improvement/construction is handled at the local level...city, county or state.
But to use your comparison...why should the Federal government force Texas to pay for road repair in a county in Nebraska because that county decides it doesn't want to allocate funds in it's budget to take care of it's roads?
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Nah, he may have socialist leanings, but I don't think he's a troll. Seems pretty natural for folks to balk anymore at the concepts of personal liberty and personal responsibility.
Maybe some, but certainly not me, and perhaps yourself.
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Why exactly do we have that obligation?
Because there but for the grace of God go you and I.
Wouldn't the "most efficient" way be to let the private sector handle it and not let the Federal Government interfere or try to "fix" the problem?
That's a slogan, not a policy. Please describe a specific policy by which the private sector will "handle it" without the involvement of government.
You won't be able to.
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That is my position as well. And just what is the response from the "taxation-is-theft" conservatives? If we are to address the community's moral obligation, it will require the redistribution of resources from those who have to those who don't. There are a number of ways to do this, and some are more "conservative" than others, but all require redistribution and hence are incompatible with "taxation-is-theft" conservatism.
Yes,a the community addresses it with its charity via churches, individuals, and corporate givings.
PS - the Government is not a community. It is the government, and there is no moral or legal obligation to forcibly extract money from me or others to give to others. It is a freedom.
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That is my position as well. And just what is the response from the "taxation-is-theft" conservatives? If we are to address the community's moral obligation, it will require the redistribution of resources from those who have to those who don't. There are a number of ways to do this, and some are more "conservative" than others, but all require redistribution and hence are incompatible with "taxation-is-theft" conservatism.
No, no, no! If you have a moral obligation, then get thee to it! I'll take care of my own moral obligations, thank you.
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Because there but for the grace of God go you and I.
Gee don't remember seeing that as an enumerated right in the Constitution.
Cute saying though.
That's a slogan, not a policy.
The slogans being thrown around are by those advocating that the government remain intimately involved in healthcare...forcing people to buy policies when they don't want or need to.
Please describe a specific policy by which the private sector will "handle it" without the involvement of government.
You're attempt at a gotcha is not gonna work.
There is a big difference between agencies like the FDA or CDC having oversight on certain areas of healthcare...laws requiring doctors to have certain licenses to practice various types of medicine etc etc...and having the Federal Government run the entire healthcare system.
You're attempt to roll the two together so that no matter what policy or business I pointed to you could go "AH-HA!" and cite to me how the government is involved is a giant failure.
You know exactly what I was getting at and the fact you tried to pull this sad stunt shows me you know you weren't going to like the answer.
You won't be able to.
You suck at setting a trap.
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PS - the Government is not a community.
And charity isn't charity if its given at gunpoint...proverbial or otherwise.
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Expecting people to take care of their own healthcare is barbaric? Forcing me to pay for your healthcare for whatever reason it might be...now that is barbaric.
Refusing to help people who need health care but cannot afford it... that is barbaric. Really, tx, this is "Parable of the Good Samaritan" stuff. Do you really see yourself as one of those who would cross to the other side of the road?
Government in cases like this is never the answer.
"Never" is a very big word. Are you sure you meant to use it?
The difference is an apples and oranges comparison you're trying to make here. Most road repair/improvement/construction is handled at the local level...city, county or state.
You're differentiating between types of government, now. Would you still be opposed if the city/county/state were to levy tax money for purposes of health care, rather than at the federal level?
But to use your comparison...why should the Federal government force Texas to pay for road repair in a county in Nebraska because that county decides it doesn't want to allocate funds in it's budget to take care of it's roads?
Well, by means of the 18.4 cents/gal gas tax, the Feds do force Texans to pay for some of Nebraska's road repairs, through the federal Highway Trust Fund...
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No, no, no! If you have a moral obligation, then get thee to it! I'll take care of my own moral obligations, thank you.
So the poor and sick should just be left to the whims of voluntary charity, or die. Got it - and thanks for the honest response. But if this is "conservatism", don't expect such selfishness to win many elections.
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Refusing to help people who need health care but cannot afford it... that is barbaric. Really, tx, this is "Parable of the Good Samaritan" stuff. Do you really see yourself as one of those who would cross to the other side of the road?
Hospitals can not by law refuse care to anyone...even if they can't pay for it. That Good Samaritan stuff is taken care of already.
"Never" is a very big word. Are you sure you meant to use it?
When it comes to things like trying to control healthcare...force people to buy policies they don't want or need...abscond with 1/7 of the economy...you're damn right I mean never.
You're differentiating between types of government, now. Would you still be opposed if the city/county/state were to levy tax money for purposes of health care, rather than at the federal level?
And you're moving goal posts. Just like when you brought roads into a discussion about healthcare.
Apples and oranges.
Well, by means of the 18.4 cents/gal gas tax, the Feds do force Texans to pay for some of Nebraska's road repairs, through the federal Highway Trust Fund...
Taxiation without representation...didn't we fight a war over something like that.
And thanks for highlighting my point about government interference...imagine how may people would benefit from NOT having the Federal government forcing states to add that extra 18.4 cents to every gallon of gas they put into their car.
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So the poor and sick should just be left to the whims of voluntary charity, or die. Got it - and thanks for the honest response. But if this is "conservatism", don't expect such selfishness to win many elections.
What part of Hospitals are obligated by law to take care of someone even if they can't pay is confusing to you?
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You suck at setting a trap.
And you suck at answering a simple question. But that's okay, because you don't agree with the premise - that the community has a moral obligation to not let sick people die. Conservatives of your ilk have no solution - and could care less about finding one. Thankfully, most conservatives don't share your values.
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What part of Hospitals are obligated by law to take care of someone even if they can't pay is confusing to you?
And who pays the hospitals for doing so? It's you and me, by means of our insurance premiums and tax dollars. See, sonny, it's all redistribution of one sort or another. At least a single payer system can be honest and fair about it.
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And you suck at answering a simple question. But that's okay, because you don't agree with the premise - that the community has a moral obligation to not let sick people die. Conservatives of your ilk have no solution - and could care less about finding one. Thankfully, most conservatives don't share your values.
You and your fellow liberal have been arguing (again, using hand-waving) that we have a "moral obligation" to provide health care to those that can't afford it. This is not a provable statement. Furthermore, there is no way to prove "consensus" on this either (not that it would matter if you could).
I asked before if we have a "moral obligation" to provide health care to all then do we also have a "moral obligation" to ensure the basic requirements of life - shelter, food, and water - are also met? After all, if we are being honest, the vast majority of medical care is not life-saving, and instead only serves to provide for a certain quality of life. However, without shelter (in certain climates), food, and water, there is a 100% chance of death. Would not that be a considerably more urgent problem to solve? If not, why not?
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Of course maybe if we weren't worried about the problems that are 20 years old we could make more progress. Does anyone have any statistics on people being denied treatment and dying because of it? Last I checked anyone can walk into an emergency room and they will do what needs to be done to save their life. Insurance or not.
The question is whether we have a more efficient way to pay for this; not that people are dying.
Exactly. Which is why the claim of people "dying in the streets" from lack of healthcare is absurd. And which is why the push for government to force people to purchase health insurance in order to 'free up' emergency rooms from non-critical health problems came about.
Seems to me, if government is going to force you to purchase health insurance, it should be a 'catastrophic only' health insurance mandate. That way, healthy, younger people will still have coverage if and when they need it.... and older, less healthy people will be free to purchase non-critical supplemental policies. The Democrats' agenda is to get more power and control over Americans via their healthcare, however. It has nothing to do with compassion or caring about their health.
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Hospitals can not by law refuse care to anyone...even if they can't pay for it. That Good Samaritan stuff is taken care of already.
Not for free, they don't: others are forced to pay for it, one way or another. And how is the government not involved, if they passed a law requiring it? So that response actually works against your stated position.
When it comes to things like trying to control healthcare...force people to buy policies they don't want or need...abscond with 1/7 of the economy...you're damn right I mean never.
You're putting words in my mouth now. But that's an awful lot of qualifiers to justify that "never." Just to point out, you've already contradicted yourself: "Hospitals can not by law refuse care to anyone." So "never" turns out not to be "never" after all.
And you're moving goal posts. Just like when you brought roads into a discussion about healthcare.
How so? You said "government." You didn't initially differentiate, until you did. If anybody's moving the goalposts, you are.
Apples and oranges.
You don't get to just say that, without explaining why. In what way is the government taxing you for roads, different from the government taxing you to provide money for health care?
Taxiation without representation...didn't we fight a war over something like that.
Congress passed the law.... They're not worth much, but they are elected representatives and as such, constitute "representation."
And thanks for highlighting my point about government interference...imagine how may people would benefit from NOT having the Federal government forcing states to add that extra 18.4 cents to every gallon of gas they put into their car.
So, what are you saying, exactly?
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And who pays the hospitals for doing so? It's you and me, by means of our insurance premiums and tax dollars. See, sonny, it's all redistribution of one sort or another. At least a single payer system can be honest and fair about it.
So I take your long convoluted reply as an admission that people don't just get left in the streets to die that they DO receive treatment whether they have the means to pay or not?
Good glad we got that settled.
Now for the rest of what you said.
It depends on who runs the hospital...whether it's a corporation...a Church...University or a City/County.
Our insurance premiums have nothing to do with what I mentioned before about providing care no matter what. Nothing at all. The rest get passed on to the other people who use the hospital in what they have to pay for services.
That $2 you pay for a single 250mg Tylenol...that exorbitant price is how Hospitals mitigate the expenses of having to treat someone knowing they have no means to pay for the services rendered.
The only time we've been force to pay for other people's care via our insurance premiums happened on a crappy day in March 7 years ago.
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So, what are you saying, exactly?
Government isn't the solution...it's the problem.
It's no more use discussing this with you than it is your Socialist friend Jazz.
It seems for both of you...you're perfectly content with the Federal Government dictating to you every aspect of your life.
There's no sense trying to reason with you or appeal to your sense of Liberty and free will.
I'm done. Good day.
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So I take your long convoluted reply as an admission that people don't just get left in the streets to die that they DO receive treatment whether they have the means to pay or not?
But that's your problem, not his: the government passed a law requiring hospitals to treat the indigent. Such care is not free: the law forces others to pay for the cost of that emergency treatment -- or, more commonly, for the non-emergency treatment by people who use the ER as their doctor's office.
Are you for or against that law?
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Government isn't the solution...it's the problem.
It's no more use discussing this with you than it is your Socialist friend Jazz.
It seems for both of you...you're perfectly content with the Federal Government dictating to you every aspect of your life.
There's no sense trying to reason with you or appeal to your sense of Liberty and free will.
I'm done. Good day.
Oh, please. You're losing the argument, but that's no call to accuse us of being "socialists."
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But that's your problem, not his: the government passed a law requiring hospitals to treat the indigent. Such care is not free: the law forces others to pay for the cost of that emergency treatment -- or, more commonly, for the non-emergency treatment by people who use the ER as their doctor's office.
Are you for or against that law?
Shouldn't you be making the case why that law needs replaced not Obamacare?
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Government isn't the solution...it's the problem.
It's no more use discussing this with you than it is your Socialist friend Jazz.
It seems for both of you...you're perfectly content with the Federal Government dictating to you every aspect of your life.
There's no sense trying to reason with you or appeal to your sense of Liberty and free will.
I'm done. Good day.
:beer:
You gave it a good try.....but....
you know (lefties = hopeless).
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Because there but for the grace of God go you and I.
That's a fine reason, we, as individuals, should be charitable and help those who cannot 'do' for themselves. It is no reason, however for the government to rob people at gunpoint to force them to pay for others. There is no 'charity' in taking someone else's money by force and giving it away, just force. Without an option to do otherwise, the act cannot glorify God. That's a slogan, not a policy. Please describe a specific policy by which the private sector will "handle it" without the involvement of government.
You won't be able to.
Describe something, some aspect of medical care where government tentacles are not present. You won't be able to.
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Oh, please. You're losing the argument, but that's no call to accuse us of being "socialists."
Yeah. Let's not call it that.
That's what it is. But let's not call it that.
:silly:
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:beer:
You gave it a good try.....but....
you know (lefties = hopeless).
It's frustrating at times. My teenage son understands the concept of "a government big enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take it all away"...but to some adults that seems to be an offensive statement.
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Shouldn't you be making the case why that law needs replaced not Obamacare?
Well, maybe tx should be trying to make that case, as it's his logical conundrum. At root, that law is meant to address the moral obligation I was talking about.
For reference, the law is the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act of 1986, which as I recall was passed as a result of several highly-publicized cases of people dying after being refused care from the ER -- so the "people aren't dying" argument is actually relatively recent.
I'm really just talking about the OP, in which Kudlow's calling for government funding for a particular portion of health care costs. While I do think there's a moral obligation, and I do think a plausible case to be made in favor of a government role in funding his idea, my main intent on this thread has been to challenge the bold "conservative" assertions being made.
Here's the thing: if conservatives can't even make the case among friends, how in hell do we expect to make it to our opponents?
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It's frustrating at times. My teenage son understands the concept of "a government big enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take it all away"...but to some adults that seems to be an offensive statement.
If you can't make a good argument among friends, how do you expect to make a good argument against your opponents?
The problem with your position is that you're mainly just making claims and expecting me to accept them. I actually agree in principle with a lot of what you're saying; but I'm not the one you need to convince.
If you say that government is good for some things and not others, it is your responsibility to explain how and why there is a difference. You don't get to just make the claim.
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Well, maybe tx should be trying to make that case, as it's his logical conundrum. At root, that law is meant to address the moral obligation I was talking about.
For reference, the law is the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act of 1986, which as I recall was passed as a result of several highly-publicized cases of people dying after being refused care from the ER -- so the "people aren't dying" argument is actually relatively recent.
I'm really just talking about the OP, in which Kudlow's calling for government funding for a particular portion of health care costs. While I do think there's a moral obligation, and I do think a plausible case to be made in favor of a government role in funding his idea, my main intent on this thread has been to challenge the bold "conservative" assertions being made.
Here's the thing: if conservatives can't even make the case among friends, how in hell do we expect to make it to our opponents?
Multiple people have died of exposure, starvation, or dehydration while you dodged the question on where our "moral obligation" ends.
I'm waiting.
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Multiple people have died of exposure, starvation, or dehydration while you dodged the question on where our "moral obligation" ends.
I'm waiting.
Waiting for what? The question of where an obligation ends, simply confirms that the obligation itself exists.
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Waiting for what? The question of where an obligation ends, simply confirms that the obligation itself exists.
I will ask one more time.
If we have a moral obligation to provide health care, do we also have a moral obligation to provide food, water, and shelter? If not, why not? It's a very, very simple question, even for a statist.
Your answer (or lack thereof) will be very illustrative of your intellectual honesty and consistency.
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Well, maybe tx should be trying to make that case, as it's his logical conundrum. At root, that law is meant to address the moral obligation I was talking about.
For reference, the law is the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act of 1986, which as I recall was passed as a result of several highly-publicized cases of people dying after being refused care from the ER -- so the "people aren't dying" argument is actually relatively recent.
I'm really just talking about the OP, in which Kudlow's calling for government funding for a particular portion of health care costs. While I do think there's a moral obligation, and I do think a plausible case to be made in favor of a government role in funding his idea, my main intent on this thread has been to challenge the bold "conservative" assertions being made.
Here's the thing: if conservatives can't even make the case among friends, how in hell do we expect to make it to our opponents?
Seems to me Kudlow and Ya'll are the ones arguments in favor of the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act of 1986 as the reason we can't get rid of Obamma care and have to replace it immediately.
Which isn't the case. Since this act is in place we have plenty of time to figure out the best way to handle the situation. I haven't seen any hard data that the new proposed laws will improve on the law that's been in place since 1986.
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Waiting for what? The question of where an obligation ends, simply confirms that the obligation itself exists.
If your next-door neighbor, who you don't know, chooses to get hooked on drugs and alcohol and gets in an accident, injuring himself..... are you under any "moral obligation" to pay his medical bills?
Charity ends (IMO) where irresponsibility begins. If you're the kind of person that lives a lifestyle where you abuse your health (ie become a drug addict) your entire life and then expect others to suffer the consequences by having to pay for your care, you really don't deserve to get 'quality' healthcare. That's what Medicaid is for. Personal responsibility is suffering the consequences of your own actions and choices.
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It's frustrating at times. My teenage son understands the concept of "a government big enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take it all away"...but to some adults that seems to be an offensive statement.
Yep. As someone in another thread said.... 'it ain't rocket surgery'...lol. But to lefties, it apparently is. :laugh:
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I doubt he thinks that; however, it does have the sort of financial wherewithal that other entities don't.
If government is paying for it, the price will sky-rocket.
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I will ask one more time.
If we have a moral obligation to provide health care, do we also have a moral obligation to provide food, water, and shelter? If not, why not? It's a very, very simple question, even for a statist.
Your answer (or lack thereof) will be very illustrative of your intellectual honesty and consistency.
One's medical expenses are, in large measure, a function of misfortune rather than a lack of virtue. Bad genes, an unexpected accident, an unanticipated cancer diagnosis; all can send a virtuous person to financial ruin. Under a Rawlesian analysis, if we are all equally susceptible to such random ruin, then we as a community have a moral obligation to act to make sure there is support for those who suffer such catastrophe. In other words, there but for the grace of God go I.
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If your next-door neighbor, who you don't know, chooses to get hooked on drugs and alcohol and gets in an accident, injuring himself..... are you under any "moral obligation" to pay his medical bills?
Charity ends (IMO) where irresponsibility begins. If you're the kind of person that lives a lifestyle where you abuse your health (ie become a drug addict) your entire life and then expect others to suffer the consequences by having to pay for your care, you really don't deserve to get 'quality' healthcare. That's what Medicaid is for. Personal responsibility is suffering the consequences of your own actions and choices.
@XenaLee one has to wonder how far some people think this whole "moral obligation" thing has to or should extend.
For instance:
If I have a car and someone else in my neighborhood doesn't...am I morally obligated to give them money to help them buy a car?
If someone is homeless...am I morally obligated to give the homeless person money to help them obtain shelter?
If I make more money than a coworker...am I morally obligated to give them part of my salary?
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One's medical expenses are, in large measure, a function of misfortune rather than a lack of virtue. Bad genes, an unexpected accident, an unanticipated cancer diagnosis; all can send a virtuous person to financial ruin. Under a Rawlesian analysis, if we are all equally susceptible to such random ruin, then we as a community have a moral obligation to act to make sure there is support for those who suffer such catastrophe. In other words, there but for the grace of God go I.
Again, Jazz, form your community and start anteing up. Until then your words ring hollow.
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Again, Jazz, form your community and start anteing up. Until then your words ring hollow.
That's the problem, Sanguine - too many "conservatives" don't feel they belong to a larger community. They have an extreme view of individualism, living their lives in metaphorical bunkers and to hell with everybody else.
But even a conservative in a bunker can suffer random ruin from a medical event. That randomness is what differentiates the moral obligation with respect to medical care from such "rights" as food and shelter.
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That's the problem, Sanguine - too many "conservatives" don't feel they belong to a larger community. They have an extreme view of individualism, living their lives in metaphorical bunkers and to hell with everybody else.
But even a conservative in a bunker can suffer random ruin from a medical event. That randomness is what differentiates the moral obligation with respect to medical care from such "rights" as food and shelter.
Oh, come on, Jazz - that wasn't even a good red herring!
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That's the problem, Sanguine - too many "conservatives" don't feel they belong to a larger community. They have an extreme view of individualism, living their lives in metaphorical bunkers and to hell with everybody else.
But even a conservative in a bunker can suffer random ruin from a medical event. That randomness is what differentiates the moral obligation with respect to medical care from such "rights" as food and shelter.
Well at least you know why you aren't putting your money where your mouth is.
That's the problem with liberals, it's so much easier to steal from others than to get off their duffers and help people.
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@XenaLee one has to wonder how far some people think this whole "moral obligation" thing has to or should extend.
For instance:
If I have a car and someone else in my neighborhood doesn't...am I morally obligated to give them money to help them buy a car?
If someone is homeless...am I morally obligated to give the homeless person money to help them obtain shelter?
If I make more money than a coworker...am I morally obligated to give them part of my salary?
That "moral obligation" BS is what the commies use to 'guilt' the peons into buying into their crap in the first place. Then once bought into, it's too late to back out once the power-grip of the short hairs takes over.
Thank God at least half (or more) of Americans are too smart to fall for it ....
so far.
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But that's your problem, not his: the government passed a law requiring hospitals to treat the indigent. Such care is not free: the law forces others to pay for the cost of that emergency treatment -- or, more commonly, for the non-emergency treatment by people who use the ER as their doctor's office.
Are you for or against that law?
The reason an aspirin costs multiples of what it would cost to buy a bottle of them is the result of treating those indigent. The hospital charges more to the other patients who can pay to recover the costs of those who skip out on their bill. In that way, patients who can pay take up the fiscal slack those who can't pay leave.
It has been that way all along, and you will find that happens in retail stores, raising prices (actually, just factored in) to compensate for breakage, spoilage, and theft.
Many of the non-emergency people who use the ER as a doctor's office are medicaid folks, and we're paying for them out of the kindness of the IRS now. We don't really get any choice in the matter, so that doesn't amount to charity.
There is a big difference between being part of the chain gang picking up litter and part of a volunteer group who adopted a section of highway. The former often resent being there in bondage, while the latter take pride in what they accomplish, not just because it looks better, but because they willingly did it.
It is a pity that distinction is lost on you, but you are professing that the ends justify the means, whatever means, where there are those of us who firmly believe how those ends are accomplished means something, too.
Your lack of faith in the goodness of your fellow humans is duly noted, along with your desire to rob people of the opportunity to feel good about doing things voluntarily to assist those who are in need..
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One's medical expenses are, in large measure, a function of misfortune rather than a lack of virtue. Bad genes, an unexpected accident, an unanticipated cancer diagnosis; all can send a virtuous person to financial ruin. Under a Rawlesian analysis, if we are all equally susceptible to such random ruin, then we as a community have a moral obligation to act to make sure there is support for those who suffer such catastrophe. In other words, there but for the grace of God go I.
Your fellow socialist has ducked the question. You didn't answer but instead made a (rather nonsensical) case that we have a moral obligation to provide for health care for all.
I am asking that *if* that were true (as you believe and I do not), do we then have a moral obligation to provide food, shelter, and water?
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Your fellow socialist has ducked the question. You didn't answer but instead made a (rather nonsensical) case that we have a moral obligation to provide for health care for all.
I am asking that *if* that were true (as you believe and I do not), do we then have a moral obligation to provide food, shelter, and water?
Why stop there? Cellphones, college education, lawn service, internet, Mocha lattes...
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Your fellow socialist has ducked the question. You didn't answer but instead made a (rather nonsensical) case that we have a moral obligation to provide for health care for all.
I am asking that *if* that were true (as you believe and I do not), do we then have a moral obligation to provide food, shelter, and water?
I would say no, applying a Rawlesian analysis. The ability to acquire food and shelter is largely a matter of individual initiative and effort. The risk of a medical catastrophe, by contrast, exists for us all, without regard to virtue. A hard-working family man can be ruined by a cancer diagnosis, for example.
Because of the nature of medical risk - although most of us can manage such expenses, any one of us can be unexpectedly ruined - it is especially susceptible to being addressed on a community-wide basis. And that means, as a practical matter, by the government and its ability to spread the cost of medical financing on a fair basis among both rich and poor. (Private charity simply doesn't have the practical capacity to take care of the problem on its own.)
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(Private charity simply doesn't have the practical capacity to take care of the problem on its own.)
Have you asked St. Jude or the Shriners about that?
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I will ask one more time.
If we have a moral obligation to provide health care, do we also have a moral obligation to provide food, water, and shelter? If not, why not? It's a very, very simple question, even for a statist.
Your answer (or lack thereof) will be very illustrative of your intellectual honesty and consistency.
Sigh. I have no illusions about your ability to misrepresent what I've been saying, no illusions about your inability to understand anything more subtle than a hammer to the head, and no illusions about your ability to make an argument that doesn't include name-calling. But I'll try to answer your questions regardless.
I believe we have a moral obligation to give food to a starving person. I believe that we have a moral obligation to give water to people who are dying of thirst. I believe we have a moral obligation to help people who might otherwise freeze to death.
At the risk of offending your sensibilities, I can point out that Jesus believed the same things. It's not a "statist" position -- it's a moral one. It's the right thing to do.
And by the same moral reasoning, I believe we have a moral obligation to help those in need of medical care, who cannot afford it for themselves.
How is it possible that you seem to be arguing against such things?
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Have you asked St. Jude or the Shriners about that?
March of Dimes
JDF
Susan G Komen
MDA
and on and on and on
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Thankfully, most conservatives don't share your values.
How would you know?
You are a radical Big Government Leftist.
Not only do you not understand Conservatism, you HATE the bulk of what identifies as Conservatism and you LIE about what you are.
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Have you asked St. Jude or the Shriners about that?
Both wonderful charities, and as charities go, helping sick kids is an easy sell for fund-raising.
I'm not sure they'd work as models for a more general patient population, however.
Let's do the math, using St. Jude's hospital as our basis of estimate.
According to philanthropyroundtable.com, operating the St. Jude's hospital costs about $1.7 million/day, or about $621 million/year.
According to the St. Jude's website, they treat about 7800 patients per year. That works out to just under $80k per patient per year.
As a conservative estimate, let's say that Kudlow's number applies to 1 million people.
At St. Jude's rates, private charities would need to raise about $80 billion to provide the same level of care. That's maybe not such an easy goal to meet.
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I believe we have a moral obligation to give food to a starving person. I believe that we have a moral obligation to give water to people who are dying of thirst. I believe we have a moral obligation to help people who might otherwise freeze to death.
YOU have a moral obligation to give food to a starving person. YOU have a moral obligation to give water to the thirsty. YOU have a moral obligation to provide warmth to the naked.
YOU DO NOT HAVE THE OBLIGATION to empower government to put a gun to all of our heads and force them to do those things FOR YOU and therefore absolve YOU of the responsibility of doing it yourself.
Empowering government to do charity in your stead perverts what Jesus said to do, and is nothing less than Communism.
At the risk of offending your sensibilities, I can point out that Jesus believed the same things. It's not a "statist" position -- it's a moral one.
He NEVER suggested or empowered the people to petition the government to do those things and absolve the individual of responsibility by simply taking it out of the producers via taxation. It is INDEED statist, and Communist to do so.
I believe we have a moral obligation to help those in need of medical care, who cannot afford it for themselves.
That is something YOU must do, on your own if you are so led. Not empower government to put guns to our heads to force us to do it in your stead so you can feel magnanimous.
How is it possible that you seem to be arguing against such things?
Liberty. Something anyone empowering government to do charity has absolutely no comprehension or understanding of.
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Sigh. I have no illusions about your ability to misrepresent what I've been saying, no illusions about your inability to understand anything more subtle than a hammer to the head, and no illusions about your ability to make an argument that doesn't include name-calling. But I'll try to answer your questions regardless.
I believe we have a moral obligation to give food to a starving person. I believe that we have a moral obligation to give water to people who are dying of thirst. I believe we have a moral obligation to help people who might otherwise freeze to death.
At the risk of offending your sensibilities, I can point out that Jesus believed the same things. It's not a "statist" position -- it's a moral one. It's the right thing to do.
And by the same moral reasoning, I believe we have a moral obligation to help those in need of medical care, who cannot afford it for themselves.
How is it possible that you seem to be arguing against such things?
Wait - you're advocating for a theocracy?
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Wait - you're advocating for a theocracy?
Um... I'll just assume you've had a long day. That comment has no basis in anything I said, unless you choose to grossly misconstrue my statement concerning what Jesus taught.
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YOU have a moral obligation to give food to a starving person. YOU have a moral obligation to give water to the thirsty. YOU have a moral obligation to provide warmth to the naked.
YOU DO NOT HAVE THE OBLIGATION to empower government to put a gun to all of our heads and force them to do those things FOR YOU and therefore absolve YOU of the responsibility of doing it yourself.
Empowering government to do charity in your stead perverts what Jesus said to do, and is nothing less than Communism.
He NEVER suggested or empowered the people to petition the government to do those things and absolve the individual of responsibility by simply taking it out of the producers via taxation. It is INDEED statist, and Communist to do so.
That is something YOU must do, on your own if you are so led. Not empower government to put guns to our heads to force us to do it in your stead so you can feel magnanimous.
Liberty. Something anyone empowering government to do charity has absolutely no comprehension or understanding of.
POST OF THE WEEK!
Where did Jesus EVER say "give your money to Cesar so he can take care the poor?" You will not find that anywhere! Just as you so correctly point out His admonitions were ALWAYS to us as individuals.
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Um... I'll just assume you've had a long day. That comment has no basis in anything I said, unless you choose to grossly misconstrue my statement concerning what Jesus taught.
Why doesn't separation of church and state doesn't apply if you are going to use Christianity as your basis for forcing people to pay for the health insurance of others?
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Why doesn't separation of church and state doesn't apply if you are going to use Christianity as your basis for forcing people to pay for the health insurance of others?
Because when it involves redistribution of wealth - FROM each according to their abilities TO EACH according to their need, why then... using Jesus and the bible to shame people into accepting government empowerment to do charity is perfectly good and acceptable.
But that is it.
Don't bother using Jesus or the Bible to talk about personal responsibility or eschewing sin and wickedness, because once you do that then YOU ARE pushing a theocracy on everyone according to the leftist.
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Presumably you're defending this point of view. I'll assume you haven't thought about it.
The reason insurance companies charge premiums is to cover their risk in the eventual case expensive care is required. You pay while you don't need it so that you can receive care when you need it. Now, if you isolate the "sick" in a pool, there is no reason for insurance. Alternatively, this could be looked at as a way to grossly enrich insurance companies by letting them collect money from healthy people but transfer the hard work (paying out claims for the sick) to the taxpayer. Either way, this is an argument for single payer.
It would, in addition, do absolutely nothing to contain costs. The taxpayer becomes responsible for both their own health insurance as well as the government-sponsored "sick pool." Given the inefficiency of the government, it's likely that costs to the end user would increase substantially. At the absolute theoretical best, they would remain the same, but then that would obviate the need for such a program.
Any amount of logical thought shows that this is an argument for single payer somebody with the rationalization ability of a high school sophomore would propose.
@FS7
Brilliant... With the exception that your position omits the nefarious motives very predctably present in the gov's intention. It isn't about the sick. It's about the money. It's always about the money, or it's about control... or both. So your 'absolute theoretical best' will never even remotely happen. It will be cost inflation in fire-hose mode. if not now, then 4 years from now, or the next time the democrats rise to power.
But then, I think you know that. No one can put lipstick on this pig.
@LonestarDream
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Somebody has to pay for that care. Correct. I presume you say so because the alternative is not worth considering. Kudlow is suggesting that spreading the cost among the national tax base is probably the least intrusive, in terms of money, and the most likely to ensure that the care actually is paid for. There's some merit to that argument. Assuming that the same level of cost can be covered through charitable contributions is perhaps a bit idealistic.
The 'alternative' is moot. It already exists in the form of Medicaid/Medicare. So it is no alternative at all. It's the same thing, just more money. NO ONE is dying from lack of care. If you get sick enough to crap out, you will be covered by medicare/medicaid. Guess what: If you crap out that bad, insurance isn't going to change a thing - you are still going to lose everything whether the government or not.
And as to covering through charity, That is exactly what happened prior to the 70's when churches could no longer 'profit' from their hospitals and remain 'nonprofit', their charitable write-offs notwithstanding, or rather not counting. That is why churches used to own most of the hospitals in the country, and now own few.
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Um... I'll just assume you've had a long day. That comment has no basis in anything I said, unless you choose to grossly misconstrue my statement concerning what Jesus taught.
The fact that you don't understand the implications of your statement doesn't mean they aren't there. Think about it a bit.
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And that means, as a practical matter, by the government and its ability to spread the cost of medical financing on a fair basis among both rich and poor.
There we have it exposed: Socialism in its purist form.
Give to the government who knows best so they can decide who is rich and poor in order to be 'fair'.
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YOU have a moral obligation to give food to a starving person. YOU have a moral obligation to give water to the thirsty. YOU have a moral obligation to provide warmth to the naked.
YOU DO NOT HAVE THE OBLIGATION to empower government to put a gun to all of our heads and force them to do those things FOR YOU and therefore absolve YOU of the responsibility of doing it yourself.
Empowering government to do charity in your stead perverts what Jesus said to do, and is nothing less than Communism.
He NEVER suggested or empowered the people to petition the government to do those things and absolve the individual of responsibility by simply taking it out of the producers via taxation. It is INDEED statist, and Communist to do so.
That is something YOU must do, on your own if you are so led. Not empower government to put guns to our heads to force us to do it in your stead so you can feel magnanimous.
Liberty. Something anyone empowering government to do charity has absolutely no comprehension or understanding of.
:amen:
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Have you asked St. Jude or the Shriners about that?
By all means, go ahead and ask. They will most certainly say there is a role for government to be played in addressing the afflicted.
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Sigh. I have no illusions about your ability to misrepresent what I've been saying, no illusions about your inability to understand anything more subtle than a hammer to the head, and no illusions about your ability to make an argument that doesn't include name-calling. But I'll try to answer your questions regardless.
I believe we have a moral obligation to give food to a starving person. I believe that we have a moral obligation to give water to people who are dying of thirst. I believe we have a moral obligation to help people who might otherwise freeze to death.
At the risk of offending your sensibilities, I can point out that Jesus believed the same things. It's not a "statist" position -- it's a moral one. It's the right thing to do.
And by the same moral reasoning, I believe we have a moral obligation to help those in need of medical care, who cannot afford it for themselves.
How is it possible that you seem to be arguing against such things?
As INVAR so eloquently put it, it's a simple matter of freedom. I am free to choose to believe that ii is my moral obligation to protest against abortion, help the homeless, feed the hungry, or anything. It is a statist position to demand that the guns of government force another, under penalty of law, to do the same. If it is their choice, they can do it freely.
You advocate for forced charity based on your moral beliefs. It is a common tactic of leftists of all stripes to say that because the statist's intent is good, then the method must be good as well. This is a logical fallacy, one that you swallowed so long ago there are rusted flecks of the hook and sinker throughout your body.
This is a simple concept. You don't fully grasp it, I see, but even if you did, you would still argue against it because that's who you are.
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There we have it exposed: Socialism in its purist form.
Give to the government who knows best so they can decide who is rich and poor in order to be 'fair'.
Apparently to some that is the new Conservatism.
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YOU have a moral obligation to give food to a starving person. YOU have a moral obligation to give water to the thirsty. YOU have a moral obligation to provide warmth to the naked.
YOU DO NOT HAVE THE OBLIGATION to empower government to put a gun to all of our heads and force them to do those things FOR YOU and therefore absolve YOU of the responsibility of doing it yourself.
Empowering government to do charity in your stead perverts what Jesus said to do, and is nothing less than Communism.
He NEVER suggested or empowered the people to petition the government to do those things and absolve the individual of responsibility by simply taking it out of the producers via taxation. It is INDEED statist, and Communist to do so.
That is something YOU must do, on your own if you are so led. Not empower government to put guns to our heads to force us to do it in your stead so you can feel magnanimous.
Liberty. Something anyone empowering government to do charity has absolutely no comprehension or understanding of.
No, you're wrong. To be sure, you have a moral obligation, but so does the community. And it is offensive to suggest that Jesus endorses your view of selfishness masquerading as "freedom".
Your individual acts of charity do not absolve the community from certain basic responsibilities toward the less fortunate. We do not live in a tyranny, this is a representative democracy and republic. Our elected representatives speak for the community, and can direct resources to assist the poor and the sick, including by the levying of taxes. If you prefer the private exercise of charity, you can provide it and take an unlimited deduction against your income taxes. Your freedom to direct your private charity is preserved.
It is the task of pragmatic conservative to see that the burden of paying for programs that provide for the general welfare be allocated fairly and broadly and not heaped upon a few. Not to deny that the community has a moral obligation to address the victims of catastrophe.
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No, you're wrong. To be sure, you have a moral obligation, but so does the community. And it is offensive to suggest that Jesus endorses your view of selfishness masquerading as "freedom".
Jesus is all about choice. You choose to follow Him, you choose to believe in Him, to be like Him. Having the government use force or the threat thereof to take money from other people for YOU to give away, is not choice for anyone. No one held the widow who threw her mites in for the poor at spearpoint. She CHOSE, of her own volition to do so.
The community has no obligation. It can't. It is at best a consensus, but only in the most rare of instances in unanimity. Still, it has no soul, it is a construct, a fabrication, and artificial in nature.
What I and others here advocate is our God given Right to choose to be charitable. Robbing us of the ability to choose to be charitable at gunpoint isn't charity, it's robbery.
Your individual acts of charity do not absolve the community from certain basic responsibilities toward the less fortunate.
See above. While a community may exert force, it is a consensus, not an entity except as a social construct. If people walk away from a person there is still a person there, but if they walk away from a community there is nothing.
We do not live in a tyranny, this is a representative democracy and republic.
Pick one. I opt for Republic. Tyranny is as tyranny does, and forcing people to give up their assets is tyranny. Our elected representatives speak for the community, and can direct resources to assist the poor and the sick, including by the levying of taxes.
At best our elected representatives speak for us, at worst (more often the case) they mouth platitudes for the loudest in an effort to be reelected, to protect their jobs. Again, the community doesn't have a vote, only the individuals in it, and that vote is often not overwhelmingly in one direction or another. The choice people do have is whatever course of action they, as individuals, will choose. That can be altered by people trying to keep their jobs passing laws which will strip people of their assets. If you prefer the private exercise of charity, you can provide it and take an unlimited deduction against your income taxes. Your freedom to direct your private charity is preserved.
While being fined for not buying the insurance for ourselves which is overpriced because of government intervention, or even not being able to afford it? As one who lost his health insurance because of all this caring for uninsured people going on, who would have to pay multiples of what I was paying for lesser insurance, the option of paying out 10K or more per year in charitable donations is gone. I do what I can, but I have dependent children in my household to feed, clothe, and make sure they get the (often paid out of pocket) health care they need. For taking care of all that, the IRS will fine/tax me for breathing, for not buying insurance that costs multiples of the insurance I had, claiming it is to provide insurance for the indigent.
Now, a portion of that money goes to pay for the people collecting the funds, the people administering the funds, the people doling out the funds, the people doing the paperwork, the people approving expenditures, an entire bureaucracy is sucking the life out of that penalty/tax I pay for breathing. They aren't doing those jobs out of the goodness of their hearts, they get a paycheck, and a benefit package that would have made me green with envy were I an envious person, at any time during my career.
But I could have just paid the money into a fund to pay for the bills of a kid with leukemia, made a donation to the local VFD/EMS, or bought a couple of plane tickets to Rochester for some kid and their mom/dad so the kid could be treated at Mayo. Without the bureaucratic parasites getting a cut.
It is the task of pragmatic conservative to see that the burden of paying for programs that provide for the general welfare be allocated fairly and broadly and not heaped upon a few.
"Pragmatic conservative" What is that? Not to deny that the community has a moral obligation to address the victims of catastrophe.
As a social construct, a community is incapable of having a moral obligation. Any moral obligations will be felt by the individual people, but it is not their job to demand that others relinquish their resources to be reallocated to others so the people demanding them can feel all warm and fuzzy.
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No, you're wrong.
Prove it.
Either quote us where in the Constitution we are under a moral obligation to empower government to take from those with ability to redistribute to those in need based on the government's arbitrary criteria - or show us in scripture where Jesus commanded the "community" to empower the government to do charity on their behalf.
Go on. Show us Mr. "I hate Christians and your mythical bible".
To be sure, you have a moral obligation, but so does the community.
Only a Communist thinks like that. You are showing us your pure unadulterated desire to impose Communism as a moral obligation. Show us in the Constitution or in the scriptures where this obligation of community to provide sustenance and welfare is required and demanded.
And it is offensive to suggest that Jesus endorses your view of selfishness masquerading as "freedom".
Ask me if I care that you are offended at the truth. You have demonstrated countless times that your biblical acumen and understanding to promote abortion, homosexuality and Islam to be absolutely zero.
So I can care less if a someone like you spouting the virtues of wickedness and Communism is offended.
Your individual acts of charity do not absolve the community from certain basic responsibilities toward the less fortunate.
Exactly what Marx and Engels wrote.
We do not live in a tyranny
People like you are making it into one.
this is a representative democracy and republic.
Only when it suits your rhetoric to couch your Socialism and Communism within the facade of Conservatism.
It is the task of pragmatic conservative to see that the burden of paying for programs that provide for the general welfare
WRONG. That is the task Communism demands be imposed as a moral obligation.
And that, is tyranny. One that needs to be resisted by every means at our disposal.
be allocated fairly and broadly and not heaped upon a few.
There is nothing 'fair' about using government to allocate charity broadly. That is tyranny, using shame as a coercive agent to force compliance with a morality that is neither biblical or Constitutional. Government has no authority to dispense charity, and neither do a bunch of Communists have any moral authority to tell the rest of us that we are obligated to dispense charity as you people see fit, and not as Our God and the Holy Spirit lead each individual to do charity.
You actually rob us of doing that which we are charged and in making government your god - you steal from God Himself, by absolving individuals to do charity because the government compels us to do charity as they direct it - and not as we are led to do it.
Not to deny that the community has a moral obligation to address the victims of catastrophe.
You are such a liar and cluelessly ignorant of what happens when Government becomes the entity to dispense charity and need.
The government PREVENTED US, private charity groups from disaster relief after Greenwood KS and Joplin Mo tornadoes and Pascagoula, MS after Katrina - so don't go giving us this high and mighty fake virtue signaling to promote Communism crap you are now known for doing on this board.
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Jesus
Joe. See that space above. The vast emptiness. All filled with blank space. That is Jazzyheads brain looking at your post. It is a vast nothingness. Jizzy's mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of mindless thought careening through a cosmic vapor of nothingness.
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Joe. See that space above. The vast emptiness. All filled with blank space. That is Jazzyheads brain looking at your post. It is a vast nothingness. Jizzy's mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of mindless thought careening through a cosmic vapor of nothingness.
You use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore.
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You use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore.
Not near as well as Jizzyhead does.
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@Jazzhead
So you do think government should impose morality after all, just pick and choose which "moral obligations" you want them to enforce.
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Joe. See that space above. The vast emptiness. All filled with blank space. That is Jazzyheads brain looking at your post. It is a vast nothingness. Jizzy's mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of mindless thought careening through a cosmic vapor of nothingness.
:thumbsup:
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@Smokin Joe
@Jazzhead
You are both technically wrong, and both technically right.
Torah contains a direct admonition to care for the widow and the orphan. Some of that was indeed national, and commanded by YHWH - leaving the corners of the field to be gleaned by the poor and the traveler comes to mind. But in spirit, the national welfare system was the system of last resort.
Charity began in the House - The brother of a widow's late husband had an obligation to take her in (along with children), unless that wasn't possible, or he declined. The obligation then passed to the patriarch of the House, via the kinsman redeemer - Someone within the greater house could take her on (read Ruth)... There is some evidence that if the husband's family failed to act, the woman would revert to her own family, as hinted at wrt Mary and a strange connection to Joseph of Aramathea.
If that didn't work out, if the family and extended family on either side couldn't/wouldn't care for her, there is evidence of a more general charity run through the synagogues, much as Christian charity is largely distributed through the churches - See Paul's collection in his far off churches/synagogues to bring aid to Jerusalem during famine. Whether that was merely congregational, or more formal through the Temple is disputed, though there was collection for the poor in the Temple.
But there is no record I am aware of demonstrating national or even tribal organization of charity through taxes. Comparably: No federal or state taxation for charity that I know of.
There is certainly no indication that half or more of the population was on national welfare.
It's a different thing to support the widow and the orphan - We are a rich and generous country. Such would be a mere pittance in a state or federal budget. The same with those who are truly chronically ill and the poor elderly. Them that CAN'T are different from them that won't. If that is all that was happening, those that have no family, those who have no church - surely there is room to pension those that are left at the county level, or the state level, and finally, LASTLY the federal level (with the exception of military widows, who should have a federal pension far greater than they now receive).
It's a whole nuther thing to support bastard children and unattached women making more bastard children, the product of rampant depravity across generations. GENERATIONS now... There is no way to defend sexual depravity, rampant drug use, sloth, and illegal aliens as Christian duty. YHWH is against ALL of that, and we, of all people should see why - It is flatly unsustainable.
It is FAR better to encourage incremental bottom up charity. Generous tax breaks for those supporting elders or chronically ill in their house... Generous conditions for churches to practice the charity they do SO much better than the government. Encourage church owned hospitals and clinics and schools. Encourage nuclear and extended family ties. Make it damn tough to divorce. Encourage families to stay together - the father and mother and the grandparents close to their children. Encourage frugality and savings, and inter-generational. inheritance
THAT is what is sustainable, that is what worked right here before the sexual revolution of the 60's. And that is right according to YHWH. The party is over. Someone has to get up and start cleaning this sh*t up, hangover or not, or we're going straight down the drain.
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@roamer_1
My religious obligations are mine, not the business of the entire Country. We are told that separation exists, that Congress shall make no law with respect to religion (no official religion) nor prohibit the free exercise thereof. That is the 'separation of church and state' the Liberals hammer us with. Now I am being told to support a Liberal program because, well, WWJD?
My friend, this is no theocracy, even though most of our laws are based on Judeo/Christian ethos. In my family, when we can get the meddlers of government out of the way, we take care of our own. My wife and I have had as many as four grandchildren living under our roof at the same time, and have provided for their needs with never a dime from the government, in fact paying our taxes the whole time. That obligation, however, is one of family. It is how things are done, in both the Chippewa culture my wife was raised in, and in the Southern influenced English/Irish/Scots culture I was raised in dating back to the colonial era (1600s). That, in both sides of the family, is just how things are done. Those moral obligations are not binding on anyone else, that is very much a personal matter.
The compact between the States that formed the Constitution, however, is the law by which we have all agreed to live. In that law, there are no moral obligations (despite the apparent codification of some) only legal ones. The government is not The Almighty, though His Law is the main basis of our government, not just at the Federal level, but at the State level (if you don't like the rules in one state, you can move, trust me), and even local law governs the day to day actions of most folks.
However, that law, whether we would judge it to be moral or not, is not a question of morality so much as legality, of ethics, not morals, and without an eternal soul, Government, as an entity is not morally bound whatsoever aside from the individual moral influences of the governed, raised in unity on the law, whether those morals are heartfelt or just a cheap emotional mechanism to make people feel guilty to screw them once again.
The mechanisms are in place to take care of those who CANNOT care for themselves, from the Social Security tax, which many would argue is unconstitutional in and of itself, which is going to be in serious fiscal trouble because the Congress looted those funds to buy votes. Yet Americans paid into it, having been promised a return or survivor benefits for their family, and even disability payments should they become injured. It is already a mess. Yet those looted funds often went to programs for 'the poor', and an entire industry of Social Workers and counselors was created and supported, employing a multitude of officers, "for the poor".
Look here http://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/the-war-poverty-after-50-years (http://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/the-war-poverty-after-50-years) at the 'war on poverty' and see what we got. In 50 years it has cost more than all the (military) wars this country has been in.
As spending on the poor (not counting Social Security and medicare) went up, poverty stabilized, it didn't go down.
What? Why? Because the incentives to improve one's lot native to being poor were taken out of the picture by government largess, purchased with money extracted from the wages of those who worked, at the threat of prosecution or imprisonment.
Government "charity" has been a dismal failure overall.
More food for thought:
From this site, http://hushmoney.org/Davy_Crockett_Farmer_Bunce.htm (http://hushmoney.org/Davy_Crockett_Farmer_Bunce.htm) an account of Col. David Crockett's encounter with A farmer in his home district.(There is even more at the site. I had seen this story elsewhere as well.
The following story was recounted to Edward Elis by an unnamed Congressman who had served with Colonel Crockett in the U.S. House of Representatives.
...Crockett was then the lion of Washington. I was a great admirer of his character, and, having several friends who were intimate with him, I found no difficulty in making his acquaintance. I was fascinated with him, and he seemed to take a fancy to me. I was one day in the lobby of the House of Representatives when a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. It seemed to be that everybody favored it. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose. Everybody expected, of course, that he was going to make a speech in support of the bill. He commenced:
"Mr. Speaker -- I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House; but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into argument to prove that Congress has no power under the Constitution to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. "Mr. Speaker, I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks." He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as no doubt it would, but for that speech, it received but a few votes and was lost. Like many others, I desired the passage of the bill, and felt outraged at its defeat. I determined that I would persuade my friend Crockett to move for a reconsideration the next day.
Previous engagements preventing me from seeing Crockett that night, I went early to his room the next morning and found him franking letters, a large pile of which lay upon his table.
I broke in upon him rather abruptly, by asking him what the devil had possessed him to make that speech and defeat that bill yesterday. Without turning his head or looking up from his work, he replied: "I will answer your question. But thereby hangs a tale, and one of considerable length, to which you will have to listen."
I listened, and this is the tale which I heard:
"Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into the hack and drove over as fast as we could. When we got there, I went to work, and I never worked as hard in my life as I did there for several hours. But, in spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them, and everybody else seemed to feel the same way. "The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done. I said everybody felt as I did. That was not quite so; for, though they perhaps sympathized as deeply with the sufferers as I did, there were a few of the members who did not think we had the right to indulge our sympathy or excite our charity at the expense of anybody but ourselves. They opposed the bill, and upon its passage demanded the yeas and nays. The yeas and nays were recorded, and my name appeared on the journals in favor of the bill.
"The next summer, when it began to be time to think about election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up, and I thought it was best to let the boys know that I had not forgot them, and that going to Congress had not made me too proud to go to see them. "So I put a couple of shirts and a few twists of tobacco into my saddlebags, and put out. I had been out about a week and had found things going very smoothly, when, riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly, and was about turning his horse for another furrow when I said to him: 'Don't be in such a hurry my friend; I want to have a little talk with you, and get better acquainted.' He replied: "'I am very busy, and have but little time to talk, but if it does not take too long, I will listen to what you have to say.' "I began: 'Well, friend, I am one of those fortunate beings called candidates, and . . . .' "' Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.' "This was a sockdolager .... I begged him to tell me what was the matter. "'Well, Colonel, it is hardly worthwhile to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest. ... But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.' "'I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question.' "'No, Colonel, there's no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?' "'Certainly it is, and I thought that was the last vote which anybody in the world would have found fault with.' "'Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity?'
There is more at the site. http://hushmoney.org/Davy_Crockett_Farmer_Bunce.htm (http://hushmoney.org/Davy_Crockett_Farmer_Bunce.htm)
So I will ask, by what Constitutional Authority does the House of Representatives (or the Congress, in toto) vote to contribute from the public monies to the benefit of a few?
That which is taken from the general public and redistributed to a few, no matter the cause, as charity is not. The members of Congress may (and commonly are in a better fiscal position to) contribute of their own money and call that charity. The rest of us have no say in the matter, so charity it isn't. Wrap that in anything you want, it won't cover the smell.
In fact, it robs the people of the means by which they might have exercised their free will to engage in charitable acts, and of any choice to do so in that particular matter, unless they dig even deeper in their pockets for more money. However the funds collected by government are increasingly being used to provide the ordinary means of life to the multitude, be that three meals a day in school, day care (after school programs), housing, food, even phones.
Again, by what Constitutional Authority?
Does anyone think it wise to add yet another program, to eliminate the personal fiscal reasons for living cleanly, and staying healthy, as if that will reduce cost? It did not work with being 'poor'.
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Larry Kudlow: The government needs to pay 50% of healthcare costs
Here's an interesting idea, not one I particularly agree with, but interesting nonetheless.
Pretend we know the average cost of health insurance for every man, woman, and child in America. Let's say that average cost is $3000/year to toss out a nice round figure. That amount is placed in a special holding account by Uncle Sam in your name. When you go to your regular family doctor you sign up to access that special holding account. Once you check the box showing approval, that $3000 pays for a "standard" insurance policy for one year, which covers all the "basics".
If you don't sign up you get nothing. If you don't have a social security number you get nothing.
You may also choose to pay extra out of pocket for upgrades, options, etc. just like an al a carte menu.
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In general the idea has merits, primarily that it provides baseline insurance for all legal Americans. It is full of holes, however, since the "standard" insurance policy would be very hard to define. And the dreaded "as determined by the Secretary" terminology would creep in through the back door.
Then you have the rich vs the poor debate as well as the young vs old debate. These debates would have liberals setting themselves on fire in the streets. It does, however, offer a counter argument to these flame throwers - the central idea being that it treats all people equally. Liberals would be forced to argue, "hell no, I don't want all people treated equally". Which if you think about it is exactly the basis for most every Liberal idea out there since Woodrow Wilson.
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Lastly, there would be a debate about the illegal people in this country. I'm not touching that one with a 10 foot pole. It heads down more rabbit holes than I can count. But setting illegals aside for the moment, the idea would allow us to get rid of ObamaCare (kind of), allow free market competition from insurance companies (kind of), and allow each American the freedom to choose the bells and whistles of their own desired coverage.
It makes for interesting food for thought in my opinion.
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YOU have a moral obligation to give food to a starving person. YOU have a moral obligation to give water to the thirsty. YOU have a moral obligation to provide warmth to the naked.
Do YOU recognize the moral obligation to feed the starving, give water to the thirsty, shelter to the freezing?
YOU DO NOT HAVE THE OBLIGATION to empower government to put a gun to all of our heads and force them to do those things FOR YOU and therefore absolve YOU of the responsibility of doing it yourself.
Now you're just making stuff up. I never said that.
Empowering government to do charity in your stead perverts what Jesus said to do, and is nothing less than Communism.
In the post to which you're so ... interestingly ... replying, I was talking about moral obligations, and my basis for saying that we have them. At no point did I "empower government" to do anything.
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It is the task of pragmatic conservative to see that the burden of paying for programs that provide for the general welfare be allocated fairly and broadly and not heaped upon a few. Not to deny that the community has a moral obligation to address the victims of catastrophe.
Though there's a limit to what government can and should do -- and how it should do it. Limited government is best, whenever possible. You and I both agree with that.
On the other hand, we don't want to be part of a society that refuses to care for its most vulnerable members. There is no perfect ideal: there's often a tension between principle, and the needs of actual people, and accommodations must be made to deal with that tension.
The loudest shouters on this thread won't admit it, because they think doing so will betray their lofty ideals. But that's their problem, and they'll never understand why the left has such success in painting conservatives in the worst possible light.
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@XenaLee one has to wonder how far some people think this whole "moral obligation" thing has to or should extend.
For instance:
If I have a car and someone else in my neighborhood doesn't...am I morally obligated to give them money to help them buy a car?
If someone is homeless...am I morally obligated to give the homeless person money to help them obtain shelter?
If I make more money than a coworker...am I morally obligated to give them part of my salary?
@txradioguy
Missed the point (as I'm reading it so far).
Your moral imperatives are yours, so the answer to each of those questions is "It's up to you." The questions you should be asking, to fit the thrust of the OP and subsequent conversation are:
"If I have a car and someone else in my neighborhood doesn't...am I morally obligated to give them money collect money from others to help them buy a car?"
If someone is homeless...am I morally obligated to give the homeless person money collect money from others to help them obtain shelter?
If I make more money than a coworker...am I morally obligated to give them part of my salary Force my employer to give them a raise?
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@txradioguy
Missed the point (as I'm reading it so far).
Your moral imperatives are yours, so the answer to each of those questions is "It's up to you." The questions you should be asking, to fit the thrust of the OP and subsequent conversation are:
"If I have a car and someone else in my neighborhood doesn't...am I morally obligated to give them money collect money from others to help them buy a car?"
If someone is homeless...am I morally obligated to give the homeless person money collect money from others to help them obtain shelter?
If I make more money than a coworker...am I morally obligated to give them part of my salary Force my employer to give them a raise?
The answer to all of those of course...is no.
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@txradioguy
Missed the point (as I'm reading it so far).
Your moral imperatives are yours, so the answer to each of those questions is "It's up to you." The questions you should be asking, to fit the thrust of the OP and subsequent conversation are:
"If I have a car and someone else in my neighborhood doesn't...am I morally obligated to give them money collect money from others to help them buy a car?"
If someone is homeless...am I morally obligated to give the homeless person money collect money from others to help them obtain shelter?
If I make more money than a coworker...am I morally obligated to give them part of my salary Force my employer to give them a raise?
In a free economy, some of us will always do better than others, and there's nothing morally wrong about that. Some of us who've done well will be motivated to share what we've earned with others, and that's admirable.
The moral obligation we're discussing on this thread is more similar to the disaster relief that the community provides when a hurricane or other natural disaster strikes. A hurricane doesn't target the homes of homosexuals, or spare the homes of Christians. Similarly, all the praying in the world won't prevent you from getting cancer in the prime of life. Why does the community collect tax dollars and spend them on disaster relief? Because it can happen to any of us, and if it did, we would demand that the community help. The financial ruin brought on by medical catastrophe is similar. That's why we require drivers to maintain insurance, so that if we hit someone, there's insurance to pay the innocent victim's medical bills.
The community's moral obligations aren't imposed by a tyrant, but by the peoples' elected representatives. That gives the lie to the charge that levying taxes for disaster relief represents an abrogation of freedom. We do not live in bunkers, we are members of a community, and it is the playing field constructed by the community that allows us as individuals to plan and prosper.
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A community has no moral obligations, other than the individual's obligations within the community. Said individual moral obligations being exactly that - individual.
We're not ants.
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A community has no moral obligations, other than the individual's obligations within the community. Said individual moral obligations being exactly that - individual.
We're not ants.
I disagree. The community can decide - in a democratic fashion - to collect money from all to provide for the common defense, to provide a subsistence income to persons in old age, to relieve the impact of natural disaster. As I mentioned above, I apply a Rawlesian analysis - if you were ignorant of your own particular circumstances - rich or poor, fortunate or unlucky, healthy or sick - what protections would you want the community to provide and pay for?
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A community has no moral obligations, other than the individual's obligations within the community. Said individual moral obligations being exactly that - individual.
We're not ants.
http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,254295.msg1262224.html#new
Apparently, this moral obligation extends to giving welfare to drunks and drug users.
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I disagree. The community can decide - in a democratic fashion - to collect money from all to provide for the common defense, to provide a subsistence income to persons in old age, to relieve the impact of natural disaster. As I mentioned above, I apply a Rawlesian analysis - if you were ignorant of your own particular circumstances - rich or poor, fortunate or unlucky, healthy or sick - what protections would you want the community to provide and pay for?
Then we disagree. No harm in that. I'm rather tired of the community deciding - in a democratic fashion, of course - what my life and duty entails, since it seems the only bugger that never gets a vote is me.
You want protections for others? You pay for them and you carry them out. You can persuade me to join you, but forcing me under the guise of "it's the decent thing to do" isn't going to work.
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Then we disagree. No harm in that. I'm rather tired of the community deciding - in a democratic fashion, of course - what my life and duty entails, since it seems the only bugger that never gets a vote is me.
You want protections for others? You pay for them and you carry them out. You can persuade me to join you, but forcing me under the guise of "it's the decent thing to do" isn't going to work.
Yes, there's no harm in disagreeing. But there's a basic difference between a tyranny and a representative democratic republic such as ours where our elected representatives decide what the obligations of the community will be. What annoys me is the charge that I am being "forced" at the point of a "government gun" to pay taxes to assist the less fortunate. I vote for my representatives, sometimes I win and sometimes I lose. But I respect the process, and respect the law as determined by those who win elections fair and square.
That's why I'm finding myself defending President Trump more and more these days. Yes, I've called him a fascist and didn't vote for him. But he did win - fair and square - and it is my obligation as an American to take on his critics who want to engineer a coup and deny the will of the people as Constitutionally expressed.
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By all means, go ahead and ask. They will most certainly say there is a role for government to be played in addressing the afflicted.
:silly:
Denser than my mother in laws biscuits.
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A community has no moral obligations, other than the individual's obligations within the community. Said individual moral obligations being exactly that - individual.
We're not ants.
You're very wrong.
If we're not ants, neither are we islands, and the ideologues hereabouts had best not forget that. We're surrounded by other people, and how we treat each other matters. A society certainly does have moral obligations -- why else would we have things like laws, otherwise?
That's the central fallacy of Ayn Rand's allegedly rational philosophy, and it seems to have infected the ideologues here, too.
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You're very wrong.
If we're not ants, neither are we islands, and the ideologues hereabouts had best not forget that. We're surrounded by other people, and how we treat each other matters. A society certainly does have moral obligations -- why else would we have things like laws, otherwise?
That's the central fallacy of Ayn Rand's allegedly rational philosophy, and it seems to have infected the ideologues here, too.
Wow Ayn Rand wasn't a socialist. Please image me giving you the Nicolas Cage look; you don't say. Getting real deep here dude.
Have you ever read Anthem by Rand. It's only about 90 pages or so. Wonderful book. If you haven't read it you should track it down.
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You're very wrong.
If we're not ants, neither are we islands, and the ideologues hereabouts had best not forget that. We're surrounded by other people, and how we treat each other matters. A society certainly does have moral obligations -- why else would we have things like laws, otherwise?
That's the central fallacy of Ayn Rand's allegedly rational philosophy, and it seems to have infected the ideologues here, too.
On a more serious note. You realize you are suggesting that people have a right to the goods properties and income of others; and I can't find that in my Constitution.
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On a more serious note. You realize you are suggesting that people have a right to the goods properties and income of others; and I can't find that in my Constitution.
Not so.
At most, I am suggesting that, through our elected representatives, We the People may decide to tax ourselves for specific purposes, including to help those who need it. This has certainly been abused (the old line about "people voting themselves money" is true). Nevertheless, the underlying principle is obvious.
As to "your Consitution," I've pointed out to you where in the Constitution it may be found, and even noted the USSC decision that recognized Congress' broad discretion to decide on what constitutes "the general Welfare."
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Not so.
At most, I am suggesting that, through our elected representatives, We the People may decide to tax ourselves for specific purposes, including to help those who need it. This has certainly been abused (the old line about "people voting themselves money" is true). Nevertheless, the underlying principle is obvious.
As to "your Consitution," I've pointed out to you where in the Constitution it may be found, and even noted the USSC decision that recognized Congress' broad discretion to decide on what constitutes "the general Welfare."
All quite reasonable, to all but the ideologues.
The Constitution is what makes all the difference. Without it, a tyrannical government can seize the property of the citizenry on a whim. Under the Constitution's guarantees of due process and equal protection, that doesn't happen - or if it does, the citizenry has redress. And in our republic, laws that promote the general welfare are enacted by our elected representatives, who can be turned from office if they overreach.
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Not so.
At most, I am suggesting that, through our elected representatives, We the People may decide to tax ourselves for specific purposes, including to help those who need it. This has certainly been abused (the old line about "people voting themselves money" is true). Nevertheless, the underlying principle is obvious.
As to "your Consitution," I've pointed out to you where in the Constitution it may be found, and even noted the USSC decision that recognized Congress' broad discretion to decide on what constitutes "the general Welfare."
Yes you are, if we owe a debt or a moral obligation that payment must be due to someone. Legally speaking that give them a right to what they are owed. It isn't a point of debate it is a simple statement of the implications of what you said. A moral obligation on the part of one person indicates a right to receive. It's the other side of the coin. That's what makes this socialist. I don't owe anyone and no one owes me.
It's part of the code of the west. If it's not yours don't take it.
As discussed it is not enumerated in the Constitution you can't twist the welfare clause to advocate that redistributing wealth is legal. Since everything the government claims to spend is for "the better good" and the "general welfare" and all of those shiny attractive chimeras anything can be justified. Luckily the rest of the Constitution exists to check that power and cancel that blank check.
Furthermore, you will not find the right of any citizen to receive anything from other citizens at the hands of the government.
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Wow Ayn Rand wasn't a socialist.
No, but she was spectacularly wrong.
I've read most of Rand's novels -- at one time I thought they were great, until the day I realized the fact that they're built on assertion, rather than reason. Her "rational" philosophy is a house of cards that cannot withstand something as commonplace as the moral requirements of parenthood.
The taint of her fallacy is what seems to inform a lot of what passes for argument on this thread.
As for "Anthem," if you look at it seriously, you will see that it is a ridiculous book. A middle-school fantasy, at best. "Oh, I think I'll just go live in a hole and rediscover electricity, reinvent the light bulb, hike up to a cabin on top of a mountain, teach myself to read, and at the very end, in a moment of intellectual ecstasy, utter that one magic word: 'Ego.'"
In one way she shared a serious character flaw with the socialists: she doesn't seem to have seen people as people, with personalities and beliefs of their own. Rather, she saw people only through the lens of her own ideology, and condemned or approved of them according to how well they fit her preconceptions.
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All quite reasonable, to all but the ideologues.
The Constitution is what makes all the difference. Without it, a tyrannical government can seize the property of the citizenry on a whim. Under the Constitution's guarantees of due process and equal protection, that doesn't happen - or if it does, the citizenry has redress. And in our republic, laws that promote the general welfare are enacted by our elected representatives, who can be turned from office if they overreach.
Yes as long as it can claim to promote the 'general welfare' our government can do anything. Tis a great philosophy. When it come to healthcare only the government has the ability to take from each according to his ability and give to each according to his need.
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Yes you are, if we owe a debt or a moral obligation that payment must be due to someone.
You're misrepresenting what I've been saying.
What I have said, is that we do have moral obligations. The existence of such moral obligations does not, however, imply that "payment must be due to someone." That's an over-reach on your part.
The fact of the moral obligation is not inextricably tied to a particular means by which that obligation may be discharged. We have choices in the matter.
One such choice is, as I've stated, that through our elected representatives we may choose to tax ourselves to provide money for the purpose. It's not the only way, and in many cases it's probably the worst way to go about addressing whatever problem you care to name.
But it is an option, and a legitimate one.
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You're misrepresenting what I've been saying.
What I have said, is that we do have moral obligations. The existence of such moral obligations does not, however, imply that "payment must be due to someone." That's an over-reach on your part.
The fact of the moral obligation is not inextricably tied to a particular means by which that obligation may be discharged. We have choices in the matter.
One such choice is, as I've stated, that through our elected representatives we may choose to tax ourselves to provide money for the purpose. It's not the only way, and in many cases it's probably the worst way to go about addressing whatever problem you care to name.
But it is an option, and a legitimate one.
Obligation
ob·li·ga·tion
ˌäbləˈɡāSH(ə)n/
noun
an act or course of action to which a person is morally or legally bound; a duty or commitment.
"he has enough cash to meet his present obligations"
synonyms: duty, commitment, responsibility, moral imperative; More
the condition of being morally or legally bound to do something.
"they are under no obligation to stick to the scheme"
a debt of gratitude for a service or favor.
"she didn't want to be under an obligation to him"
So I have an obligation to do something, but that doesn't mean it isn't owed to someone else? Do you have a one sided coin I can borrow?
If someone doesn't have a right to my money why do I owe it? And if I don't owe it to others, why do I have a moral obligation to give it to them?
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More
the condition of being morally or legally bound to do something.
"they are under no obligation to stick to the scheme"
a debt of gratitude for a service or favor.
So I have an obligation to do something, but that doesn't mean it isn't owed to someone else?
Well, yes.
I'm pretty sure you recognize concepts such as duty and honor, and I'm pretty sure you count them as being important. When we act out of duty or honor, it is generally for things involving other people -- including people we do not know. We recognize that it is a bad thing to shirk one's duty, or to behave dishonorably.
If someone doesn't have a right to my money why do I owe it? And if I don't owe it to others, why do I have a moral obligation to give it to them?
Need we rehash the discussion about your elected representatives?
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Well, yes.
I'm pretty sure you recognize concepts such as duty and honor, and I'm pretty sure you count them as being important. When we act out of duty or honor, it is generally for things involving other people -- including people we do not know. We recognize that it is a bad thing to shirk one's duty, or to behave dishonorably.
Need we rehash the discussion about your elected representatives?
Maybe. Let me chew this a little finer here. To whom do I owe this moral obligation and why do they have a right to it?
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I don't owe anyone and no one owes me.
It's part of the code of the west. If it's not yours don't take it.
I agree, which is why I so strongly disagree with INVAR that only individuals can have moral obligations, not communities. A community represents a social and legal compact, typically codified (as with our federal and state constitutions). That compact forms the basis for a community's moral obligations, and its lawful means for effecting such obligations. The Constitution, for example, empowers the federal government to provide for the common defense and for the general welfare. It is obligated to perform such functions, by such lawful means as are approved by the peoples' elected representatives.
INVAR says God obligates individuals to help the poor. Fine, but many folks don't subscribe to God, and plenty of religious folks are as selfish as anyone else. Some of the least virtuous people I've ever met have been religious - and, disgracefully, religion is often cited as the justification for their lack of compassion and empathy.
Any moral obligation of an individual comes from within, and is not, in and of itself, legally enforceable. The moral obligations of the community are codified and implemented by the rules of the community. Yes, the community can lawfully take from one and give to another, subject to the restrictions of the Constitution and the right of the people to throw their elected representatives out on their arses.
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Maybe. Let me chew this a little finer here. To whom do I owe this moral obligation and why do they have a right to it?
Are you religious?
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Are you religious?
Why? Does that make a difference. You told me we all had a moral obligation. To whom do I owe it and why do I owe it? It's not a hard question.
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I agree, which is why I so strongly disagree with INVAR that only individuals can have moral obligations, not communities. A community represents a social and legal compact, typically codified (as with our federal and state constitutions). That compact forms the basis for a community's moral obligations, and its lawful means for effecting such obligations. The Constitution, for example, empowers the federal government to provide for the common defense and for the general welfare. It is obligated to perform such functions, by such lawful means as are approved by the peoples' elected representatives.
INVAR says God obligates individuals to help the poor. Fine, but many folks don't subscribe to God, and plenty of religious folks are as selfish as anyone else. Some of the least virtuous people I've ever met have been religious - and, disgracefully, religion is often cited as the justification for their lack of compassion and empathy.
Any moral obligation of an individual comes from within, and is not, in and of itself, legally enforceable. The moral obligations of the community are codified and implemented by the rules of the community. Yes, the community can lawfully take from one and give to another, subject to the restrictions of the Constitution and the right of the people to throw their elected representatives out on their arses.
So the true moral obligation form the Bible isn't legally enforceable, but the one to the community (which is other people by the way) exists because a majority decided it does and should be enforced.
So as long as the majority agrees that healthcare costs should be collected from each according to his ability and distributed to each according to his need we should be okay with that?
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Why? Does that make a difference. You told me we all had a moral obligation. To whom and why? It's not a hard question.
I asked for two reasons.
First: if you are religious -- particularly if you are a Christian -- your duty is ultimately to God, and the moral obligations are pretty much laid out for you.
Second: if you're not religious, then the religious argument obviously doesn't carry any weight. But in that case, it's difficult to say precisely what constitutes right or wrong.
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I asked for two reasons.
First: if you are religious -- particularly if you are a Christian -- your duty is ultimately to God, and the moral obligations are pretty much laid out for you.
Second: if you're not religious, then the religious argument obviously doesn't carry any weight. But in that case, it's difficult to say precisely what constitutes right or wrong.
Oh come now, you can do better than that. Ayn Rand, Richard Mayburry, and a host of others have put forth ways to organize society that doesn't require a voice from Sinai telling people, "because I sayeth so". The key here is human rights. If people don't have a right to the wealth of others; then I don't think you can justify it.
We've already discussed my views on what the Bible teaches. It does not teach that the government is to be our instrument of charity. Nor does it teach that we are to force the world to live to our standard.
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I think we’re missing a few points.
1. We have God-given inalienable individual rights, rights that no government can legitimately take away.
2. Each one of us has a finite amount of time and resources on this earth, even though we don’t know until afterwards what those numbers were.
3. The way humans are constructed is to desire to use one’s limited time and resources for oneself and family and community.
4. Our government was formed by and for the people. We gave up a very limited portion of some of our rights to do so.
5. Said government was formed with very clear limits on its authority and how much of which rights we gave up. And, most of these rights were vested in the states where they are more directly accountable, not the federal government.
6. To force us to give up of our time and resources can be called slavery, forced servitude, whatever – clear violations of God-given inalienable rights.
7. The law under which this nation is formed limits the time and resources an individual must give up to others.
8. There is a difference between the voluntary giving up of resources in a very limited manner to the republic, and the government forcing us to give up more than we agreed to give up. When we get to this point (which we have) we are in clear violation of the limits to the government that we agreed to. One could argue that the contract has been broken and therefore no longer applies to the party that did not break the contract. I don’t, I’m just saying it could be argued.
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So the true moral obligation form the Bible isn't legally enforceable, but the one to the community (which is other people by the way) exists because a majority decided it does and should be enforced.
So as long as the majority agrees that healthcare costs should be collected from each according to his ability and distributed to each according to his need we should be okay with that?
Not to mention that a perverted minority is vociferously argued to have *rights* afforded to them that infringe and impede on the biblical majority because... you know.... community and all according to our resident Communist Jazzhead.
From Each, To Each is what motivates the entirety of what he posts here.
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I think we’re missing a few points.
1. We have God-given inalienable individual rights, rights that no government can legitimately take away.
2. Each one of us has a finite amount of time and resources on this earth, even though we don’t know until afterwards what those numbers were.
3. The way humans are constructed is to desire to use one’s limited time and resources for oneself and family and community.
4. Our government was formed by and for the people. We gave up a very limited portion of some of our rights to do so.
5. Said government was formed with very clear limits on its authority and how much of which rights we gave up. And, most of these rights were vested in the states where they are more directly accountable, not the federal government.
6. To force us to give up of our time and resources can be called slavery, forced servitude, whatever – clear violations of God-given inalienable rights.
7. The law under which this nation is formed limits the time and resources an individual must give up to others.
8. There is a difference between the voluntary giving up of resources in a very limited manner to the republic, and the government forcing us to give up more than we agreed to give up. When we get to this point (which we have) we are in clear violation of the limits to the government that we agreed to. One could argue that the contract has been broken and therefore no longer applies to the party that did not break the contract. I don’t, I’m just saying it could be argued.
:amen:
Very well put. I was wondering how to verbalize the social contact side of the argument and you did magnificent.
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Not to mention that a perverted minority is vociferously argued to have *rights* afforded to them that infringe and impede on the biblical majority because... you know.... community and all according to our resident Communist Jazzhead.
From Each, To Each is what motivates the entirety of what he posts here.
I'm reminded of Ben Franklin's view of democracy: Two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. In this case it's the middle class paycheck that's on the menu.
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Do YOU recognize the moral obligation to feed the starving, give water to the thirsty, shelter to the freezing?
I recognize the individual responsibility of moral obligation according to scripture.
I do NOT recognize empowering the government to do it. That is tyranny - plain and simple. Governments so empowered ultimately decide whom gets charity and whom does not based on arbitrary criteria that satisfies political zeitgeists and requirements. Like when I got laid off back in 1990 and the wife was told that she and my kids did not qualify for WIC because they were the 'wrong' ethnicity. White Privilege and all that you know.
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Oh come now, you can do better than that. Ayn Rand, Richard Mayburry, and a host of others have put forth ways to organize society that doesn't require a voice from Sinai telling people, "because I sayeth so". The key here is human rights. If people don't have a right to the wealth of others; then I don't think you can justify it.
We've already discussed my views on what the Bible teaches. It does not teach that the government is to be our instrument of charity. Nor does it teach that we are to force the world to live to our standard.
No, you misunderstand. I asked you the question because I wanted to see which way the discussion ought to go.
But since you bring it up, there are plenty of great examples of societies that explicitly rejected the "voice from Sinai," The French Revolution, and Communist Russia being a couple of particularly fine, if rather bloody, examples.
The key here is human rights. If people don't have a right to the wealth of others; then I don't think you can justify it.
Ah, but that's the rub. Without something like a voice from Sinai, we're free to pretty much define human rights in any old way, including ways that you say are wrong (and wrong because...?). The Founders were cognizant of this, which is why the Declaration says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..."
The central conceit of man-made philosophy is that it can comprehensively define how we ought to behave. The problem is it's impossible for any person or central committee to properly account for the many facets of human nature. People just don't behave the way they're "supposed" to behave, according to the principles laid down by the sages.
Ayn Rand is a perfect example of how a man-made, supposedly reason-based philosophy can fail. At root, she appears to have tried to create a philosophy that embodied the last 6 Commandments, without those troublesome first 4. (Well, perhaps it's better to say the last 5 without the first 5, for reasons stated below.)
The basis of her Objectivism, and its weakest point, is summed up in John Galt's oath "I swear by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
The counter argument is simple: the moral obligations inherent in the relationship between parent and child, which touches both sides of that famous line, and upon contact Galt's oath simply withers like a slug exposed to salt.
A more general summary of Rand's philosophy is here: http://aynrandlexicon.com/ayn-rand-ideas/introducing-objectivism.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/ayn-rand-ideas/introducing-objectivism.html), and her philosophy can be refuted in detail; however, the obvious fracture point occurs in Galt's oath. Just as an example, Rand held that "Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears." Well, OK ... and if we look at reality, i.e., nature, in its entirety, it doesn't look very much like the philosophy Rand claims to have derived from it.
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I'm going to have to give this some thought. I think I'll have to track down my copy of Anthem if you want to debate Rand and the state of nature.
In the mean time I'll ask a quick, unfair, nitpicky, sniping question. :laugh: If the government enforced all 10 of the 10 commandments would it violate the first amendment?
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I'm going to have to give this some thought. I think I'll have to track down my copy of Anthem if you want to debate Rand and the state of nature.
In the mean time I'll ask a quick, unfair, nitpicky, sniping question. :laugh: If the government enforced all 10 of the 10 commandments would it violate the first amendment?
We've seen how well that turns out...
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We've seen how well that turns out...
I don't really want a ticket or jail time for working on Saturday. :whistle:
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So the true moral obligation form the Bible isn't legally enforceable, but the one to the community (which is other people by the way) exists because a majority decided it does and should be enforced.
So as long as the majority agrees that healthcare costs should be collected from each according to his ability and distributed to each according to his need we should be okay with that?
I'm not saying you should be "okay" with that, only that such taxation and expenditures are perfectly Constitutional. ObamaCare is Constitutional and the Republicans' AHCA proposal, if enacted into law, would also be Constitutional. And, finally, a single payer system would also be Constitutional (and that's in fact exactly what Medicare and Medcaid are). All Constitutional, of course, subject to the satisfaction of due process, equal protection and other Constitutional constraints on the state.
If you're not okay with that, then you need to elect representatives that reflect your views, and defeat those who oppose those views. But don't insist on a deus ex machina.
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I'm not saying you should be "okay" with that, only that such taxation and expenditures are perfectly Constitutional. ObamaCare is Constitutional and the Republicans' AHCA proposal, if enacted into law, would also be Constitutional. And, finally, a single payer system would also be Constitutional (and that's in fact exactly what Medicare and Medcaid are). All Constitutional, of course, subject to the satisfaction of due process, equal protection and other Constitutional constraints on the state.
If you're not okay with that, then you need to elect representatives that reflect your views, and defeat those who oppose those views. But don't insist on a deus ex machina.
Are you honestly trying to tell me Marxism is constitutional? Thank goodness for the general welfare clause. Anything goes comrade.
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I'm not saying you should be "okay" with that, only that such taxation and expenditures are perfectly Constitutional. ObamaCare is Constitutional and the Republicans' AHCA proposal, if enacted into law, would also be Constitutional. And, finally, a single payer system would also be Constitutional (and that's in fact exactly what Medicare and Medcaid are). All Constitutional, of course, subject to the satisfaction of due process, equal protection and other Constitutional constraints on the state.
If you're not okay with that, then you need to elect representatives that reflect your views, and defeat those who oppose those views. But don't insist on a deus ex machina.
Let's be clear, though -- just because a law is "Constitutional" doesn't mean it's a good law. There are an awful lot of really bad laws out there, including really bad laws that are intended to address the sorts of moral obligations we've been talking about.
Obamacare is an excellent example, on the very topic we're talking about.
Which is why if you or I make an argument defending the idea that government action is a legitimate option, we must also be careful to strictly limit the extent to the principle is applied.
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Let's be clear, though -- just because a law is "Constitutional" doesn't mean it's a good law. There are an awful lot of really bad laws out there, including really bad laws that are intended to address the sorts of moral obligations we've been talking about.
Obamacare is an excellent example, on the very topic we're talking about.
Which is why if you or I make an argument defending the idea that government action is a legitimate option, we must also be careful to strictly limit the extent to the principle is applied.
Now that last part I can agree with 100%. :beer:
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The notion that a parent's responsibility to care for their child is a moral obligation is absurd unless you subscribe to the notion that all life understands moral obligations. A parent's responsibility to care for their child is a biological imperative - instinct - and exists in all animals where required for the survival of the species. Parents, whether they are fish, mammals, or birds, care for their young because they are wired to do so. Morals don't enter into it.
The "appeal to Christian guilt" argument I see being thrown around here is also incredibly condescending. My status with God is of no concern to you. Further, we in this country are free to believe in any God we wish (including none at all). Using the argument that the God of the Bible mandates moral responsibility to one's neighbors implies the government can enforce such a moral responsibility directly leads to, as some have said, a theocracy, which is expressly forbidden by our governing documents.
But then, this goes back to the crux of the argument, which is that you twist the words of the Constitution to mean whatever you want. Sometimes you just ignore them entirely.
This is statism.
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Now that last part I can agree with 100%. :beer:
We never disagreed on that point.
The thing is, there are a lot of people on this thread and elsewhere who make large statements about what government must not do, and so on. Such statements deserve to be tested: can the person who makes such a statement, formulate a compelling argument to defend it?
The problem with conservatives -- and the reason we so often lose in the public arena -- is that we too often make these large statements, and then are unable to defend them against people who do not already agree with us. Most of the time, it seems that we lose because we're unable to reconcile our Grand Principles with the difficulties faced by actual people.
It's like two sides of the same coin. Whereas "progressives" fail because they let "compassion" overwhelm rational thought, we on the right seem to favor positions that sacrifice compassion to the dictates of cold rationality. It's no accident that "zero tolerance" policies are a characteristic of both sides.
It's necessary to find a healthy balance between compassion and rationality. It's not clean or easy to do that, and there are always mistakes.
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The notion that a parent's responsibility to care for their child is a moral obligation is absurd....
And that's the end of that. Garbage in, garbage out.
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I asked for two reasons.
First: if you are religious -- particularly if you are a Christian -- your duty is ultimately to God, and the moral obligations are pretty much laid out for you.
Second: if you're not religious, then the religious argument obviously doesn't carry any weight. But in that case, it's difficult to say precisely what constitutes right or wrong.
Then the fulfillment of those moral obligations is a personal choice, the fulfillment of that duty is something I decide to do--not something I am forced to do. If I am made to do something, that doesn't count as having willingly and voluntarily done it.
Taking from me and then giving it away doesn't make me charitable. It doesn't make the one who did the taking charitable--it wasn't theirs to give.
For example, If someone steals your car and then gives his crippled aunt a ride to the doctor, does that make him charitable? Does it make you charitable? Has that fulfilled those moral obligations? While you are filling out the police report...
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Then the fulfillment of those moral obligations is a personal choice, the fulfillment of that duty is something I decide to do--not something I am forced to do. If I am made to do something, that doesn't count as having willingly and voluntarily done it.
Taking from me and then giving it away doesn't make me charitable. It doesn't make the one who did the taking charitable--it wasn't theirs to give.
For example, If someone steals your car and then gives his crippled aunt a ride to the doctor, does that make him charitable? Does it make you charitable? Has that fulfilled those moral obligations? While you are filling out the police report...
Well, maybe. The problem with this position is that you're not the only person in the world. You may not even be the only person in your house, in which case you're kidding yourself if you think you run the place.
In the real world it's a certainty that you'll never have 100% agreement with anybody on matters of moral obligation. So, either both sides make accommodations, or you or somebody else is going to be forced into doing something they don't want to do. Is that "bad?" It can be ... but that's life.
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And that's the end of that. Garbage in, garbage out.
Wow. You missed the rest. You should have read that entire post.
You missed the poster's point entirely.
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I'm not saying you should be "okay" with that, only that such taxation and expenditures are perfectly Constitutional. ObamaCare is Constitutional and the Republicans' AHCA proposal, if enacted into law, would also be Constitutional. And, finally, a single payer system would also be Constitutional (and that's in fact exactly what Medicare and Medcaid are). All Constitutional, of course, subject to the satisfaction of due process, equal protection and other Constitutional constraints on the state.
Time to shred this insidious and bastardized perverted statement about taxation.
Taxation as intended by the Framers was to provide for the absolute necessary operation of a minimalist government. Roads, bridges, defense and the promotion of general welfare of the states, not to provide welfare generally as these arguments made by you continually illustrate. Taxes were to be levied for the purpose of maintaining a functioning government and for defense, and that is all.
It was not intended to provide for the absolute desires and needs of constituents a representative is beholden to .
What you are arguing is using the Constitution to justify voting largesse from the national treasury to appeal and appease constituencies with sustenance and provision by the hand of producers into the hands of those who demand a hand-out and who see government as their god - and nothing more.
Anyone advocating using the government to create 'level playing fields' and 'fairness' is a tyrant and enemy of the Constitution. Period.
National Government exists to dispense justice, uphold the law and carry out the Constitutional duties proscribed. It was not intended to create fairness, mandate equality, redistribute wealth, and distribute charity as it sees fit upon those it arbitrarily decides are in need.
If you're not okay with that, then you need to elect representatives that reflect your views, and defeat those who oppose those views.
When we do, and attempts are made to end the welfare state and government imposed 'fairness' - we get to read and hear Communist nimrods arguing in favor of Statism and fomenting revolution and violence while attempting to morally shame those who support returning the government to it's Constitutional limits.
People like you.
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Let's be clear, though -- just because a law is "Constitutional" doesn't mean it's a good law. There are an awful lot of really bad laws out there, including really bad laws that are intended to address the sorts of moral obligations we've been talking about.
Obamacare is an excellent example, on the very topic we're talking about.
Which is why if you or I make an argument defending the idea that government action is a legitimate option, we must also be careful to strictly limit the extent to the principle is applied.
Yes, of course.
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Wow. You missed the rest. You should have read that entire post.
You missed the poster's point entirely.
I didn't miss his point. It's just that his "point," such as it is, wanders from assertion to assertion, ending with the inevitable condemnation of "statism."
The guy's a joke. I just cannot take seriously a person who won't even admit that we have a moral obligation to our kids.
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I didn't miss his point. It's just that his "point," such as it is, wanders from assertion to assertion, ending with the inevitable condemnation of "statism."
The guy's a joke. I just cannot take seriously a person who won't even admit that we have a moral obligation to our kids.
Now, see there, that's where it starts to read like trolling. You take the one phrase, ignore all the rest of the post and then tell us how wrong the poster was for saying just the one little part that you extracted and misused.
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Now, see there, that's where it starts to read like trolling. You take the one phrase, ignore all the rest of the post and then tell us how wrong the poster was for saying just the one little part that you extracted and misused.
How so? Do you see anything useful in that post? I sure don't. He either doesn't understand what other people are saying, or he deliberately misrepresents what they say. The screed in question is no exception.
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How so? Do you see anything useful in that post? I sure don't.
I knew YOU didn't.
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I knew YOU didn't.
I added to the previous post. He's not an honest person, Sanguine.
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I added to the previous post. He's not an honest person, Sanguine.
I honestly don't know one way or the other. And, I wasn't commenting on his statements. Just that when you take one phrase out of context and then beat the writer over the head with it, it doesn't reflect well on you.
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I honestly don't know one way or the other. And, I wasn't commenting on his statements. Just that when you take one phrase out of context and then beat the writer over the head with it, it doesn't reflect well on you.
Whatever. If you want to defend his position to me, feel free to do so.
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I added to the previous post. He's not an honest person, Sanguine.
You were the one who brought up parenthood and its moral obligations more than once. You are the one who doesn't follow your own line of thinking. If you are going to claim that human parenting is moral, then you need to explain what about it is moral by differentiating it from other parenting in the animal kingdom. To me, if there exists an analog in the animal kingdom, then, as animals do not understand morals, that aspect of human parenting is not moral but biologically necessary. Parenting, to me, is about raising and providing for your young until they are capable of doing so themselves. This includes more than simply biological maturity - it includes the academic and social skills necessary to thrive in this world. This, however, is ALSO true in the animal kingdom, so it is not necessarily moral.
You are also the one who brought up Christianity and its implications on our moral obligations more than once. I am representing your point as fairly as possible and illustrating why it's contradictory at worst and irrelevant at best with regards to our form of government. How that makes me dishonest isn't something I can discern, but I don't expect civility from you.
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Whatever. If you want to defend his position to me, feel free to do so.
Now, why do you say that? I wrote: "I wasn't commenting on his statements." and you come back and accuse me of defending his position. How come?
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Now, why do you say that? I wrote: "I wasn't commenting on his statements." and you come back and accuse me of defending his position. How come?
Huh?!? You seriously misread what I said.
I was suggesting that if you felt like it, you might give a try to defending what he said.
As for me, I figured GIGO was all it deserved.
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You were the one who brought up parenthood and its moral obligations more than once. You are the one who doesn't follow your own line of thinking. If you are going to claim that human parenting is moral, then you need to explain what about it is moral by differentiating it from other parenting in the animal kingdom. To me, if there exists an analog in the animal kingdom, then, as animals do not understand morals, that aspect of human parenting is not moral but biologically necessary. Parenting, to me, is about raising and providing for your young until they are capable of doing so themselves. This includes more than simply biological maturity - it includes the academic and social skills necessary to thrive in this world. This, however, is ALSO true in the animal kingdom, so it is not necessarily moral.
You are also the one who brought up Christianity and its implications on our moral obligations more than once. I am representing your point as fairly as possible and illustrating why it's contradictory at worst and irrelevant at best with regards to our form of government. How that makes me dishonest isn't something I can discern, but I don't expect civility from you.
Apparently he'd rather argue about you than argue with you.
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Apparently he'd rather argue about you than argue with you.
Actually, I just didn't see his post. But feel free to cast stones.
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8888crybaby
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888catbed
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This thread is dead Fred. Time to put it out with the trash!
***suicide***
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This thread is dead Fred. Time to put it out with the trash!
***suicide***
Tis but a flesh wound. Come back here and I'll bite your kneecaps.
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You were the one who brought up parenthood and its moral obligations more than once. You are the one who doesn't follow your own line of thinking. If you are going to claim that human parenting is moral, then you need to explain what about it is moral by differentiating it from other parenting in the animal kingdom. To me, if there exists an analog in the animal kingdom, then, as animals do not understand morals, that aspect of human parenting is not moral but biologically necessary. Parenting, to me, is about raising and providing for your young until they are capable of doing so themselves. This includes more than simply biological maturity - it includes the academic and social skills necessary to thrive in this world. This, however, is ALSO true in the animal kingdom, so it is not necessarily moral.
You are also the one who brought up Christianity and its implications on our moral obligations more than once. I am representing your point as fairly as possible and illustrating why it's contradictory at worst and irrelevant at best with regards to our form of government. How that makes me dishonest isn't something I can discern, but I don't expect civility from you.
Uh, no. You clearly understood neither the context nor the content of what I said.
The context of the conversation in question (with I_C) was the source of moral obligations (such as duty and honor) -- nothing more or less than that.
The question can be answered a couple of ways, depending on whether or not one has religious belief.
If one is religious -- and in particular a Christian -- our duty is to God, and our moral obligations come from Him.
If one is not religious, the question of where fixed moral obligations, or even "right and wrong," come from is a much more difficult question, and likely impossible to answer.
In that context, the discussion of parenthood came from consideration of why Ayn Rand's philosophy fails according to its own precepts. The example of parenthood refutes it comprehensively, for at least two reasons. One: by observation of evolution in nature, it's far more rational to argue that we're a means to our children's ends through natural selection. Two: it is generally evident in nature that parents take care of their offspring until their offspring can fend for themselves; and thus again, observation of nature suggests that we are a means to our children's ends. It could be argued that the latter is just a different description natural selection, but as a matter of sufficiency it is enough to note that the behavior is observable in itself, and natural selection is not a necessary addition. Either way, Rand's central tenet collapses.
At a real-life level, however, you cannot possibly believe that it is "absurd" to claim that parents have a moral obligation to their children.
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Uh, no. You clearly understood neither the context nor the content of what I said.
The context of the conversation in question (with I_C) was the source of moral obligations (such as duty and honor) -- nothing more or less than that.
The question can be answered a couple of ways, depending on whether or not one has religious belief.
If one is religious -- and in particular a Christian -- our duty is to God, and our moral obligations come from Him.
If one is not religious, the question of where fixed moral obligations, or even "right and wrong," come from is a much more difficult question, and likely impossible to answer.
In that context, the discussion of parenthood came from consideration of why Ayn Rand's philosophy fails according to its own precepts. The example of parenthood refutes it comprehensively, for at least two reasons. One: by observation of evolution in nature, it's far more rational to argue that we're a means to our children's ends through natural selection. Two: it is generally evident in nature that parents take care of their offspring until their offspring can fend for themselves; and thus again, observation of nature suggests that we are a means to our children's ends. It could be argued that the latter is just a different description natural selection, but as a matter of sufficiency it is enough to note that the behavior is observable in itself, and natural selection is not a necessary addition. Either way, Rand's central tenet collapses.
At a real-life level, however, you cannot possibly believe that it is "absurd" to claim that parents have a moral obligation to their children.
@r9etb, I don't understand why you are arguing this. We have an agreement under which this nation was formed, and providing health care for others is not in it. Doesn't matter whether one is a Christian or not.
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The notion that a parent's responsibility to care for their child is a moral obligation is absurd unless you subscribe to the notion that all life understands moral obligations. A parent's responsibility to care for their child is a biological imperative - instinct - and exists in all animals where required for the survival of the species. Parents, whether they are fish, mammals, or birds, care for their young because they are wired to do so. Morals don't enter into it.
Not so for humans. A human child isn't raised merely to the point where he/she could biologically survive on its own. To prosper in the human community, the child must be educated, become literate, and imbued with moral values. To do those things as a parent isn't a matter of instinct, but of moral obligation. Humans are, unlike animals, capable of making moral decisions. And when a parent sacrifices to send his kid to a good school, he is exercising his sense of moral obligation.
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@r9etb, I don't understand why you are arguing this. We have an agreement under which this nation was formed, and providing health care for others is not in it. Doesn't matter whether one is a Christian or not.
Absolutely untrue. The Constitution permits the federal government to provide for the general welfare. The federal government chooses to do so by means of decisions made by your and my elected representatives. There is nothing in the Constitution that precludes the federal government from establishing the Social Security system or, as here, setting the rules for the market in private health insurance.
Your issue is with your elected representatives. So vote 'em out. But do not rely on the Constitution as a deus ex machina. It's not.
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Tis but a flesh wound. Come back here and I'll bite your kneecaps.
Bite me? Well, I never! lol :beer:
Nudge Nudge
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@r9etb, I don't understand why you are arguing this. We have an agreement under which this nation was formed, and providing health care for others is not in it. Doesn't matter whether one is a Christian or not.
It started right away with a question of where I think Kudlow is coming from -- the idea that we as a nation ought to do something about those who cannot afford to pay for medical care, especially really expensive medical care.
Kudlow's position tacitly depends on the idea that we have a moral obligation to help such people -- ways and means being a separate question.
As for the Constitution, we do a lot of things that aren't explicitly spelled out in it, including paying for things like the Louisiana Purchase, or Alaska, or building and maintaining roads and bridges that have nothing to do with the post office.
These non-explicit sorts of things are most comfortably located in the Constitution under the "general Welfare" clause, about which the USSC ruled (US vs. Butler, 1936) that it was within Congress' discretion to decide what is covered under that clause.
The objection to Kudlow's suggestion boils down to a couple of things: first, whether it's in the scope of Congress' authority to fund some level of health care for those who can't afford it; and second, whether there's any compelling reason why we as a nation should be willing for Congress to do so.
As to the first, yes -- it's now settled law that it's within Congress' discretion. As to the second -- that's where all the rest of this stuff comes in.
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The Constitution permits the federal government to provide for the general welfare.
That's the argument all Communists and Leftists in this country make to justify imposing the tyranny of the Welfare State via confiscatory taxation and punitive regulation to benefit those that empower politicians to lifetime political careers.
You're a parrot of everything Marx and Engels wrote.
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Not so for humans. A human child isn't raised merely to the point where he/she could biologically survive on its own. To prosper in the human community, the child must be educated, become literate, and imbued with moral values. To do those things as a parent isn't a matter of instinct, but of moral obligation. Humans are, unlike animals, capable of making moral decisions. And when a parent sacrifices to send his kid to a good school, he is exercising his sense of moral obligation.
Interesting observations. So, how does one answer the accusation that sacrificing to send one's child to a good school is elitist and should not be allowed because it tilts the playing field away from disadvantaged children, who didn't get lucky in the lottery of life?
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That's the argument all Communists and Leftists in this country make to justify imposing the tyranny of the Welfare State via confiscatory taxation and punitive regulation to benefit those that empower politicians to lifetime political careers.
You're a parrot of everything Marx and Engels wrote.
I suppose it's the same as applying the interstate commerce clause to a fellow selling corn to his next-door neighbor.
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It started right away with a question of where I think Kudlow is coming from -- the idea that we as a nation ought to do something about those who cannot afford to pay for medical care, especially really expensive medical care.
Kudlow's position tacitly depends on the idea that we have a moral obligation to help such people -- ways and means being a separate question.
As for the Constitution, we do a lot of things that aren't explicitly spelled out in it, including paying for things like the Louisiana Purchase, or Alaska, or building and maintaining roads and bridges that have nothing to do with the post office.
These non-explicit sorts of things are most comfortably located in the Constitution under the "general Welfare" clause, about which the USSC ruled (US vs. Butler, 1936) that it was within Congress' discretion to decide what is covered under that clause.
The objection to Kudlow's suggestion boils down to a couple of things: first, whether it's in the scope of Congress' authority to fund some level of health care for those who can't afford it; and second, whether there's any compelling reason why we as a nation should be willing for Congress to do so.
As to the first, yes -- it's now settled law that it's within Congress' discretion. As to the second -- that's where all the rest of this stuff comes in.
As several other members have noted, Kudlow is dead wrong. All arguments from that point onward are, by dint of being based upon a fallacy, also wrong. It really is that simple, hyperbole, emotion and verbiage regardless.
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Interesting observations. So, how does one answer the accusation that sacrificing to send one's child to a good school is elitist and should not be allowed because it tilts the playing field away from disadvantaged children, who didn't get lucky in the lottery of life?
Hey those kids will have to work for somebody. :smokin:
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As several other members have noted, Kudlow is dead wrong. All arguments from that point onward are, by dint of being based upon a fallacy, also wrong. It really is that simple, hyperbole, emotion and verbiage regardless.
See, you don't get to just say such things and expect others to just accept them. You're making testable statements, and they ought to be tested.
To begin with, those arguing against Kudlow's suggestion on Constitutional grounds are demonstrably wrong, unless and until the USSC overturns Butler.
Which leaves the other objection, concerning the question of whether or not Congress ought to enact Kudlow's suggestion, given that it has the discretion to do so. And that comes down to the question of moral obligations and how best to discharge them.
This thread demonstrates why conservatives never seem to win when it comes down to a real battle. It's because we just say things, and don't know how to recover when the other side doesn't accept our assertions.
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It started right away with a question of where I think Kudlow is coming from -- the idea that we as a nation ought to do something about those who cannot afford to pay for medical care, especially really expensive medical care.
Should we not therefore also as a nation do something about those who cannot afford to own a home? Especially really expensive homes?
How about as a nation, doing something about those who cannot afford a car? Especially really expensive cars?
How about as a nation, doing something about those who cannot afford to go out to eat once a week? Especially really expensive restaurants?
How about as a nation, doing something about those who cannot afford cable or internet? How far do you want to take this stupid argument about moral obligations to provide for those who cannot or will not provide for themselves? The aforementioned 'necessities' being cited by the Welfare Class as vital items necessary for a decent life.
The ONLY THING we as a nation should be doing, is to ensure that the government is of no obstacle to the promotion of opportunity for everyone to seek and find/or aspire to achieve the kinds of care and service they desire from the service and marketplace.
Government has NO ROLE in parceling out charity and provision - because if we accept the idea that government is there to provide that function - Liberty and a Republic are incapable of existing in such an environment. We will simply arrive back where all Republics do in their collapse into despotism and tyranny.
But that apparently is what the people want - Socialism, Marxism and Statism - wrapped up in the language of moral obligation.
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@Smokin Joe
Hold on Joe. I think you've got the wrong idea from what I said.
My religious obligations are mine, not the business of the entire Country. We are told that separation exists, that Congress shall make no law with respect to religion (no official religion) nor prohibit the free exercise thereof. That is the 'separation of church and state' the Liberals hammer us with.
Well, yes and no. Two things:
First, CONGRESS shall make no law. The same is not stated to governors and state bodies (unless otherwise stated in their own constitutions). So this mythical veil described as the 'separation of church and state' as embodied in the US Constitution does NOT go all the way to the ground.
And congress is 'making law' right now against the free practice of religion. When a Christian baker can be sued out of existence for merely not baking a cake against his faith, congress has made a law (in absentia, by inaction).
And secondly, in the nearly prophetic words of Bob Dylan, "You've got to Serve Somebody"...
There is no such thing as a moral vacuum. There is no philosophical neutral. If we are not willing to be guided by the moral sense embodied in the Judeo-Christian Ethic (Fancy words for the Law of Moses and the testimony of Yeshua the Messiah), we will, of a necessity, be guided by something else (one might say, someone else).
In that, I am not only speaking to you as a person (albeit that the same applies) I am speaking on a grander scale, to We, the People. America is founded upon Individualism, and I embrace that, probably more than most. But that does not discount the will in aggregate. Yahweh does judge nations (not only persons), and We, the People ARE a nation. There is no question that a mere generation ago, we were a Christian nation. That is very much in question now. And that question is paramount, lest we forget from Whom our rights are endowed... And in the moment we forget, the great American experiment is over.
We, the People, have lost our way. In large part that is because of the fallacy known as the separation of church and state, because while the state is no longer adhering to the Christian principles it was founded upon, there is no question that it now teaches a different religion. And with a different religion comes a different ethic, necessarily. There is no moral neutral. Which do you prefer?
Now I am being told to support a Liberal program because, well, WWJD?
Not by me, you're not. I rose precisely because words were put in Yeshua's mouth. WWJD? I can tell you: He would keep the laws of His Father's House. He came to us with no doctrine of His own, but with the doctrine of Him from whom he was sent. That doctrine (the Law of Moses) stands against liberalism.
My friend, this is no theocracy, even though most of our laws are based on Judeo/Christian ethos.
I understand what you mean, but there is in fact, an unbridgeable dichotomy in that statement. Our government cannot protect the rights we are endowed with without recognizing Him from whom that endowment derives. End of story. And that need not mean 'theocracy'. The American system is patterned in parallel to Torah - There is a separation of church and state embodied in Torah. The priests did not run things. The Sanhedrin did. Politics and religion distinctly demarcated. Yet there was no doubt who 'the People' belonged to.
In my family, when we can get the meddlers of government out of the way, we take care of our own. My wife and I have had as many as four grandchildren living under our roof at the same time, and have provided for their needs with never a dime from the government, in fact paying our taxes the whole time. That obligation, however, is one of family. It is how things are done, in both the Chippewa culture my wife was raised in, and in the Southern influenced English/Irish/Scots culture I was raised in dating back to the colonial era (1600s). That, in both sides of the family, is just how things are done. Those moral obligations are not binding on anyone else, that is very much a personal matter.
That's right. And how it should be. And were it so, there would be little for government to do with regard to welfare. That does not negate the responsibility to do that little bit. And I am of the opinion that if it were so, the taxes would not be begrudged. As an example, there has long been county-run orphanages, county and state hospitals... That is in keeping with the American way. They were not a burden then, and should not be a burden now... IF, IF, IF it was as it was before, and that is in keeping with 'as it should be' in your statement above.
What makes it a burden is the destruction of the family (largely endorsed by the government).
The compact between the States that formed the Constitution, however, is the law by which we have all agreed to live. In that law, there are no moral obligations (despite the apparent codification of some) only legal ones. The government is not The Almighty, though His Law is the main basis of our government, not just at the Federal level, but at the State level (if you don't like the rules in one state, you can move, trust me), and even local law governs the day to day actions of most folks.
Agreed in large part. The moral obligations are left to the states and the people, as everything is, not specifically enumerated in the US Constitution. My one caveat in that would be the care and keeping of the soldier, and the widow of the soldier... From wound and from loss, I mean.
However, that law, whether we would judge it to be moral or not, is not a question of morality so much as legality, of ethics, not morals [...]
That's a mighty fine line, friend, and a distinction without a difference. Ethics are morals, or couched therein, as is law.
and without an eternal soul, Government, as an entity is not morally bound whatsoever aside from the individual moral influences of the governed, raised in unity on the law, whether those morals are heartfelt or just a cheap emotional mechanism to make people feel guilty to screw them once again.
Eloquent, but false. The single guiding moral/ethical compunction of our government is specifically and succinctly described in our Declaration of Independence. It is there to safeguard our rights as endowed by our Creator. That sole purpose cannot be at odds with that endowment or it's Creator, by it's very definition... That is an ethical/moral aegis.
The mechanisms are in place to take care of those who CANNOT care for themselves, from the Social Security tax, which many would argue is unconstitutional in and of itself, which is going to be in serious fiscal trouble because the Congress looted those funds to buy votes. Yet Americans paid into it, having been promised a return or survivor benefits for their family, and even disability payments should they become injured. It is already a mess. Yet those looted funds often went to programs for 'the poor', and an entire industry of Social Workers and counselors was created and supported, employing a multitude of officers, "for the poor".
You are misguided if you think I would disagree with you here. You are preaching to the choir.
Government "charity" has been a dismal failure overall.
Yes it is. But it is not right to say that the malformed federal behemoth discounts what was before... And there has long been state and county run charitable services.
So I will ask, by what Constitutional Authority does the House of Representatives (or the Congress, in toto) vote to contribute from the public monies to the benefit of a few?
They have no such authority.
In fact, it robs the people of the means by which they might have exercised their free will to engage in charitable acts, and of any choice to do so in that particular matter, unless they dig even deeper in their pockets for more money.
There's the money shot. Right there. Let people do for themselves and their own, and there will be damn little left to worry about.
However the funds collected by government are increasingly being used to provide the ordinary means of life to the multitude, be that three meals a day in school, day care (after school programs), housing, food, even phones.
Again, by what Constitutional Authority?
Does anyone think it wise to add yet another program, to eliminate the personal fiscal reasons for living cleanly, and staying healthy, as if that will reduce cost? It did not work with being 'poor'.
Right, exactly. Do not assume I am in any way advocating for any of that.
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@Smokin Joe
And congress is 'making law' right now against the free practice of religion. When a Christian baker can be sued out of existence for merely not baking a cake against his faith, congress has made a law (in absentia, by inaction).
What kind of garbage is that? A state judge makes a judgement and it means Congress is passing laws because they did not pass a law to protect the couple?
Where did you get that information?
That is as twisted an argument I have seen in quite some time.
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What kind of garbage is that? A state judge makes a judgement and it means Congress is passing laws because they did not pass a law to protect the couple?
Where did you get that information?
That is as twisted an argument I have seen in quite some time.
On the surface perhaps... but we have arrived at the point where Congress does not have to make a law, the Judiciary can make defacto law by Activism and Precedent - establish a law by ruling rather than by legislation.
It's why Democrats Judge-shop to enact their agenda when Congress doesn't pass omnibus packages in the middle of the night without a single legislator having read the bill.
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On the surface perhaps... but we have arrived at the point where Congress does not have to make a law, the Judiciary can make defacto law by Activism and Precedent - establish a law by ruling rather than by legislation.
It's why Democrats Judge-shop to enact their agenda when Congress doesn't pass omnibus packages in the middle of the night without a single legislator having read the bill.
Democrats are Circuit shopping with Trump's refugee pause actions. Every case they bring is in the Ninth Circuit, which is guaranteed to find against Trump. Since the SCOTUS is down a seat, it's 4-4 Communists who will back up the Ninth (a tied 4-4 judgement finds to affirm the lower court). If that happens, the precedent become carved in stone. It's best to fight it tooth and nail in the local courts until Trump gets his pick on SCOTUS.
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Democrats are Circuit shopping with Trump's refugee pause actions. Every case they bring is in the Ninth Circuit, which is guaranteed to find against Trump. Since the SCOTUS is down a seat, it's 4-4 Communists who will back up the Ninth (a tied 4-4 judgement finds to affirm the lower court). If that happens, the precedent become carved in stone. It's best to fight it tooth and nail in the local courts until Trump gets his pick on SCOTUS.
There's no precedence when it's a tie.
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There's no precedence when it's a tie.
Wrong. It's a precedence as strong as if it were a 5-4 decision.
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Wrong. It's a precedence as strong as if it were a 5-4 decision.
(https://media.giphy.com/media/3oz8xLd9DJq2l2VFtu/giphy.gif)
Google it. There's no precedence if it's a tie.
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Google it. There's no precedence if it's a tie.
Isn't the lower court's judgement precedent unless overturned?
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Isn't the lower court's judgement precedent unless overturned?
I believe so. The lower court has precedence except for scotus who can hear it again.
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Isn't the lower court's judgement precedent unless overturned?
Exactly what I'm saying, to many boos. The Ninth Circuit's decision would be precedent because a 4-4 ties defaults to "uphold," no overturn. That's why it can't be allowed to go to SCOTUS.
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There's no precedence when it's a tie.
You don't even know what that word actually means do you?
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You don't even know what that word actually means do you?
I know exactly what it means and I'm 100% right.
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With an eight-justice court, a majority decision requires a 5-3 vote. If the supreme court is deadlocked 4-4, the lower court’s decision in the case is upheld but it does not create a legal precedent.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/feb/14/supreme-court-vote-eight-justices-deadlock-nomination-scalia-obama
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I know exactly what it means and I'm 100% right.
LOL! Tell me what you think it means genius!
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What kind of garbage is that? A state judge makes a judgement and it means Congress is passing laws because they did not pass a law to protect the couple?
Where did you get that information?
That is as twisted an argument I have seen in quite some time.
Congress should be offended at judicial fiat. It should piss them off.
By passively allowing it, they assent.
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LOL! Tell me what you think it means genius!
Read my link above, genius.
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https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/feb/14/supreme-court-vote-eight-justices-deadlock-nomination-scalia-obama
And that has not one thing to do with "presidence".
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https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/feb/14/supreme-court-vote-eight-justices-deadlock-nomination-scalia-obama
You quoted a British paper for that? Really?
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And that has not one thing to do with "presidence".
Legal precedence, genius.
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You quoted a British paper for that? Really?
You two bright boys can't admit you're wrong! Sad!
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Legal precedence, genius.
You are wrong, and that's that. We will see in the weeks to come.
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You are wrong, and that's that. We will see in the weeks to come.
Prove me wrong legal eagle.
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You are wrong, and that's that. We will see in the weeks to come.
The kid (WTF) can be such a d-bag some times. Ignore him.
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Prove me wrong legal eagle.
I don't have to. All we have to do is wait and see what your gods decide is the law. I say they twist the law to mean whatever the bleep they want it to, and you're a fool if you think they won't.
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You two bright boys can't admit you're wrong! Sad!
You might want to go and learn what the word actually means genius! Hint: It has nothing whatever to do with the current make up of the court or the division of the court one way or the other on any issue!
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The kid (WTF) can be such a d-bag some times. Ignore him.
You're one to talk punk. I've never been banned from here. I know you have been repeatedly.
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You might want to go and learn what the word actually means genius! Hint: It has nothing whatever to do with the current make up of the court or the division of the court one way or the other on any issue!
You're as wrong as every wrong person who has been wrong in the history of being wrong.
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You're one to talk punk. I've never been banned from here. I know you have been repeatedly.
I'm sorry, but I laughed. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
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Congress should be offended at judicial fiat. It should piss them off.
By passively allowing it, they assent.
The Left does especially, because their Agenda is more important than the supremacy of their branch and party. They understand that a Leftist Judiciary gives them affirmation of their agenda and empowers it into law when they cannot achieve it legislatively. The Big Lie that the Judiciary has final word on all things in terms of deeming them Constitutional - has affirmed Jefferson's big fear of what the Courts would be used to do.
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(http://psychcentral.com/lib/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ocd-bigst.jpg)
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You're as wrong as every wrong person who has been wrong in the history of being wrong.
Whatever! Continue to make an A $$ of yoursef for as long as you like. You will get no free education from me.
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Congress should be offended at judicial fiat. It should piss them off.
By passively allowing it, they assent.
AMEN! The congress has completely abdicated it's powers and desparately needs to take them back!
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I'm sorry, but I laughed. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
How can you not? :whistle:
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The Left does especially, because their Agenda is more important than the supremacy of their branch and party. They understand that a Leftist Judiciary gives them affirmation of their agenda and empowers it into law when they cannot achieve it legislatively. The Big Lie that the Judiciary has final word on all things in terms of deeming them Constitutional - has affirmed Jefferson's big fear of what the Courts would be used to do.
Exactly right. Heads should roll. It wouldn't take very many impeachments before the weasels in black robes would have to shut up. There's hardly been a solitary impeachment since those black coated bastards invented 'penumbras'.
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Whatever! Continue to make an A $$ of yoursef for as long as you like. You will get no free education from me.
You're wrong. Just admit it.
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How can you not? :whistle:
Couldn't help it, old friend. that was so laugh worthy. Low-hanging fast ball worthy. I was helpless.
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You're wrong. Just admit it.
ONE of us is and it ain't me! 22222frying pan
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Couldn't help it, old friend. that was so laugh worthy. Low-hanging fast ball worthy. I was helpless.
Yeah! I know exactly what you mean! :beer:
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You're one to talk punk. I've never been banned from here. I know you have been repeatedly.
Punk? Why sir I am offended at your slight. I have been rehabilitated. I have become a contributing member of the forum. Just ask anyone. Which begs the question... Why are you still such an assssss er... I mean...a contrarian?
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I'm willing to agree to disagree guys. And we'll just leave it at that.
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I'm willing to agree to disagree guys. And we'll just leave it at that.
@Weird Tolkienish Figure look...I'm fine with that. We both know only time is going to settle this, so let's just cool it.
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Well, maybe. The problem with this position is that you're not the only person in the world. You may not even be the only person in your house, in which case you're kidding yourself if you think you run the place.
In the real world it's a certainty that you'll never have 100% agreement with anybody on matters of moral obligation. So, either both sides make accommodations, or you or somebody else is going to be forced into doing something they don't want to do. Is that "bad?" It can be ... but that's life.
My point is that a community can't have a moral obligation. A community is a social construct. A community has no soul, no relationship with a deity, only the individuals in that community do.
We are not of a hive mind. It is the actions or beliefs of the individuals in the community, taken in aggregate, often imposed on the remainder, which are the action of the community, but a community can't have a moral obligation, only the individual people in it.
The purpose of our Bill of Rights was to hold up some of the unalienable Rights we, as individuals, have. There is even an Amendment that states the list there is not comprehensive, nor is it intended to limit the Rights of the individual to what is listed.
The community has no Rights, only the individuals in it, who may choose to exercise their Rights in aggregate, or individually, but nowhere in the Bill of Rights is any Right of the community mentioned, only restrictions on the power thereof.
Individuals have moral obligations. A community does not.
Similarly, individuals have a relationship with their deity (or a choice to acknowledge none), and while a community may have a consensus in even this regard, the moral obligations of the individuals in the community (as part of those individuals' embraced religious views) do not become the moral obligations of a community.
Individuals have religious (moral) obligations, communities do not, unless they are united in their belief. We have a word for a group of people who are united in such belief: "church".
Moral obligations belonging to the individuals who, united in their moral beliefs make up a church, not a political entity under our Constitution.
The majority voting for something does not alter the individual moral obligations, it only imposes legal obligations. If the majority imposes a law that says you can't feed the hungry in the street, or give someone a blanket on a cold night, that doesn't alter moral obligations, it only interposes the arm of the law. A law which requires that certain actions be taken, no matter how moral in its intent, imposes a legal obligation, which, while it may not remove any moral obligations the individual may embrace, also removes the choice from the individual to perform a moral act. That act has become a legal requirement, and the only matter of choice is to break the law, whether that law is good, bad, or indifferent.
I would contend that true moral obligations for an individual are imposed by their relationship with their deity (not of this world), not the external hand of the law, which imposes legal obligations (of this world).
At most those become legal obligations, imposed on the remainder of the community by either the representatives (who may not even speak for the majority--recall, 60% of Americans wanted Obamacare killed), or the majority of individuals, depending on how that imposition is structured.
That is no longer a question of morality, but of legality, not of morals, but of laws, no matter how the laws may reflect a consensus or majority of moral belief.
How often have we been told that "you can't legislate morality", by the very people who would now claim that we need legislation to impose a legal obligation to pay for the physical depredations of those suffered as a result of actions that many consider patently immoral, and who now claim that those who would not engage in those acts have a “moral duty” to subsidize relief of the results of those actions?
Because that is what we are talking about here. Not forgiveness and help rendered to the repentant—or even unrepentant, but generations of subsidized babies born out of wedlock, fully supported by those who marry and support and raise their own families. Food for those who will not work, provided by those who do. Housing for those who will not work, provided by those who live leaner as a result. Medical care for those who engage in dangerous sexual practices which, in scripture are considered by the Almighty an “abomination”. These are not people who are repentant and trying to change, but those who glory in their behaviour, who parade in the streets, who demand that those who meet their own individual moral obligations meet those financial obligations incurred by those who feel no moral obligation to live a less profligate and/or salacious life.
As for using the law to forcibly loot those who provide for their own sustenance, work hard, and try to live a moral life, to pay for those who will not, I have a moral duty to object.
This is in no wise charity, it is legal theft.
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I applaud your patience WTF.... :hands:
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On the surface perhaps... but we have arrived at the point where Congress does not have to make a law, the Judiciary can make defacto law by Activism and Precedent - establish a law by ruling rather than by legislation.
It's why Democrats Judge-shop to enact their agenda when Congress doesn't pass omnibus packages in the middle of the night without a single legislator having read the bill.
It is not the job of the Judicial branch to make law. That, as was Roberts rewrite of the penalty clause of the ACA, is unconstitutional.
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The Left does especially, because their Agenda is more important than the supremacy of their branch and party. They understand that a Leftist Judiciary gives them affirmation of their agenda and empowers it into law when they cannot achieve it legislatively. The Big Lie that the Judiciary has final word on all things in terms of deeming them Constitutional - has affirmed Jefferson's big fear of what the Courts would be used to do.
Correct! The Congress lets the courts do what they will because it gives the Leftists an end-run around the Constitution.
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I applaud your patience WTF.... :hands:
How nice! **nononono*
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My point is that a community can't have a moral obligation. A community is a social construct.....
The purpose of our Bill of Rights was to hold up some of the unalienable Rights we, as individuals, have. There is even an Amendment that states the list there is not comprehensive, nor is it intended to limit the Rights of the individual to what is listed.
The community has no Rights, only the individuals in it, who may choose to exercise their Rights in aggregate, or individually, but nowhere in the Bill of Rights is any Right of the community mentioned, only restrictions on the power thereof.
Wonderfully and brilliantly articulated, and sadly in this day and age that fundamental understanding is not understood to be the core component of what constitutes Conservatism. I applaud your effort to articulate it - but think we are arrived at the point that most prefer Statism of one form or another. ESPECIALLY when so many view that the role and function of government (as empowered by the community) is to do what the secular humanist religion has deemed a moral obligation.
...The majority voting for something does not alter the individual moral obligations, it only imposes legal obligations.
Legal obligations are argued to be moral obligations by just about everyone these days. Even when the legal obligations fly in the face of Providence. I have heard of plenty of Christians who have been subjected to Romans 13 sermons that equivocate legal obligations to government as being moral imperatives for salvation with nary a mention of Galatians 5:1.
If the majority imposes a law that says you can't feed the hungry in the street, or give someone a blanket on a cold night, that doesn't alter moral obligations, it only interposes the arm of the law. A law which requires that certain actions be taken, no matter how moral in its intent, imposes a legal obligation, which, while it may not remove any moral obligations the individual may embrace, also removes the choice from the individual to perform a moral act. That act has become a legal requirement, and the only matter of choice is to break the law, whether that law is good, bad, or indifferent.
That used to be called tyranny. We have forgotten our own history that teaches Providence blessed a people who took up arms against their 'lawful' government to war upon and kill it's agents sent to enforce laws that were deemed to be immoral by an ekklesia of individuals who understood where liberty actually comes from.
How often have we been told that "you can't legislate morality", by the very people who would now claim that we need legislation to impose a legal obligation to pay for the physical depredations of those suffered as a result of actions that many consider patently immoral, and who now claim that those who would not engage in those acts have a “moral duty” to subsidize relief of the results of those actions?
Because that is what we are talking about here. Not forgiveness and help rendered to the repentant—or even unrepentant, but generations of subsidized babies born out of wedlock, fully supported by those who marry and support and raise their own families. Food for those who will not work, provided by those who do. Housing for those who will not work, provided by those who live leaner as a result. Medical care for those who engage in dangerous sexual practices which, in scripture are considered by the Almighty an “abomination”. These are not people who are repentant and trying to change, but those who glory in their behaviour, who parade in the streets, who demand that those who meet their own individual moral obligations meet those financial obligations incurred by those who feel no moral obligation to live a less profligate and/or salacious life.
As for using the law to forcibly loot those who provide for their own sustenance, work hard, and try to live a moral life, to pay for those who will not, I have a moral duty to object.
This is in no wise charity, it is legal theft.
(http://www.xeevents.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/nailed-it.jpg)
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That's a really big nail.
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That's a really big nail.
Well it's no Twinkie, that's for sure.
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@r9etb
I don't now what the answer is. I finished treatment for a potentially fatal disease last December. In my case it was going to be fatal. Sooner than later. The drug manufacturer gave me the treatment. I don't have health insurance. If they hadn't I wouldn't be talking to you now. All I know is that I wouldn't have asked for help from anyone to pay for the treatment. If it had been somewhere in the reasonable price range I would have tried to pay for it myself. A $1000 a pill is ridiculous.
My point is is that there is something wrong with the price of procedures and medications. Maybe they should try to fix that.
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@r9etb
I don't now what the answer is. I finished treatment for a potentially fatal disease last December. In my case it was going to be fatal. Sooner than later. The drug manufacturer gave me the treatment. I don't have health insurance. If they hadn't I wouldn't be talking to you now. All I know is that I wouldn't have asked for help from anyone to pay for the treatment. If it had been somewhere in the reasonable price range I would have tried to pay for it myself. A $1000 a pill is ridiculous.
My point is is that there is something wrong with the price of procedures and medications. Maybe they should try to fix that.
There is only one way to fix it Fred! Free markets!
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My point is that a community can't have a moral obligation. A community is a social construct. A community has no soul, no relationship with a deity, only the individuals in that community do.
We are not of a hive mind. It is the actions or beliefs of the individuals in the community, taken in aggregate, often imposed on the remainder, which are the action of the community, but a community can't have a moral obligation, only the individual people in it.
Thanks for the effort you put into your post. I do not mean to belittle it, but I note that its success as an argument, stands or falls on whether or not your opening statement is true. It can be tested, and unfortunately I don't think your position works.
You speak of "social constructs," without considering exactly what that implies. A "social construct" as it applies to communities -- be it a small group, or an entire nation -- is a set of rules pertaining not only to individuals, but also to how the community itself will operate: how it adjudicates disputes; how it makes decisions; what limits there are on its scope of action. There are things that the community can and cannot do, and there are things that the community must and must not do. We can classify the things that the community can do, as "rights" or, perhaps "just authority," which comes from a communal moral standard; and certainly the things the community cannot do, it cannot do them as a matter of moral obligation.
You go on to mention the role of culture and tradition. These are formative influences as to matters of right and wrong; what we as individuals ought and ought not to do; and what as an aggregate community ought, and ought not to do. They're not really separable ideas -- individuals affect the community, and the community affects the individual. These are precepts that accumulate over a long period of time, in the form of traditions and community standards.
As British philosopher Roger Scruton put it,
“In discussing tradition, we are not discussing arbitrary rules and conventions. We are discussing answers that have been discovered to enduring questions. These answers are tacit, shared, embodied in social practices and inarticulate expectations. Those who adopt them are not necessarily able to explain them, still less to justify them. Hence Burke described them as ‘prejudices’, and defended them on the ground that, though the stock of reason in each individual is small, there is an accumulation of reason in society that we question and reject at our peril.”
What Scruton (and Burke before him) is talking about, is that set of ideals and beliefs that have grown up and been imposed upon us through culture and traditions. They are a set of answers that have emerged over generations: they outlive individuals, and are greater in scope than any particular person. These traditions and beliefs define not only how we as individuals are supposed to act within society, but also how the community -- individuals in aggregate -- is supposed to behave. Burke was talking about Revolutionary France: the society and its crimes, not about individuals; and rightly so.
To use an extreme example, although we can correctly condemn individuals like Hitler and Mao for the role they played in their respective genocides; we can see that doing so is obviously incomplete. We must also recognize the moral depravity of the societies themselves, that not only permitted but took part in those genocides. As communities, as an aggregate, they failed to live up to very basic moral obligations of a just society.
As for this particular discussion, on both sides, it is all about what communities should or must not do. One side says, "we as a nation have a moral obligation," and the other side says, "we as a nation have no authority" to enact Kudlow's idea. At root it is a discussion based on differing views of the moral obligations adhering to communities, not individuals.
You yourself talk in several places about it being wrong for "the government" (i.e., the community) to impose itself in certain ways on individuals. But that is itself a statement of a communal moral obligation, which you started off by saying did not exist.
So for all the work you put into your post, it is nevertheless based on a false premise.
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@r9etb
I don't now what the answer is. I finished treatment for a potentially fatal disease last December. In my case it was going to be fatal. Sooner than later. The drug manufacturer gave me the treatment. I don't have health insurance. If they hadn't I wouldn't be talking to you now. All I know is that I wouldn't have asked for help from anyone to pay for the treatment. If it had been somewhere in the reasonable price range I would have tried to pay for it myself. A $1000 a pill is ridiculous.
My point is is that there is something wrong with the price of procedures and medications. Maybe they should try to fix that.
I'm very glad to hear that "going to be fatal" turned out not to be. And good on the manufacturer for helping you out as much as they did.
As to the prices -- I think "market forces" aren't really a factor in the entire medical field, at least not "market forces" as the term is generally understood. The cost structure is skewed by all kinds of factors, including health "insurance", regulations, patent rules, and government requirements imposed by Medicare and Medicaid, not to mention our own expectations.
Real reform has to deal with those things; and do so in a way that doesn't cause more problems than it solves (which Obamacare signally did not do...)
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@r9etb
I don't now what the answer is. I finished treatment for a potentially fatal disease last December. In my case it was going to be fatal. Sooner than later. The drug manufacturer gave me the treatment. I don't have health insurance. If they hadn't I wouldn't be talking to you now. All I know is that I wouldn't have asked for help from anyone to pay for the treatment. If it had been somewhere in the reasonable price range I would have tried to pay for it myself. A $1000 a pill is ridiculous.
My point is is that there is something wrong with the price of procedures and medications. Maybe they should try to fix that.
The system works well for certain conditions, but if you have to take a drug that is either on-patent, or only manufactured by one maker, then you are basically screwed.
The important thing is that you're alive at least.
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A "social construct" as it applies to communities -- be it a small group, or an entire nation -- is a set of rules pertaining not only to individuals, but also to how the community itself will operate: how it adjudicates disputes; how it makes decisions; what limits there are on its scope of action. There are things that the community can and cannot do, and there are things that the community must and must not do. We can classify the things that the community can do, as "rights" or, perhaps "just authority," which comes from a communal moral standard; and certainly the things the community cannot do, it cannot do them as a matter of moral obligation.
Nonsense. These are all legalities, to be changed on a whim, as communal legal standards change. That may be a reflection of the morality of a community, or (to pick the ACA as an example) the vote of one man, performed against tradition and legality, imposed on the 60% of the community which did not want the act.
So we will apparently disagree. Show me one place in scripture where the soul of a community is saved in the sense of heaven and Hell. The individuals in that community may be saved from eternal suffering, but the community isn't saved because the guys down the street weren't pimping their daughters out, only the guys down the street.The relationship between a person and their God is moral and individual; that between a community and that person legal, determined by the whims of men.
Legal does not equal moral although there can be overlap. The morals of the individuals may well be reflected in the laws of the community, but the community has no morals, in and of itself, only legalities which are subject to change.
This is how we end up with laws (community) contrary to morality (individual). Despite the legality (groupthink), and this is seminal in the founding of this nation, the sense of individual morality compelled a large group of people (a third, historically) to defy that legality to follow their moral compulsions.
Especially there, we see the difference. Had they followed the third who were loyal to the crown despite depredations, this country would not exist. The third who were indifferent enough to not take a side would have led down the same path. It was the morality of a minority of individuals which changed the legalities of the entire community, and the moral conviction of the individuals who wrote the founding documents that our very Rights are unalienable, beyond the scope of mortal man to grant or repeal.
Yet the document they produced was not a religious document. It was a legal one. It has no bearing on whether a person spends their afterlife in Heaven or Hell, or curries favor with any deity, only the legal domain that belongs to the interactions of men (community).
Because those legalities are derived by some form of either totalitarianism, despotism, or a consensus of those from whom authority is derived or to whom authority is granted, they can be completely contrary to the morality of individuals in the community.
Where our form of government has generally been unique is in that it does not impose a set of morals (you can't pass a law and change how people think), only requirements or prohibitions on behaviours which have long been universally recognized as unfit for a healthy community (again, not morals, but legality).
When Roe was handed down, you would contend the community found the shredding of a baby in the womb to be moral, after all that was the law. No. It was now legal, but never will be considered by a significant number of us individuals to be moral.
It is the same with the imposed legality of not baking a wedding cake for a 'gay wedding', something which would have been firmly legally upheld as individuals exercising their right to not provide a service which conflicted with a moral conviction of the individuals at the bakery just 30 or 40 years ago, but now is a legality for which they were penalized for their moral convictions.
My morality isn't determined by the community, and arguing that the corruption of the community changes morals is nonsense. It is the corruption of individuals in the community which changes legalities. What is moral and immoral remains the same.
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That's the argument all Communists and Leftists in this country make to justify imposing the tyranny of the Welfare State via confiscatory taxation and punitive regulation to benefit those that empower politicians to lifetime political careers.
You're a parrot of everything Marx and Engels wrote.
You're saying the Constitution doesn't permit Congress to provide for the general welfare? What's your view of Social Security? Just another Commie plot?
You are truly this forum's font of mythology.
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Interesting observations. So, how does one answer the accusation that sacrificing to send one's child to a good school is elitist and should not be allowed because it tilts the playing field away from disadvantaged children, who didn't get lucky in the lottery of life?
Answer it any way you want. Of course I'm going to sacrifice to help my kids as much as I have the means to do so. Neither one of 'em ever gave me a bit of trouble growing up. No drugs, no irresponsible behavior. Money, ultimately, is meaningless - having good kids is how I hit the lottery in life. There's nothing I'm more proud of in this world.
And as for your specific question, that's why I support school choice. Lack of money doesn't mean a lack of caring. Poor parents who are motivated to see their kids rise ought to be able to send them to a school with the kind of environment where they'll learn skills and values.
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You're saying the Constitution doesn't permit Congress to provide for the general welfare? What's your view of Social Security? Just another Commie plot?
You are truly this forum's font of mythology.
You are blatantly misrepresenting what the "general welfare" of the nation means.
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The system works well for certain conditions, but if you have to take a drug that is either on-patent, or only manufactured by one maker, then you are basically screwed.
The important thing is that you're alive at least.
When a company is holding onto a life saving drug so they can make a 5000% profit (or more) that seems wrong to me. I knew three people that died of what I had. They all basically committed suicide. They gave up because they thought they had no hope for treatment. I doubt they show as a statistic of dying from the disease.
I think the government should be involved in in health care at least to the extent of reducing predatory practices.
When my wife had gall bladder issues, shortly after my employer based HC ended because of the ACA, our GP sent us to a surgeon for a consultation. He treated us like crap and told her to go to the emergency room if she thought she had a problem. Then told us he wasn't going to charge us for wasting his time. So I took her to the ER. They ran some tests and did surgery a few hours later. The damn thing burst during the surgery and they spent some extra time rinsing.
The upshot is this first surgeon sent us a bill later because they called him in for a consult before her surgery. That went over like a brick shithouse. I called that SOB and cursed a blue streak. And never paid him a dime.
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You're saying the Constitution doesn't permit Congress to provide for the general welfare? What's your view of Social Security? Just another Commie plot?
You are truly this forum's font of mythology.
Providing for the General Welfare meant creating an environment in which individuals and trade could flourish, not cradle to grave support for the masses. That meaning of "Welfare" goes back to the 1960s and LBJ's 'Great Society'--before that, it was called 'relief', because that is what it was intended to be, a last ditch stopgap for people in desperate straits to feed their families, and something to be avoided by anyone who had a sense of self respect.
In my view, Social Security was not general welfare, but an unconstitutional retirement gimmie for the folks who were already old and would never pay in as much as they were going to collect. It bought votes, but even more insidiously, it undermined private pensions and savings as well as the tendency for the young in an extended family to look after their elders. Considering that it has undermined economic self-sufficiency, the extended family, and the continuity those offered Americans, it may well have been a "Commie plot", rooted in the socialism so popular in the era.
Now, it has become a retirement fund for those working for wages who are unable to accumulate more or a widows and orphans fund paid out of the worker's paychecks, or a disability fund, with benefits based on the payments a worker has made into it, paid for over their working lives, (but the funds were stolen by Congress to buy votes with other unsustainable programs which were not earned nor paid into, commonly called "welfare" today).
The founders warned against the people being able to vote themselves benefits from the public coffers, and they were right.
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@r9etb
I don't now what the answer is. I finished treatment for a potentially fatal disease last December. In my case it was going to be fatal. Sooner than later. The drug manufacturer gave me the treatment. I don't have health insurance. If they hadn't I wouldn't be talking to you now. All I know is that I wouldn't have asked for help from anyone to pay for the treatment. If it had been somewhere in the reasonable price range I would have tried to pay for it myself. A $1000 a pill is ridiculous.
My point is is that there is something wrong with the price of procedures and medications. Maybe they should try to fix that.
Very happy to see it's working out for you, regarding the medication and drug manufacturer's assistance. :beer:
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What's your view of Social Security? Just another Commie plot?
Yes it was...implemented by a hard left President who implements may Socialist/Communist programs in this country.
As for what "general welfare" means...lets defer to the Founders and the Framers.
First up James Madison:
With respect to the two words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.
Next up Alexander Hamilton...he was a big fan of big government...however in Federalist 83:
This specification of particulars [the 18 enumerated powers of Article I, Section 8] evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority, because an affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd as well as useless if a general authority was intended.
Madison again in Federalist 41:
For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.
Madison further illuminated the intended meaning of the general welfare clause in a letter to Edmund Pendleton dated 1793, pointing out that the phrase was lifted from the Articles of Confederation and was intended to retain its meaning in the new Constitution.
If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions. It is to be remarked that the phrase out of which this doctrine is elaborated, is copied from the old articles of Confederation, where it was always understood as nothing more than a general caption to the specified powers, and it is a fact that it was preferred in the new instrument for that very reason as less liable than any other to misconstruction.
Liberals and progressives will ALWAYS abuse the General Welfare clause and twist it to mean the Government has the right to meddle in any thing they deem "good" for the people...when that was clearly not the intention of the people who wrote the Constitution.
So the words general welfare must mean something other than a grant of power for Congress to do whatever it pleased. What exactly did the framers mean?
Two words in the clause hold the key. General and common. The phrase simply means that any tax collected must be collected to the benefit of the United States as a whole, not for partial or sectional (i.e. special) interests. The federal government may promote the general welfare, or common good, but it must do so within the scope of the powers delegated and without favoritism.
http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/08/28/the-general-welfare-clause-is-not-about-writing-checks/
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Very happy to see it's working out for you, regarding the medication and drug manufacturer's assistance. :beer:
Thanks DC. But here is the thing. If they hadn't helped me I was done. I wasn't going to beg for my life. And I wasn't going to stick around for the lingering BS either. It had gotten (last October) that bad. I have to thank my wife. She did the legwork to get me treated. I was to the point I just didn't care anymore.
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When a company is holding onto a life saving drug so they can make a 5000% profit (or more) that seems wrong to me. I knew three people that died of what I had. They all basically committed suicide. They gave up because they thought they had no hope for treatment. I doubt they show as a statistic of dying from the disease.
I think the government should be involved in in health care at least to the extent of reducing predatory practices.
When my wife had gall bladder issues, shortly after my employer based HC ended because of the ACA, our GP sent us to a surgeon for a consultation. He treated us like crap and told her to go to the emergency room if she thought she had a problem. Then told us he wasn't going to charge us for wasting his time. So I took her to the ER. They ran some tests and did surgery a few hours later. The damn thing burst during the surgery and they spent some extra time rinsing.
The upshot is this first surgeon sent us a bill later because they called him in for a consult before her surgery. That went over like a brick shithouse. I called that SOB and cursed a blue streak. And never paid him a dime.
Was the drug on patent do you know? Because eventually it would be off patent and in theory their ability to price it that obscenely would disappear.
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So we will apparently disagree. Show me one place in scripture where the soul of a community is saved in the sense of heaven and Hell. The individuals in that community may be saved from eternal suffering, but the community isn't saved because the guys down the street weren't pimping their daughters out, only the guys down the street.The relationship between a person and their God is moral and individual; that between a community and that person legal, determined by the whims of men.
You're kidding, right?
Just for starters, the whole of the Old Testament is about the relationship between God and His Chosen People (taken as an aggregate); the rise and fall of the Nation of Israel is explicitly understood to be predicated on how the community has acted in accord with God's will.
You can't read Paul's letters without realizing that they're addressed to communities of believers, often with messages for how those communities ought to behave.
Certainly the Bible speaks to and for individuals; I know for myself that God pays attention to us individually. But that's not the entirety of it. We're not individuals only: as humans our proper state is to live as part of a community. But you cannot read the Bible as only a lesson for individuals, because it is not meant to be read that way.
Look at what Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 12 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+12%3A12-27&version=ESV) (http://(https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+12%3A12-27&version=ESV)):
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ....
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body....
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
In that last line, Paul makes a careful distinction: the Body of Christ, and the individuals in it. To Paul, and indeed to any member of a church, the Body of Christ -- the community of believers -- is a thing that is different from, and in many ways greater than, the sum of the individuals who may attend services on any given Sunday. God has expectations of His Church, not just the individuals in it. A congregation has a life of its own, and in my experience the Holy Spirit often works through the congregation, not just among individuals.
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Was the drug on patent do you know? Because eventually it would be off patent and in theory their ability to price it that obscenely would disappear.
Yes, it is. I don't know about exclusivity to marketing though. There are many sides to the issue. The high price means more people can't get treated so the disease spreads. It isn't a stand-alone drug. It has to be used in combination with an off-patent drug. An older drug that has been used for years in the older type treatment. 3.5 million known cases of the disease in the U.S. and about 170 million worldwide. Where do you draw the line on price? The same is true for other drugs. I know people who go to the Mexican border to buy a years worth of their medications because of their price.
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Yes, it is. I don't know about exclusivity to marketing though. There are many sides to the issue. The high price means more people can't get treated so the disease spreads. It isn't a stand-alone drug. It has to be used in combination with an off-patent drug. An older drug that has been used for years in the older type treatment. 3.5 million known cases of the disease in the U.S. and about 170 million worldwide. Where do you draw the line on price? The same is true for other drugs. I know people who go to the Mexican border to buy a years worth of their medications because of their price.
Do you know what year it goes off patent?
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As for what "general welfare" means...
Cutting to the chase, the Constitution does not say what it means; and yet it's mentioned as one of the enumerated powers of Congress: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.
The words "general Welfare of the United States" are written down, and Congress is authorized to provide for it; so presumably the words have meaning in and of themselves. You'll notice that Madison didn't actually say what the term means: he just talks around it.
At any rate, Madison himself makes clear that he does not consider the words to be filler, with no meaning whatever -- he would not have written about them at such length in Federalist 41 had he believed so. Madison makes clear that he prefers that the term be interpreted narrowly, on which point I agree with him. But he never clearly defines what the words mean.
And so it is up to somebody to decide what the words mean, and US vs. Butler decided that the authority to decide rests with Congress, as is fitting since that's where that particular power is enumerated. Per Butler,
The clause confers a power separate and distinct from those later enumerated[,] is not restricted in meaning by the grant of them, and Congress consequently has a substantive power to tax and to appropriate, limited only by the requirement that it shall be exercised to provide for the general welfare of the United States. … It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution.
This is reasonable, and it is not contrary in principle to how Madison meant the term to be understood. Madison argued against its use as a means for unrestricted exercise of power; but he did not argue that it should not be used at all.
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@r9etb
We're not individuals only: as humans our proper state is to live as part of a community.
That is too broad of a brush.
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Cutting to the chase, the Constitution does not say what it means; and yet it's mentioned as one of the enumerated powers of Congress: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.
The words "general Welfare of the United States" are written down, and Congress is authorized to provide for it; so presumably the words have meaning in and of themselves. You'll notice that Madison didn't actually say what the term means: he just talks around it.
At any rate, Madison himself makes clear that he does not consider the words to be filler, with no meaning whatever -- he would not have written about them at such length in Federalist 41 had he believed so. Madison makes clear that he prefers that the term be interpreted narrowly, on which point I agree with him. But he never clearly defines what the words mean.
And so it is up to somebody to decide what the words mean, and US vs. Butler decided that the authority to decide rests with Congress, as is fitting since that's where that particular power is enumerated. Per Butler,
This is reasonable, and it is not contrary in principle to how Madison meant the term to be understood. Madison argued against its use as a means for unrestricted exercise of power; but he did not argue that it should not be used at all.
"General welfare" is limited by the enumerated powers given to Congress in the Constitution.
Not sure how much clearer it needs to be.
It's not a blank check to allow the Government to implement cradle to grave policies on the people....like Healthcare.
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Cutting to the chase, the Constitution does not say what it means; and yet it's mentioned as one of the enumerated powers of Congress: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.
The words "general Welfare of the United States" are written down, and Congress is authorized to provide for it; so presumably the words have meaning in and of themselves. You'll notice that Madison didn't actually say what the term means: he just talks around it.
At any rate, Madison himself makes clear that he does not consider the words to be filler, with no meaning whatever -- he would not have written about them at such length in Federalist 41 had he believed so. Madison makes clear that he prefers that the term be interpreted narrowly, on which point I agree with him. But he never clearly defines what the words mean.
And so it is up to somebody to decide what the words mean, and US vs. Butler decided that the authority to decide rests with Congress, as is fitting since that's where that particular power is enumerated. Per Butler,
This is reasonable, and it is not contrary in principle to how Madison meant the term to be understood. Madison argued against its use as a means for unrestricted exercise of power; but he did not argue that it should not be used at all.
Quoted for truth. It is indeed up to the Congress. And in turn, it's up to the people to determine the members of Congress, and to boot those who insist on spending the peoples' money in foolish or wasteful or inappropriate ways.
But Congress's power to provide for the general welfare is perfectly Constitutional. Don't expect the courts to help do the job of reining in profligate spending. That's the task of the voters.
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Lowering prices on drugs may be as simple as reducing the patent term from 12 years to something like 6 years, IMO.
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Lowering prices on drugs may be as simple as reducing the patent term from 12 years to something like 6 years, IMO.
Which will mean it is even more expensive for the first 6 years, or it doesn't get developed at all because the developer can't recover the R&D costs.
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Providing for the General Welfare meant creating an environment in which individuals and trade could flourish, not cradle to grave support for the masses.
Exactly right.
In my view, Social Security was not general welfare, but an unconstitutional retirement gimmie for the folks who were already old and would never pay in as much as they were going to collect. It bought votes, but even more insidiously, it undermined private pensions and savings as well as the tendency for the young in an extended family to look after their elders.
And right again - though I would say it largely prevented private pensions and savings - the withholding often being the margin one might have been able to save.
The founders warned against the people being able to vote themselves benefits from the public coffers, and they were right.
yep.
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"General welfare" is limited by the enumerated powers given to Congress in the Constitution.
Not sure how much clearer it needs to be.
It's not a blank check to allow the Government to implement cradle to grave policies on the people....like Healthcare.
"With respect to the two words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
Constitutional architect James Madison in a letter to James Robertson
"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."
James Madison, 1792
I think he would be the go-to source to find out what the intent was!
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Which will mean it is even more expensive for the first 6 years, or it doesn't get developed at all because the developer can't recover the R&D costs.
What, then, is the point of medicine? Is it to actually help people, or make money? I'm betting money.
There is a ton of money being spent on all aspects of cancer. Do you think there are that many researchers and related people in the BUSINESS of cancer that want to see any cures?
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Which will mean it is even more expensive for the first 6 years, or it doesn't get developed at all because the developer can't recover the R&D costs.
It is indeed a trade-off. Cutting-edge drugs are saving lives - but they are frightfully expensive to develop and bring to market. Patent protection is a means for allowing drug companies to recoup their costs in a predictable way. Changing the rules in midstream will stop much new drug development in its tracks.
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Exactly right. Heads should roll. It wouldn't take very many impeachments before the weasels in black robes would have to shut up. There's hardly been a solitary impeachment since those black coated bastards invented 'penumbras'.
Very true congress can also reign in the courts by shrinking them. The numbers of courts and the justices there on aren't set in stone. FDR packed the courts to get his way, congress could easily unpack them.
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Which will mean it is even more expensive for the first 6 years, or it doesn't get developed at all because the developer can't recover the R&D costs.
:shrug:
Look at how Bigheadfred (or whatever his name is is complaining). Everyone wants life-saving drugs, nobody wants to pay for them.
There has to be a tradeoff here somewhere folks. I know you all cannot believe in Santa Claus.
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You're kidding, right?
Just for starters, the whole of the Old Testament is about the relationship between God and His Chosen People (taken as an aggregate); the rise and fall of the Nation of Israel is explicitly understood to be predicated on how the community has acted in accord with God's will.
a "Church"You can't read Paul's letters without realizing that they're addressed to communities of believers, often with messages for how those communities ought to behave.
Again, a "church". Not the sort of community governed strictly by legal processes, except that the Hebrews could be defined as a theocracy.
We, in case you have noticed are not a theocracy. The "community" with which you have been trying to browbeat me is a secular social construct.Certainly the Bible speaks to and for individuals; I know for myself that God pays attention to us individually. But that's not the entirety of it. We're not individuals only: as humans our proper state is to live as part of a community. But you cannot read the Bible as only a lesson for individuals, because it is not meant to be read that way.
Each individual has their personal relationship with The Almighty. After all, no two individuals have exactly the same experiences through life. While (especially Christians) are encouraged to seek the fellowship of those of like mind in Christ, that is not a demand, and Christians are also encouraged to spread the word, which means going among those who are not.
Look at what Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 12 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+12%3A12-27&version=ESV) (http://(https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+12%3A12-27&version=ESV)):
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ....
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body....
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Now you are throwing religion at me to try to make me assume some secular obligation. Nope, not buying that whole guilt trip. The argument about "community" never entered into a Church Community--otherwise GOVERNMENT would not have taken the role of doling out the fruits of the labors of those who labor to those who WILL not.In that last line, Paul makes a careful distinction: the Body of Christ, and the individuals in it. To Paul, and indeed to any member of a church, the Body of Christ -- the community of believers -- is a thing that is different from, and in many ways greater than, the sum of the individuals who may attend services on any given Sunday. God has expectations of His Church, not just the individuals in it. A congregation has a life of its own, and in my experience the Holy Spirit often works through the congregation, not just among individuals.
You are going to tell me now that the Federal Government is the Body of Christ? God may well have expectations for us to be generous with those who lack what they need, in fact He said so: "As you do for the least of these you do for me."--but He left that choice to the individual, he didn't take at gunpoint, which eliminates that choice.
As I have said, the secular community is not bound by morals but by consensus, by legalities.
It is legal to murder babies in their mother's womb, it is legal to take someone's property without even accusing them of a crime if you are the "community" (government), it is legal to take their home and give it to someone who will put more tax money in the bucket, it is legal to take from those who work and give it to those who won't--there are one hell of a lot of things the "community" does that are legal and far, far from "moral".
Frankly, after all this discussion of Government and governmental entities you have a lot of damned gall to pull religious groups out of the hat and wave them as if they are the same thing. Such is deceit, a lie to cover theft, but that was included, too: Romans 16:18 - For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.
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You are blatantly misrepresenting what the "general welfare" of the nation means.
Yep, general welfare keeps sounding like from each according to their ability to each according to their needs.
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You are going to tell me now that the Federal Government is the Body of Christ?
@Smokin Joe for some people in the country Government has become their religion/God.
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You're kidding, right?
Just for starters, the whole of the Old Testament is about the relationship between God and His Chosen People (taken as an aggregate); the rise and fall of the Nation of Israel is explicitly understood to be predicated on how the community has acted in accord with God's will.
You can't read Paul's letters without realizing that they're addressed to communities of believers, often with messages for how those communities ought to behave.
Certainly the Bible speaks to and for individuals; I know for myself that God pays attention to us individually. But that's not the entirety of it. We're not individuals only: as humans our proper state is to live as part of a community. But you cannot read the Bible as only a lesson for individuals, because it is not meant to be read that way.
Look at what Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 12 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+12%3A12-27&version=ESV) (http://(https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+12%3A12-27&version=ESV)):
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ....
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body....
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
In that last line, Paul makes a careful distinction: the Body of Christ, and the individuals in it. To Paul, and indeed to any member of a church, the Body of Christ -- the community of believers -- is a thing that is different from, and in many ways greater than, the sum of the individuals who may attend services on any given Sunday. God has expectations of His Church, not just the individuals in it. A congregation has a life of its own, and in my experience the Holy Spirit often works through the congregation, not just among individuals.
So in terms of the ACA or it's replacement and such, do we have the right to transfer those responsibilities to unbelievers. I mean we have a moral obligation to supporte our local churches through tithes and offerings; but I don't have the right to go stop people on the street and make them do the same.
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:shrug:
Look at how Bigheadfred (or whatever his name is is complaining). Everyone wants life-saving drugs, nobody wants to pay for them.
There has to be a tradeoff here somewhere folks. I know you all cannot believe in Santa Claus.
This current drug manufacturer didn't invent the drug. They bought the patent.
If you think I'm complaining wait until I start bitching.
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"With respect to the two words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
Constitutional architect James Madison in a letter to James Robertson
"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."
James Madison, 1792
I think he would be the go-to source to find out what the intent was!
Right on the money.
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This current drug manufacturer didn't invent the drug. They bought the patent.
If you think I'm complaining wait until I start bitching.
Right, but somebody still needs to pay for research costs.
I'm with a company that is a CRO (contractual research organization) for Pharmaceutical clients. We do outsourced research for companies. Don't be fooled by the propaganda, these companies pay a pretty penny on research costs.
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You're saying the Constitution doesn't permit Congress to provide for the general welfare?
Nope. Not in the way and manner Central Planners like you view the words 'general welfare'. My view is that of the Founders - and government provision was not one of those attributes afforded the national government.
What's your view of Social Security? Just another Commie plot?
I certainly do not consider FDR to be any kind of Constitutional Conservative. Especially given his admiration of Benito Mussolini's work in Italy.
You are truly this forum's font of mythology.
Coming from this forum's resident Communist/Marxist - that is a massive compliment. Thanks.
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I think he would be the go-to source to find out what the intent was!
@Bigun you would think...and I agree with you BTW...but some people here refuse to listen.
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Right, but somebody still needs to pay for research costs.
I'm with a company that is a CRO (contractual research organization) for Pharmaceutical clients. We do outsourced research for companies. Don't be fooled by the propaganda, these companies pay a pretty penny on research costs.
Right. Someone has to pay your way.
Since everyone is at risk for cancer it behooves everyone to pay something towards its cure. Maybe the government should have a tax for that.
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Right, but somebody still needs to pay for research costs.
I'm with a company that is a CRO (contractual research organization) for Pharmaceutical clients. We do outsourced research for companies. Don't be fooled by the propaganda, these companies pay a pretty penny on research costs.
They also have to cover the cost of a lot of money sucking failures. Like anything else, its a tough business. If they were simply @#$ their customers someone would come along and undercut them. Their's a lot of issues with how the FDA regulates drugs and drags out the research time and cost that play a big factor.
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@Bigun you would think...and I agree with you BTW...but some people here refuse to listen.
I find it interesting Madison's words from The Federalist Papers have no impact on court decisions, yet Trump's words on the campaign trail do. :shrug:
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@Smokin Joe for some people in the country Government has become their religion/God.
Indeed it has.
Even among those who self-identify as Conservatives.
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Right. Someone has to pay your way.
Since everyone is at risk for cancer it behooves everyone to pay something towards its cure. Maybe the government should have a tax for that.
Since everyone is at risk for homelessness it behooves everyone to pay something towards public housing.
Since everyone is at risk for hunger it behooves everyone to pay something towards food stamps.
Since everyone is at risk for bankruptcy it behooves everyone to pay something towards SSDI.
Since everyone gets old it behooves everyone to pay something towards Social Security.
Since everyone lives in the environment it behooves everyone to pay something towards the EPA
Since everyone eats it behooves everyone to pay something towards the FDA
Since everyone needs a job it behooves everyone to pay something towards the Department of Education.
See the pattern here?
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I find it interesting Madison's words from The Federalist Papers have no impact on court decisions, yet Trump's words on the campaign trail do. :shrug:
Just shows how far we have gone down the slippery slope to hell!
We didn't have much of a problem with rogue courts for so long as any founder still lived because they knew what the proper relationship was!
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Right. Someone has to pay your way.
Since everyone is at risk for cancer it behooves everyone to pay something towards its cure. Maybe the government should have a tax for that.
Everyone is at risk of starvation. Does that mean it behooves everyone to pay something towards it's provision for everyone? Empowering government to tax for that?
Oh.... we already have that. It's where EBT cards come from.
Where welfare constituents drive better cars and have better name brand shoes than anything I can afford because their housing and food is paid for by via confiscatory taxation by the government that panders to them for votes to stay in power for perpetuity.
Where does it end?
It doesn't. We just become the Soviet Union and we lie to ourselves that we are a Republic.
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Just shows how far we have gone down the slippery slope to hell!
We've butted heads Bigun but I admire your commitment to liberty and freedom.
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We've butted heads Bigun but I admire your commitment to liberty and freedom.
Thank you! It's all right there before us written down in plain English language! All WE have to do is INSIST on using it again!
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Where does it end?
"Sooner or later you run out of other people's money." -Maggie Thatcher
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What, then, is the point of medicine? Is it to actually help people, or make money? I'm betting money.
There is a ton of money being spent on all aspects of cancer. Do you think there are that many researchers and related people in the BUSINESS of cancer that want to see any cures?
Well, I'm a multiple-time survivor, so from what I can personally attest to: yes, they do want to see cures.
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"Sooner or later you run out of other people's money." -Maggie Thatcher
The founders never intended the American government to have the power to print and borrow money like it does. I think they'd be appalled just by ability to spend much less what we use it for.
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"General welfare" is limited by the enumerated powers given to Congress in the Constitution.
Not sure how much clearer it needs to be.
You cannot make that claim: the meaning of the term is not defined by the Constitution, and in the quotes you posted, neither Madison nor Hamilton clarified the its exact meaning. At most they talked about its scope, as they saw it -- and for what it's worth, Hamilton and Madison disagreed on that point.
If we look at it using common-sense, the term "general Welfare of the United States" is probably best interpreted as "things that need to get done that are not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution." Things like allocating money for the Louisiana Purchase, say -- also not explicitly among the enumerated powers. But it's easy to argue that it promoted "the general Welfare."
The scope is limited in one sense: money raised to further "the general Welfare" must be done to the benefit of "the United States," as opposed to a particular state, or to benefit specific individuals. It can be argued that money to fund Kudlow's idea falls under that clause; and in Butler the USSC ruled that Congress gets to decide what the phrase actually means.
I really don't think you have a valid argument.
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You cannot make that claim: the meaning of the term is not defined by the Constitution, and in the quotes you posted, neither Madison nor Hamilton clarified the its exact meaning. At most they talked about its scope, as they saw it -- and for what it's worth, Hamilton and Madison disagreed on that point.
If we look at it using common-sense, the term "general Welfare of the United States" is probably best interpreted as "things that need to get done that are not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution." Things like allocating money for the Louisiana Purchase, say -- also not explicitly among the enumerated powers. But it's easy to argue that it promoted "the general Welfare."
The scope is limited in one sense: money raised to further "the general Welfare" must be done to the benefit of "the United States," as opposed to a particular state, or to benefit specific individuals. It can be argued that money to fund Kudlow's idea falls under that clause; and in Butler the USSC ruled that Congress gets to decide what the phrase actually means.
I really don't think you have a valid argument.
Did you read the Madison quotes above? Seems to me if you want to figure out the meaning you should ask the authors.
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The scope is limited in one sense: money raised to further "the general Welfare" must be done to the benefit of "the United States," as opposed to a particular state, or to benefit specific individuals. It can be argued that money to fund Kudlow's idea falls under that clause; and in Butler the USSC ruled that Congress gets to decide what the phrase actually means.
The bastardization of 'general welfare' as applied is that Congress and the government specifically portion benefit to particular groups and individuals that make up their constituencies. They then pander to those they make provision via promising more benefits at taxpayer expense or threatening them with elimination of provision if they are not voted for.
We're bankrupt and broke - and all this wrestling over the meaning of words that you think are not clear and can be interpreted the way the Leftists in Congress want them to mean is irrelevant when the currency becomes worthless because our debt crushes everything that the Welfare Statists have piled up into the tens of trillions that this people have no means or ability to pay down.
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Did you read the Madison quotes above? Seems to me if you want to figure out the meaning you should ask the authors.
@Idaho_Cowboy
The trolls are never going to agree with us no matter how much you argue with them! Better to just stop feeding them IMHO!
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Did you read the Madison quotes above? Seems to me if you want to figure out the meaning you should ask the authors.
I did read them. You will notice that he doesn't actually say what the phrase means. He says it's doesn't confer unlimited powers, but that's clear from the wording itself.
At any rate, this particular argument was decided over 80 years ago by the branch of government whose purpose is to interpret Constutitional meaning where it is not clear.
The USSC said that it is within Congress' discretion to decide whether or not something falls within the scope of "general Welfare."
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The bastardization of 'general welfare' as applied is that Congress and the government specifically portion benefit to particular groups and individuals that make up their constituencies. They then pander to those they make provision via promising more benefits at taxpayer expense or threatening them with elimination of provision if they are not voted for.
There is no doubt that Congress has abused its authority in just the ways you mentioned.
And were not held accountable for doing so.
Whose fault is that?
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I did read them. You will notice that he doesn't actually say what the phrase means. He says it's doesn't confer unlimited powers, but that's clear from the wording itself.
At any rate, this particular argument was decided over 80 years ago by the branch of government whose purpose is to interpret Constutitional meaning where it is not clear.
The USSC said that it is within Congress' discretion to decide whether or not something falls within the scope of "general Welfare."
Would you be so kind as to point out for me the word or phrase in the constitution that grants the courts the power to "interpret" the constitution? I have not been able to find that and would thank you kindly if you would enlighten me as to its whereabouts.
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@r9etb
We're not individuals only: as humans our proper state is to live as part of a community.
That is too broad of a brush.
How so?
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Would you be so kind as to point out for me the word or phrase in the constitution that grants the courts the power to "interpret" the constitution? I have not been able to find that and would thank you kindly if you would enlighten me as to its whereabouts.
Sigh. We're not going back to Marbury vs. Madison. You've already lost that one. Badly.
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"General welfare" applies to the federal government. It does not apply to individuals.
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Would you be so kind as to point out for me the word or phrase in the constitution that grants the courts the power to "interpret" the constitution? I have not been able to find that and would thank you kindly if you would enlighten me as to its whereabouts.
Well the USSC claimed that power in Marbury vs Madison. It was hotly contested back in its day. The problem is it undercuts the checks and balances of the government. All 3 branches have a responsibility to undo and refuse unconstitutional laws. "Oh well, the court said it's okay," should never have been modus operandi but then again staunch anti-federalist are very rare in modern times.
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Sigh. We're not going back to Marbury vs. Madison. You've already lost that one. Badly.
ONLY in YOUR fevered mind! Nowhere else!
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Well the USSC claimed that power in Marbury vs Madison. It was hotly contested back in its day. The problem is it undercuts the checks and balances of the government. All 3 branches have a responsibility to undo and refuse unconstitutional laws. "Oh well, the court said it's okay," should never have been modus operandi but then again staunch anti-federalist are very rare in modern times.
Actually it wasn't all that hotly contested because many if not most of the founders were still around back then and they merely laughed at John Marshal's attempt to usurp powers not granted!
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"General welfare" applies to the federal government. It does not apply to individuals.
To be more clear, the phrase is, "general Welfare of the United States." As such, it does not apply to the federal government (I'm not quite sure what you mean by that). It refers to actions Congress may take that lie outside the purview of a single state, and which in some way confers a benefit to all of the states.
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ONLY in YOUR fevered mind! Nowhere else!
Just to remind you: Marbury vs. Madison has been accepted and applied for over 200 years.
For you to pretend that it doesn't really apply, is not rational.
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Actually it wasn't all that hotly contested because many if not most of the founders were still around back then and they merely laughed at John Marshal's attempt to usurp powers not granted!
Patrick Henry had a conniption fit. The ability of the court to overreach its powers was one of the items the anti-federalist were forced to compromise on; they warned it would happen and it did.
Andrew Jackson famously showed his contempt for the courts ability to define and re-define the constitution.
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Just to remind you: Marbury vs. Madison has been accepted and applied for over 200 years.
For you to pretend that it doesn't really apply, is not rational.
I asked for you to show me where the constitution grants the power of judicial review to the courts! I note that you have not done so and I know why! Because you can't! It isn't there!
James Madison himself told them what they could do with their decision in that case didn't he? And he prevailed! Mr. Marbury NEVER got the commission he sued for did he?
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Well the USSC claimed that power in Marbury vs Madison. It was hotly contested back in its day. The problem is it undercuts the checks and balances of the government. All 3 branches have a responsibility to undo and refuse unconstitutional laws.
You're wrong about that. It does not undercut the checks and balances, it actually establishes the terms of checks and balances for the Judicial Branch. The Constitution doesn't actually say how the Court should respond to laws that are obviously counter to the terms of the Constitution. Without the principle of Judicial Review, Congress could pass, and the president could sign, any number of laws that explicitly violate the Constitution. Without Marbury vs. Madison, the court's ability to void unconstitutional actions would not exist.
See the explanation in Marbury vs. Madison itself, or in the numerous analyses of the decision.
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I asked for you to show me where the constitution grants the power of judicial review to the courts! I note that you have not done so and I know why! Because you can't! It isn't there!
James Madison himself told them what they could do with their decision in that case didn't he? And he prevailed! Mr. Marbury NEVER got the commission he sued for did he?
Whatever. You're irrational on this topic.
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Patrick Henry had a conniption fit. The ability of the court to overreach its powers was one of the items the anti-federalist were forced to compromise on; they warned it would happen and it did.
Andrew Jackson famously showed his contempt for the courts ability to define and re-define the constitution.
All true! As is what I said!
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You're wrong about that. It does not undercut the checks and balances, it actually establishes the terms of checks and balances for the Judicial Branch. The Constitution doesn't actually say how the Court should respond to laws that are obviously counter to the terms of the Constitution. Without the principle of Judicial Review, Congress could pass, and the president could sign, any number of laws that explicitly violate the Constitution. Without Marbury vs. Madison, the court's ability to void unconstitutional actions would not exist.
See the explanation in Marbury vs. Madison itself, or in the numerous analyses of the decision.
Trust me I read them. Judicial overreach was one of my yuge research papers back in college political science class. Some of the problems stem from the God like status people think Marbury vs. Madison granted the court. Just because the court deems something constitutional doesn't make it so.
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Whatever. You're irrational on this topic.
Someone is irrational to be sure! And it isn't me!
If the founders had intended for the court to have that power I'm quite sure they would have said so!
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Trust me I read them. Judicial overreach was one of my yuge research papers back in college political science class. Some of the problems stem from the God like status people think Marbury vs. Madison granted the court. Just because the court deems something constitutional doesn't make it so.
The court can declare that lead is now gold but it still won't be so!
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Trust me I read them. Judicial overreach was one of my yuge research papers back in college political science class. Some of the problems stem from the God like status people think Marbury vs. Madison granted the court. Just because the court deems something constitutional doesn't make it so.
So, as it applies to the topic of this thread. Suppose Marbury vs. Madison never happened.
Now suppose that Congress passes a law that creates a tax to fund something to promote "the general Welfare," however defined. And the president duly signs the law.
Now you stand up and say, "Congress doesn't have the authority to do that!" But your Congressman, and the majority who voted for him, say Congress does have that authority.
So what are your options? A lawsuit is impossible: because Marbury vs. Madison never occurred, the courts have no choice but to say, "well, it certainly seems you're right, but we have no power to rule on such matters. So sorry."
It's an untenable situation: without judicial review, there are no effective checks and balances when Congress and the president team up to do things that are contrary to the Constitution. Who other than the courts can intervene in such cases?
Seriously: whatever the faults of modern jurisprudence, judicial review is a good thing.
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If the founders had intended for the court to have that power I'm quite sure they would have said so!
They did! See Section 2 of Article III of the Constitution - The second paragraph grants the SCOTUS "appellate jurisdiction" over matters within the scope of the federal courts. "Appellate jurisdiction" means the authority to review matters decided by courts having "original jurisdiction", and necessarily includes the authority to interpret and construe the applicable law.
So, even without regard to Marbury, the text of the Constitution itself vests the SCOTUS with the authority to interpret the law. It's a necessary ingredient of any court's "appellate" jurisdiction.
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So, it would appear the consensus we've reached on this thread is:
(https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/59255547/pee-wee-herman-i-know-you-are-but-what-am-i.jpg)
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They did! See Section 2 of Article III of the Constitution - The second paragraph grants the SCOTUS "appellate jurisdiction" over matters within the scope of the federal courts. "Appellate jurisdiction" means the authority to review matters decided by courts having "original jurisdiction", and necessarily includes the authority to interpret and construe the applicable law.
So, even without regard to Marbury, the text of the Constitution itself vests the SCOTUS with the authority to interpret the law. It's a necessary ingredient of any court's "appellate" jurisdiction.
Can you believe we're actually arguing this?
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So, it would appear the consensus we've reached on this thread is:
(https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/59255547/pee-wee-herman-i-know-you-are-but-what-am-i.jpg)
I think it's finally run its course. It's been fun though.
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They did! See Section 2 of Article III of the Constitution - The second paragraph grants the SCOTUS "appellate jurisdiction" over matters within the scope of the federal courts. "Appellate jurisdiction" means the authority to review matters decided by courts having "original jurisdiction", and necessarily includes the authority to interpret and construe the applicable law.
You were so close to being right...and then messed it up with your own interpretation of what appellate jurisdiction means.
Appellate jurisdiction is the power of a higher court to review decisions and change outcomes of decisions of lower courts. Most appellate jurisdiction is legislatively created, and may consist of appeals by leave of the appellate court or by right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellate_jurisdiction
So, even without regard to Marbury, the text of the Constitution itself vests the SCOTUS with the authority to interpret the law. It's a necessary ingredient of any court's "appellate" jurisdiction.
Again you are trying to superimpose your own opinion of what you think it means versus what it really means.
The jurisdiction you are so incorrectly trying to hang your hat on was a method to allow someone who thinks they got an unfair shake in a court decision to have a higher court...a "court of appeals"...review the evidence...witness testimony...motions that were granted or not granted to see if the ruling of the lower court followed the laws of the place where the court case took place.
It did not give the SCOTUS carte blanche to "interpret the law". The do have the power to decide everything I just described above and to make sure that the rulings fall within the boundaries of the Constitution...but in no way were they or any appeals court every set up to "interpret the law"...or the Constitution for that matter.
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Again you are trying to superimpose your own opinion of what you think it means versus what it really means.
And so you're the authority as to what it "really" means? Spare me your arrogance and condescension.
The appellate jurisdiction of the SCOTUS is specifically conferred by the Constitution, and the SCOTUS's ability to interpret the law has been settled, following Marbury, for nearly 200 years.
There is no controversy here, outside of the fever swamps.
Why should I disregard the clear authority enunciated in Marbury based on the say-so of some guy in his pajamas?
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It did not give the SCOTUS carte blanche to "interpret the law". The do have the power to decide everything I just described above and to make sure that the rulings fall within the boundaries of the Constitution...but in no way were they or any appeals court every set up to "interpret the law"...or the Constitution for that matter.
Don't agree with you on this. The Judicial branch interprets law. That is their function.
I will say that the framers left out anything saying that the USSC is the law of the land for good reason, they were as concerned with judicial overreach as we are today.
Imagine a worse case scenario for Judicial overreach:
1) USSC makes some interpretation that defies common sense and logic
2) Congress moves to impeach USSC justice
3) USSC declares impeachment unconstitutional
4) People try to elect anti-USSC judges
5) USSC declares those elections unconstitutional
6) and so on and so forth
Now you may laugh at me but this kind of thing happens in Venezuela on a daily basis, where the courts are stacked with Marduro cronies.
What happens when USSC declares taht illegals have the right to vote? Or that citizens of other nations have the right to vote?
What happens when the USSC declares the constitution itself unconstitutional? The electoral college goes agianst the principle of "one man one vote" right? They already ruled that way for state legislatures:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_v._Sims
Lots of what-ifs and hypotheticals, but you cannot place absolute faith in 9 robed humans.
The USSC has made some kooky judgement in years past.
There is a movement to nullify this election. Frankly I'm actually rather nervous about it. I could see liberals leaning on Ginsberg and the wise latina to do God knows what.
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Don't agree with you on this. The Judicial branch interprets law. That is their function.
I will say that the framers left out anything saying that the USSC is the law of the land for good reason, they were as concerned with judicial overreach as we are today.
Imagine a worse case scenario for Judicial overreach:
1) USSC makes some interpretation that defies common sense and logic
2) Congress moves to impeach USSC justice
3) USSC declares impeachment unconstitutional
4) People try to elect anti-USSC judges
5) USSC declares those elections unconstitutional
6) and so on and so forth
Now you may laugh at me but this kind of thing happens in Venezuela on a daily basis, where the courts are stacked with Marduro cronies.
What happens when USSC declares taht illegals have the right to vote? Or that citizens of other nations have the right to vote?
What happens when the USSC declares the constitution itself unconstitutional? The electoral college goes agianst the principle of "one man one vote" right? They already ruled that way for state legislatures:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_v._Sims
Lots of what-ifs and hypotheticals, but you cannot place absolute faith in 9 robed humans.
The USSC has made some kooky judgement in years past.
There is a movement to nullify this election. Frankly I'm actually rather nervous about it. I could see liberals leaning on Ginsberg and the wise latina to do God knows what.
No I get all of that.
What I meant to say is it doesn't give them carte blanche to interpret the Constitution and treat it like it's a living breathing document. I thought I fixed that but I was typing on my BlackBerry at the time.
Because when they attempt to interpret the Constitution...find "rights" that aren't there and stuff like that...you're absolutely correct...we as a country get some very very strange rulings out of that court room.
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And so you're the authority as to what it "really" means? Spare me your arrogance and condescension.
The appellate jurisdiction of the SCOTUS is specifically conferred by the Constitution, and the SCOTUS's ability to interpret the law has been settled, following Marbury, for nearly 200 years.
There is no controversy here, outside of the fever swamps.
Why should I disregard the clear authority enunciated in Marbury based on the say-so of some guy in his pajamas?
Temper, temper....
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No I get all of that.
What I meant to say is it doesn't give them carte blanche to interpret the Constitution and treat it like it's a living breathing document. I thought I fixed that but I was typing on my BlackBerry at the time.
Because when they attempt to interpret the Constitution...find "rights" that aren't there and stuff like that...you're absolutely correct...we as a country get some very very strange rulings out of that court room.
Interpreting the Constitution is inevitable IMO. We have originalists who like to go into the Madison papers and such. The living breathing document I agree with you about. The constitution can become so living and breathing that it's more like a rotting jellyfish being kicked down a beach, amounting to nothing substantial.
We can argue until the cows come home. We need better justices appointed and IMO we may need some amendment against judicial overreach. But such things can backfire too. We need to be careful, if we do end up getting full amendment power. Such things are not to be undertaken lightly.
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Interpreting the Constitution is inevitable IMO. We have originalists who like to go into the Madison papers and such. The living breathing document I agree with you about. The constitution can become so living and breathing that it's more like a rotting jellyfish being kicked down a beach, amounting to nothing substantial.
We can argue until the cows come home. We need better justices appointed and IMO we may need some amendment against judicial overreach. But such things can backfire too. We need to be careful, if we do end up getting full amendment power. Such things are not to be undertaken lightly.
Agree 100%
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Temper, temper....
@Cyber Liberty
I WISH I was in my PJ's today. :silly:
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You wear clothes in bed? How very outre. :tongue2:
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You wear clothes in bed? How very outre. :tongue2:
Yeah but the missus makes me take my boots off...they tend to rip the sheets. :laugh:
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**nononono* I keep telling you. It's heels for ON the bed, flats for IN the bed.
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**nononono* I keep telling you. It's heels for ON the bed, flats for IN the bed.
*writing it down*
I always get the in and on mixed up.
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How so?
The use of the word proper. I object.
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Interpreting the Constitution is inevitable IMO. We have originalists who like to go into the Madison papers and such. The living breathing document I agree with you about. The constitution can become so living and breathing that it's more like a rotting jellyfish being kicked down a beach, amounting to nothing substantial.
We can argue until the cows come home. We need better justices appointed and IMO we may need some amendment against judicial overreach. But such things can backfire too. We need to be careful, if we do end up getting full amendment power. Such things are not to be undertaken lightly.
Absolutely it is! But not by the courts alone! The founders created three separate and distinct branches of or government and each is equal in power. None of them can run ruff shod over any of the others and every member of ALL three are required by the constitution itself to swear an oath of allegiance to the constitution in the performance of their duties! No congressman or senator should EVER vote for anything that he personally thinks to be outside the bounds of the constitution and neither should the president ever sign anything of that nature! The courts should render their verdicts based on the facts and the law only within the bounds placed on them by the constitution and "such regulation as the congress shall make!"
That's it! The end! There is no more to it!
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Absolutely it is! But not by the courts alone! The founders created three separate and distinct branches of or government and each is equal in power. None of them can run ruff shod over any of the others and every member of ALL three are required by the constitution itself to swear an oath of allegiance to the constitution in the performance of their duties! No congressman or senator should EVER vote for anything that he personally thinks to be outside the bounds of the constitution and neither should the president ever sign anything of that nature! The courts should render their verdicts based on the fact sand the law only within the bounds placed on them by the constitution and "such regulation as the congress shall make!"
That's it! The end! There is no more to it!
None of that matters anymore today. The Big Lie has won, and just as the majority of this people now think this country is a pure democracy and that there is this mythical separation of church and state as stated in the First Amendment, the nation believes that the courts are the final arbiters of deciding what is, and is not "legal" and "Constitutional".
This people want to be Soviet, and there is no stopping what they want unless we want to come to bloodshed.
That is the historical nature of all Republics and the history of man and human nature.
Like Ancient Israel, this people do not want liberty - they want license and provision sans any responsibility.
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None of that matters anymore today. The Big Lie has won, and just as the majority of this people now think this country is a pure democracy and that there is this mythical separation of church and state as stated in the First Amendment, the nation believes that the courts are the final arbiters of deciding what is, and is not "legal" and "Constitutional".
This people want to be Soviet, and there is no stopping what they want unless we want to come to bloodshed.
That is the historical nature of all Republics and the history of man and human nature.
Like Ancient Israel, this people do not want liberty - they want license and provision sans any responsibility.
Yes, that's sort of what I said: the contract has been broken.
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Yes, that's sort of what I said: the contract has been broken.
Yup, and it was "The People" who broke it. We've always known we can survive the crooked politicians, it's the crooked electorate that will do us in.
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@INVAR
"they want license and provision sans any responsibility"
And they will only stop at nothing(ness).
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None of that matters anymore today. The Big Lie has won, and just as the majority of this people now think this country is a pure democracy and that there is this mythical separation of church and state as stated in the First Amendment, the nation believes that the courts are the final arbiters of deciding what is, and is not "legal" and "Constitutional".
This people want to be Soviet, and there is no stopping what they want unless we want to come to bloodshed.
That is the historical nature of all Republics and the history of man and human nature.
Like Ancient Israel, this people do not want liberty - they want license and provision sans any responsibility.
@INVAR @Cyber Liberty @Sanguine
You may well be right my friend but I know the TRUTH and for as long as I am able will continue my fight for it! YOU and others can choose to join me or not! It makes little difference as to the path I will follow.
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Yup, and it was "The People" who broke it. We've always known we can survive the crooked politicians, it's the crooked electorate that will do us in.
I'd argue that it was the courts and legislators who broke it.
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@INVAR @Cyber Liberty @Sanguine
You may well be right my friend but I know the TRUTH and for as long as I am able will continue my fight for it! YOU and others can choose to join me or not! It makes little difference as to the path I will follow.
You know where I stand, Bigun.
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You know where I stand, Bigun.
Indeed I do! :patriot:
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@INVAR @Cyber Liberty @Sanguine
You may well be right my friend but I know the TRUTH and for as long as I am able will continue my fight for it! YOU and others can choose to join me or not! It makes little difference as to the path I will follow.
Do I have to stand up, my brother? Or can I have your six while sitting. Either way, you know I'm in.
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I'd argue that it was the courts and legislators who broke it.
I was the courts with the willing assent of the congress.
Read what James Madison wrote in Federalist 47 a portion of which I quote below:
HAVING reviewed the general form of the proposed government and the general mass of power allotted to it, I proceed to examine the particular structure of this government, and the distribution of this mass of power among its constituent parts.
One of the principal objections inculcated by the more respectable adversaries to the Constitution, is its supposed violation of the political maxim, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments ought to be separate and distinct. In the structure of the federal government, no regard, it is said, seems to have been paid to this essential precaution in favor of liberty. The several departments of power are distributed and blended in such a manner as at once to destroy all symmetry and beauty of form, and to expose some of the essential parts of the edifice to the danger of being crushed by the disproportionate weight of other parts.
No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty, than that on which the objection is founded. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. Were the federal Constitution, therefore, really chargeable with the accumulation of power, or with a mixture of powers, having a dangerous tendency to such an accumulation, no further arguments would be necessary to inspire a universal reprobation of the system. I persuade myself, however, that it will be made apparent to every one, that the charge cannot be supported, and that the maxim on which it relies has been totally misconceived and misapplied. In order to form correct ideas on this important subject, it will be proper to investigate the sense in which the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct...
(Emphasis added by poster)
http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa47.htm
@Sanguine @Idaho_Cowboy @Cyber Liberty @EC
What do you think he meant by that?
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@INVAR @Cyber Liberty @Sanguine
You may well be right my friend but I know the TRUTH and for as long as I am able will continue my fight for it! YOU and others can choose to join me or not! It makes little difference as to the path I will follow.
Since you pinged me, I guess you're asking. Of course you know where I stand, Bigun.
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Do I have to stand up, my brother? Or can I have your six while sitting. Either way, you know I'm in.
Either way is fine with me my brother! Can't think of anyone I would rather have on my 6! 888high58888 :beer:
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You know where I stand, Bigun.
Give me liberty or give me death! new gadsen8888 :flag:
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Since you pinged me, I guess you're asking. Of course you know where I stand, Bigun.
Yes I do! And I'm proud to have you along! :patriot: :beer:
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Give me liberty or give me death! new gadsen8888 :flag:
:amen: "Live free or die!" :patriot: :beer:
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I was the courts with the willing assent of the congress.
Read what James Madison wrote in Federalist 47 a portion of which I quote below:
http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa47.htm
@Sanguine @Idaho_Cowboy @Cyber Liberty @EC
What do you think he meant by that?
We are screwed.
While you people are up standing can someone make me a sammich?
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We are screwed.
While you people are up standing can someone make me a sammich?
****slapping 22222frying pan
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We are screwed.
While you people are up standing can someone make me a sammich?
I got your sammich Fred! 22222frying pan
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****slapping 22222frying pan
snicker
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snicker
It's nice knowing my frying pan won't make you die, Fred. :beer:
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Give me liberty or give me death! new gadsen8888 :flag:
:patriot:
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All I know for sure is I am against government intervention in everything I do. I object to the fact that I have to pay taxes that pay for other people's health care and that I have to pay more, a penalty (WTF?), for not having insurance because I can't afford insurance. ALL of my medical expenses are out of pocket. A competitive market would be nice. Maybe lower prices would end some of the "need" for insurance.
If someone decided to burn it all down and start over I can see myself helping with the burning.
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It's nice knowing my frying pan won't make you die, Fred. :beer:
I have a heavily callused head. Plus 2" of solid bone surrounding my brain.
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Easy to see why this thread is on its 17th page... :whistle:
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Easy to see why this thread is on its 17th page... :whistle:
Really? Then could you explain it to me? :laugh:
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All I know for sure is I am against government intervention in everything I do. I object to the fact that I have to pay taxes that pay for other people's health care and that I have to pay more, a penalty (WTF?), for not having insurance because I can't afford insurance. ALL of my medical expenses are out of pocket. A competitive market would be nice. Maybe lower prices would end some of the "need" for insurance.
If someone decided to burn it all down and start over I can see myself helping with the burning.
I'll be right there with you carrying a can of kerosene and a box of matches!
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Really? Then could you explain it to me? :laugh:
I know that it would take another 17 pages to explain it to ME, but I think you're a substantially faster study than I.
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@INVAR @Cyber Liberty @Sanguine
You may well be right my friend but I know the TRUTH and for as long as I am able will continue my fight for it! YOU and others can choose to join me or not! It makes little difference as to the path I will follow.
I have no intention of going quietly into that goodnight.
I do not care if I am the last one standing and 380 million people all march in lockstep to whatever their government demands.
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All I know for sure is I am against government intervention in everything I do. I object to the fact that I have to pay taxes that pay for other people's health care and that I have to pay more, a penalty (WTF?), for not having insurance because I can't afford insurance. ALL of my medical expenses are out of pocket. A competitive market would be nice. Maybe lower prices would end some of the "need" for insurance.
If someone decided to burn it all down and start over I can see myself helping with the burning.
Don't worry Fred. It's a tax not a penalty. That makes it all better.
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I do not care if I am the last one standing and 380 million people all march in lockstep to whatever their government demands.
You realize that in that case, you wouldn't be the last one standing. Those people marching in lockstep: of necessity, they're standing, too. So you may wish to rephrase that.
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I have no intention of going quietly into that goodnight.
I do not care if I am the last one standing and 380 million people all march in lockstep to whatever their government demands.
:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Any ideas on what Mr. Madison was talking about in my quote from Federalist 47 back up thread a ways?
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If someone decided to burn it all down and start over I can see myself helping with the burning.
I believe that we have arrived at the point and time where the corruption is so institutionalized and the system so 'fundamentally transformed' and this people so comfortable with Communism, that is likely to be the only remedy left to protect what is left of our liberty.
Especially given the news coming out of the courts regarding the Second Amendment and which arms you are permitted to have, and not to have.
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Any ideas on what Mr. Madison was talking about in my quote from Federalist 47 back up thread a ways?
He is talking about the very manner in which the current tyranny we suffer under would materialize. He noted the focus was on creating a working federal government and less on protecting and preventing liberty from being infringed and usurped by the very branches they empowered. He saw where tyranny would become institutionalized. The tyranny we have today grown accustomed to and lie to ourselves does not exist because we can go to the polls every couple years to vote for lifetime career members of the oligarchy.
Madison was adroit to understand that when the Judicial, Legislative and Executive branches are essentially run by a single party and influenced by the same ideology - that the very definition of tyranny will have been achieved. That once the government spends it's time accumulating power and authority and inventing new controls and requirements upon the citizenry and nation, that the system itself would become a danger to the existence of liberty itself. Preservation of individual liberty is not, and has not been part of any function of the federal government in over 100 years.
The Beast is self-aware - and it's appetite insatiable and ravenous, and unchecked will devour all wealth, all liberty and all life in a vain attempt to satisfy the insatiable appetites of the rulers that run it and are enriched and empowered by it.
We little people, are just slaves easily manipulated by notions of 'equality', 'fairness' and the lie that government needs to become god in order to achieve utopia for everyone - when the truth is that the rulers have intentions to only benefit a very narrow class of peers among themselves. Basically,they and your neighbors do not trust you or I with liberty and the entire function of government is now predicated on the effort to license, restrict, redistribute and reapportion all things in a manner which safeguards them and their posterity.
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He is talking about the very manner in which the current tyranny we suffer under would materialize. He noted the focus was on creating a working federal government and less on protecting and preventing liberty from being infringed and usurped by the very branches they empowered. He saw where tyranny would become institutionalized. The tyranny we have today grown accustomed to and lie to ourselves does not exist because we can go to the polls every couple years to vote for lifetime career members of the oligarchy.
Madison was adroit to understand that when the Judicial, Legislative and Executive branches are essentially run by a single party and influenced by the same ideology - that the very definition of tyranny will have been achieved. That once the government spends it's time accumulating power and authority and inventing new controls and requirements upon the citizenry and nation, that the system itself would become a danger to the existence of liberty itself. Preservation of individual liberty is not, and has not been part of any function of the federal government in over 100 years.
The Beast is self-aware - and it's appetite insatiable and ravenous, and unchecked will devour all wealth, all liberty and all life in a vain attempt to satisfy the insatiable appetites of the rulers that run it and are enriched and empowered by it.
We little people, are just slaves easily manipulated by notions of 'equality', 'fairness' and the lie that government needs to become god in order to achieve utopia for everyone - when the truth is that the rulers have intentions to only benefit a very narrow class of peers among themselves. Basically,they and your neighbors do not trust you or I with liberty and the entire function of government is now predicated on the effort to license, restrict, redistribute and reapportion all things in a manner which safeguards them and their posterity.
@INVAR
Very good!
He was talking about any group of people with the same interests possessing all the leavers of government. Our government, all there branches, until very recently was composed primarily of just such a group of people. We know them as lawyers! And THAT is a problem!
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Don't worry Fred. It's a tax not a penalty. That makes it all better.
When a fellar works for half a year to pay the crown, you know that something ain't right.
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I have no intention of going quietly into that goodnight.
I do not care if I am the last one standing and 380 million people all march in lockstep to whatever their government demands.
There it is. I have had the uncomfortable privilege of being the only one in the room who was right before. I can handle it if I have to, but it is nice to not be alone.
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There it is. I have had the uncomfortable privilege of being the only one in the room who was right before. I can handle it if I have to, but it is nice to not be alone.
Yep! As the man said; "We can all hang separately or we can all hang together!" :patriot: :beer:
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You realize that in that case, you wouldn't be the last one standing. Those people marching in lockstep: of necessity, they're standing, too. So you may wish to rephrase that.
No, they aren't standing. They're marching. In a highly delineated fashion you approve of.
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We are screwed.
While you people are up standing can someone make me a sammich?
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/ed/3c/d0/ed3cd0cf16d598aff6f3ac9f23dd13a4.jpg)
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(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/ed/3c/d0/ed3cd0cf16d598aff6f3ac9f23dd13a4.jpg)
Who the heck cares????
LET'S EAT!
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Who the heck cares????
LET'S EAT!
Not so fast. I want to see her cut the bun and spread her mayonnaise. Just sayin, Fred.
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Not so fast. I want to see her cut the bun and spread her mayonnaise. Just sayin, Fred.
She is building a Dagwood.
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She is building a Dagwood.
Then I'm pulling up a chair.
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If you look at the stats roughly 34% of people in the U.S. are on medicaid/medicare. 4% on other public type HC. Add another 12% and it it is a Kudlow dream come true. Should be easy enough for the government to do...the government will be paying 50% of healthcare costs. ^-^
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If you look at the stats roughly 34% of people in the U.S. are on medicaid/medicare. 4% on other public type HC. Add another 12% and it it is a Kudlow dream come true. Should be easy enough for the government to do...the government will be paying 50% of healthcare costs. ^-^
Yup. Creeping Socialism. Here we are. Fah-RAY-ed.
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Thanks DC. But here is the thing. If they hadn't helped me I was done. I wasn't going to beg for my life. And I wasn't going to stick around for the lingering BS either. It had gotten (last October) that bad. I have to thank my wife. She did the legwork to get me treated. I was to the point I just didn't care anymore.
Wow! I can understand how you could let that happen...reaching that point.
Be sure to thank your wife from all of us here, that we're able to share this time together. :beer:
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Wow! I can understand how you could let that happen...reaching that point.
Be sure to thank your wife from all of us here, that we're able to share this time together. :beer:
@bigheadfred is one of my best friends on TBR. Many of us were very worried. We've been raising glasses in the Lounge. :beer:
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@bigheadfred is one of my best friends on TBR. Many of us were very worried. We've been raising glasses in the Lounge. :beer:
I appreciate that more than you know.