Here is my dear childhood friend's view of the world, and why we need the government to finish taking over the health care system. Bear in mind, people, that this view is the most common view among the everyday voter today.
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Trouble is, Michael....we have allowed the "free market" system to run its own course, so to speak, until Wall Street and the Auto Industry cried us a river that they would drag the whole u.s. economy down if we didn't bail out their sorry asses.....and they still lavished their failed company ceo's millions of dollars in bonuses etc.
The government gave us social security and medicare and medicaid. They didn't do too bad a job, all things considered, especially for people who did not have a silver spoon in their mouths.
Before those three government run programs, if you didn't have a job or were too sick or old to have a job to pay for health care, food, clothing and shelter, and did not have a large family to take care of you, you were fucked. Just save a few pennies to buy a bullet and put a gun to your head to end your suffering. I guess the one thing that Libertarianism does not do that bothers me is that its members want someone else to take care of people who do not have enough money, or clout, or family to help them out, when they cannot help themselves. You see, brother.....not everyone who is poor, sick, or out of work is a lazy, shiftless, slothful parasite.
Let me go one step further, Michael. If you lost all of your savings, could no longer read, write or speak....or...say...you lost your hearing or your ability to transport yourself from point a to point b, i.e. became crippled....lost your home.....lost your wife....and your kids were unable to help you out.....what the fuck would you do then? Mooch off of your friends or your brothers and sisters?
The only difference between doing that and accepting a "dole" from the government is that your brothers and sisters are related to you within one generation. The other people in the nation with money and who pay taxes are your family, too.
I would be interested to hear what you and John Stoessel have to say about that.
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Of course, John Stossel would have plenty to say about this purblind misunderstanding of the world. Notice that he blames the bailouts on the free market. The *government* bailouts.
Here's what I had to say to him about it. In despair, because the people have no understanding.
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Yes, that damned free-market system, source of all our ills. The free market system that produced *government* bailouts, yes, that one.
Wake up: Medical care in this country is heavily, heavily involved with the government, from tax treatment of coverage in corporations versus individuals, rules and regulations aimed to reduce fraud but reducing flexibility and increasing costs, legal liability laws that likely increase costs and decrease care, state-by-state management of insurance and outlawing of cross-state competition, government funding of research, government tax, legal, and regulatory treatment of research, R&D, medical innovations, and on and on, all designed IN THEORY to 'protect' the public but in reality digging us deeper and deeper into a world in which only special interests across the spectrum have any say.
The answer, of COURSE, is MORE government. Because by God you can never have too much government, can you?
Of course. *you* love Medicare and Medicaid (and Social Security) because they will pay your bills and my bills. They are rapidly bankrupting the country (with the assistance of government bailouts), as anybody with a calculator could have told us back when they were launched -- and DID tell us, but we weren't listening. We're in great shape; our kids are screwed. But never mind, never mind, our problem is that we have too free a free market.
We live in such a contradictory world: We disdain government idiocy and mismanagement and corruption and special interest influence -- yet when something hits US, we instantly want that idiot government to step in our behalf: Pass regulations and rules to protect us from the rich -- hah, think that;s going to work? Tax 'the rich' to pay for things we want but don't want to pay for -- which turns into tax on the middle class because the rich can protect themselves (they own the government!). Punish the rich and powerful -- using the very government the rich and powerful control!
Just ask yourself: Is there any law, rule, regulation, or tax that has any actual value to the regular guy that can be passed in the teeth of the opposition of unions, of the AMA, of the insurance giants, of the bio research firms, of the state politicians, of the federal and state bureaucrats, of the state and federal regulators?
The government has too much power, which is WHY the special interests spend all that money on it -- they are protecting themselves from us, and using government power to stifle competition and to line their pockets. So of COURSE the solution is the government more power! Of course! That will solve everything!
It's just a question of voting The Right People into office, Mr Capra. The good guys whom I agree with will fix everything. Boot out the corrupt and vote in the noble fellows.
This is a level of naivite that defies reason and knowledge.
What is the solution? The Founders knew what is was *not* - it was NOT giving politicians, tax services, and bureaucrats more power. It will be abused. It always is abuse and always will be.
They set up this country to limit the power of the government. It has taken 200 years but they have failed. Every man, woman, and child in this nation thinks their salvation lies simply in getting the government to be on their side, to pay for their welfare, to fend off their enemies, to support their morality, to punish their idea of the wicked. The same government, mind you, that can't keep you safe in your home and on your streets. Which IS a basic government job. But no, let's give them more to do! They fuck up daily, so let's trust our futures and the safety of our children to them!
Jesus. There's no point in even talking about this. If your *starting point* is that capitalism and free markets are ripping us off, and government can be bent to our will to make it all right -- then there's no hope -- not for you, not for the nation, not for our future.
What a waste of a perfectly good country.
mike
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