From: zursch@whizkid.wpd.sgi.com (Jeffrey B. Zurschmeide)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Statement of President Clinton on Health Care Reform Task Force
Date: 27 Jan 93 21:15:41 GMT
Reply-To: zursch@whizkid.wpd.sgi.com (Jeffrey B. Zurschmeide)
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.

In article <1993Jan27.073404.6712@genie.slhs.udel.edu>, Tim Starr writes:
>Yes, if you mean broken by statist interventions.  No, if you mean it's a
>market failure

Well, gee, I guess you're right. By Libertarian "market" standards it's a runaway
success. Insurance companies collect money and then refuse to provide the 
services they contracted to give. However, by the standard of providing reasonable
health care at a reasonable cost with a minimum of PITA factor, it sucks. 
Your prattle about "statist intervention" is a load of hooey, though.  Why
is it that only privileged brats still in college buy into this crap?  

>Nonsense!  Coke dealers provide much better service.  Medical insurers have
>been wrecked by Blue Cross and Blue Shield since the 1940s, and are only
>beginning to recover.

Oh please, someone give me a hanky while I weep for the poor selfless medical
insurance companies....the CEO's children are going without shoes for another
cold winter....

>For doing nothing more than pushing paper around in some bureaucracy in the
>name of those made too poor to afford medical care by taxes and regulations...

Heh. Minimum wage jobs at 40 hours per week will allow you to have gross 
wages of about $7K per year. Are you seriously suggesting that the minimal 
taxes (if any) paid by someone in that condition are what keeps them poor? 
You need to get off campus more, boy. 

>}But even if you achieve 
>}some kind of Libertarian/Feudal utopia, you'll pay for security
>}*from* the poor if you don't pay for security *for* the poor. Louis
>}XVI found that out the hard way....   

>State medicine bears far more resemblance to pre-Revolutionary France than
>would a free market.

Ah yes, the free market, that wonderful bright sun-shiny Libertarian world 
where doctors skip laughing through the streets because they have the 
opportunity to perform selfless acts for the poor?  Yah right. I've been
around this particular mulberry bush with libertoids before, and I know
where it leads. Some kid living on daddy's money at college saying 'but 
there's never *really* been any *true* free market society before, so you
see it *will* work this way. *Everybody* will be rich and the rich people 
will provide all these jobs and you and me can start up a car company 
and compete with GM and Ford and get rich. No *really*, I read it in 
a book and it will work!' 

>Nope, and you certaintly aren't the only one who doesn't pay enough attention
>to get it, either.

I get it just fine. It's a philosophy for people who can't see past the end of their
nose, and who think that if they didn't have to pay taxes, they could afford 
a new Beemer this year. I've never met a Libertarian who could see the forest
of human society for the trees.  I've been discussing these issues since you were
in grade school, Timmy, and the whine never changes. "I don't *wanna* pay taxes
for the poor. I mean, they're poor cuz they're stupid! They should have gotten 
parents like mine..." 

Perhaps when you get out into the real world, you'll come to understand that
there's realpolitik out here. And beyond that, you may come to an understanding
that you have enough stuff and that kicking in for the common good, if only to 
keep people off the steam grates and not suffering, is not such a great tragedy. 
If you gain some understanding of human history, you might understand that
even if someone is poor because they're lazy and stupid, it might be better to 
keep them fed and housed rather than to have to live behind a locked gate, lest
that person (so very very very inferior to you) should decide to inflict some 
coercion on your skull in order to obtain your stereo. 

Seriously, imagine the full ramifications of a Libertarian society. Ok, you pay 
your toll for the roads to get to work and you pay your neighborhood fees
for fire service and you agree to abide by all the rules that the majority of the
stockholders of your neighborhood housing complex set, and you pay your
fees for police protection and you avoid those areas where people can't afford
police protection....and you pay for your power service....whatever they ask for,
because you really don't have a choice and it's a totally free market. 

All in all, this "libertarian" freedom sounds to me like the freedom to be under
house arrest, running back and forth to work from locked gate to locked gate. 
There's an economy of scale for social services. It makes sense for we, as a nation,
to band together to provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare
and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. Your idea of
"freedom" is somewhat juvenile. It's the freedom of "It's my house so I get to make
the rules and rule #1 is that *you* can't win any games!" - Real freedom (which we
still need to work on in this country, make no mistake) has to do with realistic 
opportunity, freedom to be what you want to be without fear of recrimination,
either physical or economic, a realistic shot at an education, and a reasonable
expectation that you can go about the ordinary business of life and trust what
you get. This, for Libertarians who are scrambling to their keyboards to tout 
the free market, requires such organizations as the FDA, the various medical
licensing boards, the people who license contractors, the Dept. of Transportation,
the NRC, (Do you *really* want people motivated solely by profit to have a free
hand in building nuclear reactors? Are You Out Of Your Mind?) and a host of others.   

>Ever been audited?  Ever had your property seized?  Ever had your children
>shot by statists?  Many have, and these victims of the policies you support
>are real, numerous, innocent, and unnecessary.

Nope, I've never been audited. I'm sure it's not pleasant and I'd be the first to
vote to reform the IRS.  Nope, I've never had my property seized and I'd be the
first to vote to reform the DEA. Nope, I don't have children, but I can't imagine 
that it would any worse if they were shot by gang members (selfless businesspeople
bringing Libertarian society to their neighborhoods) or by the police. 

Again, you'd think we were living under Maoism or Stalinism to hear these
people talk.....don't you have any sense of perspective or relative importance? 
You talk as though the first time caveman Og and Thag voted and told caveman
Gog that he couldn't shit in the drinking pool any more that the specter of 
Statism rose up and spat Nicolai Ceausescu full-grown onto the planet! 

This is why you and your ilk will always be rattling around the lunatic fringes
of political dialogue. You have no sense of proportion or of the basic 
requisites of civilization. 

I'll sit here and listen to the dreary tirades while all the net.libertoids call 
me a brownshirt and all the other insults in the calendar. The fact is that 
I'm what you might call a Clinton Republican. There's a lot of reasonable
stuff to be gleaned from the Libernuts. For example, the idea that an adult
ought to be able to have sex with another consenting adult without state
interference or should be able to make brownies with any herbaceous substance
found growing in the yard....however, making the jump from those laudable
ideas to "let's abolish public roads and government-printed money" is 
something that should raise a warning flag in a well-balanced mind. 

Like any other extremist party, the Libertarians are a bunch of clowns, imho.  

>"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
>oneself and others." - Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire

I'm doing my best....

JZ
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc