On Jun 27, 6:57Â am, Amanda Reid
arvig.net> wrote:> On Jun 26, 2:59 am, Dale Houstman
skypoint.com> wrote:
>
>
>>> Amanda Reid wrote:
>>> On Jun 25, 7:45 pm, "ggamble"
you.net> wrote:>
>>>>So far, you have: Dale, Blue and myself (all of us at that far end of the
>>>>curmudgeon scale) more or less enthusiastically endorsing Obama; Jeanne and
>>>>Karla uh, hating Obama, but not saying whether they'll vote, not vote, or
>>>>vote for someone else; and I'm not quite sure where Dennis stands.
>
>>> I stand foursquare before you to stand behind you.
>>> Â I wholeheartedly endorse education for the intelligent and stupidity
>>> for the stupid -- it's /so/ much cheaper in the short run, and /
>>> infinitely/ cheaper than a car designed by an enginer who can't even
>>> spell it.
>>> Â Not to mention a "government."
>>> Â I am a strong proponent of National Insurance -- or State Fume,
>>> American Formaldehyde, Prude Dental, or small lizards -- provided the
>>> choice to insure is up to the insured, and not up to a little boy (or
>>> girl, let's be Fair) with a Degree in coc... ah, Political "Science."
>>> Â I am absolutely for Universal Socialised Medicine -- the kind /
>>> everybody/ can get out of a bottle for $3.95 for 500 tablets at Wal-
>>> Mart or $10.95 a liter at Happy Harry's.
>>> Â d00d, it don't get no more social than that.
>
>> The reason "socialized medicine" works is precisely due to what even
>> Newt Gingrich (in one of his many unguarded moments) said: it provides
>> the largest possible pool of participants - everyone.
>
> As with all mandatory "insurance," "socialised" medicine rewards the
> chronically sick (or hypochondriac) at the expense of the well -- just
> another resentful proposal by the bottom of the gene pool to eat their
> betters.
>
>> "Opting out" is a
>> recipe for disaster. It isn't so strange or foreign - this "socialist"
>> thing - society provides many services using exactly the same formula:
>> police, firemen, transportation, education. Why? Because a real
>> civilization realizes that some things are best shared, and that it
>> behooves some of us to sacrifice a little so that many of us can have a
>> lot, and - what's more - the same.
>
> How very droll. Â Next (cf. Second Thermogoddamics or the psychopathy
> of protestantism), you'll be insisting that it "behooves" "some of us"
> to sacrifice /everything/ so that many of you can have just a little
> of...
> Â Oh.
> Â Wait.
> Â Right over here is $4.00 gasoline, right over here is $3.33
> hamburger (in the bulk pack; the one-pounder is $3.59/pound).
> Â And right over there is Arlington National Cemetery.
>
>> I'm afraid your formula is no more
>> than glib...Allowing someone whose house hasn't burnt (yet), or someone
>> who hasn't been mugged (yet), to "opt out" of paying for those services
>
> What "services" are you talking about?
> Â I have yet to be mugged by a private citizen, whereas I've been
> mugged five times by "police" on the "orders" of minors and three
> times on the "orders" of servants.
> Â As for a fire "department," I've put out more public fires for them
> (five) than they've put out for me (none).
>
>> just because they "feel lucky" renders the service useless for those who
>> are not so lucky - which might include them in the future.
>
> BTW, how did "police" invade a discussion that was about "insurance"?
> Â Are you actually /admitting/ that "police" are "insurance" for the
> bottom of the gene pool only -- i.e., for "police" and their priests?
>
>
>
>> The "rugged individualist" while an enduring and often endearing
>> caricature of an American type, is essentially a myth,
>
> Poor little protestant. Â Nobody can "make" /you/ learn anything, can
> they.
> Â Oh, the Powower.
>
>> and - I think -
>> basically a damaging one in the long haul. The original settlers were
>> not "rugged individualists," the West wasn't (tamed/slaughtered) by
>> "rugged individualists" and not much else on a civilization level was
>> done by "rugged individualists":
>
> Penicillin, smallpox vaccine, antisepsis, Sopwith Camel, Â Ryan "Spirit
> of St. Louis," Wright Cyclone, Fifth Symphony (Beethoven, Sibelius,
> Mahler, Shubert, Haydn, Mozart, Tchaikovsky), Drake's Folly (oil
> well), Fulton's Folly (steamboat), Otto's engine, Watt's engine,
> Faraday's motor, vulcanised rubber, light bulb, record player,
> Macintosh, Zilog (designer of the first four Intels), P-51 (Edgar
> Schmued, 30 days from demand specification to first flight), Clarence
> Birdseye, Isaac Stern, William Shakespeare, Vladimir Horowitz, Paul
> Simon, John Moses Browning, Samuel Colt, Ransom E. Olds, Robert Frost,
> Robert Schockley, Lee DeForrest, Sidney Camm, R.J. Mitchell, Margaret
> Mead, L.S.B. Leakey, Pierre Rodin, Konrad Lorenz, Joseph Campbell,
> Malcomb Campbell...
>
> ...um... oya, Prometheus.
>
> You bore me, liver-picker.
> Â Remember the Alamo, but only if you want a cheap rental.
>
>> enacting a society-wide healthcare
>> system will not preclude a future Johnny Cowboy from thinking individual
>> thoughts - it will just provide a modicum of security and wellbeing in
>> which Johnny Cowboy can live out his fantasies of "roaming the purple
>> sage"...
>
> Do that a lot, do you. Â Or are you too chicken even to have the
> fantasy without a lot of CGI help?
>
>
>
>> dmh
>
> Trouble is that human beings do not resurrect ("give birth to") human
> beings.
> Â Human beings resurrect lesser cannibal rug-maggots.
> Â (So do lesser cannibal rug-maggots, who can breed without ever
> growing up, indeed without ever getting all the way through the First
> Axiom of being, or why you have only "five senses.")
> Â Empty tubes of warm Spam with a sucker on one end and a crapper on
> the other.
> Â It is so gratifying to see that you have yet to figure out which end
> of the tube is which.
> Â And at your age...
>
> Your problem is that /nobody/ inherits civilisation.
> Â You inherit the /ruins/ of civilisation, beginning with yourself.
> Â And you can't afford the heating bill of either one.
> Â And this terrifies you.
> Â And so, because you are having a *feeling*, you offer to shoot up
> the playground...
>
> Oh. Â Wait. Â That would take a "rugged individualist," wouldn't it.
> Â You offer to /"authorise"/ your boyfriends to shoot up the
> playground.
Amanda,
I recognized the poet after I saw a red leaf carrier as leopards do
not change spots. But then I've been a Carlin fan and his death
slowed me a tad.
I do not object to Vets receiving subsidies which ensure they
continue to exist and have medical care because they earned it.
I'd prefer that all have access to health care without the insurance
company milking the system, that people could purchase drugs
without enriching lobbyists for the pharma companies such as
the VA has been able to do wherein Vets do not need to mortgage
their homes to cover their meds, for example. I use Kaiser, an HMO,
and the monthly price seems fair and I benefit from a group deal
that provided my spouse a pacemaker ago, meaning payments
since 1982 were recouped the instant they installed it and fair
drug and visit costs since then are, luckily, affordable. A modest
monthly income does not mean we must do without to stay alive.
Many others are not so lucky, it happens. I'd prefer a health care
system which others need not bankrupt themselves to use.
btw am reading "Survival of the Sickest" by Dr. Sharon Moalem
who is at his wittiest describing the value of bleeding of old
as a iron excess and rusting prevenitive which reminds me of you.
We who muddle along between maladies and medications oft
wonder why humans evolved so. You provide the information
and the wry observations and remind us to laugh more.
Thank you,
Jeanne
