As I am free to put myself in decades’ worth of debt for higher education, and also free to pay cripplingly high monthly premiums for health care – premiums which rise at a far more rapid rate than my income – I would be interested in exchanging said “freedom” for some other option.
Of course, anyone who is unable to keep up with the wonders of the Invisible Hand has only themselves to blame for being a lazy bum, and deserves the squalor disease filth & decay that come their way.
People who live in polluted areas with a higher risk of cancer should pay more.
So should people with handicapped children. And those born with a terminal disease really shouldn’t be covered - it’s just too expensive.
I live in a country which provides both (up to and including university), I really don’t want to give either up. I agree completely with cliffski.
Of course you would. It’s free, who would say no?!?
On that note, explain to me why everyone else shouldn’t buy me groceries or pay my car payments.
If you can’t see the difference, then you’re really too dense to explain anything to.
The groceries part is a tough one, nobody should have to starve in the richest country in the world. The car payment thing is taking it too far; if nothing else, every city does have public transportation.
Which country do you live in and why didn’t you mention it in your post since you refered to it? What is the cost to the standard of living to offer the things you are talking about? Do you have a large influx of dirt poor and uneducated people streaming into your country that you would have to offer these free benefits to?
I am glad you agree with cliffski but, ummm, he was referring to health care in the post I replied to and not education like you were referring to.
Mine doesn’t.
What? Democracy isn’t about ensuring that everyone is a perfectly educated voter before allowing them to vote. We’d get, like, one voter every year if that were the case. Democracy is about getting as much input as possible before making a decision, and trying to make that decision a compromise that reflects everyone’s wishes. More people voting is an unmitigated good – the less people as a proportion of the population that vote, the more power nutjob fringe groups have. If anything, not voting should be punished with a fine, like in Australia.
Actually, the point is that there isn’t a real difference. The line drawn is arbitrary and based on emotional reasoning.
Lots of cities, including big cities, do NOT have public transit. That’s just a patently false statement. Perhaps we should though. Then you could add that to the list of “free” things we’ll get to enjoy with our higher taxes.
I think this is a ridiculous statement, personally. Random input from ignorant people cannot be considered an unmitigated good. And punishing not voting with a fine goes against the liberal ideals that support democracy in the first place. You should have a right not to vote.
I just don’t understand this idea that voting is inherently good. Apparently the burden of proof is on me to prove that, though. OK, why don’t we let children vote? If input is automatically good, what’s wrong with their input? I think what’s wrong is that they aren’t intellectually and experientially prepared to vote, and so as a society we feel that their input is not welcome in our democratic systems. Fair enough. But how is that different from an adult who is child-like in his/her approach to politics?
Look, I’m not against education. I absolutely think more education would be better overall for voting practices, as long as the education includes some politics. But it doesn’t. Many majors can graduate college with little or not political science, philosophy, history, or whatever subjects add to our political understanding.
All I asked for was some evidence that free university tuition would lead to BETTER voting practices. What I got was something about voting turnout. IF there’s a relation between the two, I’d like to see it, but it will take more to convince me that voting is inherently a good thing than just throwing words like ‘unmitigated’ around.
And to clarify, I never said perfectly educated. That’s an unfair reading of my point. I’m only talking about some minimal understanding. I’m talking about competency here, not full autonomy (with understanding).
Because I’m arrogant enough to think most people here know it by now…
Anyway, I’m from Denmark and the standard of living here is usually rated one of the highest on the planet (by OECD and whoever rates these things). And no, immigration is not that big an issue here (whoever I do put my money/votes where my mouth is and am one of the people in favour of increased immigration as well as going back to spending 1 percent of our GNP on foreign aid… right now it’s a measly 0,7).
I’m
not convinced that immigration is as huge an issue as you guys make it, either. I think the “why should I pay for others”-sentiment expressed vy anto-bunny and others plays a larger role.
If you guys really wanted it, you could afford it.
Jason pointed out, that’s it’s unlikely mexicans will cross the border for health coverage and hey, the money universal healthcare would save you could be used on free education.
If you truly believe this, I’m just going to write you off as morally corrupt instead of dense.
Still not worth explaining stuff to.
Short Story: The parallels between Denmark and the USA are low enough for it to be a very poor comparison when saying ~“My country(Danes) have it so I don’t see why you(USA) can’t do it too”.
Consider the situation in Denmark:
-Small homogeneous population
-Limited immigration from poor countries
-No border with a third world country
-Lower standard of living than the USA
-Very high taxes
-Taking further steps to limit immigration(because if you don’t your magical system goes down the crapper)
Denmark is a rich welfare state. They seem to have there stuff together as they have a relatively high standard of living and significant services. Congrats. It seems like a nice place to live. However it seems clear that if they were put on the border of a third world country they would have to either change there system, limit immigration, or suffer a dramatic decrease in the standard of living.
“Danes are proud of their highly developed welfare safety net, which ensures that all Danes receive free health care and need not fear real poverty. Over the past 20 years, however, the number of Danes living on transfer payments has grown to about 1 million working-age persons (roughly 20% of the population), and the system is beginning to show strains. Health care and care for the elderly particularly have suffered, and the need for welfare reform is increasingly discussed because of the coming sharp decline in the ratio of workers to retirees. More than one-quarter of the labor force is employed in the public sector. Thus 61% of the adult population in Denmark is either dependent on transfer payments, i.e. entitlement benefits, or is employed by government at central, regional or local level (2005). However, as of July 2007 only 3.3% (90,500) of Danes are officially unemployed.”
Did I mention I have a small amount of Danish blood? Can I immigrate? I could live with the lower standard of living if I had job security, free health care, no poverty, and lived in a society with less cross culture bashing(because you know there are less people of diversity). Not having the military from my country off in some corner of the world, not being bagged on by other jealous nations, and having to worry less about being attacked by nut bag terrorists would be a big pluses as well. I could also come on to Internet forums and say bad things about the USA and how my country does it better without mentioning how different the situation is for my country.
The reason people argue for free universal health care and education is that these provide huge mutual benefits for the whole of society. A healthy and educated workforce means a better economy, less crime, and actually lower health care costs (because prevention is cheaper than cure).
Its in societies collective interest that my neighbour is healthy and educated. Its not really of mutual benefit as to whether or not he has a car, or can afford cable TV.
I’m very much a capitalist, but believe in universal health care and education, and subsidised public transport. Ensuring everyone can get to work and be flexible enough to switch jobs also oils the wheels of the economy.
Ah, yes, the classic ‘anyone who disagrees with me is evil’ argument. Well played.
Neither. Because they are not free and people should earn these things, not be given them.
anti-bunny, regardless of any moral objection to paying towards someone else’s healthcare, do you not agree that collectively, everyone in the US is better off if everyone in the US has better health care?
Can’t you see the self-interest argument?
No, for several reasons.
A) you grow the government, which is bad for everyone.
B) you actually DECREASE the quality of healthcare as we’ve seen again and again and again and again in every other country that’s nationalized their medical industries.
and C) you’re taking more of people’s income and taking jobs away from the free market and into government control, which is bad for the economy.
No. The classic ‘if you can’t see the difference between free MMR vaccine and free Porsches, then our views are so far apart that this thread could span countless of pages and we’d be no closer at understanding each other, so why bother’-argument.
Also, what cliffski said.
I believe in the free (but regulated) market. I also believe that liberitarians are batshit insane (and morally corrupt).