There was a Reader's Digest article that touched on it a while ago (not this year).  Maybe it was featured in That's Outrageous or maybe it was it's own article.  I'll see if I can find it.

I have to admit, I really haven't read it very far. I established it wouldn't have any impact on me personally (so I don't have to change my lifestyle in anyway to adjust), but going any further is either going to make me say "okay. Hurrah." or infuriate me.

I have to ask what grounds are they going to try and have this law in its entirety declared unconstitutional?

The vote was internal procedure the Consitutional mandate was followed to the letter and how they voted is not an issue they can vote for a law, add the "Deem and pass" in it and effectively they voted for the final bill. As required. And it was signed. Parlimentary procedures over the demand both houses vote and its signed is left to the discretion of the Congress. That is not a Federal Court matter how they decided the bill and vote on it they did so the Consitution was properly respected, in the legal mandates perhaps not in spirit.

Personal mandates there are precedents for that on private citizens. The first seated Congress passed one measure as example and this included Founding Fathers big time. They mandated under Federal Law all men who were qualified for the state militias have ,paid for on their own, a musket and powder and ammunition (50 balls) and a backpack if they could afford these items. This was outside their authority and should be a state matter but the Federal government made that law anyway. Or be fined. Is health care any different now? An old precendent under the Founding Fathers clearly shows they had the intent to use said government for what needed to be done, and they wrote and voted on the document that is a clear matter to me.

The rest is perfectly legal including taxes for NOT having insurance, they can tax anyway they want its in both the original Consitution for businesses and in the amendments for citizens. Medicaid is a join program they can mandate anything there and states can opt out its voluntary or decide to stay in and accept the new rules.

So there is no way this will all be taken out in the courts there are no grounds, most legal experts say there are no grounds so its a done deal. Unless the Congress changes hands enough they can overturn it and override the presidential veto or a Senate filibuster. And I hate to say the obvious but the insurance companies and doctors will still be making money as will drug companies so the lobby to repeal will be hard against that once they figure out how to use this law to their advantage and keep making money. Everyone knows if its repealsed and the system fails there is a one-payer option as the only choice left that will be horrible for the current special interests across the board.

The Democrat stance is that the health care bill is ok because it regulates inter-state commerce.  The Republican stance is that, the individually mandated health tax if you don't buy health insurance steps outside the bounds of regulating inter-state commerce and mandates something that Congress doesn't have the power to mandate.  That's where 15 states attorneys general are coming from.

The 16th from Virginia says that it's a federal/states rights issue, that it's the state's right to mandate such things and that it would conflict with a Virginia law which says that Virginia citizens don't have to pay such a tax, but the tax which would conflict with Virginia's state law don't actually start until 2014, at which point this health care bill would likely be far too entrenched for a court challenge.  So whether or not Virginia's challenge can go through is iffy.

Anyway, those are the two main legal arguments that are going on right now.

(Which, BTW, is the same grounds as laws and bills in several other states such as Montana, which says that federal firearm laws do not apply to firearms made, sold, owned and used only within that state. If those go to court, that will largely decide whether Virginia will be success with their attempt.)

Lets not forget California's medical marijuana initiative, which contradicts the federal laws on drug regulation. The Republican position on that however has always been that Federal law trumps.

First let me thank katisara for candidly replying that the health care reform won't affect him for about a year. I will ask the same question then again.



Precisely my point. So tell me, man, why did you feel compelled to call the health care bill a theft?




Are you saying that American people should not work to change this?



And that is exactly what I wanted to hear. What do Republicans think how to fix these legitimate grievances? Instead all I heard were death panels, tea parties which sound like KKK picnics and Sarah Palin shouting from top of her lungs that health care reform is immoral.


And to the liberals, what are exact benefits of this reform, again now that public option was abandoned?



And let's face it, not even Serbia would bother writing in a law (especially not a general health care law) which drugs are and are not available to sex offenders. At best it would say whose responsibility is to make such lists annually.



There is an issue here which is rather important. For purposes of passing this law Obama administration has set a precedent that it takes only 51 votes in the Senate, not 60. However I would prefer this issue debated either on an own thread or under US Politics.



I second this statement.

Main benefits is near universal health insurance coverage (ie, everyone is now more or less legally required to have insurance), subsidies for lower-income people to buy health insurance, getting rid of 'prior conditions' in insurance so that everyone will always have the option of buying insurance (previously if you get sick and need insurance, you're often kicked out and have no real way of getting it back), there's also a change in the age of children which can be included on their parents insurance (raised from 21 to 26 I believe) which isn't all that major perhaps but is fairly widely liked, markets will be set up to make it easier for an individual to shop around and find the best option for them (and get 'group rate' prices, in theory).


Well, that precedent goes way, way back.  To a degree, that's what the system was set up to do.  The idea that every bill had to overcome filibuster is a relatively new one (last few decades), that's gotten more and more entrenched each time the party in power switched.  The senate was fully intended to be a simple majority rules body (that's why the VP gets to cast the tie-breaking vote), though the option of the filibuster was put in to give the minority party some power.

More importantly, though, the bill passed with a super majority of 60 votes.  Reconsillation wasn't used to pass health care, it was only used to amend it after it was passed.  To be honest, I was somewhat surprised the dems used it for that.  Would the Republicans really go on record as filibustering all the "cornhusker kickbacks" and such that they had spent so much time complaining about?  I guess they probably actually would have, but I think it would have been to the dems benefit to just let them kick and scream and oppose the amendments needed to fix the problems they claimed to have so much objection to.  Do a degree the senate dems had to do it this way to make good on a promise to the house dems, so it was probably the right way to do it, but it just seemed to me that the republicans couldn't really try to filibuster a bill to repeal the "backroom deals" after spending so long railing about them.

One of the main things is te combination of not being able to reject on pre-existing conditions for group insurance combined with state assited group insurance purchasing. What that means is that if I have insurance that I thought was good and then my child is born or I get sick and teh insurance comapny decides to dump my insurance on some trumped up reason I can turn arround and buy health insurance somewhere else instead of being left without the ability to buy.

I don't have to be the specific victim for a theft to be a theft :)

Let me be more clear though on this particular case...

Health insurance is in fact an intrastate business. As such, the federal government has the power to REGULATE it. So things such as not permitting discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, raising the age of 'children' on the plan, etc., are legitimate changes. I'm all for those, and I'm glad they were made.

Changes such as paying out of the federal coffers to extend health insurance to those in need is *NOT* a valid move, however. If people want that, they should approach it at the state level, like they've done, quite successfully, in Massachusetts. Enacting it at the federal level is assuming what is good for California is also good for Wyoming (or, also likely, what is good for California is good for California, and Wyoming doesn't have enough voters so they can suck an egg). This is precisely why the laws were set up as they were.

Now as an interesting aside, had the law been "we are creating this program to shift funding between citizens in different states, and states may opt in or opt out, voluntarily", I would argue that that WAS legal - because the federal government is serving only as a facilitator to empower the states. But ultimately, the states had the power to enact the laws for their own states.



Like I said, it's its own discussion. It isn't relevant to the discussion at hand. All I'm saying is, that's how the mechanics work right now.



1) The Republican party doesn't represent a large proportion of conservatives any more.
2) I would do more research on the Tea Parties before I labelled them as 'KKK picnics', if I were you. I'm sure you'd appreciate the same if I were describing politics in your country.



Reading this the second time, I'm going to also take issue with it.

The issue isn't that they pushed the bill through too fast. The issue is, our lawmakers are not doing their job.

It's like if you put your taxes in through H&R Block, and got a letter back from the IRS saying they're done wrong. You call your accountant and he said "oh, yeah, sorry about that. I was so busy running ads to get more customers, I didn't actually get around to reading your tax return."

Our lawmakers are there for a single reason - to pass sensible legislation. You cannot pass sensible legislation if you don't read it. They seem to have forgotten this and think their job there is to make sure they stay there longer.

On the otehr hand if you call H&R block and they say 'okay sure, I need to get with my assistant in charge of processing that part of the application' that wouldn't be such a big issue. In Washington it is the staff which reads teh bills tehse days- you may ot believe that is how it should be done or believe that the bills need to be shrunk down to where the staff is not necessary, but the job is getting done at this point.

You currently have an evil middle man who is taking 45 cents of every dollar Americans spend on health care and is keeping 15% of Americans without coverage. Now do you think that this bill alone will cut him out? Can it be that simple? Don't you think they will stop dropping people off their coverage just because Obama said they could no longer? Or will they simply become less blatant?



I would love to continue this discussion, but on a different thread.

For this discussion is important only the following part.


From a point of view of winning the next elections, maybe, but for how long would it delay the health care reform? My guess is that Democrats were scared they would lose not only supper majority (they lost it after they lost Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts), but even more seats, so they could not pass any reconciliation at all.



That is not what I asked. You have already agreed with me that health care reform is theft as much as war in Afghanistan is. My question is why do you choose to call one theft and not the other?



So you're going on the record to say that getting rid of pre-existing conditions (and raising limit for children to 26) is a good thing?

Then explain me one thing. During past 30 years (almost my entire lifetime, I don't know about yours) Republicans were in power twice as much as Democrats. During this time this cancer of pre-existing conditions has only grown and grown. In all that time I don't recall any serious effort by Republicans to cut it out and they have stopped one attempt already. How can you complain then when Democrats cut off more healthy tissue then they need to? Why couldn't Bush (George W.) pass No Patient would be Left Behind act?



So, gas subsidies are OK, while health care subsidies are not?



Again you're saying that government spending (big government) is good on state level and bad on federal level. And again I don't understand it. It seems to me that you're trying to deny citizens of one state rights that citizens of another state are already enjoying.

If Massachusetts was successful why not extend it to entire US?



Perhaps. But together with your position on some other issues (calling health care reform theft, inconsistency between government spending on state and federal level, similar inconsistency on human right issues and so on) such indifference becomes hard to explain by decent conservatism when you protest something as trivial as removal of Thomas Jefferson from history books. I can think of no reason that can explain all this other than old South advocacy and as you know it bothers me.



Really? Then who does represent them? And more importantly who do Republicans represent? How come that Republicans can both split and actually INCREASE the number of seats on next elections.



I did not mean to offend your nation, but tell me am I under a wrong impression when I think that racist chanting and insults are present at a substantial portion of Tea Party rallies?

Er...no.  If I had, I would have listed that as one of the things the bill does.  I freely admit the bill doesn't go as far as I would like.  But democracy doesn't tend to give the 'best' solution, but some compromise solution that the least people disagree with.  I'll take "better than what we had" even if its not "as good as we can come up with" when I can get it.  And, by the by, I'm not going to call insurance companies "an evil middle man."  There's plenty wrong with them, but that's a little overboard.


Well, for starters, I'll take 'less blatant' when I can get it.  I'm sure there will be those who don't follow the new rules, but at least there will now be a stronger disincentive for doing so.  Also, even if they do start dropping people, those people will now be able to get into a new program easily (the no "prior conditions" thing).



Feel free to dig one up (american politics?) if you like.


Yeah, that was certainly part of it.

Imagine you get your phone bill. You get charged $20 for your month of making phone calls (and that's what you signed up for). That's fine. Now imagine you get your phone bill and, without your consent, the phone company has added DSL to your house and charged you for that as well. THAT is theft. What is the difference? The US is set up that the War in Afghanistan is legally available to the government to take. They may have broken some other rules to pay for it, but the war itself is legal. It's within the government's rights to spend my money on that.

It is NOT within the government's rights to spend my money on health care (outside of salaries for government employees). That's not part of the contract. The government is tacking things on to my bill in violation of my contract and without my consent. That makes it theft.



I'm not an expert in this sort of thing. I haven't really researched it. My initial inclination is to say yes, but that's an uneducated opinion. It IS however a legal thing. Even if I think it's a bad thing and raises my rates, it's not theft. (The exception being, if an insurance company in my state offers me insurance, then the law should not apply to them.)



One can argue that, really, it's not the government's job. You know what else has gone up and up? The price of toilet paper. So what? Should we expect the government to address every issue we run into in our normal lives?




No, gas subsidies are not okay. Where did you get that from?




No, I said it's LEGAL on the state level, and illegal on the federal level. I disagree with Massachusset's program, but it's their right.



Because maybe the people in Vermont don't want that program. Oops! Sorry, you get no choice. You're paying for it whether you want it and need it or not.




I would strongly recommend you take the time to read the US Bill of Rights. It's really very short. Each blurb is a small paragraph, and there are 10 of them. Most important to understand my position is #10. I know this isn't really relevant to where you live, but if you want to understand my political position, that sums it up pretty nicely.



The Constitution and Libertarian parties have both grown by leaps and bonds recently, and probably 90% of their numbers are ex-Republicans. The Democratic party has also been growing. Republicans get the seats that would otherwise go to the Constitution and Libertarian voters though, because in the US, the two-party system is so deeply entrenched. That's why Ron Paul ran as a Republican, even though he's really libertarian - he knows that his odds of winning with an R next to his name are ten times greater than winning with an L.




I'm sure they are. However, when I ride the bus, which is generally all dark-skinned people, and I hear the one guy in the back almost every time with bottle in a paper bag, spewing out insults, that doesn't mean every person on the bus is a rancid drunk, muchless every black person.

Is it? France spends 10% of its GDP on health care and has 100% coverage. Meanwhile US is spending 16% of its GDP and has only 85% coverage. Mind you I do feel morally justified to call that evil.

But more importantly where do you thing these figures will go in next couple of years?



How come? Now these pre-existing conditions would become existing conditions and no insurance company would consider these patients profitable.



Yea. I was only hoping you'd do that for me as you are a mod here. ;)



Now imagine this. The government says that every citizen has the right to water. Now the government wants all its citizens to have water, but it wants to discourage wastefulness, so it charges its citizens a token sum for every glass they drink. It's nowhere close the sum needed to supply water to every citizen, it gets that from taxes, but it's still an incentive for people to spend only as much water as they need. Same is the case with electricity except that this token sum is much larger, lets say 60% of production cost. Now I can call it a token to discourage wasting of electricity, while you can call a power subsidy. Same was true historically for telephone, but over time it became so cheap that the token become actually higher than the production cost. But by now people are so used to paying the telephone token that the government said "so what, we need money from somewhere to fund providing water and electricity to our citizens". So now it can be a price of the telephone or a tax on a telephone.

Same is the case with plenty other things including security. Certainly a person can buy a private security, but done on an industrial scale it is much cheaper and it covers more people. And that's how we got an army. Now suppose a president decides to invade a foreign country. Now as long as the army is stationed on the home soil it is much cheaper to maintain than the one that goes invading. And it makes little difference whether the invaded country is across a river or on the opposite side of the globe as long as the country has enough reserves. If it does not the president can do one of the two things. He can increase taxes or he can borrow from Chinese, who have enough reserves. Knowing that his voters don't like taxes he decides to borrow from the Chinese knowing that by the time the country needs to pay it back he will no longer be in power. And indeed when the next president is elected he scratches his hear and says: "why don't we provide health care for our people at home, we sure have more need for it than for nation-building in that country we just conquered".

Got the picture?



Care to tell me where in the constitution it is spelled?



You mean they broke some laws in order to acquire wealth? Isn't that the very definition of theft?



So they resorted to theft because they couldn't afford the war? And that makes it better?



But you are mistaken. It is a part of contract signed on 4th of July 1776. That contract is still binding, isn't it?



You mean it taxes it?



When is the last time you consented to a tax?



I have just demonstrated that it is.



Yes. Once there are no more pressing matters.



Republican stereotype I guess.



You are flip-flopping more often than Obama. Just a message ago you wrote:




Since when do life, liberty and pursuit of happiness function differently in Vermont?

And if Vermont decides it doesn't want to go to war to Afghanistan? Or that it wants to opt out of this program called US Army?



I had read it and I've read it again today. And I have to tell you two things.

1) My political position is summed up by the following line: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among People." I find it curious that it is I who defend these ideals from you.

2) Both of us know that the only time tenth amendment of US constitution was actually enforced was briefly during the slavers' rebellion and even they discovered that in practice it was virtually impossible to implement.

Which again brings me to my original point.



I was talking about senate and congress seats. In senate for instance, currently there are no third party seats, so Republicans cannot take seats from independents.



Of course, but if that happened during a political rally the organizer and politicians who speak on such rally would certainly lose credibility. Remember reverend Jeremiah Wright? It seems that Republicans cannot win unless they persuade all racists to vote for them and that frankly makes me sick.

I guess "evil" isn't as strong a term for you as it is for me then.  I agree its inefficient.  The price of gas here in the UK is probably about 3x what it costs in the states.  I don't consider that evil (or even a bad thing, actually).  The rent on a flat in the city can be double or triple the price of an equal flat out in the country, and I don't consider that evil.  I'm not saying I'm a huge fan of insurance companies.  I have plenty of complaints about them.  I just think that if we use "evil" to describe people who charge too much money for something, then when we use it to describe people who do actually evil stuff the term doesn't mean so much.  The Nazi concentration camps were evil.  US health insurance companies are not even in the same ballpark (despite what tea-party signs might try to imply).


Which figures?  Comparing the cost in the US to France?  I'm not totally sure.  France will still be well ahead in cost per person, I assume, and will have actual universal coverage, while we'll still have a few people who don't.  Costs will probably grow in each place, perhaps more so in the states, I don't know.  However, we really didn't have a choice of implementing France's system in the US.  For better or worse, the US is a democracy, and not enough people would have supported that.  I wish we could implement one-payer system, but not enough other US voters do, so it wasn't on the table.


True, but the law has changed (well, the law has passed, the various components come on line at different times, so this isn't in effect yet, I don't think) so that companies are not legally allowed to reject customers for having existing conditions.  Will they try to wiggle out of that and look for loop holes?  Probably some will, but it will be much more difficult for them to do so than before.



I'll right, I'll go bump it for you.

1) While the government affirms my right to clean water, that does not mean the government is in anyway required to provide this right to me. I have the right to free speech, but that doesn't mean the government should buy me a printing press. It means solely that the government may not interfere with my exercising that right.

2) The federal government does not provide water, electricity or telephone service to me. My municipality does. The federal government should not provide water, electricity, or telephone service to me. That is not its job.

3) You know what else everyone needs? A kitten. If everyone had a kitten, they'd all be happy. However, that does not mean the government should go around providing it - even if it is a good thing. Debatably, if Obama had a well of free medical care, and could provide medical care for free to every citizen of the US, as the President of the United States, he still should not provide it. I do not know if you are fully appreciating this. It's like if the garbageman knocked on your door and asked to check through your clothes for any inappropriate textiles. Even if he's doing a good thing, it's none of his business!

I think the core of your misunderstanding is you are living in an environment of strong government - whatever you need, the government should provide. Debatably, it is morally obligated to provide. That is not the case in the U.S. The U.S. was conceived on the concept of weak government - that a strong government forgets its place as slave to the people. Government should always be kept on a tight leash, given only the space necessary to serve critical functions. Imagine it as a vicious, untrained guard dog you keep in your front yard. You need it there, to keep bad guys away, and you need to give it just enough space to defend you. But if you give it too much freedom, one day, it's going to jump the fence and mangle a toddler.



Sure. Article II, Section 2 specifies:

"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;

Article I, Section 8 specifies:

"The Congress shall have Power To ...
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;"





Yes. However, you were asking if the war was a theft - not if how they raised funds for it was. If I steal thirty thousand dollars from you, that's theft. If I use it to legally buy a corvette, that is not.



You're asking an ethical question, not a legal one. Theft is a legal question.



Funny enough, no. The declaration of Independence is not considered legally binding (because it was a declaration of war, the war having already been concluded). However, let us assume it is, and you are referring to the natural right of people to health.

The government is required to respect and not impede on our rights. This is NOT the same as the government being required to actively support them. It is OUR duty to actively support our own rights, the government's to respect them. Therefore, the natural right of man to health implies a government requiring universal health care the same way that the natural right of man to happiness requires the government find for all men wives. The argument is ludicrous, and contrary to the philosophy that birthed the Declaration.



Illegitimate taxes are one of the more minor (if pervasive) items. While itself relatively minor, what it creates space for (such as unethical wars) is more significant.



When I purchased groceries last night. I consented to a state sale's tax.



Hahaha, so we're understood!

No wait... you're serious, aren't you? You want the government to regulate the rising costs of toilet paper?!? REALLY?!?



I am not flip-flopping. I am saying how it should be done, within the law. Not that it is a good thing to do. You are confusing moral and legal answers as being the same, and they are not.



Yes, when DID "LIBERTY" function differently in Vermont?

(To answer your question more directly, maybe Vermont pays enough in welfare that the poor can easily afford health insurance as it currently stands.)



Frankly, the relevant clauses in the Constitution regarding to the army have been stretched to breaking point. This is a relatively new thing. Unfortunately, the laws are written as they are written, and we would do best to obey them. That means Vermont either needs to get lawmakers to voluntarily follow the spirit of the law, or pass a law or amendment to require it. The standing army issue is a whole can of worms with a long history, and I think you'd probably rather not get me started yammering on about it :)




Where we disagree is that I don't believe it is the government's job to go out, find those wrongs and correct them. It is necessary that man depends on himself to defend his rights, because government is it's own creature and depending on it for everything makes men weak. Down that road lies totalitarianism.



I guess I'm just an idealist :)



That is true. The country fell into a two-party system and, as was predicted, that may just destroy it in the end.



I actually don't remember Jeremiah Wright. As for losing credibility... I guess Americans are funny things. They might be losing credibility with the left, but really, they didn't have any with them anyway, so no loss. I don't know that it's seriously hurt people more on the right because racists have been attached to the Republican party for at least fifty years.

(As a note, the Democratic party certainly has racists as well, and I've met quite a few. The difference is, they're more likely to be black racists, so in US media, they get a pass.)

Is it? Mind you to deny medical assistance to even one child is evil.

Seems to me you are following that Stalin's saying "Kill one person and it's a crime, kill million and it's a social phenomenon".



I'm asking this because Obama has a chance of becoming next Bill Clinton. No matter how many of his policies not only fail miserably but also produce opposite results people may keep loving him repeating the "if only he..." line.



Or Obama simply didn't have a backbone.



I have trouble believing that no matter how much I wish for universal health-care.



Thanks, although this was only to satisfy my curiosity about how far you'd go in tolerating my laziness. ;)


Oh, and could you open a thread called "How Low will Labour Go?", please?



But that is only because it cannot buy you one. But the government can provide you with Internet access and it should.



But isn't it just the same? When does "not providing" becomes "interfering"?



Again I disagree. It is explicitly said in the declaration of independence.



But that's only because he's interfering with privacy and eating your time. But if the government could find enough competent volunteering reporters, a donated printing press and kids to throw newspapers to your lawn, wouldn't that be a good thing?



If it can and I cannot provide it myself, yes.



Shouldn't government in a democracy reflect morality of its people?

You know what's scary? That American government does!



Frankly I don't see US government as anyone's but gun lobby's and health-care insurance companies' slave. Certainly not a slave of its people. It sure looks more like a cattle rancher.



I must say I cannot. I have no need for either wild dogs or even guns to defend my home.



So US reserves right for it to conquer. I didn't think it did.



Actually I knew that, but I wanted to know if you do too.



And frankly I'm curious to see how long it will take you to feed it to a bonfire of political argument (so to speak) like the confederacy did.



Can you find that in the constitution?



It is our duty only to defend our rights and liberties should they (GOD-FORBID) be endangered. The rest of the time we should TRUST our government to protect and promote our rights.

It is a sad consequence of American historical low population density and frontier mentality that they cannot trust their own government.



It is only PURSUIT of happiness (and therefore courting) that is guaranteed. You know that.



Care to elaborate on that?



Did you? Or weren't you simply compelled by the fear of IRS?



I'm caricaturing things as much as you are.



I know it's a comment from past message, but I have to say this.

Aren't all Americans entitled to equal protection under the law?



Again aren't all the people entitled to same rights?



I know and therefore I don't see what's the problem with doing the same with health-car.



Actually I'd love to discuss that. I can't wait to see YOU taking the side with Berkley liberals.



Tell me what government did the declaration speak then?



But mistrust of other people leads to savagery. It is because we cannot be defending our rights all the time that we invest our trust into governments.



Don't you think that idealism that created the confederacy is dangerous one. I certainly know that it is the case with idealism that spawned Soviet Union.



This statement is intriguing. Care to elaborate?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwQWuQVE6sw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEd0Wg_QMrg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIW5C5NHBoE

Even for Obama's standards of flip-flopping this one was quick.



I know. And while I do think that with liberals that they are somewhat less dangerous than white racists (only because of numbers), but I think that they are far from harmless. If nothing else they give an excuse to white racism which in itself is enough to make them too dangerous to tolerate.

No, it's not an issue of numbers, its an issue of intent.  The goal or purpose of the current system isn't to kill anyone, that's an unintended by product.  Which is certainly bad, undersirable, something we should fix, etc., but it's not an active movement trying to kill people.  We all 'kill people' all the time in the same way.  Every time I buy lunch instead of sending my money to africa to buy someone a misquito net I 'kill people.'  Every time I pass a homeless person on the street and don't go into the next store I see to buy them some food, I could be 'killing someone.'  I'd be a much better person if I gave far more money to charity, aided people more often, volunteered more of my time to helping others, tracked down someone in need of a kidney that matched mine so I could give them one, etc.  But I don't think I'm "evil" for not doing them.  Lazy, not as caring as I should be, apathetic, jaded?  Sure, I'm probably all of those things and more at many points of the day, every day.  But "evil" is a word I reserve for something a bit bigger than that kind of thing.  Likewise for health care.  It's got a lot of problems.  The current system is a mess, and the new, 'fixed' system is only incrementally better.  There's still many things that can and should be improved.  It doesn't give everyone the healthcare they could have (though, providing everyone in the US the healtcare they could have would be killing people in the same way--if our only goal is saving lives, the money is much better spent in the 3rd world, rather than on health care in the US), but to me that's not the same as being "evil."  Like I said, the word may mean something smaller, more common to you than it does to me, but I don't throw the word around as casually as you seem to do.


Seems like vague speculation without any real substance, then.



An interesting position, that Obama caved to the conservatives?  If you can find any conservatives in the US who will agree with that, I'll be somewhat surprised.  Perhaps you weren't paying attention to the US news over the last year or so, but it was damned hard to get even this bill passed, and it very nearly didn't happen.  If you honestly believe a single-payer system could have passed the senate, if only Obama had more backbone, I think you don't understand the american system very well.  The senate couldn't pass single payer even before Brown got elected.  I wish it was possible to get single payer in the US, but the US is a republic, and the votes simply weren't there.



<shrug> I guess it's pointless to even try to change health care then, right?  It's all doomed from the start, and the evil-profit mongers will break it no matter what we do.  If you're so jaded, why all the fuss in the first place?


Will do.  But if you don't post in this one, you're on your own from here out. ;)

It isn't a question of price. While the government could provide me with free paper and pens, the point is, that would be a threat to my own holding that right.



It's action vs. inaction. In a nutshell, it's saying "hey, I am permitted to live as I please. While you (the government) will interfere in some areas, and we can negotiate this, you absolutely may not interfere in these areas..."

So for instance, regarding free speech - the government does not have to support internet, buy me a computer, teach people braille, pay for expensive surgery, etc. to enable me to use my right (active). However, should I stand on the corner with a bullhorn, write to the newspaper, run my own newspaper, talk to my friends, etc., they (the government still) may not interfere with me when I do that.

(The limits of these rights come up only when it influences someone else's rights. So if I'm shouting in a bullhorn and causing harm to other people, the government MAY assist those people in defending their rights against me. And it's important to separate between my right to communicate and the "right" to communicate in whichever way I please. Spraypainting my name on government buildings isn't okay not because the message is bad, but because that particular method isn't permitted. I am certainly permitted to broadcast my name.)




1) No, it isn't explicitly stated. You may mean it is IMPLIED, i.e. implicitly stated.
2) The Declaration of Independence isn't a legal document.
3) No, it really doesn't say that. It says people have a right to... You seem to have a strange sense that my rights only exist when the government is actively serving them to me. Why is this? Am I not exercising my right at this moment, in writing to you, even though it's on my computer I paid for, on my internet connection, I paid for? Is it only exercising my right if the government interferes somewhere and says "oh, yes, this is okay"?



No! It would not be a good thing. It would, arguably, not be a bad thing, because of the circumstances, but it is not good (or better stated, the potential evil far outweighs the current good).

Why? Because it creates a sense of necessary dependence, and because it drives out healthy competition. Imagine we have a newspaper, the RPoL times. It provides perhaps unbalanced reporting, lots of ads, doesn't always deliver on time, whatever.

Tzuppy is elected president and starts his paper, World Times, which is always on time, always unbiased, and actually, factually free (because it's all government volunteers).

People become dependent on the World Times, because of that. RPoL times struggles to keep up its subscription, and shrinks.

Tzuppy gets suddenly embroiled in political scandal. Of course, since he runs the paper, he has the World Times avoid reporting on it at all.

Now, most of the people are depending on the government for their news. Did Tzuppy do things well or poorly this year? The election is coming up. Should we vote for him or the new guy? Well, because the World Times, which everyone reads, doesn't report the political scandal, the voters never know about it. RPoL times reported about it, but who reads that rag? It costs money! And the World Times have a comics page.


You see where this is going?

Government, by its nature, attracts those who want to hold power over other people. Now, if we have an organization run by people who enjoy nothing more than having power over other people, is it a good idea to give those people MORE power or less?






Reflecting the morality of its people is a different question. And there's no reason the government should do a charity drive when there are already institutions to provide that service.




YES. Very true. And that is a problem. So the question is, when our slave becomes unruly, do we give him more power? Do we entrust our health to him?





Politics. A weak answer, I know. If you read the federalist papers, the intention was to create a balance of power such that the US could not conquer. That didn't exactly work as intended... almost immediately. But at least it kept the US confined to the local area. WWII changed that. Eisenhower went on and opened a hole wide enough to drive an aircraft carrier through, then signed off saying "beware the military industrial complex". Thanks, dummy. There was no "military industrial complex" until you set it up.




What exactly are you looking for? The difference between not infringing and actively supporting? Of course that's not defined in the Bill of Rights - it was such a simple concept, especially back then, that it required no further explanation (sort of like "shall not be infringed", which now apparently means something else). However, it is very clearly expounded upon in the Federalist. If you want to go into the details of at least a few of the founders (and, funny enough, the founders most in favor of big government, discounting Hamilton), that's the place to start. If you're interested in political theory, I think you could really enjoy it. Seeing the reasons for X Y or Z explained there is, really, hugely illuminating and, even if you disagree with it, pretty cool.




I agree with the first (well, not 'only'), but I'd appreciate a source on the second, even if it's just 'read this book'.




I can think of quite a few people who trusted their own government only to regret it. And I think we all know the fact that more people have been killed by governments, usually (by the numbers) their OWN government, than by any other source of violence.

And the fact that, right now, my own government, which you'd like me to trust, is engaged in at least one illegitimate war, holding a thousand people illegally in camps where they undergo "interrogation techniques",  recently sold weapons to countries who turned to use them on their own people, has overthrown legitimate regimes to install puppet leaders (and leading to more genocide), is supporting institutionalized criminal behavior...

Yeah. Not a lot of trust from me :) Certainly not with my health care.



Ah, well... People are free to PURSUE health care then.



I hope I have above. If it's still not clear, I'll try to be more direct (and in the appropriate thread).



If I didn't want to pay tax, I would have bought it in Delaware, or ordered online, where no sales tax is levied. (The IRS does not collect taxes on sales, only income and international trade. This was a state sales tax.)




Honestly? I'd have to check. Are you asking from a moral or legal standpoint?

But more to the point, State and Federal governments aren't "Americans". They aren't people. They're institutions. It's okay to discriminate against institutions.




Yes (not counting children), but this feeds into what we were discussing above - providing a service is not entitling you to a right. The government cannot infringe on our rights to pursue health care, but that does not mean it is obliged to, or that it is desirable for it to provide that health care.



Because two wrongs still make a wrong?



Bring up the thread :P (Or ask for a new one if it's just about that.)




I believe the declaration of Independence was speaking on the part of the people, not a specific government. And even a government "of the people" is not literally the people.

Failing that, it was referring to the Continental Congress, which has already disappeared.






Can idealism be dangerous? Yes. It needs to be curbed by other factors. But that doesn't mean it should be thrown out. After all, it wasn't Idealism which killed people in the USSR. It was the government.




Not here :P Although I've been touching on it in the thread Tycho just created.

While I do not believe the Federal government is required to provide health care for everyone (or require everyone to have health care) I don't believe it is specifically prevented to by teh constitution either. in short I just don't see this as a constitutional issue.
When it comes to government reasons to get involved in health care I see 2 primary reasons:

1) Infectious disease affects the security and general welfare of the community
2) Insurance, being a business which take a payment now in exchange for a promise to act later is a natural magnet for scoundrels and con men. Realistically the issue is more insurance than health care, the difference being if our car is uninsurable we can sell it for scrap or spare parts, but if our body becomes uninsurable then we can't exactly trade it in for an upgrade.

The Bill of Rights said, in a nutshell, "the powers not given to the Federal government right in this here document are not available to the Federal government" - which, presumably would include health care.

The wide open exception is intrastate commerce. The government is permitted to regulate that. So regulating the insurance industry is specifically granted. But regulating is different from running.

article 1 Section 8 of the constitution:

I think provide for the general wlefare will probably apply here.

also under Article 6:

which means any treaty we sign as a country essentially becomes a part of the constitution.

Most Republicans actually support medical marijuana...it's just that democrats tend to assume republicans don't.  Republicans probably don't embrace it as much on morality grounds, but Republicans probably would embrace it more on a "state rights" grounds, since Republicans favor a small federal governmental power, while democrats try to expand the federal government's role.

To say that federal or state law trumps is a legal issue, not a political one.  These issues depend on whether the feds have been granted the authority by the states to make the law...often through the Commerce Clause.  The way our government works is that states have supreme sovereign authority...except to the extent that authority has been ceded to the federal government by the states through the constitution.  In such cases, we call it a "preemption" by federal law, and the federal law would be supreme.

As such, each law has to be looked at on its own merits.  It's not an all or nothing proposition.

Do you have a source on this, Heath?  I know that some republicans support medical marijuana, certainly, but most?  If this were the case, it seems odd that there would be such trouble getting it legalized.  I wouldn't have guessed that the opposition to this is primarily from democrats (though, I also know that there are some democrats who oppose it).