Issodhos snipped the part of the message that stated the thread I introduced, and
to which he sent many messages (check the archives my friend), that was
specifically about whether Canada or the U.S. had a better health care system.
It was not a statistical exchange between Mumps and me. He presented an
ideological argument which included a few false statistics and absurd
statements. I responded to his points citing both data and authority. I
suggested that the case was closed unless anybody, Issodhos included, wished to
present any reputable data to argue otherwise (Again, check the archives).
Because Issodhos sent many messages to this thread without providing any
reputable data to challenge the overall efficiency and cost effectiveness of the
Canadian system versus the U.S., I suggested that apparently he was really
trying to discuss other points, which I attempted to identify and asked him to
correct me if I misstated them.
Your current reply, Issodhos, is reminiscent of your reply to my earlier post
about Nike in which I responded to your query of what difference various protests
made with specific instances of changed behaviour (to which your reply was
"meaningless".) It does make it difficult to dialogue with one when a concrete
factual answer to a question specifying documented changes is dismissed as
"meaningless". Why bother trying to dialogue with you if you are not receptive
to honest and polite factual responses? In that same post you either
fundamentally misunderstood or chose to intentionally misrepresent my comment
that boycotts are effective. As evidence, I suggested that one check out Nike's
RELATIVE (sorry for shouting, but you don't seem to hear very well) sales figures
and stock performance. These do, of course, make my point, but you cited
ABSOLUTE stock performance as dismissive of my argument -- only true, of course
if my argument was intentionally misstated or misunderstood. Nike's stock
performance relative to the Dow-Jones industrials, and other measures, was quite
negatively affected by the boycott, as an outgrowth of the effects of the boycott
on their sales.
Although I like to exchange and discuss ideas, I really don't like to get into
pissing contests. It is negative karma and a waste of energy. It is for this
reason that I did not previously point out your distortions and/or
misunderstandings of what I had said in response to an earlier thread, and why I
will not respond further to you about this one after the following remarks.
However, I do find offensive your repeated distortions, and for that reason have
pointed out above a few of your previous ones and will make a few remarks, below,
about your distortions in the current post. I should add that your distortions
would have been much more apparent to other readers had you included my original
post rather than snipping most of it and selectively citing passages without the
full context.
You said: " I will leave it to you and Mumpisis to determine who has the better
health care system."
This is an interesting comment. If you will leave it to Me and Mumps, why did
you make so many posts on that thread? And have you not noticed that Mumps was
unable to respond to the data and authorities that I cited in demonstrating why
his data were factually incorrect, and his arguments misleading and inaccurate.
What is there to leave to us? Which part of it didn't you understand?
The "flow of logic" was your term. My statement was that if you hold to the
philosophy that one should not be taxed to assist in providing publicly funded
services that an individual does not want and may not see benefit from, that,
logically, there can be no justification for any public services. The reason for
this is that there will always be some who will make this argument about any
service. This would lead to the "law of the jungle".
As for the social contract, you belatedly (after several others harshly berated
you for the social Darwinist views implied in many of your posts) backtracked and
conceded that we must indeed have a social contract, though your earlier posts
certainly suggested that for you it should be drawn rather close to a Dawinian
anarchistic boundary).
It is for that reason that I, not you, introduced the notion of values. You
stated, quite incorrectly, that I claimed my values to be superior to yours.
Nowhere did I state such a position. What I stated, is that where one draws the
line is based upon what one's values are. You conceded this (philosophy of the
relationship between the individual and society), while perhaps not recognizing
that you had done so. Without a social contract, we would have Darwinian
anarchy. With a social contract the issue becomes one of where we draw the line,
based upon values, which of course will differ across the population. You state
that it is not a question of values at all but clearly you don't seem to
comprehend how one's perception of the ideal system of government is built upon
one's basic values-based assumptions.
You also don't appear to understand the perspective that I tried to explain to
you under the concept, which was in quotes, of "externalization of costs." You
throw in the odd red herring or two (as an aside . . . ), backtrack from your
previously stated extreme positions which have been rejected, and add a few more
distortions for good measure.
You have either misunderstood or misstated what I have said (again). That's sad,
but not cause for me to respond to further posts from you until such time as you
engage in honest discussions without distorting or misrepresenting what others
say. I have no need to convince you that my dick is bigger than yours.
Dan
"Issodhos @aol.com" wrote:
> Apologies for a belated response, but I have been engaged elsewhere.
>
> In a message dated 5/19/00 11:47:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> <snip: remarks concerning statistic exchange between Dan and Mumpisis (sp?)>
>
> > Issodhos has raised several related issues. I think that it would
> > clarify and simplify addressing his concerns if he would identify each as
> > a new thread. This would avoid confusing apples with oranges. Please
> > correct me Issodhos, if I have misunderstood the various additional
> > threads that you have introduced.
> >
> > It seems to me one issue that you have introduced relates to the social
> > contract; specifically, how much of our individual freedom and
> > prerogatives, including revenues raised from taxation, is it necessary or
> > desirable to sacrifice in order to avoid "a war of one against all". It
> > seems to me that the issues that you have raised about publicly
> > subsidizing health or education costs have no superior logical status to
> > the funding of fire, policing, roads, ambulances, parks, water supply,
> > sanitation, or anything else. In short, if we don't enter into a "social
> > contract" to sacrifice some of our prerogatives, then there will always
> > be many who will make the same argument for each of the other services
> > specified above, including police (A "my gun is bigger than yours and my
> > pit bull will have you for breakfast mentality", as it were.) That
> > position, of course, logically leads to anarchism, though of a
> > non-communitarian "rugged individualism" bent. But if this is what is
> > being argued, why not label the thread appropriately and argue it. The
> > issue is no longer one of the relative effectiveness of health care
> > systems.
>
> I will leave it to you and Mumpisis to determine who has the better health
> care system. As to the "social contract", I have agreed that it is a
> question of where the line is drawn, so I think you will go astray if you
> require that I argue from a position of utopian "purity". Just as a fish
> must swim in the water it finds itself in, so to must we work within the
> world we have about us. The examples you cite are for the most part local
> services and have historically been provided from the taxes levied on members
> of the local community. Whether I agree with local government providing
> these services or not does not mean I must then drawn the conclusion that it
> is only "logical" from these examples to support the idea of a national
> health care system. The two, to use your phrase, are in my opinion, apples
> and oranges. It is also difficult to see where your "flow of logic" would
> stop. Where would it draw the line? Obviously, logic is not the basis for
> determining where such a line must be drawn. Instead, it must be drawn based
> on a philosophy of what the relationship of the individual is to society.
> That would be the point to be argued, not the lack of "superior logic".
>
> > It seems to me that there is another thread you have raised as well: that
> > is, the issue of interconnectedness. I think that you are overlooking
> > the fact that what happens to your neighbours does affect you, whether
> > you wish it to do so or not. Tuberculosis, for example, is much more
> > prevalent among poorer people living in substandard accommodations.
> > These same people who acquire it may pass it on to you in the food
> > preparation process at your favorite restaurant or fast food joint (and
> > why should we subsidize inspectors and compulsory testing since "we"
> > can't afford to eat out -- to pick up the theme from thread 1, above)?
> > Similarly, hepatitis or AIDs (for example) may be passed on in the blood
> > supply when you need that emergency transfusion or, perhaps when you're
> > feeling a bit randy and your condom breaks (I am not trying to be vulgar
> > with these examples, and neither do I mean these rhetorical examples to
> > be taken personally. They are not intended to be such). And a small
> > proportion of those street kids might just think that you are easy
> > pickings (and I live in a "safe" area or in a low SES environment where I
> > have nothing worth stealing so why should I pay taxes for police to
> > protect you from kids mugging you or stealing your car or burglarizing
> > your house, to use another example). And if the society becomes
> > technologically illiterate because the public schools are so bad and only
> > a small proportion of the population can afford tuition at private
> > universities, well then per capita GNP, including your standard of living
> > can head south. I do not present these examples as fully elucidated
> > positions, but rather to provide an indication of the fact that we are
> > much more interconnected, and that the public good is not only a social
> > good, but is also much more in our own self interest than may be
> > immediately apparent.
>
> "Interconnectedness" is, I think, relatively well recognized by most, and
> its existence was never argued by me, but it does not dictate that a
> government controlled, taxpayer supported national health care system is
> needed to address public health needs involving contagious diseases or other
> non-medical problems (sanitation laws, water pollution, improper use of
> antibiotics, epidemics). I think you are again trying to use oranges to
> support apples. (As an aside, I would like to see some evidence that public
> schools are or ever were needed for technological 'literacy'.)
>
> > There were two more threads that I think that I detected in your various
> > posts under the thread that I introduced. The first was the clear
> > assumption that people should not be reproducing unless they are
> > reasonably well off and that, if they do, punishment for their "bad"
> > choice should be inflicted upon their offspring. In your words:
> > Why are you making babies if you are only earning 5 bucks an hour?
> > Well, in the first place, maybe when people got pregnant life was going
> > much better with much greater prospects than what turned out to be the
> > case nine months or (nine years?) later. Such reversals are commonplace
> > in life and oftentimes are both unforeseeable and completely beyond
> > people's control.
>
> My statement was made in response to a question that clearly suggested
> that one had a right to have a child and then have its birth paid for by ones
> neighbors. The fact that a couple sometimes find that their circumstances
> have changed does not address what was being discussed. And it would be the
> consequences of the couple's irresponsible decision, not an outside directed
> "punishment," that would befall the child -- but in reality that is not what
> happens because we have government programs and charitable hospital policies
> that provide for such births. The question concerned "intent", not
> unforeseen future financial reversals.
>
> > I won't dwell on this thread, however, because I think that the main
> > issue is simply one of values. It would appear that some of us may have
> > differences in values such as compassion. Some of us may have a deep
> > value commitment to what might be called the social gospel (e.g., the
> > seven beatitudes in the Christian bible or the leavings of gleanings for
> > the poor and jubilee years of debt forgiveness in the Jewish bible).
> > Values, however, are just that: values. They are beyond the realm of
> > logical argument (though some aspects arising from them such as
> > interconnectedness are not).
>
> It is not a question of values at all. It is a question of government
> versus private means of providing health care, and how to best provide care
> for those who need but cannot afford it. I might also point out that your
> claim to a superior morality is a bit much. Your use of the Beatitudes as
> well as "gleanings" are also a bit misleading in that neither was ever
> advocated as a political system, or to be put in place by force. They were
> directly targeted at how an individual should voluntarily conduct herself.
> Nowhere does it say, "Taketh from thy neighbor by force what was his and
> keepeth it unto thyself to do with and scatter as thou wilt, for thou and
> those who thinketh as you do, art surely superior."
>
> > The final thread that I detected I will label "externalization of
> > costs". It is an incontrovertible fact that a child cost tens or
> > hundreds of thousands of dollars to raise, which includes health care
> > costs, shelter, nutrition, clothing, education, values socialization,
> > etc. Without that expenditure, there would not be a young adult who
> > would be able to become a police officer, a fire fighter, a surgeon, a
> > construction worker, etc. An argument can be made from an economic
> > perspective, and apart from values, that the cost of a police officer
> > (for example) is not merely the wages and ancillary expenses associated
> > with the job, but also the cost of raising that police officer from a
> > fetus to adulthood.
>
> Let's just call it what it is, the "socialization of costs" associated
> with the raising of a child. Now show me any functioning society throughout
> history that was bereft of workers of any sort because it failed to tax
> others for the raising of another's child. An aside: In such a system, to
> whom would the right belong to determine which values', philosophies, and
> faith would be instilled in the child?
>
> > Think of that expense as the equivalent of the
> > infrastructure expenditure that a public body might make to induce a
> > potential employer to set up shop in its jurisdiction (rather than
> > elsewhere). The actual costs of the jobs that are created are not simply
> > the cost incurred in building the factory, but also the additional
> > publicly subsidized infrastructure costs in even making it possible to
> > have that factory. Ideological normative macroeconomic theory aside,
> > this is positive macroeconomic theory -- i.e. how the world actually
> > works rather than how a textbook says that it should work. I would argue
> > that raising a child to adulthood is similarly part of "infrastructure
> > costs" for society and that because all people are going to benefit from
> > those expenditures, they should also contribute to those "infrastructure"
> > expenditures. Regardless of whether or not people have children
> > themselves, they are going to need those children to develop into adults
> > to repair their roof, to remove their tumour, to protect them from
> > disorderly individuals, to prevent their house from burning down when
> > their neighbour's house catches fire, etc. As such, I think that I not
> > only have a moral commitment to contributing to the rearing of **all**
> > children, but that so also does everybody else, regardless of whether
> > they have any children of their own.
>
> Children are not the property of a "public body", they are not
> infrastructure, the having of children is an elective, and others, rightfully
> so, should not be required to bear the burden of another's choice to have
> children -- unless they voluntarily wish to do so.
>
> Unfortunately, what you claim as being the moral way, is actually based on
> the immoral concept of using the legitimized violence of the state to steal
> from a neighbor who may be unwilling to view your beehive society as being
> desirable.
>
> Yours,
> Issodhos
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