How about we just don't have any taxes anymore? As long as we're spending money we don't have, why would it hurt? And while we're at it lets buy everyone in Africa a mansion and give them food for the rest of their lives. End poverty!

Pfft, you mean we should kill and cook all the prisoners in the country and use them to feed the homeless. We then put the homeless into the prison so they have shelter.

This is America. After eating the prisoners, they'd die of cholesterol related heart attacks before we could get them all into the prisons.

Holy crap! I spelled cholesterol right on the first go!:eek:

Then theres no more homeless. Problem solved.

You are a genius!

I think what you failed to realize is that these systems were already in place through your local library.

I didn't expect you to stop being a spoiled mamas boy, though.

What the heck are you talking about now? It's enough that you're constantly rob, but lately you've been taking abysmally stupid positions just to disagree with people. And then you resort equivocating and calling people names.

You're like an obnoxious monkey who throws spoiled fruit at people from trees and then shrieks at them.

So you don't believe in Libraries as well as other social services?

Someone needs to yank that spoon out of your mouth.

So is anything not left of "communism" all "right-wing" ?

Government run internet would be wholly bad because of many reasons. Allow me to expound.

1) No competition. This was mentioned before but I will reiterate. There is no incentive to improve and it will take Congress to get things moving. And you all know Congress moves fast right?

2) Government employees. Yes, this is going to be a generalization. But government employees are not really the prime examples of "employee of the month" When I worked @ school, I saw people showing up at 10 AM and bailing at 3 PM and taking 1 hr lunch. God forbid you have a problem with your interent. It will be fixed some time in the next Fiscal Year.

3) Process. Government is littered with all kinds of bureaucracies and bureaucrats and it will take a mound of paperwork the size of a dictionary. I signed...three things when I started working @ my company. I signed 30 things when I first started up @ school. You will get your connection as soon as Form 44A is processed and we receive a copy of your social security card.

4) Cost. Getting everyone in the nation "wired" will be a LARGE cost that is much better handled by individual companies rather than yet another government office. Frankly, I have no trust in Congress with my $$. They piss and lose it left and right.

Guys.

They give people internet for free at the library. :/

When did you start using the '@' thing instead of the word 'at', JG? I'm not getting on your case about it, I'm just wondering.

Everything the government does can be done privately. Libraries are a better example than most. I think that's what Obi's getting at; he's not saying libraries should be vanquished permanently.

I never said anything about libraries. That's just drivel from Rob. All I was saying was, before we start talking about providing more "free" services, we should stop and consider that we're seven trillion in debt, and it's not getting any smaller. And that that will come back and bite us sooner or later. If we can get private industry to provide services that actually end up turning a profit, we should.

I mean, it's one thing not to turn dieing people out on the streets, but it's another to start giving everybody free stuff that they can live with out or buy on their own. If we keep that later up, one of these days we may not have the luxury of doing the former.

Or be the first to take them away...

That is manipulated to reflect the information the government thinks the public needs to know.

About 20% of the main roads in my city are closed off because of bull**** fiscal debates

Only to a select few...

I understand what you're saying, but we need to fix the government and it's uncanny ability to piss away funds before we give them more projects.

Yeah, it's just completely ridiculous to say "the government is the only institution to protect your human rights."

Um, more like it's the only institution that exists to take them away. I honestly have no idea WTF you are talking about, Mort.

That's like saying the fox is the best choice to guard the henhouse.

Well, "rights" wouldn't exist if there was no governing insitution. Your "rights" can't be established if the government isn't there to acknowledge them.

No.. you start out with all of your rights, then the government takes them away.

Oh of course.

The government isn't allowed to do these things.

HOW AMAZINGLY SILLY OF ME TO THINK THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD USE MY TAXES TO BENEFIT OTHER CITIZENS, LOLZ. :downs:

And what defines what 'all your rights' are? Without the concept of government, the very concept of 'rights' wouldn't exist.

Rights are defined by the responsibilities that they impose upon everyone else. Government exists to ensure that you fulfill those responsibilities. (I have the right to own property. This means, you have the responsibility to not steal my things. Government exists to ensure that you don't steal my things, and to persecute you if you do)

Government defines what rights you have, universally encoded in the most glorious of documents the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Indeed, the most everything the government provides can be provided by private corporations - and pretty much everything is. There exist private security firms, private postal services, private schools, toll roads. But private security firms do not replace the police, and private schools do not replace state schools. And they shouldn't.
Government provides these services for those that cannot afford them privately, as it should - as everyone has the right to an education. That means, you have the responsibility to pay for it (through taxation). If government didn't provide education, you wouldn't have the right to an education - education would be a privelidge for those that can afford private schools. Were it not for government, you have less rights.

In Britain, you have the right to free health care. This is a right you do not have in the US. In fact, America is virtually the only industrialised country that does not offer universal health care (and yet spends more per capita on health care than any other country). American health care is absurdly expensive, and getting moreso - half of all personal bankrupcies involve medical bills. Because health care for you is a privelidge, whereas for me it is a right. A right given to me in 1948 by the Labour government.

Health care being a right, an interesting concept indeed.

What exactly is covered under the NHS? What are the restrictions on elective surgeries or physician visits? For those on continuous medication, how is that handled? I'm sure NHS won't cover nose jobs or boob implants (barring they were in a fire or somwthing), heh. How long are waits for surgeries/physician visits/emergency room care?

Also, apart from throwing around the amount we spend, I'm not sure what it's on. How much is spent keeping patients alive in intensive care who are essentially vegetables on a ventilator (read: Shiavo)? Are they including cosmetic surgery/treatments in that calculation of our expenditure? How much of the spending could be avoided by better personal responsibility? Keep in mind the US has very unique demographics/lifestyle as opposed to the UK, and comparing straight spending is a bit silly (read: obesity "epidemic", a great deal of immigrants compared to anywhere else (although I'm sure the UK gets a decent amount) who harbor who knows what, etc).

I don't expect you to have the answers, I'm just saying your approach is very superficial and essentially irrelevant.

Also, I'd like to add that for all intents and purposes, healthcare is a "right" here, if you can't pay for it. Hell, not to bring up a tangent, but illegal immigrants get free care here all the time in CA, and it drives many hospitals to ruin. You saying healthcare is a [sic] "privelidge" is also a bit of a stretch. Emergent healthcare is provided to all here, no matter what, and then some, including delivery services and the rest. They may get billed later, but they aren't denied care. Hell, you get billed too, it's just called taxes.

I'd rather pay more taxes than $600 for four stitches.

Basically everything is covered apart from a lot of dentistry after you're 18 and most cosmetic surgery ie boob jobs, but they do obviously do things to do with burns etc.

I've never been in anything in the hospital apart from A+E since I was born though so I can't comment much about the other stuff. But I've usually spent a max of 2 hours in the hospital having broken bones or stitches seen to and bandaged + casted.

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE

I guess I should be more clear on what I mean by "elective". If you have gallstones, taking our your gallbladder is an "elective" surgery. There will most likely be complications down the line, but until then the surgery isn't a necessity. I just wonder how they rule on things like that. I'm sure I can find it online though, heh.

Two hours isn't that bad at all; are you in an urban center or suburban/rural? I've heard of long waits for ER stuff and the like over there, but it was always hearsay. Thanks for reply.



Yeah, well he was making it seem like it was a god given right, free as air.

Anyway, that's $600 without insurance. There are fee waivers as well if you qualify and you don't have insurance either, and fall in a certain income area. Not everyone pays that much, only certain people do, who fall into that dreaded gap that everyone talks about (which is a fair amount of people sadly).

Also, part the problem is that it costs $600 for some stitches. It really shouldn't be that expensive at all.

Honestly I don't have a clue what you'd call it, but the hospital is in a fairly large town.

While the US's current system leaves a lot to be desired, I still like the idea that doctor's still have to earn our money. If they are incompetent, consumers will eliminate them. I don't like the idea that my health care can get away with anything it likes because my business is not tied to it's survival. Things are already bad enough in this respect. Maybe it's free, but the loss in freedom of choice just isn't worth it too me. The fact that my health is dependent on the same kind of lazy bureaucratic jerks that other branches of the government employs worries me.

Meanwhile, the current system is broken, yes, but will socializing it actually help in the long run? I mean, we certainly can't afford it.

I mean, look at Brittan. Their national debt is almost half ours, but they have a fifth of our population. We can't keep up with our debt if we continue to spend money we don't have at this rate. We are eventually going to have to start taxing very heavily which will cripple the economy, or we'll just let the debt explode, and while I'm not sure of the consequences of that, I know they can't be good.

When we are struggling to pay for defense, education, and health care, and not to mention all the worthless social services like Social Security we've burdened ourselves with, the last thing we need to do is provide luxuries like "free" Internet service.

wait...


...


There's a difference?


(don't ban me. i <3 rob)
(also, forgive the intrusion on a more-reasonable-than-average discussion)

Perhaps I was too kind. :p


(You won't get banned for that. If you could, rob would have been banned years ago.)

No, that was after the hospital made stuff up to charge me after finding out I had been referred by another doctor who charged me $90. (All he did was take my blood pressure)

Doesn't help that they were stitching up my bottom lip, I guess.