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#28–Nextlie==Eggzactly. Imagine the mess the Federal Tax Revenue Service would be if it were made up of 1000’s of competing for profit entities operating under their own rules mostly free from government oversight of a kind that could make any different in the amount of tax each “provider” collected?
Yes, the IRS is VERY EFFICIENT in eggzactly the same way healthcare could be.
Thank you for your supporting analogy.
BBoy–you are an idiot.
The chicken idea is excellent cuz I have a butt load of them. I’m not too keen trading in dollar bills either.
Slave trade and giving up me daughter for da milk cow was a sure thang.
qb, #30
I’m in favor of ending every government program, including the federal government in its entirety. Of course, to be practical, some programs would have to die slowly. Others could end today and we’d be a lot better off.
bobbo, #31
You’re more infantile than spongebob squarepants. Instead of the IRS, you’d have individual companies competing for your business. For example, you’d have many security companies vying to provide each person police services. Other companies would compete to provide education, etc. You wouldn’t have many IRS companies vying to provide you everything from health care to libraries to roads to defense. See how simple you are?
Benji==I don’t understand your post at all. My post is a completely 100% logical response to NextLie. Seems to me if you don’t like the result, your disagreement is with NextLie?
Further, when talking to LIEberTARDS and small children, is being more infantile than spongebob squarepants a compliment or that other thing?
I don’t believe you even actually think the Fed should go away leaving us with 50 competing states. But with a brain fart like that, I guess that is some evidence you have a brain?====or is it just all farts?
@bobbo, #34
See how limited your statist mind is? First of all, 50 competing states (or 13 originally) is what the founding fathers intended in the first place. That way, if you didn’t like how one state’s government was governing, you could move easily to another state. The better states would get a larger tax base, and the worse states would have to shape up or go bankrupt. One major reason the fed gov was put into place was to keep interstate tariffs in check. Of course, that was a dumb idea, since the fed just put tariffs on goods from foreign countries, causing the same kind of problem they were trying to prevent in the first place, and used the interstate commerce clause as an excuse to expand its influence into every type of commerce there is.
Personally, I’d like to see the fed gov dissolve. Then I’d like to see the state governments dissolve. After that, no more local governments. Instead, we can live in a voluntary society where no one is coerced into doing things they don’t want to do. But either you’re too simple or too scared to ever consider that. What you don’t understand is in order to be free, you must allow others to be free. You, on the other hand, don’t mind being enslaved yourself, as long as those you fear (which includes everyone else) is enslaved also.
I don’t know which is funnier: Badboy’s lack of understanding of history or the nature of human societies.
Humans cant even behave themselves on a blog, how can anarchy ever hope to allow humans to prosper.
Funny how in all the places where there has been no government, only anarchy, the results haven’t been the utopia you describe. the results have actually been “lets get some rudimentary form of government running ASAP.”
I wonder why that is.
#35 “First of all, 50 competing states (or 13 originally) is what the founding fathers intended in the first place”
Another case of selective history from the conservatives again. Sure, why don’t we just go back to the Confederation Congress. Let every state mint their own currency, set their own tariffs.
#35–BBoy==perfect, just perfect. Every statement and idea in your post is wrong. Such perfection does not arise by accident, I see an all knowing designer behind it all.
You must be one of those judas goats. You have volunteered to stake out the most ridiculous of LIEberTARDIAN positions in order to make those slightly less crazy LIEberTARIANS look reasonable==kinds like a jihadi Muslim you are.
You are so silly as to not be worth an issue response, but if you want to take your BEST STATEMENT/IDEA from that post, I’ll regurgitate the common sense sufficient to refute it. I hesitate only because I don’t write just for myself but I think the two camps are immune to one another’s Cassandra call.
There are two types of people in the world: LIEberTARDIANS, and sane people.
@tcc3, #36
You tender little person you. I don’t see anyone on this blog violating anyone else’s person or property. Stop being such a little p*ssy. If a couple of curse words and name calling gets your panties in a bunch I suggest you enroll in a Pre-k class.
Just to clarify, anarchy means no rulers, not no rules. If you live in a house with strangers, you don’t need a president and congress. You either all agree to a basic set of rules, or people move out. Those places where there has been no government still had religious law (aka sharia law) and those people didn’t know what freedom or liberty meant. Gee, I wonder why there is corruption in all those places people said “lets get some rudimentary form of gov. running asap.” And there is no such thing as Utopia, but there is a better way than a representative democracy, which has proven itself a colossal failure.
@Rambie, #37
All history is selective. See how you just selected that quote from the middle of my entire argument and attacked it unilaterally? I don’t want any congress. And I’m not a “conservative” either. Instead of states minting currency, banks would mint their own currency, and it would have to be backed by something valuable, otherwise no one would use it for barter.
@bobbo, #38
First of all, corporations are constructs of government which essentially protects companies from “the will of the people” – as you would put it in your communist rhetoric. I hope English isn’t your first language, because the way you construct sentences sometimes baffles the hell out of me. Not to mention the way your logic jumps all over the place.
I stake my position as the logical conclusion to the argument for Liberty. Unlike you, I don’t propose some entity (in your case government) take my liberty (by forcing me to pay taxes) in order to protect that very same liberty(the right not to be stolen from and extortion). How @ss backwards is that?
Doctors like techno chick chicks, duh
BBoy askes: “How @ss backwards is that?” /// Completely.
The recent near economic meltdown ((responding to the actual bank failures that had occurred but not yet played out)) shows what happens when you allow people too much freedom. You see indeed there were “rules” but without anyone to enforce rules, you have no rules.
I’ll phrase it that way as within your dogma.
Societies don’t function according to your self absorbed day dream. Your analysis is as sophisticated as 5 guys living in a house, and sadly the limits of your sophhistication as well.
I do apologize for too many typos which include whole words sometimes. Some may think with their dicks or their fantasies, but my fingers do make up words are on their own. Down right scary sometimes.
There’s a good example “make up words ALL on their own.”
Obviously I was thinking ALL but the fingers gave me ARE. I don’t think that is a typo strictly speaking.
I usually don’t correct my typos unless they change the meaning of my post as opposed to sometimes making them hard to follow.
Now, the longer sentence structures, thats another issue. I could go Hemmingway, but why not Joyce? Better than Mailer.
I never said I was offended (possibly except by your idiocy). I said people cant even behave on blogs (the internet, chat rooms, xbox live, what have you).
People have more of a tendency to be assholes when there are no rules and no consequences. You make my and Bobbo’s point perfectly.
How can your lofty, misguided social ideas apply to the much more complicated social/legal/economic world when it falls apart even at the simple, abstracted level of internet interaction?
I’m not even sure why were still arguing this. There’s zero chance of what you propose being implemented. The only way it would happen would be the complete breakdown of society. In which case you’d be the first to be killed by bandits.
@bobbo, #43
The 5 guys in a house example was only meant to demonstrate the difference between rules and rulers. But of course, since you can’t argue the point, you distract with non sequitur.
It makes me laugh when people blame the “free market” for what happens when there is government intervention, but not enough government intervention.
Natural rules don’t need enforcers. Gravity will drop you like a sack of potatoes without some authority around to enforce it. A society that lives according to the non aggression principle will deal with those who violate that accordingly. For example, a murderer will have to deal with the mechanism that free market has devised to make retribution to the people who were connected to the deceased. This mechanism would be light years better than the police because in the free market you have to answer to your consumers, as opposed to police, who protect each other in what they fondly call the thin blue line.
Yeah I suppose it is a day dream because what we have now is fascism, and we are a long way from freedom, so far away people don’t even know what it looks like.
@tcc3, #43
What is your definition of behave? Mine is you can do and say whatever you like as long as you don’t violate another’s person or property. How could I do that on the internet?
Well, the Roman empire only lasted so long. The British empire ended. The US empire’s days are numbered…
Statist? Ah, enough said.
#44–BBoy==seriously===too inane to be interesting. Come back when you have anything reasonable to argue. Each post is a new opportunity.
#-BadBoy — I understand what you are saying. You are speaking of true anarchy which is self government. This is also maxium civilized freedom. This does not mean there are no rules. It is like saying I won’t kill you if you don’t kill me. In fact there may be a rule that if you do kill someone you will also be killed.
Unfortunately, it only works for small groups because it only takes one bad egg to bring it down.
May be the problem with Bobbo and Tcc is that in the past couple of decades certain words have had their meanings skewed. It was good to be called a liberal way back in the days because it meant you were intelligent and educated. Most people today think anarchy means chaos and no rules.
So Badboy, you can fight with Bobbo and Tcc over word meanings or let them have their skewed fun.
“Most people today think anarchy means chaos and no rules.” /// Yeah, because that is the primary, most common, definition. but even the secondary definition you refer to:
“a social system based on voluntary cooperation” is pure theory in that it cannot work as time and size of the group increases.
So, ya got the common definition or a fantasy.
The only thing I see going on that might reduce costs related to health care is walk in clinics. It is about the only competition the law allows in the health care business. Everything else seems to be a regulated monopoly without anyone having any reason to work on reducing costs.
#-Bobbo — ““a social system based on voluntary cooperation” is pure theory in that it cannot work as time and size of the group increases.”
I said “Unfortunately, it only works for small groups because it only takes one bad egg to bring it down.”
— I think we are on the same thought.
@bac, #47
To put it more succinctly, it’s the non aggression principle, i.e. you can do whatever you like as long as you don’t violate another’s person or property.
Where I disagree with you is that I don’t believe it only works for small groups of people. If one bad egg decides to violate the NAP, he is held responsible by paying retribution to the person he violated. Unlike today’s system where the violated gets violated twice, once by the perpetrator, then again by the government when they are taxed to incarcerate the perpetrator. The victim gets no retribution.
The NAP is very simple and most people live by it today. Who would say it isn’t wrong to steal or harm someone else? Unlike the inane laws on the books today. Did you know in New Hampshire it’s still illegal to dance to music in public? That law is still in the books! A more real dangerous example is the war on drugs. These laws only give police the excuse to violate your privacy and take your property. What people fail to recognize is that there is no crime where there is no victim. So they think they need the state to protect them from “drug dealers” when it’s the cops you should be more afraid of.
bac–I agree, but will quibble that my version is slightly more negative than yours. Yours implies that some small groups will work, it being the luck of the draw that a bad egg will appear.
My formulation is that a bad egg will develope given enough time. BBoy on the other hand refuses to deal with reality. Of course: “If – Then” will certainly work but under those formulations ALL social theories work. Its only when you “get real” that Capitalism with a Strong Social Safety Net will make its appearance.
The solution to all of this is obvious – we need to start paying our congressional representatives in chickens.
Is it just me or didn’t ANYONE understand what she was TRYING to say? “People would bring a chicken to the doctor”… AS PAYMENT!
Or are you really that stupid or just so petty that you would take someone’s comments out of context like this and make it into a video to suit your own “agenda”? Or could it be that you are just another evil (stupid) liberal with 2 sets of standards? (Nothing new there!)
#54–Tom==every post here is on target about the stupidity of expecting docs to barter their services.
Your posts make you sound like the kind of liberal you describe with a side helping of self loathing.
Hee, hee. Stoopid Hooman.
TomJ, really? Was that the point? I must have missed that subtlety. Thank you for pointing out the incredibly obvious. But next time point out the merely obvious.
So what do you do for a living? If you actually work with real paying customers (instead of a body part in sector 7G) then try this for a month. Ditch your pricing and tell your customers to barter with you for your goods or services. Cash, goods, or services for every single transaction. Let me know know how that goes.
Or try this. Go to a doctor for a major medical procedure (not the flu shot) and barter. Seriously. Cash only. But here’s the trick – don’t borrow the money. If you’re going to do real honest-to-God chicken bartering, you can’t borrow the money. Sell you cars, house, cash in your investments, whatever. But don’t borrow. No credit cards. Nada.
Oh, and before anyone says that payment for services doesn’t imply bartering and that the consumer model is the way to go for reducing health care costs, the you should think about the implications.
If your goal is to reduce your health care costs through a competitive consumer model understand that in 20 years you will be flying to Manilla or Delhi for your major medical treatments. Or maybe Eastern Europe. And you won’t be using American dollars to pay for it.
You can only barter with a powerful entity like a physician if you have power yourself, which you don’t.
He has the AMA on his side, you got nothin.
Its like bartering with a car dealer. He sets the price, you just think you got a good deal.
qb, #57
“If your goal is to reduce your health care costs through a competitive consumer model understand that in 20 years you will be flying to Manilla or Delhi for your major medical treatments. Or maybe Eastern Europe. And you won’t be using American dollars to pay for it.”
Do you want to explain yourself? You make this statement with nothing to back it up and not even an analogy to illustrate your point. Basic economics tells us that a competitive consumer model (i.e. the free market) would drive costs down and quality of care up, as long as you don’t have government meddling.
Let me ask you a simple question. Why would doctors want to kill their patients? They wouldn’t. Instead, doctors would be competing to get more patients. Those with a better reputation for healing would be able to charge more, while those with a lesser reputation would go out of business.
I’m not saying get rid of health insurance. I’m saying get rid of government meddling. That way, you’d have many, many more health insurance companies fighting for your money. This would drive the cost of insurance down while giving you better service and more options.
Finally, insurance is ideally for catastrophic circumstances. Health insurance paying for doctor’s visits is like car insurance paying for oil changes. There’s plenty of time to barter for a routine doctor’s visit, whether he takes chickens or not.
Rick Cain, #59
“Critics of the American Medical Association, including economist Milton Friedman, have asserted that the organization acts as a guild and has attempted to increase physicians’ wages and fees limit by influencing limitations on the supply of physicians and non-physician competition.”
“Profession and monopoly, a book published in 1975 is critical of the AMA for limiting the supply of physicians and inflating the cost of medical care in the United States. The book claims that physician supply is kept low by the AMA to ensure high pay for practicing physicians. It states that in the United States the number, curriculum, and size of medical schools are restricted by state licensing boards controlled by representatives of state medical societies associated with the AMA. The book is also critical of the ethical rules adopted by the AMA which restrict advertisement and other types of competition between professionals.”
“The AMA and other industry groups predicted an over-supply of doctors, and worked to limit the number of new doctors. But recently, the AMA has changed its position, predicting a doctor shortage instead.”
-Wikipedia
I’m not saying all of this is 100% true. I just wonder if they haven’t used their special interest group, the AMA Committee on National Legislation, to influence legislation in DC, eh?