Wow, what an asshole. But Shat should no better than to go on that show.

^Rush was appearing on Shatner's show "Raw Nerve".

It is just so delicious to hear right wing blow hards talk about how they want the best for the country. Yet to me, nearly every single tenet of the conservative philosophy is counter to creating a nation where everyone gets the best opportunity to live a fulfilling life.

This video is too short.. williams tries to make a point but somehow is cvut short... this rush limbo character can only exist in america imho.. in europe we would call them neo-nazi's..

Are they sitting on a love toilet?: http://www.hulu.com/watch/61322/saturday-night-live-the-love-toilet

"I know because I get paid to know" is remarkably weak reasoning.

I find that most debates with conspiracy theorist types devolve into a discussion of "How do you know anything?" with one side of the argument blindly believing mass media and the other side blindly believing anyone on AM radio. On health care, what's knowable is that uninsured people are suffering and dying to preventable ailments, and that life and pain-free living are not luxuries but human rights (whether or not the constitution explicitly says it).

>> ^Lodurr:
"I know because I get paid to know" is remarkably weak reasoning.


It is just another way of saying "It's true because I said so."

Not a moral issue? Whether someone lives, dies or suffers when we have the ability to help them isn't a moral issue, or at least its the on the same level as a luxury item like a beach house? Isn't Rush a devout Christian? Where does this nihilism fit in? Or does he, like so many seem to be, belong to the church of Our Lady of the Rich White People?

A beach house is a luxury item, it is separate from those things that are needed for basic human survival. In fact a beach house is on the complete opposite end of the 'basic human needs spectrum' than health care. Health, the very definition of the word describes its importance to the well being of a human being, in fact the well being of a human being IS a definition of health.

I can't understand how anyone with two neurons to rub together can listen to this talking tit face, he'll say anything to refute someone's elses claim, it doesn't matter if its true, if it's contradictory to everything he's said in the past, if it's callous or even if it's words strung together to make a cogent sentence.

'What do you think of health care?'
'NAZI BANANA CATS!'

Someone put a red shirt on Rush, and beam him down to earth already!!!!

Health care coverage is neither a right nor a privilage. Its a needed concept that superceeds the right and the privilaged. I dare ANYONE, that is for the conservative philosophy, to go ten years, WITHOUT health care coverage of any kind (including disability, medicade, and Vet Benefits). Not a single one of them will take up the bet. That should tell you something very quickly on the concept of health care. No one, who is sane, would volunteerily give up health care coverage.

I agree that Mr. Shatner is not given enough time with this video to conclude his arguement and point on the subject. Mr. Rush, is in the business of being entertaining for an audience that largely ignores science, education, and financial wisdom. It should not come as a surprise to anyone, that a subject like health care(which incorporates science, education, and financial issues), should be something America should be concern with. Well, if the 43% OF us citizens, had the level of health care coverage Mr. Limbaugh has, we wouldn't need to address this issue.

Here's the transcript.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_120709/content/01125119.guest.html

Nowhere does Limbaugh say "Health is a luxury." Nowhere. For anyone on the fence about Limbaugh, it's worth it for you to find out on your own why the left hates this one entertainer so much. You won't learn anything from soundbites; tune into the show every weekday for a month so you can have some credibility when denouncing your target.

The conservative philosophy DOES create a nation where everyone gets the best opportunity to live a fulfilling life, but it doesn't GUARANTEE a fulfilling life, and never will. Life doesn't work that way.

America's existing socialized medicine and other entitlement programs in place are already threatening to bankrupt the country. It's wrong to foist on taxpayers an additional unworkable government system that will quickly degrade to rationed care of lesser quality to "save money" the government doesn't have in the first place.

One more thing: the Constitution means what it says, not what liberals claim it means.

Rush, Ann Coulter, how do these people stay in the public eye?

>> ^quantumushroom:
Here's the transcript.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_120709/content/01125
119.guest.html
Nowhere does Limbaugh say "Health is a luxury." Nowhere. For anyone on the fence about Limbaugh, it's worth it for you to find out on your own why the left hates this one entertainer so much. You won't learn anything from soundbites; tune into the show every weekday for a month so you can have some credibility when denouncing your target.
The conservative philosophy DOES create a nation where everyone gets the best opportunity to live a fulfilling life, but it doesn't GUARANTEE a fulfilling life, and never will. Life doesn't work that way.
America's existing socialized medicine and other entitlement programs in place are already threatening to bankrupt the country. It's wrong to foist on taxpayers an additional unworkable government system that will quickly degrade to rationed care of lesser quality to "save money" the government doesn't have in the first place.
One more thing: the Constitution means what it says, not what liberals claim it means.


Someone could say, 'Quantumushroom is great guy to have around', and I could say, 'A pile of manure is a great thing to have in your garden'. I'm not saying quantumushroom is a pile of manure or even directly comparing him to some, I'm just stating what I think. Or if you've been speaking the English language for any amount of time, or any language you'd know speech isn't just a set of random phrases people throw out, and it is valid to assume that when two people are speaking, if one person says something, and the other person replies, that reply has something to do with what the first person said.

It is my assertion that Rush was comparing health care to a luxury item, (a beach house). He also claimed it wasn't a moral issue. If you want to claim Rush doesn't understand how conversation works and was just blurting out something random that's fine.

EDIT: Spelling

well in some ways he is right , why stop at helth care why is it ok for rich people to live in nice houses and pore to live in shit ones?

it would be ok if gaining welth was skill and effort bassed ,

in reality gaining wealth is due to parents having money / being of reasonable education , and luck.
yes some people get welthy though hard work and determinatoin but that is very rare , if you are brought up in a shit naborhood with shit parents and a shit educatoin its statisticly very unlikely that you will make decent mony.


in the end its not aceptable for one person to liv ein comfort whalst those around him suffer evan more so when that person has a rediculouse amount of surpluss welth. the biggest irony is that these concervative typs are often christains , funny how they ignore the parts of the bible that would require them to share what they have and live as basic men.

>> ^deathcow:
Rush, Ann Coulter, how do these people stay in the public eye?


It's because they're not afraid to voice the shallow, bigoted, heart-felt opinions of the so-called "titans of industry" who control our country.

>>One more thing: the Constitution means what it says, not what liberals claim it means.


Why should we look to the Constitution on this issue anyways? It's not the word of God, it can be changed and should be changed when it's wrong.

^quantumushroom:
One more thing: the Constitution means what it says, not what liberals claim it means.




"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

It's right there in the Constitution, buddy. The. First. Sentence.

Government is (at least it should be) the manifestation of the collective will of the people. If the people want government operated healthcare, where taxes are collected to pay for it equally among the citizens, then that's what the government should do.

One more thing: the Constitution means what it says, not what conservatives pick and choose.

i have no problem with the point that healthcare is a luxury. Rich people are darwinian winners, old wealthy families are an example of that. So why culling the weak and stupid is moraly wrong from a natural point of view is beyond me.

>> ^bluecliff:
i have no problem with the point that healthcare is a luxury. Rich people are darwinian winners, old wealthy families are an example of that. So why culling the weak and stupid is moraly wrong from a natural point of view is beyond me.


Then you advocate the French Revolution?

Well lets get some Olympic gold medalists in here to devour you then.

*politics

Adding video to channels (Politics) - requested by NetRunner.

>> ^Crosswords:
Not a moral issue? Whether someone lives, dies or suffers when we have the ability to help them isn't a moral issue,


Moral or not. Why do I have to pay for somebody else's health? Personally, I think the government should cancel all healthcare. If healthcare companies and insurance companies want to stay in business, they will learn to keep costs affordable. It would also spurn those companies to be more innovative with the technology being used.

"its my job to know" is an extremely limbaugh-ian argument (im related to them)
i was arguing with one of my dads last night (the limbaugh one) about global warming, i got alot of "because i stay informed"s as his reasoning that there was no climate change.

but apparently if you break it down like this
"do you really really believe that cutting down all the trees, chopping the tops off of mountains, burning all coal, dumping all of our trash into the oceans, over fishing everything out of it and burning petroleum to our hearts content ISNT going to hurt anything?!?" ... they resist for a while, but if you stick to that point, they usually relent and then you can start to move forward.
ive had lots of success with that recently.

>> ^Chaucer:
>> ^Crosswords:
Not a moral issue? Whether someone lives, dies or suffers when we have the ability to help them isn't a moral issue,

Moral or not. Why do I have to pay for somebody else's health? Personally, I think the government should cancel all healthcare. If healthcare companies and insurance companies want to stay in business, they will learn to keep costs affordable. It would also spurn those companies to be more innovative with the technology being used.



You mean other than caring for someone other than yourself? Same reason you have to pay for the education of children that aren't yours or roads you don't use, for the betterment of society. Even if you're already a prosperous individual, when the condition of society improves so should yours. Would you stand on the backs of the decrepit and infirm or the shoulders of the strong? Now if you don't think a public health-care option will improve society then that's your position, but people don't want a public option because they just want to 'steal' your money. They're trying to improve the condition of our society.

What is affordable? Affordable to who? Their customers don't have much of a choice, when you need health-care you need it, putting it off can result in death or suffering. So consumer is more or less trapped, they either pay the price no matter what or they go without, the insurance companies and health-care providers have no incentive to lower their costs or improve their coverage.

or we can turn into a third world country without any access to health care, and we can all die of small pox.
your argument is not only selfish and asinine , its incredibly poorly thought out. lets get rid of all the roads and fire departments for that matter. im sick of paying so someone elses house doesnt burn down.
the free market does not solve every problem. so get off your ayn randian high horse and think harder.


>> ^Chaucer:
>> ^Crosswords:
Not a moral issue? Whether someone lives, dies or suffers when we have the ability to help them isn't a moral issue,

Moral or not. Why do I have to pay for somebody else's health? Personally, I think the government should cancel all healthcare. If healthcare companies and insurance companies want to stay in business, they will learn to keep costs affordable. It would also spurn those companies to be more innovative with the technology being used.

>> ^Chaucer:
If healthcare companies and insurance companies want to stay in business, they will learn to keep costs affordable. It would also spurn those companies to be more innovative with the technology being used.


Another fool who seems to think that the free market will solve all the world's woes.

Do you want to know how the Free Market really works?

If business A provides a service for 450$, and business B provides the same service for 400$, then as soon as business B learns of this they RAISE THEIR RATES! Welcome to the free market, there's no competition, there's just everyone seeking to make the most money from the least amount of investment.

The Free Market would work the way you think it does if everyone was altruistic and weren't driving by sickening greed. Greed will be the undoing of us all, as long as there are people who say "Why should I have to take care of others", we'll never truly grow as a society. Until we can get over our selfish desires and childish behavior, we're doomed.

"healthcare is a luxury"

True statement unless you are an egocentric imperialist with 10 times your share of the world's resources already. Sit here and bitch about healthcare and minimum wage...you greedy little fuck...you already consume 10x the resources and produce 10x the waste of the majority of people living on this planet.

Fucking spoiled brats.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Wdpiechartppp2000.gif

>>If business A provides a service for 450$, and business B provides the same service for 400$, then as soon as business B learns of this they RAISE THEIR RATES!



If that were to happen. Nobody would use either of their service as there would be somebody else to come along to provide the service at $350. THAT's how the free market works. As such, we would be better off privatizing the healthcare industry.

A public healthcare option will do nothing but further corrupt the healthcare industry and drive this country into bankruptcy. Then we will really be fucked. And a lot of people think we have endless money which we dont. We already owe the Chinese $100 billion dollars in loans. Not to mention all the other countries that we owe money to. We would be better off cutting services that we dont need or that can be privatized to get this country out of debt.

The liberal left likes to frame things in such a way as to make EVERYTHING a 'necessity', and then redefine a 'necessity' as something that must be supplied by government. This is what people like Rush (and other conservatives) reject flat out because it is a lie.

When some one is really sick and in need, health care is a 'necessity'. But at no time is the entire population of a nation in that kind of need. The bulk of any nation would indeed consider paying for health care a 'luxury' because they don't NEED it. Just like how car insurance is a luxury unless you have an accident.

But the liberal left wants to define health care as a 'necessity' for all people at all times in order to force them into a destructive, unbreakable tax & spend cycle of which government is (of course) the oh-so munificent benefactor. But the reality is that Americans had 'health care' without government interference for decades and they did just fine. The fact is that we don't need a government intervention. Instead, we need government SURGERY to cut out all the stupid crap that makes the market so out of whack. Remove government policy, and the market will regulate itself.

And once the market has regulated health care back to reality (instead of the lie government tries to force) then people for whom health care is a 'necessity' will be able to afford their own coverage without having to rely on the dole.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Remove government policy, and the market will regulate itself.


Click your heels three times and say 'there's no place like home' and the market will regulate itself.

You regurgitate these absurd inanities with out the slightest smidgen of skepticism, a true believer with out a shred of evidence to support this corporate fairy tale. If you took half a second to pull back the curtain on the people who've taught you what to think, you might be surprised by what you find.

Let's see, corporations have taught you to believe that if you give them unlimited power, that the heavens will open up and the bright light of liberty will shine forth on the world in utopian glory. Do you not see some possible ulterior motives here? Any conflicts of interest? Anything at all?

You are being manipulated.

You regurgitate these absurd inanities with out the slightest smidgen of skepticism, a true believer with out a shred of evidence to support this corporate fairy tale.

Your mistake is to equate 'market' with 'corporation'. You are unable to think past the standard liberal left-wing propoganda points on this issue. I put it to you that it is not I, but YOU that is being manipulated. And - sadly - your manipulation was all too easy. Far too many people fall for the liberal left's manipulation on this issue.

'The market' is YOU. It is me. It is the consumer. I express faith in 'the market' because I believe that in the long run the consumer will win. Some government regulation (not participation) is helpful in preventing abuses. But ultimately speaking, the market's dollars are the most effective way to regulate the market that exists in all human history. Government screws up the market by taking away freedom and interfering in the process. The entire insurance market as it exists today is a product of GOVERNMENT - not corporations. Remove government from the picture, and the market would quickly re-adjust back to sanity. It needs no proof, because it has already been proven a million times over. Socialism does not need to be 'disproved' because it has failed in every single endeavor.

Let's see, corporations have taught you to believe that if you give them unlimited power, that the heavens will open up and the bright light of liberty will shine forth on the world in utopian glory.

Lol - what are you even talking about? Corporations have 'taught' me? When? In the public-run school system? In the liberal-left wing dominated world of college academia? In the 30-second snippets of TV ads or radio spots? No - my position is not 'corporate'. It is based on FREEDOM. Freedom man. That is the guiding principle of being a conservative. I don't trust corporations, but I do trust the principle of FREEDOM over control. I understand the greatness of liberty over tyranny. I appreciate the blessings brought by choice as opposed to dictatorships. So in all things I will ALWAYS choose the side that opts for the greater amount of freedom. If you want to follow after a propoganda inspiried vision of benevolent government tyranny where you have no freedom then you go right ahead, but don't pretend there is anything noble or virtuous about it. You're a manipulated puppet who has elected to sell the freedom of all US citizens down the river. Don't be surprised when people who are still loyal to the concept of freedom oppose such stupidity.

>> ^quantumushroom:
The conservative philosophy DOES create a nation where everyone gets the best opportunity to live a fulfilling life, but it doesn't GUARANTEE a fulfilling life, and never will. Life doesn't work that way.


So someone who couldn't get insurance because they have a pre-existing condition gets sick and dies. You're telling me they really had the "best opportunity to live a fulfilling life"? What world do you live on?

The constitution hasn't meant anything since Bush overruled it and turned the presidency into a monarchy, which has the power to do whatever it wants in the name of "national defense." Guess conservatives kinda dropped the ball there eh?

And maybe we could afford to insure everyone a lot more easily were it not for Bush's massive deficit-inducing tax cuts?

Winstonfield: how could the market possibly help people with pre-existing conditions? The whole idea of insurance is to insure against something that hasn't happened yet. If you're already sick, then you're not going to make any money whatsoever for an insurance company.

And what good is this "freedom" of yours if you're dead because you couldn't afford quality health care?

Put some fucking socks on Rush. You dick.

How could the market possibly help people with pre-existing conditions?

By bringing down prices. Insurance is for catastrophic needs, not standard care. If you remove standard care from the picture and boil 'insurance' down to catastrophic needs then it becomes easily affordable by anyone except for the most extreme, hard-luck, down-and-out exceptions. The needs of that tiny percentage can be handled easily without a massive, national, one-size-fits-all monstrosity. Such needs can be managed entirely with private charities, community care, or state/municipal programs.

The costs for standard care will rapidly decrease to proper market levels once the mentality of 'insurance covered' is removed. People will pay for what they need and negotiate directly with providers. Costs will lower to what the market can support - not what 'corporations' dictate. It happens every time like clockwork.

The whole idea of insurance is to insure against something that hasn't happened yet.

Yes - but the equation has been altered by a government mandated series of insurance programs that meddle with the marketplace. HMOs only exist because of government edict. Insurance programs then had to start covering "standard" health care instead of just catastrophic care. In order to make that possible, they had to start developing new programs & rate systems that were financially (A) feasible and (B) profitable. Other GOVERNMENT laws prevented competition across state lines, and a bunch of other crap that turned 'insurance' into a hodgepodge of arcane, impenetrable 'covers everything' baloney as opposed to a simple "catastrophic care" transaction.

And what good is this "freedom" of yours if you're dead because you couldn't afford quality health care?

The point is that with freedom, almost everyone will be able to afford catastrophic care - and the needs of the remainder will be well within the grasp of private, municipal, & state means.

>> ^Chaucer:

Moral or not. Why do I have to pay for somebody else's health?...

But in the current system of insurance, people already pay for other people's healthcare. That's what insurance is, lots of people pay, some people claim from the pot of money collected.

What the rich often forget though is that the only reason they are rich is because there are poor people. Capitalism has to have the poor majority to support the rich few. Is it really so hard to give something back to them? Its a measure of a democracy how well it looks after all of its citizens, not just a few of them.

The current system has more than enough money within it to provide more than adequate healthcare to everybody, so long as the (deliberate?) waste is removed and the fat cats diet a little.

Regulation of companies in a free market is the equivalent of the enforcement of law on all citizens in a free society. Entirely necessary to prevent corruption and the descent into anarchy.

But in the current system of insurance, people already pay for other people's healthcare. That's what insurance is, lots of people pay, some people claim from the pot of money collected.

Well, consider this. Take a look at the auto insurance market. It does not pay for oil changes, brake pads, or other routine maintainance. So car insurance is relatively cheap. Imagine if Congress made a law that said car insurance must now cover headlights, brake pads, spark plugs, tires, and all other basic maintainance.

Consumers would immediately start charging all these services to auto maintainace providers as OFTEN as they possibly could. Maintainance would move from a market driven method of "I pay for it when I need it" to a scheduled system determined by government panels. The new 'consumer demand' would thus be artificially determined - not naturally derived by real costs or market needs.

The inevitable result would be that the cost of the services to the insurer would increase dramatically. An oil change that cost a consumer 20 dollars would now 'cost' $200+ in the insurance tables. The cost of insurance itself would have to increase to reflect this new reality. Auto insurance that used to cost $70 a month would now cost $400+.

That is what government involvement in the insurance industry does to the market. It screws up the laws of supply & demand, inserts artificial (more expensive) standards, and increases costs to ALL participants. That is what the current bill in Congress will do to health insurance. What used to be 'affordable' insurance for middle-income earners will become unaffordable.

I believe that is the actual target end-game for the political class. When this crappy plan fails (as it inevitably will) they will step in (OH-SO concerned) and offer to nationalize the system completely. The inattentive, civically ignorant American public - desperate for a solution to a problem the GOVERNMENT CREATED will agree. Bingo. Welcome to the United Union of the Socialist States of America where Pelosi/Obama/Ried are in charge of your health care and you have no recourse for grieveneces with your rationed care.

What the rich often forget though is that the only reason they are rich is because there are poor people.

No - rich people exist because a large, free marketplace of all income levels rewarded them with money in exchange for beneficial goods & services. You describe parasitism. Capitalism is symbiosis.

Is it really so hard to give something back to them?

Of course not. It is called PRIVATE CHARITY. Rich, middle-class, & poor alike give to charity every year and we don't need a government to tell us to do it. The public is not rejecting 'helping' people. What they reject is the liberal left-wing's DEFINITION of help (because it sucks).

Its a measure of a democracy how well it looks after all of its citizens, not just a few of them.

No - the measure of a democracy is how limited government is at restricting freedom and protecting its citizens from external threats. The measure of the CITIZENS lies in how well it looks after their own poor. But that is not a government issue. It is the morality of the citizens in how they use their enlightened self-interest.

The current system has more than enough money within it to provide more than adequate healthcare to everybody, so long as the (deliberate?) waste is removed and the fat cats diet a little.

And government solutions are so good at removing waste & thinning out the fat cats... Regardless, when you make something 'free' then there is NEVER 'more than enough' of that good for a population. The well of human want is bottomless. As with all government solutions, nationalized care would devolve quickly into a labryinth of regulations and delayed/denied coverage.

By bringing down prices. Insurance is for catastrophic needs, not standard care. If you remove standard care from the picture and boil 'insurance' down to catastrophic needs then it becomes easily affordable by anyone except for the most extreme, hard-luck, down-and-out exceptions. The needs of that tiny percentage can be handled easily without a massive, national, one-size-fits-all monstrosity. Such needs can be managed entirely with private charities, community care, or state/municipal programs.

The costs for standard care will rapidly decrease to proper market levels once the mentality of 'insurance covered' is removed. People will pay for what they need and negotiate directly with providers. Costs will lower to what the market can support - not what 'corporations' dictate. It happens every time like clockwork.

You express remarkable faith in the free market there. How are you so sure what would happen if we let the market have free reign? The economy is a highly complex system, and even professional economists have difficulty understanding it. But some guy from the internet really knows how it all works then? I for one am not willing to gamble with people's lives and health on the basis of unproven free market theory.

you seem to be embracing the "moral hazard" theory of health insurance, according to which health care costs are driven up because people with insurance purchase more health care than they otherwise would have. This theory is not universally accepted in the economics profession.

“Moral hazard is overblown,” the Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt says. “You always hear that the demand for health care is unlimited. This is just not true. People who are very well insured, who are very rich, do you see them check into the hospital because it’s free? Do people really like to go to the doctor? Do they check into the hospital instead of playing golf?”


I recommend reading this: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/08/29/050829fa_fact

Yes - but the equation has been altered by a government mandated series of insurance programs that meddle with the marketplace. HMOs only exist because of government edict. Insurance programs then had to start covering "standard" health care instead of just catastrophic care. In order to make that possible, they had to start developing new programs & rate systems that were financially (A) feasible and (B) profitable. Other GOVERNMENT laws prevented competition across state lines, and a bunch of other crap that turned 'insurance' into a hodgepodge of arcane, impenetrable 'covers everything' baloney as opposed to a simple "catastrophic care" transaction.

Um, at no point did you explain here how the market would help people with pre-existing conditions. Probably because it wouldn't. I'll grant you that our current system is probably less efficient than a free market one would be. However it doesn't follow from that that the free market is the solution to everything.

The point is that with freedom, almost everyone will be able to afford catastrophic care - and the needs of the remainder will be well within the grasp of private, municipal, & state means.

You mean you personally think that everyone will be able to afford catastrophic care, but you don't know. My point is that the freedom for rich people to buy yachts is not as important as people's basic health and well-being. So lets tax the yachts and make sure that everyone's needs are taken care of, like they should be in any civilized society.

Shatner Win!

You express remarkable faith in the free market there.

Yes - I do - because when government meddling is taken out of the free market it works wonderous miracles. Every time. Government is a great thing when it is reduced to its PROPER function - which is a place to go to redress grievences. But when government tries to get involved in the market, then it always (yes - I'm using the absolute) screws things up far more than it helps. All I'm saying is to reduce government to its proper function and scope and then the market will take care of itself quite nicely.

Consider Yellowstone National Park's history. Yellowstone was a great place when it was running itself. Then the government got involved and screwed it up horribly. That's just what government does. Government steps in thinking it is going to 'fix' natural systems that run perfectly fine just by themselves. But all that government touches goes FUBAR. Every time.

I love people like Winstonfield_Pennypacker.

They always forget to read history, see when free markets did operate and how their abusive nature and monopoly markets created the necessity of government regulation and or intervention.

But you know who reads history these days. I got books by Milton Freidman and Ayn Rand to read!

So, when the government protects you with the police and military, it works fine, but if it tries to anything outside its "natural" function its efforts spontaneously combust?

Market failure. Look it up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure

Also there's the fact that the market's distribution of wealth is highly unequal. Do rich people have a greater right to live than poor people, simply because they happen to be able to afford quality care?

And yet, if that clause truly means the government can do anything so long as it says it is for the common good and people vote for it, then the purpose of the rest of the constitution is... what exactly? I just never understood that interpretation of the clause to be some all-encompassing allowance when the whole point is to implicitly deny privileges that aren't explicitly granted. Our constitution is one of the best ever written, but it has its flaws and ambiguities.

Unf**king believable. Sometimes I think you're just some left leaning person's sock puppet here only to make stupid unsubstantiated claims in order to get a rise out of people. But I'll bite on this one. If the government had not become involved in Yellowstone it wouldn't exist. Not in the state it was 200 years ago or in the state that it currently is in. It could have been managed better in many respects but your much vaunted unbridled free enterprise capitalist system would long ago have clear cut its forests, strip mined it of any valuable resources and jammed a pipe down Old Faithful and sold the heat generated.



>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Consider Yellowstone National Park's history. Yellowstone was a great place when it was running itself. Then the government got involved and screwed it up horribly. That's just what government does. Government steps in thinking it is going to 'fix' natural systems that run perfectly fine just by themselves. But all that government touches goes FUBAR. Every time.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday You are being manipulated.


So you are against corporate manipulation of markets, and instead prefer government manipulation? As if a politician is any more caring of your needs than a businessman. PROTIP: nobody with money gives a shit about you. What makes you think corporations have a harder time manipulating politics than they do markets? They don't, ask any CEO if they want a "free market" and they will say hell no. They love government regulations because regulations can be bought and sold as easy as apples at the store.

Your argument is absolutely retarded. Like "I can't believe he went full retard" retarded.

How about a system with NO manipulation...government, corporate, individual or otherwise. When you hear "free" you think "anarchy" that is why your arguments sound so god damn stupid. By "free" we mean "free from manipulation."

Believe whatever you want, I couldn't care less about your views, America, Americans, or any of the "plight" any of the above find themselves in. I couldn't care less about people eating 150lbs of sugar a year who don't have the $50,000 for their cancer, diabetes, and heart disease treatment. If you are too ignorant to google "cancer metabolism" maybe you should be dying on the street. PROTIP: Diseases of civilization are curable; do some research before spending your life savings on toxic pharmaceuticals, you damn sucker.

This country can crash into burning ruins and I wouldn't blink an eye. People who willingly hand over their possessions, independence, and ask to be ruled by others (or supported by others) deserve whatever harsh, pathetic life they receive in return.

>> ^rougy:
>> ^bluecliff:
i have no problem with the point that healthcare is a luxury. Rich people are darwinian winners, old wealthy families are an example of that. So why culling the weak and stupid is moraly wrong from a natural point of view is beyond me.

Then you advocate the French Revolution?


The french revolution onlykilled a verry few of the rich, the puppet king and queen.
And the aristocracy was partly in bed with the bourgeoisie.
edit: and it was their revolution, and not the peoples, i.e. workers.