Lets get all countries to organize their institutions in such a way that idealistic moral imperatives and vows are binding. No cheating, not even lying. Ever. Yes you too, Saddam. And Vladimir. And Pooh too. I mean Xi Jinping. I am sure if we ask them all nicely or sign a petition or demonstrate in front of the Indian and Pakistani embassies 24/7 surely they will come around.

If we disarm now, how do we divert that asteroid when we need to?

@ChaosEngine
so spurr makes a mysoginistic assholery game,(which we agree) and to defend the response he receives.you point out that there was/is immense hatred for sarkesian which could translate to real world violence.

am i correct so far?

so we have sarkesian who has a large population that hate her guts.have posted the most vile threats towards her in the form of death threats and i can only imagine other very imaginative physical threats.basically a band of the most repugnant,online thugs and bullies.(i agree with you this is repulsive and disgusting).

am i still on the right page?

ok ok.lets assume your position is correct and lets also assume that sarkesian feels a real threat from this online harassment.

how does this group of vile and despicable people who hate sarkesian connect with a face-punching game? how does this game (distasteful as it is) translate to real physical harm? are you suggesting that this face-punching game somehow would CAUSE physical harm?

if so,please explain how that could be.

furthermore,you gloss over the jack thompson game (also created by spurr) as somehow being irrelevant.yet thompson does not have a security force to attend to his needs,and thompson was making the very same spurious and unsubstantiated claims that sarkesian was making.thompson was actually taking it a step further by trying to bring legislation proving the video games promoted violence.

same argument.
same reasoning and the same impetus for creating a face-punching game.

so why was it a moral imperative to expose spurr as a mysoginist in regards to sarkesian but not a misandrist in regards to thompson?

to take a stand on one and not the other is morally inconsistent.

but ok...not a big deal in the long run right?spurr didnt pay too much of a price for his poor taste,he was working poor to begin with and of little consequence.

and as i have been lectured over and over the past few days:choices/words have consequences.a position i totally agree with,just wish there was a tad more consistency in its execution.

so ok.spurr got what he deserved for putting this distatsteful,or in your words "mysoginistic assholery" of a game out there in the first place.suck it up buttercup..you got what you deserved.

ok fine.

but again,you either willingly or unwittingly ignore that the only person who is facing charges is greg elliot NOT spurr.

you would think that the man who created the actual game would be the focus of the indictment,but no..that goes to greg elliot.

who,by YOUR own standards,was a victim to a massive online group of hateful bullies who targeted him for disagreeing with the political position of guthrie,a well known toronto feminist.guthrie filed charges against guthrie for harassment.while at the very same time her followers had uncovered elliots private contacts and began a smear campaign against him,accosting and berating his family and friends. costing him job,80k in legal defense and is STILL awaiting a verdict after 3 years.

the mans life is in ruins.

and here is a little caveat that you may find interesting.in canada you do not have to prove actual harassment.you just have to "feel" harassed.

so this guthrie woman,along with her minions are abusing a court system to make a political point and using elliot to set a precedent that should disturb us all.

if you cannot see how easily this can be (and IS being) abused to control opinion and silent dissent.i dont know what to tell ya mate.

how many examples do we need where the accuser did so out of pure malice and/or revenge only to pay zero consequences for that abuse?

i implore you to read the link i provided.karen breaks it down quite succinctly.

@eoe
jesus christ dude..
could you be any more presumptuous?

first off,i didnt call you out specifically.
i rather enjoyed you and newts exchange,but my commentary was not addressing nor interjecting in that conversation.

second,the only argument (if you even want to call it that) that i proposed was to cut the moral absolutes out,because they are bullshit.

now maybe you do not engage in the morality argument that many ..MANY ...vegans DO attempt to utilize to better make their point,and hats off to you if you see the hypocrisy of such a tactic.

now please understand i am not ignoring that there is a morality factor in being a vegan and i totally respect that.what i am stating is to not become burdened with absolutes and attempting to use morality to further a position..or you will be called out on it and rightly so.

thirdly,
your comment is actually a straw man,not mine.
you posit a position i didnt take in order to refute that imaginary position.

which you took a step further by accusing me of not addressing certain aspects of an argument that i only tacitly referred to and in no specific or detailed way.

in fact almost your entire comment towards me is a fabricated argument that i never had with you.

so who are you arguing/debating with?
because i can say with some authority that it is not me.

maybe you took my tone or words as a direct assault on you or what you have written,but as anybody here will attest,i have no problem calling someone out directly.conversely,i have no problem being called out (if my fly is open,please let me know).

so if that is the case,allow me to offer an olive branch:
my girlfriend of many years is a devout vegan.
so i am full aware of the reasons why she became a vegan (at the tender age of seven,no shit) and for her the decision was mostly a moral one i.e:cruelty,abuse etc etc.

when we first started dating she attempted to use every tactic in the book to get me to see the barbarity in my callous and cruel meat eating ways.she would send me videos of the most horrific abuse of animals,slaughterhouse horror stories..i am sure you may be familiar with many of her tactics in attempting to reveal the moral imperative to stop this torture and abuse.

which i responded (much like alluded to in my original comment) by showing her videos of the horrific abuses perpetrated upon human beings just so she could have cheap clothing and those electronic gadgets she loves so much.

which of course made her feel absolute,crushing guilt.almost to the point where it paralyzed her.because she is an adorable sweetheart who genuinely cares for not only people but animals.

which leads me to the main point i was making:
you cannot make a vegan argument based solely on moral absolutes,because it will fall apart within seconds and you come across as a pretentious twat.

so YOU can make the decision to be a vegan based on moral grounds and that is totally acceptable,but you cannot take the moral high ground when debating veganism to further a point,because we ALL bear responsibility in the suffering of others.be they animal or human.

do you see what i am saying?

if you choose to indulge moral absolutes,then you will be exposed as a hypocrite,because when we use absolutes,that metric has to be applied equally to all factors of living.

which leaves us with the "distinctions" and the reason i say those are boring is because it becomes a narcissistic exercise of self-righteous twattery.

i recycle.
i refuse to shop at walmart.
i do not eat fast food.
i only buy organic.
i try to shop local.

all these things i do,not because they actually make a difference,but rather they make me feel better about myself.it gives me the "feel goods".even though i am full aware that in the larger picture,what i am doing means next to nothing.

but it means something to me.
and i think that is really the only real argument a vegan has to rely on to express their viewpoint.

i have seen the videos.
i am aware how awful,cruel and barbaric farming animals can be,but i like bacon.

i am an asshole.

The difference here is between "punishment" and "treatment".

Punishment demands that one have an absolute and objective moral imperative . Such absolute imperatives quite demonstrably do not exist (save perhaps that the strongest tend survive and prosper which is of little use to us here)

Simply put, unless you want to invoke some absolute ethical standard such as the commandment of God, "punishment" can only ever be equivalent to forcing ones own prejudices and desires onto others. (and if you reject the existence of absolute authorities like God then doubly so)

This would be fine if we had any objective prejudices with which to inflict people, but we don't. We have only mob consensus and this is how human legal systems have worked for most of our history. The Crowd doesn't like something you did so they lynch/burn/flog/exile you for it. (pure democracy at its finest)

While naturally many dangerous and delinquent individuals are effectively dealt with in this way there is an unacceptable price. It enshrines personal prejudice in law and a great many otherwise perfectly innocent or relatively harmless individuals inevitably fall foul of this.
(much) Moreover it also demands that one accept the premise that some people are just born "bad", or rather that "criminals" are a breed apart from the rest of us. This assumption is essential if one is to justify "punishing" some and not others because you are asserting that they are inherently bad and will continue to be so. One is not concerned with improving them as a person or correcting the problem, one is instead concerned with justifying and demonstrating ones own moral superiority. "you are not like us and so we will subjugate you and inflict suffering to prove our way is the superior".

Due to the barbarism inherent in such systems many cultures have moved instead to systems based instead upon treatment of the "criminal" and protection of the victim in recognition of the fact that all humans share the same fundamental condition.
Many of the practicalities remain the same e.g. a need to segregate the perpetrator, set laws to prevent certain behaviours etc. (the need for this I think should be obvious), however there is a fundamental difference in how one deals with "delinquents".

Instead of an aberrant product of nature which must be defeated the unacceptable behaviour is instead seen as simply an undesirable/unacceptable but perfectly natural aspect of the human condition we all share.
All humans share an innate capacity for violence and subjugation, every single one of us has at some point felt the desire to hit someone etc. we only take issue with those that fail to control such impulses.
However rather than seeing this lack of control as anathema we simply see it as an underdeveloped or damaged aspect of the human condition we all share.

We must take steps to control it for the sake of potential future victims but the idea of actually "punishing" people for simply being human is to me patently absurd and backwards.
Further to that pretty much all of the modern psychology and neuroscience on the subject supports this position. There is no "criminal gene" or race, the only common factor that appears to exist is frontal brain damage (the bit that controls impulse and behaviour)

Treat them like humans and you might actually get a human out of the other side. Treat them like animals..............

Lets be clear though, I'm almost agreeing with you. The way you have used the word "punishment" is closer in some ways to my use of the word "treatment". But I've placed the emphasis that little bit more on "treatment" or rather against "punishment". As you've defined it "punishment" isn't the extreme example I have described with the term, but I did so in order to highlight the clear distinction between two positions.
Meaning is use and I don't want anyone to get too hung up on the semantics at the expense of the underlying concepts .

There is only one Moral imperative observable in nature. "Nothing is true and everything is permitted"

"Nothing is true..." :

All concepts of truth are relative and dependant upon a supporting paradigm(s) to facilitate meaning and context. To say "killing is wrong" would only be meaningful within a structure that defines both A. the intended meaning of the terms used (i.e. linguistic convention) and B. the causal relationships and imperatives of the ethical code/structure under which one is operating
(e.g. Christians might say "because God will get you", or Deontologists might say "because the act is always more important than the consequence, or Consequentialists that say the opposite of the Deontologists etc.)
Either way "Truth" is just a meaningless noise leaving ones mouth unless there is at least some intellectual structure in which to define it. Ascribing "truth" to "God" is just another such intellectual structure.

"......everything is permitted":

Given all moral/ethical imperatives are by their very nature intellectual constructs and that none (as we define them) appear irrefutably to occur in nature we must conclude that the only "moral judge/authority" that provably exists in the cosmos must be our own minds (you can't even prove 100% that other minds necessarily exist). The only acts prohibited by nature are those defined by its physical laws, one cannot commit a physical action that does not have an equal and opposite reaction for instance. Thus "everything is permitted".
However as the fact that ones own mind is and can be the only moral authority it is also implicit in this "truth" (see what I did there?) that one should endeavour to not be found wanting in the eyes of this ethical arbiter. After all your own conscience is the one person you can never avoid! Thus "everything is permitted" when "truly" understood (again lol) does not encourage one to "do what you want" but rather to consider your every action with the utmost care. No one knows your true motivations & desires better than your own sub-conscious and no one could ever punish you as hard for your mistakes.

Hardened violent criminals who repent their crimes rarely do so because prison is an unpleasant environment (they are often hardened men, accustomed to physical hardship). They repent because the enforced solitude forces them to confront themselves!

Thus I assert; moral behaviour is a product of wisdom and self awareness only! Anything else is brainwashing and (often dangerous) delusion as it deprives one of the true (and complicated) reasons for why some choices/beliefs would be mistakes. (e.g. the sexual repression of Christian culture that still remains firmly in place amongst many (most) atheists).

Love is the law, Love under will.
And do what thau wilt shall be the whole of the law.

What your analysis is missing is any kind of cultural context. These things don't just happen in a vacuum, and nor are all ideas created equal. In many cases you are just trading one type of chain for another. Yes, mass media certainly has the ability to create and shape the prevailing social norms, and this can inspire counter cultural movements within a society. That's what happened in the 1960s with the sexual revolution, which is a root cause for the sexual immorality we see in society today. But it didn't just happen because people 'gained more knowledge', it happened because there was already a fundamental shift in the cultural ethos. An idea does not begin to grow unless its seed lands on fertile ground. The social mores of this nation were always decidedly Christian, but were steadily eroding by the beginning of the 20th century (for various reasons). The deeper truth is that people rejected traditional morality because they wanted to be free to indulge their carnal desires without restriction. Transcendent moral values were being replaced with moral relativism, fueled by the notion that man was a higher primate and had no moral responsibilities to a creator, leaving people free to invent whatever style of living pleased them. It was only the world wars that temporarily reversed this trend and brought the nation back together under the banner of an American moral imperative. But the foundation, weakened as it was by radical liberal ideology, was thoroughly rotten. America snapped back like a rubber band, bursting open the flood gates during the 60's, and changing the cultural landscape forever. Now traditional values are viewed as archaic, a throwback to a bygone era, and it is the "new" thing which is touted as "enlightenment".

Yet, this new thing is simply what is old in different packaging. The behavior of human beings today isn't noticeably different from anything that hasn't been tried in countless failed civilizations in the past. The song remains the same, despite the shiny new backdrops. Bible prophecy predicts that knowledge will increase in the last times, but it mentions nothing about wisdom. The human condition hasn't changed; men are ruled by their passions, and no matter how much knowledge they gain, the same mistakes are repeated endlessly. Look at the world today and tell me that isn't true. If humans are learning anything it is something they've always known and loved; rebellion. This is certainly the age of self-glorification, but history will tell you that is nothing new either. You're right in that "the church", ie, the catholic religion, tried to impose (a caricature of) Christian morality on the masses, with horrific results. That is a nightmare any decent person should be awoken from. However, as it pertains to describing the essential human condition, it was entirely correct. Sin is increasing in the world, not decreasing. Human nature is inherently sinful.

Everyone has a different way of describing the problem. Most look to place the blame and hand wave everything on to a particular condition. They say it's because of overpopulation. They say it's because of religion (an atheist favorite). They say it's because of ignorance. They say it's because (insert your favorite reason here). The reality is, it's because human beings are corrupt sinners, and always will be corrupt sinners until the end of time; that's why Jesus Christ came. He came to restore us to right relationship with our Creator. Don't place your faith and trust in man, because man cannot save himself, and all men are headed for a day of judgment. As scripture predicts, there will be a one world government headed by the antichrist, a seven year tribulation where all the world will become deluded and follow after the beast. Those who refuse to love the truth will believe the lie that the antichrist will be selling. At the end of the tribulation, Jesus Christ will return as the Lord and judge of all the earth. No amount of knowledge will prepare for you that day; only a saving faith in Jesus Christ.

>> ^Sagemind:

In the past era, we hit a communications Boom.

I'm asking people to sit down, and decide together to set up some fair and equal structure for identifying and clarifying our responsibilities to one another, and create an incentive structure to help us make sure we are all living up to the commitments morality demands of us.

Perfect! Sounds like you've formed a solid mission statement for a nongovernmental nonprofit.


I don't really see much promotion of altruism in that.

Funny: I see responsibilities mandated by the government as infinitely less altruistic than responsibilities mandated by individual moral imperative.


Oh, and one that I missed from earlier: It's not that I misunderstand Paul's "message," it's that I see through the spin.

Classifying Ron Paul as some kind of spin doctor is comical to me. We're talking about someone who has contributed more in the way of treating the underprivileged and uninsured than most of us ever will. Idealistic and inflexible with respect to individual liberty? Maybe. Disingenuous? Try again.
>> ^NetRunner:
Not at all. I'm asking people to sit down, and decide together to set up some fair and equal structure for identifying and clarifying our responsibilities to one another, and create an incentive structure to help us make sure we are all living up to the commitments morality demands of us ...

>> ^aurens:

You envision a world in which people take responsibility for their fellow citizens because they're compelled to do so by the government.
...
One (yours) is a world that places little emphasis on the moral (and social and cultural) development of the individual.

Not at all. I'm asking people to sit down, and decide together to set up some fair and equal structure for identifying and clarifying our responsibilities to one another, and create an incentive structure to help us make sure we are all living up to the commitments morality demands of us.

You (and Paul) want to paint that as something it's not.

>> ^aurens:

Ron Paul envisions a world in which people take responsibility for their fellow citizens because they're driven by their own moral imperative.
..
The other (Ron Paul's) is a world that grants the individual more freedom and, yes, more responsibility.

Right, and if they don't feel like taking responsibility for their fellow citizens, they don't have to. It's your property after all, and you're free to do with it as you wish. People can try to persuade you to voluntarily take on responsibility for others, but if you want to ignore them, we'll make sure your right to ignore that responsibility is defended, with violence if necessary.

I don't really see much promotion of altruism in that.

>> ^aurens:
Before you condemn me for living in a fantasy world, I refer you to my comment above: "The hard part, though, and one of the biggest hurdles that Ron Paul supporters face, is to determine, honestly, whether or not we've advanced enough as a society to handle the responsibilities that his vision entails."

And my original response to that was: "To me it seems pretty naive to think that world is the world we live in, though. It seems even worse to say that it would be the world we lived in if only we went back to our 19th century economic policies.

I too want a world where government is no longer necessary. I just don't see humanity ever getting to the point where we're all perfect moral creatures. I certainly don't see Paul's insistence that "freedom" means freedom from responsibility for anyone but yourself as being a step towards that goal."

A comment which you dismissed as being a "fallacy" that stems from my "misunderstanding" that Paul's policy prescriptions stem from his naive and unrealistic view of humanity.

Me, I give Paul the benefit of the doubt -- I think he knows that this "everyone will take care of each other" thing is a load of bull, so I don't really factor it into my criticism of him.

It's certainly not aiding his case as far as I'm concerned, and it's definitely no answer to my criticism of his political message.

>> ^aurens:

Somewhat tangentially, have you perchance read anything by Peter Singer, maybe One World or "Famine, Affluence, and Morality"? I find it odd that these sorts of debates center so provincially on the United States without acknowledging the moral responsibility we have for people who are far less fortunate than even the most underprivileged Americans.


I haven't read Singer, but I agree with you that we are almost always provincial in these conversations.

But I sorta feel like solving these sorts of issues at the local level is a prerequisite to solving them on a global level. People who aren't ready to accept responsibility for their neighbors probably aren't ready to even start thinking about taking responsibility for humanity as a whole.

Is Ron Paul a philanthropist who goes around promoting everyone contribute more to charitable causes?

I can't speak for anyone else, but he's certainly convinced me to contribute more to certain charitable causes.


Further, he makes it clear that "freedom" means you should not have to contribute anything to anyone who isn't you if you don't feel like it, even if it means letting someone else die.

You envision a world in which people take responsibility for their fellow citizens because they're compelled to do so by the government. Ron Paul envisions a world in which people take responsibility for their fellow citizens because they're driven by their own moral imperative. One (yours) is a world that places little emphasis on the moral (and social and cultural) development of the individual. The other (Ron Paul's) is a world that grants the individual more freedom and, yes, more responsibility.

Before you condemn me for living in a fantasy world, I refer you to my comment above: "The hard part, though, and one of the biggest hurdles that Ron Paul supporters face, is to determine, honestly, whether or not we've advanced enough as a society to handle the responsibilities that his vision entails."

Somewhat tangentially, have you perchance read anything by Peter Singer, maybe One World or "Famine, Affluence, and Morality"? I find it odd that these sorts of debates center so provincially on the United States without acknowledging the moral responsibility we have for people who are far less fortunate than even the most underprivileged Americans.
>> ^NetRunner:
I'm not talking about what Ron Paul believes or says he's doing, I'm talking about what he's actually out there fighting to make happen ...

>> ^blankfist:

And I too could recite your position. In my sleep. In a coma. In my grave.

But you can't. You're constantly misapprehending and misrepresenting my position on things, and you don't listen when I try to correct you on what I think.

>> ^blankfist:
If no one is willing to help someone who is dying, then they would die. I felt like I've answered this. But you want me to say something sensational and controversial, that I want people to die or think they should. But my point is it shouldn't be up to me or you. It should be up to the individual how he handles his life even in life-saving health treatment.

So it's okay for a doctor to choose to let the guy die if he wants to? Morally and legally, that's his right?

Keep in mind that at the same time, you're saying it's totally off-limits for there to be any kind of compulsory solution. No law saying that patients in life-threatening situations need to be treated regardless of their ability to pay. No taxes collected to compensate doctors for the services they render to people who are unable to pay. No collective bargaining to keep prices on drugs and treatments low. No national health insurance program, or even health insurance regulation, and definitely no subsidization of anything.

Maybe doctors are supermen who have an infinite wellspring of compassion, but they still live in a market-dominated world. They're going to need money to pay off their college debt. They're going to need a place to live, food to eat, etc. The hospital is going to demand some level of compensation for the use of rooms, equipment, and medical supplies. Once all the donations and his own savings are exhausted, even the most noble doctor is going to eventually have to say no to somebody, whether he wants to or not.

So, you're saying the patient who's dying must not be given guarantees of any kind, while the doctor must as a matter of moral imperative, be guaranteed the right to refuse to treat people, even if that's a death sentence for their potential patient.

That is sensational, controversial, and in my opinion, morally reprehensible.

I'm not asking you this as some sort of "gotcha" question. I'm mostly using the question to try to get you to think about this conflict between mainline libertarian ideology, and what you know is right in your heart.

There's gotta be a better way. I'm not married to any one way to solve the issue, but I definitely reject the way you and Paul are insisting is the only way society can handle these kinds of situations.

Opposition to the slaughter of animals is an emotional reaction. Either you feel it or you don't. It may be that working in a slaughterhouse for a day would shock people into feeling differently about it. However I don't think we can embrace that as an omnivore hypocrisy test for two reasons.

1) If they stayed at the job for 6 months, they might get over their shock and resume their earlier belief that killing animals for food is perfectly acceptable. There was a time when 95% of the western population had killed an animal for meat, and there was no mass conversion to veganism.

2) More fundamentally, all humans are emotional beings. In a jarring situation, we can all be manipulated into feeling some way that we didn't feel 10 minutes earlier. Go watch some tough guys crying at the end of a romantic comedy. Do they believe Reese Witherspoon has found true love? No, but Hollywood has figured out that if you play swelling violin music, people get emotional, no matter how contrived the story is. I don't think we can consider the reactions to such shocks, particularly as a result of deliberate manipulation, as a true insight into a person's character. Instead, we should see how they feel when they've had time to step back and reflect on the experience.

The video author might decry this as "rationalizing" our emotional failings. However, emotions are beyond our control. It's impossible to feel the wrong way, because there is no choice in the matter. You feel how you feel. It's a good thing that humans have mechanisms to construct their identities apart from their emotional reactions. Otherwise we'd be even more enslaved to them and more easily manipulated than we are now. Is examining and selectively discarding our spur of the moment emotional reactions cognitive dissonance? If so, we should be putting cognitive dissonance in the water supply, like fluoride.
>> ^grinter:

consider what the reaction of Sift omnivores would be if they were forced to slaughter their own meat. Even those claiming they feel no moral imperative to respect the suffering of other animals might wince just a bit as that calf calls for it's mother in its last moments of consciousness.

>> ^grinter:

It's not the strongest argument, but, for the sake of continuity, consider what the reaction of Sift omnivores would be if they were forced to slaughter their own meat. Even those claiming they feel no moral imperative to respect the suffering of other animals might wince just a bit as that calf calls for it's mother in its last moments of consciousness.


I'm sure at least a few sifters are also hunters or at the very least, anglers. Personally, I've never killed a farm animal, but I have caught and killed fish. I am morally comfortable with killing for food. Hell I'm comfortable with killing for a lot less than that and so are most people, including vegans. Or are they happy to live in a cockroach infested apartment or a termite/woodworm riddled house?

..thing is, we all have parts of our lives that suffer from a lack of introspection. We may feel just fine about our actions and beliefs without seeing how they contradict with our set of values. This contradiction can be so great that it is very difficult to accept as an innocent error of the kind we should expect ourselves to make; it shakes out egos.

It's not the strongest argument, but, for the sake of continuity, consider what the reaction of Sift omnivores would be if they were forced to slaughter their own meat. Even those claiming they feel no moral imperative to respect the suffering of other animals might wince just a bit as that calf calls for it's mother in its last moments of consciousness.

I don't think the links he's making make much sense. By his argument, every time we do something morally wrong or intellectually stupid, it contradicts our belief that we are good or smart. However, I don't think most people believe they are so good, or so smart, that they will always make the correct choice. Making bad choices isn't a conflict of character. It's the reality of being imperfect beings. This doesn't parallel the cultists who invest their entire identity in the idea that they are making a particular important decision correctly and later have to face the fact they were not.

The case of factory farms also seems inappropriate. We've seen several animal slaughter/torture videos on the sift. Most omnivores in the comments don't deny that modern farm animals live miserable tortured lives, nor that our meat consumption is responsible for their situation. Instead they argue that there's no moral imperative for one species (humans) to treat another species (pigs) well. If that's how you feel about it, then you can chow down on pork chops without any cognitive dissonance whatsoever.

I'm 100% on board with @MaxWilder. @Yogi, and @ghark seem to be falling into the same trap the tea party is falling in. By using your ideological base to hold your party hostage, you make your party less electable with the centrists. Right now, the centrists run this country, and Obama is our CEO.

To paraphrase Obama, "if we were to start from scratch, single-payer is the way to go, but we aren't starting from scratch." I agree, and in fact almost everybody agrees, there is little in this bill to effectively control costs. This bill is more about the moral imperative, not the financial one. It makes healthcare obtainable for more people, and it ensures that the people paying for coverage receive it. That is, it focuses more on the "quality and availability of care" problem, than the "cost of care" problem.

There is a very good reason for this. The cost issue is trickier to deal with.

On one hand you have the single payer direction. How do you do that? Presumably you just start offering medicare for everybody, which in effect means raising taxes substantially to pay for it. Remember, we just got out of a recession. Politically, nobody can stomach more taxes. Granted, in theory, everyone should receive a commensurate pay raise for the insurance they were previously receiving. If you thought that was going to happen... well... I think I've got a bridge that can get over that ocean for you...

On the other hand, you have the public option. In effect, that's making medicare optional for everyone. Well, if you talk to anyone in the medical industry, they'll tell you that medicare under-compensates. They don't cover the cost of care, and doctors are forced to subsidize that care by over charging patients with private insurance. Many doctors stop accepting medicare for exactly this reason. This puts you in a pickle. You can either A) force doctors to accept medicare, or B) reduce the availability of care to medicare subscribers. Of course, this is a false choice. Option A causes doctors to operate at a loss, which discourages entry into the medical profession more generally, and results in consequence B. Government price controls result in supply-demand imbalances. This is well documented.

If you really want to control costs, the best (maybe only) way is to lower the barriers to entry to the medical profession. Becoming a doctor should be a less costly endeavor, and doctors shouldn't be the only ones providing care. Nurses and technicians can do much of what is currently on the doctor's plate. Routine prescription renewals, diagnoses of common illnesses, and basic preventative tests could all be handled by people that didn't spend ten years and hundreds of thousands of dollars becoming a practicing doctor. Also, the creation of medical schools should be heavily subsidized. If you increase the number of care providers, the costs will come down.

The other aspects of costs are lawsuits, and medical technology (e.g. pharma, medtronic, etc). Dealing with lawsuits is hard, but one way to do it is to push liability to the people actually providing the care (like those nurses and techs, not the deep pockets), and make sure that the person getting the care understands the risks involved and signs waivers. That is where the dems are weakest because of their close ties to the ABA. With medical technology, we've got bigger problems that really have to do with overhauling our deeply flawed system of intellectual property in this country (and protectionist tendencies surrounding it). I agree, it's ridiculous that titanium screws cost 8k just because they go in your spine, or that 10 cents worth of pills can cost $600, but dealing with that is another whole TL;DR.