So Ron Paul's great example of "free market" health care is to fly to Singapore and pay $25,000 for an operation? I suppose that's great if you're a wealthy politician with $25,000 in change in your couch cushions, but it's certainly not a workable solution for most people. I think it's fair to say this man is just a wee bit out of touch with his constituency.

I also find it fascinating that not even the top celebrity of the freemarketarian movement can come up with anything more meaningful or specific than 'open the markets and everything'll be peachy' as justification for their economic beliefs. I don't know how people can buy into an ideology that has no tangible foundation. This isn't politics, it's *religion.

There must be something about growing up in Texas during the cold war that forever destroys your ability to reason when it comes to economics.

That said, his liberal views on foreign policy are usually well founded and spot on. He's absolutely right to slam democrats for letting Afghanistan slide.

Adding video to channels (Religion) - requested by dystopianfuturetoday.

And how the hell does Ron Paul distinguish "Corporations" and "Free Markets" ?? I keep hearing him say it's the fault of the corporations themselves not the free market. I have to say this is one of the first times I've strongly disagreed with Ron Paul and felt like he really didn't know what he was talking about.

Corporations, especially the parts of them that we dont like, are a direct result of the free market not being managed thoroughly by the government. People often forget that before there were seatbelts in cars we had to make a law regarding safety standards. I would NOT want to be alive before the FDA was created to regulate the corporations who are inherently part of the free market that operates on only one thing: their bottom line.

People don't get up in arms about cigarette regulations anymore and you WONT ever hear Ron Paul argue for the deregulation and tax reduction of the tobacco industry. And his "you can't be slightly pregnant" argument against government regulation is incredibly hypocritical considering he's a fucking government employee who's primary function is to make and modify policy and regulation in the United States.

I urge you the liberal socialists to put forth a candidate that can and will make change. Not false change. All that they do is move around the pawns, and never actually put the real pieces in play.

Not further perpetrate illegal activities under the guise of FISA, Patriot Act, and the fake closing of secret prisons.

You are both socialists? That is the enemy of freedom.

But then again, while we argue the virtues of Socialism, and Capitalism, and whatever the fuck isms the rest of us get fucked over by the revenue man, and the Central Bank.

Only fools argue about small things when the money to run anything is right there, in the central bank and the military industrial complex.

Continue to argue about getting something from nothing. You people want free health care? With the current system who is going to pay for that? Who? That's right, the fucking tax payer. With all due respect, fuck that.

Health-care and many other things should not have a price in the first place. That's what is wrong with the system.

Guys guys, the reason everything is circling the drain in the economy is because THE GOVERNMENT IS IN ON IT. The corporations aren't left to do battle on their own, they've enlisted the governments help and are GETTING THEIR SCAMS LEGALIZED. If the market was truly free, there would be so much competition that there would be only some top end companies and almost no mega-corporations - except for oil maybe.

Please think about what a free market really means before you spout off.

Yes, maybe seat belts wouldn't have been mandatory, but if enough studies and common sense show they save lives, there would be smaller seat belt after market companies making a living, then the manufacturers would jump on the wagon etc. It would eventually balance.

Yes their may be some huge scams, but the company caught would get busted, (It's still illegal to steal), and their company would go down the tubes fast once their competitors got wind and sprayed the media with the news. There would be so much competition that a company would be foolish to even try. The way it is now, the companies can just have the government change the legal definition of what's a scam, makes a shitload, then buy up other companies to end competition, then have the government bail them out when the scam hits the back end.

Sheesh.

JiggaJohnson: Do you think the British East India Company was an example of free markets? The concept you are having a hard time grasping is actually a very simple one. The elites hate free markets because it allows the go-getters from the middle class to out compete them, which is why we have nothing like free markets in America.

Self-styled leftists could learn something from the moral consistency of Ron Paul.

He doesn't come to asinine conclusions that Afghanistan was the "good war", where as others (Obama) did.

Free Market principles work. This is as easy to grok as anything. As soon as you introduce any regulating agents it does not really work anymore and you have to make something else. The word lobbyist should be a curse word - they ought not to exist. Congressmen, senators, politicians in general should be educated on the subjects they vote about, not influenced by lobbies and industry money. Ideally, government should have nothing to do with corporations, so that the free market principles could be allowed to work by themselves. Sadly, people always want to regulate and direct how the "free" market is supposed to be - this is a bad thing.

^ Speaking for liberals, I've got to say that I find the libertarian argument so amusingly backwards.

Essentially the argument goes something like this:

Corporations always make money via the most efficient path.

Using government to distort the market to their favor is more cost-effective than actually being a good business.

Therefore, government will always be corrupted by companies so long as it has the power to distort the market, at the cost of freedom.

Therefore, government must be destroyed, and everything will be free and happy.

^ Spot on. We have the best government money can buy, and that's just one reason a totally free market won't work. You'd need an uncorruptable government in place to begin with.

Another thing you need for free markets to work is a general public that isn't apathetic. If the tobacco companies started going out of business when people started to figure out the link to cancer, we wouldn't need regulations. If people had stopped buying cars without seatbelts (or consistently spent cash on an aftermarket seatbelt) then we wouldn't have needed to regulate it. People have this ridiculous tendency to believe that "it can't happen to me" and that destroys the free market's usefulness. The fact that Blue Shield is still in business after reports that people were being systematically denied further coverage because they cost too much... if people weren't so damn apathetic they would be out of customers within a month. Hell, they wouldn't even have done it because they would know that customers would switch providers.

Also, in what type of free market would people with pre-existing conditions get coverage? None. It just wouldn't happen.

And "right to free services"? I believe I have the right to police protection, fire protection, public education, etc... We have the "rights" that we as a society decide to grant ourselves, and we have to collectively agree on how to pay for it as well. None of it is free in the end, we're just talking about "no immediate direct costs".

Look, I love the free market for a lot of things. Electronics, for example. It works for that type of thing. But I'm sick (no pun intended) of thinking about how my health is some bean counter's liability that needs to be reduced whenever possible to increase corporate profits. I would much rather have an indifferent government drone monitoring my health plan than somebody who is actively looking for ways to screw me out of my money.

NetRunner:"Therefore, government will always be corrupted by companies so long as it has the power to distort the market, at the cost of freedom.

Therefore, government must be destroyed, and everything will be free and happy.

You lost it at this point. What about: Therefore, government shouldn't be involved in business and should only make laws that directly affect the safety and civil rights of the people? I mean, the government isn't involved in religion unless a religion trespasses on civil rights etc, why not business?

The answer is that government is making money hand over fist, (using laws that business suggested they make), and they're so corrupt that yes, they probably need to have their heads lopped off.

It's not head lice, it's brain cancer.

>> ^NordlichReiter:
"ANGRY-BOLD-SCRIPTED-RANT."


Three points.

1) Clearly you are more interested in red baiting than actually addressing anything VSfreedomhaters said. I know that you can't stand the fact that Obama is president, but you offer no worthwhile alternatives or solutions. The point is that the so called free market cares not about health care and has no means of understanding the concept of general well-being among human beings. It's a system designed to dole out 'personal liberty' based on class: more liberty to those with a lot of money; less liberty to those without. It's a hypothetical theory that never seems to play out in real life the way it does on Milton Friedman's bio-degrading doodle pad.

2) National health care isn't 'free', it's a publicly funded service, paid for by taxes. A national health care system would be far cheaper than the current American system, which would technically make it closer to being 'free'.

3) I'd love to have someone better, stronger and more willing to spend his political capital in the white house, but as of November 2008, Barack Obama was the only intelligent choice on the ballot, period. I'll see what I can do about getting someone better for the both of us in 2016, but I've only got a single vote's worth of influence, so I'm going to need some help.

*dead

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