Untrue Sage. Completely, entirely, untrue. We put term limits in Florida and guess what? We became FAR MORE corrupt. Why? Now it's a mad dash to impress lobbyists! So why should we put in term limits for more corruption?

We should disband fringe (terrorist) political parties. We should make it to where corporations cannot donate funds. We should do a lot--but not term limits. (Some of our best, sadly, were the old-school oldies who just didn't give a fuck about what others had to say.)

He explains why Republicans are against it in the beginning of the video--they're looking to bankrupt the Postal Service (thanks, lobbyists) and this plan will save it instead.

As to your next point, no true capitalist is going to accept less profit. These places charge that much because they can. They're located in inner city or other low income areas where, if people don't have bank accounts, they also aren't likely to have transportation to shop around for the best interest rate. Which is why this plan is brilliant, because not only are the post offices already conveniently located, they're not running on a purely capitalist agenda (i.e. they're not seeking to maximize profit as their primary motive for being in business).

As to the last point, yeah, there would probably have to be modifications made to post offices so that they can store larger sums of money. But robbing a post office (or just messing with postal workers in general) is a federal offense, meaning you would get the FBI coming looking for you, not some keystone cops.

Retailer strong-arming: So what? Movie studios do this to theaters all the time. So what if Best Buy only sells Apple -- in essence becomes an Apple store -- like all the other exclusive Apple stores? There will still be many willing and able competitors who will employ their entrepreneurial savvy by seeing the market need in selling non-apple tablets and make good money fulfilling that need that Best Buy may have (stupidly) stopped serving.

I repeat: Natural monopolies don't exist. And if they come about, they end up very short-lived because the world is full of competitors and competitor-wannabe's who will rush to fill any perceived market needs.

Misinformation: You find your trusted sources. The government is not one of them, I assure you. I, for example, trust way more the "Non-GMO Project" or the "Berkeley Ecology Center" far more than I would trust any (former-lobbyist/government kleptocrat) FDA-crony. Both of these (and many other) non-governmental organizations would still exist without government and in fact would be able to do more without government limiting what they can study or not about the products they inspect.

Patents: No, nothing good will ever come out of patents. If you want I will point you to countless articles I've read which show this to be the case.

New Technology: You're discounting reverse engineering? Why? If what you claim was so, then innovators would not even bother to patent, because then they could keep the technology "secret" forever. Clearly this isn't so. But, they get patents because they know of reverse engineering and other ways that the technology would be copied if they don't get a patent. In fact, right now, they can keep it "secret" by not getting patent. For example, Coca Cola does not have a patent on its secret formula for that very reason. Look it up.

The marginal utility of R&D: This is the standard old argument for patents. But you can find creative ways to make the inventions pay off. Did the music industry disappear because of piracy? No, it is making record profits, actually! Some companies would not be as mega wealthy, perhaps. Bill Gates would still be mega rich, but maybe not as rich as he is now. But, here you are complaining about extreme "inequality" while supporting the very structures which generate it.

Ignorance may be bliss -- but thankfully, we don't all have to be as ignorant as the least informed among us.

@bobknight33
cognitive dissonance+circular logic=your comment

you state its all the governments fault.
you give an example of massive amounts of "aid"

care to clarify that position?

because i actually agree with you but i suspect it is for different reasons.

when we look at government subsidies (welfare/aid),the largest recipient by far is american corporations.we even subsidize CEO pay,not to mention subsidizing their slave wage work force.

so can you tell me who the TRUE welfare queens are?

and did you just equate our government and its corporate socialism to being "kind,nice and trying to do the right thing"?
and that somehow this government altruism is bad for capitalism?

seriously?

it wouldnt happen to have anything to do with the army of corporate lobbyists that stampede congress/senate and the judiciary now would it?

all with their hands out.looking for some tasty welfare.

noooooooo...corporations are GOOD for the economy!
they are the "job creators" (like wall mart) and all that extra profit will rain down upon us common folk like mana from heaven.

here is how our current system plays out:
socialism for the rich.
capitalism for the poor.

we dont have capitalism.
our government is bought.
they no longer work for you,nor me.we have become irrelevant.

capitalism.
sounds like a great system.
we should try it sometime.

prove it, using a source that isn't fox news or some pathetic right wing blog.

no, your sister didn't get dropped, they can't turn away people anymore. It's on the greedy insurance companies, not Obama, quit blaming him and stop defending the people who are stealing your money while your sister gets sick.

You hate it when we blame bush, so take some of your own medicine. Obama did not shoot your dog, Obama did not come into your home and touch your stuff. Obama did not personally rip up your sisters insurance plan.

blame the greedy insurance companies who are getting rich off of your perpetual ignorance

We wanted single payer like the rest of the civilized world. It was the republicans that cried and whined like babies because their insurance lobbyist friends were upset they might not be able to afford that 2nd yacht. We're the ones that believe that people shouldn't be living like kings while the rest of us get sick.

And this is all just assuming you're not a gigantic paid shill for the Koch Brothers.

May we suggest the most glaring (common sense with a view trumping the most gracious of mortality odds) 'security flaw' inherent in ANY similar device (including off-brand/hype models) with functionality requiring two thumbs, a pair of eyes, and a challenge to their users of navigating the useless shit whilst performing mundane tasks such as saaay, crossing a street, waiting in line for groceries, operating a motor vehicle much less, operating your legs while not looking at the GROUND? Who needs any of this engineered obsolescence garbage anyway?...The cunts who want you under their thumbs, that's who and if they are LUCKY(all indications point to this a inevitable)-you or someone you just texted die crossing a street using some ineffectual device, car wreck while the manufacturer staffs lobbyists while crunching quarterly loss numbers.

Incorporating distraction into large populations who can afford these ancillary toys is KEY to these cunts who compete to make available these consumer grey-matter-killers and it has been the goal of providing you with the convenience of your own self-importance and slow death from the OUTSET.

Use less of the shit (civil and economic disobedience), stop fawning-over it and selling it without compensation to your friends (because after all, you have nothing else to communicate about of substance or meaning since yer skills have fallen-off a bit after the in-crowd hi-jack feeds on trashing or band-wagoning the latest devices every week..(gotta have one gotgaotta have the best)) HINT: THEY ALL HOBBLE YOUR MIND, THEY ALL SUCK-

EVERYONE do the experiment collectively (don't use their services for a month and threaten to drop service altogether) and YO, maybe develop some lasting relationships along the way....remember "eye contact!?"

Watch how miraculously interesting, stress-free and simply satisfying your unnecessarily complicated, dull-fucking life changes overnight and adds 10 more quality years to it when you numb or otherwise mitigate your use of this and all tech connected by satellite or cable. Ssuddenly, the emperor has no billy-club, a birthday suit, and the obvious becomes clear:..He's a FUCK THAT CONTROLS YOU WHO SHOULD BE ON AN INTERNATIONAL SEX-OFFENDERS DATABASE.

1st. The state is us, the citizens.
2nd. The government is the state government, an employee of the state, established by the state and for the state. The state government owns no property and has no authority, it only manages our public assets, and acts in our authority.

Those things you mention were changed by protest.
People exercising their 1st amendment right to assemble and petition the government, assembled, and were a royal PITA to a lot of other people.
In time, that forced the hand of those who had been elected to placate those that protested, to get rid of the nuisance.

Since then, the right to assemble has been 'interpreted' as a secondary right, and the right to petition the government is the primary.
This empowered the government to require permits for protests, and subsequently just remove protesters.
Now you can only write a letter asking for change. The right to petition has basically been neutered, by removing the one effective method of coercion that the state [common man] had over the government.

Elections are not democracy.
How you come up with your representative is irrelevant.
Elected, appointed, born, whatever. It's absolutely irrelevant.

Democracy = People's rule.
Representative democracy = People's rule by a representative 3rd party.

The representative is not a leader.
He is an agent obligated to represent (i.e. listen to and obey) his constituents.

So long as a representative is actively representing, then he is executing his office, then the state has democracy.

If the representative goes off and does what he wants, and ignores what the state wants, then the state has no democracy.

We in the U.S. have no "leaders".
We the people are the leaders.
The people we elect are employed by us to represent us, in a government of our creation.

Whether or not the people in government care to do their jobs or not, is a separate issue.

Right now, someone will get elected. Even if they only voted for themselves.
There is no requirement to have a positive rating from the people, in order to get elected.
Regardless who gets elected, they all get paid by the same lobbyists, and pander to the same financial interests.
The only way you get change for the common man, is when it incidentally aligns with what's good for the entrenched interests.

eg. If Obamacare works out in the end. Great. If not, oh well, another 'meh' program that in the end just provides state unemployment labor. Whatever.
Either way, it didn't happen for a love of the common man and his health. It happened because insurance companies were lobbying for it.





I would like to add that "the other" is generally a really poor propaganda based impression.
Every country on earth, it's not as great their media says it is, and it's not as bad as other's media says it is.

Here a cop will shoot a little old lady half a dozen times for picking a fight with a random other person (this just happened locally).
In a crap ton of ex-soviet countries that people love to grimace about 'how bad it is', you can argue with the cops till they let you go. And you don't have to assume they will beat you to a pulp for it.

People's impression of "police state" is what they imagine from movies. A 1984 caricature. But that's not what a police state look like in reality.
It's a place that's generally normal, unimposing, and only time to time when you step on the wrong person's toes, you end up 'going away for a while'.

Here in the U.S., 1 in 18 men is in jail or on parole.
Good luck finding another country that even comes close.
The policing is out of control. Way too much 'getting tough' on irrelevant things that shouldn't even be a bother, let alone be considered crimes.

-scheherazade

Hrm, interesting talk, but a lot of his arguments seem to be pretty misguided or just plain wrong.

He spends most of the video blaming environmentalists for the various energy problems, however it's a lot more complicated than that. The primary reason Govt's like those in America won't stop using current nuclear tech is because it generates weapons grade materials that can be used by the military-industrial (etc) complex. The lobbyists for these industries have way too much money to throw around for any other pressure to be meaningful. This means that pushing through cleaner nuclear power solutions will be next to impossible despite whatever pressure is applied by environmentalist groups for or against the various solutions.

Also, the fact that he states wind/solar etc only contribute 1% of supply and can't contribute enough to satisfy consumer needs is extremely misguided. That may be the case where he's from (currently), but if you look at the latest EU statistics, wind, by itself is already accounting for 5% of all energy demand, and the contribution is much higher in some countries, i.e. Germany=10%, Denmark=25% (just from wind).

http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/publications/statistics/Stats_2011.pdf

Solar also contributes a significant amount, supplying 5% of all needs in Germany for example (50% of midday demands), and the technology is only improving.

Despite him being completely (by orders of magnitude) wrong in this respect, his statement probably does makes sense if you only apply it to America, because their political system is completely fucked, but he should be honest about that in his discussion if he's really done his research.

He does make some very valid points however, and I certainly hope the realisation of better nuclear power does come true in our lifetimes so we can continue to accelerate the move away off coal/gas.

you are sounding more and more like an anarchist.
you didnt click the link i shared did you?
it explained in basic form the type of anarchy i subscribe to.

which leads us further into the rabbit hole of governments role.
which by your response it appears i need to describe a tad further.

so lets change the question from:
"what is governments role?"
to
"what,if at all,is the FEDERAL governments role"?

which of course we can refer to the federalist papers or the articles of confederacy.
one is a great argument in regards to what federal powers should be the other was an absolute failure and needed to be discarded.(too much anarchy lol)

that argument is still going on today.
well,between people like you and i,not from the political class.

i agree with your position.
i may word mine differently but our views are in alignment for the most part.

what i do find interesting is how a person with a more right leaning ideology will point to the government and say "there..thats the problem"
while someone from a more left leaning will point to corporations as the main culprit.

you need to understand i point to both.
hence my "plutocracy" argument.
so while you are correct that a corporation cannot throw you in jail,they can and DO influence our legislation (in the form of alec,lobbyists,campaign funding) to enact laws which may make anything their competitors do "illegal" or keep them out of the market completely.or make anything they do "legal".both governments and corporations do this for their own survival and self-interest.

the war on drugs and the private prison system come to mind.since weed is becoming more and more acceptable "illegal" immigrants will become the new fodder for the prison.

in my humble opinion most people all want the same things in regards to a civilized society.
fairness,justice and truth.

now how we get there is the REAL discussion (like you and i are having right now).

i agree the federal government should have limited powers but i recognize government DOES play a role.i believe in the inherent moral goodness of people.that if pressed,most people will do the right thing.

this is why i think that governments should be more localized.we could use the "states rights" argument but i would take it further into townships,local communities and municipalities.

for this to even have a chance this country would have to shake off its induced apathetic coma and participate and become informed.

no easy task.
in fact,what both you and i are suggesting is no easy task.
but worthy..so very very worthy.

active citizenship basically.

when we consider the utter failures of:
our political class.
the outright betrayal of our intellectual class who have decided to serve privilege and power at the neglect of justice and truth for their own personal advancement,
and the venal corporate class.

which all have served,wittingly or unwittingly, to create the corporate totalatarian surveillance state we now find ourselves living in.
there can be ONLY one recourse:

we,as citizens,have to demand a better way.
not through a political system that is dysfunctional and broken and only serves the corporate state while giving meaningless and vapid rhetoric to the people.

nor can this be achieved by violent uprising,which would only serve to give the state the reason to perpetrate even greater violence.

we cannot rely on our academic class which has sold itself for the betterment of its own hubris and self-aggrandizing.

even the fourth estate,which has been hamstrung so completely due to its desire for access to power,it has been enslaved by the very power it was meant to watchdog.

the institutions that existed 50 years ago to put pressure on the levers of power are gone,destroyed and crushed or outright abandoned.

when we look at american history.the ACTUAL history we find that never,not ONCE,did the american government EVER give something to the people.those rights and privileges were hard fought for by social movements.
in fact,america had the longest and bloodiest of labor movements on the planet.
the woman sufferagists.
the liberty party in its stance against slavery.
the civil rights movement.

it is the social movements which put pressure,by way of fear,on the political class.

we have seen the tea party rise and get consumed by the republican political class.

we saw occupy rise up to be crushed in a coordinated effort by the state.this was obama that did this yet little was ever spoken about it.

power is petrified of peoples movements.

there will be another movement.
i do not know when or how it will manifest.
i just hope it will not be violent.

because that is the only way to combat the power structures we are being subjected to today.
civil disobedience.
and i aim to misbehave.

this starts exactly how you and i are talking.
it is the conversation which sparks the idea which ignites a passion which turns into a burning flame.

i am a radical.
a dissident.
but radical times call for radical thinking.

you and i both want fairness,justice and truth.
everybody does.
some of our philosophy overlaps,other parts do not.
we discuss the parts that do not overlap to better understand each other.
this forms a bond of empathy and understanding.
which makes it far more harder to demonize each other in terms of the political class and propaganda corporate tv.

the power elite do not want me to understand you,nor you to empathize with me.
that does not serve their interests.
fear and division serve their interests.
hyper-nationalistic xenophobia serves their interests.

i aim to disappoint them.

now go watch that video i posted for ya.
when ya got time of course lol.

maybe it will help if i share the people i admire.
chomsky,zinn,hedges,watts,harvey,roy,
just some of the people who have influenced me greatly.

anyways.
loving this conversation.
i am in 3 other debates with highly educated people.
nowhere near as polite and awesome as you.
then again..i am kicking the crap out of them.
arrogance really annoys me,makes me vulgar and beligerent.
peace brother man.

@enoch, thanks for your comments. I thought it better to respond directly to your profile than on the video, about which we're no longer discussing directly. Sorry for the length of this reply, but for such a complex topic as this one, a thorough and plainly-stated response is needed.

You wrote: "the REAL question is "what is the purpose of a health care system"? NOT "which market system should we implement for health care"?"

The free market works best for any and all goods and services, regardless of their aim or purpose. Healthcare is no different from any other good or service in this respect.

(And besides, tell me why there's no money in preventative care? Do nutritionists, physical trainers/therapists, psychologists, herbalists, homeopaths, and any other manner of non-allopathic doctors not get paid and make profit in the marketplace? Would not a longer life not lead to a longer-term 'consumer' anyway? And would preventative medicine obliterate the need for all manner of medical treatment, or would there not still remain a need to diagnose, treat, and cure diseases, even in the presence of a robust preventative medical market?)

I realize that my argument is not the "popular" one (and there are certainly many reasons for this, up to and including a lot of disinformation about what constitutes a "free market" health care system). But the way to approach such things is not heuristically, but rationally, as one would approach any other economic issue.

You write "see where i am going with this? It's not so easy to answer and impose your model of the "free market" at the same time."

Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. The purpose of the healthcare system is to provide the most advanced medical service and care possible in the most efficient and affordable way possible. Only a free competitive market can do this with the necessary economic calculations in place to support its progress. No matter how you slice it, a socialized approach to healthcare invariably distorts the market (with its IP fees, undue regulations, and a lack of any accurate metrics on both the supply-side and on the demand-side which helps to determine availability, efficacy, and cost).

"you cannot have "for-profit" and "health-care" work in conjunction with any REAL health care."

Sorry, but this is just absurd. What else can I say?

"but if we use your "free market" model against a more "socialized model".which model would better serve the public?"

The free market model.

"if we take your "free market" model,which would be under the auspices of capitalism."

Redundant: "free market under the auspices of free market."

"disease is where the money is at,THAT is where the profit lies,not in preventive medicine."

Only Krugman-style Keynesians would say that illness is more profitable than health (or war more profitable than peace, or that alien invasions and broken windows are good for the economy). They, like you, aren't taking into account the One Lesson in Economics: look at how it affects every group, not just one group; look at the long term effects, not just short term ones. You're just seeing that, in the short-run, health will be less profitable for medical practitioners (or some pharmaceuticals) that are currently working in the treatment of illness. But look at every group outside that small group and at the long run and you can see that health is more profitable than illness overall. The market that profits more from illness will have to adapt, in ways that only the market knows for sure.

Do you realize that the money you put into socialized medicine (Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, etc.) is money you deplete from prevention entrepreneurship?

(As an aside, I wonder, why do so many people assume that the socialized central planners have some kind of special knowledge or wisdom that entrepreneurs do not? And why is there the belief that unlike entrepreneurs, socialist central planners are not selfishly motivated but always act in the interest of the "common good?" Could this be part of the propagandized and indoctrinated fear that's implicit in living in a socialized environment? Why do serfs (and I'm sure that, at some level, people know that's what they are) love the socialist central planners more than they love themselves? Complex questions about self-esteem and captive minds.)

If fewer people get sick, the market will then demand more practitioners to move from treating illness into other areas like prevention, being a prevention doctor or whatever. You're actually making the argument for free market here, not against it. Socialized bureaucratically dictated medicine will not adapt to the changing needs as efficiently or rapidly as a free market can and would. If more people are getting sick, then we'll need more doctors to treat them. If fewer people are getting sick because preventive medicine takes off, then we'll have more of that type of service. If a socialized healthcare is mandated, then we will invariably have a glut of allopathic doctors, with little need for their services (and we then have the kinds of problems we see amongst doctors who are coerced -- by the threat of losing their license -- to take medicaid and then lie on their reports in order to recoup their costs, e.g., see the article linked here.)

Meanwhile, there has been and will remain huge profits to be made in prevention, as the vitamin, supplements, alternative medicine, naturopathy, exercise and many other industries attest to. What are you talking about, that there's no profit in preventing illness? (In a manner of speaking, that's actually my bread and butter!) If you have a way to prevent illness, you will have more than enough people buying from you, people who don't want to get sick. (And other services for the people who do.) Open a gym. Become a naturopath. Teach stress management, meditation, yoga, zumba, whatever! And there are always those who need treatment, who are sick, and the free market will then have an accurate measure of how to allocate the right resources and number of such practitioners. This is something that the central planners (under socialized services) simply cannot possibly do (except, of course, for the omniscient ones that socialists insist exist).

You wrote "cancer,anxiety,obesity,drug addiction.
all are huge profit generators and all could be dealt with so much more productively and successfully with preventive care,diet and exercise and early diagnosis."

But they won't as long as you have centrally planned (socialized) medicine. The free market forces practitioners to respond to the market's demands. Socialized medicine does not. Entrepreneurs will (as they already have) exploit openings for profit in prevention (without the advantage of regulations which distort the markets) and take the business away from treatment doctors. If anything, doctors prevent preventative medicine from getting more widespread by using government regulations to limit what the preventive practitioners do. In fact, preventive medicine is so profitable that it has many in the medical profession lobbying to curtail it. They are losing much business to alternative/preventive practitioners. They lobby to, for example, prevent herb providers from stating the medical/preventive benefits of their herbs. They even prevent strawberry farmers to tout the health benefits of strawberries! It is the state that is slowing down preventive medicine, not the free market! In Puerto Rico, for example, once the Medical Association lost a bit to prohibit naturopathy, they effectively outlawed acupuncture by successfully getting a law passed that requires all acupuncturists to be medical doctors. Insanity.

If you think there is no profit in preventative care or exercise, think GNC and Richard Simmons, and Pilates, and bodywork, and my own practice of psychotherapy. Many of the successful corporations (I'm thinking of Google and Pixar and SalesForce and Oracle, etc.) see the profit and value in preventative care, which is why they have these "stay healthy" programs for their employees. There's more money in health than illness. No doubt.

Or how about the health food/nutrition business? Or organic farming, or whole foods! The free market could maybe call for fewer oncologists and for more Whole Foods or even better natural food stores. Of course, we don't know the specifics, but that's actually the point. Only the free market knows (and the omniscient socialist central planners) what needs to happen and how.

Imagination! We need to get people to use it more.

You wrote: "but when we consider that the 4th and 5th largest lobbyists are the health insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry is it any wonder that america has the most fucked up,backwards health care system on the planet."

You're actually making my point here. In a free market, pharmaceutical companies cannot monopolize what "drugs" people can or cannot take, sell or not sell, and cannot prevent natural alternatives from being promoted. Only with state intervention (by way of IP regulations, and so forth) can they do so.

Free market is not corporatism. Free market is not crony capitalism. (More disinformation that needs to be lifted.)

So you're not countering my free market position, you're countering the crony capitalist position. This is a straw man argument, even if in this case you might not have understood my position in the first place. You, like so many others, equate "capitalism" with cronyism or corporatism. Many cannot conceive of a free market that is free from regulation. So folks then argue against their own interests, either for or against "fascist" vs. "socialist" medicine. The free market is, in fact, outside these two positions.

You wrote: "IF we made medicare available to ALL american citizens we would see a shift from latter stage care to a more aggressive preventive care and early diagnosis. the savings in money (and lives) would be staggering."

I won't go into medicare right now (It is a disaster, and so is the current non-free-market insurance industry. See the article linked in my comment above.)

You wrote "this would create a huge paradigm shift here in america and we would see results almost instantly but more so in the coming decades."

I don't want to be a naysayer but, socialism is nothing new. It has been tried (and failed) many times before. The USSR had socialized medicine. So does Cuba (but then you may believe the Michael Moore fairytale about medicine in Cuba). It's probably better to go see in person how Cubans live and how they have no access to the places that Moore visited.

You wrote: "i feel very strongly that health should be a communal effort.a civilized society should take care of each other."

Really, then why try to force me (or anyone) into your idea of "good" medicine? The free market is a communal effort. In fact, it is nothing else (and nothing else is as communal as the free market). Central planning, socialized, top-down decision-making, is not. Never has been. Never will be.

Voluntary interactions is "taking care of each other." Coercion is not. Socialism is coercion. It cannot "work" any other way. A free market is voluntary cooperation.

Economic calculation is necessary to avoid chaos, whatever the purpose of a service. This is economic law. Unless the purpose is to create chaos, you need real prices and efficiency that only the free market can provide.

I hope this helps to clarify (and not confuse) what I wrote on @eric3579's profile.

@Trancecoach
i am going to have to disagree with your "free market" argument.(i snooped on your commentary on @eric3579 page).

and here is why:

since we both agree that what we have now is NOT a free market health care system and it is rife with corruption.we can move on to the real meat of the argument.

in my opinion the basic flaw in your argument is the base question.
free market or socialized medicine?

this is the wrong question.
because the questions ignores the very essence which we should be addressing.
the REAL question is "what is the purpose of a health care system"?
NOT "which market system should we implement for health care"?

so,
what IS the purpose of the health care system?

ah...
see where i am going with this?
not so easy to answer and impose your model of the "free market" at the same time.

because they are incompatible.
you cannot have "for-profit" and "health-care" work in conjunction with any REAL health care.

my family is in the medical field (as i know you are as well),and i have had this discussion with them many,many times.

when i have asked them "what is the best way to optimize a persons long term health"?
they have always answered,without exception "preventive care"."early diagnosis"."education on the benefits of diet and exercise".

and i suspect you would agree with their assessment.

but if we use your "free market" model against a more "socialized model".which model would better serve the public?

if we take your "free market" model,which would be under the auspices of capitalism.
where is the profit in a healthy society?
answer:there is none.
disease is where the money is at,THAT is where the profit lies,not in preventive medicine.

cancer,anxiety,obesity,drug addiction.
all are huge profit generators and all could be dealt with so much more productively and successfully with preventive care,diet and exercise and early diagnosis.

it is ineffecient and morally despicable and the costs are counted in dead bodies.

but when we consider that the 4th and 5th largest lobbyists are the health insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry is it any wonder that america has the most fucked up,backwards health care system on the planet.

so if we used your "free market" model instead of the corporate welfare system we are using now.
the results would STILL be the same.
because BOTH systems are for-profit.

now,
let us examine medicare.
runs on a 3-5% overhead,while in contrast the health insurance industry runs between 25-35% and are..for-profit.

IF we made medicare available to ALL american citizens we would see a shift from latter stage care to a more aggressive preventive care and early diagnosis.
the savings in money (and lives) would be staggering.

this would create a huge paradigm shift here in america and we would see results almost instantly but more so in the coming decades.

i dont feel i have to list them because i respect your intellect.

i feel very strongly that health should be a communal effort.a civilized society should take care of each other.
a corporation cares nothing for my health nor yours.they care about profit.

and preventive care is NOT profitable,yet death and disease are.

so.
socialism>free market

This voice mail was also played and analyzed in an episode of the radio show This American Life:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/461/take-the-money-and-run-for-office
If you're interested in this stuff I heartily recommend this episode, for me it was an eye-opener.
It talks about how organized the fund raising from lobbyists is, and how it is more organized by policians than by lobbyists.
And (if I recall correctly) this also explains part of Eleanor Holmes Norton's call, senior members of influential committees are expected to raise more money, and then redistribute that money among less influential policians within the party. Holmes Norton also mentions that in some part of the voice mail (not played by Cenk), that she has had criticicisms from other politicians that she was not pulling her fund raising weight.

Does look at least a few years old
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Politics/dialing-dollars-democratic-rep-asks-lobbyist-campaign-cash/story?id=11655808

Privacy and freedom are orthogonal. Privacy both grants freedom and takes it away. You're talking like there is a clear path for a centrist to take on this matter. My thought experiment was meant to expose a hypocrisy in too commonly held ideals. "Information should be free!" is often taken to mean that we should be able to access whatever information we want. On the other hand, "big brother" is a pejorative describing dystopian violations of individual privacy that reasonable people holding the former position often use.

We can't have it both ways. Either we get to know what people are up to (e.g. terrorists, banks, lobbyists, politicians, government agencies, etc) while coping with oversight of our own activities. Or we lock down all the information and cope with the inevitable cheat avoiding detection.

You can play the game of trying to break it down case by case, but the fact is surveillance can't really be implemented piecemeal. Once you decide to collect the information, you sort of get what you get.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, or one of the less-grounded members of this community (you all know who you are!), and I'm not trying to make this out to be the good/bad/evil scenario, i.e. Emperor Palpatine et al. I use "government" as a collective, general term, however I felt it was apt in this context given that people strictly within the government, and maybe lobbyists to an extent, are responsible for these various decisions that have led us to this point.
No, they don't seek power for it's own sake, but the handful of objectives I listed in my last post are a sampling of what might drive an organization to pursue power fervently.

There does seem to exist a greater, definitively single-minded pursuit of lessening the civil rights of US citizens since the turn of the millennium, in an attempt to have more power over them, and while "government" at large generally fumbles over itself when it attempts to get all the parts moving together as one, I believe you can see the broader cooperation happening here. From inclusion of said US Tech companies roles, the nation-wide abuse by the police force, aggression of US border patrol agents, random TSA checkpoints on some state highways, and the statements made by the president and his staff, which only seem to serve to blow off civil concerns with one breath while granting increased power to these same entities with the next.

At this point in a country's history, it seems to me that the only thing that can change the course of an entire nation is decisive action by it's citizens on a scale that would simultaneously qualify as an act that justifies all their overreaches of power. And I don't mean in any way acts of violence, but if there were a 5-million-man-march on the capitol tomorrow to show a mass appeal for reason and demand accountability, I believe it would be used as an example of why the government is pursuing such surveillance to begin with.

Sorry this is long winded, but lastly, I wouldn't feel too bad about Obama's allegedly targeting only foreign individuals. To me that felt like damage control to appease the US populace rather than an affront to foreign nationals. They said the Exact. Same. Thing. about the Patriot Act, and that was being used to arrest US citizens for minor infractions by local law enforcement not 6-months after it was passed. Disgusting.