Obligatory FTFY.


Yes. Yes it does. Because if he's not considered an extremist, then I don't want to think about what that signifies.

The truthfulness of that second sentence just makes me lose all hope for this country.

I find wanting to deny basic human rights to all people to be an "extreme" position. Unfortunately, about 50% of Americans are idiots, bigots, or both.

And I find any one want to give the people in Washington more and more power over what states can and can't do to be even wrose. In fact that's was the main reason for the whole damn Civil War. So call me a bigot for saying that state have the right to say who can and can't get married. Because I can tell you know where in the US constitution was the Federal Government.

So if I'm a bigot or extremist for wanting someone like Ron Paul or Rick Santorum over who is in the White Houes right now fine then I'm a bigot. But don't any one sit here and post how they are all for freedom while at the same time we have a Government that wants to tell you want kind of car you can drive what you can eat and so on.

Look I don't agree with Rick Santorum on somethings. But when he or even Ron Paul come and say that it's not the job of the government to tell you what you can and can't buy and what I tend to lean to people are are for the Constitution. Ron Paul is not gonig to get the nod. So I have Three other guys and out of the only Santorum is closer to Ron Paul. So I'm sorry if I will only vote for people who will hold to the Constitution seeing as how that is the true Law and Power of the USA.

You see I don't really care what the hell Obama or Congress or the Supreme court say if it's not power given to them in the Constitution then they should all be thrown in jail for treason for the past 12 years we have had that. So yeah a bigot what about all of you? Are all of you for Constitutionly rights? Or did you all throw that out?

What the hell do you people expect? We here in the good ole' US of A haven't produced any decent cultural innovations recently, so why should you all expect us to produce good politicians. Don't forget this is the country that elected Bush....Twice! Our politicians are just a reflection of American society as a hole. So, I wouldn't be surprised if the next election featured someone from the Jersey Shore versus some MMA gorilla with the IQ of a house slipper. Just sit back and enjoy the destruction of western civilization, brought to you by the USA and all its corporate owners.

I'm just curious, who do you support, and why? Who do you think could stop this decline?

Why do you think there is any politician that can stop the decline? True change comes from the ground up.

I think you are either not following politics closely enough or extremely misinformed. Ron Paul and Rick Santorum are basically completely opposites. Santorum is a big government spender, warmonger, and a social conservative that wants to impose his values on people via legalization. Paul is basically a conservative libertarian. (I would consider myself more of a liberal, minarchist one). Paul wants to dramatically cut spending, remove troops from the 130 countries we are in from around the world, and although he probably has somewhat social conservative values, none of them are the focal point of his campaign nor does he consider them very important. Paul said for marriage that he would remove government recognizing marriages and allowing people to do it themselves (which makes a whole lot more sense, plus it would de facto legalize gay marriage which is something I'm all for). Yes, Paul is pro-life and I vehemently disagree with that as well as a good number of people here, but because we have the Roe v. Wade ruling, he can't do anything about. And abortion is far from being a crucial focus point on his campaign. And finally yes, I do strongly support Paul over all the other candidates.

And yes, Santorum is a walking bigot (as is much of the Republican party) namely for his views towards the LBGT community and probably abortion (depends on how and why you have a pro-life view. It could be simply just wanting to punish women for having sex.)

What? Theres regulations for what producers can put on the market, no doubt. But if you so desperately want to put dangerous chemicals and rancid meat in your body, I'm sure nobody's stopping you from having a nice roadkill skunk steak in terpentine marinade.

Also, I was under the impression that the states, not the fed. government, determine street legality.
The sentiment that you should be able to drive whatever you want strikes me as an incredibly childish piece of egotism, as you endanger not just yourself, but everyone else too by driving a car that doesn't meet standards.

He said that they want to regulate food. The keyword is "want". It's not about keeping dangerous or ineditable foods off the market, it's about things like banning trans-fats, whatever else food is deemed "unhealthy", even though there is nothing wrong with them in moderation. After all, there are some people out there who think that somehow, turkey and bananas aren't as healthy as chicken nuggets.

I'm not exaggerating.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/1 ... 78803.html

The sentiment that we can pass laws that effectively protect people from themselves without serious negative repercussions seems to me to be extremely foolish. What company in their right mind would produce crappy cars that don't work? Reducing the quality of a product just to cut costs is a terrible business model and you will find yourself going bankrupt fast.

This is not an example of protecting people from themselves.
As with drunk driving, it's about preventing an individual from causing harm to other people, but please indulge me, Repercussions such as...?



Libertarian wishful thinking at it's worst.
Let's pick an example: Without regulations McDonalds could switch a specific chicken mcnugget ingredient with a cheaper, more harmfull substance. Unless this makes the mcnuggets taste horrible, people might not even notice, then theres McDonalds massive marketing power (product quality is only one of many sales factors, after all)
The theory is that people will eventually catch on to a shoddy company, the company goes under and the market regulates itself. But even today, there are plenty examples of companies producing a one-time, cheap, low quality batch of products without any intent of a long term business model, profit from it before people catch on, then change the names around and start over.

Plus there's also all the people who may have to needlessly suffer and die as a result of the poor products before everyone catches on.

You were talking about mandated safety standards when you produce a car (or at least I thought you were) not drunk driving. Drunk driving harms other people so obviously I am fine with this law. Repercussions such as government overreach, wasted spending, loss of civil liberties, basically a lot of the problems we have today.



Wishful government regulation thinking at it's worst.
McDonald's has been for the last few years (and out of their own will) trying to make their food healthier and for the most part it is better than it used to be. Sure, McDonald's is still overall bad for you when compared to other things, but now they offer so many more options than they used to. The free market seems to be working fine. And as I've said before, companies don't just put out harmful products, it's bad for business. Also, for some reason, there's this weird notion that cheaper things are always more harmful.



Companies don't purposely put out products that kill or cripple their customers. Believe it or not most people have some sort of basic morality, and plus it is just plain bad for business to sell products that harms your customers.

Either producing or driving an unsafe car harms other people, so I fail to see the difference.
You also keep making the assumption that, even if it is true you can't make profit with low quality products (which you keep repeating without basis), it would mean no company would ever do it.
I really don't even need to argue, It's happening right now. Just look at all the Ipod and Wii knockoffs.



My example was a theoretical one, that McDonalds in reality uses a different strategy I don't see as relevent.
And how do you know the free market seems to be working fine? There is no free market in the U.S. or anywhere else in the modern western world. We have regulations up the ass. Thankfully.



So let's say an unethical person with poor business sense does it anyway? (again, provided your assumptions are correct) What then? Fat chance it'll already be too late for some people once the company goes under.

Tell the cigarette companies that.

And what about indirect forms of harm - environmental degradation, climate pollution etc. Companies may contribute in a minor way, but thousands of them make a large impact. You think customers would not buy a product containing CFCs because they were told it harms the ozone layer? That hasn't really been happening on a large scale with greenhouse gases and climate change.

Assuming the car is not absurdly unsafe (like it explodes on impact or something) and the company is honest and doesn't false advertise about it; then there shouldn't really be anything wrong with selling the car. Of course, as I've said before, hardly anyone wants a car that will crumble on impact, and hardly any companies want to produce cars like that. They compete regularly to make safer cars. I did say "reducing the quality of a product" earlier, but let me qualify that since I wasn't very clear earlier which is my fault. Reducing the quality of a product to point where it becomes harmful (like making unsafe cars) will never make you a profit. (Hell, this is probably even true for drugs. Marijuana would dominate in a free market.) Why? Because people will find out that the car sucks, and hardly anyone will want to buy it. It's not without basis, it's simple logical deduction.



It's an absurd theoretical one. Firstly, chemicals aren't inherently bad; it just depends on the kind of chemicals you use. Secondly, restaurants don't just dump chemicals on their food for fun. They only do it for preservative purposes. Thirdly, there are tons of cheap chemicals that preserve food that are harmless. Pick up any frozen food, canned food, etc. and read the nutrition facts. You will see tons of "dangerous" chemicals in your food. And finally, all this is based off this weird assumption that cheaper chemicals are always more harmful.

And you are right, there has not been a free market in the western world for a long time unfortunately. It was poor phrasing on my part. I should have said something along the lines of: as people demanded healthier food and choices, McDonald's decided to meet that demand by making their food more healthy and offering new choices at their restaurants. And as we see, supply and demand does work and should be encouraged more. Regulations up the ass only stifle competition, raise prices (why do you think medical care is so expensive), and do minimal to "protect" us from those evil companies.



What about an unethical person who gets a knife and goes around stabbing people? Better put some regulations on knives then to prevent this from happening. This kind of thinking is absurd. You might as well regulate anything that might be harmful since some unethical person somewhere might possibly do something bad. If a company sells something that is harmful and falsely advertises it about them, you throw their asses in jail and compensate the victims. You don't throw tons of regulations that inhibit freedom and stifle competition.



Drugs would be the obvious exception to this rule since they are physically addictive. Anyways, cigarette companies (no longer) do not falsely advertise their products. And every cigarette smoker is well aware of the harm they are doing to themselves. There's really nothing wrong with this in my eyes aside from potential second-hand smoke issues, but of course that should be handled in court.

As for pollution in general, that should be taken care of via private property. If a factory or something pollutes too much on your land, then they are harming your property and should be required to stop. I have no problem with environmentalism, but that's not something the government needs to handle. Private organizations and people are perfectly capable of doing this themselves.

CFCs is an obvious exception. CFCs clearly harmed the ozone layer, which would harm us all, and so I am fine with the ban on those.

Uhh, you know Mcdonalds already uses some of the worst quality ingredients out there with the governments thumbs up? What regulation could possible be removed to make them worse?

(And their mcnuggets already taste horrible, not that many noticed)

Nobody wants a low quality product, but don't tell me you've never purchased a product that turned out to be shit regardless.
And no, most people won't sit down and figure "Let's make our product properly shit/harmfull", but it still happens regardless.

When I say your claims are without basis, I'm saying "that's a nice line of reasoning in theory, but it's evidently wrong". As I said, to take product quality as the sole, or even as the determining factor in sales is wishful thinking.


Never said that


Never said that either


I never claimed otherwise


I never....you know the drill.


I would like concrete examples. Also, medical care is pretty damn cheap here because we don't have a 15% uninsurance rate not being able to pay for their care, forcing hospitals and insurence companies to raise prices to keep in business (damn you, obligatory insurence and guaranteed Affordability regulations!)


In that example, the fault is in how the consumer used the product (that is to say, it's not an inherently harmfull product) It's not the producer's fault, as in the case of a faulty car.



Who throws them in jail? The Government? Individual proscecutors? Surely in any case we need laws that allows us to proscecute companies that falsely advertise? In other words, regulations?
What a horrible thing to inhibiting their "freedom" to falsely advertise, eh?


Thank you regulations!


I don't think Joe Average is going to stand much of a chance against huge Corporate Corporation .inc with a lawyer in his price class.

Yeah, the flavors are all chemically produced in a lab. They have scientists that make compounds that taste like beef, that taste like chicken, that taste like potatoes and so on. Freezing and adding preservatives gets rid of the natural flavor, and a lot of the nutritional value as well. Personally, I consider most of Mcdonalds to be glorified plastic.

Yes, I've bought shit before, then when I realized it sucked, I never bought it again.

That example is an extremely rare occurrence that won't ever happen again. People know that they have to research drugs and do long-term tests to figure out its effects with or without government. One occurrence doesn't prove my line of reasoning wrong, you have to provide tons of examples and explain why.



Conveniently ignoring that your McDonald's example clearly implied everything I listed. Like I said, it's an absurd hypothetical.



In the U.S., there is virtually no competition between hospitals which makes things worse. However, insurance is an unnecessary middle man that makes healthcare only more expensive. Basically, when people buy insurance they also buy services that they normally wouldn't need and constantly pay for. Meaning that prices inflate extremely high. A good example is that lasik surgery is not covered by insurance, but it has been decreasing in prices over the years. Here's a good informational video from John Stossel: http://morganpolotan.wordpress.com/2011 ... expensive/



Well, if it's a faulty car, that's different then a car that just less safe. A faulty car means that somewhere it would malfunction and legal action can and should be taken. A less safe car is just one that would offer less protection in a car crash and should be left up to consumer.



That's silly. If you want to call those regulations, then sure go ahead. I would call them anti-fraud laws or something along those lines. Yes, both the government and prosecutors have the right to throw companies who do that in jail. They are false advertising, harming people, and committing fraud. Jail time for them.




See above. You can call that a regulation if you want. But that would be a regulation similar to how laws against stealing are "regulations."



In a libertarian society, Corporate Corporation Inc. wouldn't exist because there would be so much competition from other corporations. In the U.S., corporations grow huge by getting in bed with the government and receiving large amounts of subsidies. Obviously, I am against that.

No, the burden of proof is on you to show your line of reasoning is actually true in the real world. Until you do that, I can hold your line of reasoning to be baseless without even bringing up a single counter-example (even though I already did so twice.)



I sketched an example where it just so happens a particular chemical is harmfull and cheaper, I never said that's always the case, let alone that restaurant poison their food for fun.



The solutions seem obvious to me: introduce cheaper, basic packages just for unforeseen catastrophies and allow the insurance companies to negotiate price.
There are plenty of examples of countries with higher insurance rates and lower costs, so obviously there are more factors at play.
But hey, I'm no economist and I freely admit I have no bloody clue if either that Stossel guy or my own explenation that you quoted is correct, so I won't make assumptions. You should do the same.


That's a very blurry distinction you're making. If I'm driving a car that brakes slower then what would be required to pass regulation, by your definition you can't exactly say it's a malfunction, as it still works.
It certainly is unsafe, not just for me, but for others as well. And as the saying goes: your freedom to swing your arms ends at anothers nose.



How exactly do you define regulation? When meat packing is regulated with certain hygiene standards, it's on the basis of laws that allow intervention or proscecution when they don't comply, otherwise it would just be a suggestion.



What do you base tha- oh fuck it.

Haha. Arguing with libertarians is an exercise in futility. They love ignoring history and facts and reality and prefer to live in their pipe dream of capitalistic utopia. Because we all know how well that worked in the late 19th/early 20th century, when there were little to no government regulations. Workers were paid fair wages, their health were not threatened, consumers could purchase safe products with full knowledge of what they bought, and.... sorry, I can't keep this up with a straight face.

I mean, can someone possibly be this ignorant? :


Whaaaaat. What possible incentive would drug companies have to do long-term clinical trials when they could just take shortcuts and sell it on the market ASAP? Ignorance of history FTW.

They assume that if one company got out of line, they'd fail, which is probably true. But if everyone does it, then the company that tries to do the right thing fails. That's what it was like in the early 20th century. That's why we have labor laws.

Oh, I bet Santorum won't tell you which kind of car you can drive or what you can eat (with certain... ummm... exceptions), but he sure as fuck wants to regulate where you can put your penis, what else you can do with it, and in which positions. And even worse, in which juridical context, with which consequences (barring infertility, of course) and where. If you think limitations on choosing a car are meaningful (any car will take you to places, as long as it runs, and liberty in my eyes is about freedom to go to places, not the method), think about what the moron wants to regulate, and notice that your weener won't be doing (or going to places) if he gets what he wants.

The idea of a maximally polluting and as dangerous as possible vehicle as a measure of liberty is the most childish and repugnant meme in US politics. Seriously.

So are you honestly telling me that the only reason why businesses put out quality products is because the government tells them to? What about areas of business with much less regulation such as electronics? Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Motorola, etc. were all successful because they put out good, quality products. There's no government regulation forcing the companies to build iPods that last at least 1 year or anything like that. There's your real world example.


And my whole point is that your example is absurd and will never happen. You might as well be wondering if dragons are going to climb out of a mountain.


Your solution would undoubtedly help the problem, but guess what, government regulations force the companies to cover certain things. I don't really know how medical care works in other countries, but I know that in the U.S. we have pretty much the worst possible system you can imagine. In those other countries, it could be simply because insurance is allowed to be more flexible, thus meaning lower prices. In the U.S., all companies are required to cover a certain minimum of services making prices skyrocket. And I'm not making assumptions, its simple economics.


Honestly, I'm not really sure on this one. If the brakes are bad enough, it would be considered a malfunction or defect. So, I suppose this would depend on a case by case basis. Also, I don't really know much about brake systems, so I can't say whether or not they can vary by significant amounts. It's a gray area for sure.


I suppose something along the lines of: a required standard or procedure enforced by government. I guess I should temper myself a bit and say that regulations aren't inherently wrong or bad, but a vast majority of them overstep what I think the government should do.


Logical deduction. If there are vastly less regulations in the market, then every existing company will suddenly find themselves in vigorous competition. That means, business would be smaller and prices cheaper due to supply and demand. Simple economics. This video here has a guy much smarter than me talking about a similar topic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGPa5Ob-5Ps



Haha. Arguing with big government lovers is an exercise in futility. They love ignoring history and facts and reality and prefer to live in their pipe dream of socialistic/corporatistic utopia. Because we all know how well that is working right now, with all the government regulations. The government pay their debts and generally avoid deficits, civil liberties are never threatened, everyone has received a fair and equal distribution of government services, and.... sorry, I can't keep this up with a straight face.

Do you see how easy it is for me to reverse this on you? Now let me defend my "utopia" for a moment.

What other system has allowed people to gain so much prosperity and wealth so quickly? Sure, capitalism isn't perfect, but it is the only system that takes advantage of a trait that a huge majority of the population has: rational self-interest. Things like socialism only try to turn people into what they are not and stuff like corporatism/crony capitalism/whatever you want to call it is probably even worse. That just benefits big business and big government. Yes, the 20th century had some huge problems, but they were solved in the wrong way. Everything can be solved in a libertarian method. For example, wages are merely supply and demand. A company pays shitty wages? Don't work for them/go on strike. Suddenly, they have to either raise their wages or go out of business. Now apply this to the 1900's, when labor unions go on strike and demand better wages, instead of getting government to force minimum wages on companies, simply let the companies pay higher wages themselves because otherwise they will go bankrupt.

See, you (and everyone else who supports government regulations) make a terrible assumption. An assumption that government always is omni benevolent and works for the public good. The problem is, the government is a force. You can't just not buy its products, or go on strike against it. It takes massive effort just to change a tinny thing about government. Look at it through my lenses for a second, if you have have a huge government, then you have a small circle of rich elites deciding how to handle our problems and issues. If you have a relatively small one, then individuals mostly decide for themselves what is good for them.



Not killing your customers is a pretty good start. Plenty of drug companies do long term studies, for example, the drug Liptor was studied on for about 20 years before it was released on the market. The reason why companies do studies is to avoid potential repercussions. If you sell a drug that gives people cancer, then you are going to end up with a crapton of lawsuits on your hands, lose millions of dollars, and go bankrupt or end up in jail. That's a pretty good incentive.



And labor unions came around and demanded certain rights and laws for workers. We have progressed passed the early 20th century as a society. Business are far more responsible and more caring for their workers than they used to be. It isn't the magic presence of the government ensuring that it stays this way; it's society.

Stop being a ass. You know as well as I know what Morrigan is saying. Companies put out a quality product because quality products make money. However, if the government didn't regulate anything, companies could get away putting out shitty products for quick cash, some that could be potentially harmful to people. At the end of the day the bottom line of business is profit, and frankly, we haven't progressed passed the early 20th century as a society. That's a load of horseshit. Go to any sweatshop in China or Indonesia and tell me those companies are care about their workers.

Now you're just being thick, I never said that. I'm sure many companies got big because of their product quality, I'm also sure theres plenty of other factors (I very much doubt Apple would have gone anywhere without the marketing genius that was Steve Jobs, especially when you see how poor things like the Iphone or Ipad really are in terms of features)
It's the eternal libertarian pipe dream of "nobody would produce unsafe/poor products! that'd be bad for business!" that i'm challenging as baseless and grossly ignorant of all the other factors in sales, less then admirable business strategies, or the ways in which a company could produce such a product unintentionally.


A company could be tempted to use a cheap, harmfull chemical that wouldn't be noticed by consumers? Absurd!



How many times do you need to be told? Even if your theory is correct, It still happens anyway

Mercantalism.


Looking beyond the issue of whether or not humans are rational beings, numerous systems have taken advantage of self-interest. Numerous systems also seem to take advantage of other human characteristics. What's the point? You've built up "rational self-interest" as something, without really saying why it even matters.


The sad reality for the individual is that the individual loses their job that's needed to provide for themselves and their family, and as a result they get stuck in a cycle of experience requiring work requiring experience that leads them to continue working for shitty wages with the hope of "gaining experience" through promotion and networking... and the company keeps wages low (but sustainable!) because there will be a constant influx of individuals demanding jobs.

It's nice to think grandiose, idealistic thoughts about how the world ought to work, should work, and reflect the way you want it to meet your desires. It's nice to think that with a bit of collective effort, and rally-calling, the world can change... for the better! But society, and the social structures society creates reflects only how people are now and the ways of life people are accustom to and know. Business operates as it does because that is how business operates; the same is true for government; the same is true for groups of people, and for communities in general. Coming up with pipe dreams about how the system could work is not as worthwhile your time or our time as seeing how the system does work and making conjecture off of that. Politics is never in a vacuum. It's nice to have a progressive look on society, but that also assumes progress is a one way street and that it is driven by forces which are consistent, logical, and reasonable. The thing is, people are nuts, as irrational as they are rational, and as reasonable as they are dogmatic. They are emotional; they are two-faced; they can be amazing thinkers; they can be undoubtedly losers; they can pick up a pitch fork and raze a town (or a country); they can run on their beliefs and don't care about the outcomes or effects otherwise. You assume a lot about people by basing them off of the characteristics of self-interest and economic prosperity, and in a manner that is totally without consideration of the consequences of greed and the role of other characteristics of humanity. You underestimate that no matter how small a government might be, or how large it might be, the same forces that drive people and their behaviour are the same forces no matter the circumstance or the conditions of the environment that they are in.

I love the ol' political debate, but enough is enough with the soapbox attitude.

I don't support any of these people. None of them actually cares about the average working person, so I will not cast a vote of any kind. Real change in this country must start with the people, but that would require us to actually give a damn about what's going on in this country. We must first stop relying upon our television news broadcasts, because they do nothing but spread fear and paranoia. We need to actually read and do our own research on issues, rather than take the insight of some propaganda machine like FoxNews and CNN. I am dreaming of course, because Americans would rather watch American Idol and its idiotic reality shows.

Well the way it's supposed to be is that you pay dues to a union, and in return the union maintains a strike fund to help its members during strikes and layoffs. Of course, even if you do have a union, things don't always work that way...

I totally agree about TV news. The information you get from every network is biased in some way, even if just subtlety so. It's inevitable really. It's pretty much impossible to be completely objective.

Pretty well, actually. Look at "socialist" countries such as Canada, France, Sweden, the UK, Germany, etc. The individual European or Canadian pays less on average for healthcare than the individual American, and gets more coverage and care. Vehicles, medical drugs, work conditions, are safer than they ever were before. And if some disaster does happen, the corporations are usually held accountable, instead of just going "if you ain't happy go see elsewhere". (Of course, that's not always the case, one only has to look at the oil industry and the spills...)


What the fuck does debt have to do with government regulation of business? Or civil liberties, for that matter.


ROFL. Provide evidence of that claim, please. Show me an instance in history where the "libertarian method" as solved such a problem as those encountered in the early 20th century. I'll give you a hint: you can't. It never happened. Well, the closest thing to a libertarian utopia is Somalia, and we all know how peachy things are over there...


Easy for you to say when you don't have a family to provide for, huh? Anyway, that's not how it happens. You go on strike? The company just fires you and hires someone else. Since people are always desperate for work, they will never lack for hires. That's the reality, you're just blind to it.


No, we made no such assumption. That's a complete strawman.


So. Government passes laws that protects workers; workers are now more protected than before. Who to credit? Why, not those who put the laws in place, of course. Classic case of special pleading?

Morrigan already beat me to it, but I need to emphasize how totally ignorant of reality this statement is. You know what Wal-mart does when its employees try to unionize, even without going on strike? They close the store where the employees work and fire all of them. Problem solved.

Going on strike is a terrifying prospect, even for union workers like me. If I'm not mistaken, my union would have to be on strike for at least a month before we'd start receiving anything from them, and that money would barely be half what we earn in a week. We have bills to pay and families to support. While they do have funds put aside for us, they simply can't afford to pay out all sorts of money right away. It's true that a corporation firing all of its workers would be a public relations disaster, but, really, the only people who would likely be outraged by it are those who aren't working two or three shitty part time jobs just to make ends meet. I'd wager there'd be mobs of the unemployed shamelessly lining up to fill all of those new job openings.

While I fully agree with Morrigan here, I must point out the pragmatic fact that the situation still is a supply-and-demand case. The difficult thing here is the way the supply of willing workers on low-wage jobs far outstrips the demand, and the companies are fully capable and willing to exploit the situation as far as they can.

Libertarian ideas seem much like communism to me: while they might work in an ideal and imaginary world where everybody is willing to accept the same principles and rules, the real world is way too harsh for them to work, and they end up in misery for those who fail to exploit the opportunities and/or holes in the system. In communism, everybody is equal by force, and it works by putting everybody on the same level without a choice and any incentive to do more, or even the fair share, because there's no reward; in a libertarian world, those without any special skills to make their way to the "supply" side of the equation will lose everything. Why would a completely free market ever care for those who are not worth anything to the market? It's worse than current capitalism.

From the US point of view, I live in a communist state, and I am very, VERY happy this way. Yes, I pay a shitload of taxes, and having slightly above average income, my money mostly "goes to someone else", as Americans are conditioned to whine. But what I get in return is more than any medical insurance or other thing could buy me: there have been artificial hip joint operations, cancer, a kidney transplant and whatever in my family, and despite the low incomes of the people involved, they have been handled efficiently and equally, and in the end, the people have returned to work and turned from a potential burden on the society into productive members of the very same society. A lot of people I know are on social security, and I'd be willing to bet some good money on them being far better off than they'd be in the USA. And even if my tax money goes to that, I'm perfectly willing to support the system, because that's one of the basic reasons for the exceptional safety and stability of the Nordic societies.

In other words: I don't need a gun, we have social security.

I personally can't see any reasons to replace any part of this with the libertarian ideologies from the La-La Land. It's obvious that the ideals don't work, or if they do, they do so for a very small minority of people. I've never seen anything even close to a credible reasoning behind libertarianism being anything but a neat but alien ideology for those who actually believe in Santa Claus. Just like communism.

Napero speaks the truth.

I'm Canadian originally, but I've lived in Sweden now for awhile, and I have enough experience working for American corporations in the past, and through the sheer amount of Americans I know, both here and back in Canada, that I've seen the differences in the systems first-hand.
I have a close friend here, American, who was a staunch Libertarian when I met her. Her Mom got extremely ill back in the States, and, to make a long story short, got severely dicked around by her insurance company, and is having to foot the bill for her illness 100% on her own, despite being insured by them for the majority of her life, having no preexisting conditions, etc. In Sweden, she'd be paying nothing, or very little. Said friend is singing a bit of a different tune now. The system here helps people, and, in contrast to Big Insurance in the States, isn't driven solely by profit, and how much money they can sponge from people who might need their help at some point, and not give them anything in return.

Sure, we're taxed to hell and back here, but the thing is, we get things out of it. If I get cancer, I don't have a lifetime of medical bills to worry about. If I lose my job, even as someone who is self-employed, I get far better benefits than I would in Canada, but especially the States. My income, even as a business owner, is insured. If I lose my job, my insurance company and the union I belong to, waves all fees I incur during the time I'm unemployed.
People here on social assistance are FAR better off than they are elsewhere. I like that alternative better than being in an open, free market, where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and people who work hard for their livings, and don't lie, cheat or steal from those less fortunate than them, still are able to live decent lives, go on vacations every year, and enjoy the free time they do get.

Capitalism and conservative libertarianism don't work for the "little guy", sorry to say. There's a reason why nations with socialist systems are always at the top of "quality of life" polls.

Sorry. Just had to chime in. Back to lurking.

Working within medicine gives me a different perspective. Americans who argue that citizens of other countries have long waits for care or insufficient medical care obviously have no idea how things actually work in medicine in our country. No one just gets an artificial hip the second they need it, especially if you want a very good orthopedic doctor to do it. You wait like everyone else, and if you go to an MD office that is inefficient in the way it deals with your insurance company, it may take even longer.

Uhh, I never said that.

I'd like to add to the debate about health-care, that I think that a lot of the opposition to government run health care, is not just taxes, but also the fact that our government is broke and in a lot of debt. Having government health care would increase that 10x.

Also, a lot of it is simply due to the different attitudes Americans and Europeans have about the world. Americans tend to have a self-reliant attitude, and therefore they tend to dislike the government doing anything for them. There's also a sense that the government is incompetent and inefficient. We can't stand bureaucracy. Personally, I don't want DMV service in a hospital.

I think that the first step towards better health care, is to get rid of the stupid law that insurance companies can't do business across state lines. Right now, all they have to do, is get a foothold in one state, and then they can pretty much charge what they want. Not to mention, all the bigger insurance companies being treated as separate entities in all 50 states, and the cost of that being transferred to the customer.

For instance, if I lived on the western border of Illinois, and there was cheaper insurance literally right across the river in Missouri, I could physically see it, still I couldn't legally buy it. I think that should change.

You have now officially lost any credibility on issues of governance, and we can ignore you. Sorry, but it's true. The Somalia argument is a straw man wrapped in a false equivalence topped with a bow of bullshit, always has been. There are only two things that can be concluded about people who make this equivalence. One is that, having lived their entire lives in a statist world---that is, a world of large, intrusive government---they are unable to determine the difference between limited government and anarchy. The other is that they know the difference, and use the comparison to frighten the less informed away.



And I know you aren't dumb enough to believe that argument.

Blowing an hyperbole out of proportion, are you? Have it your way.

Not that it's that much of a hyperbole, anyway. There is such a thing as libertarian anarchists. They just take the same ideas as libertarians and push them to (what they think are) their logical conclusions.