Converation thread

Hate to say it, but Medicare, Medicaid, and social security ARE social programs, and desperately needed ones as well, so no, that’s a horrible idea.

I am stating that you’d b destroying dearly needed programs and leaving people stranded economically, a terrible plan at best..

...And yet still have provided zero reasons why that might be the case...

Not everyone can afford medical care, in fact, few can. My family was military, and when I was born, I had a whole in my heart. Thankfully, it fixed itself, but the treatments they used to keep me in stable condition, along with the total cost of pregnancy, remained at over 400k. We would’ve had that debt until I HAD kids, (though I don’t ever plan to), and we wouldn’t have been able to pay it for decades. Thankfully, the government funding for Tricare covered that, and that debt isn’t left to speak of. For people just starting out, or people lacking money or having…  Read more disabilities, that kind of cost would be a death sentence, and that was for ONE child. Our healthcare system sucks, and the very cause of it was its privatization. It’s been pointed to thousands of times, and people know that cause as well. It’s not gonna be fixed by the free market, and it’ll only get worse with privatization. We live in the richest country on earth, and we have given our proxy nations free healthcare before we ever tried to fix our own. In a country where privatization has led to me nearly having to pay 400k for my literal existence, I’d say that we should move away from letting the profit motive and healthcare combine.

You've made one assumption that kills your entire argument – people are only motivated by profit in a free market economy. You may not have heard of this, but private individuals, who are more charitable than any power-hungry government, actually make these great things called non-profit organisations that, rather than seeking profit, seek to alleviate some of society's woes through generosity and charity. And they're remarkably effective in the world of medicine. Take for example Samaritan Ministries (you can't join because you're not Christian, but there are other options that provide similar care). In this vast, online network of individual families, you pay a subscription fee that is hand-selected to go toward the medical expenses of a certain family posting on the website, and may then donate additional revenue to that needy family. And it works amazingly – millions of dollars worth of hospital fees, surgeries, doctor visits for the poor, ad infinitum have been financed by this organisation that is entirely powered through voluntarism and liberty rather than force, fraud, and coercion. There are many other organisations like this worth looking into. So don't claim that somehow because healthcare is expensive the needy must have a criminal cartel plundering other people's money for them, there are highly effective but honest means to supply the care they need on the free market that do indeed put patients ahead of profit, as they are non-profit charities run by generous loving people. Read more

Non-profits are still very much capable of corporate corruption and political abuse by politicians. In fact, they are more and more predominantly being used as a storage method for politicians trying to influence others with dark money. Non profits also still don’t do much at all on the total economic scale. The US spends 4.7 trillion per year (as of 2023) on healthcare, and it still remains one of our biggest issues. Non-profits provide, all combined in the entire non profit sector, barely over 1.4 trillion dollars to the economy. They can’t fix healthcare, and they can’t…  Read more keep us afloat by any means as much as they can give temporary aid at a lesser amount than social security. I’d encourage non-profits as additional temporary aid, but they can’t hold things up. Healthcare can’t be run off of pure charity, people really won’t choose that, never have either. For the thousandth time, people being taxed isn’t a crime or thievery, the reserve creates and enforced the very currency you believe is being stolen in the first place, and as such, one is not owed every penny of the money they get pre-taxation.

So your basic argument, once you wash off all the rhetoric and confusing jargon, is that human nature is selfish and corrupted and therefore mankind cannot be trusted to govern itself, to provide itself, through private and voluntary means, necessary services. Therefore, you reason, there must be someone to govern them, and regulate them. But one assumption destroys that argument – you have assumed the intentions of the Governor are entirely noble, and forget that he, like the private businesses you so disdain, is an imperfect specimen of human nation, self-centred and immoral. If men cannot be trusted to government themselves,Read more why should we trust them to govern others? Why should we give more power to fallen humanity rather than limit its power? And the very fact that the government supplies the "money" does not give it any right to steal our revenue. As an Austrian Economic student, I resent the very fact that government DOES make the "money" in the first place, because its "money" is just a fiat currency, i.e., a worthless piece of paper, that says "one dollar" on it, but isn't actually a dollar. A dollar is a specified amount of gold. Our fiat bills have nothing to do with Gold, but we're forced through coercion and brutality of the Law, to use it under the legal tender laws. That's the only reason people exchange pieces of bacteria-infested green paper for houses, cars, guns, ad infitium, BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT FORCES THEM TO. No sensible person would EVER do this in the absence of the Federal Reserve and legal tender laws. That's precisely why we must return to the Gold Standard – to strip the central government of that dangerous inflationary power and restore stability to our monetary system. END THE FED!

no, I am stating that bad people still find a way into those non profits without enough oversight being down by either the people, or the government. I don’t think humans are inherently evil, I think it depends upon our own goals and willingness to achieve them, at whatever costs we will. I don’t think government is noble in most any way, I believe it’s an apparatus built upon systems of regulations and laws that set up what is and isn’t allowed by who and at what time. I believe that if the people as a whole had more power to demand and control the government, then…  Read more its corruption would be of less concern. I believe that private businesses are inherently going to move towards the corrupt and selfish side due to the desire for dominance over competition, and the profit motive. The government doesn’t necessarily have those two traits, and can be malleable enough to have the traits the people desire under the right circumstances. I am not for regulating humanity as a whole, but for regulating its bad side, and making informed and voted upon decisions using the resources OF humanity as a whole. Or in this case, a single nation. The Gold Standard is a step backwards, one we’ve used before, and shouldn’t return to due to its extreme lack of versatility and ability to handle trying times. It’s not reliable, and putting all your chips on a resource that requires literal mining to be replenished is a flawed idea at best.

The difference between you and I is that you tend to rust those with vast and unchecked powers over your life, liberty, and property (the government) more than those who couldn't affect them in their dreams (private individuals) and in fact assume that government is an inherently good institution with knowledgeable, just, and wise oracles in flowing white robes and private business an entirely evil, selfish institution populated by scumbags and gangsters, whereas I believe precisely the reverse, trusting no one with power over my life, liberty, or property, recognising that political power corrupts the morality and judgment of those who have it, and viewing private business as far less dangerous than political power. Hope this helps.

Even if we followed exclusively the enumerated powers, businesses use them. I am more likely to trust a government RUN BY US, that trusts and listens to the actual smartest voices in society, such as scientists. I think that public decisions should come from the representatives that we vote in, the representatives held to the standards and regulation of their own government and people. I see the government as our apparatus, not as some sort of deified entity. I’m distrustful of unregulated power which is WHY I suggest we make the system more accountable and transparent to the people,…  Read more rather than just handing it power. Private businesses have an inherent and strong profit motive, and as such, should also be held accountable. They have more money than all of the people combined, so supply and demand tends to be theirs to control, meaning that the people alone cannot manage them properly enough either, which is where our apparatus (the government), serves to regulate it and ensure our fair treatment inside of those businesses.

Frederic Bastiat, the great Classical Liberal political thinker, said this in his 1850 essay "The Law" –

"The law is not a self-supplied fountain whence every stream may obtain supplies independently of society. Nothing can enter the public treasury in favour of one citizen or one class, but what other citizens and other classes have been forced to send to it ... Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and Society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We…  Read more disapprove of education by the State – then we are against education altogether ... We object to an equality which is brought about by the State, then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the State."

You may want to focus on the word “seem”. I think that there are a rare few politicians who are good, but very few I am actually willing to let rule the halls of government. A politician should be as expendable to the public as a bottle cap, not as if they are the end all be all. Would I be sad to see some go? Sure, but I care about who actually replaces them. Once again you assume my beliefs, once again you use the hasty generalization fallacy from that quote as a means of proving your point, and once again, you fall prey to the very fallacies you won’t stop hiding behind…  Read more to prove yourself right.

It's not a hasty generalisation fallacy but a generalisation that I made after noticing and observing your political beliefs for weeks on a wide range of issues. If the fundamental assumption behind your beliefs is not that government is wiser than private individuals, to be frank, I haven't a clue what assumption would ever lead you to conclude that government can regulate private business. Please reveal this.

Private businesses have a profit motive, a strong one at that, which is something government lacks. People can’t control the businesses to prevent them from abuse by themselves, therefore, we use the government to hold it back from hurting us, while holding the government accountable and as far from corruption as possible. I don’t believe it’s wiser, I believe one is actually controllable by the people.

How do we hold the government accountable and prevent it from being corrupted, in your view, when it is so MASSIVE?

By making it more Democratic, and accountable to the people, by requiring big changes to need a slow process to be done right, by holding politicians accountable and setting standards on what they can and can’t do. Some law should be considered settled, I just think the enumerated powers are a really low threshold for a government’s powe.

And, in a different chain of debate, I proved you wrong. Please go to your profile and read what I said about enumerated powers, it's long and I don't want to copy it here.

Might I remind you we have the choice to expand it, it’s not confined to just those ones