to smoke or not to smoke, that is that question?
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Oakman wrote:
The simplest, and in many ways, most humane, thing to do is to perform triage on folks of any age who contract serious illnesses, but especially on folks over 50.
Isn't this what they do in Europe that has people here so against universal health care?
Oakman wrote:
Where is the religion or ethical philosophy that teaches that death is a consummation, not failure?
Kevorkian got put in jail. There is no right to die apparently. At least people have the option of saying in writing they don't want to be kept alive artificially. Not sure how well that works.
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That only applies to ER care. Typically that means enough to stabilize and discharge or transport, not extensive care or corrective surgery. The stabilize and discharge gets abused pretty heavily, causing the ER waiting areas in most hospitals to be filled with folk waiting for "emergency" care for the flu, etc. Cuts, bullet wounds , and broken bones, influenza and a bad cold all get treat and release free care if the person can't pay. A non-paying, non-insured patient needing Chemotherapy for cancer is likely to only get a handful of free painkillers (unless of course the are over 65, in which case they get the chemo free, paid for by the taxpayers). Some hospitals have gotten smart, and just set up free clinics to reduce the ER traffic burden and treat the "emergency" walk-ins with lower cost staff and facilities.
Rob Graham wrote:
(unless of course the are over 65, in which case they get the chemo free, paid for by the taxpayers).
Medicare pays for the first 2,000 or so in expenses and anything over 10K. There's a big hole in the middle that has proved to be a bonanza for insurance companies. You don't see all those ads from Humana and others because they're not making money hand over fist. Someone under 65 who needs chemo may find himself facing a bigger problem. When he becomes too sick to work and is terminated, he's got 18 months on CORBA and then he'll be on his own - unless of course, there's a company who will hire him knowing he is being treated for cancer. Which shouldn't be a problem at all. . . Someone else made this point awhile back in here, but the more I've thought about it, the more sense it has made. One of the biggest problems American companies have in competing with their overseas counterparts is the medical care that they provide for their employees (even Walmart does) that is not part of the cost of doing business in most other Western nations.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Stan Shannon wrote:
Religious people should be happy to die to save the non-religious money?
Nope. That old geezers like you should be willing to die sooner to save my kids money. ;)
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Sorry. If they give me universal publically supported health care, I'm going to demand every last possible moment of life at your children's expense.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Sorry. If they give me universal publically supported health care, I'm going to demand every last possible moment of life at your children's expense.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
If they give me universal publically supported health care, I'm going to demand every last possible moment of life at your children's expense.
You are usually part of the problem, not part of the solution, aren't you. ;P
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Stan Shannon wrote:
If they give me universal publically supported health care, I'm going to demand every last possible moment of life at your children's expense.
You are usually part of the problem, not part of the solution, aren't you. ;P
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Sometimes being part of the problem is being part of the solution... ;P
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Rob Graham wrote:
(unless of course the are over 65, in which case they get the chemo free, paid for by the taxpayers).
Medicare pays for the first 2,000 or so in expenses and anything over 10K. There's a big hole in the middle that has proved to be a bonanza for insurance companies. You don't see all those ads from Humana and others because they're not making money hand over fist. Someone under 65 who needs chemo may find himself facing a bigger problem. When he becomes too sick to work and is terminated, he's got 18 months on CORBA and then he'll be on his own - unless of course, there's a company who will hire him knowing he is being treated for cancer. Which shouldn't be a problem at all. . . Someone else made this point awhile back in here, but the more I've thought about it, the more sense it has made. One of the biggest problems American companies have in competing with their overseas counterparts is the medical care that they provide for their employees (even Walmart does) that is not part of the cost of doing business in most other Western nations.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
I think I was the one that pointed out that little recognized "side-effect" that our health care system has in competing with Europe (in particular). Of course Obama wants to make it worse by taxing that benefit to pay for the uncovered.
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Sometimes being part of the problem is being part of the solution... ;P
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Sometimes being part of the problem is being part of the solution
That sounds an awful lot like something Obama would say. You know: like the best way of getting us out of the mess easy credit got us into, is to insist that banks provide easy credit? Or maybe, the best man to put in charge of the IRS is a tax-cheat?
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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I think I was the one that pointed out that little recognized "side-effect" that our health care system has in competing with Europe (in particular). Of course Obama wants to make it worse by taxing that benefit to pay for the uncovered.
Rob Graham wrote:
I think I was the one that pointed out that little recognized "side-effect" that our health care system has in competing with Europe (in particular).
It seems to me - yes. It was you. No wonder it made sense to me, once I thought about it.
Rob Graham wrote:
Of course Obama wants to make it worse by taxing that benefit to pay for the uncovered.
In the army we used to have a saying: If it moves, salute it; if it doesn't move, paint it. Obama has adapted it so it now comes out: If it moves, tax it; if it doesn't move, tax it anyway.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Personally I'm hoping for an exit like my maternal grandfather. In excellent health (multi-mile seafront walks) until he was in his late eighties, then pretty darn good health for several years after that. Suddenly one day at home: Bam, unconcious. One brief moment of lucidity in hospital and then gone within 48 hours. He was retired for nearly 3 decades!
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MidwestLimey wrote:
Personally I'm hoping for an exit like my maternal grandfather.
That reminded me of the old joke: I want to die like my granfather, peacefully in my sleep, not screaming in terror like his passengers.
"Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." -- P.J. O'Rourke
I'm a proud denizen of the Real Soapbox[^]
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!!! -
Stan Shannon wrote:
Sometimes being part of the problem is being part of the solution
That sounds an awful lot like something Obama would say. You know: like the best way of getting us out of the mess easy credit got us into, is to insist that banks provide easy credit? Or maybe, the best man to put in charge of the IRS is a tax-cheat?
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
That sounds an awful lot like something Obama would say.
Actually, it doesn't sound anything like that. But Obama is a wise man, after all, so I suppose I should be flattered at the comparison. The problem is collectivism. The solution is stopping it. If one has no means of doing that by participation in some application of direct force, than simply adding one's own mass to society's burden should work well enough. It is an unworkable system, it will fail it direct proportion to the extent of its application.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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wolfbinary wrote:
Isn't this what they do in Europe that has people here so against universal health care?
I have no idea. My concerns about universal health care come from watching it work in Canada. From what I've heard, Oz has a much more flexible system than that, but I've never heard that they show any more intelligence than we do when it comes to letting folks head for Valhalla once they can see the rainbow bridge.
wolfbinary wrote:
Kevorkian got put in jail.
A hangover from the Catholic Church. I suspect that the prohibition against suicide was instituted at the behest of the nobles not wanting the peasants to take the easy way out.
wolfbinary wrote:
At least people have the option of saying in writing they don't want to be kept alive artificially
My step-father was dying of advanced old age in a hospital. A DNR was clearly attached to the foot of his bed and still my mother walked in one day to discover an intern crouched over him giving him oxygen and a heart massage. We got him out of there as soon as we could, but ironically, on the day his transfer to a hospice came through, where he would have been allowed to go off with dignity, he died in the ambulance during the transfer.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
A hangover from the Catholic Church. I suspect that the prohibition against suicide was instituted at the behest of the nobles not wanting the peasants to take the easy way out.
And I suspect that it is a result of the rather obvious conclusion that suicide is murder - the wilful destruction of a human life.
Oakman wrote:
My step-father was dying of advanced old age in a hospital. A DNR was clearly attached to the foot of his bed and still my mother walked in one day to discover an intern crouched over him giving him oxygen and a heart massage. We got him out of there as soon as we could, but ironically, on the day his transfer to a hospice came through, where he would have been allowed to go off with dignity, he died in the ambulance during the transfer.
Thats one kind of error. The other kind would be getting whacked over the head by a government agent at the behest of your closest kin while pleading "I'm not dead yet - I feel happy!"
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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No. The way the article put the costs is what struck me. The article is about smoking costs not 'justifying termination of human life'.
wolfbinary wrote:
The article is about smoking costs not 'justifying termination of human life'.
No, the article is about 'justifying termination of human life'. The smoking statistics merely support the conclusion that the earlier people die, the more economic benefit to the health care system for every one else. The real conclusion is that it is some kind of duty on the part of a loyal citizen to not linger too long for the good of the collective. Jon's conclusion was that religious people should be happy to go first.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Oakman wrote:
A hangover from the Catholic Church. I suspect that the prohibition against suicide was instituted at the behest of the nobles not wanting the peasants to take the easy way out.
And I suspect that it is a result of the rather obvious conclusion that suicide is murder - the wilful destruction of a human life.
Oakman wrote:
My step-father was dying of advanced old age in a hospital. A DNR was clearly attached to the foot of his bed and still my mother walked in one day to discover an intern crouched over him giving him oxygen and a heart massage. We got him out of there as soon as we could, but ironically, on the day his transfer to a hospice came through, where he would have been allowed to go off with dignity, he died in the ambulance during the transfer.
Thats one kind of error. The other kind would be getting whacked over the head by a government agent at the behest of your closest kin while pleading "I'm not dead yet - I feel happy!"
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
The other kind would be getting whacked over the head by a government agent at the behest of your closest kin while pleading "I'm not dead yet - I feel happy!"
Actually, he'd been pleading with me to kill him for a couple of years. But I didn't have the guts.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Oakman wrote:
That sounds an awful lot like something Obama would say.
Actually, it doesn't sound anything like that. But Obama is a wise man, after all, so I suppose I should be flattered at the comparison. The problem is collectivism. The solution is stopping it. If one has no means of doing that by participation in some application of direct force, than simply adding one's own mass to society's burden should work well enough. It is an unworkable system, it will fail it direct proportion to the extent of its application.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
The problem is collectivism
Well, I suppose that's true. And since I have heard you argue again and again for a dictatorship of the majority (as long as it was for Indiana, not the U.S.) I suppose you are, indeed, part of the problem.
Stan Shannon wrote:
It is an unworkable system, it will fail it direct proportion to the extent of its application.
Which is why you have labeled it Jeffersonianism and advocate it so strongly? Very clever.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Stan Shannon wrote:
The problem is collectivism
Well, I suppose that's true. And since I have heard you argue again and again for a dictatorship of the majority (as long as it was for Indiana, not the U.S.) I suppose you are, indeed, part of the problem.
Stan Shannon wrote:
It is an unworkable system, it will fail it direct proportion to the extent of its application.
Which is why you have labeled it Jeffersonianism and advocate it so strongly? Very clever.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
And since I have heard you argue again and again for a dictatorship of the majority
I've never made any such argument. I've only argued that allowing the courts to assume dictatorial authority is more onerous than dictatorship by a majority.
Oakman wrote:
Which is why you have labeled it Jeffersonianism and advocate it so strongly? Very clever.
I have no clue what that means. Jeffersonian democracy is defined by the distribution of political authority to the people in their states and communities with only certain strictly defined powers allowed to be exercised by the central government.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
The other kind would be getting whacked over the head by a government agent at the behest of your closest kin while pleading "I'm not dead yet - I feel happy!"
Actually, he'd been pleading with me to kill him for a couple of years. But I didn't have the guts.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
But I didn't have the guts.
So, therefore, what? We should err on the side of people committing suicide just to get themselves out of the way and save the rest of society some money?
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Oakman wrote:
And since I have heard you argue again and again for a dictatorship of the majority
I've never made any such argument. I've only argued that allowing the courts to assume dictatorial authority is more onerous than dictatorship by a majority.
Oakman wrote:
Which is why you have labeled it Jeffersonianism and advocate it so strongly? Very clever.
I have no clue what that means. Jeffersonian democracy is defined by the distribution of political authority to the people in their states and communities with only certain strictly defined powers allowed to be exercised by the central government.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
I've never made any such argument.
Sure you have. There's no room for any wide variance from the norm (as you and your neighbors define it) in your distopia. Gays not wanted; liberals not wanted; Muslims not wanted; coastal-dwelling Americans not wanted. . .
Stan Shannon wrote:
I have no clue what that means.
Sorry. I was pointing out the irony of espousing a collectivist statism and labelling it with the name of our most libertarian President.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Stan Shannon wrote:
I've never made any such argument.
Sure you have. There's no room for any wide variance from the norm (as you and your neighbors define it) in your distopia. Gays not wanted; liberals not wanted; Muslims not wanted; coastal-dwelling Americans not wanted. . .
Stan Shannon wrote:
I have no clue what that means.
Sorry. I was pointing out the irony of espousing a collectivist statism and labelling it with the name of our most libertarian President.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
Sure you have.
No, I haven't.
Oakman wrote:
There's no room for any wide variance from the norm (as you and your neighbors define it) in your distopia. Gays not wanted; liberals not wanted; Muslims not wanted; coastal-dwelling Americans not wanted. . .
The irony is you are the one arguing for precisely what you are accusing me of with that very statement. You want the courts to impose a common world view upon society at large on all those issues without any actual constitutional authority out of fear of the variouis divergent views that would otherwise arise from a Jeffersonian society being allowed to function as intended.
Oakman wrote:
I was pointing out the irony of espousing a collectivist statism and labelling it with the name of our most libertarian President.
I still don't understand your point. You're saying I'm espousing collectivist statism? If so, I'm not. I'm saying the surest way of defeating collectivist statism, short of an actual armed revolution, is by participating in it. Join it and help it die.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Oakman wrote:
Sure you have.
No, I haven't.
Oakman wrote:
There's no room for any wide variance from the norm (as you and your neighbors define it) in your distopia. Gays not wanted; liberals not wanted; Muslims not wanted; coastal-dwelling Americans not wanted. . .
The irony is you are the one arguing for precisely what you are accusing me of with that very statement. You want the courts to impose a common world view upon society at large on all those issues without any actual constitutional authority out of fear of the variouis divergent views that would otherwise arise from a Jeffersonian society being allowed to function as intended.
Oakman wrote:
I was pointing out the irony of espousing a collectivist statism and labelling it with the name of our most libertarian President.
I still don't understand your point. You're saying I'm espousing collectivist statism? If so, I'm not. I'm saying the surest way of defeating collectivist statism, short of an actual armed revolution, is by participating in it. Join it and help it die.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
The irony is you are the one arguing for precisely what you are accusing me of with that very statement.
Why is it that every time I point out that you favor a dictatorial state, you try to weasel out by claiming it's what I want - yet every time I say that I will put up with the rules of the state that I agree with or at least that don't hamper me unduly, but ignore the rest you accused me of being an uncivilized barbarian?
Stan Shannon wrote:
You want the courts to impose a common world view upon society at large on all those issues without any actual constitutional authority out of fear of the variouis divergent views that would otherwise arise from a Jeffersonian society being allowed to function as intended.
You could no more find a post where I said anything of the kind than you could walk to the moon. Why do you need to create absolute falsehoods about what your debate opponent says? Am I truly that hard for you to argue with?
Stan Shannon wrote:
You're saying I'm espousing collectivist statism?
I know you don't think you are, but the only difference I can see between your Jeffersonian society and Osama's Shar'ia society is the labels you would demand your citizens conform to. It appears to me that you even both want the U.S. Government to stop interfering with your "right" to determine the proper path for all citizens of your baliwick.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Oakman wrote:
But I didn't have the guts.
So, therefore, what? We should err on the side of people committing suicide just to get themselves out of the way and save the rest of society some money?
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
We should err on the side of people committing suicide just to get themselves out of the way and save the rest of society some money?
Nope, therefore you should shut your mouth unless you know what you're talking about.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface