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At 8/10/10 01:28 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

Intellectual Property...and other cyber-evils do need to be monitored and curbed.

So you essentially believe people can "own" particular words in a particular order?

hahahaha

Does it matter...?

At 8/12/10 10:48 AM, tmiller2 wrote: Does it matter...?

Saying this in a debate and discussion thread is like...aw, whatever, not going to waste time on it.

So does anyone see a general trend towards more personal freedom in the realm of Internet as a result of the recession? I find it to be quite the opposite - as a revenue generator, companies are now embracing tiered Internet. It's the opposite of the recession-backed moves towards personal liberty we see elsewhere in the economy.

At 8/12/10 11:33 AM, JMHX wrote:

At 8/12/10 10:48 AM, tmiller2 wrote: Does it matter...?

Saying this in a debate and discussion thread is like...aw, whatever, not going to waste time on it.

So does anyone see a general trend towards more personal freedom in the realm of Internet as a result of the recession? I find it to be quite the opposite - as a revenue generator, companies are now embracing tiered Internet. It's the opposite of the recession-backed moves towards personal liberty we see elsewhere in the economy.

Regardless my point still stands.

For one, libertarianism has nothing to do with how businesses manage their affairs in terms of practical necessity. And it has nothing to do with government officials at the state and local level having to privatize this or that industry or deregulate certain kinds of chemicals that people put into their body for recreational purposes.

At 8/12/10 10:32 PM, wenhal wrote: It seems to me many so called "libertarians" are neo-cons in disguise.

The important thing to realise is that this should not reflect badly on the principles of libertarianism.

At 8/12/10 07:58 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 7/30/10 09:02 PM, Gorgonof wrote: Ron Paul seems like he may make a decent leader, but I don't like his stance on abortion, and I'm undecided if he would actually help lower the cost of health care to a reasonable level.

So basically the free market can't lower costs, but the same people who can't even run a fucking post office without losing money can??

While the Post Office is a popular comparison to make when impeaching the government's ability to manage healthcare...a much more substantial charge would be to analyze the job the government has done so far in 1) running healthcare (VA hospitals and military medicine) and 2) INCREASING the cost of healthcare (Tricare and Medicare).

1) I've already posted about this above. Medical schools use military dependants as examples of how not to deliever healthcare.

2) When a military member/dependant or medicare receipent goes to the ER the government will pay the hospital what it feels like paying. Most often these payments only cover about 40% of the bill. The other 60% are then passed on to those with private insurance or who are rich enough to pay whatever the hospital charges out of pocket. Furthermore, this goes beyond ER care. Many primary care physicians are closing their doors to new Medicare patients because it costs them more to file a claim to Medicare than they will get back from the government. Thus they pass these costs to younger patients whose insurance plans will pay more...and then the companies necessarily have to raise premiums on the children and grandchildren of the Medicare patients.

2a) Then you have the buearacratic nightmare that comes with filing these claims. I found it darkly funny when Obama talked about the healthcare reform he signed into law and claimed that now patients will be free from debt collection. As a Tricare "beneficiary" I've had to deal with many bill collectors because if the hospital doesn't fill out the paperwork just right...Tricare declines the claim. Then the hospital goes after the servicemember.

In the end, I find it smug, silly and darkly comic that politicians and 20-30% of the electorate think its a good idea to increase government's role in healthcare. If we want to lower healthcare costs perhaps we need to get the government out of the equation.

Well yeah. I've posted elsewhere on how the US government has tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded obligations from medicare/medicaid on the supposedly "free market", and so how they will be able to afford to run the entire healthcare system is anybody's guess (i.e. they won't).