Thread: Are We Incrementally Losing Our Freedom?

I can get behind that...I had contractors bid on a job on my property...I needed something done...they needed my money. Part of the job was to haul whatever crap they brought in and clean up whatever mess they made...it should be no different with business and it should be timely, and not be sanctioned ten years after the fact because they added to someone's election fund or the like.

Originally Posted by hardblues

We have no argument here...whats the saying...wise men speak because they have something to say, fools speak because they have to say something...

Believe me, these types are the smallest of factions of the population, but, because of their disfunction, they always talk the loudest and the most, consequently, you are always hearing them or about them. Then we have the media, as I alluded to earlier...hyping for copy or agenda...would have you thinking the world is about to end...so stay tuned.

A great example...in the early 90's, my line of work was public service lets say...and in the particular part of the country where I worked, we had a bout for a few months with The Militia...as they are sometimes called. This received national coverage...long standing national coverage. Though they were idiots...paranoids...whatever, I'm telling you they amounted to a handful of incompetents and gave up the cause when we knocked at the door, so to speak. I'm sure the folks in New York thought we were holding the line until the tanks got to us. Again, not much to worry about.

Like someone in government said recentlyt, "never waste a crisis and if you don't have one, create one...."

Oh, I know not everyone acts that way. Not by a long shot. And yes, the media's job has historically been to not just report the news, but to sensationalize it too. I'm afraid that's probably never going to change.

Still, I keep my ear to the ground, and even reading the comments and topics that pop up in this forum on a daily basis can be very telling. A lot of what's said I find to be really spooky. On whole host of different topics. Again, I'm not painting everyone with the same brush here, but one thing that's always struck me as unusual about the American media is how narrowed its focus is. The television media in particular, but also a lot of print journalism. The average guy will often cite Fox News or MSNBC's coverage of a story with total certainty that he now understand the full scope of what he's talking about, which is obviously no good. Canada has its share of garbage media outlets too, but we do seem to have fewer filters, and unlike the US, our headlines often reach beyond our own borders. So anyway, when I hear people talking like they do about the issue at hand, my first thought is, "Why are they like this?"

*Shrug*

Oh no, Blade, I didn't take it that way, and yeah, you never want to ignore idiots...they can be dangerous...but...by my observation and therefore only my opinion...they are, for the most part, hyped to be in greater numbers and more ominous than they are...they are the idiot that runs to be in view of the camera...and the loudest voice in the crowd...usually motivated because they don't have a life or are very depressed because their life is $hi* because of they chose not to make a good life...they are dysfunctional and are quick to join any faction that has someone to blame for their misery.

I'm Generation Web, so I don't know if this is true, but perhaps some of you folks who have been around a bit longer can tell me...

But I wonder if newspapers/broadcasts are getting gradually more sensationalist as they're continuing to lose clients to the internet. Traditional journalism is pretty much having a panic attack right now. Getting people to pay for news is a thing of the past.

Have you noticed the sensationalism intensifying over the last 15 years or so?

Originally Posted by honedright

One of the posts above gave me an idea, and maybe someone here knows the answer -

If having a "free" health care system means that anyone, at anytime, can go to a clinic, "even for the sniffles," for "free", what is the rate of wasted resources (time, money, drugs, etc)? Assuming this is true. I am basing this on what I read in another posting.

For instance, a big issue in medicine is the over utilization of antibiotic drugs. Someone goes to the doctor for a viral infection and the doc prescribes antibiotics, probably not for the virus, as any doctor knows that antibiotics have no effect on a virus - viruses are not living organisms. The antibiotic is more often prescribed due to the possibility of a secondary bacterial infection. And some docs know that sending a patient away with nothing is bad for their business. Either way, the drug is utilized which somewhere down the line costs something to someone.
Now imagine ER's and clinics packed with people with the sniffles due to rhino virus, or stress headaches. They all go because it is "free", they are under no immediate obligation so why not?
If nothing else it requires time and money just to process each patient for what often turns out to be a self-limiting condition that in reality requires no medical treatment. Quite often the treatment is palliative and could have been resolved at home with OTC meds. But then, with a "free" system, why would anyone stay home with a headache when it is so much easier to go have it looked at by a doctor.

In other words (apologies if it's long winded), it sounds to me that such a system could be more prone to abuse than a system where each person has a vested responsibility (financial?) in the process.

Any thoughts?

PS - Sorry that this may be way off topic, but it is directly related to a prior posting in this thread.

Even if i live in a country with universal health care i've never seen or heard such things happening. Not even in the times of the worst H1N1 attack last autumn.
As well you could claim that those with private health care insurance would crowd the clinics there as soon as they get cold or flu or something. At least they have a possibility to do so. Why would people do so? Crowd the system when there really is no need to do so? Having a universal or private health care system doesn't mean that you are forced to use that when no need to do so.

YES! That is how governments do it, just chipping away at little freedoms until one day you wake up and find that you have no freedom left. The saddest part is that people actually willingly go along with all this,agreeing with restrictions on parts of society because it does not effect them. As they say you had better stick up for a persons freedom even if the restriction of that persons freedom does not effect you, because as sure as night follows day, it will one day be a restriction on something you like. The worst restrictions are the ones that are "for your own good"
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

i honestly think they are pulling the wool over our eyes so to say(even with this new health care bill 2700 pages..there has to be stuff in there that is bad for the country as a whole).......get everyones attention with healthcare reform......what are they gonna push through the back door and vote into law before we even hear about it and then its too late because it is already signed and taking effect? i hear they are doing this with certain gun laws now we are going to have to pay a tax on guns that have already been bought and tax paid?
why should we pay a tax for something that the tax has already been paid on?
same as bingo says im not trying to look out for everyone just me....everyone talks about all thier rights and how they are being denied this and being denied that...too bad they forgot one: EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO FAIL...not the right to a free handout.....if you dont want to fail. dont talk about it, be about it

just a thought here: so when all this stuff passes into law and we get forced to eat the healthcare pill..think about al the law makers and politicians that keep thier super premium private health plans(for free probably) and wont get fined for not buying into the system...dont you think they should have to eat the same pill as well????if we are all equal on every level. that seems only seems fair to me

Originally Posted by BAMARACING8

i honestly think they are pulling the wool over our eyes so to say(even with this new health care bill 2700 pages..there has to be stuff in there that is bad for the country as a whole).......get everyones attention with healthcare reform......what are they gonna push through the back door and vote into law before we even hear about it and then its too late because it is already signed and taking effect? i hear they are doing this with certain gun laws now we are going to have to pay a tax on guns that have already been bought and tax paid?
why should we pay a tax for something that the tax has already been paid on?
same as bingo says im not trying to look out for everyone just me....everyone talks about all thier rights and how they are being denied this and being denied that...too bad they forgot one: EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO FAIL...not the right to a free handout.....if you dont want to fail. dont talk about it, be about it

just a thought here: so when all this stuff passes into law and we get forced to eat the healthcare pill..think about al the law makers and politicians that keep thier super premium private health plans(for free probably) and wont get fined for not buying into the system...dont you think they should have to eat the same pill as well????if we are all equal on every level. that seems only seems fair to me

...So you don't actually KNOW of anything in the bill that's bad for America, you're just assuming? You know, you should actually look at it. To me anyway, it looks better and better the more I do. Perfect, no, but not bad. You should allow the *truth* to inform your opinions, rather than your fear.

So, in this context, by "fail" do you mean "die?" Everything has the right to die? Because you compare it to "hand-outs" as though caring for sick people and not allowing insurance companies to kill them is some sort of grave failure. Hell, if that's how you feel, why have ER's at all? If someone hurts themselves, or "fails," they just deserve to die, right?

The reason politicians aren't buying in is most likely-2 fold.

1. They don't feel like dealing with the shifting system over the next few years, because...

2. They're rich and taken care of by the government. Don't fool yourself. They were never on the level of you and I. They aren't choosing the old system over a new one - they're choosing the government's tree house over any house they've built for us. They always have, they always will.

I just don't understand what you think you're losing. You still get to pick your insurance, which is still run by a private entity (unless you opt to go for government coverage). The main difference is going to be that you'll be paying less for it. No one is taking your rights. What is the real issue?

Originally Posted by BobKincaid

I realize that the query tried to step outside left-right, but given the nature of our system, that is all but impossible.

The essential problems from which the disagreements over healthcare, and any other thing the current majority wishes to do, ostensibly have to do with the right-wing notion that the majority are somehow operating outside the boundaries of the constitutional framework. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The problem is not only legal, but philosophical and attitudinal, as well. The right-wing is by far the more authoritarian of the two sides, and has an almost religious fervor about the origins of the United States. To an authoritarian, the Framers were just short of demi-gods and the Constution is a thing forever set in stone.

Yet, the fact is, the Framers, based upon actual available history, would never have elevated themselves to the esteem the right-wing affords them. They recognized their own human frailties (most of them drank in excess of a gallon of wine a day) and failings (many of them held slaves and hadn't a CLUE how to deal with that pernicious nightmare) and offered up a framing document that admitted of its own failings. How?

If the Framers thought the Constitution perfect and immutable, they would have had no need to create Congress or provide a means by which the Constitution could be amended. Instead, they created a bicameral legislative body that was designed to expound and expand upon the framework set forth in the Constitution within its strictures. Recognizing that the Constitution, itself, was fallible (please recall that the Framers largely despised the notion of infallibilty, being as they were mostly deists and, at the least, protestants) and might require periodic amendation, they provided a far-from-impossible means of changing it, which the young republic began doing almost immediately (witness the change to the original structure of presidential/vice-presidential elections after the nastiness of the Jefferson election).

Nothing of the framing, establishment and adoption of the Constution admits of the authoritarian reverence the right-wing accords it, save for the fact that authoritarianism loathes challenges to the status quo.

As such, the fact that the right has persistently decried healthcare as being outside the bounds of the Constitution is simply silly. It was written in broad generalities such as "provide for the general welfare," that allowed future generations to define that for themselves. That "general welfare" includes healthcare if the Congress determines that it does. The Supreme Court has the right to pass upon the idea if a sufficient "case and controversy" is presented to it, but not otherwise and may act then only if it finds that Congress' actions, viewed in the light most favorable to the Congress, are clearly unconstitutional.

The Framers were aware, because they were learned, of what happens when good laws go bad. They had, for instance, England's "mortmain" law to reflect upon, which, upon hard lessons-learned, precluded a "dead hand" from continuing to control property ownership. The Constitution, in short, was not written in a vacuum. It was written within the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition that pre-supposed a growing, changing body of law made to deal with a growing, changing body of citizens.

The right's incessant cry that "at no other time in American History have citizens been mandated to purchase something at their own cost," (and variations on the theme) displays not a philosophy, but an ignorance. Only scant years after the ratification of the Constitution, the Congress enacted the Second Militia Act of 1792, which COMPELLED American citizens to purchase the following:

"a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball; or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch, and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder."

If purchasing healthcare coverage is a violation of personal liberty, then so, too, was the requirement passed by the Congress in 1792.

There really is NO impact upon "personal liberty" in the present healthcare legislation, unless one is willing to so far extend the boundaries of "personal freedom" as to include the "personal" right to impose a grim, grisly death upon 45,000 OTHER Americans every year and deny them access to the "general welfare" with which the Congress is charged oversight.

I would submit that such is a profound over-extension of any rational notion of "personal liberty."

This post brings to mind "Crito." Anyone else? Apply Socrates reasoning to individual liberty and the law. I think this presents a double edged sword to both sides, liberal and conservative.

Originally Posted by Sailor

Even if i live in a country with universal health care i've never seen or heard such things happening. Not even in the times of the worst H1N1 attack last autumn.
As well you could claim that those with private health care insurance would crowd the clinics there as soon as they get cold or flu or something. At least they have a possibility to do so. Why would people do so? Crowd the system when there really is no need to do so? Having a universal or private health care system doesn't mean that you are forced to use that when no need to do so.

There is a problem currently in Canada and the US with ER crowding. Whether or not those situations I inquired about are contributing factors, or not, is largely unknown. At least they are not mentioned as causes. Possibly because it is difficult or impossible to document. But with millions of new souls being added into our system in a very short period of time beggining in just a few years, the system almost has to suffer for it.