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Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
(Post 506791)
Incorrect. They emerge without govts all the time.
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No, they don't, because almost all of the world has some sort of government almost all of the time. The normal state of affairs is that a government makes it possible to have markets. This is one of the basic reasons why people like governments. Finding the rare exception to this rule is one thing -- pretending it is normal is quite another.
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That you cannot buy something you'd like to buy does not mean you are deprived of liberty.
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The fundamental problem here is that you have a cramped notion of liberty, like a kind of colorblindness. If you are locked in a room, you lack liberty, no matter whether the government has imprisoned you or you've been kidnapped. In the latter case, you may have the right to be free, but if you are unable to escape, you still lack liberty. If the
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The private market will always service maternity care.
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This is the crux of it, the thing you are missing about how this particular market works and that you are not understanding from what I am trying to tell you. The private market will NOT always service maternity care. If insurers are free to make maternity care optional, the danger is that you will not be able to obtain maternity care unless you are part of a pool (e.g., buying coverage through your employer). If such coverage is optional, the people who will opt for it will be the people who are likely to to use it, and it will get prohibitively expensive. I have now said this to you in several posts and you show no signs of actually having read what I've said or of having the ideas penetrate your school, so I'm not sure why I'm trying again, but I'm an optimist I guess. The same thing is true with pre-existing conditions -- read the above and substitute pre-existing conditions for maternity care.
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But yes, as to everything the market will not service, Medicare expansion. It's also administratively 100X simpler.
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Just stop pretending to be a libertarian.
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You're arguing with me against a single payer alternative?
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No, I find it bizarre that you are professing to believe that there's so principled problem with the current healthcare system's infringement on your rights that goes away with single payer -- that you have a problem when the government forces you to buy something from one of many private parties, but no problem when you have to buy it from the government.
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In favor of a precedent that could potentially be abused by corporations to compel people to purchase things in other areas?
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I find your slippery slope arguments tedious and underwhelming, for the reasons I already said.
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To defend Libertarianism, I'd have to be blunt about holding live and let die views that would trip the emotional triggers of a lot of people. That's not a conversation worth having.
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I can't tell whether you're saying that you're not really a libertarian and don't want to pretend since you'd say odious things, or whether you're saying that you have odious views that you don't want to defend her because you'd upset people.
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I think you do. You're exceptionally open minded and understand concepts at a level way above 99.9% of people. But you lean left. Not emotionally, but based on logic and compassion.
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I agree that I lean left, but that's not an ideology. It means that the outcomes I favor for fairly pragmatic reasons put me left of center on the current political spectrum, perhaps because there are so many right-wing ideologues.
