Pepper sprayed for public safety.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

I'm agreeing with Adder more these days. Does that mean he's getting smarter or the oxygen flow to my brain is dropping more than I feared?

This discussion is a pretty easy one, as it's really a moral question.

Also, you're probably still just having warm feelings because I called you smart a few posts ago.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Adder

You do what you can to educate people about their choices, and make available the information necessary to improve choices.

And once that's done, you sit back and realize that shit happens. People make dumb choices that impose costs on others all the time. And people do perfectly innocent things like try to walk across a street without getting hit by a car, which can end up imposing costs on others too.

The question is whether you prefer a society that says, "well, them's the breaks" to those people (ala Less) or you think that maybe, to borrow a phrase, "there but for the grace of god go I."

We can cure neither randomness nor human nature. Oh well.

ETA: And I'm with Wonk in terms of being willing to pay to not be a part of a society that does otherwise.

This is a valid response, but I don't really agree with it.

Do you look at someone who weighs 500 pounds and rides on a little golf cart and say "there but for the grace of God..."? I don't. I also don't look at that person and think, "Well, thru Medicare I'm paying for his golf cart, because he's too fat to walk. But it's about the same as if he got hit by a car walking across the street."

You already live in a society that does otherwise -- it's how many of our prisons are filled. Also the basis of most tort law.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Do you look at someone who weighs 500 pounds and rides on a little golf cart and say "there but for the grace of God..."? I don't.

I don't, but I should.

You don't know what led that person to be there. It could be that they are a horribly irresponsible person who has made terrible choices that led them to where they are. Or they could have a condition you and I don't know about. Maybe for some reason it's too painful to walk, even at a healthy weight.

But even if it's just him being too weak of character to put down the Cheetos and go for a walk, I guess I still think we shouldn't just leave him to die. I certainly don't think his life is worth less than me keeping another few cents out of every dollar.

You already live in a society that does otherwise -- it's how many of our prisons are filled.

I'm not sure I follow your point. You're positing that prisons are filled with people who are somehow unable to take care of themselves? Maybe.

Also the basis of most tort law.

Now I definitely don't follow. What's the relationship between a social safety net that provides for those who can't provide for themselves and tort?

The argument is that you have a moral responsibility to care for the needy, not a legal one (other than to the extent it's been codified view taxing and spending, of course).

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

This is a valid response, but I don't really agree with it.

Do you look at someone who weighs 500 pounds and rides on a little golf cart and say "there but for the grace of God..."? I don't. I also don't look at that person and think, "Well, thru Medicare I'm paying for his golf cart, because he's too fat to walk. But it's about the same as if he got hit by a car walking across the street."

You already live in a society that does otherwise -- it's how many of our prisons are filled. Also the basis of most tort law.

I do have to confess, I frequently see these people on their Jazzy Scooters, or whatever, more often than not blocking the aisle in the grocery store or on the bus, and I think to myself, that is just wrong. But even if I take Paul Prudhomme's little cart away, I'm still going to feel like he needs to have someone deliver sensible meals to his house and roll him over twice a day so he doesn't get couch-sores.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

Except for the slavery aspect of it.

And traffic lights. I am enslaved when I am forced to stop and wait for someone else. This infringement on my liberties would not have happened in Hobbes' state of nature.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

You don't have to, Less. I am one of the people who thought ahead while I was employed and I bought and paid for private health insurance and long-term disability coverages.

To be fair to Less, if people are obliged to buy health-insurance, the healthy are being obliged to subsidize the others. Just not via taxes.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Adder

I don't, but I should.

You don't know what led that person to be there. It could be that they are a horribly irresponsible person who has made terrible choices that led them to where they are. Or they could have a condition you and I don't know about. Maybe for some reason it's too painful to walk, even at a healthy weight.

But even if it's just him being too weak of character to put down the Cheetos and go for a walk, I guess I still think we shouldn't just leave him to die. I certainly don't think his life is worth less than me keeping another few cents out of every dollar.

Maybe. But when I see that same 500-pound guy pumping dollars into a slot machine in Vegas, I don't think the choice is "pay for his health care or let him die." Maybe you are limiting your generosity to people who don't have a spare dollar, but that's not so clear to me. Certainly it's not how medicare functions today.

I'm not sure I follow your point. You're positing that prisons are filled with people who are somehow unable to take care of themselves? Maybe.

Drug addicts.

Now I definitely don't follow. What's the relationship between a social safety net that provides for those who can't provide for themselves and tort?

I was responding to your "you can't cure human nature" point. Which I really see as arguing that decisions people make shouldn't have personal consequences.

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Maybe. But when I see that same 500-pound guy pumping dollars into a slot machine in Vegas, I don't think the choice is "pay for his health care or let him die." Maybe you are limiting your generosity to people who don't have a spare dollar, but that's not so clear to me. Certainly it's not how medicare functions today.

I think that medicare doesn't function today. There are three layers of coverage, at a minimum (basic, supplemental, which is private, and prescription). Anything that needs to be sliced into tranches is not operating efficiently.

Are you suggesting that medicare be need-based? If so, I am inclined to agree with you. But everybody thinks I'm a crazy socialist, so you may want to avid getting lumped in with me.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Maybe. But when I see that same 500-pound guy pumping dollars into a slot machine in Vegas, I don't think the choice is "pay for his health care or let him die." Maybe you are limiting your generosity to people who don't have a spare dollar, but that's not so clear to me. Certainly it's not how medicare functions today.

I agree it's not easy. Although I do prefer Medicare, which pays for in-kind services of the kind we should be providing, to cash that could be going down the slot machine.

Which makes me a paternalist.

Drug addicts.

Yeah, the question is what you are saying about imprisoned drug addicts. If you mean we should be doing more to provide treatment, and that our choice to instead imprison them represents a failure to care for our fellow man, then I wholeheartedly agree.

But our atrocious drug policy is a whole other topic, on which I would probably mostly agree with Less.

I was responding to your "you can't cure human nature" point. Which I really see as arguing that decisions people make shouldn't have personal consequences.

Personal decisions have all kinds of consequences. Our hypothetical morbidly obese immobile person is going to die much younger than he otherwise would. He's going to be poorer while alive. His life experiences are going to be greatly stunted.

There are plenty of incentives in place without denying him a basic safety net.

My point wasn't the people should be insulated from the consequences of their personal choices but rather that if you believe society has a moral obligation to provide for the basic needs of its members, you also have to accept that doing so is going to be hard to swallow sometimes.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

This is a valid response, but I don't really agree with it.

Do you look at someone who weighs 500 pounds and rides on a little golf cart and say "there but for the grace of God..."? I don't. I also don't look at that person and think, "Well, thru Medicare I'm paying for his golf cart, because he's too fat to walk. But it's about the same as if he got hit by a car walking across the street."

You already live in a society that does otherwise -- it's how many of our prisons are filled. Also the basis of most tort law.

Initially,watching one of those TV ads promising, "Get a free scooter through Medicare," I feel a welling disgust, and a desire to see the operators of these parasitic companies indicted.

Then I think about TARP, and everything I've read about Goldman and -- frankly, almost the entire finance industry, and shrug. How does one point the finger at some scumbag gaming Medicare in a time as corrupt as ours?

Good for you scooter salesman. Get yours. Get out. And pray to fucking God whatever you squirrel away doesn't need to be driven in barrels to the market to buy a loaf of bread, like Weimar Germany, or Zimbabwe, by 2016. Bills are light one at a time. Stacks of them tall as dwarves can get awfully heavy.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

You do what you can to educate people about their choices, and make available the information necessary to improve choices.

And once that's done, you sit back and realize that shit happens. People make dumb choices that impose costs on others all the time. And people do perfectly innocent things like try to walk across a street without getting hit by a car, which can end up imposing costs on others too.

The question is whether you prefer a society that says, "well, them's the breaks" to those people (ala Less) or you think that maybe, to borrow a phrase, "there but for the grace of god go I."

We can cure neither randomness nor human nature. Oh well.

ETA: And I'm with Wonk in terms of being willing to pay to not be a part of a society that does otherwise.

I don't think we can ever reach a point where we refuse to pay the costs imposed on us by those who make stupid choices. But in regard to having children one can't afford, by choice, there's a level of deliberation. Someone has decided that, despite the fact they can't pay for themselves, they will nevertheless bring a child (often more than one) into the world, which they will be even less able to afford. In the space between the decision and the act there should be messages sent to these people at a minimum shaming them for their selfishness and, at a maximum, offering them all sorts of incentives to do otherwise (or penalties for their acts).

It's not enough to educate people not to reproduce if they can't pay for their issue. Unlike the person injured doing something he shouldn't, or the person suffering an acute or chronic illness due to a bad health decision, a child born destitute from the start has very little chance of escaping a life of dependency. The costs for supporting this person over an entire lifetime are economically, environmentally, and socially enormous. We have to compel the would be parents, via stigma, PR, and aggressive marketing, to stop doing so. This begins with having a public conversation about the issue.

No one can argue against the proposition that those who can't pay for themselves shouldn't add more mouths to their households. If we put the argument out there and give it a load of media attention, the lack of credible opposing views will be demonstrated, and even the dumbest will be pushed to concede the point. It will, of course, never overcome the base desire all biological entities have to reproduce, but I think a good bit of messaging could at least cause a 5-10% decrease in reproduction among those who shouldn't. And that's a lot of savings right there.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I don't think there's a big societal problem with people choosing to have children they believe they cannot afford, but I agree that everyone should have health insurance and that health insurance should include birth control.

I think it's a huge problem. It's the cause of a lot of student loan deficiencies (mom and dad had five kids, which means, where they could have put two through college, instead, all will take out loans). It's a huge cause of multi-generational welfare (born to a single mom on welfare, chances are you'll spend life a ward of the state). It's a huge drag on entitlements (the kids born to these households wind up on a litany of programs that cost taxpayers significant money). It's a huge cause of our environmental problems (a single human probably does more damage to the environment over his life than a herd of cattle).

We're running into a resource shortage. We'll have nine billion people on the planet by 2050. It's creepy to say it this way, but also accurate: We should try to maximize bang for the buck on every human born. This necessarily involves a process of trying to avoid the birth of those who'd have to be "carried." I don't know how you do that, but again - talking about it's a start.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

But, what do you do about the people who fail to go to pre-natal care, even though it is available and affordable/free? What do you do about the diabetic who continues to eat salami every day and drink 6 beers every night? Maybe your answer is "nothing", because you believe that the carrot of cost-effective solutions is sufficient to attract enough people to cut health costs, and you don't need a stick. (Or maybe you just don't like sticks.)

In Philly, you wait until those people show up in the ER too late, having damaged themselves so badly by refusing to adhere to recommended medical care that they either die, or lose the baby, or wind up hospitalized for months. Then you promptly sue the doctor for malpractice. The hospital, fearing a jury comprised of people as clueless as the plaintiff, settles. If you're lucky enough to be the lawyer in this hypo, you take the money you get from that case and put a down payment on a nice new car, or the kids' tuitions.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Good for you scooter salesman. Get yours. Get out. And pray to fucking God whatever you squirrel away doesn't need to be driven in barrels to the market to buy a loaf of bread, like Weimar Germany, or Zimbabwe, by 2016. Bills are light one at a time. Stacks of them tall as dwarves can get awfully heavy.

How many years of subpar economic performance does the Fed have to tolerate to demonstrate that under no circumstances will it even risk a tiny probability of, much less tolerate, hyperinflation?

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Someone has decided that, despite the fact they can't pay for themselves, they will nevertheless bring a child (often more than one) into the world, which they will be even less able to afford.

Sadly, I think few people make that deliberate choice. They think that whether they have a baby is god's choice. Or they understand so little about personal finance that they don't appreciate that they can't afford it.

No one can argue against the proposition that those who can't pay for themselves shouldn't add more mouths to their households. If we put the argument out there and give it a load of media attention, the lack of credible opposing views will be demonstrated, and even the dumbest will be pushed to concede the point. It will, of course, never overcome the base desire all biological entities have to reproduce, but I think a good bit of messaging could at least cause a 5-10% decrease in reproduction among those who shouldn't. And that's a lot of savings right there.

You realize that they people protest avidly against abortion, right?