Healthcare & the founding fathers

Oh gee, the founding fathers supported Socialized Healthcare.... Including the requirement to buy healthcare, of course they didn't have the tax breaks we have today...

http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/01/17/congress-passes-socialized-medicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/

the law itself

http://www.scribd.com/doc/29099806/Act-for-the-Relief-of-Sick-DisabledSeamen-July-1798


Spread the word, because I want my fucking insurance exchange now!!!!

>>40
Social Democracy =/= Marxism. And nobody today seriously is promoting pure socialism or communist socialism because everyone knows it doesn't fucking work. But neither does pure free market capitalism.

>>41
You know why none of these broad society paradigms actually "work?" because corruption is endemic and vital to human nature and ambition.  Corruption emerges because it isn't paradigm-dependent; it's the way people think; it doesn't bias itself to moral or immoral activity.  If you seriously think there's a way to stack the rules against it, then that's attempted totalitarianism.  Also, I own the Brooklyn Bridge.

>>42
Well sure, there's no perfect system. Pure free market capitalism is not somehow exempted from human nature, and people will take advantage of others, probably much more so under pure free market. Though in the same vein, pure socialism doesn't work either and yes, can degenerate into complete totalitarianism, which nobody wants, which is also why nobody seriously speaks about completely abolishing the capitalist mode of production since that's just throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Bwahahaaa! You guys need to pay for getting sick! Now that's sad...

Oh, and you own most of the medical industry too?!? Capitalism is so fair...

>>42
So, corruption is endemic, yet we need to have people overseeing the free trade of goods and services with dictator powers?

>>43
>and people will take advantage of others
the only one who "takes advantage" of anyone is government workers using the monopoly of "justice" and force. And people/companies allied with government.

>>46 re: >>42
I am actually on the other side of the argument than the one you think I am.

>>46
the only one who "takes advantage" of anyone is government workers using the monopoly of "justice" and force.
Nope. The robber barons of the 19^th century took advantage of people, and the economy was arguably much more free market than it is today. This was also around the time from the expiration of the Second Bank of the United States, to the establishment of the Federal Reserve, so they didn't even have a central bank to pump in credit to fund their bullshit, so the idea that the government and only the government is the problem, is fallacious.

And people/companies allied with government.
That's an issue of campaign reform, lobbying and lack of transparency. True, the government can't be relied on to give complete transparency and third parties and whistle-blowers are important to counter this. Governments are not infallible, and they're prone to be abusive just like corporations, just like banks, &c.

>>48
Robber barons are given an unfair verdict by history, their activities rarely affected the middle classes who only made well researched low risk long term investments, their activities weeded out the old money and grifters from the stock market in the same way a king would put any petty princeling in his place.

At a time when the US was pretty much centrally planned by a close knit hereditary plutocracy this was essential for the fledgling free market to rear it's head, of course the robber barons and general nouveau riche aspired to gain stately powers, the fact they went about it through economic management rather than politics is the key here, compared to Mexico the US could achieve far greater levels of economic sophistication even though the Mexican aristocracy was not significantly less intelligent or educated than the US and had every opportunity to attempt to imitate the latest advancements seen in the US.

>>49
their activities rarely affected the middle classes
Right, which is why a lot of the middle class lost their homes and properties during the 1890s depression and the Panic of 1907.

>>50
Didn't the US government pass a series of acts and tariffs intervening in the economy in 1890 that were directly responsible for the panic of 1893? Didn't JP Morgan subsequently bail out the government? Also didn't the government fuck with railroads for a number of years prior to the panic of 1907 thereby causing unnecessary instability during the aftermath of the SF quake and economic instability abroad (in statist nations that fucked with the economy as a policy)?

Also, the gilded age was an era of enormous economic growth for America, 100000s of immigrants entering the country each year and modern technology bursting onto the scene these crashes were more bumps on the road, like someone living in a gilded cage complaining because he's not getting richer as fast as he would have liked.

>>51
Didn't the US government pass a series of acts and tariffs intervening in the economy in 1890 that were directly responsible for the panic of 1893?
There was the Sherman Silver Purchase Act and the McKinley Tariff, which has been partly blamed on for causing, or aiding to cause the panic, however, it was heavy speculation in the railroad industry that did the most damage. Government mostly kept out of the affairs of markets and industry. Most elected officials in those times were still strict adherents of the gold standard, and kept a laissez-faire approach.

The SF earthquake of 1906 is unfortunate, and nobody was really prepared for that; most of the cause of the panic of 1907 was cause by the Wall Street assholes with their speculative fuckery.

Today is even much worse, since the Internet and technology and instantaneous communication makes the Wall Street heads scheme even more efficiently, and would be even worse if they weren't regulated at all.

>>52
speculative fuckery
You mean like the Sherman Silver Purchase Act and the McKinley Tariff? Most elected officials were laissez faire, the few that weren't who occasionally managed to slip through fraudulent deals like these were guilty of intentionally engineering the panics along with the populists and ignorant voters who supported them, I think it's obvious which loophole needs to be closed off. Like I said, the robber barons were statists, just less statist than the old money, like Mexican aristocracy who kept Mexico shitty and stagnant for so long, and thus better for the economy, it's still the state that creates these monstrosities though.

>>53
You mean like the Sherman Silver Purchase Act and the McKinley Tariff?
Nope, I mean actual, unregulated speculative fuckery, like the one that just recently took down the economy. The total pot of the derivatives market is anywhere from 600 trillion to 1.6 quadrillion dollars, which I've heard is somewhere between 24 to 60 times the GDP of the entire planet. The government itself doesn't even have anywhere near that amount of cash. It's quite easy to see who's really controlling things here. And no sane person would seriously suggest that amount of wealth amongst a few should be left completely unregulated and unchecked.

You see the robber barons in a lighter light, because the consequences of their actions were not as severe as the current Wall Street fat cats. True, they use the state towards corrupt means, however, that doesn't preclude the state from being able to do good things. It's a tool, of which can be used for good and the betterment of society, or as an instrument of attaining corrupt ends. For example, a betterment would be being the funding and subsidization of scientific endeavors and advancement.

There's bigger problems than that, and a lot of it has to do with the blatant anti-intellectualism that permeates the culture and society of the US.

>blatant anti-intellectualism
>hurr durr anyone who doesn't spend his Friday nights hanging out at Starbucks wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt is obviously a stupid hick, my mommy says I'm special

>>55
I like how people have capricious notions about you from their imagination simply because you disagree with them.
Also, way to fail at
Shiitchan quoting.