This is how you finish, with a sexist remark. This shows who you really are.

No female could ever argue with you superior male logic, unless they were you handmaidens.

There’s no anthropomorphism there to be found.

Give it up, Nick… if I had to guess, VRB is confused about a lot of issues… probably a female feeling her way through arguments…

IF you can propose a truly just system of government-mediated healthcare that doesn’t involve theft and overuse, I’ll listen…

The universal healthcare zealots are probably more about controlling people’s behaviors than they are about healthcare.

What mechanic in capitalism helps provide funding for health care or the infirm? Isn’t there a moral obligation for these items to be affordable to the general public?

There is no mechanism for it in libertarianism. That doesn’t mean it won’t get taken care of. This is the fundamental flaw in such arguments. Just because we do not believe in government responsibility in a social area does not mean we believe it shouldn’t be taken care of. I believe in the legalization of all drugs–even hard drugs. But I certainly don’t believe we should allow all children to take them.

Part of the reason for the semi-socialist economic approach is the belief that medical care is so fundamental to us humans that to render it unaffordable is immoral.

The problem with that is that ‘medical care’ is such a vague term and that people who talk about ‘providing medical care’ to everyone rarely if ever set limits on what is sensible.

In my med school time in outpatient pediatrics I’d wager that roughly 50-80% of visits were COMPLETELY unnecessary. The child would’ve gotten better regardless and in most cases weren’t that badly off to begin with. About half of the others could’ve been handled by PAs or even public health nurses. The rest were well child checkups. A whole month. Not one case did I see that really required a doctor. Do people have a ‘right’ to be seen by a doctor when they have no ‘need’ of it, especially when someone else is paying?

What about when someone ruins their own body? Do you have a ‘right’ to demand that other people pay for your own mistakes?

More and more of our pharmaceuticals are lifestyle drugs. In that I include drugs that are a result of peoples’ own stupidity. Do people have a ‘right’ to those too?

A subsidy to those who cannot afford it seems like a reasonable thing to do, and this requires taxes.

The problem with that again is that healthcare costs are a variable. A HUGE variable dependent on genetics, childhood environment, adult choices, and sheer chance.

I can buy such arguments when it comes to education, which theoeretically would cost the same from student to student. At the very least I’ll give such arguments a fair hearing.

But the vast, vast majority of healthcare costs are spent:
1. on the last couple days/weeks of a person’s ‘life’ when they’re basically dead people walking.
2. on lifestyle issues that could’ve been avoided, even if one *did* have bad genetics.

Regardless of one’s stance on the first issue, the second issue amounts to government enforced theft. Demanding that the healthy who made good choices pay for the costs incurred by the sick due to their own selfishness (and it really is nothing more).

So if we were to be sensible about it, where would we go from there? Obviously the only truly just costs for the government to force us to share are ones that are genetic, emergent, and/or unpredictable.

So then how do we define ‘genetic’? There are lots of diseases out there in which family history are extremely important (some cancers, heart disease, diabetes, etc). Yet if you live a proper lifestyle, they’re simply not an issue. Asians are one of the highest risk groups in terms of genetics for the development of Type II diabetes. Yet such risks almost completely disappear when we watch our weight and diet, which is why we never had a problem with it 100 years ago.

So then do we only offer to pay for some of the costs in these multifactorial disease? Do we use a sliding scale depending on how good the lifestyle choices were prior? Do we determine the level of payout based on age of onset?

And what about emergent problems? What if I break my leg rock climbing? Do I really have a right to force you to pay for my care because I chose to undertake something stupid and risky? What if you cut off a finger building yourself a coffee table? Should we be forced to pay for its reattachment?

I have to be convinced of a strong probability of meningitis before I even set foot in a doctor’s office when I’m sick. Yet I’ve got classmates who go to the doctor at the drop of a hat. I’ve never filled a vikodin scrip after a wisdom tooth surgery. Yet I know some who go in for their two weeks worth and then go back for more. Should I be forced to subsidize them for being sissies?

IF you can propose a truly just system of government-mediated healthcare that doesn’t involve theft and overuse, I’ll listen…

Altruism is a byproduct of the fact that self-interested individuals acting together can often increase their own gains. It’s not all zero sum games. Strong individuals often need a group in order to maximize their success; it’s hard to get rich being a hermit since there’s no one to sell anything to. And one of the best ways for a strong individual to maintain group cohesiveness while simultaneously cementing his/her role as a leader is to act in a way that benefits the group. To put it in other words, you can show your strength more easily by how many people you pull up than how many people you hold down.

This is why things like reciprocal altruism are so important in many group-living species. Which we happen to be…

Governments act as proxies for such displays of ‘altruism’ (which are better understood as acts of self interest). They pay taxes, government handles it for them. And because they feel like their responsibility is discharged once they’re done paying taxes, they’re less likely to bother with it as individuals.

It’d be anthropomorphism if I said that capuchins adopt marmosets because they look so cuddly and cute and they can’t stand to see them starve because of their compassion.

It’s not anthropomorphism to show that females who ‘adopt’ like this often gain in status because they prove they can handle an increase in energy expenditure that doesn’t directly reward them (i.e. making more babies). It’s not anthropomorphism to show that females who ‘adopt’ like this, especially nulliparous females end up with valuable parenting experience and tolerance that leads to better outcomes when they actually do start breeding.

It’s not anthropomorphism to point out that if an alpha male defends a baby that isn’t his, the mommy will be less inclined to see him kicked out and will be more likely to defend him against challengers because she’s in his debt (reciprocal altruism). Neither is it anthropomorphism to point out that other males who’ve seen him do this will be less likely to screw with him.

All of which has been scientifically verified and forms the cornerstone of modern behavioral ecology.

There’s no anthropomorphism there to be found.

Self interest underpins all of evolutionary biology and behavioral ecology. Economics is nothing more than a subset of behavioral ecology.

Behavioral ecology today concerns itself primarily with cooperation. Cooperation as mediated by the underlying principle of self interest.

Whether we’re talking about capuchins adopting orphaned marmosets or alpha male baboons facing down jaguars, the underlying principle is self interst, no matter how ‘altruistic’ the behavior seems.

Self interest is where cooperation comes from. Biology teaches us that.

Attempts to quash the interactions of individuals acting on a self interested manner will also quash their ability to interact in a truly cooperative way.

One of the reasons that socialist systems devolve into every man for himself scenarios is because interpersonal interaction loses the ability to profit either party as such things are now mediated by the government.

Before any of the sophisticated systems we speak of today, I feel humans developed a system of values, which ensured their cohesion as a society and survival to suceeding generations. Later this may be reinforced with religious morals. However I don’t see polital systems or economic sytems generating these values. The actions they cause may be good or bad depending on other influences. This is what I meant by being amoral. That is whay I use the example of what one may do with government. It would still be a democratic system, whether it would be more socialist or not, would depend on the values of those making policy. I think capitalism operates in the same way, to best meet it business goal, it might be necessary to create a situation that is bad for society or the individual. Lets say, it appears to be unfair. How can we assign moral blame, if it is simply following its purpose. Would you say that capitalism is evil, I know some do. These may not be good examples, but I do not think moral values can be derived from these systems.

I think js290 did a good job of answering your question. I would just like to add that before we ask the government to demand the citizen fund healthcare for others at the point of a gun, we should find out why healthcare is is so expensive to begin with. I agree with js290 that much of the expense is do to government involvement; we simply do not have a free market healthcare system.

Wal-Mart and a few other companies are already using free market solutions to reduce the cost of healthcare with their health clinics. While you cannot get x-rays or elaborate tests done at these clinics, you can be seen for more minor health issues like sore throat, a fever, cold, skin conditions, etc. I have personally used these clinics and have found that the Wal-Mart physician can write the perscriptions and tend to these basic needs just as well as any other doctor…and at a fraction of the price.

The AMA does not much like these “doc in a box” clinics because of how it drives the prices down and they fear this will cause competition (how terrible). The AMA is doing its best to shut these clinics down by lobbying the government. I bet Michael Moore didn’t bring THAT up is his crockumentary.

Isn’t that how all political institutions work? It seems to me that we choose our political views based on what we personally believe is the right way to do things and then we publicize our views and try to get others to believe them. It’s not just libertarians who think their way is the right way to do things, every political institution is like that. Democrats, republicans, independents, libertarians, communists, all of them think they have the path to “salvation” as you put it.

I happen to know a few people whose attitude about libertarianism is… “They believe in ‘Got mine, up yours’ “. Any attempt to bring up liberty/freedom seems to be dismissed out of hand as somehow an excuse for the selfishness.
It is hard to try to explain things to them.

Well, unfortunately, most self described “libertarians” are of the mindset “Got mine, up yours.” People with a deeper understanding usually describe libertarianism with words like laissez-faire and non-coersion.

On the flip side, the people who dismiss libertarianism, like the folks you know, are likely selfish in an authoritarian sense. They’d probably prefer to have the govt coercively make everybody else behave in ways more favorable to them. That’s why people like Michael Moore, and their neo-con counter parts, will say stupid shit like, “if the right people were in charge…”

No.