American Politics Discussion Thread

[Charriu]

What do trump's taxes or personal affairs matter? He's literally locked up thousands of people in cages on the border, forcibly sterilized hundreds, and created the biggest resurgence of hate groups in the past 80 years, and is literally completely ok with white supremacy groups. (And people still have the gall to vote for him). This is the inefficacy of the democratic party at play, they couldn't impeach him on grounds of violating human rights, but instead pressed on some emoulements or some similar bullshit.

There are a lot of problems with Trump. It's just that taxes were the latest topic here.

[T-hawk]

Do you realize that this basically abrogates property and wealth rights?  What if it took the entire world's wealth worth of medical care to save one particular person?  Don't they have a right to that?  If not, where is the line?

Do you realize this is demagoguery and reductio ad absurdum? Scared of the utilitarian monster in the closet? Well, it's nothing more than that, a spooky monster at night.

Answer the question. What is the line beyond which we stop spending the world's resources to save one life?

[Ichabod]

Yes, enforcing the negative rights does require labor and service.  There is no coercion towards the police officers.  That is voluntary, people choose to be that, and the state pays them what is more or less a market-clearing salary price.  There is coercion towards the taxpayers to pay for it.  I don't like that ideologically, but practically it seems to be the least-bad option, the economy of scale in funding collectivized police is a greater good and worth the tradeoff of the coerced loss of economic freedom.

Health care could work the same way, and does in other countries.  What's missing from the US is price controls.  Public police works because the state is a single provider for which the taxpayers set the budgets.  (Indirectly through republican representation or whatever, but ultimately they do.)  Public health care doesn't because it relies on private providers who can and will keep escalating the prices.  To fix this, ultimately the government must become the single provider, like the British NHS.  I am not opposed to this ideologically, just practically in the sense I don't think the US has the will to implement it properly, and any way they do will end up costing me more like Obamacare did.

"Yes, enforcing the negative rights does require labor and service.  There is no coercion towards the police officers.  That is voluntary, people choose to be that, and the state pays them what is more or less a market-clearing salary price".

But public funded doctors also act voluntarily and get payed for it. What is the difference between them and the police officer? I would guess that most people would prefer being a doctor, actually.

"I don't like that ideologically, but practically it seems to be the least-bad option, the economy of scale in funding collectivized police is a greater good and worth the tradeoff of the coerced loss of economic freedom."

Again, what is the fundamental difference between collectivized police and collectivized healthcare? What's the difference between a "negative" right and a "positive" right (we call them "social rights" in portuguese, not sure what is best to call them, but I think you get my point), if both require taxpayers money (which translates to coercion to unwilling people)?

I'm not opposed to a position that puts the difference in practicality (as your following points). That's a valid view point. I'm just arguing against the position that healthcare cannot be considered a human right, based on it requiring services from others. I haven't seen a proper justification for that yet (I bring forth the point because I've seen it being argued on other places, albeit not exactly with the human right point, just that negative rights are ok for the state to provide, while positive ones aren't).

[ipecac]

Liberalism:

This is correct.  The basic rights of life and speech are "negative" rights - it means an absence of forcible suppression by others.  The right to free speech does not include the right to have someone else pay for your printing press, that's your job.  The right to bear arms does not include the right to have someone else pay for your gun.  The right to life does not include the right to have someone else pay for your health services.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Dogma vs creed, with fervour exceeding the average religious convert. I've seen enough.

[T-hawk]

Again, what is the fundamental difference between collectivized police and collectivized healthcare? What's the difference between a "negative" right and a "positive" right (we call them "social rights" in portuguese, not sure what is best to call them, but I think you get my point), if both require taxpayers money (which translates to coercion to unwilling people)?

The "negative" right is a concept in absolute terms. All humans should be able to speak freely without suppression. All humans should have their life that no other person or authority is entitled to harm. These are concepts, not policies.

What you call social rights are the mechanisms and policies to enforce the protection of those absolute rights. There are always limitations. The right to life does not include the right to a personal bodyguard at all times. We choose to enact some collective protection by levying taxes to pay a police force while acknowledging those limitations. The taxes are an abrogation of property rights and economic freedom, but that seems to be the lesser evil and a net gain as the policing preserves more property than it costs.

There is not necessarily any fundamental difference between collectivized police and collectivized health care. Health care could behave the same way I just described. We can choose to enact it as a collective service by levying collective costs. There are always limitations. The right to life does not include the right to every possible cancer screening every week, to pick some possible example. Because it's physically impossible to deliver that much service. I'm against collectivized health care not ideologically, but on a practical level: the US has already demonstrated with Obamacare no sense of a rational cost structure and so it costs more than it gains.

[Ichabod]

Do you realize that this basically abrogates property and wealth rights?  What if it took the entire world's wealth worth of medical care to save one particular person?  Don't they have a right to that?  If not, where is the line?

Do you realize this is demagoguery and reductio ad absurdum? Scared of the utilitarian monster in the closet? Well, it's nothing more than that, a spooky monster at night.

Answer the question.  What is the line beyond which we stop spending the world's resources to save one life?

Couldn't you rephrase the question as: What is the line beyond which we stop spending the world's resources to protect one life (by the police)?

[T-hawk]

Couldn't you rephrase the question as: What is the line beyond which we stop spending the world's resources to protect one life (by the police)?

Indeed. I thought of how to state the equivalence more clearly:

The right to life doesn't and can't include the right to unlimited amounts of policing to protect that life. That's the same as the right to life not including the right to unlimited medical services to sustain that life.

Once you understand that those limitations exist, that resources are not unlimited, you realize that there's always a line, and we're just negotiating over where to set it.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Do you realize that this basically abrogates property and wealth rights?  What if it took the entire world's wealth worth of medical care to save one particular person?  Don't they have a right to that?  If not, where is the line?

Do you realize this is demagoguery and reductio ad absurdum? Scared of the utilitarian monster in the closet? Well, it's nothing more than that, a spooky monster at night.

Answer the question.  What is the line beyond which we stop spending the world's resources to save one life?

There's no point in engaging with absurdism. A national healthcare system would allow for preventive medicine which would also prevent questions like these. Why do you think a poor nation with no natural resources that is sanctioned by half the world (Cuba) is able to affordably provide better healthcare outcomes for its citizens than the US? And stay on top of medical research. You're trying to create scenarios that don't exist.

What's the line beyond which we stop giving guns out to people to shoot up schools and public places? After Columbine? After the Las Vegas Shooting? Like draw me the brightline.

Exactly, this argument is absurd.

[Serdoa]

Couldn't you rephrase the question as: What is the line beyond which we stop spending the world's resources to protect one life (by the police)?

Indeed.  I thought of how to state the equivalence more clearly:

The right to life doesn't and can't include the right to unlimited amounts of policing to protect that life.  That's the same as the right to life not including the right to unlimited medical services to sustain that life.

Once you understand that those limitations exist, that resources are not unlimited, you realize that there's always a line, and we're just negotiating over where to set it.

But it does T-hawk. Please show me in which law it states "We protect our citizens - but only if it does not cost more than x amount, if it is more expensive, you are on your own.". It doesn't exist because despite what you seem to believe those laws are luckily not made by capitalists that believe that everything can be measured in money. 

German constitution, § 1: 

(1) Human dignity is inviolable. It is the duty of all state authorities to respect and protect them.
(2) The German people are therefore committed to inviolable and inalienable human rights as the basis of every human community, of peace and justice in the world.

Can you find anything in there that states: But only if it does not cost more than 100.000,- € per person? Or: But only if it isn't too expensive? No, because that is no measurement of any civilized human. If you start with these "lines", than you quickly come to the point that you will find people that tell you that it simply is too expensive to protect every citizen of the state - those that do not possess a certain amount of wealth are simply not worth protecting, they will never pay in taxes what it costs to protect them.

And if we only discuss where to draw the line, does this not also mean it only is a question of time till the line will be drawn at euthanizing those that are not valuable enough? You basically can make any group of people outlawed, just by making it too "expensive" to protect them. That is, despite what you seem to believe, why these rights are not accompanied by limitations - exactly because if you start to put in limitation you get to the point of "we have to draw a line somewhere" being moved further and further down.

(Btw: That's why you also should expect decency from your politicians, no matter if it is required by law. Because else that line is also moved further down till you get people like Trump. And then you get even worse people. That downward spiral does not stop.)

[darrelljs]

capitalists that believe that everything can be measured in money. 

Capitalism refers to a system where “a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state”. To extrapolate that to mean they only care about money is unfair, and in my experience mostly untrue. The Nordic model is a form of welfare capitalism that funds a generous social safety net and programs that promote class mobility with the dynamism and efficiency of a free market, for example.

Darrell