American Politics Discussion Thread

[T-hawk]

• Because of his shady practices we have to be suspicious about his deductions and other stuff in his tax returns, because there could be illegal practices in there. Or are you suggesting that Trump never did something wrong as a businessman and with wrong I mean illegal or immoral?

I'm saying that if there is anything wrong with Trump's taxes, I expect investigating to be the job of IRS experts who would have found anything amiss by now if there were any, and not us random uninformed citizens guessing on basically no information.

The burden of proof is on the accuser.  This argument amounts to nothing more than throwing around words like "shady" and "immoral" without evidence.  And I'll also point out that there's also plenty of dirt to dig up on Biden and Hillary Clinton as well; anyone trying to disqualify Trump on imagined grounds of morality would in all likelihood have to do the same for the other side if really acting objectively.

But what is the difference between a doctor and a police officer in this situation? In this logic, your life and safety cannot be a human right as well. Perhaps you can argue that life and safety don't require the labor and services of others, just their "negative" action (i.e. you don't have the right to punch me in the face), and I think that's the difference usually made.

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.

But, first, that's also a coercion on someone else and, second, the only way to make that right effective is through the use of other people labor and service (from police officers, military people, etc.). So you kinda reach the same problem, is it not? 

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.

[T-hawk]

(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.

This is a nice moral-feeling sentiment, but is delusionally impossible in reality.

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?

"Security in the event of X" - what happens if the entire world suffers from X so that there are no providers of that security? "Beyond his control" - what happens in the event of a disaster beyond everyone's control so the resources don't exist?

Serdoa will accuse me of making the extreme black-and-white argument. What I'm doing is pushing the argument to the extreme to see where it breaks down. Which it does. There is no objective standard for the amount of another's resources you can be entitled to.

[T-hawk]

I can tell you one thing from experience T-hawk: It is because of your politicians getting lobbied to make shitty laws that allows companies to funnel governmental money to them for services that could be bought cheaper, and not because it somehow is not possible to do it.

This I do agree with.  It's obviously possible, because many countries are doing it.

I'm pointing out that collectivized health care happens not because of any notion of some human right, but because it's been collectively and democratically agreed to enact by the constituents, and in an economically workable framework unlike whatever the US is doing.

[Gustaran]

(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.

This is a nice moral-feeling sentiment, but is delusionally impossible in reality.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United States in Resolution 217A in 1948.
You can argue all day if/how this particular right can be enforced, but your statement that access to health care is not a human right is factually wrong.

[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.

Well we can always go the other way and take your beloved free market to the extreme. It is only profitable for insurance companies to sell to the healthy. In fact, it is likely economically best that we quickly euthanize the aging (unless profit can be made off them, of course), and sell insurance only to the healthiest individuals. A capitalist-driven eugenics program. The free market will never result in the humane outcome, unless by mere chance it is profitable.

Your right to property is more aptly called the right to poverty. What kind of right to property is there when most people cannot afford said property? Your right to property is not a bit more natural or authentic than the right of divine monarchs, autocratic kings, etc. All it reflects is a certain level of social and historical development.

[Woden]

The whole idea that people shouldn't pay for someone else's healthcare as an argument against public healthcare is a strawman argument. It's the whole basis for insurance, spreading the risk of loss across a larger group of people. And with reinsurance, insurance companies bundle smaller groups into larger pools of risk until you basically get everybody paying for everybody's needs. It is not that big of a stretch to expand these pools to everybody and have a singular pool of risk. 

And by not having a public healthcare system, the US is basically subsidizing the rest of the world. Ever wonder why a pill that cost $8 to make, costs $10 in a country with national healthcare, but cost $2,000 in the US? It is because we don't have a singular group that negotiates prices and drug and medical supply companies gouge the US for profit. In the end, basically by not wanting to subsidize 330 million people's health care, we end up subsidizing 7 billion people. I know this is a little hyperbolic but it shows the absurdity of the argument.

[darrelljs]

What's a basic human right shifts over time as humanity "levels up". Universal health care is eminently affordable and to choose not to do so is, for me, wrong. Right now there is enough opposition to it in the US that it hasn't happened, but I'm confident it will eventually.

Darrell

[GeneralKilCavalry]

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.

Completely untrue. Free speech requires the constant action of courts, an enormous legal system, and police, although in the US they generally seem to be more intent on suppressing this right. Unless of course you somehow expect everyone to be this "rational apolitical actor" which of course does not exist. In such a case sure, everyone would respect the right to free speech, but that's obviously not the case when you have southerners foaming at the mouth to ban scientific thought in schools and teach church dogma like a certain supreme court nominee would like.

The right to bear arms has the social cost (negative externality, this is basic capitalist economics) of people getting gunned down, on top of the ATF. Take away the ATF and gun licenses, and you massively increase the externatlity that society experiences. You make the requirement more stringent, and you have people complaining about the violation of the right, as well as create a bureaucracy to maintain its limited form. Even the freedom of religion creates the social cost of extremism compared to a country which is truly secular. Perhaps the right to not have soldiers quartered in your home follows your criterion here.

[Charriu]

• Because of his shady practices we have to be suspicious about his deductions and other stuff in his tax returns, because there could be illegal practices in there. Or are you suggesting that Trump never did something wrong as a businessman and with wrong I mean illegal or immoral?

I'm saying that if there is anything wrong with Trump's taxes, I expect investigating to be the job of IRS experts who would have found anything amiss by now if there were any, and not us random uninformed citizens guessing on basically no information.

The burden of proof is on the accuser.  This argument amounts to nothing more than throwing around words like "shady" and "immoral" without evidence.  And I'll also point out that there's also plenty of dirt to dig up on Biden and Hillary Clinton as well; anyone trying to disqualify Trump on imagined grounds of morality would in all likelihood have to do the same for the other side if really acting objectively.

Good that you admit that we are both uninformed citizens

Last time I checked Trump's taxes are still under audit. And yes that is one of those rare cases, where Trump told the truth.

Also it's 2020 and people are still afraid of Hillary?

[GeneralKilCavalry]

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.