They can’t volunteer time - Antideficiency Act 1870 - http://www.nbcnews.com/business/143-year-old-law-has-lawmakers-treading-gingerly-during-shutdown-8C11319714
I’m a big fan of our WWII Vets. They served in a tough time and deserve a bit of thanks, so it was cool to hear they were allowed to enter a closed WWII Memorial in DC yesterday. Congresspersons were on hand to make sure that happened. Beautiful, patriotic photo-opportunity for those congresspersons. Good for them.
How many were standing around at Bethesda to make sure the kids got in?
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A condescending and idea expressed using “polite sounding” words is not more civil than a genuine idea expressed with an edge. Besides, the thorniness was effective at having you drop your false non-partisanship and express an actual value. I disagree strongly with your ideas, but the second run was more refreshing in its honesty.
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Sounds like it. So how many out of those thousands were refused treatment due to their insurance company? 50%? 1%? 80%? Are you a GP or acupuncturist? What types of treatments weren’t approved?
What does “isn’t that helpful” mean?
What preventative care are you referring to? Medicine, Lifestyle, etc?
I wouldn’t disagree with that, either. Although, for the amount those companies making those agents propose to profit from them, they could easily shift the programs AND all the prospective patients to any university medical system in ANY country which doesn’t happen to be shut down right now.
Oh…wait. They want to make money HERE. On sick American kids. Fo future FDA-approved profits. My bad.
Snig - I don’t know you specialty and training, but I’ve spent time in one of those large ‘Centers of Excellence’ cancer centers the feds fund. I have NEVER in my life seen the kind of screw-ups and continual back-logging, error, and misinformation I saw there. Not even in a grossly over-worked County hospital.
And I have never before encountered the unbridled private fund-whoring I saw there, either. Seriously - the funding invites and such arrive before a bill ever touches the mailbox. And then, the billings, re-billings, and insanity begin. They MAY accept a lesser amount than originally billed from the insurer - but the patient is given no quarter whatsoever, even if their share was to have been a percentage of what the insurer actually paid.
If this is what ‘excellence’ looks like to the federal government, ObamaCare was doomed before it was ever even proposed.
But what really ripped wth me, was the day I saw dozens and dozens of patients back up awaiting necessary cancer care because Mitt Romney’s wife had decided to use the hospital’s auditorium to stump for political power. Looking at it now, it reminds me of the Twin Peaks finale. Just twisted and perverse beyond all imagination. And these would ordinarily be the type of place these children would be consigned to?
But - you get that I am disgusted with BOTH sides of this thing, and these are the same people were perfectly happy to fund all that ‘excellence’ long before this latest argument, and pat themselves on the back for it as well. I honestly would have feared for those kids with, or without, this shutdown. They’re children! They aren’t exposing themselves to these unknown chemical concoctions because THEY wish to benefit future patients. They’re kids. They can’t even sign their own consent forms. Their parent are doing it TO them, rather than face what appears to be inevitable loss. It’s not that I don’t feel for them, as well. I do, absolutely. I wish none of them were caught in this awful situation. But I’m just damned if I’m gonna fall apart because others have seen fit to also use these children as guilt-trip material, when I know this isn’t really about ‘saving’ those poor kids anyway.
I wish to God it was different - but this shut-down isn’t likely to kill any of those kids. Lest we forget, Obama’s own budget games had already led to some doctors not being able to afford to treat their regular chemo patients. There don’t appear to be ANY good guys in this political face-off.
Hm, I follow the libertarian philosophy. I’m certainly not partisan, I find republican social conservatives repugnant. I find progressives, democrats, etc. just as obnoxious. They both want to control other people.
Here’s the thing about libertarian philosophy- it kind of applies to the above writing. I doesn’t require anyone to do anything except respect others’ negative rights.
Its that simple. IMO, it gets hard when one attempts to convince others that their advocacy of the use of force is ethical.
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Libertarian philosophy is wonderful if you can get everyone on board, but that’s never going to happen.
Libertarianism, on a large scale, is a chance for the powerful and greedy to become more powerful and wealthy. It fails, bigtime.
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Say it ain’t so!
Everyone doesn’t have to get on board. Libertarian philosophy, in general, is rather easy to understand. I would pare it down to two basic ideas.
- Everyone owns their body
- The initiation of force is unethical
From these uncontroversial ideas one can extrapolate further ethical rules. This is seemingly what many people fail to understand. People who follow the libertarian philosophy need to discuss first principles more often.
Additionally, what many libertarians want, IMO, is for people to a the very least own what they advocate. If the means are unethical admit it for Odin’s sake.
This may be true. Of course it could be false or somewhere in between. Each situation will be different. My question is this: why would a libertarian society, where power is distributed, be more susceptible to the aims of bad actors then a large central government where a monopoly on power has already been created?
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…a libertarian society, where power is distributed…
How will distribution of power come about, without a certain amount of central control? Existing imbalances will only get worse, if such a thing is possible. Even if everyone started out equally, it would, in fact, only take a few bad apples to ruin an unregulated system.
…what many libertarians want, IMO, is for people to a the very least own what they advocate.
The people I’m talking about will not care what you, or society, wants, nor do they care about other people’s ideas regarding ethics, except for how they can take advantage of the naive. Like wolves in the fold.
Each situation will be different.
But the overall trend will be very, very predictable.
As far as the merits of one system of government over another, there never will be a perfect system as long as people are only human. Creating a free-for-all is certainly not the solution. Everyone must be held accountable, ultimately, to the very people they would control if any sort of equality is to be maintained.
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I guess you have to look at all of the spontaneous order you see around you every day. From people pushing a car out of a ditch to companies that cooperate to set up supply chains. It happens all around you without central control.
I understand the argument for central control but I don’t see the kind of evidence for it being needed. Whereas I see people peacefully interacting without a central power everywhere.
Well that’s an assertion 
but there just as many bad apples now as there would be in a non-hierarchical system. Not to slam this site but it seems there’s much advocacy for non-hierarchical systems and novel hierarchies for private systems, why is government special? My take is that government isn’t different and special, it’s just another entity made up of individuals with the same failings as everyone else. The problem is it’s an entity that is the ultimate monopoly.
As I wrote above, they’re here now. My guess is that many of them gravitate towards government work/office. I’d rather they were in a business I could choose not to use than a government who will destroy anyone who tries to make big changes let alone dissolve it.
Libertarian and anarchy are anything but a free-for-all. Spontaneous order is how markets work, how people interact, etc. In my mind government is a solution without a problem.
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