Government for the people. How?

[Izzy]

The objective of this thread is to altruistically* design a political structure wherein the needs and interests of EVERY inhabitant of this country are met. (None of this "general public" crap, we should try to make everyone happy. ) It's impossible to not be aware of how inconceivable this sounds, but I think by being mindful of what we're trying to accomplish, but.. just might be feasible?**

Now, before we can even begin devising laws, creating our constitution, bill of rights, etc., I think it's best we assemble a list of what people want from their government. Feel free to contribute ANYTHING. (I stole some of these from the world's smallest political quiz and the bill of rights. >_>)

1. Government should not censor speech, press, media, or internet.
2. Military service should be voluntary.
3. There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults, where a consenting adult is anyone of 16 years of age or older.
4. Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs.
5. End government barriers to international free trade.
6. Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security.
7. Keep government welfare, but no taxation without representation.
8. Freedom of speech, religion, sexuality, peaceful protests, and petition.
9. Soldiers may not be quartered in a house without the consent of the owner.
10. People may not be unreasonably searched or kept in captivity.
11. The right to a free, public, and speedy trial.
12. Laws are to remain the same from State to State.
13. Eventual globalization is a priority.

*We can get into the semantics of altruism later. I have.. mixed feelings, but this most closely elucidates my intentions. (Lol, I swear, I bounce back and forth from being the apathetic hippy civilian who just wants to live to the extremely fervent humanitarian practically daily. >_>)
** Eh, truthfully, it isn't. Too many people disagree on matters of religion, which define the moral code for a LOT of people (even if they don't strictly adhere to it, haha). We need to agree now to define morals for ourselves and not base them off of religious texts. Like, if someone proposes "Don't kill", that's perfectly acceptable, and I expect it to be fully ratified. If someone else suggests "Love God", this is more open to debate. While you can submit ideas that coincide with religious texts, submit them because they are mandates you want and agree with, not just because your scripture of choice tells you to follow them.

Edited February 13, 2014 by bonanova

[gvg]

Yes, dual citizenship, citizens 18+ can vote (ONLY citizens, but if dual citizenship is allowed, that won't be much of a problem) Amendment: 40 states out of 50. We need to be certain of an amendment, so 80% (that's what it is, I checked) is appropriate...

The elastic clause should be kept.

Oh, and no direct democracy. I've already stated why it won't work, so I won't repeat myself.

[gvg]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/business/16regulate.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&src=igw

Obama is passing a bill that will allow the government to make sure businesses are practicing fair, safe, non-stupid business practices. It won't inhibit corporations and companies from doing anything unless it's illegal. As you can probably figure out from my posts, I like this.

Thoughts?

[Izzy]

I only skimmed the article, but it sounds good.

Lmfao, who voted Tea Party? ..I put that in there as a joke.

Step one to being taken seriously, proper spelling and grammar on your protest signs.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pargon/sets/72157623594187379/

[gvg]

Pretty funny actually =)

And I was wondering the same thing: who DID pick Tea Party?

[Guest]

I leave and the discussion ends. Was there no more disagreement? By the way, I voted for "other" in the poll and I am not a tea party supporter. I'm not sure who voted for the tea party either. What I was wondering though was who are the people who voted libertarian? Izzy might be one, but there are 5 libertarian votes and it seemed that Izzy and I were the only libertarians in the discussion. Did they come and go before I joined?

Edited July 18, 2010 by Use the Force

[Guest]

Yes, dual citizenship, citizens 18+ can vote (ONLY citizens, but if dual citizenship is allowed, that won't be much of a problem) Amendment: 40 states out of 50. We need to be certain of an amendment, so 80% (that's what it is, I checked) is appropriate...

Are these representatives from each state? How are these representative voters selected? Is a simple majority all that is necessary to elect the representative for the state? If so, doesn't this mean that the system could potentially allow for only 40% of people supporting the Amendment (assuming people vote for the representative whose view on the amendment they like)? This reminds me of the method for electing a President of the United States. A simple majority in a state gives you all of the electoral votes. This means that the winner could potentially have less of a popular vote than second place in the election. And indeed this has occurred before (on multiple occasions I believe). My point is that individuals don't have as much power as I would like. The system doesn't even guarantee that the decisions made will be supported by a majority of individuals.

Regarding the article gvg gave ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/business/16regulate.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&src=igw ), I'm not educated enough on it to present an opinion about my support of it. I do know that I don't support the fact that the vote was 60-39 (1 vote less and it wouldn't have passed), largely along party lines. This shows that there are many representatives and people who are opposed to it, but simply because Democrats outnumber Republicans in the Senate, the Democrats get to ignore a very large chunk of the American population. Why doesn't that chunk get any say? So again, I oppose Congress' power.

Edited July 18, 2010 by Use the Force

[unreality]

I leave and the discussion ends. Was there no more disagreement? By the way, I voted for "other" in the poll and I am not a tea party supporter. I'm not sure who voted for the tea party either. What I was wondering though was who are the people who voted libertarian? Izzy might be one, but there are 5 libertarian votes and it seemed that Izzy and I were the only libertarians in the discussion. Did they come and go before I joined?

I voted libertarian

[gvg]

UtF: For the amendment process, I simply meant that a majority of the states population (majority rules) has to vote yes, and 40 of 50 'yeses' are needed to pass.

And again, it's simply the republicans opposing Obama. They don't care about the people: they just want Obama to fail. If Obama were to bring up something, say the voluntary thing you wanted, they would oppose it.

Formula for congress: 'Obama wants _____. Republicans say no.' That's it. So something has to be done about this; it would have been the same either way. I say we have a law saying that there is a direct election of senators, but they cannot be from any political parties. Thus, they are judged only on what their policies are. Heck, we could do it for president too. But I hate the electoral vote thing; it's the reason we had Bush instead of Gore =)

[Guest]

And again, it's simply the republicans opposing Obama. They don't care about the people: they just want Obama to fail. If Obama were to bring up something, say the voluntary thing you wanted, they would oppose it.

Formula for congress: 'Obama wants _____. Republicans say no.' That's it. So something has to be done about this; it would have been the same either way. I say we have a law saying that there is a direct election of senators, but they cannot be from any political parties. Thus, they are judged only on what their policies are. Heck, we could do it for president too. But I hate the electoral vote thing; it's the reason we had Bush instead of Gore =)

I agree that it seems to be the Republican aim to avoid any sorts of compromises that might make Obama look good. In that respect they are indeed the "party of 'no.'" But, I still think that the fact that Obama and the Democrats are capable of passing their own laws and bills through the system without this large Republican portion of the Senate/House is a flaw. Even if the Republican party is doing stupid things (like being the party of "no" because they don't want Obama to get re-elected in 2012), that doesn't mean they should be able to just be ignored. Republicans aren't being represented if the Democrats can pass bills all by themselves. So I'm saying the fact that the slightly larger party in our two-party system can manage to ignore the slightly smaller party is a problem with the system. I don't support the Republicans just like you and also just like you, I think that Congress (right now at least) is flawed. So I think we're in agreement on a lot of this.

[gvg]

Agreed

[Izzy]

Unreality, Zerep, and I account for three of the five libertarian votes. Idk who the other two belong to, as far as I can recall they weren't mentioned in the thread. It could be anyone, really, not necessarily someone participating.

Hmm. Should each state have the same number of representatives regardless of population? I think a law needs to be passed where the representative (if we decide to have them) HAS to vote the way the majority of the people in his state did. ..Or for the amendment process, we could just have a direct democracy and make it something like 70:30 for it to pass. A clear majority, but nothing overwhelming like 90:10, because in direct democracy, we have to assume that people that have no idea what they're voting for are voting..

Okay, how about something like this. Each state (heh, I was watching QI last night, apparently there are only 46 states and 4 commonwealths) gets five delegates, elected by the people. When an amendment is proposed, everyone in the state votes in favor or against the amendment. Then, delegate votes are based on the votes of the people in that state. If the state is like 96% in favor, then all five votes support the amendment. If it's like 60-40, 3 for, 2 against, and so forth. So, we have a total of 250 delegates. If we get a total of 175 or more delegate votes in favor of the amendment, it passes. ..Thoughts?

[unreality]

your delegates are pointless because they have to vote that way. They could be 5 random people from the state. They don't even need to know what the issues are. They're just representing a compression of some other method of collecting the vote.

If you know the exact percents from some or another then why not do away with the superfluous people and just print out the result and have a messenger bring it to the main place. Or just have it all be computerized lol

[Izzy]

I sort of figured the delegates would have other responsibilities?

[unreality]

but I like the general idea. That is, each state votes (citizens who don't vote won't vote that's how it is. No forcing votes for things like this. Only the informed percent that wants to vote and make a difference will do so and that's how it should be), and then splits up its 'N' supervotes based on the individual direct vote from its state.

The only thing that matters now is how to define N. That's where it really is. You define that N=5 for each state, so a total of 250.

[Guest]

your delegates are pointless because they have to vote that way. They could be 5 random people from the state. They don't even need to know what the issues are. They're just representing a compression of some other method of collecting the vote.

If you know the exact percents from some or another then why not do away with the superfluous people and just print out the result and have a messenger bring it to the main place. Or just have it all be computerized lol

When I read Izzy's post this is exactly what I thought too. It sounds like a direct democracy with a middleman (i.e. very pointless). And besides, representatives aren't elected based on a single issue. They are elected based on their general views on many issues. I might add that the aim is so that common people don't have to worry about every issue that governments deal with and can instead elect other people to give the power to make those choices. So essentially, a person who supports these representatives is essentially saying that there are many issues that he does not want to have to take the time to deal with himself, so instead he is giving up his power and handing it over to a representative who he agrees with most of the views of (ideally, although in our current system it is often a vote of who you think will do less to destroy things (e.g. if an individual didn't like McCain or Obama (e.g. me), then I would be voting for the individual that I disagree with on fewer issues)).

Anyways, if I had the power to design the government, I would give these representatives over as few things as possible (conservatism). I wouldn't give them control over my health insurance or things like that, but rather would leave them only with the power of security and defense and a possible a few other small things. I would support giving power to a representative that only has the ability to maintain law enforcement to stop thieves and others who infringe upon my "fundamental rights" (i.e. ~rights that a vast majority of people want, such as a right for their property (i.e. their body, house, etc)).

So basically what I hope to communicate to you all is that I don't find the methods of developing this representation system nearly as relevant as determining what power the representatives are going to have. I just underlined that because that's really the main idea I've had for this post. I'm saying that worrying about the details of how representatives are chosen (e.g. Izzy's "..Or for the amendment process, we could just have a direct democracy and make it something like 70:30 for it to pass. A clear majority, but nothing overwhelming like 90:10, because in direct democracy, we have to assume that people that have no idea what they're voting for are voting.. ") really doesn't seem significant or even worth discussing until we have determined exactly what power restrictions these representatives are going to have.

For me the question of how the representation system ought to be can be illustrated with a function. As a conservative, the value of my function is less than most peoples' (note I choose "less than" rather than "greater than" because I think that it is more likely that there are extreme libertarians/objectivists/anarchists who would cause an error in the function (a 0 in the denominator) than totalitarian-folks who want to give away all of their power to a dictator that they despise):

How Conservative/Liberal One Is = (One's realization that there are issues that they want dealing with, but they don't want to take the time to deal with those issues personally, and thus one's decision to give power to representatives to have power over these issues)(One's trust in the great masses of the people to elect representatives that make decisions that One agrees with)/(One's desire for personal choice/power)

This function can be written with fewer words:

Conservative/low or Liberal/high = (Size of issues one wants representatives to deal with)(Trust in people to do what I want them to do)/(Personal power)

This obviously isn't a perfect function, but it's meant to clear up why we're liberal or conservative. As a conservative (low value of the function) I have a strong desire for a lot of personal power. The value of my function is not 0, however (it is positive / I'm not an extremist) in that there are issues that I would like a representative to be able to take care of for me. I would love for others' to take care of all of my problems including all of my finances, but the problem with that is that I don't trust people enough to make the decisions that I want them to regarding my money, etc. Thus, my small trust in people lowers my value to be more conservative. It's also related to the size of the issues that I want to be dealt with. To explain this, sure I would like to have a government that fixes up health care in my country nicely, but because I don't trust them with the power to do whatever they want with the industry (as is evident by my disapproval of whatever that bill was that just became law) I don't want the representatives to have power over such things (thus lowering the value of "size of issues one wants representatives to deal with).

I'm sorry for this being so cluttered and probably quite difficult to understand. What I'm trying to say is really something very simple; I'm just not a very good communicator. So I'll try one more time in the hope that if you don't understand what I'm saying yet, you will understand after this:

The idea behind these representatives is that there are issues that people want to deal with (e.g. things that people want to fight wars over) that one isn't capable of doing all on his own. Thus, one decides to give up his power and the individual power of the people in his country to a system of representation that can make decisions and actually achieve action on these issues that otherwise likely wouldn't be dealt with because of the nature of the issues (the nature being that they can't be dealt with except by many people working together). Thus, because many individuals deem these issues "essential" or "necessary" issues to deal with, they decide that they want to give up their power to a body of representatives that is capable of fast action on these issues. These individuals are giving up their own power and thus aren't certain that they will like the decisions that the representatives make. But, people choose to give up their power to these representatives anyways because they would rather risk decisions that they don't like then see near-inaction on these issues. Thus, the degree to which one is conservative/liberal is the degree to which one gives up his power, the degree to which one puts restrictions on the power that these representatives have, and the degree to which one is willing to let certain issues go without being acted on.

The vast majority of people including myself agree that there are some things that it is "necessary" for governments and representatives to deal with. As a conservative, I don't consider giving the power to dominate the health care industry as something that is "necessary." I consider it an issue that I would like to be dealt with, but I also an issue that I am willing to not give a representative body power over. Why? Because I don't have enough faith in the masses to elect a representative body that would act on the industry in a way that I would desire. I don't want want to give up power over the health care industry for the same reason that a liberal (not an extreme socialist/communist) doesn't want to give up power over the car industry (note: the US government does have a lot of power over the auto industry, but it has not currently done what it just did with the health care industry. Specifically, for example, it has not passed a reform to make it mandatory that all companies of a certain size provide cars for their employees or pay a fee/tax if they do not provide the cars for their employees. If you're confused about why I'm saying this: again, the intent is to show you the reason why I do not support giving up power to a government or body of representatives if that power is power over the health care industry or auto industry (in the way I described)). I'm trying to provide another way of looking at the political spectrum. The perspective on the spectrum that I have just tried to present is the degree to which one considers issues "necessary" enough to be dealt with by an elected representative government body. As a conservative I think that there are many powers that our US government currently has and that Congress currently has that I do not think are "necessary." In fact, I would like to advocate that most of the power that they currently have ought to be removed and retained by individuals, even if that means less action on many of the issues.

Now, onto specific debates: For those of you who supported the health care bill recently passed: I too agree that the current health care industry has some problems that could use fixing. Unlike you, I don't think that Obama's method was a proper way of fixing it. Also, on the subject of the perspective of the political spectrum that I described above, I would not support giving our government the power to do such things to the industry. Instead, I would limit Congress' power to breaking up monopolies that may be apparent in the industry and promoting competition. Apparently currently health insurance companies profit by denying people coverage when they get sick. Certainly it would be preferable to Americans in general if this didn't happen. As a naive kid I asked, why don't all of those people who don't like getting denied coverage just form their own non-profit health insurance organization that forms strict rules so that they do not deny people coverage when they get sick? Indeed, this is what many people wanted the government to do: give a "public option" that does this to compete with private insurance companies, thus causing the private insurance companies to want to stop denying people coverage when they get sick in order to hold on to their customers. Anyways, I also ask the question, is America collectively really capable of paying for expensive procedures for every American? Some people would say yes, but as a conservative who thinks society as a whole would prosper more without being socialist on such issues, I ask, is it really beneficial to society as a whole to pass a law for universal health insurance that forces wealth people to pay for expensive surgery (for example) for a bum who decides not to work. I, like you, realize that there are many instances where it would be nice to be able to cheaply have preventative care for an individual rather than wait for them to get extreme diabetes or something and end up in an emergency room with a heart attack, but ignoring these nice sob stories and looking at society as a whole, I don't think that the universal health care thing is the right thing to do if it means paying for a poor person who is poor not because of some misfortune, but is poor because they saw that their government would take care of their "necessary" needs and thus didn't need to bother working. I realize that such people are a minority, but still I think that paying for people who can't even pull their own weight is detrimental to society overall. I don't care about "equality" for people. I care about the success and prosperity of the whole society. To use animals as an example, how many species benefit from giving tidbits of food scraps to individual animals that are too weak to get food themselves? I say 0. Many of you might say 1 (humans). If any of you think the answer is more than 1, please tell me which animal. And I'm not talking about altruism that has selfish evolutionary reasons. It's beneficial for me to sacrifice my own life to save my three brothers who are drowning from an evolutionary genetic perspective and so that altruistic act is still selfish. Such selfish altruistic behaviors are exhibited in many non-human species, but as far as I am aware, there aren't any altruistic behaviors in non-humans that do not contribute to the altruist's success. This only happens in humans.

I'm on a tangent now. I don't think that it would be helpful for me to say anything else at the moment. I have to learn to be more concise.

[Izzy]

I don't have time (or am awake enough, honestly) to reply to that all at once, but I do have one comment to make.

I realize conservatives tend to be "less government!" on most issues, but I disagree the liberals are more willing to give up their power and put it in the hands of the representatives. I look at it more as them wanting a say in every issue, but they just tend to want things (health care, social security, whatevs) govermentalized (word? I really am tired haha). It's not that they want the representatives to make decisions for them, they just want the government to step up and take care of them.

..This is why I don't like representatives.. I don't want a bunch of random people making decisions for me that I have no say in. =/ Surely there has to be a third option?

[Guest]

I don't have time (or am awake enough, honestly) to reply to that all at once, but I do have one comment to make.

I realize conservatives tend to be "less government!" on most issues, but I disagree the liberals are more willing to give up their power and put it in the hands of the representatives. I look at it more as them wanting a say in every issue, but they just tend to want things (health care, social security, whatevs) govermentalized (word? I really am tired haha). It's not that they want the representatives to make decisions for them, they just want the government to step up and take care of them.

..This is why I don't like representatives.. I don't want a bunch of random people making decisions for me that I have no say in. =/ Surely there has to be a third option?

Well I think the government representatives and the government are really the same thing. Either the government people controlling all of those issues are going to be self-appointed complete dictators are they are going to be partial dictators who have the votes of at least some number of supporters, thus making them representatives. So I think liberals wanting issues to be governmentalized is the same thing as saying that liberals want to give bodies of elected representatives like Congress the power to make laws regarding regulating the health care industry and other "issues" too. So, I disagree with what you said: "It's not that they want the representatives to make decisions for them, they just want the government to step up and take care of them." I disagree with that because I think those are really the same things. Having the government step up and take care of them essentially is giving representatives power to make decisions to take care of them. So, perhaps many liberals don't realize it, but when they want the government to step up, what they are doing is supporting giving their power up to the representatives to make decisions for them. Or perhaps the non-taxpayer is an exception. Perhaps non-tax-payers who are liberals aren't giving up their own power to such legislative bodies, but rather are voting to give up the powers of the wealth tax-payers for their benefit.

EDIT: And by the way, I am quite tired too and am now going to sleep. I find that the most convenient time to comment on this website is at night, but sometimes my posts take too long to write and I become too sleepy to think and communicate well same as you. So "goodnight" to everybody who reads this at night and "forgive me" for those who read this when wide awake and wish that it was clearer and more concise.

Edited July 19, 2010 by Use the Force

[gvg]

but ignoring these nice sob stories and looking at society as a whole, I don't think that the universal health care thing is the right thing to do if it means paying for a poor person who is poor not because of some misfortune, but is poor because they saw that their government would take care of their "necessary" needs and thus didn't need to bother working.

This doesn't happen. The only way you can be eligible for the government option is when you are working. Thus, it makes it beneficial to start looking for a job.

Also, as a liberal, and who's family (not necessarily me, I'm too young, but I will =)) are taxpayers, yes, I have no problem giving some of my powers to the government.

You see, I think the major difference between you and me, UtF, is that we think of humans differently. I consider humans evil immediately, and selfish (which is why I think that the masses would benefit from having a leader that makes the right decisions for them. Even though you make think of representatives as a king, they are a 'king' that can be removed painlessly after four years). Meanwhile, you think of humans as automatically nice, and able to make the right decisions. This would be the only way that many of your ideas could work. After all, even you have agreed that we agree on much of the big picture.

For those wanting a direct democracy: No. This is the reason. As somebody pointed out, not everyone will vote. Most Americans don't even vote for the president. There will be so many things to vote on that most people would not be able to do so, either because of lack of time or lack of interest. So, eventually, the only ones voting would be those that don't need to work or don't have a job. MOST Americans would not be represented, and thus the point behind the idea would be lost. Our nation's laws would either be controlled by the extremely rich (which I would hate) or the extremely poor (which I and UtF would hate; I want to help most of the poor (that aren't free loaders), but if it was mostly poor voting, they would pass laws that help them and screw everyone else). There are too many things to vote on.

[Guest]

If all laws need be the same from state to state, then there is no reason for statehood, no seperate state congress or legislature. Each Senator and House of Representative would need come from the populus and not be selected by and for each state. By the same token, we would not need county or city executives -- no mayors, supervisors or boards. We should still need individuals to supervise the laws -- but the term for these individuals are judges, commissioners and policemen.

Hate speech? It may be bad, but in no way in a free country should it be criminalized. One should be able to voice their opinions no matter how wrong or inciteful they might be. We need no Thought Police.

Laws regarding sex for consenting adults? When is a person an adult? Society, in general, has defined an adult to be a person at age of 21. The USA and many other nations have reduced this age to 18, and in some cases to 17. At one time in some of the US states it was as young as 13 or 14. For those who argue that laws need be the same everywhere between the states, this is why there has, in the most part, a somewhat uniform decision that an adult is one who has reached 18 years of age. And what constitutes consent? It has been recognized that most individuals who have not yet reached the age of 21 are still "immature" (of course there are exceptions for both younger and older persons). An immature individual often does not or can not use sense to make reasonable decisions, thus, in order to protect these individuals from hedonists, sadists and evil individuals, laws are enacted that define what constitutes consent. And to provide some continuity in the definition, age was made a factor.

End government barriers to international free trade? Again it sounds as if there is a desire for no government here. A vote for both socialism and capitalism -- almost an oxymoron -- with no body to oversee a fair governance to the individuals.

Why should military service be voluntary? First, let the question be asked - why do we need a military? Especially if we are supposed to be working toward a govenment with no barriers and globalization. An answer - because not everyone in the world is altruistic. In order to protect the citizens from the nations of those led by those of evil design a police force of individuals called soldiers has been formed. Yet, is it altruistic to be a citizen and not protect your fellow man? If we only permitted altruistic individuals to serve, then we are unfairly putting a burden on them. Those selfish individuals who would not serve would be, in effect, be stealing from and harming those who would and do volunteer. Should we instead, as Izzy has implied in his/her reasoning in keeping jails, imprison them? It can be argued that it would not be unreasonable to keep them in captivity.

I am all for being altruistic, but we need discriminate. And to permit an altruistic discrimination we need fair and just laws. And we,...in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish...laws and government.

Edited July 19, 2010 by Dej Mar

[Izzy]

When I read Izzy's post this is exactly what I thought too. It sounds like a direct democracy with a middleman (i.e. very pointless). And besides, representatives aren't elected based on a single issue. They are elected based on their general views on many issues. I might add that the aim is so that common people don't have to worry about every issue that governments deal with and can instead elect other people to give the power to make those choices. So essentially, a person who supports these representatives is essentially saying that there are many issues that he does not want to have to take the time to deal with himself, so instead he is giving up his power and handing it over to a representative who he agrees with most of the views of (ideally, although in our current system it is often a vote of who you think will do less to destroy things (e.g. if an individual didn't like McCain or Obama (e.g. me), then I would be voting for the individual that I disagree with on fewer issues)).

So then representatives have multiple duties and deals with the issues people don't want to deal with, however, I was specifically referring to the amendment process. This is something I believe every person should have a say in, not just those in the government.

The vast majority of people including myself agree that there are some things that it is "necessary" for governments and representatives to deal with. As a conservative, I don't consider giving the power to dominate the health care industry as something that is "necessary."

Oh, I consider it absolutely necessary. Primary example: Look at how f**ked things are today. Look, dude, if a random company whose interest is monetary is your health care provider, do you really have that any more power than you would if the government with your best interest gives you the same, if not better coverage? In the first option, yeah, you can travel company to company, with a flat rate price, looking for what kind of coverage suits you most, and you end up paying what, like.. eugh, idk health insurance quotes, but you pay like $5,000 a year and you're happy. Note, you're not actually covered for everything. My ex-step-dad was an insurance salesmen, and I've yet to see one all-covering company. Everyone has the same right to life, and by privatizing health care, people with pre-existing conditions or with little income get screwed. Both entirely random, btw. I really don't even see why health insurance is a concern. Look around the world. Countries in which it's governmentalized (Canada, the UK, Germany, Switzerland) are doing notably better where health is concerned. I forgot what movie I watched.. it had Michael Moore in it.. The Awful Truth, or something? Go check it out. It, along with some other things, completely changed my mind on health care. Seriously, what benefit do you get by choosing a company? Is it just to say that you could choose it? Because that's really kind of pointless, and you're delaying important govermental evolution out of selfish desires. =/ I think in a country, what's good for the masses is important. If a few people are going to be unhappy with their excellent health care sheerly because they didn't pick it, so be it. It's better than people dying because they can't afford medical attention.

The problem with your argument is that most people are poor because of misfortune. I somehow doubt someone is going to be bum just to leech off of health care benefits? Think seriously. This will benefit the single-mom working two jobs hardly able to provide for her kids and that 20 year old, with a degree and everything, unable to get health insurance due to a preexisting condition she had nil control over.

And from the other post (I feel you'll know what I'm referring to, quoting is just annoying), I meant the government step up on the issues we tell them to (I wasn't very clear on that). Instead of the government just coming in and deciding things, I want them well ratified first, and then they act out as they must. Health insurance being a prime example. I think it was gvg who said it, but I don't understand how can you think the nation as a whole is informed enough to take care of themselves while you're entirely convinced a government would screw us over. The fact is the exact opposite.

At Dej Mar's point regarding the age of consent, I think 18 is fair battle ground. This is the point where, if you agree to have sex with someone, you're old enough to know what you're doing, and even if you were willingly under the influence of some substances, you agreed, so step up to it like a responsible adult. If you're 18 and still immature, I honestly can't see the difference three years of aging would make.

Military service should be voluntary because when a military gets involved, you've officially given up all attempts at diplomatic reasoning. I mean, guys, have we seriously not yet overcome with primitive tribal warfare? We need to have more important focuses, like strong leaders and negotiators, not strong armies. Also, a person's will to fight is going to be entirely dependent on how badly they want to be there. Forcing people to go into war accomplishes nothing. I don't know if you guys have realized (the US certainly hasn't), but it's entirely possible to stay neutral during a war, and this is what I propose we do. Now, that said, I don't think we should close the military entirely, because meh, I guess we could have some surprise attacks, but limit service to the people at want to be there ffs and make war the literal last resort. (I don't think altruistic people would see it as a burden. They *enjoy* helping. That said, as a fairly altruistic person, war holds us back and I don't see what it accomplishes. Aside from the American revolution, and other sorts of revolutions. But I can't see our country's need for this today anyway.)

[unreality]

I agree with what Izzy said above. Free choice is great but not the free choice to kill.

now onto dej mar...

If all laws need be the same from state to state, then there is no reason for statehood, no seperate state congress or legislature. Each Senator and House of Representative would need come from the populus and not be selected by and for each state. By the same token, we would not need county or city executives -- no mayors, supervisors or boards. We should still need individuals to supervise the laws -- but the term for these individuals are judges, commissioners and policemen.

agreed though the idea is to minimalize these authorities as much as possible to only perform their necessary duties

Hate speech? It may be bad, but in no way in a free country should it be criminalized. One should be able to voice their opinions no matter how wrong or inciteful they might be. We need no Thought Police.

100% agree

Laws regarding sex for consenting adults? When is a person an adult? Society, in general, has defined an adult to be a person at age of 21.

since when???

The USA and many other nations have reduced this age to 18, and in some cases to 17. At one time in some of the US states it was as young as 13 or 14. For those who argue that laws need be the same everywhere between the states, this is why there has, in the most part, a somewhat uniform decision that an adult is one who has reached 18 years of age. And what constitutes consent? It has been recognized that most individuals who have not yet reached the age of 21 are still "immature"

not entirely true. physically guys can mature anytime between 17 and 25 or so. Girls can do so earlier. And mental maturity follows the physical maturity (plus other social factors: nurture + nature). 21 might be a median but from my own experiences with people older than me, my age and younger than me, 19 would be better for many reasons

I have to go but I think izzy debunked fairly well your statement that military service is required. It needs to be voluntary. we've learned the hard way in the past

[Izzy]

I'd actually argue that, in a lot of cases, mental maturity precedes physical maturity. A 14 year old, still physically immature, has the capacity to think and act like an adult. There will be differences, mostly ascribed to experiences, in these thoughts and how they are articulated (mostly vocabulary), but I doubt it's any more variation than how it fluctuates between adults. Now, I mean, obviously the 14 year old will get older, and regard most things they thought/said at that age as ludicrous, but that doesn't undermine the fact that when they were 14, they were still mentally mature, just not as informed as they would have liked to be.

..That's all speculation. I can't site any studies to prove my hypothesis, but as someone who just completed my freshmen year (14-15 year olds for you non-Americans), I've observed that freshmen are just as capable as seniors, and can even hold their own against most teachers. That said, compare a freshmen football player to someone on the varsity team, and it's like "Aww, that little kid is going to get crushed!"

[Guest]

Everyone has the same right to life, and by privatizing health care, people with pre-existing conditions or with little income get screwed.

That's something I disagree with. I agree with the latter part, that people with pre-existing conditions and not enough income to afford modern medical care for their conditions are indeed in a very tough situation, but I don't agree that everyone has a right to receiving modern medical care so as to keep them alive. If a person was born without any legs, does that baby still have the "right to life"? Should tax-payers really pay very expensive medical bills to save that baby so that it can live a few years? If the baby's parents are too poor to afford the technologically advanced medical treatments for their baby, does their baby really have the right to life in which others' must pay the baby's medical bills? I would say of course not, and if you were to disagree and say that taxpayers ought to pay for such million-dollar medical bills then I would say that you're crazy. I'm using extreme examples to show that it brings down society to force society to pay for individuals that don't make enough money to pay for themselves.

gvg and Izzy (quote below/my response is related to Izzy's quote above):

The only way you can be eligible for the government option is when you are working. Thus, it makes it beneficial to start looking for a job.

An adult who can't afford his medical bills may be working at McDonald's and thus may be eligible for receiving coverage from tax money (I don't know of the specific rules, but you said that one has to work to receive the benefits as if that solved the bum problem), but that still doesn't mean that he can or ever will be able to make enough money to pull his own weight. Thus even when you say someone has to be working to receive the benefits for health care and whatever else, it is still detrimental to society as a whole when you have people working at McDonald's receiving the benefits. The person working at McDonald's for a full time job likely doesn't make enough income to support himself, and yet you advocate having taxpayers help support him with government aid. I'm saying that the fact that he can't afford health insurance himself and likely never will be able to is reason not to support him. Society is pouring energy and effort and money into supporting the fellow and yet the fellow will never work his way out of his debt to society, because working at McDonald's is not enough to do that. Essentially I'm saying that if you forget about any emotions that you may have for people and pretend like you're an emperor or a god or something and you're trying to make your society as wealthy and successful as possible, would you invest money in supporting the health of the guy working at McDonald's knowing that he will most likely never generate enough income to pay back society? It's a bad investment. It isn't worth spending money on his health if he still isn't going to make enough money to pull his own weight after getting the better health. So, to clear some things up, I would gladly support giving government aid to bright young people for health insurance if I knew that that money spent on their health was a good investment--if their increased health as a result of the aid would cause them to be able to pull their own weight plus pull an extra amount of weight over the course of their lifetimes equal to the amount of weight (money) invested in them with the initial health care government aid. That's a good investment for society. So at least two problems exist: 1) is that currently taxpayer money is going towards bums with jobs at McDonald's who won't be able to pay back society for the money society spent on their health and 2) is that it would be quite difficult to design restrictions on Congress' power that would guarantee that Congress choose the right individuals to give government health care to (the individuals who would make a good investment) and thus I can only say that I think that right now our government is giving out too much taxpayer money to poor people for their health insurance and I think it would be better for society as a whole if our government limited the amount of government aid for health care somewhat so that fewer bad investments (like the investment in the health insurance for the McDonald's employee) are likely to occur. I realize that I am very ignorant on many of the details about the subject of health care and what the government does to aid people so that they can afford health care, but I think I know enough to know that in our current USA, there are many bad investments made. And that is what I hope to communicate to you: the idea of the government paying for someone's health care as an investment for society. Some of the investments are good and some are bad and just because somebody has a job does not make an investment in them a good investment.

[Guest]

I'd actually argue that, in a lot of cases, mental maturity precedes physical maturity. A 14 year old, still physically immature, has the capacity to think and act like an adult. There will be differences, mostly ascribed to experiences, in these thoughts and how they are articulated (mostly vocabulary), but I doubt it's any more variation than how it fluctuates between adults. Now, I mean, obviously the 14 year old will get older, and regard most things they thought/said at that age as ludicrous, but that doesn't undermine the fact that when they were 14, they were still mentally mature, just not as informed as they would have liked to be.

..That's all speculation. I can't site any studies to prove my hypothesis, but as someone who just completed my freshmen year (14-15 year olds for you non-Americans), I've observed that freshmen are just as capable as seniors, and can even hold their own against most teachers. That said, compare a freshmen football player to someone on the varsity team, and it's like "Aww, that little kid is going to get crushed!"

Who knew that I was arguing with a 15-year-old? Not me. I wouldn't have guessed that you were that young. I think you are good evidence that some people are as mentally mature as many full-grown adults by age 15 (if not more mature than them), but I think it's safe to say that you likely are more mentally mature than most freshmen and I also think it's likely true that there is a gradual increase in mental maturation from your age to adult-age for a general person. Some people mature earlier and some later, so an arbitrary age (18) for an adult that is capable of giving his/her consent will obviously have it's flaws. But, the alternative would be to judge each individual on a range of factors that determine mental maturity (because obviously age isn't a factor, just a variable that tends to be positively associated with maturity) which could be much more tedious and subjective. Then again, the third option could be to take a libertarian perspective on the issue and allow local governments to decide on various ages to be the "adult" age rather than imposing a single universal age. One city may want to keep the age at 18 and another town may find that it would be okay to lower it to 16. I just finished my senior year, by the way, and consider myself to be much more mentally mature now than I was when I was a freshman and I also think that it is quite likely that I will mature mentally even more into the future.

[Guest]

I think it was gvg who said it, but I don't understand how can you think the nation as a whole is informed enough to take care of themselves while you're entirely convinced a government would screw us over. The fact is the exact opposite.

That's yet another way to describe the difference between a liberal and a conservative. And by the way, I don't think that a government would screw us over. I just think that our current government is slightly too much on the liberal side and thus I think it would be better to slightly decrease government investments in supporting poor peoples' health insurance, etc. Sure that would mean that the very poor people wouldn't be able to take care of themselves, but I'm saying that I don't think it would be beneficial to society as a whole to pay for such peoples' health insurance if doing so won't cause such people to be able to make more money so as to pay back society. So again, like you, I think there are many examples where it would help society to have tax money pay for poor peoples' health insurance, but I also want to point out that there are many bad investments made by the government. I don't think that it is wise to give everybody universal health care because that means that even the unfortunate people working at McDonald's will receive aid and such people won't be able to pay society back for the expensive medical bills because working at McDonald's simply isn't valuable enough work to pay back the costs of modern medicine. Let me ask you this, should universal health care cover the costs of all of the most modern and expensive medical procedures? I certainly don't think so because that would make for many bad investments. Perhaps I would support universal low-quality health care. In other words, if somebody poor gets sick, give them the low cost treatments. Don't pay for very expensive modern treatments because the person likely won't be able to pay society back for such things, but go ahead and pay for the cheaper medical treatments so as to efficiently increase their heal so that they are capable of paying back society for the small amounts that society invested in them.