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

[Izzy]

Oh, I burned my leg pretty badly when I wrecked my dirt bike at my cousin's track when I was like 8. It's fine now, and the scar is finally fading. =/ That aside, I've broken three fingers (lol, Eli was there for one of them. My bike hit something in the sidewalk, and it did a front-flip type thing, and Eli turned his bike around to see if I was okay and fell ), both clavicles, my right wrist, my right heel, and my nose. ...Over half of those were at Vans Skatepark between the ages of 8-12. >_>

[Guest]

Note: My next post was meant to come before this. Scroll down past Zerep's comment and read my other comment first before reading this one.

There was a child in Peru, born without arms or legs, that was thrown in the TRASH by his parents. He was found and taken to a shelter.

Today, through the use of prosthetic limbs, he is able to walk, play, write, etc. He has made friends and is a bright boy in school. But of course, under your idea, he would have died. Great.

What I meant by my idea is that we should give them enough to have at least the minimum amount needed for the operation they need. I was trying to make a compromise. We still have to give them enough to survive their illness.

Thanks for the example. I made up the example of the child born without legs who would need a million dollar surgery to live just a few years. I used it as an example of an extreme case that was blatantly not beneficial to society to pay for.

Now that you provide a real example, I'm appalled by what you think of it. What's wrong with throwing him in the trash? It's like an abortion. It's not worth the investment to try and raise a boy with such disabilities. I might keep him alive if I knew that he was a genius or that scientists could learn and be able to make advances in medicine by studying him, but, keeping him alive simply because it was possible thanks to some rich people most certainly wouldn't help out society as a whole. Why do you guys desire so much to keep such individuals alive at the expense of society? That brings society down! I can understand you gvg (you're religious, right?), but I don't understand why somebody who isn't religious (like Izzy) would ever arrive at the conclusion through logic and reason starting at the axiom that a prosperous society is what is valued. Why does Lizzy value such individuals? Those are religious values dealing with Heaven and souls and things. What causes you to value such individuals, even if it means spending large sums of money to keep them alive? That kills society. When you all said you were liberal and that you valued society, I believed you. But, you're not liberal because you value society more than yourself. You don't really value society. You value having every individual who is born feeling happy. Not only do you not realize that doing those universal theft things to make every individual more equal would cause society to go downhill in the future making it even more difficult to have individuals be happy, but you don't realize that the alternative of going with the flow of human selfishness and supporting having people have power over their own money would help improve society as a whole, allowing the humans in the future to live in a more advanced society in which greater wealth would allow more individuals to be content. Perhaps humanity could advance technologically to such an extent that a utopia would be possible in which there would be so much wealth that people would be happy with almost any government. Nobody would have to vote to take anything from anybody because everybody would have all of those things that you people consider "rights." But, you don't seem to want such a successful society, despite the fact that such a successful society would be full of content individuals, which is what you seem to want in our current society. So what I want to know is why you value what you value. Why do you insist on this equality thing in which poor people steal rich peoples' production to receive water, food, shelter, health care, and other things you consider "rights"? Why do you consider things to be "rights"? And why don't you consider it a "right" for a smart person to invent and sell a product and keep the money to trade for others' products? Why must you rip such people off and give their production to the poor people whose work isn't valuable enough to afford their own food and house and health care? Equality? Are you crazy? Why do you value this equality thing more than you value the success of society? Pretty soon society will be out and everyone will be equally gone. Is that what you want? Seriously... do you not understand why a million dollars spent on medical procedures to save a baby born without arms or legs does not help society? Let him die. If I was him, I would gladly surrender my life for the success of society. I don't value individuals as you all do. I value society. I apply that to myself as well. If there was a strange situation in which I had to make a choice in which I could help out society substantially at the cost of my own life, I would gladly give up my own life as long as I was confident that doing so help out society more than I could help society by choosing to live. Obviously such drastic situations usually don't happen in real life, but the point is to say something about my values. I value the success of the world, not of poor people because they're "PEOPLE." Who cares that they're people? Not I if helping them hurts humanity as a whole. Please explain your values. You all are seeming crazier to me by the moment. Do you care about society as a whole or do you just care that no individual in society is without food or water or shelter or health care or whatnot if another individual has earned the wealth to pay for such a thing?

Edited July 21, 2010 by Use the Force

[Guest]

Oh, I'm also partially deaf in my left eardrum! Thank you father.

[Guest]

I suppose you think basic survival necessities like food and water are privileges too (they're just as important as health care, after all)? Does that mean we should stop offering free and reduced lunches to underprivileged kids in schools? To quote some song lyrics, "We are the angry and the quiet, the hungry and the cold. We are the ones who kept quiet, and always did what we were told. But we've been sweating while you slept so calm in the safety of your home. We've been pulling out the nails that hold up everything you've known." (Prayer of the Refugee - Rise Against, YouTube it, though I'm fairly sure you've heard it before.) What this suggests, is that while you allow the poor to perish out of view, they will start an uprising and demand the rights they are entitled to if you refuse to give it to them. And you know what? It won't only be the poor, it will be the rich and the generous that support them. Prevent another war. Equality.

So if I don't pay for a $5000 tonsil removal for a person working at McDonald's (see Zerep's post), then the poor people will revolt against me for not giving them their health care "rights"? So you mean I'm enslaving them by not supporting them and they're revolt against me for it? Wow, I was under the impression that it was the other way around. If the poor people force me to pay for them then they're the one's enslaving me. Now you're saying that I'm enslaving them by not supporting them? I'll have none of it. I want this war. There's no way I'll let you trick me into think that I'm the slave-owner. The fact is that the intelligent minds that invent new products that people like and get wealthy off of such production are the ones that move society forward. You ought to be more thankful for them. But, now that you're calling them the enslavers who are enslaving poor people by not buying poor people people health care and by not buying poor people TempurPedic mattresses, I'm the one who wants to revolt, not the poor people. They're the ones who are being supported by the wealthy in our current system, not the other way around.

About the free and reduced lunches for kids at school. First I will note that I consider such things as food in the same way as I do health care and TempurPedic mattresses. Food for children who we are already spending money on educating is on the side of the spectrum that is very likely a good investment and the mattresses are on the bad investment side of the spectrum. So I would say that I support the free school lunches especially if we are already paying for their education. It would be silly to pay for their education, but not for their lunch. For the sake of the health care issue though, I do consider freedom and food and TempurPedic mattresses and everything else to not be a right. I don't believe in rights or morals really. Rather, I believe in values. I value certain things and then I try to use reason to decide what to do in order to achieve the things that I value. Because I value the success and prosperity of our human society here on Earth, I tend to not support having the rich in our country be forced to pay for TempurPedic mattresses for everyone because my reasoning tells me that doing such a thing would not help our society prosper. I'll note that you can replace anything (e.g. freedom) with "TempurPedic mattresses" in my last sentence and you will find that it holds true almost always. There are times when I don't want to give people the freedom to do things. A general case is that I almost always do not want people to have the freedom to kill other people if they so desire.

That proves nothing, because all your measuring is potential/speed of learning, not what they'll actually learn. That's why you'll see, all too often, the gifted kids get failing grades because they don't feel like applying themselves, while the average kids will thrive based off of.. whatever they feel their incentive is

By the way, I have a lot of criticism for our public school system. It is quite inefficient in a lot of respects. And to clear up your confusion, I was just saying that the optimal way to give health care to poor people is by no means to give it to everyone, but it is indeed very difficult and impractical to find the optimum and thus it is best to leave it to individuals to decide what to do with their own money. I wouldn't trust a government to find the optimum. They'd probably end up just giving everyone health care, winding up in an inefficient system of very high taxes or very high debt that would lower the quality of society.

It isn't a waste of resources. Not only does it make us look good, but it makes people happy.

Looking good and making people happy shouldn't be a concern. It does waste resources. Do you deny that a million dollar operation to help a baby born without legs live to be a few years old is a waste of resources? If yes, then I'd have to say you're an idiot and if no, then why did you say that it doesn't waste resources to give everyone universal health care? It does! The baby without legs is an example of a tremendous waste, but there are many lesser instances of only small amounts of waste and I don't think a government could determine what instances would be efficient for society or not (as you and others agreed). Thus, I think the government should stop forcing people to pay for such inefficient bad investments in people, like the bad investment in the baby without legs.

[Guest]

Umm. Everyone 21+ after taking an extensive safety class can own a gun? Minors caught with guns off of private property will be arrested. No guns in public. ..Yeah? Idk. BB, paintball, and airsoft guns don't count as guns, but they can still only be used on private property/in shooting ranges.

Anyone with a criminal history can't own a gun. You can't take guns to work and stuff. Anyone found hunting without a hunting license will be arrested. ..Yeah...

*doesn't like guns but knows if we make guns illegal, stuff will just get worse*

You have to be kidding....

[Guest]

Regarding your posts about your injuries that I assume required your health insurance to pay for the medical bills for, do individuals benefit by not participating in such high-injury risk activities? In other words, do they not have to pay as much in taxes for health care (that is, if they are taxpayers)? If I jumped off a cliff on purpose and broke all of the bones in my body, but survived, would my health insurance taxes increase because of the crazy medical bills that I stack up?

[Guest]

I'm at a loss for words. This is absurd. I'm not even going to respond to your comment about the child in Peru. I can't.

How does helping someone hurt humanity as a whole? By helping you offer that person a chance to make a difference in our society and in return benefit humanity. You can't predict the future UtF and you most certainly cannot decide whether or not someone deserves to live. If were aiming to create a successful society, you're trying to create a modern-day Sparta.

[Guest]

I'd just like to let you know, that when I cracked my skull open. We had no insurance. We were living off welfare (happily living stable now though). And if not for the government aid we were being given, I would have bled out, died, and not be here typing this message. Now I consider myself a bright individual, but if lets say we were living under your rules and no one saw me as a 'good investment' then that surgery would've never happened.

[Izzy]

Bro, you can stop with the outrageously long posts. You're not convincing anyone. I don't think anyone actually cares at this point.

The only thing that bothers me is that you bothered to say my values must stem from religion. Morality doesn't come from religious texts, and religion isn't my incentive to be nice and try to make people happy. Refer to my topic on Jediism or something or look up one of my various posts (our wifi is being all meh, otherwise I'd grab it myself) explaining how we developed the "human code" so to say before any one wrote done what you would consider "good" rules (Don't kill, steal, etc.) in religious scriptures. They had to exist beforehand, and just because I don't believe in some all powerful flying sky monster doesn't mean I'm going to disregard what the books say entirely. Fiction occasionally agrees with facts, but that doesn't mean that's where they started.

I'm so bored of this, honestly. You could justify murder, slavery, forced eugenics, and practically anything else with "Oh, it's better for society!" F.UCK what's better for society, look for what's better for people. This is our only short existence between two infinite terms of nonexistence, and everyone should have the same right to enjoy it. People like you will destroy society, because a dictatorship is not civilized.

Btw, what? "When you all said you were liberal and that you valued society, I believed you. But, you're not liberal because you value society more than yourself. You don't really value society. You value having every individual who is born feeling happy."

I'm not liberal because I value society more than myself even though I don't value society? What?

I'm starting to feel you don't understand politics at all. Libertarians believe in freedom, personal, and community happiness. Society is just the strings that holds these together. I don't want society to collaspse (hence not being anarchist), but happiness should be the byproduct of society, not the price for it.

I'm through. That's why we have the vote going. New topic?

[Guest]

(continuation of my last post)... Why not just hold me accountable for my own foolishness by forcing me to pay for my own injuries? Why support a system that wastes money forcing others to pay for the bones I broke due to carelessness? Do I really want to pay the medical bills for the idiot who crashed his car while driving drunk, but survived? Do you guys understand the many failures of your system of universal health care? You agreed with me that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible for our government to determine what injuries and what diseases deserve being treated by government aid and for what people. So what would you do to stop all of the stupid people from ruining your universal health care by being bad investments? When an idiot gets too drunk and is rushed to a hospital, are you going to be glad that you're paying for his medical bills? There's no accountability in a system where everyone gets medical coverage no matter how stupid they act. Either the coverage is going to be bad or you're going to seriously kill society by forcing society to pay for such stupid peoples' medical bills or both. Anyways, if you guys could answer the question about the million dollar operation to save the baby born without legs and arms if you haven't already, I think that will wrap up our discussion on this issue).

[Izzy]

Yes, pay the $1 million dollars. And yes, continuously support the people that are making stupid mistakes. We're only human. They're not bad investments. My sentences are short because I'm so fecking over this.

You treat society as a whole as if they're retarded. People aren't purposely going to hurt themselves to leach off of government benefits.

[Guest]

I'm at a loss for words. This is absurd. I'm not even going to respond to your comment about the child in Peru. I can't.

How does helping someone hurt humanity as a whole? By helping you offer that person a chance to make a difference in our society and in return benefit humanity. You can't predict the future UtF and you most certainly cannot decide whether or not someone deserves to live. If were aiming to create a successful society, you're trying to create a modern-day Sparta.

I'm flabbergasted myself. Are you seriously saying that you would support paying a million dollar medical bill for a child born without arms or legs just so that that child can survive to be an ordinary person? Ordinary average people don't make a million dollars in their lifetimes. Assuming the person born without arms or legs doesn't, then that's exactly how they're going to bring down society. They're going to bring down society by consuming a million dollars worth of efforts and never being able to work enough to pay those efforts back. How would you like paying 50% of your income towards this baby's medical bill for the first two million dollars you make in your life (note: I'm assuming you're an above average person capable of paying for this baby's medical bill with half of the money you make in your life)? Of course it isn't worth supporting that baby. It has nothing to do with whether or not the baby deserves to live. It has to do with whether or not that baby is worth anything close to the million dollars it would take to keep it alive. Would you work your whole life to pay for it? I certainly wouldn't. It's not worth that much effort.

[Izzy]

You know what you aren't realizing? Aside from new money being created, the wealth of America stays the same. The one million dollars, even if the kid "earns it back" is merely being transferred from tax payers, to the insurance companies, to whatever they decide to buy, to other people, and so forth. It's actually very economically stimulating. It's not like when that money's spent it disappears. We, as a society, still have it, and we just have one more person that benefited from it.

[Guest]

Yes, pay the $1 million dollars. And yes, continuously support the people that are making stupid mistakes. We're only human. They're not bad investments. My sentences are short because I'm so fecking over this.

You treat society as a whole as if they're retarded. People aren't purposely going to hurt themselves to leach off of government benefits.

Who says they're going to do it intentionally most of the time? That was just an example of a small amount of what you're supporting. Most of what you're supporting is wasting your money on people who aren't especially careful with what they do because they know they're receiving free care.

And I just asked this question to Zerep, but I'll ask you too: Assuming you're going to be rich enough to make $2 million dollars in your lifetime, would you give half your income away to pay for this babies' medical bills? Are you willing to give away half your life's efforts towards saving this worthless baby that could easily be replaced with the help of any couple? I have a feeling that you definitely don't understand the concept of money. There's no way you would pay a million dollars to save the worthless baby. You're not even religious. Why do you have the religious values of caring about a worthless baby just because it's a "PERSON." There's no reason to pay a million dollars to save it. I don't understand you. You must be pro-life also, right? If not, why not just abort it the day after it is born when you see how deformed it is? Why work your entire life (a million dollars) to pay for it? You can't seriously be serious.

[Guest]

Who decides what a life is worth? Maybe the baby is worth a million dollars. Maybe more. You're assuming a person without arms and legs will be a burden on society and that we'd be making a bad investment by paying for it's bills. The handicapped aren't mentally retarded, they can pull through. Some have contributed a hell lot more than anyone in this discussion probably ever will.

[Izzy]

I wouldn't personally be putting down the million dollars, America as a collective group would be funding it. 300 million translates to 1/300 of a dollar per person. Seems doable to me.

I'm pro-choice, btw. A human isn't human until birth, before that it is a potential human and not subject to the same rights as actual humans. It's relationship with the mother is parasitic, and its survival (while in the womb) requires her continuous consent. But there's already an entire topic on that.

Again, religion has nothing to do with it. Lemme find that post for you.

This is a reply to the second part of Alyssa's post, which I'm going to quote and then respond to. This isn't a personal attack and I, generally, am in no way antagonistic towards religions or their followers. This is simply a rationalization of the conjecture that religion is inherent and essential to a moral and well-functioning government.

"In the second seminar, the topic of religion was discussed heavily. I don’t remember if it was said on here, or during the actual seminar, or both for that matter, but someone said that religion should not be put into a government, and I have to disagree, though it is a valid idea. Without some type of religious values put into a government’s laws, the government cannot have a proper structure. All moral values are based on some belief, which usually is based on a religion, or lack thereof, and a government has to have some type of moral values, even in effective governments. We might not think that killing someone is always on a moral stand point based on a legal stand point, but the practice of not killing people, is based on a religious belief that we should not kill people."

Okay, so the assumptions here (which shall be debunked in a structural and unoffensive manner) .

1. Morals are based off of beliefs, specifically religions.

2. The government cannot function without religious input.

3. Our government will lack structure if our religions are nonexistent.

4. Not killing people is purely a religious concept.

1. Let's start with defining morality. We're going to keep it simple and say that it's just the principle of beliefs concerning the distinction between good and bad (right and wrong) behavior. We'll define good as things that help people and bad as things that hurt people, helping and hurting both physical and emotional concepts. There are different degrees of good and bad, as we got into in the Socratic Seminar, so I'll just assume everyone knows that almost everything is circumstantial as we've already spent a great deal of time discussing that. A belief is the acceptance of a statement, regardless of whether it's true or not. Beliefs don't require evidence, hence the term 'belief'. Religions are beliefs, nothing more.

Now, yes, religious texts include morals, but that doesn't mean morality was established from them. At some point, humans started developing a sense of right and wrong. I'm going to use the Bible as an example because that's what I'm somewhat familiar with. According to the Bible, all the moral stuff (Ten Commandments, etc.) in the Bible was there because of God's divine inspiration, and was NOT the ideals of man. (The same Bible that advocates stoning homosexuals, but that's another story entirely.) So, supposedly, we were all savages going around eating and killing each other until God sent himself, as his Son, named Jesus, whose also the father, so technically named Yahweh, but also some spirit thing (you with me? good ) to show us the way. Because all of these morals were purely God's concepts, according to the book that tells us he exists, we couldn't have known about them before he enlightened us.

Well.. history tells us otherwise. I forgot my book in my locker (>_>), so the info might be a *little* off.. but.. Uhh.. So, that thing about the nomadic people and how they evolved into the homo something, and eventually the homo erectus and stuff. Well, think about it. We started off as primitive tribes, and eventually evolved into ourselves today, a time span of over 3 million years. Now, BC = Before Christ, so all events that happened before a literal 2009 years ago involving humans would have to exclude any sort of a moral basis. We ALREADY know this to be untrue, because even before that, as our book tells us, social interactions among the early humans existed, where people who killed, stole, etc. were shunned from the tribe and left to die. I don't know exactly how it happened, but I can understand why. Way back when, helping each other was essential to one's own survival. There's no way you can hunt and raise a family by yourself, among other things, so people depended on each other. With this dependence came a sort of respect for one another, which led to rules that would keep people at peace with each other. Like, if you don't steal, you won't upset anybody, which is good for your own survival. What I'm trying to say is that morals are Darwinistic instints. Because our religious texts include them doesn't mean that's where they came from, and that doesn't mean that's why people follow them. Hell, there are many morals of religion which religious people neglect, so obviously there is another standard by which people choose their morals. Moralality wouldn't disappear if religions did.

2/3. The country was founded on a separtion of church and state. Current theocracies lack structure notably more than countries with the church/state distintion. The Middle East, where the religion is the law, is a good example of this. What religious input does our government has that is actually religious? I've already, somewhat, proven that morality has nothing to do with religions, so the only other real effect they can have on people is how they spend their free time. There's absolutely no reason a government should instill a certain religion on to you, tell you when to pray, or any of that. None. It's not appropriate, it violates our constitutional rights, and it's just uncool. Do you want someone to tell you when to pray? No. Do you want someone to tell you who to marry? No. (Though most people think it's perfectly fine the government can tell you who NOT to marry, which isn't cool either. Marriage existed within tribes as a sign of partnership before religions did. )

4. Not killing people is an evolutionary trait of altruistic behavior, something ingrained in all of us to up our chances of reproductive success.

[Guest]

I'd just like to let you know, that when I cracked my skull open. We had no insurance. We were living off welfare (happily living stable now though). And if not for the government aid we were being given, I would have bled out, died, and not be here typing this message. Now I consider myself a bright individual, but if lets say we were living under your rules and no one saw me as a 'good investment' then that surgery would've never happened.

I'm glad welfare did something good, but that still doesn't mean you should support it paying a million dollars to support saving a deformed baby. There's nothing special of value about that baby. Nothing has been invested in it yet except for some food and other energy by the mother and father. It's perfectly okay to let it die and have another child. On the other hand, I doubt that your surgery cost a million dollars and it sounds as though you're bright enough to be able to fare well enough in society that it will be worth the costs of keeping you alive when you were one. Your particular situation doesn't justify wasting money on a newborn baby without arms or legs, though. I'm glad welfare did something good for you, but I don't want that to blind you from the fact that there are many instances where welfare is inefficient and not worth it. All I'm advocating is that we try to limit those instances where welfare pays for someone when it shouldn't. One instance would be a million dollar operation on a newborn baby. I see no reason to say that that's worth it. Just because you were in a near-death situation without insurance and are glad for welfare helping you to survive does not mean that it can't be fixed up a lot.

[Izzy]

It's a BABY. You have no way of knowing it won't grow up an be an Einstein!

[Guest]

The handicapped aren't mentally retarded, they can pull through.

Does this statement suggest that you wouldn't support the million dollar surgery if it was to allow a mentally retarded person to live a few more years? Perhaps in this instance you are confident enough that such a mentally retarded person wouldn't be able to pull through and work enough to be worth a million dollars. In that case would you be okay with not paying a million dollars to extend its life a few years?

[Izzy]

Oh, and dude, even your potential system fails. I'm sure you'd agree that I have quite a bit of potential in life, right? Nothing's stopping me from finishing uni. and then just chilling the rest of my life off of an inheritance. (I wouldn't, 'cos that's not my style, but I could.) If a child has loads of potential, that doesn't mean they're going to do anything, and even if they have no potential, it doesn't mean they won't become anything.

Personal example. My dad.. was a bit of a rebellious teenager. Total genius, on all accounts (and it annoys me to no end ), but he got kicked out of high school his senior year (in Germany, not here). His dad pulled some strings, got him into an awesome university, which he also got kicked out of. (...This is why my mom doesn't want me to be like my dad, haha.) He pretty much did nothing for a few years. Now he's one of the top paid CEOs of Siemens.

Potential means nothing.

[Guest]

Dear lord (an expression, I'm agnostic, so please don't comment on it), I'm not promoting that we should let them die. Depending on the severity and specifics of their condition they too can be useful. Now yes, some of the more extreme cases obviously won't be contributing. But not everyone is as cold as you are, they still deserve to enjoy life (now if lets say, they're in constant discomfort or pain, then perhaps letting them die wouldn't be wrong as it would end their suffering)

Anywho, UtF, I'd like to propose an idea. Seeing as we can't seem to meet eye to eye, why not create your own thread and you can promote these 'ideas' of yours to anyone willing to listen. Now I think that sounds like a nifty idea.

[Izzy]

Anywho, UtF, I'd like to propose an idea. Seeing as we can't seem to meet eye to eye, why not create your own thread and you can promote these 'ideas' of yours to anyone willing to listen. Now I think that sounds like a nifty idea.

I agree. Feel free to still participate in this one, but realize your cold ideas will be overruled in any democracy, because the majority of people actually care about other people.

What made you so unemotional, if I may ask?

[Guest]

You know what you aren't realizing? Aside from new money being created, the wealth of America stays the same. The one million dollars, even if the kid "earns it back" is merely being transferred from tax payers, to the insurance companies, to whatever they decide to buy, to other people, and so forth. It's actually very economically stimulating. It's not like when that money's spent it disappears. We, as a society, still have it, and we just have one more person that benefited from it.

I used to think like that a lot. I thought of money and spending and buying as a "transfer" process in which it really didn't matter how much money you were spending as long as it was towards a good cause. So apply that flawed reasoning to this deformed baby, I would say that we ought to pay for the baby because saving it is good and the money is just going to some hardworking doctors and scientists that I think deserve the money. That sounds good, right? But, there's an error in the logic. To see it you must realize the value of money. Ignore the money and think of the value that a million dollars is worth. To save this baby, a few doctors aren't going to get together and perform some operations on it. No, to save the baby, you're going to work at McDonald's full-time and make $50,000 a year (I really have no idea how much money one would make at McDonald's but we'll use that guestimate). You save $10,000 a year to spend on yourself so you can get food, shelter, and the other bare essentials that you will need to be able to work at McDonald's for your life (so perhaps that includes health care for an diseases or injuries that you may get that will prevent you from doing your job at McDonald's). I doubt $10,000 a year would cover all that for most people, but we'll pretend it does (note: don't give yourself government aid in this hypothetical situation because that will cause you to appreciate the value of money less). So with the extra $40,000 a year that you find you are able to survive without if you stay single without any children and live in the cheapest apartment and eat the cheapest food and accept the cheapest health care that will allow you to continue to work, you give this money towards paying for the deformed baby's million dollar medical bill. $1,000,000 divided by $40,000 equals 25. Assuming you start this work at age 25 you will be able to finish paying for this baby when you are 50. You lived as frugal as possible and yet you were only able to support. It looks like it's his turn to work his life extremely frugally to support the next deformed baby requiring a million dollar medical bill to surive. But, wait, this man hasn't received any education or anything. You've only managed to pay for his medical bills that he needed at birth. After realizing that if you're going to pay for the child's food and shelter and prosthetic limbs so that one day he can work at McDonald's frugally too, then you'll have to survive and continue to work very frugally for another few decades. Let's say you're successful at it. Will this man with prosthetic limbs be able to do the same as you and pay for the next worthless baby? I doubt he would be as successful as you. And anyways, I wouldn't consider such an extremely frugal life with no time to hang out with friends or have a family and barely be able to get the health care to be able to work a good life to live. Also, I think the $50,000 estimate for your yearly income in today's world is too high. Wikipedia says that "In 2007, the "real" (adjusted for inflation) median annual household income rose 1.3% to $50,233.00 according to the Census Bureau." Note that this is a household, not an individual. This means that in this scenario you're not a lower class person, but a middle class individual making the income of the median US family. Also, realize that the $10,000 is likely too low and you, as an average middle-class person, might not even be able to afford to pay for (and raise?) the baby born without arms or legs in your lifetime. Considering that many families struggle to afford to raise children without any deformities, I'm not sure how you could while living such a frugal life. And to think that such a deformed baby would be able to grow up and do the same for another deformed baby would be quite a stretch. You started this scenario as a median-income family capable of living very frugally and somehow raising the baby without arms or legs. Anyways, I'm going to stop now. I hope you realize that the issue isn't whether or not the baby deserves to live, it's whether or not you're willing to make enough money to survive yourself and then work a million dollars extra to pay for the baby and then work more to afford to raise the baby. It would take a lot more than a middle-class person to be able to do that. My point though, is that it's not worth the efforts. If you can't use the rich as an excuse for someone to pay for the baby, then what would you do? Probably abort the baby because you have no other choice and have another one. Why not just do that rather than go through all the trouble to try and make a million dollars extra for no reason?

I really want to be done with this discussion as well. I find it depressing that you all don't seem to understand why it isn't worth paying for the million dollar surgery to save the baby. You wouldn't pay for it yourself because it would take a lifetime of extreme dedication and fortune for a middle class citizen to manage it, yet you support having rich people pay for it. Why? You shouldn't think, "well the rich people can afford it." You should think, "regardless of whether or not we can afford it, it's not worth a million dollars worth of effort (a lifetime of McDonald's effort, for example) to save this deformed baby. It's not just a million dollars that some rich guy has and can hand to someone else. It's not just a "transfer" of wealth. It's a million dollars worth of effort. It's a lifetime working at McDonald's. Would you? You'd want to, but you know deep down that it really isn't worth the lifetime effort working very frugally with middle-class income.

[Guest]

I agree. Feel free to still participate in this one, but realize your cold ideas will be overruled in any democracy, because the majority of people actually care about other people.

What made you so unemotional, if I may ask?

My love for the prosperity of the human species collectively.

If I must be "cold" and oppose spending a million dollars worth of efforts towards saving a baby born without arms or legs in order to help the society I am living in as a whole, then I will because again, I care about what happens to the world as a whole significantly more than what happens to any particular individual.

If it was a 100 million dollar operation, would you support paying for it?

Edited July 21, 2010 by Use the Force

[Guest]

It's a BABY. You have no way of knowing it won't grow up an be an Einstein!

How irrational of you. You have no way of knowing that the fetus that is about to be born won't grow up to be an Einstein either. Why do you only suddenly become strictly supportive of the baby the moment it is considered to be "born" by our culture? Such a sudden change is, I will say again, a common religious view. Why? Because this is when many religious people say a baby gains its soul or something. At that point it's alive and there's something significant about that religiously. In reality there's no sudden difference the moment before it is born compared to the moment after it is born, or the week before it is born compared to the week after it is born. It's all just a development process. There's no reason to not mind if it dies a week before it is born, but then suddenly want to pay a million dollars to save it the week after it is born. That's extremely irrational of you and I'm very skeptical about whether or not you are religious. Also realize that being religious isn't just believing in a "god" or a "heaven" or "Jesus." Buddhists don't believe in such things and they're most certainly religious. Perhaps you would be happier if I used the term "superstitious" rather than "religious"? Are you superstitious?

Superstition (dictionary.com):

–noun

1.

a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like.

2.

a system or collection of such beliefs.

3.

a custom or act based on such a belief.

4.

irrational fear of what is unknown or mysterious, esp. in connection with religion.

5.

any blindly accepted belief or notion.

As far as I can tell you most certainly are superstitious. You irrationally believe that there is a a very significant difference between a baby the week before he is born and the week after he is born. There's no reason to think that such a difference exist, yet you obviously think that a very very major difference exists. You're pro-choice you say, but as soon as the child is born you're willing to pay a million dollars to keep it alive? Why? That's very irrational. There's no decent reason to hold that view. Why suddenly value the individual the moment he is born like you do? There's absolutely no reason. I find this extremely surprising that someone who has seemed very bright and intelligent in our discussions apparently thinks that the moment a homo sapien is "born" it becomes something that is worth going through millions of dollars of pain to keep alive on some sort of moral level. Whatever morality it is that you have decided to adopt, I assure you that it was irrational of you to do so. This is why I said you seemed religious to me. Typically religious people have those strange values regarding people and their rights as children of "God." I wouldn't have imagined that someone who isn't religious would think there's something magical and special about birth that causes you to act extremely differently on one side of the imaginary birth line compared to the other. Thus, I can only call you superstitious. I would add to the end of the last sentence "unless you provide a decent reason for holding this view" as I usually would, wishing to learn something about you or trying to get you to question your beliefs to correct them so that you yourself can learn, but somehow I doubt that would happen. I have a feeling you'll just dismiss this blatant flaw in your views and dismiss me altogether and we'll depart without changing our views. Hmmm.... I'm pausing for a long time now thinking of what to say. I really am speechless. What am I supposed to say when it appears that an intelligent nonreligious person is holding such superstitious beliefs? Could you explain yourself? Or could you admit that there's something wrong (note: no religious person has ever admitted to me that there was indeed a flaw in their beliefs when I point them out. They always try to justify the views no matter how irrational they may be. Are you going to do the same? I so fear that you will. I don't want you to lock yourself in a mental defense system in which reason can't reach you, as many religious people manage to do unconsciously. I very very very much desire for you to see that there isn't a fundamental difference between a baby the week before birth and the week after and there's no rational reason to treat them as if there is a significant difference. If you could show me that there is a reason to act as though there's a difference, then I would very much be enlightened, but I ask that you act (in your mind) as though you made a mistake and accidentally chose to value something that you shouldn't have. Try to see what I am saying and try to understand why it doesn't make sense to let a mother kill her baby the week before it is born, but not the week after. She put it in the trash because there were better things to spend effort on than saving it. A million dollars of effort to keep it alive or a million dollars towards educating and raising a large family of health babies? It doesn't make sense to spend one's efforts on the crippled baby when there are so many other children already being born into the world healthily, but who don't have healthy living conditions or good education opportunities, etc. Ask yourself to please change your views to not distinguish between before birth and after birth so much and perhaps you will be glad you did, or perhaps you will be unable to persuade yourself that there isn't a significant difference and will be able to retain your old views. But, please try to see the reason why I am writing all of these long responses. Is it because I'm crazy or is there something that I notice that you don't? If we're going to accomplish anything with our time spent in this lengthy discussion, I would say this is it. Goodnight.