The Goat Pen

hedge wrote:Why must you glorify tobacco related cancer?

tobacco addicts aren't breaking into my car

eCat wrote:the biggest mistake / problem that Obamacare has created is this perception that the government has an obligation to provide you with affordable health care.

FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon thought the same thing. NIXON. RICHARD FUCKING NIXON. We're the only country in the western world with this type of employer/private insurer based system, and it's a fucking catastrophe.

Give minimal, baseline healthcare. If you can afford private insurance, you can get that too.

Trump was supposed to meet with Putin for half an hour, but it lasted for over two hours.

It must have taken that extra time to work out the details of how Putin will deliver Virginia, Minnesota and Illinois to Trump in 2020.

DooKSucks wrote:

eCat wrote:the biggest mistake / problem that Obamacare has created is this perception that the government has an obligation to provide you with affordable health care.

FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon thought the same thing. NIXON. RICHARD FUCKING NIXON. We're the only country in the western world with this type of employer/private insurer based system, and it's a fucking catastrophe.

Give minimal, baseline healthcare. If you can afford private insurance, you can get that too.

Ed Zachary.

give?
there is no give, there is only pay.

and the voting public isn't going to settle for miminal baseline care - They've already had subsidized Obamacare. They're "entitled to that".

You're expecting 5% of this country to cover the cost of 50% of its population's healthcare - and it won't happen because that 5% will pay to elect politicians who won't raise taxes. So then we'll just print the money.

I"m constantly amazed at the people who are decrying how incompetent our politicians are for not making the federal government run a vital part of their lives. You just saw the country elect a man who you wouldn't trust to manage a corner savings and loan but expect him to get qualified people to drive a trillion dollar industry? Would you trust Pelosi? Harry Reid? Paul Ryan?

Lets say someone you love has an aggressive cancer and we're 6 weeks out from an election where a politician will make a decision on the federal governments spending and support of your loved ones health care. You want the long term care of someone you love based on whether we're a liberal or conservative government for the next 4 years? On whether we'll spend money on a new drug with a 20% chance of success?

Our healthcare system had a host of problems before Obamacare and it has problems now. A good number of those problems are tied to the federal government either trying to solve them or lobbyist making laws to keep them.

the gov't doesn't have an obligation to stop people from using heroin either.

Saint wrote:the gov't doesn't have an obligation to stop people from using heroin either.

probably not at the federal level, but certainly at the state and local level.

but that's a perfect example - taxes pay for EMTs, there isn't enough money to cover heroin addicts abusing the system, therefore heroin addicts now die in the streets.
if we want to save heroin addicts, we have to raise taxes. Who's is going to vote to raise taxes for heroin addicts? Oh well...the people have spoken. You want narcan, you pay for it junkie.

my privately funded insurance plan covers addiction and and least 1 rehab stay. I don't know the particulars but there is a number of options for treating addition.

Think taxpayers in the red states are going to support a single payer system that covers addiction? depression? STDs or the next aids?

eCat wrote:

hedge wrote:Why must you glorify tobacco related cancer?

tobacco addicts aren't breaking into my car

Oh, they're doing far worse than that, they're costing you and everyone else tens of thousands of dollars in increased health insurance premiums. You seem so keen (at times) on the idea that nothing is free, everything has a cost, when it comes to health care and insuring people, but when it comes to perfectly preventable diseases that cost tens of billions (maybe more than that) every year to "treat", you are strangely sanguine and even indifferent. You're more worried about a heroin addict breaking into your car than you are about billions being spent on people who smoked 2 packs a day for 40 years, even though you are the one stuck with the bill. Odd...

hedge wrote:

eCat wrote:

hedge wrote:Why must you glorify tobacco related cancer?

tobacco addicts aren't breaking into my car

Oh, they're doing far worse than that, they're costing you and everyone else tens of thousands of dollars in increased health insurance premiums. You seem so keen (at times) on the idea that nothing is free, everything has a cost, when it comes to health care and insuring people, but when it comes to perfectly preventable diseases that cost tens of billions (maybe more than that) every year to "treat", you are strangely sanguine and even indifferent. You're more worried about a heroin addict breaking into your car than you are about billions being spent on people who smoked 2 packs a day for 40 years, even though you are the one stuck with the bill. Odd...

today its smokers, tomorrow it will the obese, then diabetics, etcs., - whatever justifies the argument to allow heroin

Well, yeah, that's called making decisons based on reasons instead of misguided hysteria fueled by people with a vested interest in keeping things a certain way...

And, FWIW, I'm not telling you that you "should" be for allowing heroin, I'm just saying it's laughably inconsistent and hypocritical for you or anyone else to be OK with tobacco but for some reason terrified of heroin. Either allow both or make both illegal. Why should any adult be OK with allowing anybody else (much less some dumbass legislator) being able to pick and choose which vices should be allowed for everyone? I would think that sort of thing would be against your libertarian instincts. It's certainly against mine. Bottom line is, tobacco is many orders of magnitude worse than heroin and all other "illegal" drugs combined. I just can't see how so many people are perfectly OK with one and rabidly against the other. I understand all the arguments about the dangers, but if one is allowed, all of them should be allowed. But the idea that some goober who becomes a politician b/c he couldn't make it in the real world gets to decide something like this annoys me greatly. Even you have said "why should we trust these idiots to run health care?" Well, why should we trust them to tell us what we can or can't do with regard to ingesting whatever substances we choose?

Of course, the reason people allow lawmakers to decide that heroin should be illegal is b/c most people don't do heroin and don't think it's a good idea, so they're OK with forcing their will onto others via the legislative process. But why should you or anybody else get to tell me what I can or can't do, as long as I'm not harming you? I don't try to tell anybody else what they can or can't do as long as they're not harming me, so natually I don't appreciate it when somebody tries to impose their will on me in that regard. Opiates and cocaine and everything else were legal in this country for well over a century, and I suspect the Founders would be rolling over in their graves at the idea that the government should have that kind of power over people's personal lives and choices...

hedge wrote:Of course, the reason people allow lawmakers to decide that heroin should be illegal is b/c most people don't do heroin and don't think it's a good idea, so they're OK with forcing their will onto others via the legislative process. But why should you or anybody else get to tell me what I can or can't do, as long as I'm not harming you? I don't try to tell anybody else what they can or can't do as long as they're not harming me, so natually I don't appreciate it when somebody tries to impose their will on me in that regard. Opiates and cocaine and everything else were legal in this country for well over a century, and I suspect the Founders would be rolling over in their graves at the idea that the government should have that kind of power over people's personal lives and choices...

thats the problem though - I am being harmed by heroin addicts.

that's what you can't get thru your head.

you want to shoot up heroin, fine

but when you decide you have to steal my stuff to support your habit then I am perfectly fine with forcing my will onto other via the legislative process.

Heroin addicts have decided to steal my stuff.

Their addiction is a burden on society.

don't point to something else that is a burden on society to justify heroin.

There is nothing in the Constitution that allows for making drugs illegal. How did we ever get to this point, America?

Oh, wait because long ago people starting figuring out ways to work around the Constitution if it serves the common good, or in many cases, just a small slice of the private good if they've paid a fair price to get their way.

hedge wrote:And, FWIW, I'm not telling you that you "should" be for allowing heroin, I'm just saying it's laughably inconsistent and hypocritical for you or anyone else to be OK with tobacco but for some reason terrified of heroin. Either allow both or make both illegal. Why should any adult be OK with allowing anybody else (much less some dumbass legislator) being able to pick and choose which vices should be allowed for everyone? I would think that sort of thing would be against your libertarian instincts. It's certainly against mine. Bottom line is, tobacco is many orders of magnitude worse than heroin and all other "illegal" drugs combined. I just can't see how so many people are perfectly OK with one and rabidly against the other.

I'm not an expert here, but my impression is heroin is WAY more addictive than tobacco. I could be wrong.

Also, if the cost to society from tobacco is "orders of magnitude" greater than heroin, perhaps the reason is the number of tobacco users is "orders of magnitude" greater than the number of heroin users. And if the number of heroin users were equal to the number of tobacco users, American cities would quickly resemble "The Walking Dead." And I agree with eCat that tobacco users don't go on crime sprees to feed their habit like hard drug users do.

All that said, as a Libertarian, I would be okay with legalizing heroin with the proviso that heroin addicts be free to reap the consequences of their choice, and let the ruthless rules of Darwinianism work its magic on them.

thats an inherit problem with being libertarian though

your position is that you turn your back on humanity - and that isn't going to happen in a civilized society.

so this idea of - legalize heroin, just don't come to me when your kid is an addict is about the same as saying its not worth paying $100K for a cancer treatment that will extend your life 6 months...unless its your wife, child or mom who has it. Its easy to be libertarian in the abstract, not so much when you live it.

humanity trumps ideology and it always will

the issue with Hedge and Saint is they believe they can control their heroin use - but clearly there is a significant percentage of society that cannot - whether its opiates, heroin or methadone.

We saw what crack did to the inner cities in the 90's - it ravaged it - crime rates were skyrocketing and if you are to believe freakonomics, the only saving grace to slow it down was the passage of Roe V. Wade in '72.

I believe we're seeing the same issues with heroin now in both the inner city and the suburbs. To suggest legalizing it seems insane.

on a slightly different tact

You can thank Trump either directly or indirectly for a change in drug testing policy in the United States.

Colorado has the lowest unemployment in the United States at 2.3%. That's the lowest its ever been since they started recording unemployment levels.

A big part of this of course is a recovering economy but the flipside of it that are no floods of illegals coming in to fill those job positions - and consequently, wages are being raised in order to get quality people in areas of unskilled labor like construction, restaurants, warehousing, and distribution. You're seeing jobs being paid above the "ideal" $15 an hour wage in order to fill needed positions. Which is what I've been ranting about for years. If we enforced our immigration laws, in a growing economy there would be no need for a minimum wage. Traditional supply and demand would dictate the job market.

As a result of the legalization of Marijuana, many places have now stopped screening for marijuana use in applicants because its now so widely accepted.

But this would not be the case if the job market had a ready supply of cheap foreign labor ready to keep wages low and allow business to enforce traditional drug screening.


Build that wall

"but when you decide you have to steal my stuff to support your habit then I am perfectly fine with forcing my will onto other via the legislative process."

Then why not use the legislative process to legalize it, which would bring the cost down dramatically so people wouldn't have to steal in order to afford it? That would also have the added benefit of making it safer, which I know hardly anybody gives a damn about (after all, it's just dirty heroin addicts, so who cares if they're made safer?), but you would at least get the satisfaction of cost savings if there were less OD's. The bottom line is, prohibition doesn't work. Never has, never will, but people are so damn invested in having a bad guy to point the finger at, they don't want to try something different that would be far more likely to achieve the result they give lip service to preferring...

"To suggest legalizing it seems insane."

Prohibition is insane...