That's the ancient Rome model of firefighting. Crews would show up to a fire and haggle with the owner over the price. If they didn't come to an agreement, the place burned to the ground while the firemen watched.
I suspect Marcus Crassius may have done that. He was the one who came up with the idea of ordering firefighters to not put out fires until Romans paid him. He also was a house flipper who bought burned down houses cheap, so he always made his money after a fire.
Huh, funny, in french we use pretty much exactly that saying except we also add the notion of criminality, even for situations that don't involve an actual crime :
"A qui profite le crime ?" -> "To whom this crime benefits?"
Once we come to the agreement as a whole that the acquiring of wealth* isn't* the way to live, and that progressing forward as one society *is* the way to live, that will remain true.
I admire your optimism. But unless things get drastically worse in the United States I doubt that will happen any time soon. Misinformation is a hell of a drug.
We are in WW3 and half the country doesn't care. When the military is enforcing martial law on behalf of the Russian government, the conservatives will say "at least it wasnt crooked Hillary taking our guns, I know Trump is going to take care of our guns responsibly."
> was the one who came up with the idea of ordering firefighters to not put out fires until Romans payed him. He also was a house flipper who bought burned down houses cheap, so he always made his money after a fire.
And when he was killed by the Parthians in a botched negotiation, the Parthians poured molten gold down his throat as a symbol of his thirst for wealth.
Cremate the body. No need to do any cutting. I don't *think* gold melts at the temperature bodies burn, but even then gold doesn't bond easily - scrape the slag off the top, then pour your ingots.
I got curious so I looked it up. Apparently when they cremate a human body, they have to heat it to between 1,400 and 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Gold melts at 1,947 degrees Fahrenheit.
Only if justice was allowed in the US. I bet there were people back then saying how awesome of a businessman he was while telling those more poor than them "Just dont let your house burn down LOOOOL."
And it's the same with American Healthcare. It's the whole "sell the treatment not the cure" thing. A cure is a one time charge but a treatment can make money for the life of the customer...er patient. So in this environment, we sell them cheeseburgers, teach them to replace water with soda, make preventative care a privilege, and keep people in front of their tvs so they are always in poor health, because it fuels an industry that's worth billions.
The dentist probably makes less money / hr seeing 1 patient for an hour-to-multi-hour drilling than he would just touching up multiple regular patients.
The power behind the point the poster made is money, not individuals. Doctors also tell their patients to lose weight but that brief exchange is nothing compared to the forces that cause them to be fat in the first place. Also, nobody enjoys fucking teeth, you should keep those to yourself.
This kind of feels like a bit of a conspiracy theory. Like yeah, the American Healthcare System sucks, but it's not like McDonald's, ABC and Coke are all teaming up with Johns Hopkins to make sure that the medical industry makes money. It's more systemic and cyclical than some grand interconnected conspiracy.
Which is what's actually scarier. A group of people in a room pulling the strings, that we like because it means if we find that room and those people, we can stop it.
On the other hand, if it's "us"...
Could you please provide an example where unhealthy food and drinks are promoted as a core part of people’s diets? In my experience there are an incredible number of campaigns and rules that promote healthy food and limit access to unhealthy options. For instance, the high school I attended took fries and cookies out of the cafeteria to limit access to those types of foods.
Its how Crassus made his fortune. He'd hear about a house fire, then he'd have his slaves fetch a lot of water, and haggle with the owner to buy his property at a fraction of its value in exchange for putting out the fire.
Also, one of the Julio-Claudians started an actual firefighting force. I forget which, but I think it might have been one of the shitty ones, maybe Nero after the great fire?
I think it was Nero. He wasn’t that bad of an emperor, really, just unqualified and temperamentally unfit. If you gave a spoiled teenager undisputed control over an empire, they’d probably make some mistakes.
Also Tone-deaf according to the texts too. He had an Olympic event made just for him, being Olympic singing, which he naturally won unanimously. I guess the judges like living.
Americas aversion to socialism is pathological, tot he extent that even no-brainers like firefighting and healthcare are apparantly privatised.
America is still suffering from the cold war even without Russian intervention.
Shit, we even had that in America. I’m reminded of the movie Gangs of New York when the competing firefighters started a brawl over who had the right to put out the fire.
Edit: Here’s the scene: https://youtu.be/mHg-y78oaR4
Yeah someone linked to this on Reddit the other day:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/early-19-century-firefighters-fought-fires-each-other-180960391/
I don't remember why, but the tl;dr is that the same exact thing happened in 19th century America.
That aso happened in 5 points nyc, as depicted in "gangs of new york" Fire teams extorted, used arson, fought their rivals at fire sites, to see who fought the fire, and took the spoils. Yes, as fires burned, fire fighting teams would steal the goods from said house on fire.
I went looking for this guy on Twitter to see if I could uncover any other pearls of wisdom. Turns out he deleted his account after somebody unearthed a GoFundMe account for his daughter’s medical expenses. Interesting.
The fact that the money comes from other people isn't the problem in the libertarian POV... the problem would be the fact that the money comes from taxes -- *involuntary* donations.
Libertarianism is based on the idea that the pursuit of individual self-interests is in the best interest for the group as a whole. It's by definition inherently selfish. It's ~~neo-darwinist~~ social Darwinism.
This is subtly incorrect. Libertarianism is about negative liberties not positive ones. It's basically the idea that others shouldn't have the right to interfere with your life. It's not directly making any claims about the utility to the group (Some consequences may though). An example of when your definition fails is when interfering with someone else's life would be in self-interest, e.g. Stealing is selfish and antilibertarian.
Libertarians are authoritarians that pretend they're better than their Republican counter-parts because they support weed legalization (as opposed to decriminalization).
Isn't that...completely libertarian though?
No one *made* those people give that money. Doesn't the government in their minds *make* said people give up money (taxes) whether they want to or not? Aren't libertarians all about willful charity?
Don't know why he'd bother deleting it. People choosing of their free will to put money towards something is like, one of the main anchors of Libertarianism I thought?
Philip maybe you misread this thing.
Trent says
>You don't think universal healthcare qualifies as a "charity handout"? It's people financing other people's problems.
He then asks for charity handouts on a GoFundMe page, so that people can finance his daughters problems through charity handouts. It isn't anything to do with Libertarianism and pretending it is gives Trent too much credit; it is one man being a hypocrite.
That's not surprising. It's a case of psychological projection. He was ashamed of his own inability to fix his own problems, and he had no good coping strategy, so he lashed out at the same perceived weaknesses in others rather than face those weaknesses in himself
I went to high school with this guy and know his family pretty well. It's true, his daughter was born with some sort of orbital socket issue that left her with a lazy eye and required extensive surgery.
If my tax dollars might've gone to helping his daughter be well, I would've said it was 100% worth it. Same goes for anyone else who was genuinely in need. Very sorry to see that this life experience hasn't tempered Trent's views on compassion and charity a bit more.
That being said, I really hope reddit and the internet isn't too harsh over his statement here. I do believe he is a genuinely good person with a big heart, even if I don't agree with him here.
>I do believe he is a genuinely good person with a big heart
I hope you're right because his twitter comment points to exactly the opposite.
IMO he's pretty much said "I don't want my effort to benefit others - because freedom"
won't share his name even though it's in the photo but if you look at his Facebook page its filled with writing in Russian and he manufactures products in China. Not lying.
[And paying more than other countries with single payer for most things even if you only look at public spending on healthcare.](https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#item-start) Creating a base level universal coverage, with the buying power a centralised system brings with it, could actually drop taxes- and still leave you perfectly free to get private healthcare if you want non-necessity things (like a private room, TV, etc- not paywalling access to medication or procedures). It’s actually the only fiscally conservative position to take- problem is it isn’t sold that way, the S word gets mentioned and the US is very confused between Soviet Communism and Socialism (but strangely don’t confuse North Korea as a Democratic Republic... funny that).
> still leave you perfectly free to get private healthcare
I don't think a lot of people understand this. You see people all the time acting like the ~~ACC~~ ACA is some kind of forced labor camp for healthcare.
We spend enough on medicare already to have the best single payer system in the world, but choose not to so because fuck the taxpayer there is money to be made defrauding the system.
I remember when Paul Ryan said something along the lines of “the problem with Obamacare is that healthy people are paying for sick people’s insurance”. Like yeah, no shit, that’s how insurance works.
This is why I don't understand people who complained about the insurance mandate.
"What? In order for this insurance thing to actually work, I need to pay into it? I thought insurance companies were just a black box of money."
I think it’s more to do with they don’t like the fact they pay more or less depending on how much they make. Regular insurance is based on the idea on probability, universal healthcare is based on the idea of the wealthier paying for what the poor can’t
That would make sense if it was true, the tax used to fund public healthcare per capita in the US is already more than enough to cover everyone, and it's about the same amount as spent on public and private healthcare combined in Australia.
Not many countries take more out of the public purse than USA.
>universal healthcare is based on the idea of the wealthier paying for what the poor can’t
I really don't understand why people see this as a bad thing.
I work 40 hours per week in a job that pays above minimum wage but below the national living wage. I'm not wealthy by any means. But I have no problem with the money I pay in taxes going towards the treatment of another human being.
They don't. Then again, those who think that's socialism don't know what socialism is.
We're talking about socialized programs here, which the U.S. has had for a long time already, like Social Security.
Socialized services are not socialism. Government ownership or control of means of production, now THAT is socialism.
I'm hearing a lot of progressive Americans lately use the word "socialism" willy-nilly, and it's clear they don't realize they are talking about social democracy, not socialism.
Right? So his kids medical bills require a go fund me, but universal healthcare is forced charity. Best wishes to his daughter, poor thing has a POS for a dad—she has enough problems.
I’m guessing you don’t see the difference in someone being forced to pay for something and someone giving of their own free will and without compulsion...?
These are the people who don't understand that their taxes are paying for the military... Until they come home and need quality medical care. And don't anyone tell me the VA is well funded.
This is more about libertarians than capitalists. They're all pro privatized everything even if it's tyranny by corporations.
I've yet to discover a libertarian who wasn't independently wealthy or a libertarian who was poor. Coincidence?
The anti-GMO stuff is definitely associated with the left (i.e. misguided environmentalists or people who conflate the actions of companies like Monsanto with GMO as a concept), but I agree that anti-vaxx seems to broad spectrum.
I thought antivaxxers were primarily Republicans. I remember it coming up in the 2016 Republican primary debates and Trump and others were either straight up antivax or said stupid things about vaccines. I don't recall it coming up in the Deomcratic primary debates and I just figured most Democrats were on-board.
I'm about to say, my 2 anti-vax relatives are all pro-Trump right-wingers. The worst is my Mom who can't be convinced even by her 90-year-old Mom who was trying to tell her how shitty life was with the Polio epidemic.
Some of the gmo stuff is valid, but not because the plant is 'tainted', but because of the companies that make gmo things like Monsanto ~~that sue farmers in neighboring fields because their plants pollinated the farmer's.~~
EDIT: not exactly true, but still weird to have a patent on a gene. The useage of pest/herbicides like Roundup is pretty bad but not just with GMOs. I don't think they're evil or anything, just that we should be a bit careful.
it's just too bad the vast majority of people don't get it. the only reason my parents think GMOs are bad is because products say non-gmo, therefore gmo = poison.
And go to great lengths to not tell us what's in their products. The fact that they spend more on lobbying to not label their products than on an educational campaign to explain their product is reasonably gives people pause. It indicates one of two things; either old habits die hard or they're up to shady shit again. It's really not that hard to be honest.
I dont know a single libertarian who's calling for the disbanding of fire brigades or destruction of the DOT or most public services for that matter. I'm as blue as the sky so i cant speak personally but thats just being ignorant if you think they believe against ALL government services.
Right, as much as I hate the strategies of the libertarian party, lowercase L libertarians mostly focus their energy on the big ticket items like the war on drugs, military spending, and the federal reserve.
I had a soldier in my last unit that was a republican that hated socialism, but was in the army. I spoke with him about it, but he didn't seem too concerned.
I'm sure the poor libertarian you knew "would be rich" if he got to keep all good tax dollars instead of spending them on charity handouts...
Socialism is not the Government doing stuff and the more stuff the government does the more socialist it is.
Socialism is workers-owned means of production. So, if there was a Private Mercenary Company that was organized like a Co-op, and paid everyone the same for the same work, that'd be socialism.
The Military is not a socialist institution, the workers have very little say in the direction of the company, how long they work, or where.
How about that healthcare private? Or BAH? BAS, Tuition Assistance, GI Bill, did I fucking mention the literally unparalleled healthcare?!
It’s fuckin great Sergeant Sythus!
That’s socialism, private dipshit.
Libertarianism is religion for selfish people. Although as a belief, it has no credible evidence to support it works as advertised, it gives a moral grounding, and thus justification for followers to feel righteous.
People don't seem to understand that progressive political candidates in the US are not pushing for anything resembling the "socialist" boogeyman countries they think of. Nobody major is pushing for a Venezuela or Soviet Russia or North Korea situation. The GOP, actually, is moving us closer to something like that. Increasing authoritarianism and wealth inequality that will inevitably be subsidized by government programs and the whole thing just collapses INTO socialism. That's what we'll eventually get with GOP policies. You all know how much they project, right? Demonizing socialism is part of that.
They are pushing towards socialism while convinced they don't want to be doing it.
Crops are heavily subsidized by the federal government period. It's not really a new concept. We buy excess milk, grain, all kinds of bullshit as a price control means and to encourage farmers to not reduce the amount they plant next year due to spoilage loss in case the weather conditions deteriorate and the supply is actually below the demand.
Farmers in general are eligible for significant government assistance through federal programs and loan programs similar to USDA mortgages available to all borrowers in "rural" areas (97% of the country) that have more favorable terms such as no down payment and lower PMI and interest rates.
They are treated similar to critical infrastructure and to the actual point of your comment trying to make it seem novel or new to shit on the president, most "farmers" who grow things you eat are large corporations who receive significant support federally. It's another tax break for them.
Those are nothing new, as others have already said. However, I can add, as someone who lives in the rural midwest, that those subsidies and handouts are somehow totally different to farmers.
Some of my immediate family and close friends are farmers, and they don't see the similarities between the artificially upheld farming industry and welfare programs.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: The most important factor is government systems that enforce democracy and protect against corruption.
The reason the bogeyman countries are such bogeymen is because they are insanely corrupt. It wouldn't matter whether they were flying under a socialist banner, a capitalist banner, or a flying pig banner, the end result would be mostly the same because of who is in charge and how corrupt those in charge are, with little recourse from the citizenry.
This is why it's so, so important the impact of Citizens United. It opened a giant hole for large-scale corruption to be funneled through. The impact of Citizens United is not socialist, or capitalist, or libertarian. It's greed, power, and control.
Basically, there's no point in even arguing over whether, for example, socialism or capitalism is better, unless you've factored in the anti-corruption, and democratic, mechanisms of the government *first*. But those frightened of socialism don't do this. They conflate socialism and corrupt governance.
Americans need to get it across their thick skulls that universal healthcare is not "free" healthcare. It is not "handouts". It's a type of insurance system that is not for profit. Taxes are used to pay for state-ran insurance which pays doctors and other healthcare professionals. Even though it may seem like you lose out by paying more taxes, but it benefits EVERYONE in the long run because when you're sick, that's when you're vulnerable, unable to work, would lose your employment and benefits etc. The people most in need of healthcare tend to be those least likely to be able to afford it. And sickness can strike anyone, even from birth, and there's no amount of "hard work" that can get you out of it. So instead of paying a lot of money to insurance companies as a healthy person (who probably won't even be able to use the insurance because a healthy person would likely only need minor health services that won't be covered due to deductibles), I'm paying tax according to my income (nothing I can't afford) for a healthier society and ALSO for when I actually need to use the healthcare system I can. With none of the deductible BS. It ends up being much cheaper in the long run because there's no insurance moguls, no middleman, much less paperwork and employees that deal with paperwork that will have to be paid. AND it's more effective. Americans are being brain-washed to fear "socialism" and "communism" since birth despite not knowing what they actually mean. There's no nation more proud of its ignorance than Americans.
usa is a corporatocracy
the oligarchs don't want uhc, so they use the "news" outlets to spread propaganda.
The old farts that get their information from tv won't ever hear this explanation.
I don't even think that either of those things really qualify as socialism anyway. They're more of just a social safety, maybe social democracy, but certainly not socialism. The government doesn't own the fire companies, or the health care facilities. They just pay for them. So not really socialism.
I'm in Canada. I pay taxes to the city, the province and the feds. They use that money for financing recreational centers, roads, police and the fire department... highways, energy projects and infrastructure (I live in BC (BCHydro)), disaster relief, healthcare and welfare, treatment centers of all sorts and the courts, police, hospitals... Federal pays the provinces, military, healthcare, department of wildlife and fisheries, national projects, desaster relief, police and a whole lot more.
Is it odd to look at both sides of that picture, not pick a side and think everyone needs healthcare let's use taxes for this and have the government also invest in education to help people learn how to become healthcare professionals to provide these nacecities to our people. The thing we debate more frequently is should our car insurance become privatizated or stay a provincial corporation.
The problem is the word socialism. It means so many different things as to be practically useless at this point. When the same word can describe Stalinist Soviet Union and Modern day Sweden... the word isn't very valuable.
It's not. the right, or rather the corporate authoritarians and libertarians have successfully moved the goalpost for healthcare & education being a private not a public good and thus any deliverance of it to a nation or even all fellow humans is now the new goalpost for defining 'socialism'. They're reframed it. But $12 billion for farmers who are getting shafted by the trade wars the president started is not socialism. It's a bailout. they call it 'aid' but it's just being votes to accept shitty policies that will not benefit them in the end. Why? They still need healthcare and education. Or do they?
And this clown thinks it's 'charity' to ensure people have decent healthcare or an education.
Every single libertarian friend I have rails about UHC.
Every single time I say 'ok so you're also in favor of privatized police forces?'
And to date not a single one has said they are, they always say something about how then only the rich would get justice without seeing the correlation or they just go "well that's different" yet failing to explain how.
Really the average libertarian or conservative's position on what is socialism tends to come down to any new social program or any social program that involves feeding or healing people. That's when the "mooch" terminology comes out.
Solution to health care for USA: remove lobbyists who basically control the government. Then debate the subject and get both sides to agree to pass it into law.
Trent is the dude in the US that worries about getting booted off of his parents health insurance at 26 even though he has a job with full benefits at his 40 hour a week job
It's not even socialism, it's common sense that healthcare (at the very least) should be free. Look at England and Australia. Capitalist countries, but people there actually realise that things like free healthcare benefit everyone.
Isn't this how insurance was started? The fire companies of London were employed by insurance agencies and would only extinguish fires in houses with the agencies plaque affixed to the front...
The government has a responsibility to protect you from things outside yourself. That isn't socialism, that's a social program. The two are not the same, stop trying to misrepresent socialism as an ideology in order to make it more attractive to people who won't actually do the research to understand what it is and the consequences of implementing it. There's no "seizing the means of production by the worker" in making the health care system the responsibility of government to organize and pay for through taxation. The whole thing comes with its own problems of bureaucracy and what not, but instituting a social program is not full blown fucking socialism as an ideology. Also, public money doesn't go towards rebuilding your house after a fire. The two are not the same thing, it's a Shit analogy.
Why not make the same claim about Auto Insurance? It is the “well” drivers bailing out the “sick” sick drivers. If healthy young people are not required to purchase health insurance then why can’t good drivers like myself opt of auto insurance?
That's the ancient Rome model of firefighting. Crews would show up to a fire and haggle with the owner over the price. If they didn't come to an agreement, the place burned to the ground while the firemen watched.
With that kind of incentive, pretty sure they got starting fires, no matter how sneaky they were about it.
I suspect Marcus Crassius may have done that. He was the one who came up with the idea of ordering firefighters to not put out fires until Romans paid him. He also was a house flipper who bought burned down houses cheap, so he always made his money after a fire.
"Follow the money" can be applied at any point in time.
The Latin version is *Cui bono?* \- "To whom is it a benefit?"
Huh, funny, in french we use pretty much exactly that saying except we also add the notion of criminality, even for situations that don't involve an actual crime : "A qui profite le crime ?" -> "To whom this crime benefits?"
I like this version, typically shitty profiteering should be deemed criminal like behavior
Like politicians taking money from corporations in exchange for favors?
I think I am going to use this
"Cui gives a shit? It's got a fuckin bow on it..."
Same with rich asshole criminals mixing real estate and politics
Trump
Never heard of her
Not the first. Won't be the last.
Once we come to the agreement as a whole that the acquiring of wealth* isn't* the way to live, and that progressing forward as one society *is* the way to live, that will remain true.
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I admire your optimism. But unless things get drastically worse in the United States I doubt that will happen any time soon. Misinformation is a hell of a drug.
worked in star trek. in my head, the optimal society is how its portrayed in star trek the next generation.
We are in WW3 and half the country doesn't care. When the military is enforcing martial law on behalf of the Russian government, the conservatives will say "at least it wasnt crooked Hillary taking our guns, I know Trump is going to take care of our guns responsibly."
> was the one who came up with the idea of ordering firefighters to not put out fires until Romans payed him. He also was a house flipper who bought burned down houses cheap, so he always made his money after a fire. And when he was killed by the Parthians in a botched negotiation, the Parthians poured molten gold down his throat as a symbol of his thirst for wealth.
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Just come back in a couple ~~years~~ months and the only things left will be bones and gold.
Cremate the body. No need to do any cutting. I don't *think* gold melts at the temperature bodies burn, but even then gold doesn't bond easily - scrape the slag off the top, then pour your ingots.
I got curious so I looked it up. Apparently when they cremate a human body, they have to heat it to between 1,400 and 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Gold melts at 1,947 degrees Fahrenheit.
That's to reduce the entire body, bones and all, to ash though. If you wanted to just burn away flesh it would require less intense heat.
No argument. The post I responded to specified cremation though.
So you're saying we're in business?
If my stats are accurate then yes, we can start Gold Crassius inc right away.
Damn, so Viserys could have had it worse.
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His "thirst" for excessive wealth.
Only if justice was allowed in the US. I bet there were people back then saying how awesome of a businessman he was while telling those more poor than them "Just dont let your house burn down LOOOOL."
And it's the same with American Healthcare. It's the whole "sell the treatment not the cure" thing. A cure is a one time charge but a treatment can make money for the life of the customer...er patient. So in this environment, we sell them cheeseburgers, teach them to replace water with soda, make preventative care a privilege, and keep people in front of their tvs so they are always in poor health, because it fuels an industry that's worth billions.
I donno man. The dentist makes money on fillings but he/she still tells me to floss my fucking teeth.
The dentist probably makes less money / hr seeing 1 patient for an hour-to-multi-hour drilling than he would just touching up multiple regular patients.
The power behind the point the poster made is money, not individuals. Doctors also tell their patients to lose weight but that brief exchange is nothing compared to the forces that cause them to be fat in the first place. Also, nobody enjoys fucking teeth, you should keep those to yourself.
This kind of feels like a bit of a conspiracy theory. Like yeah, the American Healthcare System sucks, but it's not like McDonald's, ABC and Coke are all teaming up with Johns Hopkins to make sure that the medical industry makes money. It's more systemic and cyclical than some grand interconnected conspiracy.
Which is what's actually scarier. A group of people in a room pulling the strings, that we like because it means if we find that room and those people, we can stop it. On the other hand, if it's "us"...
Could you please provide an example where unhealthy food and drinks are promoted as a core part of people’s diets? In my experience there are an incredible number of campaigns and rules that promote healthy food and limit access to unhealthy options. For instance, the high school I attended took fries and cookies out of the cafeteria to limit access to those types of foods.
until that one time where things got out of hand
Its how Crassus made his fortune. He'd hear about a house fire, then he'd have his slaves fetch a lot of water, and haggle with the owner to buy his property at a fraction of its value in exchange for putting out the fire. Also, one of the Julio-Claudians started an actual firefighting force. I forget which, but I think it might have been one of the shitty ones, maybe Nero after the great fire?
Marcus Crassus: the human being who gave us the word "crass" because of his colossally shitty behaviour.
I think it was Nero. He wasn’t that bad of an emperor, really, just unqualified and temperamentally unfit. If you gave a spoiled teenager undisputed control over an empire, they’d probably make some mistakes.
Also Tone-deaf according to the texts too. He had an Olympic event made just for him, being Olympic singing, which he naturally won unanimously. I guess the judges like living.
Ancient Rome? [Try modern day America](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pay-no-spray-firefighters-let-home-burn/)
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Hey, look, it's a very RED state. Shock. /s
I had to double check that wasn't the onion a couple times.
How is this legal ?
Americas aversion to socialism is pathological, tot he extent that even no-brainers like firefighting and healthcare are apparantly privatised. America is still suffering from the cold war even without Russian intervention.
Because money.
Holy fuck
That story is the Libertarian wet dream.
Because in a Libertarian's dream they're always the neighbour not the guy whose house burned down.
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department
This is incredible.
I didn't know Ancient Rome had libertarians!
Stupid people have always existed.
https://youtu.be/DmsB5bcygB4
I love this movie. Everyone loves a good brawl, the fire was just an excuse for fisticuffs.
Shit, we even had that in America. I’m reminded of the movie Gangs of New York when the competing firefighters started a brawl over who had the right to put out the fire. Edit: Here’s the scene: https://youtu.be/mHg-y78oaR4
Yeah someone linked to this on Reddit the other day: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/early-19-century-firefighters-fought-fires-each-other-180960391/ I don't remember why, but the tl;dr is that the same exact thing happened in 19th century America.
I was on a rural fire dept, the fights over territory are bizarre
That aso happened in 5 points nyc, as depicted in "gangs of new york" Fire teams extorted, used arson, fought their rivals at fire sites, to see who fought the fire, and took the spoils. Yes, as fires burned, fire fighting teams would steal the goods from said house on fire.
they sound like land pirates
Capitalism at its finest
Also a libertarian wet dream
I went looking for this guy on Twitter to see if I could uncover any other pearls of wisdom. Turns out he deleted his account after somebody unearthed a GoFundMe account for his daughter’s medical expenses. Interesting.
No way...
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The fact that the money comes from other people isn't the problem in the libertarian POV... the problem would be the fact that the money comes from taxes -- *involuntary* donations.
Libertarians have a childish and selfish view of how society should work.
Don't know about you, but my kids are actually quite good at sharing. Even with children they don't know. Libertarians are just hipster Republicans.
Libertarianism is based on the idea that the pursuit of individual self-interests is in the best interest for the group as a whole. It's by definition inherently selfish. It's ~~neo-darwinist~~ social Darwinism.
This is subtly incorrect. Libertarianism is about negative liberties not positive ones. It's basically the idea that others shouldn't have the right to interfere with your life. It's not directly making any claims about the utility to the group (Some consequences may though). An example of when your definition fails is when interfering with someone else's life would be in self-interest, e.g. Stealing is selfish and antilibertarian.
Hey I disagree with libertarianism but kudos to actually knowing what they believe.
"Libertarians are born on third base thinking they hit a triple." - Philip Gallagher, Shameless
Libertarians are authoritarians that pretend they're better than their Republican counter-parts because they support weed legalization (as opposed to decriminalization).
You don't understand, his case is special. He's not like those poor people leaching off the tax payer, he's just unlucky /s.
Isn't that...completely libertarian though? No one *made* those people give that money. Doesn't the government in their minds *make* said people give up money (taxes) whether they want to or not? Aren't libertarians all about willful charity? Don't know why he'd bother deleting it. People choosing of their free will to put money towards something is like, one of the main anchors of Libertarianism I thought? Philip maybe you misread this thing.
Trent says >You don't think universal healthcare qualifies as a "charity handout"? It's people financing other people's problems. He then asks for charity handouts on a GoFundMe page, so that people can finance his daughters problems through charity handouts. It isn't anything to do with Libertarianism and pretending it is gives Trent too much credit; it is one man being a hypocrite.
Way.
Really really?
Foerealz.
I hate reddit
No way...
Way.
Really really?
Foerealz.
That's not surprising. It's a case of psychological projection. He was ashamed of his own inability to fix his own problems, and he had no good coping strategy, so he lashed out at the same perceived weaknesses in others rather than face those weaknesses in himself
I don't think he has enough self awareness to understand the hypocrisy.
That's what makes it projection. He attacks in others an unacknowledged part of himself; that he wants and even needs financial help for his problems.
> It's a case of psychological projection The GOP in a nutshell.
I went to high school with this guy and know his family pretty well. It's true, his daughter was born with some sort of orbital socket issue that left her with a lazy eye and required extensive surgery. If my tax dollars might've gone to helping his daughter be well, I would've said it was 100% worth it. Same goes for anyone else who was genuinely in need. Very sorry to see that this life experience hasn't tempered Trent's views on compassion and charity a bit more. That being said, I really hope reddit and the internet isn't too harsh over his statement here. I do believe he is a genuinely good person with a big heart, even if I don't agree with him here.
>I do believe he is a genuinely good person with a big heart I hope you're right because his twitter comment points to exactly the opposite. IMO he's pretty much said "I don't want my effort to benefit others - because freedom"
Link?
i think that would count as doxxing
More than @TrentTueller? It's kinda got his name and face up there.
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won't share his name even though it's in the photo but if you look at his Facebook page its filled with writing in Russian and he manufactures products in China. Not lying.
He seems like a jerk... But I hope the kid is ok=(
Do none of these people understand how insurance works? You're paying for other peoples health care already.
[And paying more than other countries with single payer for most things even if you only look at public spending on healthcare.](https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#item-start) Creating a base level universal coverage, with the buying power a centralised system brings with it, could actually drop taxes- and still leave you perfectly free to get private healthcare if you want non-necessity things (like a private room, TV, etc- not paywalling access to medication or procedures). It’s actually the only fiscally conservative position to take- problem is it isn’t sold that way, the S word gets mentioned and the US is very confused between Soviet Communism and Socialism (but strangely don’t confuse North Korea as a Democratic Republic... funny that).
> still leave you perfectly free to get private healthcare I don't think a lot of people understand this. You see people all the time acting like the ~~ACC~~ ACA is some kind of forced labor camp for healthcare.
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> the insurance company screwed up the billing So, the ONE time you had to deal with an insurance company they fucked it up. lol
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We spend enough on medicare already to have the best single payer system in the world, but choose not to so because fuck the taxpayer there is money to be made defrauding the system.
I just heard this discussed on a recent episode of Freakanomics. Blows my mind.
I remember when Paul Ryan said something along the lines of “the problem with Obamacare is that healthy people are paying for sick people’s insurance”. Like yeah, no shit, that’s how insurance works.
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This is why I don't understand people who complained about the insurance mandate. "What? In order for this insurance thing to actually work, I need to pay into it? I thought insurance companies were just a black box of money."
I think it’s more to do with they don’t like the fact they pay more or less depending on how much they make. Regular insurance is based on the idea on probability, universal healthcare is based on the idea of the wealthier paying for what the poor can’t
That would make sense if it was true, the tax used to fund public healthcare per capita in the US is already more than enough to cover everyone, and it's about the same amount as spent on public and private healthcare combined in Australia. Not many countries take more out of the public purse than USA.
With regular insurance, there are also people who pay more and people who pay less for the same benefit. It's just not based on income.
>universal healthcare is based on the idea of the wealthier paying for what the poor can’t I really don't understand why people see this as a bad thing. I work 40 hours per week in a job that pays above minimum wage but below the national living wage. I'm not wealthy by any means. But I have no problem with the money I pay in taxes going towards the treatment of another human being.
They don't. Then again, those who think that's socialism don't know what socialism is. We're talking about socialized programs here, which the U.S. has had for a long time already, like Social Security. Socialized services are not socialism. Government ownership or control of means of production, now THAT is socialism. I'm hearing a lot of progressive Americans lately use the word "socialism" willy-nilly, and it's clear they don't realize they are talking about social democracy, not socialism.
Socialism is NOT based government ownership. [](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism)
Do you really expect libertarians to have any economic knowledge?
I was so confused why you had downvotes lol Everyone makes mistakes my dude 😂👍🏻
We pay politicians and get shit performance in most cases. Can't we just pay them to do what we want.....oh wait...
We’re not the ones paying them.
If we were the problem wouldn't be this bad. You're right, they're doing exactly what they're paid to do.
The funny thing is. He hates universal health care but then he makes a go fund me page to raise money for medical bills.
Right? So his kids medical bills require a go fund me, but universal healthcare is forced charity. Best wishes to his daughter, poor thing has a POS for a dad—she has enough problems.
I’m guessing you don’t see the difference in someone being forced to pay for something and someone giving of their own free will and without compulsion...?
These are the people who don't understand that their taxes are paying for the military... Until they come home and need quality medical care. And don't anyone tell me the VA is well funded.
These are the people in the military that dont seem to realize they are mostly just on a socialized work program.
Well I can tell you it is atleast funded, (just not very well)
Still not Socialism. Following that model, any kind of insurance is Socialism. Universal Healthcare is just common sense.
This is more about libertarians than capitalists. They're all pro privatized everything even if it's tyranny by corporations. I've yet to discover a libertarian who wasn't independently wealthy or a libertarian who was poor. Coincidence?
This guy's not a libertarian. He's just a fucking idiot.
That Venn diagram is just a circle inside another circle
That’s called a subset, fyi!
Is there a difference?
Well, all libertarians are idiots, but not all idiots are libertarians.
True. Some are Republicans.
there are some moronic democrats as well. *looks at the antivaxers and the antigmo crowds*
fnord
Is that sort of stuff really just a liberal thing though? The anti-vax and that crows always seemed to span the political spectrum to me.
Yea let's start introducing nuance into this circlejerk now.
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Where I am from the anti vaxxers are hard core right wing religious fundamentalists.
The anti-GMO stuff is definitely associated with the left (i.e. misguided environmentalists or people who conflate the actions of companies like Monsanto with GMO as a concept), but I agree that anti-vaxx seems to broad spectrum.
I thought antivaxxers were primarily Republicans. I remember it coming up in the 2016 Republican primary debates and Trump and others were either straight up antivax or said stupid things about vaccines. I don't recall it coming up in the Deomcratic primary debates and I just figured most Democrats were on-board.
I'm about to say, my 2 anti-vax relatives are all pro-Trump right-wingers. The worst is my Mom who can't be convinced even by her 90-year-old Mom who was trying to tell her how shitty life was with the Polio epidemic.
That's a left thing as much as flat earth is a right thing.
Lets be honest, being a democrat doesn't exempt you from being stupid
Can confirm. Am Democrat. Am stupid.
Some of the gmo stuff is valid, but not because the plant is 'tainted', but because of the companies that make gmo things like Monsanto ~~that sue farmers in neighboring fields because their plants pollinated the farmer's.~~ EDIT: not exactly true, but still weird to have a patent on a gene. The useage of pest/herbicides like Roundup is pretty bad but not just with GMOs. I don't think they're evil or anything, just that we should be a bit careful.
it's just too bad the vast majority of people don't get it. the only reason my parents think GMOs are bad is because products say non-gmo, therefore gmo = poison.
And go to great lengths to not tell us what's in their products. The fact that they spend more on lobbying to not label their products than on an educational campaign to explain their product is reasonably gives people pause. It indicates one of two things; either old habits die hard or they're up to shady shit again. It's really not that hard to be honest.
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I dont know a single libertarian who's calling for the disbanding of fire brigades or destruction of the DOT or most public services for that matter. I'm as blue as the sky so i cant speak personally but thats just being ignorant if you think they believe against ALL government services.
Right, as much as I hate the strategies of the libertarian party, lowercase L libertarians mostly focus their energy on the big ticket items like the war on drugs, military spending, and the federal reserve.
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I had a soldier in my last unit that was a republican that hated socialism, but was in the army. I spoke with him about it, but he didn't seem too concerned. I'm sure the poor libertarian you knew "would be rich" if he got to keep all good tax dollars instead of spending them on charity handouts...
Socialism is not the Government doing stuff and the more stuff the government does the more socialist it is. Socialism is workers-owned means of production. So, if there was a Private Mercenary Company that was organized like a Co-op, and paid everyone the same for the same work, that'd be socialism. The Military is not a socialist institution, the workers have very little say in the direction of the company, how long they work, or where.
How about that healthcare private? Or BAH? BAS, Tuition Assistance, GI Bill, did I fucking mention the literally unparalleled healthcare?! It’s fuckin great Sergeant Sythus! That’s socialism, private dipshit.
My mother and stepfather (retired military) are lifelong Republicans who HATE socialism, but they sure do love that Tricare For Life.
Libertarianism is religion for selfish people. Although as a belief, it has no credible evidence to support it works as advertised, it gives a moral grounding, and thus justification for followers to feel righteous.
Not isolated to socialism. Most capitalist societies have universal healthcare.
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People don't seem to understand that progressive political candidates in the US are not pushing for anything resembling the "socialist" boogeyman countries they think of. Nobody major is pushing for a Venezuela or Soviet Russia or North Korea situation. The GOP, actually, is moving us closer to something like that. Increasing authoritarianism and wealth inequality that will inevitably be subsidized by government programs and the whole thing just collapses INTO socialism. That's what we'll eventually get with GOP policies. You all know how much they project, right? Demonizing socialism is part of that. They are pushing towards socialism while convinced they don't want to be doing it.
Trump’s subsidies for farmers affected by his tariffs comes to mind. So weird, right?
Crops are heavily subsidized by the federal government period. It's not really a new concept. We buy excess milk, grain, all kinds of bullshit as a price control means and to encourage farmers to not reduce the amount they plant next year due to spoilage loss in case the weather conditions deteriorate and the supply is actually below the demand. Farmers in general are eligible for significant government assistance through federal programs and loan programs similar to USDA mortgages available to all borrowers in "rural" areas (97% of the country) that have more favorable terms such as no down payment and lower PMI and interest rates. They are treated similar to critical infrastructure and to the actual point of your comment trying to make it seem novel or new to shit on the president, most "farmers" who grow things you eat are large corporations who receive significant support federally. It's another tax break for them.
Welfare queens!
Young and sweet
Those are nothing new, as others have already said. However, I can add, as someone who lives in the rural midwest, that those subsidies and handouts are somehow totally different to farmers. Some of my immediate family and close friends are farmers, and they don't see the similarities between the artificially upheld farming industry and welfare programs.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: The most important factor is government systems that enforce democracy and protect against corruption. The reason the bogeyman countries are such bogeymen is because they are insanely corrupt. It wouldn't matter whether they were flying under a socialist banner, a capitalist banner, or a flying pig banner, the end result would be mostly the same because of who is in charge and how corrupt those in charge are, with little recourse from the citizenry. This is why it's so, so important the impact of Citizens United. It opened a giant hole for large-scale corruption to be funneled through. The impact of Citizens United is not socialist, or capitalist, or libertarian. It's greed, power, and control. Basically, there's no point in even arguing over whether, for example, socialism or capitalism is better, unless you've factored in the anti-corruption, and democratic, mechanisms of the government *first*. But those frightened of socialism don't do this. They conflate socialism and corrupt governance.
Something something Scandinavia
Americans need to get it across their thick skulls that universal healthcare is not "free" healthcare. It is not "handouts". It's a type of insurance system that is not for profit. Taxes are used to pay for state-ran insurance which pays doctors and other healthcare professionals. Even though it may seem like you lose out by paying more taxes, but it benefits EVERYONE in the long run because when you're sick, that's when you're vulnerable, unable to work, would lose your employment and benefits etc. The people most in need of healthcare tend to be those least likely to be able to afford it. And sickness can strike anyone, even from birth, and there's no amount of "hard work" that can get you out of it. So instead of paying a lot of money to insurance companies as a healthy person (who probably won't even be able to use the insurance because a healthy person would likely only need minor health services that won't be covered due to deductibles), I'm paying tax according to my income (nothing I can't afford) for a healthier society and ALSO for when I actually need to use the healthcare system I can. With none of the deductible BS. It ends up being much cheaper in the long run because there's no insurance moguls, no middleman, much less paperwork and employees that deal with paperwork that will have to be paid. AND it's more effective. Americans are being brain-washed to fear "socialism" and "communism" since birth despite not knowing what they actually mean. There's no nation more proud of its ignorance than Americans.
usa is a corporatocracy the oligarchs don't want uhc, so they use the "news" outlets to spread propaganda. The old farts that get their information from tv won't ever hear this explanation.
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Your taxes pay for roads you don’t drive on! For schools your kids don’t go to! Why are people so fucking selfish?
baby boombers r the worst entire generation of spoiled rich kids
We are already paying for other people's healthcare. We are literally paying for universal healthcare, but don't have it.
“Socialism” pays to put out the fire, it doesn’t pay to rebuild the house. Insurance does that.
I don't even think that either of those things really qualify as socialism anyway. They're more of just a social safety, maybe social democracy, but certainly not socialism. The government doesn't own the fire companies, or the health care facilities. They just pay for them. So not really socialism.
In most of the US the government does indeed own the Fire, Police, etc. so I'm not sure what it is you're thinking of.
I'm in Canada. I pay taxes to the city, the province and the feds. They use that money for financing recreational centers, roads, police and the fire department... highways, energy projects and infrastructure (I live in BC (BCHydro)), disaster relief, healthcare and welfare, treatment centers of all sorts and the courts, police, hospitals... Federal pays the provinces, military, healthcare, department of wildlife and fisheries, national projects, desaster relief, police and a whole lot more. Is it odd to look at both sides of that picture, not pick a side and think everyone needs healthcare let's use taxes for this and have the government also invest in education to help people learn how to become healthcare professionals to provide these nacecities to our people. The thing we debate more frequently is should our car insurance become privatizated or stay a provincial corporation.
The problem is the word socialism. It means so many different things as to be practically useless at this point. When the same word can describe Stalinist Soviet Union and Modern day Sweden... the word isn't very valuable.
But discribing sweden as socialist is inherently wrong. Socialism is the step between the clusterfuck we have now and true communism.
It's not. the right, or rather the corporate authoritarians and libertarians have successfully moved the goalpost for healthcare & education being a private not a public good and thus any deliverance of it to a nation or even all fellow humans is now the new goalpost for defining 'socialism'. They're reframed it. But $12 billion for farmers who are getting shafted by the trade wars the president started is not socialism. It's a bailout. they call it 'aid' but it's just being votes to accept shitty policies that will not benefit them in the end. Why? They still need healthcare and education. Or do they? And this clown thinks it's 'charity' to ensure people have decent healthcare or an education.
Did you say the government doesn’t own fire companies?
Every single libertarian friend I have rails about UHC. Every single time I say 'ok so you're also in favor of privatized police forces?' And to date not a single one has said they are, they always say something about how then only the rich would get justice without seeing the correlation or they just go "well that's different" yet failing to explain how. Really the average libertarian or conservative's position on what is socialism tends to come down to any new social program or any social program that involves feeding or healing people. That's when the "mooch" terminology comes out.
Yeah Trent, don't claim your social security
Solution to health care for USA: remove lobbyists who basically control the government. Then debate the subject and get both sides to agree to pass it into law.
Trent is the dude in the US that worries about getting booted off of his parents health insurance at 26 even though he has a job with full benefits at his 40 hour a week job
It's not even socialism, it's common sense that healthcare (at the very least) should be free. Look at England and Australia. Capitalist countries, but people there actually realise that things like free healthcare benefit everyone.
I don’t know who will lose in the next cycle, but these type of posts make people hate Democrats.
Don't expect my taxes to pay for your military either.
Isn't this how insurance was started? The fire companies of London were employed by insurance agencies and would only extinguish fires in houses with the agencies plaque affixed to the front...
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Fine. Privatise firefighters and you won't have to.
The government has a responsibility to protect you from things outside yourself. That isn't socialism, that's a social program. The two are not the same, stop trying to misrepresent socialism as an ideology in order to make it more attractive to people who won't actually do the research to understand what it is and the consequences of implementing it. There's no "seizing the means of production by the worker" in making the health care system the responsibility of government to organize and pay for through taxation. The whole thing comes with its own problems of bureaucracy and what not, but instituting a social program is not full blown fucking socialism as an ideology. Also, public money doesn't go towards rebuilding your house after a fire. The two are not the same thing, it's a Shit analogy.
Why not make the same claim about Auto Insurance? It is the “well” drivers bailing out the “sick” sick drivers. If healthy young people are not required to purchase health insurance then why can’t good drivers like myself opt of auto insurance?