Re: Conservative or Liberal
Boomyal<br /><br />
Tink I think your bent has carried you too far.
A: Trouble with scanning stuff instead of reading it carefully is that on first pass I thought you were accusing me of being bent [Misread: 'I think your bent' as 'I think you're bent'] , possibly because of recent references to closets, not that I could care less about anyone being bent as long as they don't think I am.
<br /><br />B; On more careful reading it was merely an accusation of going: Too far? Moi? Where have I heard that before? Now it's coming at me from the other side of the Pacific.
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There is a huge difference between a civilian relying/requiring/demanding that his neighbor should povide his daily bread and a soldier, who is effectively in the employ of his nation, to fight for it.
I wasn't referring to daily bread. Come the revolution, I'm going to be the Commissar for Handing Out Daily Bread and there's going to be a lot of people learning how to work if they want to eat, and you'll be proud of me.<br /><br />Now for the serious stuff.<br /><br />What fired me up was TilliamWe's comment "I do NOT support medical care for all (especially children) in some form. Why is it the government's job to provide everything?" <br /><br />If the parents can't afford proper treatment for a sick kid, I reckon it is precisely the community's responsibility, through the government and taxation, to make sure the kid is treated. A society that thinks it's OK to let a kid suffer or die because its parents are poor is heartless and cruel.<br /><br />I reckon a decent society should guarantee its citizens as basic rights all the things necessary for a reasonable standard of safe and healthy living, including defence and health. <br /><br />I think I'm in reasonably good company thinking that government measures to secure the lives of its citizens, by providing health care as well as defence, have a bit of support in American constitutional principles, starting with the well-known and venerated document which started the whole process that led to the US Constitution:<br /><br />We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life ..... That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ....<br /> <br /> <br /><br />What's different about expecting the government through taxation to fund a soldier to fight; or a policeman to enforce the law; or to provide clean water or sewerage systems, to protect all the children in the nation from harm and suffering and disease and, on the other hand, expecting the government to fund adequate health services to protect the same children from suffering or death through accident or disease? <br /><br />If the kids are worth soldiers dying for, aren't they worth funding health services for?<br /><br />Does it make sense, and is it fair, for people to support the government levying taxes to fund the military to stop kids being nuked but refuse to fund health services that will stop them dying from a disease because their parents can't afford medical services?<br /><br /><br />I'm coming from a different perspective and experience. We've had universal health coverage here for the past 30 years. Everybody gets whatever they need in the way of health care, although they may have to wait a while for major operations for conditions that aren't life-threatening, like hip or knee replacements. Some doctors charge just the amount they'll get from the government for ordinary consultations (coughs, colds, sore holes etc), others charge more but we still get most of it back from the national health fund.<br /><br />Our system has its flaws but the only way a sick kid won't get the treatment it needs is if its parents are too stupid to take it to the doctor.<br /><br />
You're going to have to find a much better arguement before you can turn this conservative into a 'card carrying' liberal.<br />
Oh, dear. Does this mean you're really not a closet liberal? I've had a few surprises in my life, but this has to be amongst the biggest.
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But hey! All is not lost. I love Fosters Lager
. <br /> <br />Mate, I strongly suspect that you just like beer. Get yourself outside a VB if you get the chance. It's better than Foster's.<br /><br />Which reminds me, even further off topic, of a little ditty about Foster's. We used to have an ice cream which had the slogan "The health food of a nation". We used to sing to the tune of the ice cream jingle:<br /><br />Foster's Lager, Foster's Lager<br />Comes in bottles, cans or glasses.<br />It's the health food of a nation<br />Stick your ice creams<br />Up your a***s
