Quote Originally Posted by maladroit
fair enough...so what does anarchism have to do with health care being designated as an essential service, and who are the anarchists within/behind the essential health care system?
You were calling me a socialist (like yourself) because i am in favor of roads, police, and national defense sponsored by the government.

Quote Originally Posted by maladroit
that sounds like socialist innuendo...will you correctly label yourself a SOCIALIST? of course not! fire and police are essential services...so is health care...you wouldn't expect people to buy private fire/police service insurance to protect them in the event of an emergency, so what supports your opposition to universal health care besides dogmatic capitalist ideology?
Only an anarchist would deem any form of government unnecessary...

i agree they should, but as the recent history of wall street has demonstrated, even the richest people make stupid money decisions...should we let them die because they wanted a home to raise a family without putting aside a nest egg for life saving surgery? what if the predatory lender led them to believe that the money for the life saving surgery was guaranteed by the future increase in the value of their home that they could access with a second mortgage (at attractive introductory interest rates)? should we bum mortgage holders and out of work investment bankers die because they didn't keep $30,000 lying around for a rainy aneurysm day? suckers and losers are people too...
That is the whole point for insurance, so you do not have to pay severe out of pocket expenses.

i am not sure how to respond...are you saying that smoking, extreme sports, and mcdonalds are part of essential health care? or that those activities should exclude participants from essential health care, or what?
It was to show you that Health insurance is only a factor in overall health. Ones health is ones own responsibility. That includes how you pay for it. My mothers health insurance is almost $800 per month because she has a pre existing condition. $9,600 per year is nothing compared to the treatment she receives. But her health insurance is shit unless she invokes a lifestyle that allows her to live a normal life. She cannot smoke, eat fast food etc...

japan's military spending is much higher than it's asian counterparts despite the american protection...their total military budget is about the same as britain, and higher than every asian nation except china (which has to maintain a superpower budget
Hmmm... Britain, France, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Australia, Canada, Italy, Mexico..... have two very distinct things in common. 1.) They are allies of the United States. 2.) Spend on average more than $1,000/ capita less than the US. Try to stay with me here, because you seem to wander off a bit. On a production possibilities frontier curve, the less available resources you allocate towards defense, the more of you are able to allocate towards consumption. Without the US as supreme protector, these nations would have to shift left on the production possibilities frontier. Without the US as a stabilizing factor, threat from aggressive nations such as Russia and China would inevitably increase. This has very little to do with nominal value of spending. Basically, we allocate more of our own resources towards military spending so that you do not have to.

YES! pooling our resources spreads the defense spending burden, and facilitates governments' stability and ability to protect the public interest....butter instead of guns and ploughshares instead swords...it's like essential defense insurance, with shitty coverage because the underwriters are assholes (with veto power)
??? What are you talking about? This was your response towards my statement of:

Therefore some members might neglect on military spending due to anticipatoin of protection from the stronger allies
Which is describing free riding of the US military.

debt is like russian roulette...it's exciting until you blow your brains out...
US debt is 100% secure. There has yet to be a default...

ever hear of credit default swaps on US treasury notes? thanks to the all knowing invisible hand of the free markets, CDS are big business these days:
CDS's are intended as a risk mitigating factor...

Whats your point though?

U.S. Treasury Credit-Default Swaps Increase to Record, CMA Says :
Bloomberg.com: Worldwide
Do you honestly believe that by finding some obscure article negates my previous comment that US Treasury Certificates are 100% guaranteed? I cannot understand for the life of me why you would try to argue against this point, or use a worthless article such as the one above as a tool to weaken my original point. Who gives a rats ass if issuers are raising the price to insure US debt, its actually quite uncommon to do so. IMHO, it would be a complete waste of money because if the US ever did default, the entire world would go to hell in a hand basket totally devaluing the nominal payout value via hyperinflationary scenarios that would creep up in such a situation.