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I think it's interesting how surprised people are that voters might cast their ballot on the basis of principle rather than personal profit

holonomically 5y ago
What principle precludes voting for universal healthcare?
- missedthecue 5y ago
  There is a sizable portion of the voting population that does not appreciate ever expansive government.
  - holonomically 5y ago
    Are they opposed to ever expansive corporations like Amazon as well or is it that their principle only applies to what they think is the government? If the government rebranded itself as Gov. Inc. would these people stop opposing its perceived expansion? @moreoutput: Your reply is marked as dead so most people are not going to see it. If you have an argument then present it instead of projecting what I think about Amazon. I have no problems with Amazon.
    - moreoutput 5y ago
      I think you could get these people to join you in your distaste for expansive corporations by allowing Amazon to both take money from people without an exchange of goods and letting Amazon jail people who break its polices.
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      They presumably focus on the fact that the government can use the threat of violence to take money from you against your will (imprisoning you if you don't pay your taxes, for example), whereas the methods of coercion available to a monopolistic company (or a cartel of companies) are much more indirect and seemingly avoidable.
      - holonomically 5y ago
        So they're opposed to the military and the police then? If there was no military or police force then they would be fine with Gov. Inc?
        dane-pgp 5y ago
        Some people would probably prefer private military and private police/security forces, but those services work differently from private schools and private healthcare due to the inherent adversarial nature of the service they are providing. For example, the amount of police needed scales with the amount of criminals, and criminals wouldn't be the one funding the police, so there needs to be a way of forcing criminals to pay for the police, which requires something like a government. Similarly, everyone in a society benefits from that society's military, as you can't ask a foreign power to only invade the parts of the country that haven't paid their annual mercenary fees. Either the people who want to pay keep moving to more easily defensible locations, taking their military hardware with them and leaving the borderlands undefended, or you need a government to tax everyone to pay for a society-wide / territory-wide defence. In contrast, if other people don't want to (or can't afford to) pay for their own (or their family's) education and healthcare, that doesn't make you any less educated or healthy. (There are probably some economies of scale, and unhealthy people can affect you by carrying contagious diseases, but these are edge cases). So I don't think it is hypocritical for someone to (grudgingly) accept that the government provides a military and police, even though those are precisely the services that they should most fear trusting the government with.
        holonomically 5y ago
        > So I don't think it is hypocritical for someone to (grudgingly) accept that the government provides a military and police, even though those are precisely the services that they should most fear trusting the government with. It is definitely hypocritical. If you are not opposed to a collective military then being opposed to a collective healthcare system is nonsensical. And if you are opposed to collective efforts of any kind then that also runs into all sorts of contradictions because corporations are collective efforts. Whether force and coercion are involved are orthogonal issues which people constantly conflate and confuse with issues unrelated to them.

holonomically 5y ago

What principle precludes voting for universal healthcare?

missedthecue 5y ago
There is a sizable portion of the voting population that does not appreciate ever expansive government.
- holonomically 5y ago
  Are they opposed to ever expansive corporations like Amazon as well or is it that their principle only applies to what they think is the government? If the government rebranded itself as Gov. Inc. would these people stop opposing its perceived expansion? @moreoutput: Your reply is marked as dead so most people are not going to see it. If you have an argument then present it instead of projecting what I think about Amazon. I have no problems with Amazon.
  - moreoutput 5y ago
    I think you could get these people to join you in your distaste for expansive corporations by allowing Amazon to both take money from people without an exchange of goods and letting Amazon jail people who break its polices.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    They presumably focus on the fact that the government can use the threat of violence to take money from you against your will (imprisoning you if you don't pay your taxes, for example), whereas the methods of coercion available to a monopolistic company (or a cartel of companies) are much more indirect and seemingly avoidable.
    - holonomically 5y ago
      So they're opposed to the military and the police then? If there was no military or police force then they would be fine with Gov. Inc?
      - dane-pgp 5y ago
        Some people would probably prefer private military and private police/security forces, but those services work differently from private schools and private healthcare due to the inherent adversarial nature of the service they are providing. For example, the amount of police needed scales with the amount of criminals, and criminals wouldn't be the one funding the police, so there needs to be a way of forcing criminals to pay for the police, which requires something like a government. Similarly, everyone in a society benefits from that society's military, as you can't ask a foreign power to only invade the parts of the country that haven't paid their annual mercenary fees. Either the people who want to pay keep moving to more easily defensible locations, taking their military hardware with them and leaving the borderlands undefended, or you need a government to tax everyone to pay for a society-wide / territory-wide defence. In contrast, if other people don't want to (or can't afford to) pay for their own (or their family's) education and healthcare, that doesn't make you any less educated or healthy. (There are probably some economies of scale, and unhealthy people can affect you by carrying contagious diseases, but these are edge cases). So I don't think it is hypocritical for someone to (grudgingly) accept that the government provides a military and police, even though those are precisely the services that they should most fear trusting the government with.
        holonomically 5y ago
        > So I don't think it is hypocritical for someone to (grudgingly) accept that the government provides a military and police, even though those are precisely the services that they should most fear trusting the government with. It is definitely hypocritical. If you are not opposed to a collective military then being opposed to a collective healthcare system is nonsensical. And if you are opposed to collective efforts of any kind then that also runs into all sorts of contradictions because corporations are collective efforts. Whether force and coercion are involved are orthogonal issues which people constantly conflate and confuse with issues unrelated to them.