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I hadn't considered the economic tradeoff involved in health care (I'm canadian, didn't occur to me). Obviously doctors shouldn't control your spending. Or poli

I hadn't considered the economic tradeoff involved in health care (I'm canadian, didn't occur to me). Obviously doctors shouldn't control your spending. Or politicians, for that matter. Doctors obviously shouldn't have access to your wallet, but they SHOULD tell you without pussy-footing around, this will save your life, that is stupid and unnecessary, that one over there will kill you. If you want to buy drugs without a doctor interjecting good sense, it really is a pharmacist you need. And since libertarian governments are forged from pure unobtainium anyways, they might as well be competent. I think it's a smaller jump from here to qualified politicians than it is from here to politicians who don't meddle in people's lives.

anamax 17y ago
> And since libertarian governments are forged from pure unobtainium anyways No one said anything about libertarian govts. Different govts meddle in different amounts. Some don't meddle much at all, providing an existence proof. Where are govts with qualified politicians?
- stavrianos 17y ago
  Fair challenge. I don't think there have been any democracies that promoted competence, so any examples I can think of will be monarchies that happened to get a good king that one time, or something to that nature. Tightly centralized government isn't dragged down to the average, so they can pull stunts like that from time to time.
  - anamax 17y ago
    Yes, there have been "expert" politicians (including monarchs) in one or two fields, but unless their govt only meddled in those areas, they were "not experts" in the rest of the things that their govts did. Govts select for the ability to stay in power. Anything else is a coincidence. (Yes, I'm blaming "the people" here for not connecting expertise to survivability more strongly.) And, as you point out, that's a temporary state of affairs. BTW - Tightly centralized govts are pulled to the comptence/expertise of the center, wherever that is. It may be average, it may not be. See North Korea for an example. (And yes, you can point to Singapore.)
    - anamax 17y ago
      Argh. The "And ..." paragraph should have been before the "Govts select" paragraph.

anamax 17y ago

> And since libertarian governments are forged from pure unobtainium anyways No one said anything about libertarian govts. Different govts meddle in different amounts. Some don't meddle much at all, providing an existence proof. Where are govts with qualified politicians?

stavrianos 17y ago
Fair challenge. I don't think there have been any democracies that promoted competence, so any examples I can think of will be monarchies that happened to get a good king that one time, or something to that nature. Tightly centralized government isn't dragged down to the average, so they can pull stunts like that from time to time.
- anamax 17y ago
  Yes, there have been "expert" politicians (including monarchs) in one or two fields, but unless their govt only meddled in those areas, they were "not experts" in the rest of the things that their govts did. Govts select for the ability to stay in power. Anything else is a coincidence. (Yes, I'm blaming "the people" here for not connecting expertise to survivability more strongly.) And, as you point out, that's a temporary state of affairs. BTW - Tightly centralized govts are pulled to the comptence/expertise of the center, wherever that is. It may be average, it may not be. See North Korea for an example. (And yes, you can point to Singapore.)
  - anamax 17y ago
    Argh. The "And ..." paragraph should have been before the "Govts select" paragraph.